Mr. Polopetsi, part time chemistry teacher and occasional detective, has asked Mma Ramotswe to investigate a wrong he feels has occurred. The sister of a fellow teacher has been fired for rudeness to a customer. This lady, Charity Mompoloki, is sure she has done nothing wrong and needs this job to support herself and her children. Naturally, Mma Ramotswe agrees to look into the matter. But her investigations lead to a discovery that will change her life forever. I just love these books. You’d think after 18 of them they would get old, boring. Not so. There is so much more than a mystery to be solved. The descriptions of Botswana take the reader to that hot, dry place. The conversations of the many quirky characters go off in all directions. They are such a pleasure to read. They always leave me smiling. Although this is book 18, it can be read as a standalone, but be forewarned that after reading one, you will want to go back and read the others.
eGalley review Publication date 11.7.17
From the publisher: It’s a new day in the Empire. Tyrus has ascended to the throne with Nemesis by his side and now they can find a new way forward—one where they don’t have to hide or scheme or kill. One where creatures like Nemesis will be given worth and recognition, where science and information can be shared with everyone and not just the elite.
From the publisher: Morrigan Crow is cursed. Having been born on Eventide, the unluckiest day for any child to be born, she’s blamed for all local misfortunes, from hailstorms to heart attacks–and, worst of all, the curse means that Morrigan is doomed to die at midnight on her eleventh birthday. 
From the publisher: In the beginning, there was the Namsara: the child of sky and spirit, who carried love and laughter wherever he went. But where there is light, there must be dark—and so there was also the Iskari. The child of blood and moonlight. The destroyer. The death bringer.
The rainy season is beginning, and the omens the rajnis of Sarathai-tia and Ansh-Sahal have received are ominous. Mrithuri’s Wizard has suggested that a marriage could solve her problems. It is a suggestion quickly dismissed. Sayeh is told she should evacuate her kingdom, move her people west. She, too, dismisses the suggestion. Far away in the mountains called the Steles of the Sky, a caravan inches its way along. It is guarded by Gage and the Dead Man who carry an urgent message for Mrithuri from the world’s most powerful Wizard.
In 1888, George Vanderbilt, one of the richest men in the world, took his mother to Asheville, North Carolina, to breathe the mountain air and heal. He settled her in then went to see the magnificent views. The sight of Mt. Pisgah captivated him and that June he bought 661 parcels of land on her slopes. Very soon, he was adding to his real estate. It was not just a house he wanted, it was a different way of life, a retreat from the city, a life among trees, fields, streams, mountains. He would employ the best minds of his time to help him realize his vision – landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and architect Richard Morris Hunt.
From the publisher:
From the publisher:
To say that Margery was upset would have been an understatement. She was livid and angrily refused to marry Bart Shiring. Sure, he was the son of the Earl, but he was also was a stupid bore. She loved Ned Willard and he had returned to Kingsbridge after tending to his family’s business abroad for a year. She and Ned would run away and marry if necessary. But when the Bishop of Kingsbridge insists that it was God’s will for Margery to obey her parents, she consents and marries Bart. Devastated by the loss of his love and the loss of his family’ business, Ned leaves Kingsbridge and seeks employment in the service of the young Princess Elizabeth.
From the publisher:
Hiding in the luggage car, hungry, cold, bone tired, Joe Bell was told by the porter to jump off at Alden, because the next stop was Town Line and it was filled with Copperheads. Not good news. He felt he’d never get to Canada. He was so tired, so very tired. Maybe he shouldn’t have run. Mary Willis was not the most popular woman in Town Line. Folks thought she was uppity. She was educated, outspoken, and a fervent abolitionist. Unknown to everyone, her family’s farm was a stop on the underground railway. When she finds a gravely injured Joe in her barn, of course she hides him in the cellar and nurses him back to health.
Secret Riven is determined to be normal, whatever normal may be. People with differences are shunned, so she has dyed her silver hair black, wears glasses that conceal her mis-matched eyes. Most of all she denies her special abilities, refusing to communicate with the animals, insects, plants that filled her life. Rejected from admission to a high academy (females just don’t need education), she accepts a position as the archivist of Fewmany’s library. Soon she is accepting invitations to dinner, balls, engaging in social interactions that had been carefully avoided. But, of course this can’t last, and she is coerced into leaving, into undertaking a journey with her mother’s ancient manuscript as a guide, and all of nature as her friend.
From the publisher, “England, 1852. William is a biologist and seed merchant, who sets out to build a new type of beehive—one that will give both him and his children honor and fame.
From the publisher, “Faris grew up fighting to survive in the slums of Brindaigel while caring for her sister, Cadence. But when Cadence is caught trying to flee the kingdom and is sold into slavery, Faris reluctantly agrees to a lucrative scheme to buy her back, inadvertently binding herself to the power-hungry Princess Bryn, who wants to steal her father’s throne.
Jane, Katherine, Mary, the Grey daughters, were very unlike. Jane was quiet, religious, very intelligent. Katherine was the beauty, happy, loving life and wanting to experience everything it had to offer. Mary, the lovely little dwarf, stayed carefully in the background, watching everything, keeping secrets. The girls should have led uneventful, luxurious, lives. But that was not to be, for they were cousins to Queen Elizabeth, granddaughters to the sister of Henry VIII, heirs to the throne.
YA Lit Ramblings 
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