Avram's journal

I kept grinding away at some of the long-term items this month but that was all I could do because I was a little busy with personal business this week. I did finally manage to go to a show!

( List under the cut to protect your flist )

I'm trying to be more busy with doing and less with writing about it so I moved all of my leisure recording to Sofa. I still need to get all of my old lists properly added but we'll see how that goes. I also cut back on recording things every week and moved a lot of them to fortnightly or monthly. I think it's going to be a quiet summer relatively so I can move forward with a lot of fun things (and less with the un-fun things like house problems and illnesses).

Books
Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent, by Scott Lynch. A story of teenaged Locke Lamora. I know all the arguments for the flaws of this series but I just don't care if it's "bad". I enjoy it.
And Now, Back To You, by B.K. Borison. Second in a romance series set at a radio station in Baltimore. I enjoyed the first one in this series but wasn't feeling this one. DNF at 125 pages.
A Very Vexing Murder: Harriet Smith Investigates a Murder Most Austen, by Lucy Andrews. I don't remember how this one got on my TBR but like the Borison romance, it's way too cutesy for its own good. DNF at 40 pages.
A Murderous Business: A Harriman & Mancini Mystery, by Cathy Pegau. First in a new series of historical mysteries set just before WWI in New York, featuring a lady business owner and a lady PI, both of whom are queer (not for each other). It's an interesting start and the next one goes on my list.
Tea & Treachery at the Infinite Pantry, by Jo Miles. DNFed this cozy fantasy mystery at about 50 pages because I could clearly see where it was going and I wasn't interested enough. The world looks fantastic but the plot not so much.
The Mistress of Bhatia House, by Sujata Massey. Fourth in the Perveen Mistry series set in 1920s India. This one involves a murder case and a prosecution for abortion, and also has heavy themes like sexual assault in addition to the usual murders. I continue to enjoy the overall arc of this series and am glad I have another one of these that was released this year.
The Star from Calcutta, by Sujata Massey. Fifth and most current in the Perveen Mistry series. This one is about a film company and again, deals with some heavy topics like WWI war trauma. There's also a queer romance, which did not go where I expected, and some surprises for our cast. Still in for the rest of this series, whenever the next one comes out.
The Feywild Job, by C. L. Polk. I really didn't expect to read an actual D&D book in the year of our Lord 2026, but I will give anything Polk writes a try. This turned out to be a heist novel + get the exes back together romance with Polk's queer sensibilities that happened to be set in the Forgotten Realms. I enjoyed it enough to recommend it to my husband.

Music
Muse, The Wow Signal. Listening to an album while driving means you pick up a lot of the sound and not so much of the lyrics. I know I'm going to want to poke at a couple of songs (Shimmering Scars) but it sounded more to me like a Muse album than some of the recent ones have. Not so much in the "more of the same" way but in a "this has evolved from the stuff I really like" way.