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Charming Romances: Seas and Greetings & The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

29 Oct

Seas and Greetings
by Julie Murphy and Sierra Simone
Seas and Greetings is part of the Christmas Notch in July Novella series, a spin off from Murphy and Simone’s holiday series, that takes place during the Summer Months and features romance for some of the secondary characters in the main line novel. I had previously reviewed their first book, A Merry Little Meet Cute. Addison Hayes is a former singer/child star who dreams of business success; the first step is a cruise featuring a Twilight Musical. Addison hires a former stunt woman, Krysta Morton to be her body guard on board. At first things seem a bit chilly on Krysta’s side, but they soon heat up on the tropical cruise. Addison is keeping a secret about a stalker though and time is ticking down for her to come clean to Krysta before it kills her budding relationship and possibly her. A lot is packed into this short piece that is only a little over 100 pages; perfect for someone looking for some spicy fun without a huge time commitment.

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches
by Sangu Mandanna
The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches is the sweet cozy fantasy romance we picked for our October, annual Halloween read, for our Hoboken Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Discussion. Mika Moon is an orphan like all witches. She has stuck to the rules her foster mom, another powerful witch, has taught her over the years which has been to keep to herself and only rarely spend time with other witches. But what she thinks will be a harmless online videos of “pretending” to be a witch draws the attention of a found family with three young witches desperately in need of a magical tutor; her lonely life might finally be over, especially if she can thaw the heart of the young witches’ father figure, a grumpy librarian, with his own secrets. This a book satisfying from beginning to end and should be a hit with fans of TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea. You can also check out Mandanna’s latest novel A Witch’s Guide to Magical Innkeeping. Next month the group will be reading Vaishnavi Patel’s Kaikeyi.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager


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Two Out of this World Reads by John Scalzi: When the Moon Hits Your Eye and Old Man’s War

26 Mar

When the Moon Hits Your Eye
by John Scalzi
Science Fiction legend, John Scalzi’s latest takes a nod from the classic crooner song That’s Amore and wonders what would happen if one day the moon didn’t just look like Swiss cheese due to its craters, but one day actually was cheese. When the Moon Hits Your Eye, is an epistolary novel with bits of
ephemera including newspaper articles and transcripts of presentations by experts that occurred when the moon went from being rocks to suddenly being made of cheese. Most of the novel occurs close to when the change happened, but starts fast-forwarding in time towards the end of the story. The many perspectives range from astronauts to religious leaders, which gives added reality to such an outlandish premise and how different people would come to accept the new way of the world. There are some very funny sections and very cheesy puns and also some very touching moments. My favorite day/chapter was about a woman who has always wanted to be a writer since she was a young girl, but got so trapped in wanting her novel to be perfect she kept rewriting and workshopping the same few paragraphs over and over; the moon incident finally gives her the nudge she needs. This may not appeal to some hard Science Fiction fans since the cheese moon’s behavior is only loosely reality based, but for those that like to see a master story teller’s imagination take flight, this will be a delight.

Old Man’s War
by John Scalzi
We read Scalzi’s classic novel, The Old Man’s War for our January Hoboken Library Science Fiction and Fantasy Book Discussion. We had previously read his novels Red Shirts and Kaiju Preservation Society, making him currently the most read author for the group. His creative stories and fun humor make him popular with the group members. Old Man’s War takes the idea of Starship Troopers where military service is necessary to protect human colonies and allow people to expand beyond earth, but asks what would it be like if those doing the fighting weren’t young people, but senior citizens given new and improved bodies but all of their previous life experience still in their mind. Like the other novels we read this one is filled with humor, which reminded me more of the Starship Troopers film than book. But it also asks some philosophical questions about what makes us human and the ethics of expanding one’s life beyond its natural period which lead to an interesting discussion. There are several more books in the series if you enjoy Old Man’s War including The Ghost Brigades, The Last Colony, and Zoe’s Tale. If you are interested you can join us in April for our next book discussion.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

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