Star of the North: D.B. John

This is a thriller that mostly takes place in North Korea. The story revolves around a Korean American woman whose sister went missing when she was spending her gap year in South Korea. Twelve years after her twin sister's disappearance, Jenna Williams is an assistant professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and specializes in the North Korean regime. She is recruited by the CIA, where she is offered the possibility of finding out what really happened to her sister. Two other featured characters are a highly placed official in North Korea who goes to the US for a diplomatic mission, and an older peasant woman who is living and barely surviving in a North Korean penal colony. 

When I purchased this book, I thought it was spy fiction, although I may have been most interested because it was set in North Korea. Booklist does categorize it under Spy/Espionage, but on Goodreads that category was not used. The book could qualify as related to spy fiction; the CIA is definitely involved. Jenna is training as a CIA operative. But the book is closer to a political thriller. As with any thriller, there are events and outcomes that seem unrealistic. However, for the most part I was convinced everything that happened in the book could have happened.

There are no unrealistic happy endings, and things were not all tied up at the end... but the story ended with an optimistic outlook for the future, in some ways. 

The author did a lot of research for this book. At the end there is an Author's Note that provides background for a lot of events that were covered in the novel. 

Star of the North is an amazing book. The characters are all very well done, and it was a compelling read. I learned so much about North Korea from this book, and it left me wanting to know more about that country and its history, although I imagine that any reading on that subject will be mostly depressing. 

Please check out these resources: Two reviews, one at Staircase Wit and one at Mrs. Peabody Investigates. And an extract at Dead Good Books.

 -----------------------------

Publisher:  Crown, 2018
Length:      400 pages
Format:      Hardcover
Setting:      North Korea, US
Genre:       Political Thriller
Source:      On my TBR since 2018.

Short Story Wednesday: In the Dark by E. Nesbit

My husband recently started reading this book of tales of terror by E. Nesbit. I haven't read any of her books, but I am aware of her reputation as the author of some well-known children's books, such as The Railway Children or Five Children and It. E. Nesbit had a very interesting life and that is covered in the introduction by Hugh Lamb.

This description is from the back of the paperback edition:

Edith Nesbit’s natural gift for storytelling has brought her worldwide renown as a classic children’s author. But beyond her beloved children’s stories lay a darker side to her imagination, revealed here in her chilling tales of the supernatural. Haunted by lifelong phobias which provoked, in her own words, ‘nights and nights of anguish and horror, long years of bitterest fear and dread’, Nesbit was inspired to pen terrifying stories of a twilight world where the dead walked the earth.

All but forgotten for almost a hundred years until In the Dark was first published 30 years ago, this collection finally restored Nesbit’s reputation as one of the most accomplished and entertaining ghost-story writers of the Victorian age. With seven extra newly-discovered stories now appearing for the first time in paperback, this revised edition includes an introduction by Hugh Lamb exploring the life of the woman behind these tales and the events and experiences that contributed to her fascination with the macabre.

My husband has read the first three stories in the book, and especially liked the  first one, "Man-Size in Marble."

Short Story Wednesday: "The Return" by Ann Cleeves

Today I am featuring a story from an anthology titled Bloody Scotland, edited by James Crawford, published in 2017.

From the book's dust jacket:

"Stellar contributors to Bloody Scotland include Val McDermid, Christopher Brookmyre, Denise Mina, Peter May, Ann Cleeves, Louise Welsh, Lin Anderson, Doug Johnstone, Craig Robertson, E. S. Thomson, Sara Sheridan and Stuart MacBride explore the thrilling potential of Scotland’s iconic sites and structures. From murder in a Hebridean blackhouse and a macabre tale of revenge among the furious clamour of an eighteenth century mill, to a dark psychological thriller set within the tourist throng of Edinburgh Castle and an ‘urbex’ rivalry turning fatal in the concrete galleries of an abandoned modernist ruin, this collection uncovers the intimate—and deadly—connections between people and places."

The short story I am covering is "The Return" by Ann Cleeves, set in Shetland, and the architectural site that is visited is Mousa Broch. Per the book, "broch's are Iron Age roundhouses that exist only in Scotland and Mousa is the best-preserved of them all."

In "The Return," Eleanor is given a book of poetry by her niece, Harriet, who has attended lectures by the author of the book, Elizabeth Blunt. The woman reads more of the author's work, and becomes very interested in her and her writing. Later, Harriet and Eleanor decide to visit the Shetlands and go to the island of Mousa where one of the author's short stories was set. Coincidentally Harriet and Eleanor run into Elizabeth on that trip and Harriet introduces her to Harriet. The three end up spending a lot of time together on the trip. Suddenly, the trip goes badly and Eleanor is left alone at the cottage where she had been staying with her niece. 

That is as far as I want to go in describing the story, so as not to spoil it. The story is suspenseful, atmospheric, and has a very satisfying ending.

This is the only story I have read in the book. I will come back and read more stories in the book later.

A Summer Challenge: 20 Books of Summer 2025

It's almost time for 20 Books of Summer. This is my tenth year of participating in this reading challenge. The event was previously hosted by Cathy at 746 Books. When she decided to stop hosting last year, Annabel from AnnaBookbel and Emma from Words and Peace took up the mantle.

The challenge is very flexible. You don't have to aim for 20 book but can also opt for 15 or 10. Here are some of the rules...

• The #20BooksofSummer2025 challenge runs from Sunday June 1st to Sunday August 31st
• The first rule of 20 Books is that there are no real rules, other than signing up for 10, 15 or 20 books and trying to read from your TBR.
• Pick your list in advance, or nominate a bookcase to read from, or pick at whim from your TBR.

For more information and the place to sign up, check out this post at AnnaBookBel. There is also a book bingo card, which is new.

I love to make lists of books to read, so I would start with a list whether I plan to stick with it or not. However, I do plan to stick with my list, and here it is...

At Bertram's Hotel | Agatha Christie   (mystery)

The '44 Vintage | Anthony Price   (spy fiction)

State of Wonder | Ann Patchett    (fiction)

Before Your Memory Fades | Toshikazu Kawaguchi   (fantasy / time travel)

The Burgess Boys | Elizabeth Strout   (fiction)

Olive Again | Elizabeth Strout   (fiction)

Table for Two | Amor Towles    (short stories)

The Murder of Mr. Ma | John Shen Yen Nee and S.J. Rozan   (mystery)

A Death in Tokyo | Keigo Higashino   (mystery)

A Death in Summer | Benjamin Black   (mystery)

Death by Accident | Bill Crider   (mystery) 

The Amateur | Robert Littell   (spy fiction)

The Killing of the Tinkers | Ken Bruen    (mystery)

Mrs. Dalloway | Virginia Woolf    (classic, fiction)

Oona Out of Order | Margarita Montimore   (time-loop fiction)

Pesticide | Kim Hayes   (mystery)

The Day the World Came to Town | Jim DeFede (nonfiction)

Perplexing Plots | David Bordwell   (nonfiction)

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone | Benjamin Stevenson   (mystery)

Ninefox Gambit | Yoon Ha Lee   (science fiction)

Books Read in April 2025

In April I read eight books: one nonfiction, one graphic novel, one time-loop novel, one very long fantasy novel, three crime fiction novels, and one book of mystery short stories. 

Nonfiction, Books about Books

Book Lust to Go (2010) by Nancy Pearl

I have read all of the Book Lust books by Nancy Pearl several times, and I enjoy them each time. I find something new every time, possibly because my tastes change over time. The subtitle for Book Lust to Go is "Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers." Because the book was published in 2010, it could be considered out of date, but for me that is one of its charms.

Graphic novel

Here (2014) by Richard McGuire 

This is a graphic novel that shows the reader the history of one room over the life of the house. It actually does more than that, because there are scenes showing the location /setting of the house going back before the house was built, back into prehistoric times. There is not much text to this book at all; the story is told more in pictures. It is 304 pages long. I think the book definitely bears rereading, probably multiple times. 

Speculative Fiction / Time-loop

On the Calculation of Volume I (2020) by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland

I first heard of this book late last year when my husband sent me an article from the Atlantic about it. The author is Danish; the book is very short, about 160 pages. In the article the novel was described as a time-loop story; I had never heard of that terminology for that type of time travel. One comparison is to the film, Groundhog Day, but this story is much more introspective and the story is handled very differently. The book is part of a seven volume work and only the first five have been translated to English at this time.

I liked the book but I was underwhelmed by the lack of resolution at the end. Obviously as part of a series of seven novels, I should not have expected anything else, but I was also disappointed in the repetitiveness of the story. Those who liked the story more than I did praised the meditative and philosophical aspects. I normally love things like that, so maybe I need to read it again more slowly. I plan to do that before moving on to book 2.

Fantasy

Royal Assassin (1996) by Robin Hobb

This is the second book in the Farseer Trilogy, following Assassin's Apprentice. The main character in this trilogy is FitzChivalry, a royal bastard who becomes the king's assassin in the first book, a fact that he and only a few others know. The story is very dark, with little relief. Fitz is shunned by most people in the court and leads a difficult life. Yet, I care about many of the characters, and loathe all the bad ones.

At this point I plan to continue reading the whole series, which includes a total of 16 books. Only problem is that each book is longer than the last. This book was 650 pages approximately. The third book in the series is closer to 750 pages. But I will persevere. I gave this book 5 stars and it is a page turner. I was introduced to this author and this series by Cath at Read-Warbler.

Crime Fiction

My Name is Michael Sibley (1952) by John Bingham

This was John Bingham's first novel. It is a very compelling and well written mystery; his writing is quiet and restrained. The narrator of the story is Michael Sibley, who tells  the story of his school days with John Prosset and how he grew to hate him. See my review.

Come Death and High Water (1988) by Ann Cleeves

Ann Cleeves' first series featured George and Molly Palmer-Jones. George is a serious birder and worked for the Home Office before he retired; Molly is not a birder but often accompanies him on such activities. Cleeves wrote the first two books when she was living on an island with her husband, who ran a bird sanctuary there. The books in that series are set in locations related to birding. Come Death and High Water is set on an island with a bird observatory. I enjoyed the first book in the series because of the birds and the setting, but this book was even better, with an interesting group of characters and a more focused plot. There are eight books in the series and Cleeves wrote them between 1986 and 1996.

Reader, I Buried Them and Other Stories (2022) by Peter Lovesey

On the occasion of his hundredth short story, Peter Lovesey assembled this collection of his short stories. It includes sixteen stories, one piece of nonfiction about George Joseph Smith and the brides in the bath, and a poem. I started reading this book in 2022, and I reviewed ten of the stories at that time. It took me until this year to read the rest of the book, and my thoughts are here.

The Spellman Files (2007) by Lisa Lutz

I loved this book. I like books about families, and I like private detectives as the focus. In this case, the private detective agency is run and operated by the family. Izzy Spellman, the middle daughter, tells her story. As far as the crime goes, this book is lighter than most mysteries, but there is plenty of depth in the family relationships and issues. This is the first in a series and I will be reading more of the books. See my review.

The photos at the top and bottom of this post were taken at the end of April in our back area. The rest of the yard is a mess, but these two plants are making me happy. Click on the images for the best viewing quality.

Rosie the Cat

 

Our cat Rosie passed away on March 23. She had thyroid disease, had lost a lot of weight, and eventually died of renal failure. 

Rosie was with us for 12 years and we think she was about 3 years old when we adopted her. She was a very sweet cat and a good companion and we miss her very much.

Rosie in my lap

Rosie helping me read

Rosie overseeing the garden work