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Coworker convinced me to read this trilogy so I grabbed the audiobook from the local library, since the wait time was shorter than the text copy. The voice actor got a bit tedious after a while - she always sounds slightly on the verge of being whiny - but I can't hold that against the author. I read a lot of old, traditional fairy lore back as a kid so I'm aware of the dark, sinister side to the old-style fae and this book dived right into embracing that, which was fun. All the stuff about having to wear rowan berries and salt your food and mortals dancing themselves to death, has been kinda left out of more recent sparkles-and-unicorns-and-crystals type magic stuff. So, good to see the author had clearly done at least a little bit of research.

The story itself didn't grab me immediately - it's very Young Adult at the start, teens in school, bullying each other, wanting to be popular, etc. The heroine Jude is a little bit hard to like at times also. However, by the end of the book I did like how much many of the main characters had actually learned and grown, instead of just remaining the same selves they started out as. And there were twists in the plot I definitely didn't expect; instead of going for the short predictable ending the author takes you on unexpected plot turns and I always appreciate that. So, while I still don't extremely embrace the protagonist, I followed up with the rest of the trilogy.

I have no memory of why I added this to my "to read" list but when I got to it, I had trouble putting it down again and read the entire thing in under two days. The story follows two men: Adam, a CIA agent who has brought being "unnoticeable" to the next level; and Rao, a UK civilian with an uncanny ability to detect what is true or not true. Paired up, they are brought in to investigate an unusual phenomenon: objects are appearing around a military base which appear to have been manifested through sheer nostalgia of the people nearby. From a cassette tape to a teddy bear to an entire greasy spoon diner, the objects have simply appeared with no explanation, and have a captivating effect on the people for whom they embody nostalgia. Together Adam and Rao attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery while also attempting to deal with their own problems. Enjoyable, interesting read with quite unpredictable twists all along the way.

A second book following The Murder of Mr. Wickham, in which many of our favourite Austen characters are once again gathered together, and of course, another death occurs for our intrepid young duo to investigate. Unlike many Austen spin-offs, these novels are well written (I mean, nothing can be up to Austen standards, but they're really pretty well done) and the choice to make the two protagonists children of characters in the Austen books means that they can observe all the characters we know and love but without needing to remain perfectly true to however Austen might have written them, since they didn't exist in her novels. I also especially like the austistic coding for young Darcy and how it's portrayed in the setting of the time. I definitely recommend these for Austen fans, especially those who enjoy a good murder mystery, but do read the first book before this one.

This is very odd to read as it's written entirely in the second person, despite switching between a few main characters. Interesting experiment but for an entire novel it's a bit tiring. It was written in 2007 and deals with a heist involving online computer games; and while Stross evidently had some experience with computer games at the time, and while I have seen far worse mistakes made by the likes of Gibson and Stephenson, nonetheless even with the most generous suspension of disbelief I really struggled with some of the "technical details" (since I personally have worked making online computer games since 2007, and know exactly why some of these things don't, or couldn't possibly, work that way). Still, if you aren't personally bothered by those details it's a decent plot - as long as you can wrap your head around the second person. Overall it was quite a struggle for me, YMMV.