Review: Dead Beat

Dead Beat by Leigh Bardugo
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

After all these years, Bardugo’s best known modern and least-for-children fantasy saga reaches its long awaited conclusion. Each book having taken three years or more to come along, it’s easy to see why, with all the extensively researched Yale geography and architecture, as well as the deeply detailed occult stories - this one, in particular, feels like Bardugo really got into the nearest Egyptologist’s library, more so than ever before. While the first two books form a duology of their own, of sorts, this book’s forward momentum really brings the story to its logical conclusion, while still leaving room for further mysteries down the line if Bardugo ever gets to write them. Until then, this trilogy officially gets its ave atque vale.

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Review: Tempest

Tempest by Victoria Aveyard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Aveyard’s official adult debut, her love letter to Pirates of the Caribbean, isn’t getting as much love as her previous books. Hell, the first online response I saw was a Threads post calling this book “shit from a butt.” Well, it’s not my favorite from Aveyard by a long shot, but it’s clearly a labor of love for her.

Review: Sunderworld, Vol. 2: The Unfortunate Responsibilities of Leopold Berry

Sunderworld, Vol. 2: The Unfortunate Responsibilities of Leopold Berry by Ransom Riggs
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's Ransom Riggs.

Pre-ordering IMMEDIATELY.

And after a long delay, where my initial preorder in 2025 got canceled and Riggs wound up postponing this book to 2026, he ultimately revised his trilogy plans to another duology, with the result that this book wound up being a bit longer than its predecessor and did, to an extent, feel like two books compressed into one to follow up on Book 1's cliffhanger. As for this book's ending...that can NOT be the ending, Mr. Riggs. It's just too damn good, and there's still so much to see and do in Sunder for Leopold and Emmet and Isabel and... REDACTED

Perhaps the biggest surprise of this book was how it completely flipped the horrible father figure we knew from Book 1 on his head. When I read Book 1, my first thought was that Richter was the absolute worst, such a massive and irredeemable douchecanoe, but this book reveals the truth hidden behind layers of memory revisions more than even the first book could show us.

As always, Riggs delivers a five-star read, reinforcing his status as one of the absolute best YA writers since my own young adult days. And with that, I hereby bid his second great series ave atque vale.

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Review: Blind Descent

Blind Descent by Nevada Barr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The sixth Anna Pigeon novel now goes to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, not too far from Guadalupe Mountain where her first book took place, but now with a far more intense and claustrophobic setting deep underground. This time, I was able to get an original hardcover from the 90s, including maps of the caverns which Anna explores in the course of this mystery printed inside both the front and back covers, and it hammers home just how perilous this particular journey is when these caves are so full of tight passageways and steep drops. "On rope," "off rope," and hope to God it's safe.

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Review: The Shadow Friends

The Shadow Friends by Tess Gerritsen
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

OLD PINECONE GENERAL’S WARNING: Any similarity to real life Russian biohazards is entirely coincidental.

And yet, let’s not forget, Dr. Tess Gerritsen is a retired practitioner writing in a world of olden spies, so of course she’ll keep abreast of developments in the geopolitical and medical spheres. And let’s be honest, who among us would have been at all surprised that a real life Russian lab may have had a leak of the plague, and the only reason it’s hit the world news is because Putin wanted it to, or is finally losing his grip over Mother Russia’s total control?

Either way, this has proven the most eerily timely entry yet in the mysteries of the Martini Club, for good reason.

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Review: Not Till We Are Lost

Not Till We Are Lost by Dennis E. Taylor
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is as far as the books have gone, although I’m pretty sure there’s a sixth book that’s still Audible only for now. But this, I’m afraid, is as far as I go, Bobs. Another rambler of a book jumping forward and backward in time with choppy pacing and tons of POV’s to follow, and so, with my regrets, I’m considering this the point where I have to jump off before this series really starts to spark misery for me instead of joy.

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Review: The Sixth Faction

The Sixth Faction by Veronica Roth
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

lol not the dummies already trying to tank this book’s rating.

In this house, though?

VRoth gets respect for life.