A game for one to thirteen billion players

The Seven Rings by Nora Roberts is the completion of her Lost Brides trilogy, which I've been waiting a year for - and it didn't disappoint! I love the set of characters working together to break the curse in these books - even if they didn't actually properly start working on that until 90% through the third book... I'm sure a lot of readers will have been frustrated throughout this series by the lengthy, drawn-out, mostly mundane nature of the story - but I actually really enjoyed all the stuff with the pets and the characters working on their businesses and the gradual romance and the sailing and the small town community building, etc. The periodic intrusions of the evil ghost were what annoyed me more than anything because it was just so repetitive. A character would be alone in the house, the ghost would frighten or threaten them (often by trapping them in one of the rooms and throwing things at them), they would escape, the other characters would rush round to help and arrive after the fact, and the affected character would explain what happened - over and over and over again, which did get a bit wearing.

And then, when we finally got to the breaking of the curse, it was all over extremely quickly and felt way too easy, with not nearly enough aftermath. Still, those minor annoyances aside, I really enjoyed this whole series overall, and there was a lot to love about how everything got wrapped up in this instalment. I've completed another Nora Roberts trilogy with a very similar format and plot in the interim, so I may not be visiting more of her back catalogue for a while, but I'll definitely give the next trilogy a try when the first one inevitably comes out in November 2026.


The Skeleton Key by Erin Kelly has been on my wishlist for a while, since someone at a reading retreat recommended it to me ages ago - and then I spotted it in a local charity shop last week and immediately read it, since I was looking for a book to round out the month.

It tells the story of Frank Churcher, who writes a book of imagined folklore, with a complex puzzle built into it in the 1970s, which captures the imagination of a group of treasure hunters, who get dangerously obsessed with solving the mystery. This puts various of Frank's family in danger over the ensuing decades, until he decides to stage a media event around the fiftieth anniversary of the book's publication and things derail even further in unexpected ways.

The book is less thriller-y than I expected - in a good way - and much more layered and involving, with a split timeline gradually building up the history of events, and complex family relationships evolving and devolving over the course of the book.

I really liked the main POV character, Nell, Frank's oldest daughter, and the development of her arc with her foster daughter was my favourite aspect of the book. The main mystery was still compelling, though it got a bit too drawn out towards the end. Things didn't resolve the way I was expecting, though, and there were some complex moral aspects to the conclusion that were really interesting.

This kept me engaged throughout and I read it pretty quickly, though I was never tempted to skim.

A Witch's Guide to Magical Innkeeping by Sangu Mandanna follows a similar formula to The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches (though it's not set in the same world), with the story focusing on Sera, a young witch, who loses her magic and her connection to the magical community in one fell swoop at the age of fifteen. She helps her great-aunt run an inn, fuelled by a spell that only attracts those who really need the place's comfort and security.
There's a cute romance with a slightly grumpy Scotsman, some adorable and well-written kids, various other rather eccentric adult characters, and an outside threat to the found family of the inn.
The audiobook narration was good, bringing all the characters to life very well.
It took me a while to get into the story, though, since I wasn't all that keen on Sera, and a couple of the other characters were a bit too over-the-top for me to fully attach myself to them.
Once Luke and his sister turned up, things ticked along a lot better - and it totally got me by the end, with a heartfelt and satisfying conclusion, though the ultimate climax was did feel a bit abrupt.
So, an entertaining listen, though I didn't enjoy it as much as the first one.

The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro tells the story of Grace Munro, who receives a mysterious inheritance from a woman she's never heard of, which takes her to Paris to uncover a story of lost perfumes and unknown family connections.
It's exactly the kind of book I needed this week and I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.
It's a split timeline - Grace investigating her past in Paris in 1955, and her mysterious benefactor, Eva, whose story unfolds in England and across Europe in the 1920s, 30s and 40s.
I was generally more engaged in Grace's story, but they are closely intertwined and I never found myself wanting to skim to get through the book faster. I loved the development of Grace's relationship with Monsieur Tissot the French lawyer, as well as her breezy interactions with her friend Mallory from back home.
The story itself was indulgent at times and sordid at others, and I thought it built up over the course of the book brilliantly and in a very compelling way.
At root, it was very predictable, but I didn't care - though I did feel the ultimate conclusion seemed very rushed and I would have preferred to spend more time with Grace after all the reveals and her eventual decisions about what she wanted to do with her life going forward.
Really involving and highly entertaining, though!

Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree is the follow-up to Bookshops & Bonedust, the prequel to Legends & Lattes - and I'd been looking forward to its release this month.
I listened to the audiobook, as I have with all of them, since Baldree is a professional audiobook narrator, narrates all his own books, and is really good. I love the way he embodies all the characters, making them all engaging and distinct without straying into caricature.
This story follows Fern, the ratkin bookseller befriended by Viv in the prequel, as she tries to find purpose in her life again - getting embroiled in the adventures of an elven bounty hunter along the way.
And - it was fine.
Don't get me wrong - it was an easy and entertaining listen - but it didn't really grab me like the other two, and I felt it was rather lacking in the emotional depth and wonderful found family vibes that made the others so heartwarming and thoroughly enjoyable.
I did love the breadknife of the title - he was definitely my favourite character, and I'm glad to be keeping up with the series - but I definitely missed the community and shop-running focus of the previous two books, and it was a shame that Fern was the only recurring character to really feature in the story.

Key of Knowledge by Nora Roberts is the middle instalment of her Keys trilogy, in which three young women are selected to undertake a quest to find three keys, in order to free three demi-goddesses, whose souls have been trapped in a magical box for 3000 years.
This book tells Dana's story, looking for the titular Key of Knowledge, and rediscovering love with an old flame along the way. She and the other two protagonist, Mallory and Zoe, are also in the process of opening a combined beauty salon, art gallery and bookshop - and Dana is the bookseller of the group.
It's all very silly and predictable, but so much fun. I really like this world and these characters - though the romance aspect is even worse than in the first book, with two of the men planting surprise kisses on the objects of their affections at moments directly after the women have very specifically rejected them. Grrrr!
Still, I can't deny I really enjoyed this audiobook and I'm looking forward to completing the series with Key of Valor in the near future.
I especially liked the focus on books and writing in this one. And the dog is still awesome.


The Sand Warrior by Mark and Alexis Siegel is the first in the 5 Worlds comic book series, in which three young protagonists set out on a mission to light beacons across the titular five worlds, in order to reverse a climate catastrophe. Along the way, they face opposition from various of the worlds' leaders, as well as a dark entity called the Mimic.
There's a huge amount of diversity in this series - but also a lot of very complex racial politics and intolerance. Most of the authority figures turn out to be weak, corrupted or evil, leaving the youngsters floundering in trying to establish the right path to victory and unable to figure out who they should believe.
Deeper than I expected in a lot of ways, also very exciting and fun.

The Cobalt Prince continues the 5 Worlds series, with even higher stakes, even more deception from the authorities, some very weird genetic identity layers, intolerant attitudes from one of our protagonists (though clearly part of a journey of improvement), an unexpectedly high body count, and some pretty emotional aspects.
I'm really enjoying this series and keen to find out where it goes.

The Red Maze is the third in the 5 Worlds series and the best yet - really exciting, lots of interesting character development and intriguing plot. Raised stakes, great found family vibes, engaging new characters and new questions to be answered.

This is the second of the Neopolitan novels by Elena Ferrante.
I enjoyed the first one a couple of months ago, but just really couldn't get into this one.
It's very similar in style and content - so I think I just wasn't in the right frame of mind for it when I picked it up.
I've given up on it for now, but I may come back to the series at a future date.