This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me

by Ilona Andrews

This is the first book in a new trilogy that Ilona and Gordon are writing. The series is called Maggie the Undying, and I can not wait until the second book is published. (No word yet on when that might be, but they'll let us know on their blog and their release schedule page once they have a date.)

I loved this book - but that's not too surprising because Ilona and Gordon Andrews are some of my favorite authors. It's an epic fantasy with a touch of romance thrown in, and the world building is fantastic. If you're looking for a fun read, I would highly recommend this book - or any of their others.

As for what it's about, the protagonist's name is Maggie, and she loves to read. Her favorite series is unfinished, written by an author who seems to have disappeared. The books are about a magical city called Kair Toren, that's filled with rival noble families, assassins, and political conflict. Maggie's read the available books many, many times and knows the city and all of its characters very well. Which is a good thing because one morning she wakes up to find herself in Kair Toren instead of home in her bed, and she has to survive. It's a portal fantasy/isekai, and it's a lot of fun to read.

If you want to pick up a copy, you can get it in the format of your choosing at Amazon or pickup the hardcover at Bookshop.org.

A Cold Day for Murder

by Dana Stabenow

This is the first book in the Kate Shugak Investigation series, which has 23 books in it. As you can tell by the number of books, this first book was written quite some time ago. It was published in 1992, to be exact. I discovered these novels quite a while ago, too, but I recently started listening to the series as audiobooks. I've loved rediscovering this series this way.

If you've never read any of the Kate Shugak books, the protagonist is Kate Shugak, and she is a member of the Aleut people in Alaska. The series takes place in Alaska in a fictional national park. Kate is a private investigator, and she is accompanied by her half-wolf, half-husky partner, Mutt. If you like Alaska and you like murder mysteries, I bet you'd like the Kate Shugak books.

You can learn more about the author, Dana Stabenow, on her site. She's written several different series. I haven't read them all yet, but I've never been disappointed with any of the ones I have read so far. If you want to pick up a copy of A Cold Day for Murder you can get it from Amazon.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

by Becky Chambers

This is a character-driven space opera about a starship crew making a long, episodic journey to a dangerous job. The story follows Rosemary Harper, a young woman fleeing a complicated past who joins the Wayfarer, a patched-together tunneling ship that builds hyperspace wormholes between star systems. The crew takes on a contract to create a tunnel near the territory of a warlike, volatile species, which requires a year-long trip to a distant, unstable planet. The plot unfolds as a series of stops and side incidents along the route, and it reads like a slice-of-life road trip in space.

This was Becky Chamber's first novel, and it's the first book in her Wayfarer series. I'd recommend reading the Wayfarer series in the order they were published, although it's not strictly necessary. The books don't follow a single, connected plot, but they do use characters from prior books so it helps to read them in order. My favorite book in the series is the second book, A Closed and Common Orbit, but I'd still start with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet.

You can pick up a copy from Barnes & Noble or ThriftBooks.com. If you want to learn more about Becky and the other books she's written, try visiting her website at otherscribbles.com.

An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

If you're interested in non-fiction, you might try this hybrid of memoir and narrative history. In it, Doris Kearns Goodwin uses her marriage to Dick Goodwin and his 1960s political archives as the frame to revisit that turbulent and impactful decade. The book begins after Dick’s death, with Doris confronting grief and loneliness and turning to the “Sixties boxes” of his papers, speeches, and memorabilia as a way to process their shared past. The story alternates between present-day remembrance and vivid scenes from campaigns, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam era, told from the perspective of two people who had a front-row seat.

The book is available at the Unabridged Bookstore and, of course, Amazon. You can also find used copies at sites like AbeBooks and Better World Books, too.