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Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

CNC Woodworking for the Absolute Beginner is a well written introduction to CNC (computer numerical control) routers for woodworking with several project tutorials by Ralph Bagnall. Released 16th April 2025 by Fox Chapel, it's 88 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats. 

The author has a popular online social media presence and writes with a very easygoing and encouraging voice. The tutorials are well curated and useful, including games, shop help tools, and decor. The book is full of color photography throughout and illustrations are clear and easy to understand. There are also QR links throughout which lead readers to fully filmed tutorial and related technique videos. 

This would be an excellent choice for public or school library acquisition, makers' groups, home use, or gift giving. For readers who also enjoy thrifting and upcycling, this book has some good ideas for upcycling and recycling otherwise undecorated wooden surfaces.

Four and a half stars. Dinged a bit for the extreme brevity, but thematically it works and the QR links are a nice addition.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes. 

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

A Front-Page Murder is the first Poppy Denby historical cozy mystery by Fiona Veitch Smith. Originally released in 2015 (as The Jazz Files ), this reformat and re-release by Bonnier on their Embla imprint, is 257 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.For Kindle Unlimited subscribers, this book is currently included in the KU subscription library to borrow and read for free. The other books in the series are also currently available on KU. 

Historical mystery styled on the golden age, set in the interwar period in London. It features an intelligent young female investigative journalist determined to make a name for herself. The tempo is solid and the author excels at likeable relatable characters; it's easy to form a rapport with Poppy. The ending is rushed and a bit too info-dumpish to be entirely successful, however it -is- satisfying and complete in this volume. There are 6 books extant in the series at this point and it would make a good choice for a long binge/buddy read. 

Four stars. Especially recommended for fans of interwar golden age cozy mysteries. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

This book isn't so bad that I dnf'd it, though I considered it a few times. The thing that kept me reading was that I follow the author on instagram and it just felt mean not to finish. Even though she doesn't know I was reading her book. Even though she will probably never see this review. It just felt impolite.

So I kept reading…from the beginning the worldbuilding wasn't well developed. Three chapters in I'd read the world “yalvs” two dozen times with zero description and not nearly enough context to understand anything. It's easy to think it will get better. By the end things will make sense. (show spoiler)[But no. The main characters blatantly ask “what in the world is this…explain that” and other characters just say “nope.” So the reader is as lost as the characters and the world is not built.] (hide spoiler)

Then there's the characters. It's trying to be enemies to lovers. But the banter is not fun or witty. Its rude and childish from both characters. Again, one might expect it to get better. They're supposed to move out of enemies, right. And they do (spoiler!) but it's a long road of Hallie being petulant, immature and awfully judgmental for someone who is herself quite inconsiderate. Hallie is most of the recent I wanted to dnf. 

On instagram Hallie is pitched as plucky and bookish but in reality she's rude and incompetent. I hoped it would be a character arc and she'd stop being insufferable at some point. But no, no arc. Just at some point he decides his attraction (surprise!) outweighs her flaws. The reader has no such counterbalance to her behavior. While she become less annoying there's never any awareness of her past behavior, no element of redemption and of course no apologies.

In fact, she gets to be annoying and clumsy and Kase has to apologize. There's no reason female characters shouldn't be called out when they mess up and Hallie make things difficult quite often.

There was a section in the narrative where all the characters did was fight with each other. Every scene was merely another reason for a fight. It got old very quickly until there was a turn in the narrative. Not in the story because there really isn't a story. There is a vague goal and a series of incidents. But there isn't a sense of depth or meaning behind any of it. No central conflict or cohesion really. Crashes. Fights. Concussions. More fights and characters being irrational.

Once the irrationality spread to Kase I was too far in to dnf. (show spoiler)[They get to the yalvs and Hallie is proud of herself for negotiating with the elder. Except two pages later, once they've been unbound, healed and given hospitality, she's crying because she failed…? Purely as an excuse for Kase to comfort her but it was so erratic it was ridiculous. Then Kase is full of petulant guilt over the death of everyone who has ever known him and died.] (hide spoiler) I am so over the “it's my fault” because I happened to be standing there or knew them once or my shadow crossed theirs right before they died, mentality. You're not God. You can't be everywhere or stop everything. There are a lot of things in this world you have no control over. That does not make them your fault.

Turns out, not only is this intended to be enemies to lovers, it's an amateur attempt at Pride and Prejudice. I should have spotted it but to the text's credit, the plot deviates from the original novel enough to be different. But then Earnest literally has Hallie think, “If only my prejudice and his pride hadn't gotten in the way.”🤦🏻‍♀️

(show spoiler)[I was also not a fan of the final battle. First of all it comes out of nowhere. There's no lead up to it, no groundwork laid. Middle of a scene and suddenly enemies we have barely seen the entire book are attacking. Not only that, the tone of the battle is grim in a way the rest of the book hasn't been. I mean, sure, the scattered deaths and blood along the way should have been a clue. But suddenly there's blood and dismemberment and everyone is dying. Except the two characters that annoy me.] (hide spoiler)

So, no, I will not be reading book 2.

Aria was cast as the reluctant hero by her grandmother, who convinced her to leave London and come back to the the village to help save the family business via a competition for a vital business within the community. The only problem? It was a task that would involve magic, and Aria's magic wasn't exactly stable. It had a habit of bursting out of control at the worst possible moments. Nothing she did helped. In that way, the story is just as much a kind of coming-of-age tale as she comes into her own as a witch. Her nemesis, Callan, is also in town to compete for the same prize. And he's a mage with strong powers. He's also a distraction she can't afford.

I love witchy cozies set in magical small towns, and this fit the bill perfectly. Charming Cove is exactly the kind of place I'd want to live if I lived in a world where it existed! Aria's character wasn't created to be perfect, which is a big part of why I loved her. After years of failure with her magic, a childhood of bullying, she's left with some serious self-esteem issues when it came to her magic. She struggled, and no one was harder on her than she was on herself. And that's something I think many people can relate to.  

And Boris. Boris the Badger... what's not to love? He was hilarious, usually irreverent, and entirely snarky. But he was also adorable and loyal and utterly supportive of his witch.

I enjoyed the story, but there were a few things I didn't love.

• -the damsel in distress trope: Never my favorite trope, especially in more contemporary fiction, there was a bit of this in the story. Not from Aria's perspective but from Callan's. It wasn't huge, but it was there.
• -the age gap: It's only four years. That's not the problem. It's the initial meeting of our intrepid heroes, when she's but 17 and he's 21. It's obvious even then that he was wildly attracted to her, admitting that he shouldn't because of her age. Although the age of consent in England is 16, which I looked up, it felt a little weird. I wished she'd been aged up just a little.

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Mysterious Ways is a YA/coming-of-age novel by Wendy Wunder (yes, that is apparently her real name). Released 27th Aug 2024 by Macmillan on their Wednesday Books imprint, it's 336 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.

This is aimed at the younger end of YA (circa 13-18 years), although there's some relatively explicit (consensual) sexual content, frank discussion on mental health and healthcare, and suicide and self harm ideation which might not be appropriate for some readers. There's also a strong element of magical realism (MC Maya is more or less perfectly telepathic and has other supernatural abilities (thought control, healing, etc)). It seemed to be along the lines of "whatever the author needed to advance the scene at the time". 

The pacing is quite choppy and hops around a lot and the secondary characters are mostly sketched in and then dropped. Ostensibly set in Pennsylvania, the scenery is 100% generic "American" and could have just as easily been set in Colorado, Maine, or Maryland. 

Three stars. Oddly written, with glimmers of charm/whimsy which never fully materialize. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes. 

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Liar's Point is the fifth Texas murder file procedural mystery by Laura Griffin. Released 21st May 2024 by Penguin Random House on their Berkley imprint, it's 368 pages and is available in paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.

This is a well written mystery thriller procedural in a long running popular series by an established prolific genre writer backed by a traditional publishing house and the necessary machinery for producing a polished enjoyable read. Although the mystery, denouement, and resolution (also well written) are complete and self-contained in this volume, the series revolves around a returning ensemble cast whose interrelationships have developed over the course of several books, and as such, there will be minor spoilers if read out of order.

There's some graphic violence, as well as some "spicy" romance scenes (consensual, explicit), and a HFN ending. Trigger warning for language, stalking, and partner abuse. 

The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 9 hours 26 minutes and is capably read by series narrator Teri Clark Linden. She has a well modulated alto voice and does a pretty good job with the regional (Texas) accents, as well as a variety of characters of both sexes and a range of ages. Sound and production quality are high throughout the read. 

Four stars. It would be a good choice for public library acquisition (with the understanding that there's some explicit content), as well as a binge/buddy read. 

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Tries Too Hard To Be 'Edgy'. Having read both Mistakes Were Made and Cleat Cute, it seems that the issues that really seem to have begun in Cleat Cute, where I wrote in my review that "this is one of those stories where there are a LOT of valid issues that people may have with the book, but ultimately pretty well all of them are matters of taste and not something truly concretely objectively *wrong*" have gone even further here, and now there are things that while still arguably not *objectively* wrong, there is a fair amount here that gets much closer to that line, at least in some readers' eyes.  

Specifically, while none of the following really get up there to a star deduction on their own, there is enough that I'm about to detail that I felt the star deduction was warranted due to the accumulation. First, there is the more than once yet also not *pervasive* bigotries against anything non-queer, including one character getting quite preachy when a server refers to both characters as "Ladies", even though one of the characters is a female but claims "non-binary". Then there is the oral period sex. Yes, you read that right, and yes, I know it is a (minor) spoiler. But it is one that I feel people will want to be aware of when deciding to read or skip this book, so I feel justified mentioning it here. It is also one that many that decry explicit lack of use of condoms during sex *should* decry as even more unsafe than condomless penetrative sex can ever be, yet I've seen no such condemnations as I write this review less than two weeks before publication. To be fair, I also don't track reviewers who explicitly comment about such things in other books, so it is quite possible that *someone* has in fact called this out and I am simply unaware of it. Then there is the degrading talk during sex, but to be fair to Wilsner this *was* specifically done with a discussion of safe words just before this and explicit instruction to use them if the partner was uncomfortable with such speech. Finally, there are the barely-there and almost caricature level supporting characters - indeed, it almost seems as though the aforementioned server was included specifically so the preaching could be "excused". Even relatives of the characters felt like stereotypes at best, rather than fully (or even really partially) fleshed out and understood characters. As I noted previously in this review, none of this (possibly with the exception of the oral period sex) is objectively *wrong*, but it also all adds up to Wilsner just seeming to try to hard, particularly as the sex scenes take up seemingly 20% of the book - and the entire middle section of it. Thus, the star deduction. If you don't like that I deducted a star for this, maybe read the book and write your own review. Feel free to crucify me when you do, should you feel the need.

Beyond these issues though, Wilsner actually manages to create a plausible enough, if in a "queer Hallmarkie" kind of vibe, story that works well enough. Yes, things happen *fast* in actual shown-time, but at the same time, again in a "queer Hallmarkie" kind of mindset... meh, I for one didn't really have a problem there. Particularly given that these two had known each other for decades before the events of this book, again, meh, plausible enough that one day long-guarded truths are exposed and different paths emerge.

And then there is the titular honeymoon. The Caribbean setting was done well enough, though as it largely takes place inside that middle damn-near-erotica section of the book... maybe it could have been done even better, but that is likely a quibble that some will agree with and others will think it was done quite well indeed. For me, it was absolutely enough to show the beauty of the setting, almost in a Couples Retreat (the 2009 Vince Vaughn movie) way. They're there, they spend quite a bit of time in their mostly private hut over the water (as honeymooning couples would do, obviously, even though this couple isn't actually on their honeymoon and hasn't even admitted their feelings to each other at the time they arrive), but they also get out and explore a decent amount as well (which is where the server scene above happens, among other locations around the resort they explore). Like I said, it works well enough, could arguably have been done a touch better, but nothing really to *actually* complain about there.

Overall this was a book that many won't want to read for many perfectly valid reasons, but also many *will* want to read for equally perfectly valid reasons, and as with Cleat Cute in particular, it absolutely is one Your Mileage May Vary on. If what I've described above is close enough to something that interests you and you don't really have any major issues with those things, this is likely a book you should at least try to read and see if you enjoy. If you're more adamantly opposed to any of the things I describe above, you're likely better off skipping this one and sparing yourself the wasted time and the author the potentially far more harsh review than what I hope I've done a relatively balanced job with here. If you do choose to read it though, please leave a review on Hardcover dot app, BookHype dot com, PageBound dot co, or whatever your preferred book review platform may be.

Recommended.

I loved this trilogy, and I’m sad to see it end! The world Roberts created was beautiful, rich and vibrant through good times and bad. At its heart, this last book was about love… the love of family, the love of heritage, the love of your people.

Breen will forever be one of my favorite Nora Roberts’ characters. Her journey from who she became under her mother’s eye to who she became once she embraced her heritage was beautiful. I appreciated that her road to herself wasn’t always easy; that bad an otherwise fantastical story feel real. There were some deeply emotional moments as she made her peace with people in her past, letting them go and allowing herself that.

And as much as I loved Breen, I also adored Marco. Throughout the trilogy, he was the best friend that we all want. The one who will always have your back, who loves you through it all. I loved that he had his own story and journey, especially in this last book. It was beautiful to watch him find his way, find his future.

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Wild Watercolor is a tutorial and style guide for watercolor by Karen Elaine. Due out 16th Sept 2025 from Penguin Random House on their Zeitgeist imprint, it's 144 pages and will be available in paperback format.

The author has an inviting, calm, and encouraging style of writing. She explains a bit of her own background with a short artist's statement. The brief introduction includes illustrated lists of tools and supplies and some basic techniques for getting paint onto paper, for sketching, for selecting subjects and other useful information for beginning painters. Especially salient tips and info are written into highlighted text boxes which are easy to find and remember. The book itself is set up as a weekly tutorial course with guided techniques grouped by level: beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

Each of the tutorials includes specific step by step color photos and process illustrations with instructions for color choice, brushes, and special techniques used. Most of the tutorials cover several pages and are simple enough to give beginning watercolorists confidence by rendering them as illustrated. 

This is a very pretty book with a lot of useful information and tips for rendering natural subjects with watercolor. It would make an excellent choice for self-study or for public or school library acquisition.

Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.