What Fiction are you reading this week, July 13 2025?

[hermetic]

Powell Library

I'm reading The Way of the Bear by Anne Hillerman. Winner of the 2023 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award for Best Mystery. Navajo Tribal Police officers Jim Chee and Bernadette Manuelito visit Utah's Bears Ears National Monument but their visit to this beautiful place is disrupted by a current of unprecedented violence that sweeps them both into danger. Illicit romance, a fossilized jawbone, hints of witchcraft, and a mysterious disappearance during a blizzard add to the peril.

Listening to A Minute to Midnight by David Baldacci. Moving across the country from Utah to Andersonville, Georgia, for more history and strange murders. I still remember reading Andersonville by Mackinlay Kantor back when I was a teen. "The 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winning story of the Andersonville Fortress and its use as a concentration camp-like prison by the South during the Civil War." What's old is new again.

[cbabe]

1. Alice Henderson/Alex Carter four book series

PhD wildlife biologist Alex goes into the wild to study wolverines and caribou and jaguars.

And encounters lots of bad people.

As she says: it’s not the animals that scare me, it’s humans.

Lots of science and nature.

For fans of Nevada Barr.

[hermetic]

3. Have you read

her Shattered series? She's evidently a very prescient writer.

Thanks.

[cbabe]

5. Thanks for the tip. On my list now. She does use a lot of

endangered species, climate change, do nothing politicians in her rants.

The Vanishing Kind is set in southern Texas and has marauding white supremacists in masks committing evil deeds. And the border wall blocking species from migrating leading to mass die offs.

Timely stuff.

[beveeheart]

2. I'm reading The Women for my historical fiction

book club. One of my school classmates served as a nurse in Viet Nam and described her experience there and her return home exactly as what's in this book. I feel as if I'm listening to my friend again.

for her and at the government war machine.
I also read Andersonville, probably in 1960. Still remember descriptions from it.

[hermetic]

4. Thanks for sharing

I'm sorry for your loss.

[mentalsolstice]

6. Thank you for hosting this amazing group!

I’m reading A Map to Paradise by Susan Meissner, about the Hollywood blacklist in the late 50s.

Happy reading everyone!

[txwhitedove]

8. Tks for rec, appears very much in demand at library.

[txwhitedove]

7. "Fahrenheit 451" one of my all time favorite books! Sunday morning, humid but not raining...yet.

Finished Wise Gals by Nathalia Holt, and highly recommend for history, celebration of female accomplishments, and historical parallels.

DNF, did not finish, Just the Nicest Couple though rec'd here and highly popular. Well written, but I didn't like the youngish, educated, upwardly mobile couples who spent way too much time on blah blah blah in their heads instead of doing the right thing. Outward appearances? Maybe that was the point, but not for me.

Now reading Something in the Water, Catherine Steadman. "A shocking discovery on a honeymoon in paradise changes the lives of a picture-perfect couple. If you could make one simple choice that would change your life forever, would you?"

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9. Rain would be nice..

in limited amounts, of course.

I read a different Kubica book and didn't care for it. Just goes to show, you just never know.

That Steadman book sounds pretty good. With piercing insight and fascinating twists, SOMETHING IN THE WATER challenges the reader to confront the hopes we desperately cling to, the ideals we're tempted to abandon, and the perfect lies we tell ourselves.

[PJMcK]

10. An older thriller

“The Shipkiller” by Justin Scott.

A sailor and his wife are sailing their boat across the Atlantic when a huge oil tanker runs them down, killing the wife. The sailor then sets out for revenge ala Moby Dick. It involves various Mideast security forces and commercial interests. There’s even a love story according to the dust jacket.

Should be a fun diversion.

[hermetic]

11. That sounds entertaining

Don't give up. We've still got DU.

[Jeebo]

12. Reflex by Steven Gould

It's the sequel to Jumper, which is one of the most purely FUN novels I've ever read. I've read Jumper about a half-dozen times and I'm sure not for the last time, but I think this is only the second time I've read its sequel. It's fun too, though. I was rummaging through a box of old books looking for something to read a day or two ago and found Reflex there.

Last week I told you I was reading Purgatory by Mike Resnick. I gave it at best a lukewarm review, but I would like to upgrade that to a mild recommendation, because it got better. I did enjoy it. It was a bit of a page-turner, in fact.

— Ron

P.S. — About Jumper, it is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable novels I've ever read, but I'm talking about the novel here, not about that awful movie. Hollywood has an annoying habit of taking way too many liberties with wonderful novels and consequently RUINING them. They tend to forget completely about what made the novel so good. When they're true to the novel, they make wonderful movies from wonderful novels. That's what happened, for example, when they made Andy Weir's novel The Martian into a movie. I read the novel a couple years before I knew they were going to make it into a movie. They were true to the novel, and the result was, a great novel, and then, a great movie. In fact, it's one of those movies that when it shows up on one of the movie channels I get, I can't not watch it.

[hermetic]

13. Wow, JUMPER goes back

to 1992. At first I thought it might be about a horse but I found it is Science Fiction and I am quite intrigued. I never heard of the movie and I'm putting it on my list of books to find somewhere because anything that much FUN, I gotta read. So, thanks.

[LogDog75]

14. Find You First by Linwood Barclay

Miles Cookson is a 42 year old tech billionaire. He's just receive devastating news from his doctor that he has ALS and only about 5 years to live. And only about 5 years to live. His doctor recommends his parents and his older brother get tested to see if they have athe same gene but his parents are dead and cremated so he can't test them. He secretly gets his brother tested and finds out he doesn't have the gene. What's troubling him is that 20 years ago he was a sperm donor to make some money to help him start his company. He wants to have any of the children that were born from that clinic tested to see if they have the gene. Using unscrupulous means, he gets a hold of the list of nine children who were conceived with his sperm. He finds one of them and together they start to bond as a father and daughter. However, a problem has arisen in that the children on the list or disappearing and can't be found. Miles needs to find out why they're disappearing and who's behind The disappearance of his children.

I like Lynnwood Barclays novels because they are easy reads, well written, and the characters are believable.

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15. Thanks

for the nice write up.