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.
Missive #460 Published 11 March 2025
Tells the stories of explorers, mountain men, missionaries, thieves, settlers, naturalists, and writers associated with the Sierra Nevada Mountains and discusses the history of the region.
This is the ninth in the American Folkways Series and like most of them it has almost nothing on the web about it. It also has almost no readers at Amazon or goodreads.com.
Missive #458 Published 8 March 2025
A hallowed place it may be, but No 5 Caper Court in the Inner Temple is riddled with rumour and uncertainty. The head of chambers is dying; there is a move afoot to leave the Temple for Lincoln's Inn; and Leo Davies, the QC with the charmed and amoral life, is about to take one risk too many. Behind him lie a failed marriage, a string of lovers, and a habit of seductive cruelty which, until now, has left him unscathed. But at least two chickens are coming home to roost:..
Missive #456 Published 5 March 2025
Luther Eustis runs off with and then murders Beulah, his much younger girlfriend. The book starts with his murder trial and his guilt is not in dispute. What makes this book entertaining are the character studies and back stories of the people who tell the story of this crime in alternating chapters. These chapters gradually reveal all of the circumstances surrounding the murder. We hear from the murderer, his wife, the victim, the murderer's defense lawyer, a reporter and others. It was very well written and the narration of the audio book by Grover Gardner was very good.
Missive #455 Published 3 March 2025
The Road by Cormac McCarthy is an awful, awful book. I have to consciously restrain myself from judging those of you who believe the book has merit. Don’t worry, the fact that I’m part of a very small minority in this regard (only the smartest 3% of my fellow Goodreads bibliophiles also gave The Road a one-star review) has not escaped me. I am nevertheless convinced of the objective correctness of my position… Edited customer review @ goodreads.com