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Whole Lot Of History. Very Little Baseball. The biggest thing I can tell you about this book in a review is that if you're expecting a baseball tale - ie, a tale of the game itself... well, technically that is here... but it is less than 10% of the overall text, with another 10% being the bibliography. Meaning 80% of the volume of this book is anything *other than* the titular game.

Now, don't get me wrong here. Sullivan does a *phenomenal* job tracing the history of virtually everyone who had anything to do with the game... at least anyone in any "official capacity". So not the hot dog v...

Baseball As Background Yet Overall Enjoyable Enough. This is one of those books that has several flaws - some easily fixed, others not so easily fixed - such that none of them individually are really *that* big of a problem, but in any combination amount to enough of a problem to give many readers at least some pause. Thus, while there isn't a single issue to hang any particular star deduction on, each of these issues are significant enough to me to be something like a 0.6 star deduction individually... which adds up to 1.8 star deduction across all three, necessitating the rounding up to a 2 star deduction.

First, the one that gets so many nonfiction books: The bibliography clocks in at just 14%, which is *just* shy of the 15% I normally expect (itself a loosened form of my former 20% expectation). Still, I think I've allowed even 12-13% to skate by before... except that in this case (and this next bit may well be corrected in the final published version rather than the Advance Review Copy version I've had for roughly 4.5 months prior to publication), Baird gets a rather well known fact - a fact so well known it is literally enshrined in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York - *completely wrong* in claiming t...

Interesting History Marred By Substandard Bibliography. This text essentially takes Cat Tale by Craig Pittman and does for elk, buffalo, and red wolves what Pittman did for the Florida panther - explain the historic ecology of the animal, how humans nearly wiped it out, and what humans are doing to try to restore it. And yes, even without directly naming Pittman in the text, the story of the Florida panther is at least briefly mentioned here, specifically as it relates to similar issues and interventions with the red wolves.

Along the way, we're going to meet a *lot* of humans and see their roles in the fall and rise of these species, and we're going to get a *lot* of discussion of both plant and animal ecology... and how the two different types of scientists and activists are often at odds, or at bare minimum rarely talk ...

Solid Spicy Series Swan Song. This is it. The moment the series has been building to - Everly's story. And for those who have read this series to this point, it absolutely does not disappoint. We've got the hilarity. We've got the habanero spice, maybe even hotter - those that prefer a warm glass of milk, yeah, this series isn't for you, and this conclusion definitely isn't. We've got the returning cast of characters - all of them, including the animals. We've got the heart.

New this time, we've got a sports romance that uses terms from the sport as a bit of narrative str...

Fault In Our Stars Meets Meet Joe Black Meets Twilight. This is one of those sad romance novels - and yes, it does meet every known RNA/ RWA "requirement" for romance novels - that specifically because it *is* so heavy is actually that much better for it. This isn't a feel good beach read. At all. This book is going to haunt you in some of the best possible ways - but it is going to have quite a few very dusty rooms throughout. It is a powerful romance of its form, and it has that tinge of the paranormal that humanity has always wrestled with in these points of our lives.

It is almost as much character story as romance, and that is where the real depth comes in. It asks a lot of the questions that are seemingly common at this point, particularly when you are so young. Which I happen to have a degree of experience with these last several months, as my wife had a Widowmaker type heart attack at just 43yo almost a year ago as I write this review, survived (because she was literally 3 miles from Advent Celebration hospital just outside the gates of Walt Disney World near Animal Kingdom), and now less th...

Strong Yet Short Neighborhood Mystery. Fans of the whole "entire neighborhood has secrets that impact each other" subgenre, I have a book for you. Even if you don't think you're into that thing... this is still a strong mystery that you're going to want to try out.

Danvers manages to pack quite a tale into less than 250 pages, making this a great short read for...

Detailed Yet Approachable History of Historic And Even Monumental Event That Is Virtually Unknown. This is exactly the kind of detailed history relying on personal investigation using archived newspapers and similar materials you would expect from an investigative journalist of prior eras. Filled with exactingly precise details and dispelling many myths that arose from both culture and corporate propaganda, this is the kind of history that needs to be written about far more subjects, particularly unknown topics such as this that really did come to shape so much of American culture.

Specifically, a rising yet nowhere near as prominent as he ...

Less Thriller, More Up Meets Anne Of Greene Gables Meets Lizzie Borden. Wow. So much to say about the book, but its impact really is about that ending, and thus all I can really say *there* is that it really is quite impactful and extremely well done.

One of the most important things I can tell you though is exactly what I said in the title. This is not your typical dark mystery/ thriller, even with the body count it has. This is much more a lighthearted ish psychological drama with a lot of depth. The Up elements are even in the description of the book, but are very well done. The Anne ...

Another Solid Katherine Center Romance. If you're already a fan of Center - and clearly she has many, as evidenced by nearly 5K reviews of this book on Goodreads on release day -, know that this is her typical excellent storytelling, this time set on a cruise ship more than her more typical Galveston area setting. (Though it *does* start there.) If you've somehow never read a Katherine Center romance, this is a pretty good introduction to her overall style. you're going to laugh. Your heartstrings are going to be pulled without necessarily moving into dusty room territory. You're going to have more eggnog/ horchata level s...

Scene In Service To Story. As It Should Be. With the exception of those tales where the scene is *intended* to *be* the story, scene should generally support the story of a tale and enhance it - and this book does that quite well. Yes, there are a lot of Parisian details. Holmes has been there a few times, loves it, and wanted to celebrate it in a tale - similar to so many other writers over the years, including her colleague in the Facebook group Readers Coffeehouse Kimberly Belle's 2024 release, The Paris Widow.

Here, what we actually get is a ...