Women are hired to work on code-breaking cyphers, amid a flurry of men with giant egos, poor mannerisms, and potential nefarious intentions.
What I Liked
Previous stories have trodden the same ground, although often in WWII. This one picks up after the war, focusing on the beginnings of the Cold War. Cat Killeen moves hundreds of miles to work in Arlington Hall, home of the Army Security Agency. The story follows generally a combination of her getting to work with someone brilliant but difficult at work, showing her aptitude for the work, and building a social life with some other girls who work in the same unit, with the requisite dating of someone from security intelligence (aka maybe a spy!).
What I Didn’t Like
The story was decent but a little short on action; it was the “cozy” equivalent of a spy thriller. There’s also a scene where things happen to her rather than because of her, and it feels like a lost chance for more agency in the protagonist. So the ending felt more flat than determinative.
Edward has left, leaving Bella to pine for him and find new ways to fill the hours. She takes new risks to feel alive, including getting closer to Jacob.
What I Liked
While it is obvious to the reader from the beginning that Jacob is a werewolf, the slow “build” that all the young guys that he hangs out with are a pack is fun. While it is commonplace for so many books now, it was great to re-read the twist that Meyer put on the franchise back in ’06. It’s fun to see the family worry about the connections, and even her dad and mom chiming in.
What I Didn’t Like
The trip to Italy is a bit over the top in places, while fascinating. The Discovery of Witches series does something similar, and is better handled than the excess shown here.
I feel like I don’t prioritize reading as much as I should. Reading gives me great joy, and yet I default to TV watching, doom scrolling, and silly things like work, eating, chores, etc. My wife gave me the book, BR00283 Everyone in my family has killed someone by Benjamin Stevenson, for Christmas and I went deep down the enjoyment rabbit hole. It was unique, it was unusual, it was delightful.
I have also been reading Elizabeth Wheatley’s Tears of the Wolf and Oath of the Wolf. They have also been excellent. I haven’t reviewed them yet, and therein lies a source of consternation for me.
Book reviews. I could have said B was for the book reviews as they go hand in hand, do they not? If you’re anal-retentive like me, yes, they do. I read it, I review it.
Except I am way behind on book reviews. I’ve done 283, which is amazing to me. I remember when I was back at 25 and 50. Now, how many are in the backlog, let’s see…there are 27 books on my Kindle in the “READ” collection, but I won’t review all of those, probably 22 or so (others were DNF’s or just reference materials I was looking at). Then I have another 31 that are relatively “recent reads” in the last year or so. Still fresh in my mind. Then another 63 from the previous year or two, and then another 186 that are sitting there. Taunting me from years gone by. So, that makes, lemme see, carry the one, and ummm…302 pending review. More than I have accomplished in the last ten years combined.
But I digress. I’ll make progress on that “backlog” this year, but it is a digression. The real question is…
What will I read this year?
I fear that I do not read enough non-fiction. I have about 150 books on my Kindle that are non-fiction, although some are more for browsing than complete reading. I put them there so I would remember I had them, like a Chair Yoga book. It isn’t the type of book you “read” so much as open on the desktop perhaps and apply part of it to a routine. But I threw it on the Kindle so I can flip through and see what’s there. My biggest challenge for NF reads is that I often feel like I want to highlight as I go. Except the Kindle is designed to save those highlights in a separate file (MyClippings). Which means even if I synch the book back over to the PC, the highlights are still ONLY on the Kindle in a separate file.
I’ve been experimenting and I came up with a couple of options. If I read it on my PC, and make highlights there, they stay with the file. Alternatively, if I do it on my Kindle, I can run a plugin to Calibre that will lift “annotations” from the MyClippings file and put them in an extra field in Calibre. Either or both would work. It’s “easier” if they’re just in the file itself, if I go back later, but harder to find perhaps; alternatively, the annotation highlights in a separate file make it really easy to write a review and lift stuff out, but often out of context.
I’m leaning toward setting aside 30 minutes every day to just read non-fiction. I’m currently working my way through a Harvard Business Review collection about toxic workplaces (I know, riveting, right? I like it, though, seeing how academics and other experts approach issues that I myself face as a manager, and how they explain their views) and highlighting as I go on the Kindle. If it works, I’ll stick with that method as the Kindle is portable; if it doesn’t work for my subsequent review and blogging, I’ll likely open the file directly on my desktop. I tried to get it to an old iPad 2 that we have, but alas, not quite the tool I wanted.
But I think I can at least categorize the main areas of Non-fiction that I’ll delve into this year, and I’ll push myself to do 14 books. I should have a biography in there somewhere but maybe I’ll count that instead in the fiction category (there’s a few options below where a person could show up in rebel, for example).
PolyWogg’s Reading Challenge for 2026: Non-Fiction
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D
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N
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Writing
Astronomy
Exercise
Mental Health
Retirement
Finances
Career
Goals
Business
Women
Recipes
AI
Creativity
Software / Tools
I’ll come back to the non-fiction side of things again when I get to my L is for Learning post. 🙂
Let’s talk fiction
My goal is 50 fiction books a year, although if I was totally honest with myself, 300 would be my real goal if I thought it was attainable. 🙂 I am struggling with how to read established series, to be honest. So many different books out there by different authors, all of which interest me, and yet I also want to read series. The only series I feel “finished” on probably is Sue Grafton — all 25 of her Kinsey Milhone alphabet series (A is for Alibi, …) plus two of her older books that nobody ever mentions, both of which were quite good and I’m glad I chased them down.
But I would love to read all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys books, plus a full-on deep dive into a year of Sherlock Holmes and all the new books — they may not be canon, but they are often fun. Or I could go “legal” (Grisham, Berhnardt, O’Shaugnessy, Gardner), sagas (Archer), fantasy (P.C. Cast, Jordan, Wheatley), action (Child, DeMille, MacDonald), forensics (Cornwell, Reichs), light (Evanovich), British sleuth (Francis), procedurals (Jennings, ), westerns (Butcher, L’Amour), etc. And I’m not even talking hundreds of sci-fi books in the Star Wars and Star Trek universe, cozies, other types of detectives and sleuths, etc. It’s a lot.
Huh, I just realized that my latest review isn’t even complete — I forgot to code it properly in the HTML file, so that it will show up in the indexed pages. Sigh.
But where was I? Oh, yeah, deciding what to read this year between established series and new authors or standalone books. Obviously, duh, the answer is both! 🙂
PolyWogg’s Reading Challenge for 2026: Fiction
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A
D
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Banned book
Childhood favourite
New release (2026)
Best of 2025
Infrequent genre
Canadian author
Canadian setting
Award winner: 1950s
Award winner: 1960s
Award winner: 1970s
Award winner: 1980s
Award winner: 1990s
Award winner: 2000s
Award winner: 2010s
Classic
Bestseller list
Legal
Police
Amateur sleuth
P.I.
Vampires
Fantasy creatures
Romance
Science fiction
Star Wars
Star Trek
Time travel
Fantasy adventure
Personal discovery
Rebel
Serialized novel
Western
Edith Wharton
Writing under an alias
Brothers
Sisters
Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter
Humour
History
Women
Mystery
Geography
Indigenous
Series
Gift / Loan / Recommended
Holiday themed
Some resources that I’ll draw upon from earlier Reading Challenges:
Ernest Cunningham, a writer who specializes in books on how to write, joins his family at a snowy retreat to welcome his brother home from jail. After he turned him into the police and sent him there.
What I Liked
The main character, Ernest aka Ern, breaks the fourth wall every page or two. Sometimes it’s foreshadowing, sometimes it’s narration, sometimes its commentary on himself, his life, the rest of the family, past events, future events, etc. It should be ANNOYING but is somehow delightful. Each section of the book is devoted to one family member, combining the current timeline with the past timeline where they killed someone (no, not all murders — car accident, patient dying on an operating table, etc.). And yes, even the narrator. When the first body shows up in the current timeline, things start to unravel in the family too.
What I Didn’t Like
There is a plot hole in the story, and not the one the narrator mentions (he mentions there is a giant plot hole big enough to drive a truck through, kind of as a literary joke), but it IS still there. Potential spoiler, but someone needs to be identified and conveniently, two people in particular who COULD identify him never see the picture. Normally, that would negate a star or even two, but the pieces hang together so well otherwise, I had to let it pass.
The Fellowship is running around trying to reunite in Salidar while Rand starts to marshal his forces against the Forsaken and the men they lead.
What I Liked & Didn’t Like
The book includes a lot of travel from point A to B, with not a lot happening in between that matters too much to the overall story. Siuan, Leane, Min, and Login are trying to travel to Salidar to meet the self-exiled Aes Sedai, with numerous minor incidents, including an encounter with Gabriel Bryne, who begins to follow them. Meanwhile, Nynaeve and Elayne are running and hiding, running and hiding, and end up working for a travelling circus (aka a menagerie) doing high-wire work and acting as the target for knife-throwing and arrow-shooting. However, while they travel, they also hunt at night in the Dream World where they encounter Moghedien, Lanfear and Birgitte. Two battles with Moghedien end up about as good as one can hope when facing a Forsaken, and even Birgitte is returned to the living realm.
Meanwhile, Rand leads the Aiel to Cairhien to face Sammael and the Shaido Aiel. Moiraine starts listening to Rand and obeying him, in exchange for talking his ear off all day long, sharing info and advice that he’ll need for the future. Sammael escapes but the large battle is magnificent, with a reluctant and departing Mat turning into a massive tactician who faces superior forces, unrelenting odds, and wins three major victories. So much so that men start to follow him, even if he isn’t a Lord. The info in his head gives him insights into battles he was never part of in his life, hundreds of years of history that gives him a tactical advantage, whether he wants it or not. However, it doesn’t help him understand how Melindrha, the woman sharing his bed, is — spoiler alert #1 — revealed to be a Darkfriend in the end.
However, the real climax is seeing Rand go supernova on Rahvin in Andor after he hears of the apparent murder of Morgase. He burns the castle corridors with Balefire while running through traps and other realms. Nynaeve joins him for the final battle, and — spoiler alert #2 — three more Forsaken seem to be addressed — Rahvin by Rand, Moghedien by Nynaeve, and Lanfear by Moraine.
