2025/200: Unaccustomed Spirits — Elizabeth Pewsey

‘That’s no guitar, ignorant and misguided girl,’ said Sylvester. ‘That’s a lute. Strange tuning; it must be one of these authentic renderings.’
‘I can’t hear anything,’ said Adele.
‘Of course, the house is haunted,’ said Lily in matter-of-fact tones ...[loc. 578]

Comfort reread, which also fulfils my "reread beginning with 'U'" challenge. This is a very Christmassy romantic comedy, set in haunted Haphazard House, in Pewsey's imaginary northern county of Eyotshire. Familiar characters from the Mountjoy series (famous cellist Sylvester, his witchy housekeeper Lily, Val's son Thomas) appear, along with protagonist Cleo, her dastardly cousin Henry who wants to demolish the house but needs someone to housesit over Christmas, and Henry's Gothic housekeeper Mrs Grigson. 

Not to mention Lambert and Giles, the ghosts of the house, who (between eavesdropping on phone conversations and watching Star Trek) provide a running commmentary on Cleo, her friends and her dull fiance Perry. Giles is the lutenist, banished by Queen Elizabeth for ogling one of her favourites; Lambert the Roundhead, granted the house and the title after harrying the original occupants. 

There's some excitement in Cleo's trip to Hungary to rescue Prue, whose husband has fallen foul of the Party; there is amusement as dressmaker Adele and ghost-hunter Will negotiate a relationship; and there is unexpected romance, and Sylvester being awesome. Still a delight!

2025/199: How to Fake It In Society — K J Charles

To marry a woman close to fifty years his senior, on her deathbed, for no better reason than money on his side and malice on hers -- it was contemptible. He'd be a laughing stock.
He'd be a rich contemptible laughing stock.
'All right,' he said. [loc. 131]

ARC provided out of the blue, waaaay before publication, with ideal timing as year-end werk-stress hit and several book-disappointments triggered a reading slump. This was a complete and utter delight, and cheered me immensely. John Julius Angerstein! Marie Antoinette! Diamonds! Painter's colours! Actors! Punctuation marks! Dashing rogues! Non-binary character! And a flawed and difficult romance that came right in the end...

Full review nearer publication date, which is 30th April 2026.

2025/198: Snake-Eater — T Kingfisher

Walter would . . . Her thoughts stopped there, because Walter would already have dropped dead of shock weeks ago. She was in a world where Walter no longer applied. [loc. 3355]

Selena is down on her luck when she heads, with her beloved dog Copper, to the remote desert town of Quartz Creek. She has $27 to her name, and has left behind a job in a deli and a gaslighting ex who's destroyed Selena's self-confidence. She's searching for her Aunt Amelia -- but Amelia, says the nice lady at the post office, died last year. No reason why Selena shouldn't stay in town for a couple of days, though...

The folk of Quartz Creek are odd but friendly, and Selena's new neighbour Grandma Billy is keen for Selena to move into her aunt's abandoned house. Grandma Billy is splendidly competent, despite some unsettling observations about Selena's glimpse of a man in green in her garden: a squash god, apparently, quite normal for Quartz Creek. And it turns out that Aunt Amelia had some connection with another god: a roadrunner spirit. As a Brit, I have no direct experience of roadrunners apart from the Loony Tunes cartoons. Apparently they are not at all cute, and they kill rattlesnakes. Selena is also ignorant of the species, which causes Plot.

Snake-Eater may have a setup reminiscent of The Twisted Ones (dead relative, abandoned house, faithful hound, increasing weirdness) but it's a much kinder novel, more about Selena regaining her strength and self-esteem and finding a different sort of family. It's also set in a lightly-sketched future, probably about fifty years from now: there's a moon colony, and rural depopulation means there's more space in the desert for non-human people. (That said, there's still the internet and mobile phones -- though Selena never switches on her phone in case the ex tracks her down, and she avoids the internet connection at the library because she can barely manage her own issues, never mind the world's.) And there's more humour than in Kingfisher's horror-oriented novels: I found myself laughing out loud more than once, not least at the perils of reading Clan of the Cave Bear at an impressionable age.

Love (but no romance), loyalty, an excellent Jesuit priest, and the importance of kindness to animals, plus some truly likeable characters: may we all land as softly as Selena, when we fall.

2025/197: The Listeners — Maggie Stiefvater

Luxury felt like a different game when the people involved were officially enemies of the state. [loc. 1328]

Appalachia, 1942: the luxe Avallon hotel has been designated as an 'assembly point for Axis diplomats and their families' -- an arrangement made by the Gilfoyles. who own the hotel. June Hudson just runs it (and is conducting an ongoing clandestine affair with Gilfoyle heir Edgar: clandestine because she comes from an unsuitable, i.e. poor, background). The luxuries of the hotel, and the benefits of the mysterious 'sweetwaters' that bubble and flow beneath it, are turned to the service of Nazis and fascists, and it's up to June to keep the peace between the various Japanese and German factions, the hotel's staff, and the FBI.

June is one of the titular 'listeners', always aware of her guests' (and the staff's) emotional state, balancing the demands of the waters (which must not turn) with those of the people around her. Other listeners include Edgar Gilfoyle's younger brother Sandy, confined silently in a wheelchair by his war wounds; Hannelore, the adolescent daughter of a German cultural attache; the nameless resident of room 411, who refuses to leave when the other guests are asked to make way for the Axis diplomats. And, of course, Tucker Minnick, the FBI agent who comes from the same places as June, and shares her awareness of the waters -- which are, in a way, also listening, soaking up the emotions of the humans nearby.

It's hard to write about my reaction to this novel because I didn't really engage with it. I love Stiefvater's YA writing -- especially the Raven Cycle (starting with The Raven Boys) -- and had expected something more fantastical from The Listeners. I kept waiting for something ... something more to happen: perhaps it did, but too subtly for my increasing disengagement. As a character study of June Hudson, it's splendid: as a novel, it didn't work for me.

2025/196: The Naughty List Manager — Remy Fable

"...Go see what this young man is really like. Then come back and tell me if he truly deserves coal in his stocking."
It was absolutely against protocol. It was wildly inefficient. It was a complete deviation from two centuries of procedure.
"I could leave tomorrow," Noel heard himself say.[loc. 61]

Short sweet Christmas m/m romance novella: Noel Frost, an elf, has been managing the Naughty List Department for over two hundred years. For the last decade, he's pulled the file of Ezra Vince, street artist and befriender of stray cats, who's been on the Naughty List for the last ten years. Noel is something of a stickler for the rules, but Mrs Claus sends him to investigate whether Ezra is actually Naughty or ... the other thing.

I was suffering from a surfeit of pre-Christmas crowds and hecticity: this was the perfect antidote. Nicely written, sweet, humorous and fun. There are more in the 'Claus Encounters' series...

2025/195: Voyage of the Damned — Frances White

She’s cutting off the weak to save the strong. No, not even that. Cutting off the poor to save the rich. [loc. 6441]

There has been peace in Concordia for a thousand years: the twelve provinces are united against the threat of invasion, and each province has an heir who's been granted a magical gift, a Blessing, by the Goddess Herself. Voyage of the Damned begins just as Ganymedes ('Dee'), the representative of Fish province, is desperately trying to avoid embarking on the eponymous voyage -- to a sacred mountain, on the Emperor's own ship -- with the other eleven Blesseds. Dee has spent most of his time as Blessed playing the clown, alienating his peers, and overeating. Also, he has a secret which mustn't come out: he doesn't actually have a Blessing.

On board despite his best efforts, Dee comforts himself with the thought that at least he'll get to spend time with his love interest Ravi, the Crow Blessed. But on the very first night of the journey, one of the most popular of the twelve is murdered ... and she's only the first of the victims.

Aided by the six-year-old, sugar-crazed Grasshopper Blessed and the terminally-ill Bear Blessed, Dee is determined to unmask the killer -- if only to save his own life. He's not cut out to be a hero, he insists: but perhaps heroism is in the eye of the beholder.

I didn't quite get the hang of this novel. It was fun and twisty, but sometimes too silly: Dee is rather annoying at times, but more likeable as he opens up and displays his vulnerabilities: the worldbuilding is fairly basic, but there are lots of fascinating details. Not all of the characters are especially rounded, but each has secrets, flaws, allegiances and handicaps. It's a novel about outsiders -- being one, helping others -- and about self-doubt: and it's very much about class.

Despite my reservations, I did enjoy this novel, and I shall look forward to White's next book, due next year.

2025/194: The Year's Midnight — Rachel Neumeier

Tenai had come into Dr. Dodson's care raging with a fury so tightly contained that a casual glance might have judged her calm. She was not calm. Daniel did not need to be told this. He knew it from the first moment he saw her. [p.2]

Daniel Dodson is a gifted psychiatrist who's mourning the death of his wife, and struggling to raise their daughter Jenna. He's also fouled his professional record by whistleblowing an abusive colleague. Now he's working at a smaller institution, Lindenwood, where his first patient is a mute 'Jane Doe' who was found on the highway, threatening vehicles with a sword. She cannot be identified, and nobody can communicate with her.

Daniel persuades her to speak. Her name is Tenai, and the tale she tells is a fantastical account of another world where she made a bargain with Lord Death and avenged her family over a lifespan of centuries. Dr Dodson, eminently sensible, diagnoses her thus: "I think you encountered something in this world that you couldn’t live with, and so you invented another world to be from." He doesn't seem to notice the bursts of static that accompany her flashes of rage, or the way she only picks red flowers, from beds where no red flowers are planted. But the reader knows more than Daniel from the very first page... I'm still not sure if that's a good thing or not!

I was drawn into Tenai's story, and into her therapy, and into her growing respect and liking for Daniel Dodson. Sadly, that's only the first half of the book: the second half, though interesting -- Tenai, released from Lindenwood, becomes a martial arts instructor -- wasn't as interesting to me. I think what I liked most was the sense of worlds colliding, of Daniel's mild-mannered rationalism and Tenai's dark, epic history. She was less interesting when she'd faced the truth about her emotions.

I'd read more, though: there are another five books in the series, and from the brief excerpt included with The Year's Midnight, I believe Tenai will be going home. Or back.