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Time trials in The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
Time-travel is a tricky subject, both to read and to write about. When done well, time-travel stories can be suspenseful and thrilling. Hermione’s Time-Turner adventures, even with their flaws, taught me how much character writing can impact a time-travel plot. More recently, The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle set up an unputdownable Golden Age
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Atmospheric puzzling in The Last Murder at the End of the World
Mysteries are like comfort food for me – familiar, soothing, a pattern that never fails to please. Like with the best comfort food, even slight tweaks on the typical formula can keep the recipes fresh. But every once in a while, you find a recipe writer that does such unexpected, creative things that they force
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Prophecies, puzzles, and legacy hijinks in How to Solve Your Own Murder
As a mystery fan, I constantly find myself wishing for books with both a human element and a really tricky puzzle. Modern mysteries frequently seem to focus on one or the other. Cozies love human connection, but their puzzles are often predictable, especially reading at a meta-level. And modern stories that focus on the crime
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TCO Reviews: The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai
The January rain in San Francisco always makes me want to curl up with a blanket, a steaming mug, and a cozy book. After the rush of holidays, it’s nice to use the quiet space to rest my body and my spirit. So I have been looking especially forward to this next ARC of The
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TCO Reviews: The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder by C.L. Miller
Perhaps my favorite class in high school was Art History. I loved everything about it – learning about the stories behind each slide, both the depictions and the stories of creation. And, surprising nobody, the art world has always intrigued me, particularly art crime. (I have a sizable collection of books on forgery!) So when
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TCO Reviews: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
Man oh man do I feel lucky about my January ARC lineup. It’s been a minute since I’ve really indulged in fantasy stories, but by fair my favorite sub-genre is hard fantasy. If the book has complex political intrigue and (ideally) a good dose of economic speculation, I will munch it right up. And perhaps
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TCO Reviews: Everyone on This Train is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson
One of my very first ARC reviews was Benjamin Stevenson’s Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone. I still remember inhaling it on the plane last year, amazed at every new twist and turn. It had been so long since a modern mystery excited me, and I felt so lucky to be reading it. And
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TCO Reviews: West Heart Kill by Dann McDorman
Mystery stories exist on a spectrum. Some are adventures, masquerading as mysteries: they set up a puzzle that can’t be solved with the textual information. Others are “pure” mysteries – the only puzzle is the plot, with all the focus on figuring out whodunnit. And then a third, rare category adds another set of layers
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TCO Reviews: Last Word to the Wise
You can tell that after weeks of reading spy stories and fantasies, I’m in the mood for something cozy. So I’m delighted that the Christie sisters returned for some more bookshop-based sleuthing in Last Word to the Wise. Like any good cozy + Agatha fan, I had a great time with Dead and Gondola, the
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TCO Reviews: The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft
I love stories about magic. I love stories abut mystery. And I love stories of adventure. So when I came upon The Hexologists by Josiah Bancroft, I knew I had to give it a try. (Thanks to NetGalley and Orbit for the gift copy!) The Hexologists follows a wife-and-husband duo of adventurers, the Wilbys, who