39. The Dry

By Jane Harper (410 pp) This was recommended for fans of Tana French. The author is Australian and the story is mystery set in a fictional small town north of Melbourne. The detective Aaron Falk goes back to the place he was raised to look at the murder-suicide of his childhood friend's family. Of course Aaron left some secrets behind when he moved away. The rural setting is like a character in the story which I loved. Page turner. Recommend.

38. When No One Is Watching

By Alyssa Cole (352 pp) This is a thought-provoking thriller about gentrification. Seriously. It's a fun page turner but with serious story matter based in things that really happen. The MC Sydney finds her Brooklyn neighborhood changing overnight. Historical research for a walking tour reveals more unsettling information. Things get weird and dangerous. Recommend.

37. Assassin's Quest

By Robin Hobb (757 pp) I was trying to hurry up and finish this trilogy to hand it off to another reader while I was visiting my mom. I failed my goal by about 250 pages. But I finished when I got home. These books are complicated and sad and happy and aggravating and completely wonderful. The Internet informed of the reading order -- I've got another trilogy for my Christmas wish list.

36. Royal Assassin

By Robin Hobb (675 pp) I love a big fat mass market paperback. More books should be published like this. Book 2 in the Farseer Trilogy. The bad guys are winning. Our poor hero Fitz makes a lot of sacrifices for his king. Things are looking grim but a small loyal circle keep the hope alive. Book 3 is up next.

35. Assassin's Apprentice

By Robin Hobb (435 pp) I'm not sure how I picked it but I got an audiobook that features this main character much later in his life. I felt like I needed to know what came first so I tracked down this early trilogy. It's about the bastard son of a prince in a troubled kingdom. There is a little magical element but mostly the story is about the people and all their flaws and misunderstandings. Great book. Thrilled that there are so many books by this author.

34. The Stone Sky

By N.K. Jemisin (398 pp) This is the final book in the trilogy. I struggled a teeny bit with this one but I was reading in the middle of the wildfires and hazardous air quality (strangely appropriate to the story) so my concentration was impaired. Amazing world building, complicated characters who don't do what you want them to do and a big build-up to the end. Recomend the series.

33. The Obelisk Gate

By N.K. Jemisin (391 pp) Book 2 in the Broken Earth Trilogy. Glad I didn't start them until they were all finished. Already into Book 3. It's tough to sum up in a couple of sentences. The world has been broken by giant seismic event. Things do not look good. Our hero hasn't found her daughter, makes some friends-ish, and learns all kinds of stuff. Huge recommend on this series.

32. The Secret Place

By Tana French (518 pp ebook) I like Tana French books but they always get to a point where they feel long. But also I can't stop until I finish. In this one the murder takes place in a girls' school. I liked the detectives, too.

31. The Fifth Season

By N.K. Jemisin (449 pp) This book is amazing! I could hardly put it down. I had insomnia and I was glad because I could get up and read some more. I don't even know how to describe it in a sentence or two. It's a fantasy set in a far future earth where the earth is unstable. Leaders rely on orogenes--people with power to control earth surface(ish) to calm earthquakes and volcanos. This is a severely lacking description. Better if you don't know what you're in for when you start. Highly recommended.

30. The Headless Cupid

By Zilpha Keatley Snyder (203 pp)

We've been making a loop of the free little libraries in our area mostly to drop off books but picking them up if we can't resist. I LOVED ZKS in middle school and haven't read this book since then so I was curious to see how it held up. It seems like all the old stuff has problematic racist and sexist stuff and this book is no different. The story concerns a newly blended family. The girl would rather live with her father but she can't because he doesn't have a wife to take care of her. There's a scene where the kids play a game of master and slave to get the kids to get some work done. GULP. But those issues aside, it's still a fun story. The family has just moved into an old house that may or may not be haunted. Creepy things keep happening.

29. Captain Vorpatril's Alliance

 By Lois McMaster Bujold (573 pp)

I enjoyed this book but I expected to love it. The Vorkosigan series gets so many good reviews and I loved Bujold's Chalion books. (Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls.) I think part of the problem is that this book is something like 15th in the series and even though it's about a side character, there's a lot of history. I got bogged down with all the characters and world-building backstory stuff. This book is about Ivan who gets mixed up with a overthrown family and accidentally gets a wife. I'm going to go back and start at the beginning of the series. 

28. Searching for John Hughes

By Jason Diamond (281 pp)

The subtitle is: Or Everything I Thought I Needed to Know about Life I Learned from Watching '80s Movies.

I came very close to DNF-ing this book. The title doesn't really reflect the pages within. It's really a memoir by a guy who had a troubled upbringing but also makes some terrible decisions. He is a huge John Hughes fan and gets this idea he is going to write a JH biography which other people encourage and/or go along with for some reason. He fails and this memoir results instead.