Offbeat Offline: February 2025 (Spoiler: It Wasn't Boring)

Welcome to Offbeat Offline, where I bring you up-to-date with what went on in my life during the month just gone, give you a sneak peek of my next shenanigans, and share my favourite posts of late!

What happened last month to yours truly? A whirlwind of visits and exams...and my mum gave me a scare. My housekeeping plans got derailed (again); I wanted to read but I was dragging my feet about reviewing, so I worked myself into a slump; and despite February being the shortest month, it felt like it was never going to end for me.

📚 REVIEWING ROADBLOCK. I finally had a couple of new approvals after two void months, but regardless, I read very little. I mean, February wasn't a good month in any way (see below), and I was more tired and unfocused than usual, but that's not the real reason. The fact is, I can't seem to start a new book until I've reviewed the previous one, and I dragged my feet like a pro about the latest part...

Approvals (2):

• The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi (Adult, sci-fi/*spoiler*)

Scientist Beth Darlow has discovered the unimaginable. She's built a machine that allows human consciousness to travel through time—to any point in the traveler's lifetime—and relive moments of their life. An impossible breakthrough, but it's not the traveler has no way to interact with the past. They can only observe.

After Beth's husband, Colson, the co-creator of the machine, dies in a tragic car accident, Beth is left to raise Isabella—their only daughter—and continue the work they started. Mired in grief and threatened by her ruthless CEO, Beth pushes herself to the limit to prove the value of her technology.

Then the impossible happens. Simply viewing personal history should not alter the present, but with each new observation she makes, her own timeline begins to warp.

As her reality constantly shifts, Beth must solve the puzzles of her past, even if it means forsaking her future.

• Rose/House by Arkady Martine (Adult, sci-fi - novella)

All of Basit Deniau’s houses were haunted. Rose House, his final architectural triumph built in the remote Mojave desert, was perhaps the most.

A house embedded with an artificial intelligence is a common thing. But a house that is an artificial intelligence, infused in every crevice and corner with a thinking creature that is not human? That is something else altogether. That is Rose House.

When Detective Maritza Smith gets a call from Rose House, she’s shocked to learn that there is a dead body behind its sealed-up door. Everybody in town knows it’s haunted. But Basit died more than a year ago, and everybody also knows that only his former protege, Dr. Selene Gisil, is permitted inside. But Selene wasn’t in the country when Rose House called in the death. Who is the dead body? How did they get in? And who—or what—killed them?

The answers lie within the labyrinthine halls of Rose House. But even if Maritza can get inside, there is no guarantee she will ever be able to leave...

Reads (5):

• Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning (Adult, thriller)

After getting canceled for a bad tweet that cost her her job and her fiancè, a sitcom star joins an "electronic free" camp for a social-media detox, but when her fellow campers start disappearing, internet shame becomes the last of her problems. I had a ton of fun with this book, but I missed the heart, the depth, and last but not least, the more articulated writing style of The Shadow Glass. Fans of camp slashers will probably receive this one better than I did, though.

• The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi (see above)

I'm still in the process of writing my review, so I'm not including a snippet of it in here, but I can say that, as far as time-travel stories go, this is a peculiar one (gah, it's so difficult not to spoil a certain main point...), and the book is light on the science, but poignant when it comes to the human aspect...

• Rose/House by Arkady Martine (see above)

As I made abundantly clear (again) above, I usually read a new book only after I've reviewed my previous one (which would be Fracassi's), but I made an exception for this one, since it's a novella. Again, I don't have a review for it yet, so no snippet - but I'll say that the part set in the titular house is especially atmospheric and disquieting...

• The Between (The Between #1) by Ryan Leslie (Adult, portal fantasy/multiverse – reread [pub. 2021])

Childhood friends Paul and Jay discover an iron door buried in the soil of Paul's backyard and set to explore what's under it, ending up trapped in a between-worlds place of Escher-like rooms and horror story monsters, all with a mysterious connection to a command-line, dungeon explorer computer game from the early '80s. Wild, engaging and entertaining, the story lives up to its exciting premise (though I had a few issues with its characters). I reread this one in anticipation of the second and last book, scheduled for September 23rd. Here's my old ARC review.

• Girls of Little Hope by Sam Beckbessinger & Dale Halvorsen (YA, thriller/sci-fi/contemporary – reread [pub. 2023])

It's 1996, and small-town teens Donna, Rae and Kat keep each other sane with the fervour of teen girl friendships, zine-making and some amateur sleuthing into the town’s most enduring mysteries: a lost gold mine, and why little Ronnie Gaskins burned his parents alive a decade ago. Their hunt will lead them to a hidden cave from which only two of them return alive. As the police circle and Kat’s frantic mother Marybeth starts doing some investigating of her own, Rae and Donna will have to return to the cave where they discover a secret so shattering that no-one who encounters it will ever be the same. Gripping, disturbing yet heartwarming, this one starts off like a mystery, then adds a strong layer of teen characterisation, and ultimately punches you in the face with a familiar, but nonetheless unsettling horror trope, only to twist it into something that ties in with the characters' arc. Brilliant! Here's my old ARC review.

Reviews (2):

• Heads Will Roll by Josh Winning (see above)

Mini review on Goodreads for now.

• The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi (see above)

I'm still in the process of writing this one, to be honest...On the blog in a few days.

Here are my scheduled reviews for this month:

• Feed, Fed and Deadline (Newsflesh series part 1) by Mira Grant (in a mini-review round on Wed. 5th);
• Blackout, Feedback and Rise (Newsflesh series part 2) by Mira Grant (in a mini-review round on Sun. 9th);
• The Third Rule of Time Travel by Philip Fracassi (on Thu. 13th).
• Aunt Tigress by Emily Yu-Xuan Qin, The Thorns by Dawn Kurtagich and Where Echoes Die by Courtney Gould (in a mini-review round on Mon. 17th);
• Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear, Installment Immortality and The Proper Thing and Other Stories by Seanan McGuire (in a mini-review round on Fri. 21st...hopefully - if I manage to purchase a copy of Installment Immortality and to read and review it in time, that is. If not, I'll post a different batch of minis).

Reviews aside, I have a Tell Me Something Tuesday round-up scheduled for Tue. 25th, in which I answer all the March questions. In the meantime, here's the TMST prompt list for the month of March, in case you want to join in:

• March 4th: What are three things you'll never get tired of doing? (a question I submitted)
• March 11th: Have you ever ventured out of your comfort zone and ended up having a nice experience? (a question I submitted)
• March 18th: Have you met any bookish/blogging friends in person? (a question I submitted - reworded for the better 🙂)
• March 25th: Are you satisfied with your blog? (a question I submitted - reworded in collaboration with Jen!)

🩺 MEDICAL INVESTIGATIONS. I had a bunch of visits and tests this month, mostly related to my ongoing digestive apparate issues (I even subjected myself to a new gastroscopy, ugh). The gastroenterologist advised me to take a blood test for celiac disease (which came out negative, thank goodness) and a lactose breath test. It turned out that I've become lactose intolerant...which is a lot of fun (NOT), but infinitely preferable to having to go mad trying to eliminate any trace of gluten from my diet and eat fake pasta (I love pasta. I live and breath pasta. I VENERATE pasta). I I hope that, with the right diet (and the occasional use of digestive enzymes if I decide to treat myself with, say, tortelli or pizza or whatever you can't remove lactose from/wouldn't taste as good without lactose), I can go back to NOT having a belly and a stomach that look/feel like a couple of hot air balloons...Yet another complication to add to the list, anyway - because of course 😬.

🏥 CLOSE CALL. And then, the icing on the cake...on the 9th, my mom (87 next June) lost consciousness for a few minutes while at home, and ended up being admitted to the hospital for a week. Nothing like your dad calling you and shouting for you to run home because "mom is gone" to brighten your day 😧. He thought she was gone for real, because he couldn't wake her (of course, a hand on her pulse or her heart would have easily proved him wrong, but I guess he panicked); for some reason, I thought he meant she'd had a cerebral ischemia instead...Anyhow, I frantically reached my old home (which is very near to where I live now) to find the paramedics already working on her, and her regaining consciousness. It turned out she had an infection she was unaware of, probably because she has a ton of health problems as it is, and attributed any unusual symptom to a new medication for extra-systole. Anyhow, I had a foretaste of a day that's getting nearer and nearer, given my parents' age, and it was enough to ruin my sleep for days...

Since I was on hiatus, I haven't blog-hopped at all in February, so I've got nothing 🙁. But I'm getting back in the game, so this section will be operative in my next monthly recap!

That's it for now. My next post will be up on March 5th, and it will be the Review Morsels installment featuring Part 1 of the Newsflesh series by Mira Grant I mentioned above.

So, what were your highs/lows in the past month?