Review of Onyx Storm, by Rebecca Yarros, read by Rebecca Soler

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review 0

Onyx Storm

by Rebecca Yarros
read by Rebecca Soler, Teddy Hamilton, Justis Bolding, and Jasmin Walker

Recorded Books, 2025. 23 hours, 53 minutes.
Review written February 26, 2025, from a library eaudiobook.

I’m going to sound like a bit of a curmudgeon in this review, so let me begin by saying that I don’t review books I don’t like. And I certainly don’t spend 24 hours listening to a book I don’t like. So I did enjoy this book, and I’m very engaged with this series and will be reading the next book. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the first two, though.

First off, this series doesn’t waste any time catching up the reader on what went before. It’s very much a continued story, not “companion novels.” It had been a year since I listened to the previous book, and I didn’t really remember the many characters, who was a dragon rider as opposed to who was a griffin flyer, for example. (Though, funny thing, the people I remembered least were the ones most in danger of dying – they felt like the red shirts of the story.)

So I’m only going to speak in general terms about what happens. It’s the continued story of Violet Sorengale – a cadet at Bezgaeth War College who is bonded to two powerful dragons. Oh, I should say that I loved the portrayal of Andarna as an adolescent dragon. Her whiny tone was delightful! A continued strong point of this series is the characters and the bonds they’re forming with each other.

First, there’s lots and lots of sex. I did laugh when Violet and Xaden broke furniture again. Though it’s kind of their trademark. But I also laughed about two-thirds into the book when they were obviously going to have sex and they closed and locked a door (using lesser magic) – and then the author actually ended the scene! I felt like that was a progression in Violet’s experience. She no longer had to gasp at every touch.

A good chunk of this book was a group of them exploring some distant islands, looking for allies and for more dragons of Andarna’s kind. That was an interesting development. But then each island served a different god and had different unusual customs and hoops that visitors had to go through – and that felt silly and unlikely after a while.

Speaking of contrived things, I recently finished another book using the trope of Everyone-Has-A-Magical-Power – and there are always ways that particular trope doesn’t work for me – you really do have to not think about it too hard. Because I’m sorry, but shadows do not have substance! The whole shadow-wielding idea – that you can make shadows hold someone up while having sex or choke someone in a battle – yeah, I have trouble believing that would work. And some of the other “signets” are problematic for me as well. But mostly, in the middle of the story, that’s not a big issue, and I’m caught up in the tale.

Now, the last big climactic battle took three hours of the audiobook. And that’s after a whole lot of fighting in the book already. So this is an audiobook where the narrator is describing lots of fighting and lots of sex – and it must have been exhausting for her! But by the time I was listening to the final battle, the narrator’s voice expressing excitement kind of flew past me. Exciting thing after exciting thing – and it stopped being exciting for me.

Now, I listen to audiobooks while I’m doing other things, so to really remember what’s going on, before the next book comes out, I should probably try rereading the entire thing in print. Trouble is, I doubt I’d want to give that much time to it – so I’ll probably be content with enjoying the story but maybe being a little confused – as I was with this one.

Speaking of confusion – the ending is kind of the opposite of a cliffhanger. A cliffhanger ending leaves you wondering what will come next. This ending left me wondering what just happened.

Without giving anything away, the big final battle took the last three hours of the book – and the final part of it was when we got to hear from three more narrators, for a nice change of pace and more perspectives on this enormous fight. At the end of the battle, Violet passed out. The story starts again twelve hours later in a different location, and Violet is told several very surprising things – but we don’t know why or how they happened. And then the book ends.

So by the time the next book comes out, I’m not sure I’ll remember what I was confused about. I’m also not at all sure where it’s going next – but I am sure that I’m going to want to go along for the ride.

rebeccayarros.com

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Into the Bloodred Woods, by Martha Brockenbrough

Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Into the Bloodred Woods

by Martha Brockenbrough

Scholastic Press, 2021. 354 pages.
Review written October 18, 2022, from a library book

In this very dark and atmospheric fairy tale-esque young adult novel, we’ve got fairy tale tropes all interwoven throughout a story that implies here’s what really happened, and the tales you’ve heard were changed for an audience of children.

There’s a storyteller featured in short interludes between the parts, weaving tales that become truth as they are repeated. But the book promises us the real story at the start:

This is the story of a werebear and her brother, one of whom will inherit a kingdom . . .

It’s the story of another werebear who wanted to burn it all down . . .

Of a sister who traded everything to spin grass into gold . . .

Of an angry musician who loved a gentle werewolf . . .

Of a girl who loved a singing forest more than life itself . . .

And of a kingdom shattered like a mirror, the pieces of which can be put back together, but only by someone brave enough to look.

The book has its heart in a singing forest, a forest just outside a kingdom.

The forest started singing when a girl named Esme struck a bargain in exchange for the magic that she needed to save her sister’s life. And that was necessary because their father had lied to the king to make himself seem important; he’d claimed that he had a daughter of surpassing beauty who could spin grass into gold.

And what was that bargain? (I told you the book is dark.) Esme traded her womb for magic. She buried it in the soil of the forest, and the forest taught her to spin grass into gold.

So her sister married the king and had twin babies, a boy and a girl. The girl was born first, though it wasn’t traditional for a girl to inherit the kingdom. This set them up for a rivalry.

But many things happen before the children become teens. Esme flees from the king to the forest where she has a daughter of her own, Capella. And the main characters of the book are Hans and Greta, the children of the one woodsman in the forest, and the king and queen’s children, Ursula and Albrecht. Ursula is a werebear, and Hans is a werewolf.

In this kingdom, werecreatures are treated as lesser citizens, and even Ursula must sleep in a cage at night. And when Hans and Greta’s parents die of a fever, they go to the kingdom to buy provisions, but get taken as servants to the castle.

Albrecht uses Hans to help him make mechanical creatures. He dreams of ruling the kingdom, protecting it with an army of mechanical soldiers. If he can only get the mechanisms right.

Albrecht is fascinated by how things work and what makes creatures alive. Aren’t those alive who can feel pain? He thinks about ways of causing pain….

And the kingdom is funded by the gold given as the queen’s dowry. But this gold has a weakness — it disintegrates when touched by human blood.

Throughout the book, many themes from fairy tales get pulled into a twisty atmospheric tale of powerful evil and those who would stand up against it.

marthabrockenbrough.com
scholastic.com

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Review of A Little Like Magic, by Sarah Kurpiel

Award Winners, Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

A Little Like Magic

by Sarah Kurpiel

Rocky Pond Books (Penguin Random House), 2024. 44 pages.
Review written February 28, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Schneider Family Award Winner, Younger Children

Here’s a gorgeous picture book that features a kid in a wheelchair.

The child and their mother (probably a little girl, but the gender is never specified) are headed to an ice festival to watch the sculptors work, but they don’t want to go.

I don’t like heavy coats
or itchy hats
or boots that don’t let me bend my ankles.
I don’t like cold wind
or icy roads.
Most of all, I don’t like going places that I’ve never been before.

Still, they go, bringing a special toy horse in their pocket. They watch the sculptors work, using chainsaws, drills, chisels, picks, torches and steaming irons.

They watch until they are too cold, then have hot chocolate together. The child isn’t convinced it’s worth it to make sculptures that are going to melt anyway.

And to their dismay, the little horse is no longer in their pocket when they get home.

But then the next day they go back after dark. Now the sculptures are finished, and they’re magical and wondrous.

The cold and crowd melt away. There is only light and ice and stars and Mom and me.

And, yes, they find their toy horse – along with a special surprise. That’s the best part of all.

In the end, they realize that even though the sculptures melted, they never really went away because they’ll always remember their magic.

This is one of those quiet, lovely, wonderful books that you love more each time you read it.

sarahkurpiel.com

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Review of See You Yesterday, by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

See You Yesterday

by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2022. 419 pages.
Review written October 10, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

See You Yesterday is a time loop novel. I’m not the best audience for time-travel books, because it’s pretty hard to convince me it could happen, but this book got me to read long into the wee hours of the morning to finish, so it did win my heart, even if my mind is still skeptical. Besides, it’s fun!

Barrett Bloom has a disastrous first day of college. She’s been looking forward to college giving her a new start after horrible bullying in high school. But she wakes up to the disappointed sounds of her high school nemesis assigned as her new roommate. In Physics class, a smart-aleck boy embarrasses her, she does a terrible interview for the school paper, and the day tops off with setting a frat house on fire. So imagine her horror when she wakes up the next day — and it’s not the next day. It’s the same day all over again.

But after a few times through September 21st, she discovers that someone else is trapped in the time loop, too. Miles, that boy in Physics class, actually lived September 21 sixty more times than she has. So maybe they can work together to get out of the loop?

At first, they don’t even like each other. But with weeks together and only one person can remember what you tell them? Yes, they start confiding in one another, understanding one another, and yes, falling in love. The romance in this book is just lovely — I like it when you can see they have reasons to fall for each other. And yes, the situation put them together, but as a reader, I was convinced that they’ll stick it out even if they can get out of the loop.

As for the physics of how the time loop worked and how to get out? Well, I wasn’t convinced. But who cares? It made for a super fun story, and a really well done slow-burn romance.

rachelsolomonbooks.com
simonandschuster.com/teen

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Review of The Woman Who Split the Atom, by Marissa Moss

Biography, Starred Review, Teen Nonfiction 0

The Woman Who Split the Atom

The Life of Lise Meitner

by Marissa Moss

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2022. 264 pages.
Review written January 8, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Mathical Award Honor Book, Grades 6-8

I read this book specifically to consider for the Mathical Book Prize (so I’ll wait to post this review until after our winners are announced) – and I put off reading it because the cover didn’t grab me. Oh my goodness, I was completely unprepared for how gripping this true story is!

It’s the story of Lise Meitner, a woman who loved nothing more than doing physics – at a time when women had to fight to be allowed to do science at all. She was Austrian, and one of the few women to attend the University of Vienna in 1901. She went on to become only the second woman to get a PhD there, and the first in Physics. But her next battle was finding a place that would hire her – or even let her work in a lab for free. That’s what she ended up doing in Berlin, still publishing scientific papers and doing translation work, until she finally got a small salary at the newly opened Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin.

Meitner did most of her work collaborating with Otto Hahn, a chemist. He would do the chemistry part, and she would tackle the physics, as they worked with radioactivity and transuranic elements. Even though there was always a tendency for her contribution to be ignored because she was a woman, she was happy to have the chance to work. This was all interrupted by World War I. Meitner unhappily went to work with x-rays on the front with the Austrian army, while Hahn developed chemical weapons for Germany.

After the war, Meitner happily went back to work with what she cared about most – doing physics. But as Hitler rose to power, more and more backlash developed against Jews. Meitner was a Jew, but had been baptized as an adult, and didn’t practice any religion. She didn’t give the Nazis lots of thought. “She never once considered leaving her home over stupid politics.”

It was interesting reading this section the same time I was listening to the audiobook of In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson, about the rise of Hitler. I hadn’t realized this all started in 1933. Meitner kept right on ignoring the situation, and finally just barely made it out of Germany – without her equipment – in 1938. She again had trouble finding a place to work, but did some work in Stockholm, near her nephew Robert Frisch. He worked together with Meitner as she looked over the strange results of Hahn’s experiments that he had sent to her, telling her he was going to publish as a failure.

Well, Meitner and Frisch took a closer look, did the math, and realized that the uranium atom was splitting and giving off energy. But even though she wrote up her thinking – Hahn ended up getting the credit.

But then came the debate about whether this energy could be harnessed in a bomb. Meitner was in the middle – hiding from German scientists what allied scientists were figuring out might be possible. But she only wanted this work harnessed for peaceful purposes, and when she was asked to join the Manhattan Project, she refused. Years later, when a reporter called her “the Mother of the Bomb,” that made her cry. And she worked all her life for peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

That summary just gives an idea of all the big parts of history this woman lived through and how much she had to struggle to even get to do her work, let alone get any credit for it. Each one of the 39 short chapters has a one-page cartoon dramatizing an event to lead off that chapter, and it does help pull the reader along. I had thought reading this book would be a chore, but it turned out to be hard to put down, and when I did manage to put it down, I kept thinking about it and eagerly went back to it.

[As for Mathical: At this point I don’t know what the committee will decide. If this book does not become an honor book, it’s not for any lack in the story. But something our committee always has to grapple with is this: Is it Mathematical enough? Lise Meitner was a physicist, not a mathematician, but it was her mastery of math that was fundamental in her calculations that the uranium atom had split. So we’ll see what the committee decides….] [And obviously, it did decide to include this book.]

One more note before I post: Although this book is listed as a juvenile biography, it’s also listed as for ages 11 to 15. I’m going to start listing books for upper elementary and middle school on my Teen Nonfiction page, to help them stand out from the many nonfiction picture books that dominate my Children’s Nonfiction page. So this is going to be a book on the younger end of Teen Nonfiction rather than the older end of Children’s Nonfiction. And teens will certainly enjoy it, too. A story of a woman overcoming all kinds of obstacles and prejudice and changing the world.

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Bitter, by Akwaeke Emezi, read by Bahni Turpin

Audiobooks, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Bitter

by Akwaeke Emezi
read by Bahni Turpin

Listening Library, 2022. 7 hours, 11 minutes.
Review written October 10, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

I heard great things about the author’s National Book Award Finalist last year, Pet, but I never did get it read. Now I am going to get my hands on it. This riveting novel was unusual and powerful. Bitter is a prequel to Pet. It’s set in a time of unrest in a city named Lucille.

Bitter is a queer Black girl who got recruited out of unloving foster care to attend a school for artists called Eucalyptus. Unfortunately, Eucalyptus is right in the city center, and the sounds of protests and violence come into Bitter’s room and fill her with fear. Some of her good friends have ties with Assata, an organization behind the protests, working for justice. Lucille is a place with police brutality based on skin color and where people in power exploit the poor.

Meanwhile, Bitter has a secret skill. She can paint small creatures and make them come to life with a drop of her blood. They don’t last long, but making them helps Bitter feel grounded and less alone.

But when one of Bitter’s friends gets horribly injured at a protest, Bitter gets angry. And she paints something bigger and more terrifying than she ever has before. When this creature comes to life, things start that Bitter doesn’t know how to control.

Something I appreciated in this novel, as opposed to some fantasy novels I read last year — I appreciated that the main characters shrank back from unnecessary violence, even in service to a needed revolution, even against people who had done terrible things. Of course, not everyone felt the same way, and events set in motion aren’t always easy to stop — but I appreciated the value placed on human life — even the life of humans who had done evil things.

akwaeke.com
listeninglibrary.com

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Review of One Big Open Sky, by Lesa Cline-Ransome

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

One Big Open Sky

by Lesa Cline-Ransome

Holiday House, 2024. 300 pages.
Review written February 13, 2025, from a library book.
Starred Review
2025 Newbery Honor Book
2025 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book

This Newbery Honor Book is a pioneer story – about a Black family. And yes, that surprised me – but it turns out it shouldn’t, because from 1879 to 1880, over 20,000 Black people left the South to head West. The author gives details in the back of the book, but it turns out that many people lived out this story – even though there’s not as much written about the Black pioneers.

One Big Open Sky is told in verse (so it doesn’t take long to read), mostly from the perspective of Lettie, a girl who’s leaving Natchez, Louisiana, with her parents and two little brothers, in a covered wagon pulled by their two mules Charly and Titus. We also get the viewpoint of her mother and a single black woman who joins their party, who’s got a position as a teacher in North Platte, Nebraska.

The family joins a group of ten Black families headed for Nebraska. Their original plan was to take a steamboat up the Mississippi River most of the way, but when none of those will stop for a group of Black folks, they decide to walk. I didn’t realize that the wagon was mainly for supplies, and there wasn’t really room enough for everyone to ride, so unless you were sick, you walked alongside.

There are several dangers and setbacks along the way. Lettie’s keeping the accounts for her parents, so she knows they can’t buy all the good things they see at their stop in Independence, Missouri. She adopts the dog of a man who dies along the way, so she has him to turn to when a loss hits even closer to home.

Now at last Black girls can see someone like them in a pioneer story, with all the danger but excitement of leaving home behind and making the long journey to a new place.

lesaclineransome.com

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Review of A Thousand Steps Into Night, by Traci Chee

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Thousand Steps Into Night

by Traci Chee

Clarion Books, 2022. 373 pages.
Review written October 7, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

From the very beginning, I felt pulled into a fairy tale. Here are the wonderful first few paragraphs:

Long ago, in the noble realm of Awara, where all creation, from the tallest peaks to the lowliest beetles, had forms both humble and divine, there lived an unremarkable girl named Otori Miuko. The daughter of the innkeeper at the only remaining guesthouse in the village of Nihaoi, Miuko was average by every conceivable standard — beauty, intelligence, the circumference of her hips — except one.

She was uncommonly loud.

Once, when she was two years old, her mother was wrestling her into one of the inn’s cedar tubs when Miuko, who had no plans for a bath that day, screamed so violently that the foundations shook, the bells rang in the nearby temple, and a respectable chunk of the dilapidated bridge spanning the river a full quarter-mile away let out a horrified groan and slid, fainting, into the water.

That was mere coincidence. Miuko had not, in fact, been the cause of an earthquake (at least not in this instance), but several of the priests, upon hearing of her peculiar vocal faculties, rushed to exorcise her all the same. No matter what spells tthey chanted or incense they burned, however, they were ultimately disappointed to discover that she was not, in fact, possessed. Instead of a demon, what her parents had on their hands was merely a loud child. Worse, a loud girl.

As you may guess, through the book, Miuko continues to be distinguished by qualities that don’t fit the expectations of the culture around her for a girl of the serving class. And it’s lovely to watch Miuko becoming more comfortable with who she is.

As the story begins, Miuko is met on the road by a death demon, who curses her with a kiss. The soles of Miuko’s feet turn bright blue, and wherever she steps, plants die. Worse, the blue color starts traveling up her legs. If it continues, she’ll become a death demon herself.

So in order to try to free herself from the curse and keep her humanity, Miuko must travel a thousand steps to the temple of the December God. Fortunately, she finds companions along her way, beginning with a magpie spirit who can take the form of a boy. Unfortunately, she also gets the attention of a demon inhabiting the body of a prince, and he wants to stop her.

It makes for a wonderful quest to heal Miuko’s curse, and ultimately to save the nation. The Japanese-inspired background of this fairy tale-type story gives it beautiful atmosphere.

The one thing I wasn’t crazy about is that there’s a time travel paradox in the middle of the book, and none of the characters comment on it at all, but just accept it as magic. Honestly, by glossing over it and not trying to explain it, the author pretty much pulls it off. But I’m persnickety about things like that, and it detracted just a tiny bit for me. But I still highly recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy.

tracichee.com
epicreads.com

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Review of That Librarian, by Amanda Jones

Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

That Librarian

The Fight Against Book Banning in America

by Amanda Jones

Bloomsbury, 2024. 269 pages.
Review written February 22, 2025, from my own copy, purchased via Amazon.com
Starred Review

That Librarian is Amanda Jones’ own story about speaking up against censorship in a meeting of her local public library board – and then relentlessly being hounded and harassed online afterward. She is a middle school librarian herself, and has won multiple awards for her work. And that fueled the flame of defamation, slander, and even death threats – the bullies said that because she’s against book bans, that makes her a purveyor of pornography to children.

I’d like to think that this is a problem mainly in red states. And, yes, the county where I work as a librarian consistently votes blue. But in view of things that have happened in the first month of the new administration, I have to take seriously this paragraph from page 5 of Project 2025:

Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual
liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.

No, I don’t believe in giving pornography to children, and neither does Amanda Jones. But they’re defining pornography as any book that acknowledges that transgender people exist. Anything that portrays same-sex couples as having loving relationships. And if you allow those books – books that resonate with citizens in our communities, books about the loving families that reside there, books that help the marginalized feel seen – the bullies label you as a sex offender – which is what they did to Amanda Jones.

Her original speech at the library board meeting didn’t mention any specific books, nor were any mentioned by the library board – but because she spoke up against book banning, she was accused of being a danger to children and wanting to put books about sex into the hands of children. This about someone who has devoted her life to serving children.

Amanda made the difficult choice to sue the main instigators for defamation. The initial case was dismissed on the grounds that she’s a “public figure,” which seems silly, since she spoke in that meeting as a parent and as a member of the community. And I just looked up on google, and after two appeals, the Louisiana Supreme Court vacated the lower court’s decision, so her case will go forward. She’s not even suing them for damages. All she’s asking for is $1 and an apology – because you don’t get to make up lies about someone and try to destroy their life.

So all that is good news, and this book gives visibility to the more and more pervasive problem of people trying to restrict their public library’s collections to only books that they think are okay. Yes, there are books in the public library that I wouldn’t give to my own children when they were young. But that doesn’t mean I should keep your children from reading them. Here’s how Amanda Jones puts it:

Freedom and parental rights are a rallying cry, but the same people who say this are trying to take away the rights of young adult readers, their parents, and others. The people who say they are for small government are pushing governmental control over what we the people have access to, and not just children. We should ALL want the freedom to read what we want to read and have access to reading materials from a variety of viewpoints. Protecting our libraries is exactly how we do that. The attack on librarians and libraries is shameful and something everyone should fear. Once they destroy our libraries and schools, what will be next? Where will it end? We must continue to speak up. That’s all we can really do. We must stand up for what is right and good, regardless of what is said about us. The book banners, the people who attacked me for daring to disagree with them, wanted to silence me. I didn’t let them. I did the opposite. For the past year, I have agreed to almost every interview requested of me to help spread the word across the nation about what is happening in our libraries and to librarians. It has been exhausting, but necessary. I will continue to speak out when asked. We have to not just for the sake of libraries but for real freedom. Everyone who can needs to speak out on behalfof those who cannot. People who are rational need to take a stand against the irrational. We must do so with grace and truth, never stooping to the tactics the pro-censors use. We are the real patriots.

I do highly recommend this book to everyone to help understand those who are attacking public libraries and our first amendment rights. There’s a chapter at the end about what you can do in your own community to support your own libraries.

Thank you, Amanda Jones, for speaking up for the freedom to read!

No one on the right side of history has ever been on the side of censorship and hiding books.

bloomsbury.com

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Review of Pride and Premeditation, by Tirzah Price, read by Morag Sims

Austenalia, Historical, Mystery, Teen Fiction Review 0

Pride and Premeditation

by Tirzah Price
read by Morag Sims

HarperAudio, 2021. 8 hours, 30 minutes.
Review written October 2, 2022, from a library eaudiobook

I always enjoy Jane Austen spin-offs. This book takes all the characters from my favorite Jane Austen book, Pride and Prejudice, and places them in a murder mystery.

They’re in a different social setting than before. Lizzie’s father Mr. Bennet is a barrister, owning the firm Longbourn and Sons, where Lizzie helps out and wants an official position. Instead she must endure it when Mr. Collins, a distant relative who will inherit the firm, takes credit for her work. Her father challenges her to solve a case using logic to prove herself.

And then she hears about the case of the murder of Mr. Hurst. His brother-in-law Mr. Bingley is accused of the murder. Lizzie hopes to insert herself into the case, but they have engaged the services of his friend Mr. Darcy, who works for the much larger legal firm, Pemberley.

What follows is a convoluted and melodramatic case. At first, I didn’t much like this version of Elizabeth Bennet. She didn’t seem nearly as clever, and was mostly jumping to conclusions in her attempts to sleuth. (Of course, I expected her to jump to the wrong conclusion about Mr. Wickham.)

The author does admit in a note at the end that a woman could not have done the things Lizzie does in this book. But beyond that, the solution to the case seemed a bit coincidental and convoluted.

But when I stopped worrying about the logic behind things, I had to admit it was a fun ride. And it’s always fun to watch Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy gradually change their opinions of one another, whatever the setting.

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Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?