Knot of Shadows (Penric and Desdemona (Publication order) #11), by Lois McMaster Bujold

Spectrum Literary Agency, October 2021

Penric, Learned Divine and Temple Sorcerer, is having a quiet morning with his family when a knock at the door brings a summons from Master Tolga, head of the hospice in Vilnoc. A body was fished out of the water in the port, and the body proved to be less dead, or at least more active, than a clearly dead body pulled out of the harbor ought to be. When Penric and his demon, Desdemona, arrive, they find that the body is indeed dead, but a sundered ghost, unable to move on to the afterlife and its god, has taken up residence in the corpse. The ghost will be one of the patients who has recently died in the hospice. More critical is the identity of the corpse. They need to notify his family, or friends, or someone, but the body was dressed only in a cheap worn nightshirt, with no indication of who he was.

While that question is answered when a clerk from the Customs Office in response to the story circulating of a man who fits the description of the head of the office, Master Therneas, who hasn't showed up for work for two days. Yet rather than an answer, this proves to be the start of a confusing and disturbing mystery.

A Favorite Son, by Uvi Poznansky (author), David Kudler (narrator)

Uvi Poznansky, March 2013

This is a retold version of the story of Jacob and Esau, or, in this telling, Yankle and Esav, their bitter rivalry, and the conflict between Isaac and Rebecca, about who is the "favorite son."

It's a modern retelling, with cars and planes and a chain of restaurants named after Yankle, who is the true chef in this family. Yet in many ways it retains the setting of the Bible's original story, with the family being desert nomads, with herds to care for, and the constant concern over enough water, and, most bemusing for me, we're explicitly told that the Scriptures haven't been written yet, and that Yankle and Esav's story will be part of those scriptures. To me, this last bit seems a very strange choice.

The Autobiography of a Transgender Scientist, by Ben Barres (author), Nancy Hopkins (Foreword), Paul Boehmer (narrator)

Highbridge Audio, ISBN 9781684416776, September 2018

Ben Barres was a groundbreaking scientist in neurobiology, and groundbreaking as a transgender person in science. This is his autobiography, completed shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer in 2017.

Barbara Barres, even as a very young child, had both a strong interest in science, and a strong sense of gender confusion and belief that she was assigned the wrong gender at birth. She was, she was sure, meant to be a boy. Unfortunately, in the 1950s and 1960s, there was no one and nothing to tell Barbara that yes, she really could be Ben. 

Sherlock Holmes & the Singular Affair, by M. K. Wiseman

MK Wiseman, December 2021

With Sherlock Holmes recently deceased, Dr. John H. Watson has received a package left to him by his old friend. In that package he finds a story--Holmes' own account of an adventure he had before he ever met Watson. It involves high society, stage-door dandies, and a young woman wanting to know where the young man courting her has disappeared to.

Miss Eudora Frances Clarke grew up as neighbors and close friends with Mr. Tobias-Henry Price, until when they were twelve years old, his father died, and his uncle, whose heir he now was, took him away to his home. There was little contact, and then Tobias-Henry was sent abroad to oversee some business of his uncle's. Then he returned, proposed marriage, hinted at problems related to his business activities, and disappeared.

Except, as everyone assures her, Mr. Tobias-Henry Price is not missing. He's living the life of a cultivated gentleman in the London society which, due to being of far less prosperous family, Eudora has never been a part of. She contrives to encounter him leaving his club, and--the man is handsome, charming, altogether likeable, but he is not her Tobias-Henry. This man is a stranger. Everyone, including his Uncle, assures her she is wrong. But her Tobias-henry had a scar acquired in their childhood, which this man does not have.

The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World, by Andrea Wulf (author), David Drummond (narrator)

Highbridge Audio, October 2015

This is a fascinating biography of an impressive scientist, whom I don't believe I ever heard of before.

Alexander von Humboldt was the second son of an aristocratic Prussian family, who used his inheritance to pursue a career as, essentially, the first real naturalist. At 27, he went on an expedition to South America, with one other scientist and a couple of guides. In the course of his expedition he invented the concept of isotherms, which made global study of climate possible. He collected specimens, climbed mountains, and took detailed notes on plant and animal life, climate, and the effects of wholesale clearing of trees and other inconvenient plants and animals. Humboldt's journey, and his letters reporting home on it, were widely covered in the newspapers, worldwide, not just in his native Prussia. He returned home, and continued to be both a celebrity and a working scientist--and in many was perhaps the first science popularizer. 

Desire of the Everlasting Hills: The World Before and After Jesus (The Hinges of History #3), by Thomas Cahill (author), Brian F. O'Byrne (narrator)

Random House Audio, July 2000

Between 1995 and 2013, Thomas Cahill released a series of books called The Hinges of History, about, as one might guess, critical turning points the history of western civilization. This book, the third in the series, is about the impact Jesus, his teachings, and his followers had on history.

Bread Alone (Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 34), by Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

Pinbeam Books, November 2021

This is a collection of four stories set in Lee and Miller's Liaden Universe--space opera, values that make my heart sing, an appropriate appreciation of the excellence of tea and of cats, together with helpings of romance.

These aren't Korval stories, but rather stories centered around The Bakery. In "Degrees of Separation," Don Eyr is a young, unvalued member of one small and poorly run clan. His love of baking born in his delm's kitchen, where the servants, at least, have time for him. His cousin the nadelm persuades the delm to send him off to be educated--and young Don Eyr decides to attend a prestigious culinary school. When he returns to Liad, he's a different young man, with a partner, Serana, formerly a member of the City Guard where the school is located. On Liad, they find not all is well, and decide to fix their little piece of it. 

Gaming Hell Christmas, by Amanda McCabe & Kathy L. Wheeler

Chisel Imprint, December 2021

This is the first volume of Gaming Hell Christmas, stories about six women who attended Miss Greensley's School as young women, now older, out in society, and making decisions about the rest of their lives. It includes two novellas, the first featuring Miss Alexandra Blessing, beloved but illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Winsome, and the second about her dear friend, Annabelle, the widowed Lady Ranstruther. 

Alexandra has lived with her father and his family since she was nine, and has six younger siblings. The two sisters still at home give her little peace, including happily disregarding the privacy of her own bedchamber. At 28, she doesn't expect to marry, but does want a home of her own.

Annabelle, after a year of widowhood following the death of her elderly and perhaps not very kind husband, Annabelle is ready for love and a happier life.

The stories take place over the same period of time, the Christmas season of 1796. These are Georgian stories, not Regencies, and while the legal status of women isn't any different, socially, they have just a little bit more freedom than they will in the Regency era. Thus, the ladies can, if discreet and careful, visit the exclusive gaming hell, la Sous Rose. And of course they do.

One O'Clock Hustle (Inspector Rebecca Mayfield Mystery #1), by Joanne Pence

Quail Hill Publishing, June 2019 (original publication March 2014)

Inspector Rebecca Mayfield, a homicide detective with the San Francisco Police Department, is a strictly by-the-book cop. Outside of work, she lives quietly in a small, not quite legal in-law apartment, with her dog, Spike, who is a hairless Chinese Crested-Chihuahua mix.

And then one fine Saturday night, she gets called to Big Caesar's, a popular, fancy club where there has just been a shooting. There's one dead woman, and one suspect, caught standing over the body with the gun in his hand. He has a crazy story about being innocent, and seeing the actual killer leave via the window.

This suspect is Richie Amalfi, a charming, handsome businessman whose business and actual source of income isn't entirely clear. Richie, though, is "practically family" at Mayfield's home police station, with his niece engaged to marry another Inspector there. And however skeptical Mayfield and others are about his source of income, he has absolutely no record of violence. Yet, he's been caught red-handed, right?

The Dragon Waiting, by John M. Ford

Tor Books, ISBN 9781250269027, September 2020 (original publication 1983)

This is an alternate 15th century Europe, brought to us by the brilliant John M. Ford. 

Instead of Julian the Apostate, who only briefly interrupted the spread of Christianity in Europe, in this alternate history there was Julian the Wise, who lived long enough to prevent any faith from being banned, and any faith from becoming dominant over the others and being able to ban them. The eastern empire, its capital at Byzantium, remains strong and vibrant--and in the 15th century, is working to expand into western Europe. It controls about half of France, and parts of Italy, and wants more.

In other ways, this Europe is very familiar. Edward IV is King of England, Lorenzo de' Medici is a powerful banker and de facto ruler of Florence. Galeazzo Sforza is Duke of Milan, though in this world he's in the pay of Byzantium, and also a vampire.