Howling Frog Books

 Tress of the Emerald Sea, by Brandon Sanderson A friend of mine recently started a book club, and for our second book we decided to read something fun -- this one.  It's a long time since I read any Brandon Sanderson, and he's developed this whole Cosmere thing that I don't really understand (I'm planning to learn), but this book is a sort of one-off for fun set on an obscure planet of the Cosmere.  It's narrated by a visitor, whose real name is not mentioned and who is apparently not a character from another book.  And as this was something of a personal project and more of a YA story, Sanderson lets quite a bit of his native silliness out in this novel. Tress lives on a bitty little island in the Emerald Sea -- a salt-mining outpost that people aren't allowed to leave, that's how unpleasant it is.  She's a nice girl with tangly hair (thus the nickname) who works hard and is good friends with the gardener up at the castle, though she knows he's rea

 The Loneliest Place, by Lora Senf It's the new conclusion to the Blight Harbor trilogy, and the Clackity is BACK!  I enjoyed this just as much  the other two, and they're perfect spooky fall reading.  Go get your copy from the library today! Evie has been back from the Nighthouse for a few weeks now, and summer is almost over, but she still has one more thing to do.  Now that Evie knows that her parents are a) alive and b) trapped on the Dark Sun Side, she can't think about anything but rescuing them.  In true protagonist fashion, she doesn't want to endanger anyone else, so she leaves a note.  Evie thinks she's prepared, but the Clackity is a lot angrier this time around. In order to find her parents, Evie must run the gauntlet of the storybook her mother wrote for her, in which a little girl who loves herself some alone time looks for the loneliest place in the world.  The Clackity has set up a challenge for each page, and its goal is to first kill Evie and then

 D is for Death, by Harriet F. Townson I heard an interview with this author and her new novel sounded like something I would enjoy.  A murder mystery set in the London Library?  In the 1930s?  Yes please!  I got it on Kindle. Dora is leaving home for London in hopes of escaping an impending marriage to a man she dislikes -- she plans to stay with her godmother, find a job, and build a life for herself.  But her fiance, Charles, gives chase and Dora finds refuge in the London Library, only to discover a dead body in the stacks.  It's the bad-tempered and shouty head of the Library, although how he got the post is a mystery since he knows nothing of books.  Also involved: Dora's favorite mystery writer, her catty former assistant, half the staff of the library, Charles the ex-fiance, Dora's best friend from school (in serious trouble), class-conscious Detective Inspector Fox and his sister....so many people!  And what Dora really wants is to figure out how her mother died fo

 The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, by Robert Louis Stevenson  It's Spin Day!  Did you read your book? The Black Arrow was fun.  It's set -- as the subtitle says -- during the Wars of the Roses, a chaotic and confusing time when two branches of the English nobility fought over which would control the throne.  Everybody else fought on one side or the other, and quite a few switched sides on the regular, according to who looked like winning.  This lasted decades, in patches, and was essentially a series of civil wars that took up much of the 1400s.  It ended with the death of Richard III in 1485 and the accession of Henry Tudor, a Lancastrian who married Elizabeth of York to unite the two branches.  But in this story, Richard III is a young man.  Strictly speaking he isn't even the Duke of Gloucester yet, but RLS makes him duke a little prematurely to avoid confusion. Richard Shelton, called Dick, is a teenage orphan in the care of Sir Daniel Bracknell, who administe

 How the Girl Guides Won the War, by Janie Hampton This was one of the titles that intrigued me on our last book-binge day in London.  As a former Girl Scout myself, I had to be interested in this!  How could that possibly be? Hampton confesses in her introduction that she meant to write about how awful the Girl Guides were, so hearty and colonial and tragically unhip, but was then surprised to discover that they were in fact amazing .  She doesn't cover just British Guides, but girls in many countries, and though she ranges throughout Guide history since its inception, she mostly focuses on World War II.  This makes it kind of all over the place, but it's always fascinating to read about what these girls and women accomplished! One thing to remember is that for a long time, Guiding reached up well into early adulthood and often functioned as further education back when many girls left school at 14 or 16.  You could be a Guide into your twenties, and lead a troop.  So Hampton

 Joyful Recollections of Trauma, by Paul Scheer I like Paul Scheer; he's very funny, and I keep meaning to listen to his podcast "How Did This Get Made?" but I've seen him in other things.  Like the hilarious NTSF:DS:SUV::.  Anyway, a little bit ago I listened to one of my favorite comedy podcasts and he was a guest, talking about his new book.  I ordered it for my work library, and read it once it came in.   Scheer had a pretty rough childhood, with a stepfather who enjoyed thinking up creative ways to terrorize little Paul.  Finally he and his mom escaped, and he embarked on his quest to become...an actor!  Lessons in improv led to one thing and another, and finally to the Upright Citizens Brigade, a long-form improv comedy troupe that launched Amy Poehler and others.   He also realized that he was not okay, and spent a good long time straightening himself out in therapy, which was really interesting to read about.  He'd tried rage and passivity and it took a lo

 The Clackity, by Lora Senf The Nighthouse Keeper I was recommended this title by Leila at Bookshelves of Doom , who is on Substack now.  I'm so glad I read it, and I can't wait to get my hands on The Loneliest Place , the final book in the Blight Harbor trilogy, which comes out soon. Blight Harbor is the seventh-most-haunted town in America, so Evie has become familiar with the supernatural since she moved to town a few years ago to live with her Aunt Des.  But she's never been allowed to explore the old abattoir on the other side of town; that place is haunted in a very bad way.  Des, however, has a job to do there, and Evie witnesses her disappearance.  To get Des back, Evie has to make a deal with the Clackity, the monster that inhabits the place, and go through to the other side of reality on a quest. Under a dark sun, Evie has just hours to find her way through seven houses and rescue her aunt from the even worse monster pursuing her.  She has a few tools to use, and