What are you reading now?: December 28, 2024

Halfway through Descendant Machine. There will be a forced march through The Fatal Fortress, Empire of Rubber, and Absolution to wrap up the year.

Come the first of the new year I expect to be reading The Battle of Britain in the Modern Age, 1965-2020.

I finished up Shift and then Dust by Hugh Howey. The second and third books in the Silo trilogy. I wasn't very fond of the second book (I found it rather boring). I was much happier with the third novel although it resorted to some common cliches of the genre.

Now I'm starting the more serious Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum.

Ellie And the Harp Maker – Hazel Prior
Digital audiobook performed by Katherine Lee McEwan and Philip Battley
4****

Ellie Jacob goes for a walk on the anniversary of her father’s death and stumbles upon a barn. Dan Hollis is a harp maker who uses the barn as his workshop. Dan isn’t like most people, but he is a kind and generous man. When he learns that Ellie has “playing the harp” on her “to do before I turn forty” list, he gives her one of the harps, and thus begins their relationship.

I really enjoyed this modern-day fable. I loved seeing how Ellie grew emotionally throughout the book, how she became more self-confident and came to recognize her situation clearly. Dan also grew throughout the book. He is clearly on the spectrum, but as he gets to know Ellie, he learns that he can expand his horizons beyond the barn and harps.

Both Ellie and Dan have loved ones who are fiercely (and perhaps, unwarrantedly) protective of them. Dan’s sister is suspicious of Ellie and of Dan’s girlfriend Rhoda (aka Roe Deer). Ellie’s husband Clive is suspicious of anyone/anything that takes attention away from him.

I loved spending time with these characters in the English moors. There are several bumps in the road here, but I was with them all along and Prior gave the reader a perfect heart-warming ending.

Katherine Lee McEwan and Philip Battley perform the audio edition of this work, alternating as the book’s point of view shifts between Ellie and Dan. This was very effective, and I’m glad the producers chose two narrators. Battley does a particularly good job of bringing Dan to life.

A Snow Country Christmas– Linda Lael Miller
3***

A typical cowboy Christmas romance. Hollywood A-lister producer Mick Branson is coming back to Mustang Creek, Wyoming, to discuss a possible job offer with Raine McCall, a talented and fiercely independent woman he first met when he was in town overseeing a documentary filmed by Raine’s ex-squeeze (and father of her daughter). But Mick has an ulterior motive, because he fell in love with Raine the day he met her, and he’s contrived this visit to ensure that she also feels that spark.

The tropes are all here, but who cares. Love the snowy setting, the Christmas cheer, the uber wealthy Branson who has managed to get unique and spectacularly appropriate gifts for virtually everyone, and the fiercely independent Raine who is ready to succumb to “Mr Hollywood.”

I think this is first Miller romance I’ve read, though she is a VERY prolific writer, with scores of books. She provides plenty of romance and a little, very discreet, sex.