Weather Girl, by E.J. Swift

Solaris, September 2017 (in Infinity Wars: Infinity Project #6)

Lia has a high-stress, classified job, where they call her "the weather girl."

She's not forecasting storms. She's deciding what to do with the information about them--make it public, conceal it for a bit, or conceal it for as long as possible. There are hackers to ensure that if she decides it should be kept secret, other countries' satellites and systems don't pick up the information, and don't figure out that their systems are being hacked.

In a world where reduced carbon emissions came too late to stop global warming, control of weather information is a weapon. It's national security.

It's making sure your enemies get hit without warning, and that you don't.

Certain Symmetry (Adventures in the Liaden Universe #4), by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Smashwords, May 2011 (original publication 2000)

There are two more Liaden universe stories here. One advances the tale of Moonhawk and Lute, with a visit to an old friend of Lute's--whose husband has died, and who has shut up their inn out of her grief. She's determined to do nothing that would risk forgetting her husband, Rowan, by moving on in life.

Can Lute and Moonhawk help, in a way that she can accept?

The other story is of Pat Rin yos'Phelium, a few days after A Day at the Races, receiving a very welcome gift--and another package, the Balance book of a a friend who has killed himself. Several of the outstanding Balances are easy to resolve, but the last is different, and very tricky for Pat Rin to find a resolution for.

Lost Library (Lost Library #1), by Kate Baray (author), Kelsey Osborne (narrator)

Catherine G. Cobb, July 2015

There's a lot to like about this book.

Lizzie Smith and John Braxton are likable, interesting characters. The Lycan don't act out a stereotypical and scientifically disproven version of wolf dominance. The story is exciting, and keeps moving. The way magic works is interesting, and even the bad guys are somewhat interesting.

But.

You knew there was a "but" coming, right?

Second Chance at Two Love Lane (Two Love Lane #3), by Kieran Kramer

St. Martin's Press, ISBN 9781250111081, August 2018

Ella Mancini is one of the three partners in the matchmaking agency Two Love Lane in Charleston, South Carolina, but once upon at time, she was a young actress in New York City, just starting out. But she was in love with Hank Rogers, and turned down what could have been her big break, in order to stay with him.

Then he got his big break, took it, and left.

He's now a big star, and Ella's acting is in local community theater. Ella is happy, successful in her new field, and respected in her community, but at some level she's never gotten over Hank.

Now Hank is coming to Charleston to shoot a movie, co-starring with Samantha Davis, an actor they both admired even ten years ago, when they were still together.

Duty Bound (Adventures in the Liaden Universe #3), by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Smashwords, May 2011 (original publication March 2001)

Again, two stories.

Pilot of Korval has the young Er Thom yos'Galan and Daav yos'Phelium, raised together, separated for the first time, as they each train as pilots and for their adult careers, Daav as a Scout, and Er Thom as a future ship's captain and Master Trader. For Er Thom, it leads to a test of both his commitment to his crewmates, and his judgment in pursuit of that. It's also a tricky test of his self-control, discipline, and relationship with his birth mother.

Two Tales of Korval (Adventures in the Liaden Universe #1), by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, April 2011 (original publication 1995)

Two stories of Val Con yos'Phelium as a young man.

I've often wondered how Val Con and the Turtle, Edger, met, and Val Con got adopted into Edger's family. In To Cut an Edge, we find out. It's on one of Val Con's final training missions as a Scout, and it's quite exciting. It's fair to say that Val Con and Edger have some similar challenges with the more hidebound members of their clans and cultures!

Fellow Travelers (Adventures in the Liaden Universe #2), by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, April 2011

This is a collection of three short stories about Moonhawk, a priestess of the Goddess, who in the time contemporary to Val Con yos'Phelium is also Priscialla Delacroiz y Mendoza, and her lover, the magician Lute.

We see the first meeting and adventure of Moonhawk and Lute, and a later episode in which they search for a woman's missing daughter. And finally, we see the events that lead to Priscilla/Moonhawk, centuries later than the earlier stories, to leave the temple, her culture, and the planet.

A Cold Winter's Love (Love on the Trails #5), by Natalie Dean

Kenzo Publishing, August 2018

The wagon train is coming closer to the end of the trail, and this includes a stop in Boise, where they hope to leave killers and thieves they've been unhappily carrying with them since events in earlier books. Deputy Marshall Scott Mercer and Lilian Thomas, daughter of the printers, and scouts Bryon Clearwater and Rachel MacIntosh, are engaged in armslength courtships, deeply attracted but painfully aware that they have different expectations of life.

Or do they?

Yes, the MacIntosch clan wants to breed horses, but does Rachel want such a settled life?

This is in many ways the hardest part of the trail, with the Snake River to be crossed, and the mountains, with winter setting in and storms pursuing them.

Stalker on the Fens (DI Nikki Galena #5), by Joy Ellis (author), Henrietta Meire (narrator)

Tantor Audio, August 2017

DI Nikki Galena's friend, Helen Brooks, thinks she's being followed.

Helen was badly hurt in a building collapse a year ago, including some brain damage, and she's got some odd memories that don't seem supported by evidence. For instance, she thinks there was a man also in that collapsed basement with her, on the other side of a wall, who talked to her for a while before Nikki and Sergeant Joseph Easter, by chance the two officers closest to the scene, arrived. Yet no one else was in the building, nor was any evidence found that there had been.

So is she really being followed? Or is she still feeling the effects of the trauma and brain damage?

The Oracle, by Dominica Phetteplace

Solaris, September 2017 (in Infinity Wars: Infinity Project #6)

Rita is just trying to live her best life. She wants to have fun, be admired for having the best clothes, and achieve world peace. Somewhat reluctantly, she concludes that if the had to choose among the three, she'd have to choose world peace.

What she's really doing, though, is making money selling stuff via apps she writes, and also, via the whiskey-selling app, scraping all their data from their phones and selling that, too. She's got the fun and the great clothes and lots of followers on Instagram, but her Nobel Peace Prize app just isn't producing results for her.