"One Must Die" by Candice Pedraza Yamnitz, Amber Lambda, Sarah Everest, Claire Kohler, Lydia Mae, and C. C. Urie

I'm not sure I've ever read a novel co-written by six people before.  Not an anthology, but a single novel!  It's quite the ambitious endeavor, but I think it worked really well.

It's hard to describe One Must Die succinctly.  As the cover says, it's a steampunk murder mystery.  Set in a mansion floating above earth that's filled with robots.  And hidden keys.  And secret passageways.  And, somewhere, a treasure vault.

A whole bunch of strangers are invited to try solving a mystery and finding the treasure in the mansion... and then it turns out they're not all strangers after all.  Someone must die before anyone can claim the treasure, and there's a time limit, too.  You have to find the correct key to open the vault, and you have to find the vault.  Lots of treachery and trickery ensues.

This book is kind of like if you put The Westing Game and Clue and Murder on the Orient Express and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow in a blender.  It's a fast-paced ride, but never gets too scary or too bloody or too intense.  I'll be handing this off to my tween and teens to read now that I've finished it.

Particularly Good Bits: Dread seemed to settle over the large dining room like spider threads, wrapping us too tightly for any chance of escape (p. 50).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for violence, some romantic interludes (all tasteful), and talk about illegitimate children.

"The Bookish Bandit" by Erica Dansereau and Britt Howard

Awww, what a cute romcom this is!  It feels as autumnal as a pumpkin spice latte, as New York City-esque as a bagel with lox, and as bookloving-ish as a bookstore with a cat.  

An aspiring author impulsively sends her novel to a big city publishing house.  It lands in the slush pile, where it catches the eye of the publishing house's heir apparent, who falls in love with the book and demands it get published.

But then... mistakes happen.  Identities get mixed up.  The book is published, but with the wrong author name on it!  Equally furious and forlorn, the real author rushes to New York to take on the publisher and force them to admit they've wronged her.  And then ends up starting to fall in love with some guy who works for the publisher... and you can see where this is going.  But that doesn't make it any less fun to see how everything gets unsnarled in the end!

One of the things I liked best about The Bookish Bandit was how naturally faith was woven into the story.  Never preachy, always organic, the Christian themes were an integral part of the characters and their behavior, and I applaud how well Dansereau and Howard did that.

Particularly Good Bits:

The nerves return, but in the rare form of butterflies rather than fear.  I marvel at the way this woman both unravels and remedies me at once (p. 166).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG.  No cussing, no violence.  Some kissing and a great deal of swooning.  The main characters make it clear to each other and the readers that they will not be sharing a bedroom until they get married.  So, no smut, but definitely a 1960s rom com level of kissing and holding.

This is my 26th book read off my TBR shelves for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge.

"Summon the Light" by Tor Thibeaux

My dad died three weeks ago yesterday.  While traveling to Iowa for his funeral, I read Summon the Light by Tor Thibeaux, a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest that's part of the Classic Retold series.  This is a slender novella, barely a hundred pages, but it was exactly the representation of hope and healing I needed at the time.

Nick works as a smuggler after barely surviving the epic fight between mighty forces of evil and good.  The fight killed most of his friends and left the spirit Ariel in a magical coma.  Nick goes through his days feeling numb and detached until he begins to hear a beautiful song that urges him to return to the island he once called home.  Once there, he strives to rebuild the island's ruined chapel.  With each stone he replaces, the song grows stronger, and so does his hope.  

The book's message is one of not giving up even when you are devastated, of doing the next task that comes to hand even if it seems meaningless.  That confidence that even mundane things are still important in the face of great tragedy is something I absolutely needed reinforced during that road trip to Iowa.  I'm so thankful I grabbed this particular book off my TBR shelves, seemingly at random, when I was packing things to read on the trip -- I think the Lord must have guided my hand at that moment.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for fantasy violence.  No objectionable content.

This is my 25th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR reading challenge.