Cat on a Hot Tin Woof and Other "Chet" Books by Spencer Quinn

 

Publication: April 14, 2026; St. Martin's Press, NetGalley

I enjoyed reading this latest book - Chet's antics as he helps Bernie solve crimes, and his relationships with other animals, namely a cat and a pig in this case. I like all the books in the series but the addition of the pig in this latest book is a stroke of genius by the author.

Chet, the dog narrator of the mystery series, is funny, astute, and innocent all at once. The books are entertaining because the people, the surroundings, and the detecting are seen through his eyes, the eyes of this clever but non-human dog detective.

I've reviewed at least five other books in the series, on this blog. If you search for "Chet", you might find them.

1. The Sound and the Furry: A Chet and Bernie Mystery #6 by Spencer Quinn

2, Paw and Order: Chet and Bernie Mystery #7 by Spencer Quinn

3. The Dog Who Knew Too Much by Spencer Quinn

4: A Fistful of Collars: A Chet and Bernie Mystery

5. Tender Is the Bite by Spencer Quinn, Chet and Bernie Mystery #11

Sisters of a Halved Heart by Nayantara Roy: a Review

 Republished from a Jan. 3, 2026 post from Harvee Reads book blog

Sisters of a Halved Heart publication: June 2, 2026. Algonquin Books. Available now as an advance reader copy thanks to the publisher and NetGalley.  A masterful story of rivalry in love between two Indian-American sisters, plus the strength of family love in the face of betrayal.

My review: This story of conflict in a family of two Indian-American sisters is heartbreaking, especially since the sisters grew up close and responsible for and to each other. When Joy, the younger sister and a successful lawyer, "takes" what her sister Mira, a poetry editor, values most in life, Mira feels betrayed and this results in estrangement between the two for some time.

Determined to get back together in spite of her heartbreak, Mira reminds Joy of the sacrifices she has made for her sister, but does not get into the details. This sacrifice is revealed at the end of the book, but only to the reader and not to Joy. It came as a shock to the reader, giving a feeling that there is a deserved though unintended "retribution" that one sister secretly has over the other.

A masterful story of sibling rivalry and betrayal, mixed with love and unity, well told.

Books by Korean-American Authors

 

Thanks to Grace Fell, senior publicist at Spark Point Studio for the ebook on NetGalley and the hard copy of Kinda Korean by Joan Sung (February 25, She Writes Press). Grace recommends the memoir as perfect for Korean American Day (January 13) 

Very personal stories about growing up in America with Korean immigrant parents.

Publisher description of Kinda Korean :

For fans Minor Feelings | Korean diaspora | Coming-of-age angst & pain

Torn between her two identities as a Korean woman and a first-generation American, Sung bares her struggles in an honest and bare confessional. From her experiences with microaggressions to the over-fetishization of Asian women, Sung connects the COVID pandemic with the decades of violence and racism experienced by Asian American communities through her research on race and representation.

 

Joan Sung breaks the generational silence that curses her family in this courageous memoir of parental love, inter- generational trauma, and perseverance. By intentionally overcoming the stereotype that all Asians are quiet, Sung tells her stories of coming-of-age with a Tiger Mom who did not understand American society.

Cathy Park Hong was born to Korean immigrants in 1976 and raised in a bilingual home. She recalls her childhood in Los Angeles as a “profoundly lonely experience,” during which she first began to comprehend the cultural invisibility of Asian Americans in the United States.Jan 14, 2022

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, FINALIST FOR PULITZER PRIZE, WINNER OF NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD, AMERICAN BOOK AWARD, ONE OF BEST TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2021

Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • ONE OF TIME’S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE • A ruthlessly honest, emotionally charged, and utterly original exploration of Asian American consciousness

“Brilliant . . . To read this book is to become more human.”—Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen

In development as a television series starring and adapted by Greta Lee • One of Time’s 10 Best Nonfiction Books of the Year • Named One of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, New Statesman, BuzzFeed, Esquire, The New York Public Library, and Book Riot

Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative—and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world.

Binding these essays together is Hong’s theory of “minor feelings.” As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Cathy Park Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these “minor feelings” occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality—when you believe the lies you’re told about your own racial identity. Minor feelings are not small, they’re dissonant—and in their tension Hong finds the key to the questions that haunt her. 

With sly humor and a poet’s searching mind, Hong uses her own story as a portal into a deeper examination of racial consciousness in America today. This intimate and devastating book traces her relationship to the English language, to shame and depression, to poetry and female friendship. A radically honest work of art, Minor Feelings forms a portrait of one Asian American psyche—and of a writer’s search to both uncover and speak the truth.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold Books: Sunday Salon

 

Before the Coffee Gets Cold book series

Before the Coffee Gets Cold is the first of the five books in the series by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. I have listed the books in reverse order. They are considered in the Healing Fiction genre.

I have Before Your Memory Fades and Before We Forget Kindness, the third and fifth books. I think there is no need to read the series in order as the stories are separate, but there are several coffeeshop workers who appear in all the books, so it might be useful to start with the first book, Before the Coffee Gets Cold. 

What is the series about? In each book, people visit a mysterious cafe, hoping to go back or forward in time for a brief time. They are given a cup of steaming coffee at a special table, are then transported to the past, and must return to the present time before their coffee gets cold. There are other strict rules for this to work, however.

I have read only a couple books in the series but I have found the themes - life lessons learned by the ones who time travel to meet loved ones. Relationships don't end with death, for example. Indecisiveness is self destructive. Each story gives a different lesson, and some show the dilemmas of having to make certain choices in life. 

Before We Forget Kindness has stories that explore Memories, Family Bonds, and Forgiveness. Before Your Memory Fades explores Grief, Healing, and Second Chances.

This next book is to be published May 2026

Comparable books with stories about people being helped in a magical place are the full moon coffee shop books include The Vanishing Cherry Blossom Bookshop by Takuya Asakura and the Full Moon Coffee Shop two-book series by Mai Mochizuki, which focuses on personal astrology.

 I was entertained by the books I've read so far in both series of books, and also intrigued by thoughtful stories that present life lessons as you read. 

What books are on your reading list now? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves 

A New Pre-2026 Post: Sunday Salon

 Hello again!

I have been absent from this blog for a while, working on my second blog, Harvee Reads. I thought I would revisit this blog and hope it will still have followers/readers! 

I have been busy getting ARC ebooks through NetGalley! Of course, I also visit the library and borrow from there as well. How about you? Where are you finding books, and what have you been reading? 

New Purchase

I think Natsume Soseki, who wrote in the early 20th century, might have started the modern Japanese book craze featuring cats of all types. 

Book description: "I Am a Cat" by Natsume Sōseki is a satirical and witty novel that offers a unique perspective on Meiji-era Japan through the eyes of an observant and unnamed cat. This feline narrator provides humorous insights into the lives and quirks of the human characters that populate its surroundings. Sōseki's sharp social commentary and keen observations make "I Am a Cat: I" a delightful and thought-provoking literary exploration of Japanese society during a time of profound cultural and societal changes.

This is the new translation of the old favorite. I am eager to see how this version differs from the previous one. 

A Midnight Pastry Shop by Lee Onhwa will be published Jan. 13, 2026 by William Morrow, available now on NetGalley. 

Book description: a magical and uplifting novel about a  young woman who inherits an enchanted bakery that spirits visit on their last stop before the afterlife.

I think I see a cat or two on the cover. 

Publication on New Year's Day

Written by first generation Ghanaian-American, Yasmin Angoe, the novel Behind These Four Walls is set in the U.S.A. Publication by Thomas & Mercer, NetGalley 

Yasmin Angoe’s thriller explores revenge, morality, corruption, and wealth as a woman sets out to uncover the truth behind her friend’s disappearance and expose the powerful family behind it.

What are you reading now? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves 

The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh

 

The Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A young Indian marine biologist, Piya Roy, travels to the remote Sunderbans area of West Bengal, India near the border with Bangladesh, to find and study the habits of two rare river dolphins, one of them the Irawaddy dolphin. She gets help from an illiterate yet knowledgeable boatman, Fokir, who knows and understands the extensive mangroves, the shifting tides of the river, and the multiple small islands that make up the marshland area. He is able to take her to where the dolphins regularlly gather to feed.

I loved the extensive and detailed descriptions of the Sunderbans islands, the poetic vision of man and nature and their interactions. The tenacious and determined personality of Piya and her bravery and courage in her research fits well with the astute and competent boatman Fokir, and their attraction to each other does not come as a surprise.

The force of nature and its effects on humans and their frail habitations in a wilderness of wood and water is made over and over again when the incoming tides completely cover many of the islands each day. The main event for the inhabitants is when a cyclone threatens their lives and houses in the Sunderbans. The mangroves are also home to ferocious tigers, crocodiles, and snakes.

The main character is the land - the land of wood, water, and the tides that swallow them up at will. The love story between Piya and Fokir is also heart breaking. But the redemption of having environmental groups fund Piya's further study of the Sunderbans is a reward for her efforts.

May is Asian and Pacific Heritage Month: Four Authors and more

 Asian American/Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Here are some AAPI writers of note

Bad, Bad Girl by Gish Jen, not yet published (Oct. 21, 2025; Knopf, NetGalley)

A very rocky mother-daughter relationship between a Chinese born mother and an American born daughter, with expectations and disappointments leading to the mother often scolding her strong willed daughter: 

"Bad, bad girl. You don't know how to talk." 

 (See my full review here )

Gish Jen, author of 38 books, grew up in New York, where she spoke more Yiddish than Chinese. She has been featured in a PBS American Masters program on the American novel. She has received: National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Guggenheim fellowship, a Fulbright fellowship, and a Radcliffe Institute fellowship; a Lannan Literary Prize in 1999 and an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2003. Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, she has published in many magazines. 

 

  

My Life: Growing Up Asian in America, thirty pieces edited by CAPE, April 25, 2023; MTV Books

Book description:

There are 23 million people, representing more than twenty countries, each with unique languages, histories, and cultures, clumped under one Asian American. Though their experiences are individual, certain commonalities appear.

Through a series of essays, poems, and comics, thirty creators give voice to moments that defined them and shed light on the immense diversity and complexity of the Asian American identity.

The Girls of Good Fortune by Kristina McMorris, not yet published (May 20, 2025; Sourcebooks Landmark, NetGalley

Description: 

Portland, 1888. Amid the subterranean labyrinth of the notorious Shanghai Tunnels in Portland, a woman awakens in an underground cell, drugged and disguised. 

Celia soon realizes she's a "shanghaied" victim on the verge of being shipped off as forced labor, leaving behind those she loves most. Although well accustomed to adapting for survival—being half-Chinese, passing as white during an era fraught with anti-Chinese sentiment—she fears that far more than her own fate lay at stake. 

 

Kristina McMorris  is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of two novellas and seven historical novels, including the bestseller Sold on a Monday and, most recently, the bestseller The Ways We Hide, selected as Target’s top-five reads of 2022. 

Kristina splits her time between San Diego and Portland, Oregon, where she’s the mom of two teenage boys who recently stripped her of her longstanding boast of being “tall for an Asian.”

 

Ginko Season by Naomi Xu Elegant (published May 20, 2025; W.W. Norton Company, NetGalley

Description: 

A beguiling debut novel about finding oneself after heartbreak.

After suffering her first big heartbreak two years earlier, Penelope Lin has built a quiet life with no romantic entanglements. She spends her days cataloging a museum’s vast collection of Qing Dynasty bound-foot shoes and in the company of close friends. One day, she meets Hoang, who confesses to releasing mice from the cancer research lab where he works. Hoang’s openness catches Penelope off guard; from then on, her carefully constructed life slowly starting to unravel. 

 

Naomi Xu Elegant is a writer and journalist living in New York City. Her first novel, Gingko Season, will be published on May 20, 2025 by W.W. Norton.

Transplants by Daniel Tam-Claiborne, May 13, 2025; Regalo Press, NetGalley

Description:

A poignant novel of two young women in pursuit of kinship and self-discovery who yearn to survive in a world that doesn’t know where either of them belongs.

On a university campus in rural Qixian, Lin and Liz form an unlikely friendship. Lin is a Chinese student closer to her menagerie of pets than to her peers, and Liz, a Chinese American teacher grieving her mother’s sudden death. They’re each met with hostility on campus—Lin by her classmates, who mock her for dating a white foreigner; Liz by her fellow English teachers, who exploit their privilege.

Alternating between Liz and Lin’s perspectives, it is a lyrical and moving exploration of race, love, power, and freedom that reveals how our differences may bring us closer than we might ever imagine.

Daniel Tam-Claiborne is a multiracial writer, multimedia producer, and nonprofit director. He is the author of the short story collection What Never Leaves, and his writing has appeared in Catapult, Literary Hub, Off Assignment, The Rumpus, HuffPost, and elsewhere. He is a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow. Daniel holds degrees from Oberlin College, Yale University, and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he lives with his wife and daughter in Seattle.

These are just a handful of the Asian American Pacific Islander authors currently being published. Have you read any books by AAPI writers?  

What are you reading now? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves 

Currently Reading: Two Books at a Time

 

Currently reading

Japanese literature

Honeybees and Distant Thunder by Riku, Onda, translated by Philip Gabriel, May 2, 2023; Pegasus Books

Genre: Japanese literature, literary fiction, contemporary, music

Description: 

Three young people are rivals in a prominent piano competition in a town outside of Tokyo. They are child prodigy Aya, her childhood Mulfriend Maseru, and child prodigy Jin, plus a fourth perso - an older married man, Akashi. 

Beloved in Japan, Riku Onda immerses us in the world of music—from piano masterpieces to the buzz of bees and the rumble of thunder—which crescendos to a surprising ending in this rich and vibrant novel.

Multicultural interest, romance 

Jasmine and Jake Rock the Boat by Sonya Lalli, April 2023, Berkley, NetGalley

Genre: romance, set in Alaska and Seattle

Description:

Jasmine Randhawa is encouraged to sign up with her parents for an Alaskan cruise organized by their Indian group in Seattle, but finds out on the boat that the cruise is for seniors ages 50 and older. 

Stuck with her elders, she meets an old crush Jake who is with his father on the cruise. The two young people clash in the beginning, but I can see where this romance is heading! 

I am trying to limit my reading to only two books at a time!

What are you reading ? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves 

March Publications 2025

 March 2025 Publications

Soft Burial by Fang Fang, translated by Michael Berry

Publication March 18, 2025; Columbia University Press, NetGalley

Genre: historical fiction, literary, mystery and thriller

I just love novels that involve amnesia in all its various manifestations. Readers on Goodreaders gave this one 4.30 stars. 

Description: Fang Fang’s Soft Burial begins with a mysterious, nameless protagonist. Decades earlier she was pulled out of a river in a state of near-death; upon regaining consciousness, she discovered that her entire memory had been erased. 

The narrative follows her journey through recovery as she takes a job as a housekeeper in the home of a powerful cadre, marries the doctor who saved her, and starts a family of her own. 

As the story unfolds, the protective cocoon of amnesia that her subconscious wove around her begins to give way, revealing glimpses of her previous life and the unspeakable trauma that she suffered.

By the same author and translator, The Running Flame has the same release date in March and the same publisher, Columbia University Press. I was approved to read the ARC by NetGalley.

Genre: literary fiction, adult fiction, women's fiction

Description: 

“She knew that if she didn’t say her piece, that flame would never be extinguished; even after death, it would continue raging.”

The Running Flame opens with its protagonist in prison awaiting execution, desperate to give an account of her life.  The novel draws loosely from interviews the author conducted with female death row inmates in a Chinese prison. Equal parts social critique and domestic horror, The Running Flame is a gripping, propulsive narrative that shines a light on the struggles of poor women in China’s countryside.

About the author: Fang Fang graduated from the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Wuhan University in 1982. She has published nearly seventy novels, novellas and essay collections, in many different languages.

Stories from the Edge of the Sea by Andrew Lam, March 25, 2025; Red Hen Press, NetGalley 

At times humorous and ecstatic, other times poetic and elegiac, the fourteen pieces in Stories from the Edge of the Sea explore love and loss, lust and grief, longing and heartbreaks through the lives of Vietnamese immigrants and their children in California. 

Andrew Lam is a writer and an editor with the Pacific News Service, a short story writer, and, for 8 years, a commentator on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.” He co-founded New America Media, an association of over 2000 ethnic media organizations in America. Born in Saigon, Vietnam, Lam came to the U.S. at age eleven. He degrees are from San Francisco State University and UC Berkeley.

ARCs: Historical Romance and a Cat Cozy Mystery

 Historical romance/murder mystery

And Then There Was the One: 1930s England, an historical romance with a mystery. October 2025: Atria Books, NetGalley ARC

Amateur detective Georgiana and a London detective's secretary, Sebastian, set out to solve a murder in the Cotswolds. I think the cover and title drew me in to get this ARC.

Cat Cozy

Something Whiskered: July 29, 2025; Berkley, NetGalley

When will I ever get back to reading cozies, which used to fill all my reading hours? I have moved on from the genre, but some of the new books are so tempting, as is this book with a ready to pounce cat that looks like my neighbor's wild cats roaming our yard. 

Publication: July 29, 2025; Berkley, NetGalley

What are you reading these days? 

Memes:  The Sunday Post, It's Monday: What Are You Reading, Sunday Salon, and Stacking the Shelves 

From the Publisher: The Stalker by Paula Bomer, adult comedy

The Stalker by Paula Bomer, May 27, 2025; Soho Press

Genre: adult fiction, black comedy

Description: An Untalented Mr. Ripley, a Dumb American Psycho: A young man combines boundless self-confidence with perpetual failure and ineptitude as he tries to manipulate his way into a better life, preying on women in New York City in the early ’90s. Portrait of the sociopath as a young loser.

I found it interesting that 42% of Goodreads readers gave this novel five and four stars. I can't predict how I'll find it, but am going to give it a try, as I requested the book from the publisher for review/feature. 

You Call Yourself a Poem : Breakfast

 You Call Yourself a Poem

Wanting a room of one's own, 

And having it, yet

Still wanting company

At moments.

I sit and stare at the screen 

Fingers writing words at will.

Will it be called a poem? 

Still?

I think of having food this morning 

With pills to take 

And wonder what will keep me company.

Yogurt, hummus on toast, a sweet orange

Or another tv drama spoken in

Japanese, Korean, occasionally Chinese.

While I sip on English tea.

They can all make you laugh, or break your heart.

Breakfast. 

                                        - Gerry Young

From Failure to Fortune: An Ex-con's Path from Prison to Prosperity by Nich Marshall

 New Memoir

Try Again  by Nick Marshall, March 25, 2025, Viva Editions

Source: Wiley Saichek, Saichek Publicity 

Description:Nick Marshall was your average twenty-one-year-old from New Jersey—until he was sentenced to three years in prison for armed robbery. Although he would still be fairly young once released, what kind of life could he have as an ex-con?

What Marshall did not expect was for a series of jobs in bars and restaurants to catapult him into the exciting yet treacherous world of New York City nightlife. By connecting with all of the right movers, shakers, gatekeepers, and the like, he began to blaze a new trail.  Before he knew it, he was a power player who had it all. Or did he? 

 Half cautionary tale and half inspirational memoir, Try An Ex-Con's Path from Prison to Prosperity is the story of one man’s climb back into society when the highs and lows of post-prison life kept kicking him down. It is the tale of how almost being blinded by the limelight cost him everything he worked so hard for, as well as his mental health and stability.

 However, this book is not just for those who have been incarcerated; it is for anyone looking to start anew when they are at their lowest, and it feels like it is utterly impossible. It serves as a reminder that the same mistakes that make us human are the ones that can change our lives indefinitely.

Thanks to Wiley Saichek for this copy for review/feature.

Reading at 1:30 a.m.

 Waking too early. listening to light rain bouncing off the roof drains, I reach for my phone. Too early to play my word game- the new one isn’t up as yet. The other games don’t interest me right now. 

My phone shows me the ebooks I have partially read. Which one to start again, to put me back to sleep, perhaps? 

Do I want to follow that penurious artist in the French countryside village who has returned to his room at the inn, having been discharged from the hospital after cutting off his own ear in a mental frenzy? Sounds like Van Gogh’s story. 

Or do I want to get on the motorcycle of a rider in Italy who doesn’t know how to control his vehicle in busy streets?  Or perhaps visit the writers trapped with a murderer on a small, privately owned Greek island? 

I opt to write instead about waking early and wanting to get back to sleep with a book in a different scenario.  Decide on a motorcycle ride in Italy? Not very sleep inducing, but it suits my present mood. 

Wish me luck. How do you get back to sleep?

A summer garden bed

International Booker Prize 2025: Five Novels and a Collection of Short Stories

 From the Booker Prize Foundation

The International Booker Prize 2025 shortlist © Yuki Sugiura for the Booker Prize Foundation

Five novels and one collection of short stories, in translation

• On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland

• Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson

• Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda

• Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes

• Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi

• A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson

I mean to read some of these! I have not read these authors before and am now very curious, especially about Heart Lamp, short stories of Muslim girls growing up in India. 

Are you interested in any of these?