Somehow, February is already over. I’m not sure how we got through two months of the year so quickly! This month has been a busy one, both at home and at work. But, I still got some reading in, most of it accretive to my 52 Book Club goals. Plus, I finally caved and got a Steam deck, which means I’ve had a lot of cozy mystery games to play with.
We’ll start with my my reading for the month…
52 Book Club challenge update
Beyond my Tahoe reading, this month I dug into…
1. A pun in the title: A Magic Steeped in Poison
A court fantasy where tea is an integral part of the magic system? You can count me in. A Magic Steeped in Poison follows Ning as she makes her way through a tea-brewing competition to land a place at court. Her real goal? Get an antidote to the poison slowly killing her sister. However, Ning quickly finds herself entrenched in much more complex court intrigue than she bargained for.
I was hoping for a little more clarity on the tea magic system itself. While it started out somewhat sensible, it was never precisely clear how the shennong-shi used tea to funnel their magic. A Magic Steeped in Poison is probably the softest magic system I’ve read in a while. However, I enjoyed the court intrigues enough to finish up the duology. (More on that later…)
9. Genre 4 – Set in Winter: Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales
Emily Wilde is back! This is probably the read I was most excited for this month, given how much I LOVED the prior two books. But while the latest entry keeps up the diary format, it leans much more romantic than its predecessors. Compendium is less “faerie tale” and more “fairy tale”. And if you love the characters and want to find out what’s happening to them, that may be find. But be warned that some of the knotty academic thinking and general introversion of the prior two installments has been replaced by more traditional romantasy fare.
42. Non-human antagonist: A Venom Dark and Sweet
A Venom Dark and Sweet concludes Judy I. Lin’s tea-based fantasy duology. It was… entirely standard for the genre. The story follows Ning and Kang as they wrestle with Kang’s father’s revolution… and the possibility that there’s supernatural influence over the whole affair.
If you were at all excited about the tea magic, there’s little here to enjoy. Ning references it every once in a while, but none of her powers are explained well. (I’m not sure why she can speak to bamboo now?) I came to the duology excited about a potentially unique premise – tea as magic. But unfortunately, Lin wasn’t able to carry the worldbuilding through, reverting to more traditional fantasy tropes to finish the story. (On the bright side, writing this made me rage-search for other tea-based fantasy. So hopefully more to come on this topic…)
43. Explores social class: Pretty Things
(Covered in my Tahoe post!)
45. Author releases more than one book a year: Peril in Paperback
(Ditto!)
48. Related to the word “puzzle”: The Rose Code
The Rose Code follows three Bletchley Park employees in parallel narratives through WWII and some years later. I had already read and loved Kate Quinn’s The Alice Network, and was excited to see what she had to say about BP, the (now-famous) hub of code-breaking. The narrative starts post-WWII, with the women dispersed, and one locked in an asylum. When she reaches out to her former friends for help, all the memories of their time at BP come flooding back…
It’s an effective parallel story, and Quinn takes the time to develop all three protagonists. There’s Osla, socialite, Prince Phillip’s girlfriend, desperate to be more than a pretty face. There’s Mab, a bombshell with a dark past, hoping to marry up. And then there’s Beth, quiet, unassuming, and a brilliant code-cracker. Quinn makes each of these women feel real, and through them is able to bring the fear and uncertainty of the War to life. My one gripe – and a relatively minor one – is that the story feels like it runs a little long, particularly the earliest segments. But if you like feminist stories with a code-breaking flavor, I’d highly recommend giving The Rose Code a try.
50. Set in the 1940s: Book and Dagger
Book and Dagger bills itself as the untold story of the librarians and other bookish humans who helped win WWII. At the highest level, it follows three protagonists: Joseph Curtiss, a Yale English professor; Sherman Kent, a Yale history professor; and Adele Kibre, a Chicago archivist. Curtiss, deployed to Istanbul when the local OSS office was falling apart, quickly rose to lead his local counter-espionage outfit. Kent, meanwhile, rose to head Research and Analysis for Europe and Africa out of D.C., establishing many of the foundational principles of analysis still used today. And Kibre scours Europe for specific archival materials, requested by her colleagues back home.
Graham argues that World War II was won by these professorial types, able to find and interpret signals from the slimmest of messages. And for the most part, she’s able to do so compellingly. Each chapter is well-composed, but Graham jumps from topic to topic in a way that makes it hard to follow the thread of her argument. And she includes certain components (retelling the story of Operation Mincemeat, for example), that seem to dilute her argument, expanding from curators of information to artists and other non-scientists. Still, a fun read – I found myself reading passages aloud to my partner more than once – and one that lands the point when you “zoom out”.
Some thoughts on February
Overall, a bit more conservative / “in my wheelhouse” than I was hoping it would be. (Though I did branch out to more historical reading than I have in a while!) But there’s a whole ten months ahead of me to spend reading the final 28 books in the challenge a little more deliberately. And as I look at the prompts ahead, I know that there will be plenty to stretch my boundaries…
Some gaming odds and ends
As mentioned above, I finally caved and got a Steam Deck. As a dedicated console player, this means I’m much more likely to actually go through the library of games I’ve built up over the past few months. This month, some of my most-enjoyed were:
On Your Tail (Steam)
Zoom around a little Italian seaside town and try to solve mysteries. So far, it’s been a fun plot and a charming setting. When solving a mystery, it’s not just about the clues. Instead, you have to order them in the right way to make sense of the puzzle. Despite spending 10+ hours this month, my lack of control with two-joystick navigation has meant I’ve made less progress than I’d like… But I love this game and can’t wait to spend more time with it.
looK INside (Steam)
A point-and-click adventure where you poke around a family scrapbook to learn more about a family’s history. Lovely art and just enough personal intrigue to keep me going. (Although certain parts of the game didn’t exactly “translate” for my American brain, and I found myself looking for help more than once…)
Dordogne (Switch, Steam, iOS)
Another point-and-click game established in France, bouncing between 2002 and the 1980s. The protagonist, Mimi, has returned to her grandmother’s house in Dordogne and finds buried memories rushing back. The art is beautiful and really captures the feeling of exploring as a kid. I started this on my phone and found the controls too finicky for touch, so moved to my Switch – definitely recommend some kind of controller.
And that’s a wrap for February… I’m hoping March will bring more time for some relaxing and expansive reads. And maybe (?) a tea fantasy deep-dive? I’ll see you back here soon.
Until next time, stay cozy and stay curious!
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