A seething mass of turgid drama.

November was a relatively skimpy month, though only in comparison to the surrounding months.

Raised for the Sword by Aimée -- (text) Aimée’s Raised for the Sword immerses the reader in the religious wars of 16th century France, when people at all levels of society were split between the majority Catholics and the protestant Huguenots. The story follows three central characters between the courts of France, Navarre, and England as their lives are buffeted by politics and violence. This is something of a slice-of-life tale, where the plot is supplied by the tide of history. The historical details are meticulously accurate, as are the varied depictions of how same-sex romances could find a place in the era and the logistics of long-term gender disguise. The several plot-threads are braided together tightly and resolve in as happy an ending as the times allow. The title, perhaps, implies more swashbuckling than the book delivers. The martial action is more gritty and realistic than picturesquely heroic, as is the depiction of gender politics. This book will appeal to those who want an emphasis on the “historical” side of historical fiction. (Disclaimer: The author of Raised for the Sword was the French translator for one of my novels. I was provided with an advance review copy at no obligation.)

The Witch Roads by Kate Elliott -- (audio) I like when a book plunges me into the world without too much explanation, but I did have to scramble a bit at the beginning to figure out the basics. Once it got going I was thoroughly sucked in. Secondary-world fantasy where the world has been devastated by a lingering magic, but most people are fixated on everyday social politics. Then a figure out of the magical past shows up and makes things very complicated for the protagonist. Ends at a point that is both a resolution and a cliff-hanger.

A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo (audio) Definitly on the horror side, similar to the previous book in the series. The plot concerns what famine does to social rules. Part of the Singing Hills Cycle.

System Collapse by Martha Wells -- (audio) This brings me up to date with the Murderbot series. We're back to "lots of action language, not so much character interactions and plot."

I read a shit-load of books in September, in part due to the New Zealand trip. On most overseas trips, I keep myself so busy I don't do much reading, but this time we planned for a laid-back schedule and most days spent a lot of time just hanging out doing parallel play. This also meant that more than half the books were text rather than audio.

Copper Script by K.J. Charles -- (text) Usual lovely K.J. Charles book. M/M historic romance with excellent character work. The middle feels a bit rushed or foreshortened, though the climax works. I like the conceit of handwriting analysis on an almost psychic level, even knowing it's fantastical. Great pun in the title.

The Rosetti Diaries by Kathleen Williams Renk -- (text) F/f cross-time story (historic story unfolds via a modern person doing research). Alas, this was a DNF (did not finish) for me. The historical premise is intriguing, but the writing style - ugh - perfectly literate but it reads like a textbook. I found it especially problematic, given that it's formatted as a diary, that the protagonist is always explaining things. To whom? This isn't the sort of stuff you'd put in a diary. And some of the technical details are implausible, like reading archival documents in a vault using a candle. It all just added up and threw me out.

That Self-Same Metal by Brittany H. Williams -- (text) YA historic fantasy involving malevolent elves and West African-based magic in the England of King James I. There were a few logical inconsistencies, but quite enjoyable. Queer-normative, racially-aware, lots of room for further adventures, and a "why choose" bi romantic polygon.

The Illhenny Murders by Winnie Frolik -- (text) Another DNF, alas. I'm in one of my periodic phases of allowing myself to drop books if they're just not working for me. In this case, it's was just that the prose was so very pedestrian. In theory there was a f/f romance in there somewhere but I never got to it.

Problems and Other Solutions by Allie Brosch -- (text) Ok, so I started reading this several years ago. This is a collection of semi-comedic personal sketches by the author of Hyperbole and a Half. Although the individual pieces are interesting, they work best taken in separate bites, hence the long time to finish.

Illuminations by T Kingfisher -- (audio) Solidly YA in tone. Secondary world fantasy with an eccentric family of magical artists and a kid who looses and then needs to fix a Problem. Complex, with a focus on life lessons of cooperation, honesty, grit. It was interesting listening to this in alternation with the Diana Wynne Jones Chrestomanci books, because there's a very similar feel: a kid in a magic-working family feels marginalized but needs to solve a big problem. Family then pitches in.

The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones -- (audio) And speaking of which... Part of my semi-random DWJ reading program. An interesting story but I want to slap the protagonist silly. I probably needed to have read this book when I was a bratty kid. Oh wait, I never was.

Hemlock and Silver by T. Kingfisher -- (audio) Loosely inspired by Snow White, but only in terms of the MacGuffins. A standard Kingfisher heroine (complete with standard Kingfisher romance arc), but the plot is fun. There are lots of twists and turns trying to figure out the rules of the magic. In the end, the worldbuilding logic all comes together and makes sense.

The Magicians of Caprona by Diana Wynne Jones -- (audio) A gripping and well-written magical family saga. (This is the one that felt most parallel to Illuminations.) The only down side was the annoying use of Italian ethnic stereotypes.

(This is the promised separate review of my favorite book from 2025.)

Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer is not simply my favorite book of the year, but is my candidate for Best Book of the Year overall. This is not simply a book about history but is a book about the process of history. It demonstrates the fractal messiness of the people, places, and events that we try to tidily sort into specific eras, and especially how all those people, places, and events are braided together into a solid fabric. Palmer doesn’t shy away from pointing out how thoroughly our understanding of history is shaped by the prejudices and preoccupations of historians; she embraces this aspect noting at every turn how her own take is shaped by her love of the city of Florence and especially its most controversial son, Machiavelli.

But what makes this book great is the humor poured into the cracks around the politics, violence, and art. (A recurring feature is little comic dialogues that summarize key events in a narrative style familiar to anyone on Twitter or Bluesky. I desperately want to see these presented in visual format, whether as live theater or animated shorts. It’s hard to pick a favorite line, but the top two are “Maria Visconti-Sforza: I’m standing right here!” and “King of France: You Italians are very strange.”)

The book concludes with what I can only describe as a stump speech for the importance to the contemporary world of studying and understanding history, embracing the necessary messiness of “progress,” and the hope that we can indeed continue the Renaissance project of reaching for a better world.

This is a very long book, though paced in manageable chapters. When I decided to read it and found that the audiobook was the same price as the hardcover, I went for audio (at over 30 hours!) and listened to it while taking the train home from the International Medieval Conference. The narration is top-notch, capturing the emotional range of the text perfectly. The side benefit is that the combination of material, voice, and length made it perfect to add to my “sleep-aid audiobooks” collection, which means I get to enjoy it over and over again (in the bits and pieces I consciously hear). But of course I bought the hardcover too, not only so I could get Palmer to autograph it, but because I needed to be able to track down my favorite bits and check out the footnotes.

Actually the one book I finished in May is going to get its own separate entry (Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer) because I've decided it's my favorite book of the entire year.

The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman -- (audio) The entire Invisible Library series came up on sale as a set on Chirp, and since I'd heard interesting things about it I picked it up. I've only listened to this first volume. Although I find it interesting and imaginative, I kept not getting back to listening to it (hence it took me an entire month to finish). That's made me less interested in trying the next book in the series. I didn't dislike it--it just didn't grab me.

The Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeod -- (text) I actually bought this one in both text and audiobook, but since I was already listening to a book of similar genre and setting (see next entry) I went for the text version to keep psychological separation. This is a sapphic Jane Austen-inspired story (as one might guess from the title). I've always felt that Mary Bennet got short shrift in the original book. This story begins well after the end of Pride and Prejudice and has paired her with the now-widowed Charlotte Collins (née Lucas). Mary has the advantage of having acquired a mentor in London who runs a not-very-covertly queer household, which eases the way for Mary and Charlotte to be able to share their attraction and provides a short-cut around the economic challenges for a female couple. I found the story cute and emotionally satisfying although Charlotte occasionally shocked me in blowing off the expected social isolation of recent widowhood.

A Rare Find by Joanna Lowell -- (audio) Another Regency-era sapphic romance, involving an amateur archaeologist and the love/hate relationship with her neighbor. Enjoyable, though a bit over-packed with subplots similarly to the previous book of hers that I've read (A Shore Thing). Lots of occasionally improbable hijinks on the quest for Viking-era artifacts and recognition. There were a few places where my historic sensibilities were trampled on. (You do not just "park" a horse and carriage overnight while you're off canoodling. I mean, maybe a groom was summoned to take care of them? But something it didn't get mentioned.) The conclusion seemed a bit contrived but overall I liked it.

Servant Mage by Kate Elliott -- (text) I have no idea how Elliott managed to pack so much plot and worldbuilding into one tiny novella! Secondary-world quest fantasy with a very relatable protagonist and lots of peril. There are unexpected and satisfying twists. I really hope this is a set-up for more fiction in this world.

The Tapestry of Time by Kate Heartfield -- (audio) Historic fantasy set during World War II focused around the war efforts of a family with various psychic powers who are connected in some way to the Bayeux Tapestry. Told through multiple viewpoints, the novel gradually builds up a fragmentary picture of how all the parts relate until it all comes together. There’s a fair amount of violence and peril, as one might expect in a wartime espionage story, but the ending is satisfying. A strongly woman-centered story with positive queer rep (and resolution). Heartfield writes dense, twisty books that can take some concentration but I’ve enjoyed every one that I’ve tackled.

Murder by Post by Rachel Ford -- (text) This fairly short story introduces the continuing detective couple, Meredith and Alec Thatch, set in the wake of World War I in England. Alec is passing as a man in order for them to marry, but is not presented as transgender as far as I can tell. This adds an extra element of risk and danger when the resident of a neighboring flat is found dead with signs of poison. This is a classic cozy-style mystery, with lots of clues and red herrings, allowing the reader to think just one step ahead of the characters. This initial story—really just a novelette—is free on the author’s website. I hope that some day she’ll decide to release the rest of the series more widely than just Kindle Unlimited. It deserves a wider audience. It's really testing my resolve not to buy Amazon-only books unless I'm committed to doing a review.

In August I started two long-term reading projects. Having enjoyed the tv adaptation of the first Murderbot book, I decided to give the series another try (after having bounced off one of the middle books). And I've been enjoying Rachel Fraimow and Emily Tesh's podcast, The Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones so much I decided to do a (possibly non-exhaustive) reading project of Jones's books. I have twelve of her books on my shelves, though I'm not entirely certain I've read all of them, and I hadn't quite connected up which ones were in series and what order they came in. Having very belatedly acquired a local library card, I've been taking advantage of Libby audiobooks to tackle these two projects, which spaces them out nicely, given wait times.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells, Artificial Condition by Martha Wells -- (audio) It's hard to evaluate the first book separate from having seen the tv series first. It was interesting both how closely the series followed the plot and the places it diverged. Having more details on all the characters (and there are a lot of them for a novella), the story began to grow on my seriously by the second book. It helped that it didn't feel like it was wall-to-wall combat scenes like my first (out of order) encounter with the series. Artificial Condition had a more mystery-like plot, which I enjoyed.

A Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones -- (audio) Young adult. This seems to be a very typical Jones set-up: a disfunctional family with the least-regarded kid as the protagonist. (That's all my notes say. I confess that some of her books have now run into each other in my memory.)

Oops, almost forgot one of my August books!

Lake of Souls by Ann Leckie -- (audio) A short fiction collection, with some stories tying in to her Imperial Radch universe and others feeling like they're part of some other connected setting. Leckie writes the most vivid and believable truly alien characters I've encountered since back when I was reading a lot of C.J. Cherryh in the '90s. The title story is a great example.

On Audiobooks

One of the things I cut back on in preparation for my retirement was my Audible subscription. (I had the three-books-a-month level.) That's changed my audiobook consumption somewhat. What I borrow from Libby is a bit random, not simply because I tend to only put one book at a time on my wait list, rather than having several lined up in Audible, but because the types of books available are different. As I've previously mentioned, I've also been buying audiobooks from Chirp, but primarily using it for random discovery within their sale books. When I decide to outright buy a audiobook these days, I'll try Apple Books first (because: Amazon). Very much like my approach to ebooks, I dislike having books on multiple platforms because I lose track of what's where. But I can't really escape that, alas.

Why do I do so much of my reading in audio? Mostly because I do so much print and e-text reading for the Lesbian Historic Motif Project. Also, between bicycling a couple hours a day and yard work, I have a lot of contexts when I can multi-task audio. Another factor is my aging eyes. When I'm focusing on something close up for an extended period of time--whether it's my LHMP reading, or needlework, or whatever, my eyes take up to an hour to recover and be able to focus at other distances properly. It's annoying. And I can't avoid it for the LHMP work. Audio avoids adding annoyance. (Unintentional alliteration.)

Anyway, enough for now. Tomorrow I'll do my Inventing the Renaissance review, which I plan to post widely. When I first started doing this catch-up book posts, I also disseminated them to several review sites, but that got a bit exhausting and awkward. (I discovered that there's a limit to how many book reviews you can post to Amazon on a single day. A good thing, probably, but hard to keep track of when I'm doing catch-up reviews.)