A String of Silver Beads, by Melissa Addey

Letterpress Publishing, November 2018

We start in the 1070s, with a woman explaining to us something of Tuareg ways, the importance of women's jewelry and what it reveals about a woman's life.

Kella is a young woman of the Tuareg, and in 1067, at the age of seventeen, she is still passing as her father's youngest son, traveling with him and her five brothers, plying her considerable skills as a trader--and winning camel races.

It's that last that trips her up. Among the Tuareg, it's men and boys, not women and girls, who go veiled. Under a man's robes, and with her face veiled, she can pass as a boy. But when, near the end of a race, her veil becomes tangled and accidentally pulled off, she is exposed as female. It's a huge embarrassment not just to the men she beat in the race, but to her father. He had already been growing uncomfortable with letting her pass for a boy; this is the last straw. She will be returned to their home camp to, finally, learn women's skills from his sister, her Aunt Tezemt.

Guarded Prognosis, by Richard L. Mabry, MD (author), Bill Nevitt (narrator)

Richard L. Mabry, November 2018

Dr. Caden Taggert, a surgeon, receives an unexpected visit from two DEA agents, at his office. His DEA number is apparently being used to write suspect prescriptions. They want to find out who is really behind it. It's a frightening experience, and he far too easily accepts their encouragement not to call a lawyer. And, heck, he doesn't even know a lawyer, and doesn't want to upset the DEA agents.

It's a mistake, of course. They don't even have a search warrant. Something is wrong here, but he's not asking the right questions. He introduces the agents to his staff and the other two surgeons as doctors leaving academia and hospital work, and interested in seeing how this private practice office is organized. He's introduced trouble that's not the trouble he thinks it is, though the reader, or listener, soon knows.

Potions Eleven (Fair Witch Sisters #2), by Christy Murphy

Christy Murphy, November 2018

Joy and Didi Fair survived their trial before the witches' High Council, but they are not yet cleared of the suspicion of possibly being too susceptible to the dark side of magic. They're pursuing their new career as private detectives, but they need to be really careful, and they've mostly been taking trademark cases referred to them from Didi's former employer.

Then Joy, perhaps unwisely, decides that in order to practice their magic and gain greater control of it, they should have wands. They head off to the other side to do some shopping, and they meet Evelyn Carson Barber, famous actress, relatively secret witch.

Evelyn wants them to find her stolen book of spells, discreetly, before her carelessness in failing to secure it becomes common knowledge. Well, common knowledge in the witch community. She doesn't want her reputation damaged.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind & Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk, MD (author), Sean Pratt (narrator)

Gildan Media, October 2014

This was in many ways a tough listen for me, but a good one. Van der Kolk is a psychiatrist who has worked extensively with trauma survivors. This book is about the ways traumatic experiences permanently affect us.

Trauma isn't just something that happens to our bodies, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder isn't just something that happens in our brains.

It doesn't take combat, terrifying accidents, or obvious child abuse to cause PTSD. Obviously they all can, and do, and are the most easily recognized causes. But other events, that may not even be recognized as trauma, can also be traumatic, and have lasting effects.

Thrown to the Wolves (Hedgewood Sisters #4), by Ruby Blaylock

Ruby Loren, 2018

The Hedgewood sisters have a problem. Well, several problems.

People are disappearing in Frog Hollow, and most of them are supes. In fact, most of them are shifters. Twyla's boyfriend Hank has the advantage of being a police officer and seeing the reports as they come in--and the disadvantage that the sheriff, Leland Talbot, hates supes, and is looking for any excuse to fire Hank. With problems affecting the supes in town, the Hedgewoods need to be a first line of defense, not backup.

Joe, the sisters' father, is once again back on the Other Side, working on behalf of the Summer King, trying to negotiate a peace with the Winter King. The conflict means no one can pass freely back and forth, and now Napoleon is over there, carrying messages to family on the Other Side, and hoping to bring back messages from them to this the human realm.

And then Amaara, the Autumn Queen, a.k.a. the Winter King's consort, shows up in the Hedgewoods' back yard, planning to stay for some undetermined period of time, and reminding the sisters that, with one fae parent, they and even Twyla's daughter Ivey are her subjects, and subject to fae law.

Origin Story: A Big History of Everything, by David Christian (author), Jamie Jackson (narrator)

Recorded Books, May 2018

Every culture and tradition has had its origin story, its understanding of how the world came to be as they knew it, which formed the basis for their further understanding of how to live, interact with others, get food, make clothes. Our origin stories are the basis of how we understand everything.

Now, in the early 21st century, we know far more about the origin of the universe, our sun, our planet, and life on Earth. We live in a society of unparalleled complexity, and in the last two hundred years, we have gained the ability not just to support more human beings, but to improve the daily lives of most humans on the planet, not just an elite 10% or so.

What we haven't done yet is integrate this knowledge into a new, shared origin story that helps us cope with this new, complex, and rapidly changing world.

Murder Served Cold (A Much Winchmoor Mystery #1), by Paula Williams

Crooked Cat Books, October 2018

Kat Latcham was working at a radio station in Bristol, sharing a nice flat with friend, and dating a handsome guy.

Then the falling economy cost her the job at the radio station, her boyfriend took off with her flatmate, and they even took her car and her treasured memorabilia.

She's now back in the little village of Much Winchmoor, living with her parents, working in her mother's beauty salon, and listening to the local gossip--which is currently mostly about her failed love life.

Then one of the local gossips mentions that Donald, the local pub owner, is looking for a new barmaid. Temporarily, since his wife is away on a cruise, but it'll get her out of working at the salon while she looks for a real job.

The gossip there is just as bad, and still about her love life, but at least she's not working for her mom. But she also has to mend fences with her childhood best friend, almost-a-brother Will Manning, whom on her last visit she had a huge fight with about her now ex-boyfriend.

And while they are talking, they head out to the farm shop, where they find Will's father John, dead drunk, and one of the more obnoxious local gossips, just dead. And not of natural causes.

Ten Women, by Marcela Serrano (author), Beth Fowler (translator) Marisol Ramirez (narrator)

Brilliance Audio, February 2014 (original publication October 2004)

In Santiago, Chile, ten women--nine patients and their therapist--meet. Normally the women receive individual therapy, but this time the therapist, Natasha, wants them all together in a group session. They will all talk about their lives.

They're all very different women, different backgrounds, different experiences. An elderly former actress, a nineteen-year-old computer whiz, a housekeeper, a woman from a wealthy, connected family, women who have struggled to become or remain middle class. The last story we get is Natasha's own, an immigrant with a broken and traumatic past of her own.

Murder Has No Guilt (DCI Isaac Cook #9), by Phillip Strang

Phillip Strang, November 2018

A mass shooting in a high-end hair salon for men is the start of a big problem for DCI Isaac Cook and his team. Even the minor local mafia boss doesn't seem like a likely target for this type of killing. But  as Isaac and his team keep digging, it begins to look like it had nothing to with anyone there--and everything to do with a brewing gang war between a Romanian gang well established in the area, and a major Russian mafia gang moving in.

The deaths in the mass shooting are, of course, not the last deaths.

An informant of DI Larry Hill's, a leader of one of the local West Indian gangs, a source DC Wendy Gladstone has cultivated in the course of this investigation, all find their lives abruptly shortened. No one is happy about the Russians, more violent than any of the established gangs, moving in but working with the police is a hard step to take.

The Outlaw's Daughter (Marrying a Marshall #3), by Natalie Dean

Kenzo Publishing, November 2018

Ella Jenkins left her outlaw family because she couldn't accept being part of a criminal gang. She wanted a quiet, and law-abiding, life. She settled in Cypress Creek, with Meg, a woman she met who had set out to be a mail-order bride and been unceremoniously stood up by her intended groom. She's working as a seamstress for the local tailor, who is kind, but with Meg's income, together they can just about pay the rent on their cabin and buy food.

Then Meg connects with another mail-order groom.

And Hank Fulton, senior of the three US Marshals in Cypress Creek, knocks on their door and tells her he knows her name is Jenkins, not Jones, and that he wants her to help infiltrate the gang now run by her brother, Ezra.

It's a hard choice for Ella to make. She'd rather forget she was ever a Jenkins, she doesn't want to actively betray her brother, and she does want the Marshals to keep making the region safer.