Long-time lurker, first-time commenter. I've really enjoyed reading your reviews, and the observation about the latest Murderbot ("the last third of Network Effect lopped off and published three years late") summed the problem up so perfectly!
Yeah, Raybourn has sadly stopped being an auto-buy for me and become a "borrow from the library" instead. I feel like she's always treading the same ground (this is a trend I'm seeing more and more in mysteries, like the TE Kinsey Lady Hardcastle books, which are generally a fun read but getting a bit repetitive).
I did enjoy Raybourn's contemporary book, Killers of a Certain Age (currently pondering whether I enjoyed it enough to buy the discounted ebook, after getting a bookbub email). I thought the use of 1st person present tense for the current-day events & 3rd person past tense for the flashbacks was well done. I imagine that Hollywood's dislike of older women is why it hasn't been optioned because it would be a great movie/limited series.
For mysteries, you might like: Claudia Gray (who used to be active in fandom under a pen name) has a Jane Austen mystery series. Allison Montclair -- post-WWII England, two women (an ex-spy and a widowed aristocrat) run a matchmaking bureau but keep on getting involved in (and solving) murders
Have you read Andrea K Host/Karan K Anders? I enjoyed the Touchstone trilogy and short novellas (Australian teen accidentally winds up in another world and ends up helping their X-men esque defenders), and her romance duology (The Book of First / Four Kings, under the Anders pen name) was a highlight for me, unlike any other poly romance I've read.
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momijizukamori and
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Date: 2024-06-30 02:26 am (UTC)Yeah, Raybourn has sadly stopped being an auto-buy for me and become a "borrow from the library" instead. I feel like she's always treading the same ground (this is a trend I'm seeing more and more in mysteries, like the TE Kinsey Lady Hardcastle books, which are generally a fun read but getting a bit repetitive).
I did enjoy Raybourn's contemporary book, Killers of a Certain Age (currently pondering whether I enjoyed it enough to buy the discounted ebook, after getting a bookbub email). I thought the use of 1st person present tense for the current-day events & 3rd person past tense for the flashbacks was well done. I imagine that Hollywood's dislike of older women is why it hasn't been optioned because it would be a great movie/limited series.
For mysteries, you might like:
Claudia Gray (who used to be active in fandom under a pen name) has a Jane Austen mystery series.
Allison Montclair -- post-WWII England, two women (an ex-spy and a widowed aristocrat) run a matchmaking bureau but keep on getting involved in (and solving) murders
Have you read Andrea K Host/Karan K Anders? I enjoyed the Touchstone trilogy and short novellas (Australian teen accidentally winds up in another world and ends up helping their X-men esque defenders), and her romance duology (The Book of First / Four Kings, under the Anders pen name) was a highlight for me, unlike any other poly romance I've read.