#us fools

[mercerislandbooks]

Our Favorite Fiction of 2024

Although there is still a month and a bit of 2024 to go, and it's entirely possible that one of us will find another novel we absolutely adore, we wanted to give you, our lovely customers, a peek at the collection of fiction we couldn't stop talking about this year. Our staff is a varied lot with diverse tastes (luckily our customers are just as delightfully quirky) and we hope there's something for everyone in this round-up of titles.

Cindy, Laurie, Nancy AND Caitlin all loved Liz Moore's The God of the Woods, with its historical setting, secrets galore, and rich people doing very bad things. If you're in the mood for a thriller set in the '70's this will satisfy.

As for Table for Two, by Amor Towles, Brad says that the concluding 200-page novella of this short story collection is "worth the price of admission", continuing the story of Rules of Civility. He was also charmed to discover the only published mystery of famed Winnie-the-Pooh author A. A. Milne. The Red House Mystery is for those of you longing for a perfect locked room whodunnit from the Golden Age of Mysteries.

For a contemporary thriller, Cindy highly recommends Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera, saying, "Lucy Chase, exonerated in the murder of her best friend, is mortified when a popular (and handsome) true crime podcaster opens a new investigation that thrusts her into national and community scrutiny all over again. Moving back and forth between the events that led to the crime and this new investigation, old friendships and relationships are reconsidered. Let the neighborly finger-pointing begin! Again."

Or, if a week on Cape Cod with your adult kids AND your aging parents in the height of summer sounds appealing (or at the least, amusing to read about), Laurie and I both loved Sandwich by Catherine Newman. Funny, poignant, and perfect for book clubs, this is a short book that packs a punch.

My personal top read of 2024 is The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. Try this smart and thought-provoking debut if you like time travel, handsome Arctic explorers, and shady government shenanigans.

One of Caitlin's favorites from this year is Small Rain, by Garth Greenwell, a book she calls, "Magnificent! A tender novel about healing, care-giving, and poetry." She also loved Us Fools, by Nora Lange, a heartbreaking yet humorous story about two sisters growing up in the Midwest during the 1980's farm crisis. And check out the testimonials at the front for Caitlin's quote!

Nancy and Caitlin can't stop talking about Fire Exit by Morgan Talty. Caitlin says, "A long kept family secret, inheritance, guilt and mental illness combine into one outstanding novel." While Nancy adds, "I can't say enough good things about this book and author. Incredible writing!"

Becca and I got to buddy read and write a blog about The Spellshop, the coziest of cozy fantasies. This one is for readers who want a warm hug of book with a dollop of whimsy. Warning, it will make you crave toast and jam.

And (in my opinion) our favorite fiction isn't complete without an exceptional romance. Ready or Not, by Cara Bastone was a fantastic, surprise pregnancy, friends-to-love romance. I absolutely loved these characters and all their emotions. Plus, the audiobook is one of the best I've listened to this year.

Check out the link to see our complete list and, as always, we're happy to give you even more recommendations!

2024: Our Favorite Fiction

Up next, our Favorite Nonfiction of 2024!

-- Lori

[thehappyscavenger]

[seagiri]

they turned mickbell into a girl in the latin spanish dub so... congrats mickbell???

[ckret2]

I'd like to think Bill was projecting in the paragraph on hibernation.

(fun fact! every color in bill's clothes, breakup recovery objects, and furniture were color picked from ford's body! yes bill did get a leather couch the same color as ford's flesh!)

[puppyeared]

renaissance dogys

characters belong to @canisalbus

[licensedfool]

the collection so far

[wasabi-gumdrop]

Kabru has a secret admirer in the castle!

[cybercervine]

Booping u with one of these

[vintageseawitch]

extremely useful little tool for comparison. please check out r/Defeat_Project_2025 on reddit for more info & resources. share as much as you can.

STOP PROJECT 2025/AGENDA 47. VOTE, VOTE, VOTE!! CHECK YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION STATUS OFTEN, MORE THAN ONCE, BEFORE THE ELECTION.

[everchased]

at least it'll be wonderful while it lasts.

(a little post-game downtime discussion, when they have the time and space to talk about these things. also in my canon, scratch gets to stay. :/)

[starscream-is-my-wife]

This is part 1 of a continuation for my other post where LL Megatron gets trapped in the G1 universe, I was thinking about how someone would go insane in this cartoon world and thought "what if Megatron had someone else to accompany him" so, I gave Starscream an existential crisis

Edit: final part is out, I tagged everything as G1 x LL AU!

[wolfchans]

Bang Chan is...

ONE KID'S ROOM 2024 — EP. 8

[slamburger]

Voting is not something that you can boycott. Someone wins the election no matter what.

“B-but Biden-”

It doesn’t matter. I don’t like him either, but it doesn’t matter.

To everyone in the US: you, as an American and as (I hope) generally decent human beings, you have an obligation to elect the candidate who will do the least damage. And the United States, like it or not, possesses the largest proverbial stick, meaning it effects the rest of the world heavily.

You want to stop genocide? Start by voting so that genocides don’t happen here. I want you to look up Project 2025, the Republican plan for if they win, and tell me, honestly, that you think having that happen would be better than electing Biden again?

Grit your teeth, clench your fist, and vote blue.

[brainmuncher]

The emergency

A good number of members within the Justice League have children. Not all of those kids are biological or adopted but they are their kids nonetheless. Some of those kids are even old enough to be adult heroes of their own, but even then they are still their kids. And the other kids tend to take up heroism at a very young age to most people's chagrin. Although as shown by the original child hero, now going by Nightwing, it’s not as easy as telling the kids to stop.

It was learned through intense hardship that smothering the child heroes was just asking for trouble. Despite how much the older heroes wanted to stay close to their kids, it was seen as overbearing and a show of mistrust. They would act out with even less backup in retaliation, which would only bring even more stress.

So to satisfy the need for protection without stepping on any toes, two new emergency meeting signals were introduced.

One was for the kids to send off. Each one was gifted a small device that could be hidden in their person. The device had both a mic and a tracking chip that could be activated when they were in extreme danger. As soon as the device was active a signal would be sent to the league for an emergency distress signal with the details of who sent it. Due to an outcry from the kids, the device could not be activated by the guardian of the child. The mic and locator could only be activated from the device itself. It wasn’t nearly as protective as some of the more worried leaguers would like, but it was at least something. 

The second signal was one that the leaguer with a kid in danger could activate. This signal could be activated with a single code into the communicators that every member owned. If the member who sent out the signal didn’t specify what kid was in danger, every member would receive a generalized notification of the emergency alert for one of the kids. This wasn’t ideal, but it was learned early on that the guardian of the child was often too distressed to make the code more complicated. It was best to leave it simple and answer questions at the emergency meeting.

Which was great in all, until someone who doesn’t have a child involved with heroics in their care sends off a general emergency.

In places all over the globe, an emergency meeting signal message was sent by Hal Jordan, one of the lanterns. He didn’t include what child was in danger in the signal, meaning that it could be any of the underaged heroes. And considering he didn’t have a child in his care, that made multiple members panic.

When was the last time they checked in with the kids in their care? Who was the one he was sending the code for? What happened to the child he had noticed was in danger? Why is he the one that noticed? Where were their kids? Who was in danger?

Because of the nebulous nature of the call, it didn’t take long for multiple heroes to find the nearest transport to the watchtower and tumble in. What they didn’t expect was the absolute haggard appearance of their friend. He was standing in the meeting room looking like the world had been destroyed before his very eyes. The way he sat without even cracking a sarcastic remark made multiple members pause.

“Hal?” Wonder Woman called, her face pinched in concern. “What has happened?”

The aforementioned member looked over who had already arrived before settling on her face. It was at that moment she knew that he was only looking so collected through willpower alone. This wasn’t just any child of the league, this was personal.

“My nephew Danny has been captured,” He began, sending a wave of different emotions circling the room. “I’ve been trying to find where they took him for a week now and I can’t get any leads. I need your help.”

The unsaid questions and emotions were nearly palpable. Multiple members turned to one another or stared with a million questions. Nobody had known that Hal even had a nephew named Danny. Sure he mentioned someone named Jason at times, but he never indicated anything else. The fact that he hadn’t mentioned him or the fact that he’d been apparently searching for a week was strange.

“And why are you only telling us now? Why did you wait so long?” Superman asked, speaking up the question that was on multiple minds.

A fire of anger curled in Hal's eyes. It was fierce and protective. It was a mixture of appalment for being questioned on his decision and fury for the reasons why he had to do it in the first place. He stepped forward towards the center table, slamming his palms down and leaning into it.

“Because any person that goes against the group will be declared an enemy of the United States. I’ve already had my account and housing connected to Green Lantern seized,” He explained with a deceptively calm tone. “I also needed to make sure that they didn’t have any connections with the Justice League. They have their agents everywhere.”

Unsurprisingly, Batman appeared from the gathered heroes from seemingly nowhere. Despite the feud between the two of them, the Bat was completely zeroed in on the situation. While he had a decent amount of distrust in the lantern, mainly because of the parallax incident, he could tell that the man was genuine. And the Bat always did have a blind spot for children.

“Explain,” Was all Batman said, staring Hal down.

The lantern in question looked at him with a grim face. This was it. Now or never.

“They’re called the Ghost Investigation Ward, or GIW for short. They hunt down and either exterminate or experiment on anyone they deem ectocontaminated or a ghost,” Hal started to explain, his hand curling on the table in frustration. “My brother Jack faked his death and ran off to be with another woman. Those fucks deemed my nephew as ectocontaminated and tried to take him from his home. He ran from his family so that they couldn’t be arrested for knowingly harboring an ecto entity. Told me that he remembered my face from a photo his dad tried to hide in the attic and sought me out.”

If the fire in his eyes were any stronger, they would probably become physical and burn down the room. It was undeniable that Hal Jordan was understandably completely pissed off. This situation was terrible from down to the very root.

“I tried to hide him but they somehow found him anyway. Now my civilian name is being heavily monitored and Green Lantern is being hunted down,” He finished his explanation. “If you join me in this, be prepared to lose everything.”

This was so much worse than anyone could’ve predicted.