17. Scales and Sensibility

By Stephanie Burgis (384 pp)(ebook)

Jane Austen with dragons! In this world the dragons are small enough to sit on your shoulder and are a fashion trend. Elinor is stuck living with her snotty spoiled cousin as the poor relation. Her cousin is busy checking out potential husbands and for story reasons Elinor ends up pretending she's someone else. I don't want to be too spoilery. This book is so fun and Elinor keeps getting into worse and worse trouble so it seems hopeless. Also, there's romance.

16. The Burgess Boys

By Elizabeth Strout (352 pp)(ebook)

Elizabeth Strout is such a great writer. These characters and their relationships are so complex and sad and funny and relatable. The story starts with a freak accident that happens when the main characters are children and it's a ghost over their whole lives. The oldest sibling is a successful attorney, the sister has hard edges. The youngest son is good natured non-profit attorney who I wanted to hug every few pages. Susan's son is a loner who inadvertently gets himself into big trouble and in the process of helping him, the siblings have to go through a lot. Really good.

15. Exit Black

By Joe Pitkin (257 pp)

Joe is a longtime friend and colleague of my husband and we are very excited about this book. We went to a fun reading at Broadway Books in Portland which is a terrific neighborhood bookstore with a great staff. It's a smaller store but so well curated that every aisle has intriguing books that you want. Exit Black is a fun "Die Hard in space" story set on a luxury hotel orbiting earth. In the story, the hotel hasn't quite opened but they are doing a pre-event for some billionaires and an influencer. Bad guys take control of the hotel and super badass scientist Chloe has to save the day. My favorite part was watching the bad guy, Dion, trying to keep his cool with each new setback. A great character. Very fun book! Recommend.