Hello friends! Here we are, meeting once again for the last time in 2023. What wonders do the shelves have for us this week?
Well, let’s start with Rebecca Ross’s Ruthless Vows, wherein “Iris and Attie seize another chance to report on Dacre’s movements, while Roman, who’s lost his memory and is stuck in Dacre’s realm, becomes entangled in a mysterious pen pal correspondence, leading to a pivotal decision that could impact the course of the war and his relationship with Iris.”
If you feel like you’re wandering in at intermission, you are! This is the smashing follow-up to Ross’s Divine Rivals, where everything is Bigger! Louder! More Magical! It’s also the conclusion of this duology, and what better way to round out the year than eight hundred pages of angsty teens finding one another across a war-torn landscape?
Okay, we hear you in the back. “With dragons” is a perfectly suitable answer, but look, Iron Flame just came out, like, six weeks ago. Give the author a chance to write the third book, would you?
And speaking of Rebecca Yarros, her publisher is seizing the moment to reissue some of her romance backlist. This week’s re-entry to the shelves is Beyond What is Given, an entry in Yarros’s Flight & Glory series about hot helicopter pilots and the free-spirited distractions that bring out the yaw in their pitch, if you know what we mean. Remember “when lines are crossed and secrets are exposed, it’s the answered prayers that will put you through hell.”
This sounds like someone has been learning how to write flap copy from William W. Johnstone books.
Speaking of which, what’s going on with Dead Man Johnstone this week? Well, two books actually. The first is Preacher’s Bloody Rampage, the hundred and eleventieth book in the First / Last / Middle Mountain Man series. This is different, of course, from Rampage of the Mountain Man, which would be a Middle Mountain Man (also known as Smoke Jensen) novel. Preacher—are you still following along?—is the first Mountain Man, and it’s entirely possible he’s related to Smoke Jensen, but we’d have to dig into the archives to check, and our heads are already spinning.
The second is Killers Never Sleep, and it stars Sherrif Buck Trammel of Laramie. Now, in this book, Sherrif Trammel runs afoul of Ben Washington and his gang of “murdering prairie rats” who have been terrorizing Wyoming Territory for quite some time. When word spreads of Washington’s capture (not the state, nor George), a gambler named Adam Hagen starts wagering about the outlaw’s fate. This wagering stacks up a pile of coin, which attracts the attention of those “gorged on greed” cutthroats the LeBlanc Brothers. And so, the LeBlancs team up with Washington’s prairie rats (remember: not the state, nor George), and it’s up to Trammel and his deputies (Sherwood Blake and John “Hawkeye” Hauk—what? They’re named on the first page) to stand up for Wyoming (the territory, not the state, nor a person).
We have no idea what happens to Adam Hagen.
And there will definitely be a quizz later.
A much less complicated book is Olivia Luchini’s Love from Godzilla, which is an adorable young reader book for Valentine’s Day, which is not next week, but . . .
Okay, look. It’s got cute pictures of kaiju. And you know that all Godzilla ever wanted was a hug, even if his arms weren’t long enough to reach all the way around. Think of how much property destruction could have been avoided over the years.
And speaking of easy to avoid mistakes, here is finance guru Vivian Tu’s Rich AF: The Winning Money Mindset That Will Change Your Life. Tu, TikTok star and ‘Your Rich BFF’ on social media, has some opinions about the financial advice that’s been offered over the last few decades (“male, pale, and stale,” to be blunt, in fact), and Rich AF offers blueprints, roadmaps, and toolsets to help you build your winningest financial strategy.
And speaking of finding your bliss, here is Niki Brantmark’s Njuta: Enjoy, Delight In: The Swedish Art of Savoring the Moment. Njuta—a philosophy deeply ingrained in the Swedish psyche—is about being present and enjoying the simple, uh, simplicity of every day actions. Now, this is different than the Danish hygge, which is all about being cozy and finding comfort in simple things, and the Finnish Häyhä, which is the simple joy of putting a 7.62x54mmR bullet through the eye of a Russian soldier at 500 meters (your fourth for the day).
It’s important to know how to tell the difference between Scandanavian neighbors. Especially in winter. Doubly so if you’re not supposed to be on someone else’s property.
Anyway, Brantmark’s book is just about the same size as Meik Wiking’s The Little Book of Hygge, which means they’ll look adorable on the shelf together.
(You could, if pressed, hollow out a copy of either of these books, and hide about a dozen 7.62x54mmR cartridges inside, which is a detail we’ll leave here for the cozy murder writer among us who might need this piece of trivia.)
And speaking of useful knowledge, Adam Grant’s Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know is out in paperback this week. See? You’ve learned two things now. Your brain is growing!
Grant has been promoting mental flexibility for awhile now, and Think Again is his deep dive on how we learn, why we should unlearn, and how to build those emotional and mental muscles we need to fully engage with a changing world. Too often, we shy away from things we disagree with or don’t understand. Grant argues that these divisive moments are opportunities to expand our minds. It’s comforting (even, dare we say, Hyggean or Njutaesque) to surround ourselves with the agreeable, but such tunnel-vision and myopicness can be dangerous. Open your mind, Grant argues. Open other people’s minds too!
And speaking of finding success, here is Ali Abdaal’s Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You. Dr. Abdaal, the world’s most-followed productivity expert, has discovered the true secret to productivity. It’s joy. That’s it. Three letters. J-O-Y.
The other 300 pages of this book are the practical conversation around finding JOY, keeping JOY, what happens when JOY runs off because your attention wandered, and the best way to hunt JOY down and shove it in a sack so that it doesn’t run away again.
Oh, sorry. In Dr. Abdaal’s book, he outlines the trinity of “blockers,” “energizers,” and “sustainers” that are helpful in maintaining a high level of joy in your life, thereby extending and raising your productivity. Simple, actionable changes! Achieve more! Live more joyously! Start today!
And finally, here is Owen Davies’s Troubled by Faith: Insanity and the Supernatural in the Age of the Asylum. With the rise of psychiatry in the 19th century, how we viewed madness and abberent behavior changed dramatically. The influence of religion and other faith-based ideologies became significant measures of insanity, as psychologists thought their new insights could explain away hundreds and hundreds of years of strange beliefs. But all this newfound “scientific” knowledge didn’t do away with faith or belief, it merely codified into something else—something to be viewed with a bit of side-eye. Davies argues for a more cogent consideration of the value and importance of faith and folklore in society. A fascinating read that has parallels in today’s world. Recommended.
As we sign off for the year, we’ll leave you with this picture and one word.
“Shenanigans.”
We’ll probably close early on New Year’s Eve, and we’ll be closed on New Year’s Day. Plan accordingly.
