IMNSHO (In my not so humble opinion) – at least when it comes to book covers, there are two sets of pretty covers here. One set consists of The Lost Bookshop and The Story Collector, because they are both pictures of very pretty fictional libraries, and well, if we didn’t all like books we wouldn’t be here to talk about them. The other set contains the outer space covers, How to Steal a Galaxy and Rumor Has It. Not only are they both pretty science fiction covers, but they are both parts of really good series that I can’t wait to get back into!

And I’m curious as all get out about Death of the Author, because I love the author and the book sounds like it’s going to be really meta. So I’m hoping for good things but I also have my fingers crossed because meta can go all sorts of places and not all of them work for me. I’m worried it’s going to be like Magpie Murders for me, a story within a story where I adored the story within but wasn’t nearly so thrilled with the framing story wrapped around it. We’ll see.

For Review:
Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear (Wayward Children #10) by Seanan McGuire
At the Fount of Creation (Guardian of the Gods #2) by Tobi Ogundiran
Cabinet of Curiosities by Aaron Mahnke
Death of the Author by Nnedi Okorafor
The Gates of Gaza by Amir Tibon
How to Steal a Galaxy (Chaotic Orbits #2) by Beth Revis
Rumor Has It (Disco Space Opera #3) by Cat Rambo
The Sound of a Thousand Stars by Rachel Robbins
The Story Collector by Evie Woods

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods

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You know what? They’re all pretty this time around. They’re just not all pretty the same, because the styles and the genres are so different. I’m intrigued by several, also for entirely different reasons.

The cover of Echo gives me the shivers, but then, that’s very definitely a wintry Chicago in the background and that’s exactly what Chicago DOES in the winter. At first, I thought the cover of We Solve Murders wasn’t all that, BUT, it’s very much part of the old-school mystery cover style – and there’s a cat. The cover of Bindle Punk Jefe fits right in with the first book in the series, Bindle Punk Bruja, and does an excellent job of presenting the character and the time period in a single image. I’m really curious about The Fourth Consort because I loved his first three books (Mickey7, etc.) and I’m intrigued by And the Mighty Will Fall because I loved the first book in the series (A Pale Light in the Black), liked the second (Hold Fast Through the Fire), and unfortunately bounced hard off the third (The Ghosts of Trappist), so I’m wondering where this one will – ahem – fall.

For Review:
And the Mighty Will Fall (NeoG #4) by K.B. Wagers
Bindle Punk Jefe (Bindle Punk #2) by Desideria Mesa
Echo (Detective Harriet Foster #3) by Tracy Clark
Exiled by Iron (Tainted Blood Duology #2) by Ehigbor Okosun
The Fourth Consort by Edward Ashton
The Great Library Of Tomorrow (Tomorrowland #1) by Rosalia Aguilar Solace
The Mountain Crown (Crowns of Ishia #1) by Karin Lowachee
The Scarlet Throne (False Goddess #1) by Amy Leow
We Solve Murders by Richard Osman

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A relatively short stack this week, but still with PLENTY of interesting books on tap! YAY!

The prettiest covers look to be It Takes Two to Torah, Key Lime Sky and A Vengeful King Rises – with an honorable mention for The Hero She Craves.

Ahem. Definitely ahem.

This is a week where it’s damn difficult to decide which are the books I’m most interested in, but it’s a toss-up between Guard the East Flank, The Most Human and A Vengeful King Rises for entirely different reasons. Buchman is returning to the characters of his first military romance series, Night Stalkers. Barnes is taking the research into the Regency era that forms the foundation of her usual romances and turning it to mystery/suspense in the vein of the Sebastian St. Cyr and Wrexford & Sloane series(es). Meanwhile the subtitle of Adam Nimoy’s book about his father Leonard gives this reader at least the impression that the son had as much difficulty reconciling himself with his father’s famous alter ego as the man himself did.

We’ll certainly see in the weeks ahead!

For Review:
The Animal is Chemical by Hadara Bar-Nadav
Becoming Janet by Janet Singer Applefield
Guard the East Flank (Night Stalkers Reload #1) by M.L. Buchman
The Hero She Craves (Unbroken Heroes #3) by Anna Hackett
It Takes Two to Torah by Abigail Pogrebin and Rabbi Dov Linzer
Key Lime Sky by Al Hess
The Most Human by Adam Nimoy (audio and ebook)
A Vengeful King Rises (House of Croft #1) by Sophie Barnes
Who Really Wrote the Bible by William M. Schniedewind

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Hell for Hire (Tear Down Heaven #1) by Rachel Aaron

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What have we here? A stack of brand-new books – and not an overly tall stack at that. YAY!

There are more pretty covers than not this time around – although there are a couple of boring ones to balance them out. (We’ll just not say which ones they are so as not to embarrass them.) The prettiest covers, IMHO, are All the Water in the World and Saving Susy Sweetchild. Bonded in Death is an interesting cover, mostly because it looks like that long-running series has decided to change cover designs for this 60th entry in the series.

The book I’m most curious about is The Last Dangerous Visions, because that book has been in the works since the mid-1970s (!) The original editor, Harlan Ellison, died in 2018, many of the authors whose stories were supposed to have appeared have also died, and many of the stories intended for the book have been published elsewhere in the long interim. I’m curious as hell to see what finally made it into the book!

For Review:
All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall
Bonded in Death (In Death #60) by J.D. Robb
A Change of Place (Night’s Edge #3) by Julie E. Czerneda
For Such a Time as This by Elliot Cosgrove
The Last Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison and J. Michael Straczynski
A Monsoon Rising (Hurricane Wars #2) by Thea Guanzon
The Queens of Crime by Marie Benedict
Reading Genesis by Marilynne Robinson
Saving Susy Sweetchild (Silver Screen Historical Mysteries #3) by Barbara Hambly
Splinter Effect (Splinter Effect #1) by Andrew Ludington
Two Wheels to Freedom by Arthur J. Magida

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Books and Broadswords, Volume One by Jessie Mihalik

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I picked up the Colleen Gleason series because I got reminded that Colleen Gleason is a pseudonym for Colleen Cambridge – or the other way around. So far I’ve adored her Julia Child mysteries, the series that started with Mastering the Art of French Murder, so the idea of the same marvelous voice – the author’s not Child’s – in a paranormal series tickled by reading funny bone. Or I certainly hope it will.

The pretty books this time around are The Forbidden Book, which thankfully isn’t, The Republic of Salt, and Songs for the Brokenhearted. There are several graphic novels this time around, but their covers are more interesting than they are pretty.

For Review:
Cartoonists Against Racism by Rachel Medoff and Craig Yoe
The Forbidden Book by Sacha Lamb
The Light of Learning by Glenn Dynner
Lolita at Leonard’s of Great Neck and Other Stories from the Before Times by Shira Dicker
My Youth and Early Deaths by Allen Stein
Never Again Will I Visit Auschwitz by Ari Richter
No Road Leading Back by Chris Heath
Once There Was Warsaw by Ber Kutsher, translated by Gerald Marcus
Postwar Stories by Rachel Gordan
The Republic of Salt (Mirror Realm Cycle #2) by Ariel Kaplan
Rimonim by Aurora Levins Morales
Songs for the Brokenhearted by Ayelet Tsabari
The Treasure Hunters Club by Tom Ryan

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
Hexes, Exes and Codexes (Three Tomes Bookshop #4) by Colleen Gleason
Purses, Curses & Hearses (Three Tomes Bookshop #2) by Colleen Gleason
Stakes, Cakes and Mandrakes (Three Tomes Bookshop #3) by Colleen Gleason
Tomes, Scones & Crones (Three Tomes Bookshop #1) by Colleen Gleason

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I think it’s pretty clear why those Conrad the Cat Detective mysteries by LT Shearer are in the stack. How could I resist? The covers aren’t particularly pretty, but I never can resist a good mystery that features felines, whether in starring or supporting roles. We’ll just have to see if this one lives up to the original The Cat Who series by Lilian Jackson Braun.

The prettiest cover here might be The Phoenix Keeper, although there are several possible contenders, depending on beauty being in the eye of the beholder and all that. The Stolen Queen would also be a strong possibility, both as pretty and as interesting. It has just a touch of Elizabeth Peters/Amelia Peabody to it, so I’m very curious as I’m still looking for something to scratch that reading itch!

For Review:
Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Breath of Oblivion (Astra Black #2) by Maurice Broaddus
The Cat Who Caught a Killer (Conrad the Cat Detective #1) by L.T. Shearer
The Cat Who Cracked a Cold Case (Conrad the Cat Detective #3) by L.T. Shearer
The Cat Who Solved Three Murders (Conrad the Cat Detective #2) by L.T. Shearer
Fangs So Bright & Deadly (Mythwoven #2) by Piper J. Drake
Ghosts of a Holy War by Yardena Schwartz
The Little Liar by Mitch Albom
The Lotus Empire (Burning Kingdoms #3) by Tasha Suri
The Moonstone Covenant by Jill Hammer
The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl
The Phoenix Keeper by S.A. MacLean
The Stolen Queen by Fiona Davis
The Vampire of Kings Street by Asha Greyling

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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This is the official 600th Stacking the Shelves post at Reading Reality. It hasn’t always been called “Stacking the Shelves” and I haven’t always been the host but here we are lo these many, Many, (MANY) moons later with STS #600. I had to check, and my very first STS was posted almost 12 years ago to the day, on May 5, 2012. OMG how time flies.

This stack is noticeably shorter than the past several stacks – thank goodness!  Most of my committee books have been requested and processed – if not actually read – which means that the stacks should be a bit more manageable for the rest of the year.

In this particular stack, I think the prettiest cover may be a three-way tie between The Teller of Small Fortunes, The Naturalist’s Daughter and Murder in Highbury, although Books Like Sapphires is a MUCH prettier book as a whole.

The books I’m most looking forward to are How to Wear Everything – because I really need to know before our vacation later this summer – and Eight Very Bad Nights. The two I’m most curious about are In the Blink of an Eye, because it sounds a bit like several SF mysteries and I’ve loved all of those so far, and Queen Macbeth because I’m wondering how much it’s like – and how much it’s different – from Ava Reid’s Lady Macbeth, which I’ve already finished and found quite compelling.

We’ll certainly see in the months ahead!

For Review:
Books Like Sapphires by Ann Brener
Burn Book by Kara Swisher
Eight Very Bad Nights edited by Tod Goldberg
How to Wear Everything by Kay Barron
In the Blink of an Eye (Kat and Lock #1) by Jo Callaghan
Lilith by Eric Rickstad
Murder in Highbury (Emma Knightley #1) by Vanessa Kelly
The Naturalist’s Daughter by Tea Cooper
Queen Macbeth by Val McDermid
The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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I’m getting “interesting” vibes from this stack of covers a whole lot more than I am “pretty”. Your mileage almost certainly will vary. In fact, I’m really curious to see which covers you think are the prettiest in this bunch.

The book I’m most looking forward to is Candle & Crow – although I’ve heard that this is going to be the last book in the series so I’m sad about that and hope I’m wrong. The two books I’m most curious about are The Incorruptibles and The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum because they’re both about gangsters.

And May the Fourth Be With You.

For Review:
Ahoti by Miriam Feinberg Vamosh, translated by Eva Marie Everson
Amerikaland by Danny Goodman
Candle & Crow (Ink & Sigil #3) by Kevin Hearne
Coca-Cola, Black Panthers, and Phantom Jets by Oz Frankel
The Comics of Asaf Hanuka by Matt Reingold
A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft
Displaced Persons by Joan Leegant
Eight Nights to Win Her Heart by Miri White
The Examiner by Janice Hallett
Feh by Shalon Auslander
The Forgotten Names by Mario Escobar
The Great When (Long London #1) by Alan Moore
How the West Became Antisemitic by Ivan G. Marcus
The Incorruptibles by Dan Slater
Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Nearly Departed by Gila Pfeffer
The Piano Player of Budapest by Roxanne de Bastion
The Place of All Possibility by Adina Allen
The Talented Mrs. Mandelbaum by Margalit Fox
Unsettled by Oren Kroll-Zeldin

Purchased from Amazon/Audible/Etc.:
The Lift (Future Night Stalkers Sci-Fi Romance Collection) by M.L. Buchman

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Yet another eclectic group of books. As always, this is a combination of books for my current committee, books I’ll be reviewing for Library Journal, and books I just plain want to read.

Speaking of which, the book that I’m anticipating the most out of this batch, the one I’ve been salivating over for months, ever since I read the first book in its series, The Kamogawa Food Detectives, is The Restaurant of Lost Recipes. I loved the first book, and I expect to love the second as well. IMHO the prettiest cover is The City in Glass by Nghi Vo, but that’s an accolade that has plenty of contenders this week. The two books I’m most curious about this go around are The Lantern of Lost Memories and We’ll Prescribe You a Cat – and not just because both books have cats on their covers!

For Review:
The City in Glass by Nghi Vo
Dr. Josef’s Little Beauty by Zyta Rudzka, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
In the Glittering Maw by Joyce Mansour
The Jewish Anarchist Movement in America by Joseph Cohen
Kissing Girls on Shabbat by Sara Glass
Klara’s Truth by Susan Weissbach Friedman
Knightqueen (Oronis Knights #3) by Anna Hackett
The Lantern of Lost Memories by Sanaka Hiiragi, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
Letters from Home by Malka Z. Simkovich
Living with Our Dead by Delphine Horvilleur, translated by Lisa Appignanesi
Memories of My Life in a Polish Village, 1930-1949 by Toby Knobel Fluek
Memories of the Lost by Barbara O’Neal
Metamorphoses by Karolina Watroba
The Number on Your Forearm is Blue Like Your Eyes by Eva Umlauf with Stefanie Oswalt, translated by Shelley Frisch
The Punk-Rock Queen of the Jews by Rossi
The Restaurant of Lost Recipes (Kamogawa Food Detectives #2) by Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood
Safety Through Solidarity by Shane Burley ad Ben Lorber
They Were Good Germans Once by Evelyn Toynton (May)
We’ll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida, translated by E. Madison Shimoda
The Whisper Sister by Jennifer S. Brown

If you want to find out more about Stacking The Shelves, please visit the official launch page

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