"Of Masquerades and Fame" by Candice Pedraza Yamnitz and Claire Kohler

Book three in the Games of Greed and Ruin series does not disappoint!

Of Masquerades and Fame picks up the story of two contestants from One Must Die, Camilla and Rupert.  After surviving the deathly games of the first book, Camilla has vowed to change her ways.  She no longer makes and sells poisons, but has a legitimate (if boring) job.  She and Rupert are tentatively heading toward getting engaged, but Camilla is worried that Rupert will feel ashamed for not being able to support a wife, and she thinks he might do something desperate to change his fortunes.  So she does something desperate instead:  she accepts an invitation to a masquerade ball from a man she knows is evil and wants to manipulate her into poisoning someone.

Meanwhile, Rupert has a big and important secret that he is hesitant to share with Camilla.  He worries that if she finds out he's not actually poor anymore, she'll only agree to marry him to get at his money.  He has to learn to trust her before he can propose -- and he is so far from trusting her, he's having her followed and all her activity reported on.

Both Camilla and Rupert have a lot of growing up to do over the course of this short book.  The bulk of the book takes place all in a single night, during the masquerade ball.  The story has lots of disguises and masks and secrets, a dangerous hedge maze, and a very stunning conclusion that left me eager for the next book in the series.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-10 for some violent deaths (lightly described), lots of danger, and a scary hedge maze sequence.

"Life Together" by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I'd never read anything by Dietrich Bonhoeffer before this.  Oh, quotations here and there, sure.  Books and articles about him, sure.  But never one of his full writings.  I came away very impressed.  I want to read more of his stuff.

The Introduction explained that Bonhoeffer wrote Life Together while living in a secret, illegal seminary to teach young German pastors in Nazi Germany.  He and the other teachers and about twenty-five seminary students all lived and worked together, and I'm sure his experiences there are what prompted him to write about how Christians should and shouldn't behave in daily life, both in Christian communities and in the world in general.

He focuses on the importance of being part of a community, on what a Christian's daily life can and will look like both when living with others and also when living alone, on different kinds of earthly ministries, and on the importance of confession and Holy Communion for believers.  I found the last two sections to be the most interesting and enlightening.  

The section on Ministry was divided up into small, useful segments of ways that we can serve God and our fellow human beings in our daily life through things like the Ministry of Holding One's Tongue, the Ministry of Meekness, the Ministry of Listening, and several others.  This was good, practical, uplifting advice to anyone and everyone, and I will be rereading that section in the future, I am sure.

Bonhoeffer didn't pull any punches when talking about how important it is to truly repent of our sins and turn away from them, and how comforting it is to confess them to a fellow Christian such as a pastor and receive comforting reassurance that God forgives those sins for the sake of Jesus's suffering and death on the cross.  We often reply on privately confessing our specific sins to God and publicly only confessing in a general way, during a worship service -- and those are important!  But some sins can weigh so heavily on a Christian that we feel maybe we can't be forgiven for them, which can lead to despair and be very destructive of souls and hearts and minds, and that is where private confession can provide amazing comfort and relief.  I've known that, in a vague way, for most of my life, but Bonhoeffer really explained it in such clear and relatable ways that it became much more real to me, somehow.

I think the one, single part of this book that was the most immediately helpful for me was this:

It is one of the particular difficulties of meditation that our thoughts are likely to wander and go their own way, toward other persons or to some events in our life.  Much as this may distress and shame us again and again, we must not lose heart and become anxious, or even conclude that meditation is really not something for us.  When this happens it is often a help not to snatch back our thoughts convulsively, but quite calmly to incorporate into our prayer the people and the events to which our thoughts keep straying and thus in all patience return to the starting point of the meditation (p. 85).

I often have this problem when I am reading the Bible and praying, and I love that extremely practical and solid advice.

This is a really short book, but so meaty and wise!

Particularly Good Bits:

The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer (p. 19).

By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world.  He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream.  God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth (p. 27).

In the Christian community thankfulness is just what it is anywhere else in the Christian life.  Only he who gives thanks for little things receives the big things...We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good.  Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious.  We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts (p. 29).

Human love is directed to the other person for his own sake; spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake (p. 34).

The Old Testament day begins at evening and ends with the going down of the sun.  It is the time of expectation.  The day of the New Testament church begins with the break of day and ends with the dawning light of the next morning.  It is the time of fulfillment, the resurrection of the Lord.  At night, Christ was born, a light in darkness; noonday turned to night when Christ suffered and died on the Cross.  But in the dawn of Easter morning Christ rose in victory from the grave (p. 40).

Here we learn, first, what prayer means.  It means praying according to the Word of God, on the basis of promises.  Christian prayer takes its stand on the solid ground of the revealed Word and has nothing to do with vague, self-seeking vagaries (p. 47).

Why do Christians sing when they are together?  The reason is, quite simply, because in singing together it is possible for them to speak and pray the same Word at the same time; in other words, because here they can unite in the Word.  All devotion, all attention should be concentrated upon the Word in the hymn (p. 59).

"Seek God, not happiness" -- this is the fundamental rule of all meditation.  If you seek God alone, you will gain happiness: that is its [meditation's] promise (p. 84).

Often we combat our evil thoughts most effectively if we absolutely refuse to allow them to be expressed in words (p. 91).

We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.  God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions.  We may pass them by, preoccupied with our more important tasks, as the priest passed by the man who had fallen among thieves, perhaps -- reading the Bible.  When we do that we pass by the visible sign of the Cross raised athwart our path to show us that, not our way, but God's way must be done (p. 99).

Sin demands to have a man by himself.  It withdraws him from the community.  The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation.  Sin wants to remain unknown.  It shuns the light.  In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person (p. 112).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  This is good and godly stuff, though younger people may not understand it thoroughly.  I didn't understand all of it myself on just one reading.

This is my 44th book read and reviewed for my 4th Classics Club list.  Only six to go to finish this list!

"Murder at King's Crossing" by Andrea Penrose

It's been a little while since I read a Wrexford and Sloane Mystery -- in fact, two new books in the series have been released since I read Murder at the Merton Library in the summer of 2024.  Happily, I was able to slip right back into their world and revel in being with this quirky and eclectic cast of characters who have become my imaginary friends.  And I have another to look forward to!

I love how Penrose brings Regency England to life.  These books almost feel like Georgette Heyer could have written them sometimes -- lots of witticisms, wonderfully atmospheric details, and unconventional romances, but with clever murder mysteries mixed in too.  And I also love how she weaves real scientific discoveries and inventions into all the books -- I feel like I'm learning a bit of the history of science along the way.

But it's my fondness for the Earl of Wrexford and Charlotte Sloane and their motley found family that keeps me returning to the series over and over.  I have started collecting the paperback editions as they get released because I know I will want to reread the series in the future, and I can no longer trust my local library system to just keep good books on their shelves.

This mystery centers around missing plans for a way to make longer, stronger bridges that may have been stolen by Napoleonic supporters hoping to bring the former French emperor back from exile.  Don't want to say more than that so I don't spoil it!

Particularly Good Bits:

"Indeed, the union of kindred hearts and minds makes each person even stronger" (p. 47).

"It is nice to be reminded that there is beauty in this world that cannot be diminished by the evil that lurks in the human heart" (p. 50).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for murder, attempted murder, some mild cussing, and veiled allusions to wedding nights and newlywed activities.

"The Adventures of Elizabeth in Ruegen" by Elizabeth von Arnim

This is the third and final "Elizabeth" book from which Elizabeth von Arnim took her pen name.  I love Elizabeth and her German Garden the most, and then I think I like the sequels The Solitary Summer and The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rügen about equally -- not quite so well as the first book, but it was still lots and lots of fun!

Elizabeth decides she wants to take a little vacation by herself to the quaint and charming island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea.  She would like to walk all the way around the island, but none of her friends are willing to undertake walking all the way around a fairly large island, and her husband says that wouldn't be practical OR proper, so instead, she takes a cart and driver and her faithful maidservant Gertrud and determines to drive all the way around the island.

Like in the previous two books, people and circumstances conspire to prevent her from wholly and completely accomplishing her goal.  Elizabeth perseveres.  She sometimes loses her natural good spirits just a little, but recovers them before long.  And her writing made me laugh aloud repeatedly, just as I hoped it would.

I liked the first part best, when it's just Elizabeth and Gertrud and the driver, and the only things that spoil Elizabeth's plans are things like hotels having no vacancies.  Once she met up with her odd cousin Charlotte, things turned almost a little screwball here and there, with the mishaps and misunderstandings piling up a bit too quickly for my taste.  Also, there were a lot fewer passages describing and appreciating the beauty of the world around her, which are something I absolutely love in von Arnim's books.

Overall, I'll totally read it again, but not as often as Elizabeth and Her German Garden.

Particularly Good Bits:

If you go to a place on anything but your own feet you are taken there too fast, and miss a thousand delicate joys that were waiting for you by the wayside (p. 3).

Admirable virtue of silence, most precious, because most rare, jewel in the crown of female excellences (p. 5).

Every instant of happiness is a priceless possession for ever (p. 20).

As soon as there are no trains to catch a journey becomes magnificently simple (p. 35).

Why not take the beauty and be grateful? (p. 36).

What had I been doing with my life?  Looking back into it in search of an answer it seemed very spacious, and sunny, and quiet.  There were children in it, and there was a garden, and a spouse in whose eyes I was precious; but I had not done anything.  And if I could point to no pamphlets or lectures, neither need I point to a furrow between my eyebrows (p. 42).

You need not, after all, let your vision be blocked entirely by the person with whom you chance to live; however vast his intellectual bulk may be, you can look round him and see that the stars and the sky are still there, and you need not run away from him to do that (p. 44).

I know no surer way of shaking off the dreary crust formed about the soul by the trying to do one's duty or the patient enduring of having somebody else's duty done to one, than going out alone, either at the bright beginning of the day, when the earth is still unsoiled by the feet of the strenuous and only God is abroad; or in the evening, when the hush has come, out to the blessed stars, and looking up at them wonder at the meanness of the day just pat, at the worthlessness of the things one has struggled for, at the folly of having been so angry, and so restless, and so much afraid.  Nothing focusses life more exactly than a little while alone at night with the stars (p. 59).

...the forest was so exquisite that way, the afternoon so serene, so mellow with lovely light, that I could not look round me without being happy. Oh blessed state, when mere quiet weather, trees and grass, sea and clouds, can make you forget that life has anything in it but rapture, can make you drink in heaven with every breath!  How long will it last, this joy of living, this splendid ecstasy of the soul?  I am more afraid of losing this, of losing even a little of this, of having so much as the edge of its radiance dimmed, than of parting with any other earthly possession.  And I think of Wordsworth, its divine singer, who yet lost it so soon and could no longer see the splendour in the grass, the glory in in the flower, and I ask myself with a sinking heart if it faded so quickly for him who saw it and sang it by God's grace to such perfection, how long, oh how long does the common soul, half blind, half dead, half dumb, keep its little, precious share? (p. 72).

How good it is to look sometimes across great spaces, to lift one's eyes from narrowness, to feel the large silence that rests on lonely hills!  Motionless we stood before this sudden unrolling of the beauty of God's earth.  The place seemed full of a serene and mighty Presence (p. 109).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG.  Completely clean in every way.

This is my 43rd book read and reviewed for my fourth Classics Club list.

"Comets Fade with Summer" by Amber Lambda

I didn't know quite what to expect from this book.  A teenage girl is falling in love with her imaginary best friend?  What?  I got it as a gift from a friend who was confident I would like it, and they were right!  I did.

Halley has to move to California right before she starts the next year of high school.  She'd worked so hard to fit in with the coolest girls in her old high school, and now she has to start all over... but how?  She's not actually cool herself, she's just really good at blending in and pretending she likes all the things the cool kids do.

Someone unexpected greets Halley when she gets to her new home: West, her childhood imaginary friend.  He's sixteen now too, and a compelling mixture of sweet, kind, supportive, and hot.  How is Halley supposed to resist West?  Too bad he only exists in her imagination, even if he seems extremely real to her.

This whole book reminded me a lot of a line from the 1995 movie Sabrina:  "Illusions are dangerous people.  They have no flaws."  West is everything Halley wants... because she made him up.  His only flaw is that he doesn't really exist, and he'll slowly fade when Halley makes some real friends.

The message in this book is really good: don't hide who you are in order to attract friends or significant others.  The middle section of it started to drag for me after a while, as Halley made unfortunate choice after unfortunate choice, but the pacing picked back up again at the end.

The last two chapters had me crying so much, I went through several Kleenex.  I had some very dear imaginary friends when I was a kid and a teen, and I brought a couple of them with me into adulthood.  (But I never fell in love with any of them, whew.)  The thought of having no choice about whether or not I could keep them was pretty devastating, so probably a lot of readers wouldn't be bawling like I was.

Particularly Good Bits: 

"Isn't it better to stick to the people and the things that make you shine brighter?  You don't have to fade away to find a place to fit in, Halley" (p. 29).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for scenes with teenage boys making girls feel uncomfortable, lightly described kissing, mention of teen make-out sessions, and a LOT of physical attraction to the opposite sex.  It is maybe a little more romantic than I would let my teen daughters read just yet, and they are 13 and 15.

"Shadows of the Valley" by Britt Howard

I have been looking forward to this book for months and months!  I very much enjoyed the first McCade Family Novel, Song of the Valley, when I read that a couple of years ago, but I liked Shadows of the Valley even more!

This is a suspenseful story with a modern western setting and a slow-burn romance. Kasey Carter is a retired military veteran who has suffered severe wounds, both physical, emotional, and spiritual.  When her younger half-sister begs Kasey to hide and protect her children for a while, Kasey agrees, but reluctantly.  She ends up guarding them in a remote cabin in the Montana mountains near the small town of Cascade Valley.  There, she encounters Dean McCade, a local rancher who senses she's guarding more than a few secrets and tries repeatedly to help her. 

This book is a lot more serious than the first book in Britt Howard's McCade Family series, but it features the same beautiful scenery, courageous and compassionate McCade family members, and a message that real answers and truth can be found only in Christ Jesus.  

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for mentions of spousal abuse, memories of military violence and trauma, small children being put in danger, and some violence on-page.  No cussing, no smut, and no gore.

"Of Clockworks and Daggers" by Sarah Everest

This is the second book in the Games of Greed and Ruin series -- the first was One Must Die, which Sarah Everest co-wrote with five other authors.

Of Clockworks and Daggers follows the adventures of Zenith, a young assassin-for-hire whose beliefs about his entire existence are challenged when he meets a mysterious fellow assassin who has a dangerous offer for him.  Zenith has been trying to live an honest life ever since the events at the mysterious sky mansion in One Must Die.  He's also been trying to help support the orphanage run the Jessie, the young woman he is falling in love with.  But he gets sucked back into his old life, and more is jeopardized than just his relationship with Jessie. 

This book ponders some pretty deep issues, like being the adult child of abusive parents, how to deal with the wrong in your past when you want to change for the better, and personal sacrifices big and small. It starts a little slowly, but builds to a really thrilling climax.

I really like the steampunk world of this series, a sort of Dickens-meets-H.G. Wells vibe with some fantasy twists here and there.  I'm looking forward to more of this series, including the next book, which drops in October!  

Particularly Good Bits:

Something about the pretentiousness of lawyers who live a life bending the law to fit the needs of their benefactors makes them believe they're untouchable.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for some violence, memories of child abuse, thieving, and a scary sequence involving fire.