Ch-ch-ch-changes

 Well, here we are, at the close of another five year chapter in my life. Today is the last day I will be operating Surfer Sands, my little sandwich shop on the beach. The sale closes today, and I am officially retired. This may actually mean more book blogging over the long haul, though there are a zillion little details to take care of to wrap up my business dealings, so that should keep me entertained, not to mention that the garbage disposal at the condo died yesterday, so I need to replace that, and my lovely wife probably has a list of other projects for me that she's been hiding until I had no excuses left.

Looking forward to spending some time with my three remaining fans.

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

 I had read some of Novik's Temeraire series a while back, and she seemed like a good author, so I took a chance on her new YA series. 

The first book was quite entertaining; enough so that I checked out a copy of the 2nd book in what appears to be destined to be a trilogy. 

The Scholomance is like Hogwarts without a sense of humor, perhaps more like a Marine Corps boot camp which tries to eliminate, in this case with extreme prejudice, most of the recruits before their incompetence might kill other fighters. Or maybe it's got a bit of a deadly serious version of Clouseau vs. Cato, where one can be attacked at any time without warning.

Good fun.

Another Deuce

 Continued my streak of unremarkable books with Dirty Magic, by Jaye Wells. It seemed like it had at one time been a police drama/mystery/romance novel that someone simply edited with a find and replace function to make it into an urban fantasy.