Naledi (Ledi) Smith is getting harassing scam emails from someone representing the Prince of Thesalo. Since Ledi is a scientist she knows enough to ignore them until one day when she's not in the mood and responds FUCK. OFF. Surprisingly, those two words bring joy to the heart of the Prince of Thesalo, Thabiso. He's a real guy, a real prince, from a real country, and he's been missing his priestess-declared betrothed since her family fled Thesalo when they were both children.

Thabiso happens to be traveling to NYC, where Ledi, an orphan who survived the foster system, is studying epidemiology (did epidemiology play a role in everything before Covid-19 and we just didn't notice?) and never getting too close to anyone, even her best friend, Portia. Having an unloved childhood takes a toll, but Ledi is still pretty rad--brilliant and equally adept at Sciencing and Cater-waitering.

Raised to be king since he was a toddler, Thabiso is doing alright, too. He's an international playboy and has the world's most competent assistant, Likotsi, who is the person who found Ledi for him. If only he'd listen to her about telling Ledi who he is...and who Ledi is.

Spoiler

Yeah, it's one of those, where the secret holder wants to spill their secret, is trying to spill, about to spill it, when...they're caught. The secret spilling happens with more book to go than is typical, but there's really never any doubt that prince will get princess back. It's a feminist getting, if that's any comfort.

Recommended romance!

I didn't make it far past the first chapter of Persephone Station. The story and characters didn't grab me. I put it down a few days ago and I remember the villain's actions more than what the protagonist was like. My bad for not persisting. I'm still struggling with concentration in my pandemic reading.

I hung in as long as I could, but despite solid, plausible world building and complex (yet decipherable) characters, it was just taking too long to get where it was going. I stopped reading at 19% finished, per the NetGalley ereader, which I have to say is a little buggy. I was just as invested (or maybe more so!) in secondary character Nithya, her family's primary breadwinner who was dealing with an unwanted pregnancy and an anti-choice husband.

Recommended for folks interested in/terrified of AI.

The second installment in Reluctant Royals is almost as enjoyable as [b:A Princess in Theory|35271238|A Princess in Theory (Reluctant Royals, #1)|Alyssa Cole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1501702014l/35271238._SY75_.jpg|56629976], but the fact that the couple more or less falls in love at first sight, but fights their attraction throughout most of the book, gets tedious. Still and all, the lovers are compelling and unpredictable characters, and again, I like the way Cole structures her novels. What you think is the climax comes mid-book, and you wonder what she'll do for the rest of it, but there's plenty of action.

Oops. I finished A Song Below Water so long ago, Libby snatched it back. It's a best friends story and a Black girls' story, and a being different story. The protagonist is a mermaid, in a world where such creatures are known as sirens. Only Black women are sirens, so obviously they're dangerous, and if one gets killed by a lover, it's probably her own fault. There are other magical creatures in this PDX-based story: Eloki, sprites, and a gargoyle. And ren faire geeks, if you think of them as magical!

Why yes, I've been reading romance novels about princes and dukes and the women who love them. Alyssa Cole brings it again in her Reluctant Royals series with Nya's story. Nya was first introduced to us in [b:A Princess in Theory|35271238|A Princess in Theory (Reluctant Royals, #1)|Alyssa Cole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1501702014l/35271238._SY75_.jpg|56629976], as a reluctant rival of the protagonist. Despite some Bad Things, Nya becomes close with her cousin Ledi and Ledi's best friend Portia, who is the center of [b:A Duke by Default|35564582|A Duke by Default (Reluctant Royals, #2)|Alyssa Cole|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1516640638l/35564582._SY75_.jpg|56993493]. In Nya's story, we get to know her better, and also Liechtienbourg's bad boy prince, Johan "Jo Jo" Von Braustein (or something like that). Lest you be concerned that the RR universe is too heteronormative, Johan is queer, there's a novella in the series about lesbians, and it's possible we meet a gender nonconforming soul in APoP.

Again, Cole does her climax in the middle thing and lets the story continue to play itself out for another hundred pages after boy and girl get each other. There's still will-they-or-won't-they tension, but this is a romance novel, so.

This is a sweet book for someone who has recently said goodbye to a beloved feline friend. My bonus mother sent it to me about three months after Bad Bad Leroy Brown crossed the rainbow bridge, and that was about the right amount of time into my grief to read the book. Chauncey captures many cat quirks, but leaves a few so you know your loved one was unique. It still hurts to think about Bad Bad being anywhere but in my bathtub, demanding her sixth hit of tap water of the day, but enough time has passed that it's possible to think of her with joy, as well as sadness. Rest in purrs, Bad Bad and all the other cats stalking a can of tuna on the other side.

Although just a year apart in age, Happi and Kezi Smith aren't close. Kezi is an activist YouTuber with a hundred thousand or so subscribers, and Happi mostly wants to be left alone. And then she is. Kezi dies in police custody, and Happi, their family, and Kezi's closest friends have to figure out what to do with their grief. Happi and Kezi's oldest sister, Genny, proposes the surviving sibs and friends follow a route Kezi had planned to take over the summer, one that utilizes an old copy of The Green Book. They have a physical copy but also give props to the Schomburg Center's digitized Green Book collection.

There is a lot going on in One of the Good Ones, which as much as anything takes on the idea that some Black people deserve to die less than others. Kezi is a star student, a YouTube star, and a preacher's kid. She has a secret or two, but generally, to the public, she is "one of the good ones." The Moulite sisters want readers to understand that, all Black lives matter.

They deemed her One of the Good Ones. Sometimes the phrasing was different--A Nice Kid, A Child with Promise--but the intent was always the same: this little girl was worth listening to because look how composed she was! If we read her report card, we would see all As. If we spoke to any of her teachers, they'd call her a star student. Her father, Jamal Coleman, immortalized on the internet, if not in the history books, took her to church every Sunday. The cognitive dissonance of it all was something I couldn't take. If I had been the one to die that day in the hands of police instead of my sister--what would they have said about me? I skipped school like I was allergic to desks? I got messy drunk at parties? I could have been a better sibling and daughter? And though that was all true, should those facts have any bearing on whether the world was livid at the injustice of my death or mourned for me? For Jamal Coleman? For Kezi? All the rest?

The story is told in more than one voice, and it may take a minute to really get who's who and what's going on, but even so, OotGO is an accessible and compelling read. It's about police violence and white silence, but it's also about one family working through their problems, and occasionally joys, even when processing a tragedy. And it's surprising, too!

This 2019 novel is about a pandemic that takes out a college town. Some people die, but mostly people sleep--if they have medical support and didn't fall asleep somewhere dangerous. It's an omniscient voice story, with little glimpses into what the sleepers experience, but mostly the story is told by those who are awake. I assume there's some big statement about the state of awakeness that I haven't picked up on. I'll think about it some more. I think Karen Thompson Walker began the novel before Trump took office, but surely her work must have been influenced. I don't see how directly, though. I think a lot of us would prefer to sleep through the rest of his presidency, which is perhaps not the most proactive approach to fighting fascism. There is one protagonist who is explicitly a person of color, with lots of talk of pale skin, which strikes me as unlikely in a California college town.

There are evocative descriptions, like

Everything around her, the dim lights and the rusted railings and teh faraway sound of something dripping--all of it seems suffused with meaning, as if the whole night has been transformed already into memory.

I remember in high school and college, pausing sometimes, to realize that what I was experiencing was in a way, already over and something I might or might not hold in my thoughts in the future. I remember doing that, but I wonder if I've forgotten every instance!
And on the next page,

Already, she can hear her older self telling this story one day, years into the future, the terrible thing that happened when she was young, that girl Kara in her dorm, the second month of freshman year, her first glancing disaster. The whole event is racing away toward the past.

I wonder how self-documentation via social media will impact memory when today's young people are old?

Oh, and this deadly accurate observation about the sleep getting spread at a wedding,

This is how sickness travels best: through all the same channels as do fondness and friendship and love.

Maybe this one is even more haunting,

A few people have collected on their porches now, watching, but they stay where they are: the unkindness of fear.

There's a character to thinks love is unethical, that caring about one person will cause you to prioritize that person's well-being, even over that of two others, or ten, or a hundred, etc. Is he wrong?

I'd probably have given the book five stars if the cast of characters hadn't been so white...unless that's important somehow...?

I couldn't get into it, but I bet in non-Covid times I'd be able to. Hinojosa provides more political context than I wanted because I'm shallow. I'd like to have seen the facts sourced, but less entrenched in the narrative.