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First up was The House of Plain Truth by Donna Hemans . An older woman returns to her native Jamaica to care for her father in his last day. His last wish: for her to find the three older siblings that were left behind when the family moved from Cuba to Jamaica. I wanted to like this book more--there was a lot of interesting history involving Jamaicans going to Cuba for work and having to flee later during political turmoil--but the pacing was weird. Either a lot happened within two pages or nothing happened for a chapter or two. It also was a wee bit repetitious, with the main character constantly telling herself she had to find her siblings to fulfill her father's dying wish. It was by no means a BAD book...it just could've been better, IMO. I'll give it a B.

Next was Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan - Again, I wanted to like this book more. I loved the characters quite a bit but the story teetered between fantasy (who are the mystery customers who come into the bookshop late at night?) and hard tech (lots of take about coding) that was a bit difficult for me to follow. It was also just...a weird book. I'm thinking a B, maybe a B-.

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford is the author's third book. I really liked his first two but he loses steam a bit. The story revolves around a woman in the future who, though the help of some ground-breaking medicine and therapy, is able to remember bits of her ancestors' lives. It was inspired by the author discovering his young son likes the same music he does and takes the concept of genetic memory to the extreme. The book jumps around quite a bit, and I can't quite buy into the concept of "remembering" something (in great detail) that happened to somebody else, so I was kind of "meh" on this book. B or B- again for me.

Where Are Your People From? by James B. Demonte is a book none of you have heard of. I know this because the author, who I know better as "Jamie" is my bff's nephew and a professor at a local college. He's apparently written several award-winning short stories and while this novel isn't exactly a "vanity" self-publish, it's also only available on Amazon. Because I (sort of) know the author, and am besties with his aunt, I really, REALLY wanted to like the book...but I didn't. The novel--a novella, really--is a collection of short stories that come together to tell the tale of the main character (who interestingly is named after one of bff's grandfathers, and thus Jamie's great grandfather), and bff told me that a lot of what happens in the book really happened. I didn't much care for the writing style, and I often lost the thread of the story...I'd rank the book a C at best. But hey, at least my copy was free, and I can sort of claim to be supporting a local author.