January's pick by your's truly was The Bullet Catcher's Daughter by Rod Duncan. On Thursday, January 29, we go together to discuss it. Here is what we thought.

I personally busted my butt to get this book read on time. I just never got around to it and read the bulk of it (92%) in two days. I really enjoyed the book!

We all agreed that it while the beginning was great and grabbing, it quickly slowed pace by describing Elizabeth's droll, day-to-day life on her boat. That's actually about where I stopped reading for the longest time. The plot and the action picks back up a little later on, and it stays up.

The Bullet Catcher's Daughter is a wonderful mystery with plot twists that none of us saw coming. It is very light on the steampunk theme, which was kind of disappointing to me. I had narrowed my pick for last month down to three books and asked the other ladies what they wanted to read. They were all different genres and there was expressed interest in reading a steampunk fiction. While the book was thoroughly entertaining, I had to let the other members of BB&B know that this was not what I would recommend as an introduction to the genre. That said, they felt comfortable with the subtle genre influences and it left them able to comprehend the world and not get overwhelmed with the mechanisms of the genre.

So, if you have no interest in steampunk, but would love to read a mystery set in a fantasy world for a bit of circus-escapism, I recommend this book.

February's book is a pick by Maile.

It is The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton.