Gryphon in Light (Kelvren's Saga #1), by Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon

DAW, ISBN 9780756414481, July 2023

It's some years after the Heralds of Valdemar trilogy, and major events (Winds of Fate trilogy; Mage Storms trilogy) have wrought major changes in Valdemar. These changes include, but are not limited to, the return of magical, intelligent creatures long absent, and long suspected to be entirely mythical.

These include, most notably for this book, gryphons. And specifically, Kelvren, a wingleader of the Silver Gryphons, part of the k'Valdemar Vale, which is allied with but not part of Valdemar. After intervening to help Valdemaran troops in a battle against merchants motivated solely by greed to secede from Valdemar and stop paying taxes (it's more complicated, of course, but that's the basis of it), Kelvren is very badly wounded. Since this is a Valdemaran troop far from k'Valdemar, and somewhat undersupplied because of the many challenges the kingdom is facing, there's only a "herb and knife" Healer, who does his best, but is not trained at all in caring for gryphons. Kelvren, like his Valdemaran tentmate, Hallock Stavern, Second of the Sixteenth, is unlikely to survive.

The Poisoned Princess (Warders #1), by Armen Pogharian (author), Michelle Babb (narrator)

Audiobooks Unleashed & Blackstone Publishing, ISBN 9798212152945, January 2022

Toran is a half-elven, half-barbarian young man, who has been raised by his elven uncle. It's only when an accident in a war game with friends briefly unleashes his barbarian battle rage that his uncle tells him the full truth of his heritage. It becomes important then because the elf supremacists (no, Pogharian doesn't use this loaded phrase; that's me) succeed in banishing him. Aside from contributing to his banishment, it also means he has a really useful inheritance from his dead father. 

His uncle sends him off to the city of Eridan, where elves and elf mixes are fairly common and accepted, with a letter of introduction to an old friend.

Chasm City (Revelation Space #0.5), by Alastair Reynolds (author), John Lee (narrator)

Tantor Media, ISBN 9781400179565, October 2009

Chasm City is set in Reynolds' Revelation Space universe, a century or so after the events of The Prefect and Elysium Fire. Or, put another way, some years after the end of the Belle Epoch, the golden age of the height of human civilization in the Yellowstone system, where Chasm City on the planetary surface, and the Glitter Band, made up of thousands of orbital habitats, offered the near-idyllic life of your choice, until the Melding Plague brought it crashing down.

Digger Unearthed: The Complete Tenth Anniversary Collection, by Ursula Vernon (Author), Patrick Rothfuss (Foreword)

Underthing Press, ISBN 9781956000245, November 2022 (original publication 2012)

Digger-of-Unnecessarily-Complicated-Tunnels is a sensible, pragmatic wombat engineer, who is hard at work when she discovers she has broken through into an unfamiliar cave system.

A cave system where magic is at work. Digger, and wombats generally, have no use for magic. It only makes trouble.

She finds an interesting stone (she, like apparently all wombats, is heavily into geology, and not just for practical reasons), puts it in a pocket, and starts looking for a way out. No, the way in isn't available anymore.

The City Born Great (Great Cities #0.5), by N.K. Jemisin (author), Landon Woodson (narrator)

Macmillan Audio, ISBN 9781250773302, May 2020 (original publication 2016)

The process of a great city being born as a living city starts sooner than we might realize from just the birth itself. Living cities, actual and potential have enemies, and they need protectors.

This is a short story about one of New York's midwives, a young man about a decade earlier than the actual birth, coached--and coaxed--by Paolo, the avatar of San Paolo. He's a street painter, and a singer, and he'd really rather not have the responsibility, but the city calls to him, and enemy needs to be stopped.

The narration is wonderful, and the story is a lovely addition to the two books so far in the Great Cities series.

I bought this audiobook.

Remember, Remember (Sherlock Holmes & Lucy James Mystery #3), by Anna Elliott & Charles Veley

Wilton Press, February 2019

On a cold London morning in 1897, a young woman awakes on the ground outside the British Museum. She has no memory, and nothing that indicates her identity.

She does have a splitting headache, a lump on the back of her head, and a dim memory of having shot someone. She also quickly finds she has a talent for analyzing people's appearance and behavior for useful information that helps her survive. Unexpectedly, the police constable, John Kelly, who finds her decides that he trusts her. They piece together what they can, and then he's going off duty, and she's off to see what she can track down of her identity.

James Moriarty, Consulting Criminal, by Andy Weir (author), Graeme Malcolm (narrator)

Audible Studios, June 2017

I had no idea Andy Weir had written three short stories about Sherlock Holmes' nemesis, Professor James Moriarty. But here they are, narrated quite competently by Graeme Malcolm.

The stories themselves are also well-written and fun. At least, as long as you're okay with James Moriarty is, in fact, a very bad guy, and a cold-blooded killer.

A Doggone Waterfront Shame (Megan Henny Cozy Mysteries #2), by Rimmy London

Amazon Digital Services, April 2022

Megan Henny has left her home, her nursing career, and boyfriend, whom she has realized she doesn't want to marry, behind, and moved to a little coastal village to start her own shop.

It's not totally impulsive. She loved the many family summer vacations in Seacrest growing up, and she's had dreams for years of owning one of the little shops on the boardwalk. She's planned--but never acted. Then she nursed her best friend through her final battle with cancer, and extracted from her a promise to follow her dreams. Her boyfriend also proposes, and she realize she has been leaning more toward breaking up than marrying him. He's superficially sweet, but it's a cover for his controlling behavior. She sells her house, buys one in Seacrest, and also buys an empty shop.

The Sleeper and the Spindle, by Neil Gaiman (author), Chris Riddell (illustrator)

HarperCollins, September 2015

There are brave, hardy, loyal dwarves. There's a beautiful young queen, never identified as Snow White, but there are at least suggestions that her backstory matches that one.

There's a neighboring kingdom, on the other side of the mountains, where the dwarves, seeking a suitable gift for the queen's wedding, find instead a strange sleep spreading across the whole kingdom. They also here of a princess cursed by an evil witch, sleeping in a castle surrounded by thorns, which no prince, no knight, no hero has ever penetrated, to save her.

Realizing there is an evil magic at work here, they head back through the the mountains (yes, through, not over) to their queen.

It Takes Two to Tumble (Seducing the Sedgwicks #1) by Cat Sebastian(author), Joel Leslie (narrator)

HarperAudio, ISBN 9780062967190, August 2019

Ben Sedgwick, after an unconventional upbringing, is a country vicar in Regency England. He doesn't find this dull; he finds it comfortable and reassuring, allowing him to bring some order into the lives of the villagers he serves. Providing both spiritual comfort, and practical assistance and guidance when needed, gives a stability and a sense of usefulness to his life that life in his father's home didn't provide. He's also betrothed to his very good friend, Alice, who is lively, interesting, kind, helpful, and, since a bout of scarlet fever in the spring, unable to walk. This is a concern.