This might be the least “cozy” cozy mystery I’ve ever read (observation, not complaint). I think McKinlay should let loose and write a straightforward domestic noir. It seems like she would have fun in that genre.

A grittier, creepier, and more feminist cozy that deals with the kind of unwanted attention that pretty much every woman who works in a library has to face at least once. I tore through this one.

It seems silly to try to properly review an Agatha Christie book. I mean, public opinion of her work is pretty well-cemented, what with the bestselling author of all time stuff. What I think very much does not matter. So I'll just say that I liked this quite a bit. Tricksy, misleading fun. I will probably bounce around reading whatever Poirot sounds most entertaining (and some standalones, too) for awhile, because murder mysteries are exactly what my brain needs at the moment.

I expected to enjoy this much more than I did.

Pros:
- Yuri with adult characters!
- Shimizu's highly relatable struggles to understand other girls and feel comfortable around them.
- Shimizu's rants about shipping and her love of drawing doujinshi.
- Just Shimizu in general, really. She's a delight.

Cons:
- Maybe it's a translation issue, but the dialogue felt stilted.
- I found Maekawa's actions toward Shimizu to be confusing and depressing.
- Conspicuous absence of the sweetness I want in yuri! Where are my moments of brushing fingertips and almost-kissing and staring longingly at one another while surrounded by floating flowers??

With only three volumes, finishing this series wouldn't be too much of a time investment, but it's still one I'm not sure I'm willing to make.

This might not be the perfect book for everyone, but it’s the perfect book for me.

I've been reading a lot of straightforward, unadorned prose lately, so it was nice to slip into Cherie Dimaline's rich, image-heavy language. Empire of Wild follows Joan, a Métis woman who finds her missing husband after a year apart, only to discover that he is living a new life, under a new name, and has no memory of her. Although everyone in the congregation of missionaries with whom he works insists that Joan is delusional, she realizes that he is in the clutches of a rougarou, and only she can save him. The hook for this novel is something like "woman finds missing husband, but he's suddenly a werewolf preacher!" and well, kind of, but there's more going on in this story. Realizing what Dimaline is doing with her narrative is part of the pleasure of reading it, so I'm not going to spell it out, but I will say that I think this is a book well worth reading for fans of horror and magical realism.

Written by a Christie later in her career and seemingly dismayed to distraction by the world around her (The teenagers and their strange new clothes! Going around in cars! Necking!), but nevertheless an interesting double mystery with a chilling conclusion.

I do so very much like a twist.

A spooky season reread. As when I read it the first time, I'm sad that I only learned about this series as an adult, and thus missed out on the Edward Gorey-illustrated occult goodness as a child who would have happily gobbled it up.