Weekly Mewsings: My Bookish Mewsings on The Witch With No Name, The Japanese Lover, and Legends & Lattes

I am linking up to the Sunday Post hosted by Kim of Caffeinated Book Reviewer and The Sunday Salon (TSS) hosted by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz  where participants recap our week, talk about what we are reading, share any new books that have come our way, and whatever else we want to talk about. I am also linking It's Monday! What Are you Reading? hosted by Kathryn of Book Date where readers talk about what they have been, are and will be reading.

Hello! Anjin is playing Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, keeping me company while I spend time visiting with you. It was Girl Scout Cookie pick up day for our area today. Lots and lots of cookies. Too many cookies. Too much temptation in my house. Mouse and her troop decorated the U-Haul truck used to pick up the troop's cookies last night and enjoyed pizza after. Marty took her so I could have some alone time. I got in some reading while they were gone. 

There was another earthquake this past Wednesday, much closer to where I live, and so it felt bigger than the one earlier in the month even though they were the same magnitude (4.2). There was a moment in the middle of it that my husband and I looked at each other, wondering if we needed to get somewhere safer than our couch, but the earth settled back down within seconds so we stayed put. The cats weren't even bothered. It was not big enough to cause any damage fortunately. That is about the extent of anything noteworthy from my little speck of the world. 

Gracie is as cuddly as ever.

"The fence is mended? I'll find another way in!"

Guess what?! I completed by Goodreads Challenge! I was determined to make it happen in January, and I kept my goal low enough so it would. This is cause for a celebration. Maybe a trip to the bookstore . . .

2024 Reading Challenge

Wendy has completed her goal of reading 6 books in 2024!

hide

8 of 6 (100%)

view books

I currently am reading The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years by Shubnum Khan. I have started meeting the residents of boardinghouse and think I will enjoy my visit with them. Plus, I am eager to dive more into the history of this grand estate and it's secrets! 

What are you reading right now? 

It was a record reading week for me. I am usually lucky to finish one book in a week, but it probably helped that I was already well into a couple of these. 

Neck craned, I squinted up between the shadowed apartments ~ Opening of The Witch With No Name

The The Witch With No Name (The Hollows #13) by Kim Harrison
Harper Voyager, 2014
Fantasy; 433 pgs
Source: Purchased

The Hollows is one of my favorite urban fantasy series. I began the series in 2014, when I read the first book in the series, Dead Witch Walking, and it was all I hoped it would be. Kim Harrison created a world I could easily lose myself in, full of supernatural beings, magic, plenty of conflict and danger, mystery, and romance. Our witch protagonist, Rachel Morgan, grows considerably over the course of the books, in skill, power, and personal development. She is fiercely independent and very loyal to her friends. Her close friends and business partners, the vampire Ivy and Jenks, a pixie, have grown and evolved right alongside her. I have cried alongside Rachel when she lost friends and loved ones (a few whom I still miss), sat on the edge of my seat when the situation seems dire, and have cheered her on as she took down her enemies--or turned them into allies. Harrison has a way of making me like a character I once hated several books before. Which, given some of the characters, was not an easy task. Rachel has a strong moral compass but also realizes not everything is as clear cut as it seems. She often has to make difficult choices and decide which is the less of two evils. Her friends keep her grounded and always have her back--just as she always has theirs.

The Witch With No Name was to be the final book (the blurb on Goodreads still says so) in the series and it was the perfect ending. So much of what's happened in the earlier books has lead up to this thirteenth book. The stakes couldn't be higher with souls to be saved, as old enemies face off, and with the fate of all magic on the line--not just for Cincinnati, Ohio, but everywhere. While I did think this installment of the series took a while to get off the ground, all the set-up proved worth it when things began to heat up. Once it did, the tension never let up. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride this novel took me on. For a split second I wondered what it would be like if Harry Dresden and Rachel Morgan met up, but then immediately dismissed it. They are both too hard-headed and independent to work well together. 

This being the final book, there was a fairytale epilogue that made me smile--a bow to wrap up the ending. Oh, but wait! Kim Harrison decided she wasn't ready to give up on Rachel and the Hollows just yet after all--much to her fans' relief. I hope to start the 14th book, American Demon, soon. 

*

When Irina Bazili began working at Lark House in 2010, she was twenty-three years old but already had few illusions about life. ~ Opening of The Japanese Lover 

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende

translated by Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson, 

narrated by Joanna Gleason

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2015
Fiction/Historical; 338 pgs (9h 7m)

Source: Purchased

Isabel Allende's The House of Spirits has long been on my TBR and one day I will read it. I wasn't too fond of Ripper, her attempt at a thriller, which I read a few years ago. But I thought perhaps something more in her usual wheelhouse might work better for me. The Japanese Lover was lingering in my Audible library, and I decided to give it a try. It is a sweeping novel spanning decades, taking readers back in time to 1939 through World War II and beyond to present day. 

In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco's parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family's Japanese gardener. Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart as Ichimei and his family, like thousands of other Japanese Americans are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love that they are forever forced to hide from the world.

Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco's charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years. [Goodreads Summary]

The Japanese Lover is so rich with history. Isabel Allende is a gifted story teller, weaving together stories from the past with the present. And narrator Joanna Gleason captures it all in her narration so beautifully. At it's heart, this is a love story: of first love, forbidden love, lost love, and found love. It is about friendship and family. It is about hope and overcoming adversity. There was much I liked about The Japanese Lover. The characters are well fleshed out, very human in their imperfections and struggles. The characters face prejudice and discrimination. There are moments of celebration as well as great loss. The suffering the Fukuda family went through in the Utah internment camp and the impact it had on  their family was devastating. Irina's backstory is gut-wrenching. What she endured . . . It's no wonder she struggles with human connection. Alma has held her own secrets close for so long, her history with Ichimei, included. I did not warm up to Alma the way I might have wanted, but I still cared about her and felt for her. 

 

So much happens in The Japanese Lover, so much that I admit I wondered if the author stuffed too much into it (the above is just the tip of the iceberg--I do not want to spoil anything though). But it was hard not to appreciate the different stories, including the side stories of secondary characters like Nathaniel, Samuel, and Lenny. Especially their stories. Even though in the backdrop, the time period plays a large part in this novel, shaping the way the lives of these characters play out. Taking the reader from present to past and back again, The Japanese Lover was a compelling novel. I look forward to reading more by Isabel Allende.

*

Vic buried her greatsword in the scalvert's skull with a meaty crunch. ~ Opening of Legends & Lattes

Legends & Lattes (#1) by Travis Baldree
Tor, 2022
Fantasy/Cozy; 296 pgs
Source: Purchased

Legends & Lattes won my January TBR List Poll, and I loved this delightful novel more than words can say! Thank you to all who voted for it. I understand the "cozy" label. It was like curling up on the couch with a blanket, my cat on my lap, book in hand, wearing my favorite PJs, and with a mug of hot chocolate topped off with whipped cream by my side. Sorry, Viv, I am not a coffee drinker. Even so, I would love one of those cinnamon rolls! 

Viv, an orc, has decided to give up her life as a mercenary in order to open a coffee shop in Thune where no one has even heard of the drink. While some things seem to come together for her better than she could have hoped, unfortunately that doesn't hold true on all fronts, and she has to decide how best to confront new and old rivals. 

I love the world Travis Baldree has created in this novel as well as the characters. Viv is awesome in her strength and heart and I adore all her new and old friends. And Amity! I want an Amity in my life. If only just because. Legends & Lattes is such a heartfelt story. You can bet it will not be long before I pick up Bookshops and Bonedust, the prequel. I need more!

Have you read any of these three books? If so, what did you think? 

I read two short stories this week. Both happened to be tacked onto a couple of the full-length novels I finished. 

"Sudden Backtrack" by Kim Harrison (Harper Voyager, 2014; Fantasy, 21 pgs) is a little gem of a story that came in the back of my copy of The Witch With No Name. It's the story of how the elf and demon war began. Unlike the other books in the series, this short story is told from a demon's point of view. In earlier books, the demons are often painted as the bad guys but it really isn't as simple as that. At one time, the demons were treated like slaves to the elves, kidnapped and forced to do their bidding. In "Sudden Backtrack", Al helps Newt spin a curse to turn the tables on the elves, setting the stage for the war. This story offers a side to Newt I had yet to see before; it only makes me admire her more for her strength and courage--and better understand why she is the way she is throughout the series.

I was so excited to find a short story at the end of Legends & Lattes because I was not ready to leave Viv's world. Pages to Fill by Travis Baldree (Tor, 2022; Fantasy, 33 pgs) is the story of how Viv came to enjoy her first cup of coffee. She and her team of fellow mercenaries are on a job in the gnomish town of Azimuth,. Their prey proves to be a hard one to catch and gives them a run for their money. From the sounds of it, Viv has been considering leaving the mercenary life for some time, just not sure what direction to go. I like that Baldree shared this moment in her life with us--the realization of her dream. I also enjoyed seeing Viv in action, working alongside her colleagues. This was a fun story--a little extra taste of the world Baldree shared with us in the novel. 

Have you read any short stories lately? If so, let me know!

This Month In Reading Mews

• Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite Books Read in 2023
• Where Is Your Bookmark? Book Beginnings and Friday 56 of The Storm We Made
• Weekly Mews: My Bookish Mewsings On The Bandit Queens and Station Eleven
• Weekly Mews: Bookish Mewsings on The Storm We Made by Vanessa Chan/Thoughts on Recent Audiobook Reads (Immortal In Death, Rapture in Death, & Ceremony in Death)/January's TBR Winner
• Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals for 2024
• Where Is Your Bookmark: A Peek Into Witch With No Name / Hobbies / Well Liked Books I Didn't Like
• Weekly Mews: Bookish Mewsings on Hammers and Homicide & Vol. 1-3 of The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again, Today
• Where Is Your Bookmark: A Peek Into The Djinn Waits a Hundred Years & Other Friday Fun

I hope you have a great week! Let me know what you have been reading!

---

© 2024, Musings of a Bookish Kitty. All Rights Reserved. If you're reading this on a site other than Musings of a Bookish Kitty or Wendy's feed, be aware that this post has been stolen and is used without permission.