Girl Out of Water by Laura Silverman

I started following Laura Silverman on Twitter because of her editing services and realized I should probably read her novel before thinking about hiring her to help with mine. I am so glad I did, because this is a great story.

Anise is stunned to learn she has to learn her Santa Cruz home, her friends, and especially her surfboard, for an entire summer in Nebraska. Her father insists they need to help take care of her young cousins while their mom recovers from a car accident. She turns her nose up at the landlocked state and looks down on the local skateboarders, until she meets Lincoln. He teaches her how to skateboard and to appreciate who and what she has in her life.

As the summer stretches on, Anise stops talking to her friends back home, afraid that they're too busy having fun to think about her. She's afraid of what's going to happen to her new friendship with Lincoln when she goes back to Santa Cruz. But more than anything, Anise is terrified that she's just like her mother, who's popped in and out of her life, always flitting through life without worrying about the people she's left behind.

I really enjoyed this story, especially the detailed descriptions of both surfing and skateboarding. If I was ten years younger, I might try both!

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

*Book 2: The Inheritance Trilogy*

A decade after the World Tree ripped through Sky and created the city of Shadow, the godlings who've inhabited the city are enjoying life among the humans. Oree Shoth is a blind artist who seems to attract godlings, even falling in love with one. When a mysterious man shows up at her home, Oree tries to care for him but he keeps killing himself, but his deaths are always temporary, which makes her think he must be a godling.

Oree becomes the target of a cult and her and her new friend Shiny are kidnapped by them. Oree learns their plan and the truth of her own peculiarities.

This book started out a bit slower than The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms but once it picked up it really took off. Sieh, Nahadoth, and Yeine aren't featured as much as book one, but they're still here.

Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

*Beartown, book 2*

Beartown was the first book I read in 2018 so when I heard there was a sequel, I ran to the library to scoop this up.

Just a few months after the end of Beartown, Us Against You tells the story of Beartown versus Hed and how the split in hockey takes its toll on the people of Beartown. Backman's writing is beautiful and he's so good at building tension. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and I can't wait to pick up my next Backman book at the library.

Fool Moon by Jim Butcher

*The Dresden Files, book 2*

This was a fun book that was recommended by a friend; I read the first novel, Storm Front, last year. This is also one of the few books that my husband also read (we don't agree on books very often).

Harry Dresden is a wizard for hire: part private eye, part supernatural expert for the Chicago PD's "Special Investigations" division. I like to think of this guy as another version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though he's not as funny and kind of a misogynist.

In this novel, people are being ripped apart by what looks like an animal but isn't. Karrin Murphy, head of Special Investigations, contacts Dresden when the bodies start piling up. When he suggests they're looking for a werewolf, he reveals there are many different kinds of werewolves.

This is a fun and quick read and I laughed a lot. At one point I said, "Everyone's a damn werewolf," and my husband just laughed.

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

*Book 1 of The Inheritance Trilogy*

Earlier this year I fell in love with N.K. Jemisin's writing in her Broken Earth Trilogy so I dove into her first trilogy and it doesn't disappoint.

After her mother's sudden death, Yeine is summoned to her grandfather's court in Sky. Yeine goes from leader of her "barbarian" minor kingdom to heir of the Arameri family, the ruling family of all the kingdoms. Yeine learns she's not the only heir, that she's unwillingly competing against her cousins. And then she meets Sieh and the other gods and learns that she's the key to freeing the gods from their enslavement from the Arameri family.

Jemisin is amazing at world building, I can see the palace of Sky, including Sieh's in-between spaces. I love Yeine and Sieh, Nahadoth terrifies me, and the Arameri family as a whole is the most screwed up and power hungry fictional family I've ever read about.