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Hi, I'm Angi
Welcome to my corner of the internet! My passions include travel, photography, books, music, Japanese language and culture, Italian language and culture, and art.

Here at Abbott Lane you'll find my thoughts on these topics and much more. Thanks for stopping by to visit!

May 2021 TBR


 A little late with this, but better late than never, right?

As I mentioned in my April wrap up, reading has been a bit of a struggle for me lately. To a degree these ebbs and flows are normal for me. But I suspect a bit of this current phase also has to do with a chain of not so great books I was trying to get through.

I'm happy to say that those are behind me, and now I'm finding my footing again! The large lead I had in my Goodreads Reading Challenge has disappeared, but I'm still right on schedule. It's a bit of a bummer because I was something like 10 books ahead, but I'm glad I've at least not fallen behind. 

But even more exciting/important than that is...I think I've gotten a bit of my reading mojo back! This past weekend I sat down a read for a couple of hours, which is something I haven't done in a couple of months. And it felt good!

So this month I'm aiming for six books. Here's the plan...


The Gone World - Tom Sweterlitsch

1997. Shannon Moss of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service is assigned to solve the murder of a Navy SEAL's family - and to locate the soldier's missing teenage daughter. When Moss discovers that the SEAL was an astronaut aboard the spaceship U.S.S. Libra - a ship assumed lost to the darkest currents of Deep Time - she comes to believe that the SEAL's experience with the future is somehow related to this violence.

Determined to find the missing girl and driven by a troubling connection to her own past, Moss must travel forward in time to seek evidence that will uncover the truth. To her horror, the future reveals that it's not only the fate of a family that hinges on her work; for what she witnesses is the Terminus: the terrifying and cataclysmic end of humanity itself.

After a search for "best SF audio books" this one kept popping up as a contender. The premise sounds really interesting, but I got this on audiobook and wonder how the time travel aspect of it will translate to the medium, since time travel books can get...complicated. We'll see!



Foundryside - Robert Jackson Bennett

Sancia Grado is a thief, and a damn good one. And her latest target, a heavily guarded warehouse on Tevanne’s docks, is nothing her unique abilities can’t handle. But unbeknownst to her, Sancia’s been sent to steal an artifact of unimaginable power, an object that could revolutionize the magical technology known as scriving. The Merchant Houses who control this magic—the art of using coded commands to imbue everyday objects with sentience—have already used it to transform Tevanne into a vast, remorseless capitalist machine. But if they can unlock the artifact’s secrets, they will rewrite the world itself to suit their aims. 

Now someone in those Houses wants Sancia dead, and the artifact for themselves. And in the city of Tevanne, there’s nobody with the power to stop them. To have a chance at surviving—and at stopping the deadly transformation that’s under way—Sancia will have to marshal unlikely allies, learn to harness the artifact’s power for herself, and undergo her own transformation, one that will turn her into something she could never have imagined.

If you've been reading my book posts for the past few months, you'll probably remember that this has been on my TBR for, literally, months. I was having a hard time getting into it. But I've started reading it more intently over the past week, and I'm really enjoying it now! I'm about halfway through at this point, so hopefully the trend continues right through to the end.



The Space Between Worlds - Micaiah Johnson

Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total.

On this dystopian Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now what once made her marginalized has finally become an unexpected source of power. She has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works—and shamelessly flirts—with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the wastes, though she struggles to feel at home in either place. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, Cara is on a sure path to citizenship and security. 

But trouble finds Cara when one of her eight remaining doppelgängers dies under mysterious circumstances, plunging her into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and her future in ways she could have never imagined—and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world but the entire multiverse.

It was my turn to select the book for the bookclub I'm in, and this was my pick! The premise sounds amazing and I'm excited to dive in. One member who started the book already told me that so far, she's loving it!



Sadie - Courtney Summers

When popular radio personality West McCray receives a desperate phone call from a stranger imploring him to find nineteen-year-old runaway Sadie Hunter, he’s not convinced there’s a story there; girls go missing all the time. But when it’s revealed that Sadie fled home after the brutal murder of her little sister, Mattie, West travels to the small town of Cold Creek, Colorado, to uncover what happened.

Sadie has no idea that her journey to avenge her sister will soon become the subject of a blockbuster podcast. Armed with a switchblade, Sadie follows meager clues hoping they’ll lead to the man who took Mattie’s life, because she’s determined to make him pay with his own. But as West traces her path to the darkest, most dangerous corners of big cities and small towns, a deeply unsettling mystery begins to unfold—one that’s bigger than them both. Can he find Sadie before it’s too late?

I picked up this one because I've heard excellent things about it, particularly in audiobook form, which I was able to get from my library. I feel like this isn't my typical read, so I'm hoping the rumors are true!



The Power - Naomi Alderman

In The Power, the world is a recognizable place: there's a rich Nigerian boy who lounges around the family pool; a foster kid whose religious parents hide their true nature; an ambitious American politician; a tough London girl from a tricky family.

But then a vital new force takes root and flourishes, causing their lives to converge with devastating effect. Teenage girls now have immense physical power: they can cause agonizing pain and even death. And, with this small twist of nature, the world drastically resets. From award-winning author Naomi Alderman, The Power is speculative fiction at its most ambitious and provocative, at once taking us on a thrilling journey to an alternate reality, and exposing our own world in bold and surprising ways.


A friend recommended this one. The critics seem to love it, but reader reviews seem to be a bit mixed. This will be interesting!



An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good - Helen Tursten

Ever since her darling father's untimely death when she was only eighteen, Maud has lived in the family's spacious apartment in downtown Gothenburg rent-free, thanks to a minor clause in a hastily negotiated contract. That was how Maud learned that good things can come from tragedy. Now in her late eighties, Maud contents herself with traveling the world and surfing the net from the comfort of her father's ancient armchair. It's a solitary existence, and she likes it that way.

Over the course of her adventures—or misadventures—this little bold lady will handle a crisis with a local celebrity who has her eyes on Maud's apartment, foil the engagement of her long-ago lover, and dispose of some pesky neighbors. But when the local authorities are called to investigate a dead body found in Maud's apartment, will Maud finally become a suspect?


I think I heard about this one on the Reading Glasses podcast ages ago. The premise is hilarious and I'm excited to read about a crabby elderly woman who takes out anyone she doesn't like!


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