Nobody's Baby

Dorothy Gentleman evokes the Wodehousian Aunts even more strongly in this outing - sometimes indulgent Dahlia, sometimes disapproving Agatha, always fond of Ruthie despite herself. And this even though she has a 20-something's body and he's physically several decades older.

Yes, there's more thought about the setting here, and what it means to be more or less immortal (via re-embodiment) with all one's basic needs met, and about the nature of memory and relationships. There's some teasing about secrets behind the creation of the generation ship, too, which makes me look forward to future installments.

This one is a mystery of a baby, when no one on the ship should be able to create a baby (the regular way or otherwise). Where did it come show more from, and why was it left at Ruthie's door? We get to learn about another of the industries that ship passengers created in their apartments, this time an alternative to movies made by projecting one's imagined images.

I liked Nobody's Baby even more than Murder by Memory, and I hope the series continues! show less

I remain fascinated by the concepts in this series, of am interstellar starliner and its nearly immortal inhabitants, afloat on a sea of memories. I love that I can't exactly tell what year it was when they set off -- the technology and the things the passengers invent make it murky. I love the small touches, like the almost impossibility of remembering a book well enough to create a replica copy, but the ease of remembering type and paper and printing presses. This is a lovely little puzzle box of a mystery -- the mystery of the baby's origins, the mystery of it's abandonment, the mystery of how things will progress from here. A delight.

Advanced Readers' Copy Provided by Edelweiss

Re-read as an audio book -- excellently read, and a show more great way to experience the book. Advanced Listening Copy provided by Libro.fm show less

This is the second book in Waite’s Dorothy Gentleman series, and it does not disappoint. In this outing, the luxurious interstellar passenger liner is still on its way to their destination. The passengers are now 300 years old and have made the liner into one huge thriving community complete with “speciality” streets that cater to specific passenger needs, including an entertainment street (think NYC’s Broadway) and among many others, a street that caters to clothing (think London’s Seville Row). Dorothy Gentleman is still one of the liner’s detectives, and is very surprised when her nephew comes to her with a baby that has been left on his doorstep. She must figure out how a baby was born to a woman passenger because show more everyone on the ship has been medically altered to not being able to conceive a child until they reach their destination.

This novella is wonderfully crafted and you need not have read the first book (but will certainly want to after you read this book). The characters are fully fleshed out and you’ll smile when Dorothy gets all flustered around the owner of a yarn shop. The whys and wherefores of how a human baby was conceived is described in a court-like setting and did not get bogged down in the medical and/or ethical intricacies.

All in all, this second book suffered from none of the second-book doldrums that many second books do. It’s a fast read not only because it is a novella, but because the author engages her readers in the plot and her characters.

My thanks to Edelweiss and Tordotcom for an eARC. show less

I had so much fun with it! It's a great sci-fi murder mystery romp, and I highly recommend it if that sounds like your cup of tea. (Bonus: it's a novella, and fast-paced, so you can easily read it in a day.) I liked this sequel even more than the first book, which I greatly enjoyed when I read it last year. The characters—about half of whom we met in book one—have some room to grow here, since we know the basics about the society. The plot is also relatively straightforward: in a society where fertility was put on pause, how did someone conceive and have a baby? It of course gets more complicated than that, with additional questions (like "who put the baby on your doorstep?" and "who tried to kidnap the baby?") popping up, but it's show more still an easy to understand plot up until the end. The denouement is still mostly easy to understand, but there are a few twists that throw a wrench or two into the works along the way.

This sequel is one of the wonderful ones that takes the great idea started by book one and builds upon it to create something even more fun. I hope this series keeps going for a while, because I would love to see what else our very-long-lived friends get up to on their way to find a new planet to call home. show less

A cozy mystery set in space, where a baby is found despite fertility being paused aboard this ship! Dorothy Gentleman must figure out whose baby this is and fight for him to be classified as a human not as a piece of luggage.

The narrator was wonderful, truly adding to the cozy tone and portraying the variety of characters well. Absolutely nothing wrong with the audiobook, the lost stars only come from the book content.

Now the reasoning for the 3 stars, I understand that this is a novella but it felt quite rushed, with some portions going into great detail but others being brushed over. Additionally, the conclusion of the mystery elements felt unsatisfying to me, and I wish there would have been a few more layers to it. Overall, it was a show more fun quick listen but I likely wouldn’t reread which for me is a 3 star book.

I would recommend this for fans of cozy mystery and science fiction, a solid quick read. Out March 10, 2026!

Thank you to Netgalley, Macmillan Audio, and Olivia Waite for the opportunity to listen to an ALC of this book! show less

This was very fun! I'm glad I picked it up. Quite short, but a good narrator. It made me want to find Olivia Waite's earlier book to read. I'm grateful to NetGalley and LibroFM for granting me early access to this book. I'll be looking for more by this author. Nice to have a break from the real world!