book log: got a lot of reading done recently

[clachnaben]

I've finished a bunch of books recently, and haven't posted about them, so I figured I'd do the book log for them all at once. Bit of a mixed bag of genres and types of books, but good experiences with all of them!

Jerusalem: The Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore

I actually liked this a lot. It's me getting my backlog of nonfiction out of the way, and I enjoyed the read. I think it has a number of issues as a history book, but a lot of those come naturally from it being a popular history book and also trying to cover all of Jerusalem's history in one book. At points it's a bit hysterical/salacious, but I think that's it being a pop history book, not an academic text. And at times it moves a bit too fast, speeding through years, but also that's it trying to do a lot. Aside from that, it's super engagingly written and compelling, and Sebag Montefiore is very good at keeping a historical narrative thread while juggling multiple "characters". I enjoyed it! (One more non-fiction book off the list!

Band Sinister by KJ Charles

I had an 11hr flight last week, so I had saved both of the new KJ Charles books up to read on the plane. I put them on my ancient kindle, and basically did nothing else but read for the whole flight. I inhaled this! I liked Any Old Diamonds, but I loved Band Sinister. I loved Guy, who was such a dear, and I loved strong-willed Amanda (the proposal scene at the end! darling!!) and I loved the entire cast of characters. While I was in LA, I managed to go to The Ripped Bodice and they had a paperback copy of it, so I bought that as well, because I know I'm going to want to reread it again and again, and having a paper copy means I can lend it to people and everything. Seriously, this might be my new favorite KJ Charles, which is saying so much!

Any Old Diamonds by KJ Charles

I also inhaled this on my 11 hour flight, and loved it so much. I won't spoil the twist but I loved it, and I loved the callbacks to other books. Jerry and Alec are great and the sex was hot hot hot. Basically another KJ Charles classic.

Valor's Choice by Tanya Huff

I picked this up at a charity shop for 50p. It's in an omnibus with the second novel in the series, but I flipped through that and probably will not read it, since it only includes the main character and none of the other characters, and whole different setting. Not super into that. It's a classic military-setting scifi, and the main character is an NCO sent on a diplomatic mission that turns out to include a lot of fighting, while she tries to make sure her new senior officer doesn't get them all killed. I actually enjoyed it a lot - the main character is compelling, the writer writes military banter very very well, and all the characters in the platoon are fun. It has some great worldbuilding about the confederation of alien races, and how there's only three that join the army - humans, Krai (who eat ANYTHING), and di'Taykan (the Super Sexually Active species with purple hair). I liked the worldbuilding a lot, it's just a good solid military scifi novel. I skimmed the tvtropes page on the series and probably won't look up the other books, but I liked this a lot.