Book Review: Inner Space By Jakub Szamalek

   I picked up Inner Space on Audio from my library  mostly because of my 2026 Outer Space reading theme.   I can say.. this was a VERY good read. 

This fit nicely into so many of my goals as a piece of translated fiction, so I dove in immediately.

   For me this qualifies as Hard Sci-fi with a slice of messy relationships. Please do not mistake that for this novel being some sort of romance.  There are relationships, some romance and sex, but if you are looking for a happy ending, a couple rediscovering that each is their North Star, or that sort of novel, this will not hit the mark. 

If, however, you are looking for an intense, broody, slow burn/build thriller type novel with a side of horror, and human psychology-you will want this to earn a place on the TBR. 

No Spoilers Summary- because they are simply dreadful.  

In one of the final joint travel missions to the ISS American and Russian Astro/Cosmonauts head to the International Space Station. At the start, things feel awkward.  The crew is known to be somewhat poorly matched. Once established on the station, an ammonia leak is noted.  While not dangerous, the inability of the crew to locate and repair the leak leads to an increase in the already brewing tension. Soon, everyone is suspect. The location creates a bit of a unique huis clos - or closed door mystery situation. For me I felt the ISS itself became somewhat of a character itself, as all it's nooks, crannies and oddities are explored and exploited- ratcheting the tension up even more. As the crew commander investigates, directives are hurled into space from various parties and readers are invited to both explore the realities of life in space, human nature and tendencies, and solve a perplexing mystery. 

Szamalek  and translator Beresford clearly know their Space details, and I found the descriptions of life aboard the space station to be particularly fascinating. Indeed when I tune in to ISS news, the astronauts always look cheerful, and excited to be participating in their mission activities- but we can never really know their inner thoughts, frustrations and triumphs. Szamalek takes us into this mindset with interesting perspectives and through processes about motivation, dedication and exploration.  I admit, as a superfan of the Space Based Romance...the author's very well researched descriptions of life aboard the ISS have dampened my desire for my own space based romance, and I'm starting to believe all Space based romance should be reclassified as "Fantasy" rather than Sci Fi!  In a way, it makes me appreciate the romance all the more as I can now see how otherworldly it really is.  

Overall, I highly recommend. Szamalek tread a thin line- creating a thriller that engages, in a hyper realistic situation with extremely relatable characters.  The afternote from Kasia Beresford the translator was additionally very interesting as the background work to fully translate this novel is made clear for all readers. 

I hope more readers pick this up- as I want to talk about it more! 

STATS

First Published  7/2025

Pages: 352

Available as an Audio Book : Yes

Trigger Warnings:  violence, homophobia, descriptions of blood, bodily fluids, intense isolation, misogyny, psychological distress, hostile situations

(this is not a full list, read responsibly)  

Book Review: Irehide by DeAndrea Pete

 Irehide is a novel that's been out since October 2025.  I saw the cover on NetGalley and, although I am not doing many ebooks this year, the cover and the premise drew me in!  I'm very appreciative of the author and NetGalley for providing me with a review copy to read and review for you! 

Irehide sits firmly in the historical fiction/romance genres, but it really more firmly falls into that odd genre "women's fiction".  This is most assuredly a book that so many book clubs would enjoy as there are so many themes and relevant ideas to unpack- set within a very engaging romance between two somewhat broken characters, Florence and Ben. 

     With no Spoilers- (hopefully)  Irehide is set against the backdrop of 1968 America, a time of great change and strife. Our main characters are essentially two sides of a coin, with their determination to be more than the status quo bringing them together. 

Florence is an ambitious young black woman who is making her way in a world that would rather minimize her to an expected stereotype. She's determined to not settle in life, even as she knows this determination may make her life more challenging. Despite her determination, Florence, like many people, experiences lots of second guesses, as opportunities present. She's walking on a tightrope as she navigates her life. 

Ben, on the other side, has been raised with all advantages, and all expectations placed on him.  He sees the injustice in the world and is determined to use his position to balance out some of this- regardless of the costs to his personal and professional life.  A new veteran of the Vietnam war, he's faced a lot and is ready for change.  He makes many mistakes attempting to be a changemaker, and in many ways, finds himself also walking on a similar tightrope- though decidedly with a more cushioned fall- should he fall. 

As this pair orbit each other, coming closer and closer with each rotation, I was on the edge wondering the age old question- Would LOVE be enough to overcome backgrounds, social expectations and norms, and personal forces designed to pull them apart? 

Obviously you'll want to read to find out! 

I can say that the ending was quite satisfying. 

This is a well crafted novel - that does contain some minor pacing issues which were easily overcome.  Recommended if one is looking for historical romance with nuance, book club reads, indie authors or just a good story in a somewhat unique time setting.

 STATS

First Published : 10/07/2025

Pages: 336

Available as an Audio Book : No. 

Trigger Warnings: racism, sexism, bullying, violence  (not a complete list- be responsible!)

Book Review: The Manor of Dreams by Christina Li

 Wow.  WOW.   Wow. 

I really enjoyed this book by Christina Li.  I am not entirely sure that the way it is being marketed is helping it succeed.  This really isn't a mash up of Mexican Gothic and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. It is also NOT "brimming with romance" So... I feel like a lot of readers who were looking for those two items were mightily disappointed.  I'm still wondering exactly where the romance was in the room with us. 

    This really is a literary fiction novel with elements of horror, mystery and magical realism. It is very well constructed, engaging and the plot unfolds well.  I really enjoyed the audiobook as well. 

No Spoiler synopsis:  Two estranged families must come together for the reading of a will of a famous, but mysterious and reclusive relative. In a surprise, one family inherits the lion's share; the other feels they must contest the will, leading to both families occupying the family mansion for some times.  During this time, readers move between two timelines, which reveal the past and the present as the week in the mansion evolves. 

  Within 352 pages, there is a lot to unpack. 

***** Alert- Spoilers ahead**********

There is discussion of immigration to the United States, family expectations, the "American Dream" , power dynamics in relationships of all sorts, Motherhood,  generational trauma, and history, and quite a lot more. This would be a good book for a book club because it is very accessible for many readers. Although the story seems somewhat unique- The themes all have threads that almost any reader can pick up and find relatable. 

So I enjoyed this novel, felt it was very well written and constructed overall and I gave it 4 stars. 

The only thing I do find kind of strange is that... AGAIN SPOILER ALERT....  

We have a sentient garden. It has killer plants. 

Also in the past 5 years we have had Mira Grant's Overgrowth,  and  Eat the Ones you Love by Sarah Maria Griffin, which also contain sentient plants that quite invade people's personal space. I find that coincidence kind of strange  but I did enjoy all three of these books, so I suppose with a few more it can become it's own  Plant horror genre. 

So do I recommend?  YES.  If you want some modern day drama tied up with the past, combined with some creepy magical plant elements, this is a great one to read.  Just check your triggers! 

STATS

First Published  May 2025

Pages: 352

Available as an Audio Book : Yes

Trigger Warnings:  violence, murder, theme of abuse and loss, Supernatural killers, child death, Domestic violence, racism, classism.

(this is not a full list, read responsibly)  

Book Review: Galloway by Louis L'amour

 So I needed to read a book from the 1970's  for a reading challenge. 

This is indeed the first time that my library has sort of let me down.  My friend and I decided we wanted to read some of the old Harlequin romances from that era, just to compare them to contemporary ones. 

Did I find anything from that era in the library?  No.  No I did not. 

I did find several Classics  of good literature written in 1970, but I really didn't any of the more "popular" style literature, except for... Louis L'Amour. 

So I thought, Cowboy romance has been kind of a favorite of mine, so I might enjoy Louis L'Amour.  

As a kid, my Dad made fun of this writer quite a bit and so I of course shunned him, but here we are, its a new era and a new day, AND I needed to finish my January reading challenge.  It turns out Libraries don't really preserve this type of pop fiction, and of course there are space concerns and no one really wants to read what used to be contemporary fiction that often. 

   SO I read Galloway. 

I didn't really like it.  I did enjoy L'Amour's folksy writing style as it was kind of easy to read and enjoyable. 

Galloway tells the tale of two brothers who head West to start up some cattle ranching, but somehow along the way, one is captured by Native Americans, and just manages to escape with no clothing whatsoever.  Through his wits, he somehow steals an Elk kill from some wolves, wisely shares some of the kill with the wolves, and then proceeds to make multiple pairs of moccasin type shoes which he can magically make overnight.  Eventually he comes upon a town, and makes his way back to his brother.  There they encounter the Dunns who are hell bent on running them out of town as they want to have a cattle empire. The Dunns and Sackitt's battle it out a bit and of course Galloway and his brother come out on top.  L'Amour does employ a cool literary  device where the wolf continues to appear here and there throughout the novel, and in the end saves the brother's life. 

    I am unsure why I disliked this so much.  In part it might have been because I HAD TO FIND A BOOK FROM THAT ERA.  It also may be that it was a book from the middle of the series.

So my foray into Louis L'Amour is now definitely over. Nothing particularly wrong, but also nothing particularly compelling to keep me interested in going back.  

Read at your own discretion! 

 STATS

First Published : 1970

Pages: 176

Available as an Audio Book : YES  (~ 5HRS) 

Trigger Warnings: violence, poor representation of Native American persons  (not a complete list- be responsible!)

Book Review Discordance: The troubled history of the Hubble Constant. By Jim Baggott

Many thanks to Oxford university Press and Recorded books for an advanced Listener copy of Discordance by Jim Baggott! 

This is my year to read about outer space and when I saw this audiobook on offer at net Galley, I jumped at it! 

  As I've already noted, I am not a math or physics genius, but I do have a bit of an obsession with outer space, and while I know I won't ever be an arm chair Cosmologist, I know I certainly LOVE to learn more as I toddle along. 

  Now, with no spoilers--- can one really spoil a non-fiction book? We are given the story of the Main main character, the Universe. Making cameo appearances are the Big Bang Theory, Afterglow radiation or Cosmic Microwave background radiation, Cosmic inflation and the Lambda-CDM model.  Side Characters of note include: The Hubble Telescope, multiple scientists, The Space Shuttle, The ALMA Observatory (Atacama Desert), Apache Point observatory, (and more), the Supernova Cosmology project,  the JPL Cosmology Group, and so many more.  Supporting roles go to Dark matter and Dark energy (yes, we can't see you, but it seems you might be there, maybe...) Redshift, the strange and charm quarks (and yes the other top and bottom ones too) and gravitational lensing.  There's more, but as any good Academy award winner will note, we are grateful to all players, too numerous to mention.  

  In this account of humans moving closer and closer to deducing the full nature of the universe and all that it encompasses, Dr Baggott introduces readers to the basic physics of Cosmology.  Readers learn about models and ideas, generally accepted concepts of the universe, and key phenomena and building blocks (equations/theories and computations) that hold our concepts of the universe together. 

   As a complete lay person, I will note that there is quite a bit of math, and a few times, I did experience a few flashbacks to my ill fated Astronomy 101 college class.  Baggott intersperses some amusing thoughts, comments or stories in between all the math so I did remain engaged. He is particularly adept at describing the "space drama" regarding a possible "new physics" without going completely off the rails. 

  I did enjoy this listen. I can't say I recommend it for my Library Book Club - as we are diving into Remarkably Bright Creatures this month, and this is definitely not in the same book universe if you will. 

I can recommend it for space enthusiasts, students and readers who want to be challenged as they read. For me, it was definitely worth my time. I feel it answered some of my questions as to why humans aren't just travelling the universe as Bester's Demolished Man predicted back in 1953!

 STATS

First Published : 1/22/2026

Pages: 336

Available as an Audio Book : YES  (~ 9 HRS) 

Trigger Warnings: Math  (not a complete list- be responsible!)

BooK Review: Psycho Fae by Jasmine Mas

 So after reading a bit of a science-y book, I was pretty excited to find that I had been approved for an Advanced Listener Copy for Psycho Fae by Jasmine Mas. 

I buddy listened to it with a friend who also had the advanced copy. 

WE LOVED IT. 

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVED IT. 

This novel is not great literature, at all. It's awesome, fun, current and a wild ride of entertainment. 

In this installment - our main character Sophie, who's just learned she can shift into an enormous Saber Tooth Tiger, is swept into the Fae Realm with her Alpha entourage. There,. they must compete in some deadly fae games in order to survive. 

I will say that I had guessed at Sophie's discoveries about herself and her origins, well before they were revealed and that I did feel like maybe this could have been a few chapters shorter, but overall, I just really enjoyed this one. While I guessed at Sophie's discoveries, I was not prepared for where the band of found family ended up, and I am highly amused that this somehow ended up being both a paranormal romance and now kinda mafia romance... I mean... who would have thought? 

The book has been out for some time, but this narration is special as it brought together several of the big names in Romance narration, like Jeremy York, Teddy Hamilton, Mollie Stark and Jaime L. Smith. Not to forget Tyler Donne and Stella Ripley.  As there are so many male characters in the novel, and many of them behave very similarly throughout the novel, having the different distinct voices did help me to distinguish them. I definitely recommend the audio version, as the inflections just really just capture each bit of snark, and suggestion throughout the read. 

Am I excited for Psycho Beasts?  Well, YES.  yes I am .   I hope I can wait until March! 

STATS

First Published : 1/13/2026

Pages: 374

Available as an Audio Book : YES  (~ 11 HRS) 

Trigger Warnings: violence,  references to childhood trauma/abuse, blood, death, grief, medical situations,  (not a complete list- be responsible!)

Book Review: Space Oddities By Harry Cliff

  This is my first Non-Fiction book of the year, and one that falls into my outer space theme for 2026. 

I did love it!  I learned a lot, and laughed a bit, and felt like I had my mind blown a few times as well! 

Dr. Cliff is an experimental physicist at CERN and also well known as a science presenter.  This second fact is probably the most important, as Cliff was able to hold my attention, even while discussing a great deal of very complicated math. 

     Cliff describes an evolving debate in Physics, Cosmology, Astronomy and I suppose "science" in general, revolving around the "Standard model" of  physics.  Now, I took Astronomy 101 back in the day at the University of Rochester.  Secretly, I hoped against hope that I would be discovered as a savant of the stars. 

     I WAS NOT A SAVANT OF THE STARS.  That remains the most difficult class I ever took.  I pity the instructor for having to teach all of us, who could not reliably learn how to calculate the distance of a star from another fixed point.  As a group we were dismal. As an individual, unfortunately, I was also dismal, and sadly, the class did nothing to spark my actual interest in the stars, planets and the universe.  I could not really grasp the calculation, (not totally surprising as I had never had a class in trigonometry or calculus etc) and the instructor, as I recall, wasn't able to really communicate in any compelling way how amazing this was that we could sit in a classroom and  with reasonable assurance we could know distances, mass, composition of objects so far away in the universe. 

I gave up on being a universe savant, but never really gave up on being curious. 

Harry Cliff was able to engage my sloth-brain, teach me something and have me thinking about current issues in physics with some excitement! 

In this very readable book, Cliff helps readers understand one of the current hot debates in cosmology.  The Standard Model faces challenges from new data coming from the James Webb Telescope- and other sources. There is disagreement within the world of physicists from various disciplines on the rate of expansion of the universe. I admit, I am always kind of confused about the whole idea of the universe constantly expanding, expanding to where? It's a mind bending concept. 

   As a lay person, I have been captivated by the JWST images.  I was a bit deflated to learn that they are often cleaned up by artists, but, even so, they are still so compelling and interesting.

Take a look here at a few Slide shows from JWST 

Cliff discusses in fairly easy to understand terms the work being done by various teams to decipher data, how the data is obtained, cleaned, used and discussed. He provides what seems to be a fairly even handed view of the current debate, the research teams, and their processes, while teaching a bit of physics for use dismal folks on the side. 

  Overall, I really enjoyed this book which provided just the right amount of detail to make my brain work, but not so much that it shut off. I know that I'm going to have my ear tuned for more news of the Standard Model and it's challengers in the future.  I did the audio book which was read by the author, which I found to be a bit charming. I felt like I was just sitting in his office, asking a lot of questions and very much enjoying his explanation of the beauty and charm quarks...and how they shape my world completely. I was amused that he did provide a "trigger warning" for some of the maths! 

I enjoyed this book, I felt like I'm much more in the know now about things and I am definitely looking to read more on the debate and will be looking for more news from this area. 

STATS

                                                First Published : 3/26/24

Pages: 288

Available as an Audio Book : Yes ~ 8 hrs 

Trigger Warnings: Math, complex view of the universe (not a complete list- be responsible!)