The Road to Cromer Pier, by Martin Gore

Martin Gore Publishing, June 2019

This is the story of a struggling theater on the Norfolk coast of England.

The Wells family has owned the theater for generations, and Janet Wells is the current owner. They run a variety show, the Cromer Pier Summertime Special, every year, and it's always a success for them.

Now, though, they're in the second year of the Great Recession, and everyone is struggling. They can't afford the same level of performers they would normally be recruiting. Everyone on the permanent staff is taking a 5% salary cut, and the new hires for the show include a Polish magician whose performance and command of English are both spotty, and a talent show winner who has a great singing voice but has reached the end of her run of what she can do with that alone in he current market. But she's never danced, and for Cromer Pier she needs to learn.

Oh, and a local real estate vulture is determined to get ownership of the theater, have already acquired the rest of the pier. Also, we keep getting Just One More Character introduced.

The Invasion (Grey Land #2), by Peadar Ó Guilín

David Fickling Books, ISBN 9781338045628, March 2018

Ireland is still reeling, twenty-five years after the return of the Sidhe, or perhaps more correctly, the Grey Land, where the Sidhe were banished centuries ago. Our world, which they call the Many-Colored Land, and the Grey Land, move nearer to each other and further away, and now they are very close to each other, closer than in a very long time, and the Sidhe are able to Call the young of Ireland into the Grey Land. They stay only a day, but they don't always survive, or if they do, return unchanged.

Ireland is cut off from the rest of our world. Technology is dying. Society has changed drastically, with what were previously the secondary education years transformed into Survival Colleges, aimed completely at giving the young people who will be Called by the Sidhe their best shot at survival.

But the Sidhe have a plan, a plan to return to Ireland. To do that, they have to find a King for some part of Ireland to revoke the treaty that banished them.

Unclaimed Legacy (History Mystery #2), by Deobrah Heal (author), Michelle Babb (narrator)

Write Brain Books, August 2014 (original publication August 2012)

Abby Thomas and her tutoring student, 11-year-old Merri, are frustrated that the delightful if improbable computer program, Beautiful Homes, is currently working only in its obvious, plausible way. Only an ordinary real estate program showcasing beautiful homes in the present, alas. No tours of past lives currently available. But Merri has warmed up to Abby quite a bit, and is making real progress on her school work. In addition, Abby's friendship with John Roberts is also heating up.At least until she tells him about the advanced features of Beautiful Homes, which does make him wonder if she's crazy. But friends they remain, and he introduces her to speech therapist Lucy, who is looking for a sitter for her house and her dog, Dr. Bob, while she attends a professional conference. And Lucy, in turn, introduces her to her neighbors, elderly twins Eulah and Beulah, living in the identical house next door.

Once Upon a Bad Boy (Sometimes in Love #3), by Melonie Johnson

St. Martin's Press, ISBN 9781250193070, June 2019

Now that Cassie and Bonnie have their guys, it's Sadie Gold's turn. Her years of working on a so-so but popular soap opera have paid off, and she's landed the lead in an action hero movie based on a bestselling novel. This should be her big break.

Too bad the stunt coordinator turns out to be her old boyfriend, her childhood sweetheart, the guy who dumped her on prom night and said he didn't want to see her again.

Too bad he's hotter than ever. Too bad she's still hung up on him.

And he's still hung up on her.

Oh, and this job is also make or break for him, because he's in danger of losing the deal that would give him full control of Windy City Stunts. Neither one of them can afford to do anything the media might spin as "unprofessional" on this job.

Jukebox Joyride: A Time Traveling Adventure, by Jacob Stein (author, narrator), Jason Rabinowitz (author, narrator), The Pop Ups (auhor), Cara Samantha (narrator), Susan Bennett (narrator), Noel MacNeal (narrator), Carly Ciarrocchi (narrator)

Audible Studios, June 2019

George and his twin sister Jules are "practically twelve," really into music. They're active in Stage Band at school, and have their own after-school garage band.

And they really miss their Uncle Bob.

Uncle Bob is an ethnomusicologist, or was, beofre he abruptly disappeared during the filming of a reality show, Pawn Wars, where he'd just won a strange old music box. And in this case, "disappeared" means just that, with cameras rolling, in a great flash of light, with no damage to anything that had been around him.

Then one day the owner of their favorite music shop tells them he has a package for them, from their Uncle Bob. It turns out to be the music box.

9 Lives to Live (Magical Cool Cats #10), by Mary Matthews (author), Stephanie Quinn (narrator)

Mary Frances Matthews, September 2015

Another adventure of Grace, Jack, Tatiana, and Zeus--this time intertwined with the story of Tatiana's previous people, in her previous life.

Grace and Jack are asked to find the wife of Henry, a rich businessman whose goods in trade include one of Grace's favorite things, fashionable shoes.

Arthur and Isabella, three years earlier, are New York City street rats. They hooked up and survived for several years together with a white cat whom they called simply The Cat, who was very good at alerting them to threats and helping them to stay safe. Yet Child Services and the orphan trains can't be evaded forever.

Cupcake Kitty (Grace, Jack & Magical Cats Cozy Mystery #6, by Mary Matthews (author), Amy Gramour (narrator)

Mary Frances Matthews, April 2013

Grace, Jack, and their two cats, Tatiana and Zeus, discover a disturbing surprise at Grace and Jack's engagement party. Eddie, the band's lead singer, has been murdered--stabbed with a letter opener.

This is Prohibition, and so everyone that has a comfortable income drinks like a fish, by modern standards. And of course, it' all a big joke. For someone who grew up with two alcoholic uncles and a recovering alcoholic father, it's not quite so funny. It's even less funny when you've actually looked at the per capita consumption of alcohol in the years preceding Prohibition, and the annual per capita consumption since. Bad, or at least unwelcome, news: No, per capita consumption of alcohol has never recovered to anything close to pre-Prohibition levels. The pre-Prohibition alcohol consumption rates were truly scary, and Prohibition worked spectacularly well. By the time it was repealed, the culture had changed, and we didn't need it anymore. But be that as it may, Grace, Jack, and the cats have a murder to solve.

Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1), by Justina Ireland (author), Bahni Turpin (narrator)

Harper Audio, April 2018

Honestly, I hate zombie novels. And this is a zombie novel.

So, it makes perfect sense that I love it, right?

This is set after an alternate Civil War, that started the way ours did, and changes and ends when the battle dead start rising and attacking their fellow soldiers. Sherman's march from Atlanta to the sea happens, but the main point is to burn the zombies, or, as they are called here, shamblers. The slaves are freed, "combat schools" are opened for the freed slaves and the Indians, teaching them to fight shamblers and, for the black girls at least, teaching them to be refined attendants as well as guards for rich white ladies.

Tess of the Road (Tess of the Road #1) (Southlands #3), by Rachel Hartman

Random House Books for Young Readers, ISBN 9781101931288, February 2018

This is a frustrating book.

We first meet the titular Tess as a little girl full of energy and imagination, and a challenge to her joy-killing mother. Then we quickly jump ahead playing maid and "younger sister" to Jeanne, who is her younger twin and now a maid of honor at the royal court. In the intervening years, we gradually learn, Tess managed to ruin herself, give birth to a bastard whose existence was concealed by sending Tess to stay with her grandmother, and demonstrate a complete inability to be sufficiently meek and rule-following to have much chance anyway at the kind of husband the family needs to repair its fortunes. Those fortunes were destroyed when the truth came out about their father's first marriage--his first wife was a dragon, and his oldest daughter, Seraphina, is a dragon. He lost his licence to practice law. They can't afford for Tess's disgrace to come out, too.

Tess at this point in her life is unhappy and resentful, though Jeanne may be the only member of her family she loves. Not soon enough, we jump ahead to Tess running away, which, unexpectedly, is the start of her doing things that aren't willfully stupid and self-destructive.

Birdie & Jude, by Phyllis H. Moore

Phyllis H. Moore, March 2018

Birdie Barnes is a middle-aged woman living in her family's longtime home near the beach in Galveston. Her only surviving family is her nephew, her brother's son. Her parents, her brother and his wife, and even their other son, have all died over the years. Her nephew lives in Houston now, but he comes back every month to see her and take her to church, and make sure she's all right.

Now, though, there's a hurricane bearing down on Galveston, and she's taking her dog, Ollie, out for a walk for what's likely to be the last opportunity till after the storm is over. And on this walk, they find a young woman, Jude, lying in the sand, with blood in her hair and on her clothes from obviously recent but not fresh injuries, and it's a challenge to get her to agree to get up and move even though the tide is coming in and the storm is approaching. Once home, she persuades Jude to shower, let Birdie put her clothes in the wash, nap, and eat a meal.

And talk.