misericordiae

It's about 300 pages, so not bad at all.

Glad it was useful to you!

I have half a dozen nominees on my to-read pile (I'll get to them some day), but of the entire list, I've only read I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons (ok, but no The Last Unicorn) and The Butcher of the Forest (great overall, imo).

for instance, I don't generally enjoy alternate histories, and it bugs me that they're considered SF

Alternate histories seems like one of those oddball sub-genres that has to go somewhere; I guess I would maybe call them spec fic, if they're not otherwise sci-fi or fantasy? But it seems like they lumped spec fic into the sci-fi category, which seems reasonable.

Currently partway through The Dry by Jane Harper.

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Finished:

Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline (horror-ish)

A Métis woman, whose husband has been missing for nearly a year, stumbles onto him acting as a preacher for a traveling Christian ministry. The problem is, not only is he like a different person, with no apparent memory of his past life, but there's also a rogarou hanging around him.

I thought the characters were really well done, but otherwise, I'd put this in the 'fine' category. I did enjoy the look into Métis culture and folklore, though; I'd always assumed that rogarou were just a twist on werewolves, but they're much more their own thing.

Bingo squares: minority author, folklore (HM), x of y

The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison (cozy fantasy mystery)

Last book in the Cemeteries of Amalo trilogy, spin-off of The Goblin Emperor. Thara Celehar tries to adapt to the change in circumstance from the last book, and gets in the way of powerful people as he tries to follow his duty and calling (as is tradition).

This was a really satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, imo, wrapping up strands from the previous books and leaving the door open for more with the MC. I think this one upped the fantasy word quota a bit, though ("revethvezvaishor'avar", anyone?).

Bingo squares: orange, x of y, LGBTQIA+, new release, steppin' up (HM), political (HM), cozy (in the 'cozy mystery' sense: not graphic, overall fairly gentle tone, lots of interludes drinking tea or sharing a meal with friends)

Currently reading Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline.

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Finished:

Old Man's War by John Scalzi (military sci-fi)

Old people enlist in the galactic military in exchange for new, younger bodies. Follows one particular old man through basic training and a series of battles during his first two years of service.

So I ended up going back through some reviews of this, because it's well-liked/often recommended, and I wasn't a big fan: apparently the context I'm missing is that it's meant to be a subversion/snark of classic pulp like Heinlein. Lacking that connection, I stand by my opinion from last week, which is that while it's certainly not bad, I personally wanted a lot more from either the plot, characters, or commentary.

Bingo squares: war (HM), late to the party (HM)

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (supernatural gothic horror)

An academic invites a small group of people to spend the summer at a reputedly haunted mansion, in order to gather research on the supernatural. Surely, nothing will go wrong.

Aside from a few bits and pieces, this is an entirely different story from the Flanagan show (haven't seen the movie). There's a lot of things left out in the interactions between characters, which I found kind of frustrating in the first half, but as the narrative gets more and more dreamlike, it becomes apparent that that's intentional. I ended up quite liking this, and I can see why it's a classic.

Bingo squares: adaptation, orange, x of y, alliterative (HM)

I think one of the tricks is to purposefully plan time to cook that's not right before you're planning to eat, so it's an activity/hobby, not a necessity. If I have to cook when I'm hungry, I'll probably just make do instead, but if I say "ok, Saturday afternoon, I'm gonna make a pot of soup, because that'll be delicious later," it's a lot less dreadful, imo.

Let me know how you end up liking it!

This is gonna sound dumb, but it was too much war for me. I imagine the battle after battle after battle + blur of faceless soldiers was the point, but I needed either a more interesting plot or more character work for it to hold my attention. I haven't read any other Scalzi, but I liked the narrative voice well enough in Old Man's War to be down to try something else by him at some point.

Currently finishing up Old Man's War by John Scalzi. It's well-written, but not really my cup of tea.

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Finished:

The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold

An ex-soldier gets a job as a tutor/secretary for a member of the ruling family, helping her navigate court life, enemy schemes, and the titular family curse.

As I said previously, this was too slow for my taste, but I liked the characters and the plot. I did spend a lot of the book hoping the 35yo MC would get introduced to a potential love interest that wasn't 19, though. (Thankfully, not much time is spent on their crushing.)

Bingo squares: x of y, steppin' up (HM), political (HM)

Should be wrapping up The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold in the next day or two. I like it enough to finish it, but apart from a few sections, it's much slower than I generally care for.

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Read:

The Keeper of Lost Causes by Jussi Adler-Olsen

After an investigation goes sideways, a detective gets relegated to running a cold cases department with just one assistant. They end up looking into a politician's disappearance from 5 years ago.

I enjoyed this (and it was a fast read), but the details of the disappearance are kind of gimmicky. I've since watched the Danish adaptation, which I found kind of disappointing for how much they stripped out and tweaked (although they did tone down some of the stereotyping, thankfully). Planning to watch the new series that came out last week as well (Department Q), to see how it compares.

Bingo squares: continent HM, motion picture, orange, x of y, alliterative, award HM, responsibility HM, jerk HM (maybe?)

Small Gods of Calamity by Sam Kyung Yoo

A detective that can see spirits gets involved in a case that's connected to his past, and is forced to team up with someone he hates to defeat the soul-eating monster behind it all.

This was a fun little novella, incorporating elements of Korean shamanism into kind of an urban fantasy with horror elements. It's well-paced, and manages to give you a decent sense of the main characters, despite being plot-heavy. I had a couple of small quibbles with it, but will gladly try more from this author.

Bingo squares: minority author HM, x of y, short, lgbtqia+

I don't read on desktop, but I use Pocketbook Reader on my tablet. Free with no ads, and lets me use any colors I want, override terrible embedded fonts and cramped line height, change margins, etc. It does have a couple of quirks that annoy me from time to time, but I haven't found a replacement I like better.

Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold. I enjoyed the first two books (Cordelia prequels) in the author's Vorkosigan Saga enough to want to try something else by her (since I've failed twice to get into the first Miles book). I think this is her only other big series? Anyway, it's been sitting on my TBR pile for a long time now, and I finally picked it up to read for bingo.

I don't mind a slow start, but IMO this had a very looooong slow start (~30%), to the point I put it down to read something else. Of course, it turns out I paused right before things started to pick up, so now I'm chugging along with it just fine.

You might have a look at Darebee workouts/programs. Can search by 'upper', 'abs', etc to cut out a lot of stuff your foot might have trouble with.