Missive #472 Published 1 April 2025

What would you do if the person you loved suddenly vanished into thin air? Catherine’s cosy life as a housewife and mum-of-three is quickly thrown into disarray when husband Simon disappears without explanation. She is convinced he hasn’t left by choice as confusion and spiraling debts threaten to tear her family apart.

Missive #470 Published 29 March 2025

Neoreaction is not your grandfather's conservatism, but the web 2.0 era marriage between modern engineering principles and classical anti-democratic thought. Its central tenet is that the Enlightenment was a mistake, and in The Dark Enlightenment, Nick Land burns progressivism to the ground, salts the earth around its ashes, and raises an altar to anti-humanism in its place.

Missive #468 Published 25 March 2025

The ordeals faced by a group of pioneers journeying from Illinois to California in 1846. Jacob and George Donner knew that the trip from Illinois to California would be long and difficult, but they had read a bout a newly discovered shortcut that would make the trip somewhat easier. Even so, the going was rough.
This is a short book that tells the story of the Donner Party which as been told at great length by other authors. A good quick read. .

Missive #467 Published 24 March 2025

A long out-of-print classic, Lower Piedmont Country is set in northeastern Alabama, although the narrative encompasses the region form the Mississippi Delta to the Virginia Tidewater. The book surveys the history, politics, religion, economy (both rural and industrial), and folkways of the hill-country people as the author knew them during the Depression and war years.

Missive #464 Published 20 March 2025

This was the first in a series of romantic suspense books (2006) that is not nearly as good as The Patient's Secret (2022). I'll continue reading the series and subsequent ones just to see how the author improved her writing over the years. It is not a bad book but is somewhat a bodice ripper published by Harlequin Romantic Suspense.

Missive #463 Published 18 March 2025

As the war which consumes Dervelai drags on, the reserves of Algarve are ever more stretched. King Mezentio's armies become sucked into the huge landmass of Unkerlant. As more and more of the hated Kaunians are sacrificed for blood magic, conquered races are indected into the Algarvian army, and their fighting edge becomes blunted. While at home, both men and women come to doubt the war and its purposes. Harry Turtledove's blending of World War Two with fantasyhas already gained enormous praise. As a myriad of characters deal with reality, this is a tapestry of the finest writing the genre can create.