Blogversary #6

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4 stars, 5 stars, Andy Weir, Anna Lee Huber, blog anniversary, Cecilia Dominic, Celine Jeanjean, Coreene Callahan, Donna S. Frelick, Eva Jurczyk, Everina Maxwell, Jenny Ashcroft, Jodi Taylor, Juliet Marillier, Lindsay Ellis, Martha Wells, MaryJanice Davidson, N.K. Jemisin, Nancy Warren, Olivia Waite, Patricia Briggs, Pauline Baird Jones, Susanna Kearsley

Today is the sixth anniversary of Whiskey With My Book.  Over its short lifespan, the types of posts have changed but the basic premise remains the same.  I started blogging because I love to read great books and I want to share them with like-minded people like you.

Today, 98% of my posts are book reviews.  While I do take requests for book reviews, mostly I review books that I choose.  Lately, I have become even more picky about what I choose to read and review.  Taking the time to read a book and then write a meaningful review takes valuable time.  I want don’t want to squander it on something that I cannot recommend.  That is why 4 and 5 stars are the norm for this blog. 

Last year I had a total of 68 posts.  It was kind of a slow year for posting reviews.  But it was a big year for reading.  172 books all together.  35 of those were children’s picture books that I must read as a librarian.  I listened to 38 audiobooks.  The rest fall into various and overlapping categories that include mystery, romance, scifi, historical and paranormal.  If you would like to know the titles, I read, here is my Goodreads Year in Books 2021.       

Today, I will share some highlight of what I read in 2021. If anything interests you, click on the book covers to take you to Amazon.

Highlights of 2021

The Vanished Days by Susanna Kearsley – I absolutely loved The Winter Sea and The Firebird by this author.  The Vanished Days is a prequel to this Scottish/Slains series.  The author employs her typical epic storytelling combined with her keen ability to drop clues and reveal truths in a way Kearsley historical fiction fans have come to appreciate.

A Song of Flight by Juliet Marillier – This book was a beautiful wrap -up for Marillier’s Warrior Bards fantasy series.  I was crying at the beginning (sadness) and at the end (happiness). I am such a fan of her beautiful storytelling.

Plan for the Worst by Jodi Taylor – Every book in this series both breaks my heart and gives me hope.  But this one was so, so, so!  If you read the series you understand. If you don’t read the series – you should! Definitely one of the best of the time-travel series out there.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir – A lot of science gobbledygook wrapped up in a drama of world-ending crisis, friendship, heartbreak and triumph.  My first Andy Weir book – I’d read him again.

New books in series I love to follow…

These are the series I keep reading.  Mind you, not all series keep me interested past 3 books.  A fact, I think, that some authors have figured out because they end series with book 3.  But these are stories that I have not grown tired of, in fact I look forward to more of them. I will continue to read them as long as the authors continue to write them:

King of Pain (Interstellar Rescue) by Donna S. Frelick – Scifi Romance

Cosmic Boom (Project Enterprise) by Pauline Baird Jones – Scifi Romance

Books 1-6 in Celine Jeanjean’s Razor’s Edge series – Urban Fantasy

Books 3 and 4 in The Fae Files by Cecilia Dominic – Paranormal Romance

A Wicked Conceit (Lady Darby) by Anna Lee Huber – Historical Mystery

Queer fiction…

I normally gravitate to books about strong-willed heterosexual women and the men they love.  Occasionally I read outside my box and this year I found two I really liked. 

The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite is a historical romance about two women who really prefer to have control over their own lives.  Winter’s Orbit by new author Everina Maxwell is scifi romance and one of my favorite books of the year. It features two men from different worlds who find out how much they want each other while solving a techno-political mystery.

Palette Cleanser

Cozy mysteries are like the sherbet course between other courses.  They cleanse the palette.  Vampire Knitting Club series by Nancy Warren is a funny, fun series that combines mystery, paranormal and fine needlework – a combination that can’t be beat!

What’s wrong with this world?

Over the last two years, much has happened that has made me consider writing blogs that reflect more personal socio-political views.  But this blog is about enjoying great books, so you will not see those types of posts here.  However, I am not against recommending books that either reflect a personal view or give you cause the think about what is wrong with this world. 

Emergency Skin by N.K. Jemison – Brilliant Scifi short story!  When the elite humans need to return to the Earth they abandoned for a better life, they might find out they are not so elite after all.

A Wolf After My Own Heart by MaryJanice Davidson – this paranormal romance has so many hilarious and sobering comments about characters and events in the story that reflect what is going on in the real world.  I will definitely continue to read this author.

Axiom’s End and Truth of the Divine by Lindsay Ellis – I enjoyed both of these scifi stories about first contact.  One of the major premises is that a little leads to a lot.  That is a very simplified statement, but if you consider that this can apply to limiting individual rights or censorship, it says a lot.

Rediscovered Authors

I read 3 books in the Dragonfury series from Coreen Callahan.  She does a fine job telling the story of heroic male dragon shifters finding their high energy females.  Easy to read, fast moving plots.   Fun!   I’ve read all of Patricia Briggs Alpha and Omega series, but before 2021, had never read any of the related Mercy Thompson series.  Books 1-5 on audiobook sped by and I hope to catch up the rest of the series in 2022.  I really like coyote walker Mercy Thompson and werewolf Adam Hauptman.  The ties to Alpha and Omega is just an added benefit.

Over-rated

Some books just don’t live up their hype.  Fugitive Telemetry by Martha Wells is the 6^th book in the series.  It was waning with book 5, but I read one more.  Murderbot is a fascinating, much-loved character, but has lost its charm by this point.  End of series for me.  In 2021, I read The Department of Rare Books and Special Collections by Eva Jurczyk which releases 1/25/22.  As a librarian, I was eager to read the mystery.  The book has gotten some hype, but just didn’t do much for me. Good enough to finish. I may go ahead and review and then you can decide.  

A good one to look forward to:

Under the Golden Sun by Jenny Ashcroft – this was my first and last review for Library Journal.  The unique voice had me mesmerized. I really enjoyed this one!  Look for this Pacific theatre WWII historical novel to be released in March this year. 

Thanks for being with me through the last 6 years. I’m sure there will be a lot of great new books to talk about in 2022. I look forward to sharing some of them with you!

Truth of the Divine (Noumena, #2) by Lindsay Ellis – Review

Tags

4 stars, aliens, Book Review, conspiracy, first contact, humanity, Lindsay Ellis, scifi

About Truth of the Divine by Lindsay Ellis

The human race is at a crossroads; we know that we are not alone, but details about the alien presence on Earth are still being withheld from the public. As the political climate grows more unstable, the world is forced to consider the ramifications of granting human rights to nonhuman persons. How do you define “person” in the first place?

Cora Sabino not only serves as the full-time communication intermediary between the alien entity Ampersand and his government chaperones but also shares a mysterious bond with him that is both painful and intimate in ways neither of them could have anticipated. Despite this, Ampersand is still keen on keeping secrets, even from Cora, which backfires on them both when investigative journalist Kaveh Mazandarani, a close colleague of Cora’s unscrupulous estranged father, witnesses far more of Ampersand’s machinations than anyone was meant to see.

Since Cora has no choice but to trust Kaveh, the two must work together to prove to a fearful world that intelligent, conscious beings should be considered persons, no matter how horrifying, powerful, or malicious they may seem. Making this case is hard enough when the public doesn’t know what it’s dealing with―and it will only become harder when a mysterious flash illuminates the sky, marking the arrival of an agent of chaos that will light an already-unstable world on fire.

With a voice completely her own and more than a million YouTube subscribers, Lindsay Ellis deepens her realistic exploration of the reality of a planet faced with the presence of extraterrestrial intelligence, probing the essential questions of humanity and decency, and the boundaries of the human mind.

While asking the question of what constitutes a “person,” Ellis also examines what makes a monster.

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Review of Truth of the Divine

I read this book because I liked the first one, Axiom’s End.  It had lots of heart and even ended hopefully.  Truth of the Divine starts with a trigger warning about suicide.  Which was not at all what I was expecting.  For anyone that might want to know, discussion of suicide is in the book but it is not the biggest part of the story.

Truth of the Divine continues the story of first contact with a species that is technologically advanced and also very different from humans.  Physically, emotionally and philosophically different.   First contact issues common in fiction and movies are present in this book. Many fear the aliens.  The military want to control/study them.  Many view the aliens as possible allies.  But there is an overall sense of wariness. 

The biggest question is about how the aliens can fit into human society.  The book takes a deep dive into social politics and never comes up for air.  Equating biases against the aliens to biases against humans that are different from those in power is a common theme.  And a relevant one.

Kaveh is a new character in this book.  He is a Pulitzer prize winning writer who’s Persian family is now firmly ensconced in American society – economically if not socially.  He brings his own experience to the alien question.

Cora, the main human character from Axiom’s End, becomes a stronger character in this book, while having her weaknesses.  Her relationship with the aliens makes her a key person in the political debate. 

The alien characters were not well developed except in their role in upsetting the status quo of the United States and the world.  And I’m not sure we needed to know more about them.  After all, Truth of the Divine is ultimately about the human response to the aliens.

I felt like the entire story was all a setup for Kaveh’s essay that is presented at the end of the book.  The essay, which seems to be a platform for the writer’s views, reiterates the socio-political themes throughout the book.  The essay is a bit much after reading the whole book. 

Set in the context of first alien contact, Truth of the Divine as well as its predecessor, Axiom’s End, gives the reader a fascinating, if sometimes less than flattering, look at humanity.

Thanks to the publisher who provided a copy through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

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