I ended up not liking "Unnatural Magic" as much. It was fine, but it wasn't the joyful romp that I loved in the other.

I can see that, they are different in tone and such, and the plot of Ruthless Lady's Guide to Wizardry is, I would say, more satisfying. I liked them both, and what I like most is the world they take place in, it's very thoughtfully put together with a lot of different cultures and religions and languages and Waggoner is clever about having different POV characters think in pretty identifiably different voices without being precious about it. More, please.

I went from those to The Wisteria Society for Lady Scoundrels which is also pretty fun but completely different, or maybe not completely but much more different than I subconsciously supposed by the similarity in title construction and cover art so that I had to do some reminding myself that THIS IS NOT THE SAME SERIES early on but once I got that thoroughly clear I quite enjoyed it

I get a number of recommendations from the Smart Bitches (not to be confused with Spike's Bitches) - they have a daily list of three or four e-books on sale - that I use to try out authors that are new to me. It's kind of hit or miss - some I've loved and gone on to go for an author's backlist, some I haven't finished or, if I did finish, deleted the book and decided to ignore that author. (One made me so mad over a historical inaccuracy that I'm not only avoiding that author, I'm still angry.) One of the wins was "The Huntress" by Kate Quinn - I don't normally go for WWII stories, but this one .... It's about hunting down war criminals and specifically one woman. One of the people hunting her down is a Russian who was one of the Night Witches. It was hard to put down and I plan to get more of her books.

Yes, and if I don’t feel like buying things I use their recs for library book holds. Sometimes the ones on sale are backlist that are available right then at the library!

I figure if an e-book is $0.99 I can afford to give it a try.

I have found that I can think that often enough that eventually no, I really can't afford another one. But generally it's a sound policy.

The Hidden Palace just came out and I remember really looking forward to any sequel when I finished The Golem and the Jinni, so I started reading it as soon as I could. I only got maybe 3% in before I decided I'd like to reread The Golem and the Jinni, so I'm doing that now and I just got to the bit where someone comes through Ellis Island and his name is changed by an official and I had to come say something about it where Hil R might see it as it immediately made me think of her periodic reminders on that topic

Yeah for .99 I’ll usually just buy if it’s interesting but sometimes they’re 2.99 or something and if it’s not super fascinating I’ll check the library first. My book buying habits definitely add up

Oh and can anyone recommend any good Kindle Unlimited authors or books? I got it to read the backlist of one author and kept it because another author put a bunch of books up, but now want to make the most of it before I cancel. It’s hard though because some stuff on there is great but a lot of it is SO BAD

One of the things that really irritates me about Kindle Unlimited is that it doesn't seem to keep track of what I have read and returned. Stuff I know I read, or maybe even just read, like, yesterday, keeps popping up in my "Recommended for You in Kindle Unlimited". Between those and the authors I tried but didn't like but keep getting recommendations to read more of their stuff the recommendations are not very useful.

That said - hey The Woman in White is on Kindle Unlimited, so there's that. And The Moonstone and probably a bunch of Wilkie Collins. I like the Beatrice Hyde-Clare mysteries by Lynn Messina well enough. And Deanna Rayborn's Veronica Speedwell series, although it did not have as much chocolate content as I was led to believe. No, that's her other series. Or possibly some other author. Disregard. I liked the Paper Magician series and another duology by Charlie Holmberg but not enough to want to read her other books. Most of the Margery Allingham I read was through Kindle Unlimited.