2026/114: After Hours at Dooryard Books — Cat Sebastian

Outside these doors is chaos. Appalling men are elected president. Every day's headlines are worse than the last. All year, it's been like that, and it isn't getting better. But it will. 

The setting is New York in 1968. Patrick is the manager of Dooryard Books, a secondhand bookstore owned by the philanthropic Mrs Kaplan. One night, Mrs Kaplan turns up with a stranger, who she introduces as 'Nathaniel Smith': a man several years older than Patrick, with a haunted look and no possessions to speak of. Patrick can relate: he was one of Mrs K's 'projects' too, years ago.

Nathaniel (who's agoraphobic) clearly has guilty secrets, but Patrick is happy to let him take his time revealing them. And he has plenty else to distract him: soon after Nathaniel's arrival, Susan -- Patrick's sister-in-law and childhood friend, a well-known singer-songwriter -- shows up, distraught, with a suitcase, a baby, and a telegram from the Department of Defence. Susan's husband (Patrick's brother) Michael has been killed in Vietnam.

How the three of them (plus baby Eleanor) create a kind of family, and how Nathaniel comes to terms with his own sexuality, is the heart of the novel: it also features delightfully spiky Puerto Rican twins, a lot of discussion of Walt Whitman's poetry (Patrick is a huge fan), plenty of gay and trans secondary characters, anti-war protestors and political radicals and folk musicians, and a dog. The revelation of Nathaniel's secret past was a big surprise and definitely something to feel bad about, but he does his best to make things right, not only with Susan and Nathaniel but with the wider world.

Great depictions of male-female friendship, alternative culture, and the second-hand book trade. I listened to the audiobook, read by JJ Hawkins (who read Patrick's chapters) and Joel Leslie (who read Nathaniel's). I felt a bit uncomfortable while listening to Leslie, who sounded as though he was choking at the end of each sentence, but both narrators brought warmth, emotion and humour to their performances.

Read because: it was in the Libro.fm sale, and I have enjoyed other novels by Cat Sebastian.

2026/113: The Sentence — Louise Erdrich

Think how white people believe their houses or yards or scenic overlooks are haunted by Indians, when it’s really the opposite. We’re haunted by settlers and their descendants. [p. 91]

Reread for book club: I had forgotten just how much it's about the pandemic. I also noticed many aspects of motherhood here, from Hetta with her new baby to Tookie bearing the name of the woman who helped her mother. Book club response was positive: we talked about the sense of community in the novel, and the low-key horror of the ghost.

My original review is here.

Read because: bookclub choice, and I was happy to reread this!

2026/112: Never After — Alexis Hall

“Say something.” His voice rang harshly, even in his own ears. “Call me unnatural. Scorn me. Turn away in revulsion. Tell the village.”
“Oh, Michael, I’m an old woman, my back would play up something chronic. I can’t turn away in revulsion like I used to.” [loc. 3759]

This is described as 'a melancholic tale of queer romance': it's set in the 1860s in London and, later, a country town, and it's the story of two men (an opium-addicted male prostitute named Micha, and the Reverend Thomas Mandeville) who love one another. But I'm not sure it's a romance per se.

It has many of the tropes of romance: Micha is very ill when Thomas finds him collapsed on the street and takes him home; Micha is prickly and dishonest, but gradually becomes more likeable under Thomas' gentle ministrations; Micha's secrets gradually come to light, and Thomas's unpleasant family history likewise; Thomas finds a better family because of Micha. And it does seem that they might achieve a HEA. But no.

Devastatingly emotional, with lots of rich textured descriptions that reminded me of nineteenth-century novels. Hall treats Thomas' faith, and the moral quandaries his desire for Micha sparks in him, with respect and honesty. And Micha's addiction is also portrayed realistically and without modern sensibilities. I especially liked the female characters, none of whom behave as Micha expects: Thomas' housekeeper Mrs Clark, who could reveal Micha's past; the ladies of Nettlefield, especially Esther (whose response to Micha's confession of homosexuality heads this review); and, at the end, Hope.

Pleasantly read by Steve West, who managed to infuse Micha's sometimes-limited vocabulary ('Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.') with emotions appropriate to the setting.

from the author's webpage, discussing ending and epilogue...

Read because: I've enjoyed many of Hall's other novels and spotted this as audio and ebook on Kindle Unlimited, my 'free trial' of which runs out very soon. A pleasant audiobook to listen to in the garden!

2026/111: A Trade of Blood — Robert Jackson Bennett

My augmentations had permanently altered my very biologies. Had I been made a beast, to be sacrificed for my family and the Empire? Or was I now a shepherd, and the common folk of the cantons my flock? [loc. 3578]

My initial gleeful review is here: I liked this novel just as much on rereading.

Two households, both alike in dignity... The Armentas are a wealthy aristocratic family, raising monstrous cows to feed the Empire: the Buravs are a neighbouring family who provide the beans that feed the cows. The two families have been feuding for years: despite this, Castus Armenta and Zanzay Burav were planning to run away together. Now Zanzay lies horribly dead and Castus is in the local jail, unable to explain the events of the previous night. 

Just another case for Immunis Ana Dolabra and her trusty assistant, Signum Dinios Kol! Together, the two uncover a history of misfortune (or perhaps a family curse) plaguing the Armentas, and an ancient forest which may harbour gods from before the Empire. And they learn about farming. This is not Romeo and Juliet: it's certainly not a romance. It is, instead, a novel about the grotesque excesses of agriculture. It highlights the routine slaughter and the wastefulness, the ecological impact, and the use of enslaved creatures^* as field workers.

And it's also about Ana and about Din -- the former coming a little closer to revealing the secrets of her alterations, the latter wholly unprepared to encounter someone from his past. There is body horror, there are unsettling mental changes, and there is more, much more, about the Empire itself. (I note that Ana and Din are moving towards the heart of the Empire -- the first book was set on the coast, the second in the independent kingdom of Yarrowdale, and this novel within the Third Ring.)

Very much looking forward to the next book -- this is clearly not a trilogy! -- and to learning even more about the Empire, and about the eccentric Ana. (A taste of Ana: "I'd normally be given to suspect his enemies, the Armentas --except they've nearly been eliminated... Or so we think! I can't confirm, because people keep goddamn interrupting me with their dying!" [loc. 2597])

^*Small creatures known as cats, though they are more like squirrels or weasels: I suspect the author of devising a way to refer to characters as 'cat-herders'.

Read because: I enjoyed the first two books so much, and leapt at the chance to get an ARC. Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK publication date is 4th August 2026.

2026/110: As We Fall Through Time — Claire North

Every time traveller who has ever trodden on a butterfly has created a ripple through time. These ripples make more ripples which make more travellers, the snake swallows its tail... [loc. 694]

Cal is a time-traveller, and something of a paradox: sometimes male, sometimes female. He encounters Olivier, a French soldier, in 1789, and falls in love. Which seems to be somehow connected to the temporal paradox sparked by fellow time-traveller Fadimatu encountering her own corpse in The Museum of the Unmasked Conspiracy...

This is a love story, a story of climate activism, and a murder mystery. It's narrated in first person by a mysterious observer. Time is infested with ghosts and witches, 'fathomless creatures of unlived realities': paradoxes can be healed, or at least ameliorated, by paradoxical objects ('amaranthines') such as a ceramic flower that did and did not crack in the kiln.

I am already looking forward to rereading this next month for the full review...

Read because: Claire North has become one of my favourite authors -- from the 'Songs of Penelope' trilogy to the awesome Slow Gods. Obviously I read this as soon as it landed on my Kindle... Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for the full honest review I'll write nearer UK Publication Date -- 10th October 2026.

2026/109: Apollo 13 — James Lovell / Jeffrey Kruger

I’m afraid this is going to be the last moon mission for a long time.

Initially published as Lost Moon and retitled to tie in with the movie Apollo 13, this is Jim Lovell's account -- with Jeffrey Kruger's wealth of background research and synthesis -- of the NASA mission that would have been the third Moon landing. It's not just a minute-by-minute account of the accident and the return, both on board the spacecraft and back at Mission Control, but also a biography of Lovell: there are vignettes featuring other people impacted by the events (such as the spacecraft recovery specialist aboard the USS Iwo Jima), and a detailed account of Marilyn Lovell waiting at home with their children, supported by friends and neighbours.

I found this compelling listening: it's extremely well paced. The technical details of the damage to the Service Module, and the ingenious workarounds developed by crew and Control, are explained clearly for a non-technical audience. The constant stress of the four days after the explosion (which vented most of the oxygen to space, and forced the three-man crew to take refuge in the Lunar Module which had been designed to support two men for two days on the surface of the Moon) is clear, but there's never false drama.

The crew's levelheadedness did occasionally falter, but only in throwaway comments. (I suspect Kruger relied heavily on the log transcripts.) And I found the dogged perseverance of Mission Control uplifting and inspirational. It's also amazing to me that the mission was completed -- not only on the ground, but in the spacecraft -- with less processing power than my smartwatch. (See Reddit for discussion).

Narrated very well by Fred Sanders, whose voice I found pleasant and who injected humour into the lighter interludes, and didn't speed up when things became tense.

Read because: I don't quite remember this happening (unlike some of my friends), but it's been part of my cultural background for most of my life. I realised I knew very little about the disaster, though I did know it hadn't ended in tragedy. And the NASA space program, at its height in the '60s and '70s, is exciting.

2026/108: Dragon's Fin Soup — S P Somtow

...in this town, there’s no distinction between the real world and the world of illusion. It’s the only place in the world where all truths are true at the same time. [p. 264]

Subtitled 'Eight Modern Siamese Fables', these stories are set in Thailand -- mostly Bangkok -- at various points in the late twentieth century, and typically deal with the culture clash between Thai and Western culture, with flourishes of the fantastic. I especially liked 'The Steel American', about a knight seeking the Grail in a small village, and 'Fiddling for Water Buffaloes', a cheery tale of an American anthropologist, the trade in fake antiquities, and possible alien invasion. 

Some of the other stories felt dated: sexist, cyberpunk-inflected, plain body-horror. And the text is not formatted well in this edition.  In some of the stories it looks as though a draft version, complete with markup and comments, has been used.

But when it's good, it's very good: the little details of domestic life, the prevalence of belief in spiritual entities (good and otherwise), the juxtaposition of ancient and modern. I intend to read more of Somtow's work, having (I think) bounced off some of his horror fiction in the 1990s.

Read because: Many of S P Somtow's books are available on Kindle Unlimited, and I wanted to fill a challenge prompt -- 'by a Thai author or about Thailand'. This one looked interesting and accessible, and fulfilled both aspects of the prompt.