Doreen Sheridan

Washington, D.C., United States

Book Critic at The Frumious Consortium

Professional book critic, amateur cellist, full-time polymath. Occasional game designer, perpetual game enthusiast. Mom of 3. Arsenal till I die. S/H

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Articles

Tantalizing Tales - June 2025 - Part One

3 weeks ago | thefrumiousconsortium.net | Doreen Sheridan |Tantalizing Titles

Hello, dear readers! I hope you’re having a Happy Pride Month, even as we in America watch our politicians regress in a myriad of appalling ways. Luckily, there is plenty of good reading to keep us company and comforted — if not outright inspired — starting with Elena Malisova & Katerina Silvanova’s swoony, star-crossed gay romance Pioneer Summer.
Fishflies by Jeff Lemire

3 weeks ago | thefrumiousconsortium.net | Doreen Sheridan

w a terrific guest chapter by Shawn Kuruneru that really exemplifies the benefit of having someone else come in and contribute their entirely different style to your already well-told story. Three boys are walking to the convenience store one night during fishfly season, when the titular insects rise in swarms off of the nearby lakes and make a general nuisance of themselves in certain waterside towns of Canada.
Cooking the Books: The Diva Poaches A Bad Egg by Krista Davis

3 weeks ago | criminalelement.com | Doreen Sheridan

Event planner Sophie Winston is browsing the tables of the latest expo she’s helped organize when she’s surprised by a covert approach from an acquaintance. Mitzi Lawson is half of one of the best interior design firms in Old Town Alexandria, where both she and Sophie work and live. Using cloak and dagger tactics, she gives Sophie instructions to meet her at a worksite the next morning, but slips away before explaining why.
A Dumb Birds Field Guide To The Worst Birds Ever by Matt Kracht

3 weeks ago | thefrumiousconsortium.net | Doreen Sheridan

Lol, that really is the entire title, which should prepare you for the irreverent humor within the pages of this bird guide, written from the point of view of someone who (hilariously) loathes birds. Matt Kracht has been writing about birds for quite a while: while he might really hate them, he certainly knows his enemy! In this third installment of the series, he takes a look at what he deems the Worst Birds Ever.
Cousins In The Time Of Magic by Emma Otheguy

4 weeks ago | thefrumiousconsortium.net | Doreen Sheridan |Urban Fantasy

with delightful illustrations by Poly Bernatene. Bear with me while I tell you an anecdote here. I used to work in some decently nice restaurants, and at one of them had a manager of Mexican descent who loathed Cinco de Mayo. According to him, it’s a holiday made up by American beer companies that no one in Mexico actually celebrates. And don’t even get him started on the conflation with Mexican Independence, lol.
Allegro by Ariel Dorfman

4 weeks ago | thefrumiousconsortium.net | Doreen Sheridan

Friends and readers, what a glorious thing it is to have music in the world! Whether you appreciate it for itself, or for the ways in which it can bring you closer to divinity — as Johann Sebastian Bach, among so many others, believed — music is a gift that connects the interior world ineffably with the external.
Book Review: Fagin The Thief by Allison Epstein

4 weeks ago | criminalelement.com | Doreen Sheridan

It was only after reading the first few pages of Allison Epstein’s excellent reimagining of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist that I realized I’d likely never read the original myself. Instead, I’ve somehow absorbed the characters and plot by cultural osmosis, as much from the movies and musicals and other adaptations as from any source text.
Convert by John Arcudi & Savannah Finley

1 month ago | thefrumiousconsortium.net | Doreen Sheridan

I can’t be the only person who picked up this title thinking that there’d be a religious subtext here. And perhaps there is, but the creators chose a much more interesting way to use the title word in this graphic novel, that collects the first (?) four books of the series. Science Officer Orrin Kutela is a twofer on his space crew’s mission to an uncharted planet. As both an evolutionary biologist and an artist, he’s responsible for recording any images should the ship’s equipment fail.
Cooking the Books: Death By Chocolate Pumpkin Muffin by Sarah Graves

1 month ago | criminalelement.com | Doreen Sheridan

Jake Tiptree and her best friend Ellie White aren’t starstruck by the arrival of celebrity handyman Hank Rafferty, though the same can’t be said of the other residents of their remote town of Eastport, Maine. Hank has recently inherited Stone House, a manor long thought derelict, if not outright haunted. He’s determined to rehabilitate the place into his dream home, never mind the antipathy of his nearest and dearest.
Book Review: Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister

1 month ago | criminalelement.com | Doreen Sheridan

Camilla Deschamps is spending what should be a banner day in her small family’s life feeling deeply annoyed instead. Her infant daughter Polly is about to attend nursery school for the very first time, freeing Camilla herself to go back to work at her literary agency. Her husband Luke, however, has suddenly gone missing. He’s always been the carefree foil to her more fretful nature, but surely even he wouldn’t forget to accompany her on their only child’s first school drop-off?