Jun 30 2025
Which parent hasn’t had the frustrating experience of being manipulated and possibly even outsmarted by their young children? It is, after all, to be expected as your kids get older and smarter, but being outwitted by an actual child, especially when you’re trying to get them to do things for their own good, is a …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/30/lila-said-no-by-kiki-frayard-aileen-bennett/
Jun 27 2025
Wow, this has been my first month with four Tantalizing Tales columns, which should give you a good idea of all the very cool books that get pitched to me, dear readers! Leading the pack is Mike Bockoven’s Come Knocking, a book that I desperately want to find time to fit into my bursting-at-the-seams schedule. …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/27/tantalizing-tales-june-2025-part-four/
Jun 26 2025
subtitled Visual Poems For Living In Climate Crisis. It’s always a refreshing surprise to me whenever someone professes belief in both Christianity and climate change. Of all the major faiths, mainstream (and especially Evangelical) Christianity has always struck me as the one least interested in responsible custodianship of the planet, as it focuses more on …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/26/you-are-a-sacred-place-by-madeleine-jubilee-saito/
Jun 25 2025
Translated from the original German by Michael Hofmann. It’s weird: this book smells to high heaven of being very firmly Literary Fiction, one of my least favored genres, yet I really enjoyed it. There were definitely parts where the narrator has a thought process so decidedly masculine that I scoffed at the idea of her …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/25/in-a-deep-blue-hour-by-peter-stamm/
Jun 24 2025
I’m becoming a curmudgeon as I age, but I really do wish this book had explicitly stated at the outset that it’s set in New Orleans. I no longer have time to read blurbs or back matter, so when I realized partway through that this was set in historical America and not fantasy Europe, all …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/24/the-confessional-by-paige-hender/
Jun 23 2025
Oh, huh, I didn’t realize that this second book in The Web Of The Spider series would have a different protagonist than the first one, but it makes sense! In Rise Of The Spider, our narrator was young Rolf, who watched with growing horror as the Nazi Party’s hatefulness infiltrated not only his beloved hometown …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/23/threat-of-the-spider-by-michael-p-spradlin/
Jun 20 2025
I feel like every one of these columns recently starts with me marveling over how fast time is passing but for real, readers, how is it almost the end of June already? On the plus side, we have several great books publishing soon, to close out our featured titles this month before turning to July …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/20/tantalizing-tales-june-2025-part-three/
Jun 18 2025
Wow, reading this poetry collection really brought up a lot of issues I have with media and identity, none of which are meant to cast aspersions on this book at all, but which definitely distracted from my enjoyment of it. So let’s table that discussion for at least the end of this review, and discuss …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/18/in-the-bone-cracking-cold-by-m-bartley-seigel/
Jun 17 2025
Chuck Tingle’s third horror novel, Lucky Day, will be published by Tor on August 12th, and you can preorder it now! I think it’s his best yet. (Content warning: this spoiler-free review discusses bisexual erasure as it occurs in Lucky Day.) In Lucky Day, we meet Vera, a young, Type-A Statistics professor. Her hair is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/17/lucky-day-by-chuck-tingle-comes-out-in-august/
Jun 16 2025
subtitled Flaco The Owl’s Dreams Take Flight. I cannot be the only person who keeps confusing Flaco the owl with the red tailed hawks who also famously made New York City their home. Fortunately, this picture book helps clear up any misunderstanding caused by the unwittingly cognate names! Told in the first person, this anthropomorphized …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/16/free-bird-by-christine-mott-ofra-layla-isler/
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
Emily Lauer
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire