Tag Archives: fantasy

Novellavember

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While I’ve been busy with NaNoWriMo, it has come to my attention that November is also novella reading month: “Novellavember.” The wonderful and awesome bookseller, Kel, who is a bit Twitter-famous and can be found at the handle @panediting, has put a lot of work into promoting a bunch of novellas in the bookstore where she works, and sharing photos.

I do not currently have a bookstore, but I thought I could share some novella suggestions of my own. A few are ones I have mentioned on the blog before, and some are new.

So! Novellas to read for Novellavember:

Alix E. Harrow’s fractured fairy tale duology, A Spindle Splintered and A Mirror Mended: these two novellas feature main character Zinnia Gray, a folklore major who is dying from a progressive disease, who comes to discover she is a variation on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale motif when she accidentally ends up in an alternate dimension with another Sleeping Beauty. In the second book, having survived the first incident, Zinnia begins trekking through fairy tales versions helping the characters fix their lives and save their happy endings until she is caught by the Evil Queen of one version of Snow White and must figure out how to save herself. Alix Harrow described these books as Into the SpiderVerse for fairy tale princesses, and that is a very accurate description. These books are an absolute delight, filled with sarcasm, sapphic women, and incisive commentary on the plight of women in fairy tales.

Lina Rather’s “nuns in space!” duology: Sisters of the Vast Black, and Sisters of the Forsaken Stars: I wrote a full review for the first novella in this duology back when it came out, which can be found here. These are slim, tightly-plotted, space operas in miniature, about nuns of the Order of Saint Rita, traveling around in their sentient spaceship saving lives and accidentally starting revolutions. These nuns are smart and complex, and their group includes a former war criminal, a lesbian engineer, and a lot of progressive liberals. The bits about the sentient spaceship are especially fascinating, and the political aspects are tense and horrifying. As a lapsed Catholic, whose patron saint is St. Rita, and loves space opera, these books were pretty much made for me. I adore them both!

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey: for something completely different, try this novella set in a dystopian America where technology has been outlawed or destroyed and society has reverted to a “wild west” style of living. To keep the isolated masses entertained and educated on government-controlled and highly censored reading materials, women librarians travel in horse-drawn carriages to various small towns in the west. Secretly-gay Esther stows away on such a carriage to escape her father when her lover is discovered and hanged. Once aboard, the other librarians train her, and reveal that they are not as “upright” and “government controlled” as the public might believe. This book was a joy! As one might guess, it is filled with gay and nonbinary women librarians who are secretly part of a rebellion against the oppressive government. And the righteous anger in every word is incendiary.

Servant Mage by Kate Elliott: This book is not really like Upright Women Wanted at all, but I think it has a similar tone/feel to it in that righteous anger drips from every word, and I love that about it. This novella is set in a world where magic exists, but in the years since an uprising destroyed the monarchist government, those who possess magic (once considered special and noble) are now taken from their families and made into slaves so that their magic may properly benefit all of society. Fellian is one such mage, however she is saved from her servitude by a group of monarchist rebels who need her magical abilities to help their cause. As Fellian works with this group, led by an exiled noble, she slowly realizes that the monarchists aren’t actually any better than the oppressive government they are fighting to overthrow. Kate Elliott is a master of the craft (see my review of her chonky space opera, Unconquerable Sun), and she proves to be as amazing in this short format as she is in her very expansive novels. The ending of this book is earned by every step of the narrative, and it is SO SATISFYING.

Trafik by Rikki Ducornet: Ok, this last one (for now) is a bit of a departure from the rest. It’s weird. If you don’t generally like more experimental literary fiction forms, you’re probably safe to skip this one. BUT if you are willing to go off the beaten path a bit, I highly recommend this one. For those not familiar with Rikki Ducornet, she is an avant-garde writer/poet, known for writing some very strange, dreamlike prose. One of her full novels, The Jade Cabinet, is a favorite of mine, and I’ve written a couple academic papers on it. Trafik is her most recent work (marketed as a novel, but as a teeny little book of about 120 pages, it’s definitely more in the novella category. It’s science fiction, of a sort, following a character named Quiver, a “mostly human” astronaut, and her neurotic robot Mic. When they accidentally destroy their cargo, they fear punishment from their employers and instead go rogue, making a run for the strange planet called Trafik. As I said, this is a WEIRD book, but it is weird in the best way possible – quirky, funny, hallucinatory. It functions as a nice, bite-sized introduction to Ducornet and her work.

Well, those should keep you busy for a bit at least! (And I just now noticed they are all women authors, so that’s fun). Time for me to dash back off to my Nano project (which is going pretty well for once… *knock on wood*). Catch you all later!

It’s that Time of Year Again, Folks: NaNoWriMo!

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We are reaching the end of October. It is therefore that time of year again! It’s NaNoWriMo season, my friends!

I think at this point most bookish types are at least vaguely familiar with Nano, but for the uninitiated NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. Nano takes place in November (Novel, November, get it?). It started in 1999 and is run by a nonprofit group at the website www.nanowrimo.org

It’s a challenge, essentially, to write 50,000 words (of the first draft of a novel) over the course of just 30 days in November — 50,000 was chosen as the official word count goal because it is the rough average length of a published novel. (Sort of, the technical definition of a novel is a piece of fiction writing that is 40,000 words or longer. The average length has gone up in recent years and is probably more like 70-80k words at this point, but 50k is a good goal post for the challenge.) You sign up to join the challenge on the website, and keep track of your word count, follow other writers as “buddies,” and generally try to have fun. If you succeed in writing 50k words by Nov 30th, you officially “win” and get a printable certificate, some cool discounts from various participating business partnerships, and bragging rights. 

I’ve been participating (or trying to, anyway) most years since 2010. The ONLY time I’ve “won” was in my first year in 2010, when I actually wrote 70k words towards the first draft of my novel Midnight’s Knife (currently at 160,000 words total, in the 2nd draft). That year, I was unemployed and taking a year break between the end of my MA degree and the beginning of my PhD, which was the ONLY reason I actually managed to succeed. Every other year, as I try to write while also working/studying, I have failed miserably. I have never made it past 25k words since then, and some years don’t even break 15k.

But I try most years (I’ve skipped a few), and will again this year. I am currently unemployed again, which might give me a better chance at winning. BUT I am actively looking for/interviewing for jobs, and will hopefully have a new position soon, which will no doubt kill my chances at hitting 50k. But that’s all right. I need the work. And any writing progress is good progress.

This year, I will be starting a new project I’ve had rattling around in the back of my brain for a few months now. I’ve been telling my brain to wait, to put that back where it came from, and so on, for ages. And I decided that now was the time to let my brain pick up the idea and run with it for a while. I’ve been embracing the “Pantser” method of late, so beyond the basic premise and main characters, I have very little idea of where I’m going with this, but its going to have ALL THE VIBES.

It’s a secondary world setting, loosely inspired by Victorian England, featuring period-appropriate imperialism, and an immigrant family from a conquered/“annexed” country vaguely inspired by Japan. I’m stealing from everywhere for this story (including the Victorian England setting, and the Japanese immigrant experience). This stealing also includes: 1) a main character inspired by Ann Elliott from Jane Austen’s Persuasion, 2) the MC’s immigrant mother based on my Japanese-immigrant grandmother, 3) a main Love Interest loosely based on a combination of Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack) and Julie D’Aubigny, and 4) an undead warlock I stole pretty much wholesale from a rural Ohioan legend a Ohioan friend told me about.

I don’t have a title yet so I’m just calling it the “Wesmaris Project” for the moment (Wesmaris being the name of the imperialist country that is the main setting).

Tags include:
Victorian aesthetic, imperialist bullshit, immigrant family trauma, wlw, mutual pining, femme/butch, introvert/extrovert, magical beings, shady deals with fay in creepy forests, found family, undead warlock, thread magic, stitch-witchery, downtrodden women getting power and getting revenge, soundtrack by Florence + the Machine and Amazing Devil

And here’s the mood board I spent far too much time on:

Mood board made using Canva and images from Pinterest

Cozy Fantasy Recs for the Stressed and Anxious

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I don’t know about anyone else, but I have been hugely stressed out this entire year. As I mentioned in a previous post, a lot of that was job-related. But, of course, the general state of the world at large is definitely not helping matters. Due to the constant levels of stress and anxiety, I have been hugely dependent on very happy, upbeat, cozy, wholesome media to keep me going. I used to be able to handle more grim and gritty fiction/television at least some of the time, but lately… not so much.

I suspect a lot of other people feel similarly. To that end, I thought I would share some of the cozy fantasy I’ve been consuming lately to help keep me from going completely insane.

First up on the recommendations list is a book that has been getting a lot of traction on social media. In fact, it got SO MUCH traction on social media that this little self-published book has since been picked up by Tor Books for traditional publication. You can probably guess. Yep! I’m talking about Legends & Lattes by Travis Baltree. This book is like the definition of cozy low-stakes fantasy: set in an unabashedly D&D-inspired world, it features an orc warrior who has decided to hang up her axe, retire from adventuring, and open up the very first coffee shop in the land. In the course of trying to get her coffee shop up and running, she befriends several people around the city, accidentally gets on the wrong side of the local mob boss, and has to deal with an old travel companion-turned-rival. While there is conflict, and some danger involved, the book largely stays low-stakes and perfectly charming. You are assured of coziness galore, and a happy ending, as well as some sweet sapphic romance just to gild the lily. I guarantee you will not be able to stop smiling your whole way through the book. In addition, I will say that I have the audiobook, which is read by the author (who is also a professional audio narrator) his reading is delightful.

Second on my recommendations list is A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher. I’ve discussed T. Kingfisher before, when I wrote a review of her book Nettle & Bone back in… March? That book is still currently top contender for my favorite new release book of the year (though I haven’t read Nona the Ninth yet as I write this, so that may change soon). [AN: I have read Nona since initially drafting this post. I haven’t quite decided yet, but they might be tied?] It was also the first book by T. Kingfisher I had read, but I loved it so much that I knew I was going to have to read the rest of her work as well. That’s where Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking comes in.

This book is categorized as young adult fantasy, but works just as well as middle grade fiction. It features a main character who is a fourteen year old girl — and the narration does a wonderful job of really staying in that teenage POV. On top of that, Kingfisher’s world-building continues to be top-notch. In this book, fourteen-year-old Mona is an apprentice baker in her aunt’s bakery. She possesses some minor magic to work with the dough, but nothing like what the real wizards in the city possess. But when magic-users all over the city begin to disappear, Mona accidentally comes across a plot to remove all magic from the city, including the powerful wizards that defend it from outside attack. Through luck and quick thinking, Mona escapes this fate, leaving her the only one left in the city with any hope of stopping an attack and protecting her queen.

While the stakes in this book are bigger and more dangerous — there is some violence and death — the overall tone remains so upbeat and snarky and fun as to keep it from being oppressive or overly dark. It helps that we are treated to things like walking gingerbread men wreaking havoc on the attacking army, and Mona’s continued irritation that she has been left to do the grown-ups’ jobs for them because they are all useless.

My third (and final, for now) recommendation is the first volume of a brand new literary magazine called Wyngraf — available in print and ebook through their website. This new magazine specifically features only cozy fantasy stories, in the wake of a growing call for that particular sub-genre. I got the first issue on ebook (though I may buy future volumes in print) to check out what kind of stories were being published. While the stories range in length and skill-level, they are all fairly charming. Nice, light, happy little reads to nibble on in between bigger reading goals. This first volume features such stories as “The Perils of Living With Your Human” — about a dragon who is having a rough day trying to help the human he is bonded with; “Your Own Beeswax” — a comedic little tale about a minstrel, in the vein of Jack Vance; and a few stories of what the editor calls “backpack fantasy” — fun little tales that feel a bit like the road travel montage of a larger fantasy epic. Some of the stories are weaker than others, but on the whole the collection works well together and is entertaining enough to read through in an evening or two. I look forward to what stories we might see in the next issue (which conveniently is out on Oct 1st!).

No doubt I will have more cozy fantasy recommendations in the future. But I hope these three are a good start for those who, like me, need some more warmth and joy in their lives to counterbalance the stress and anxiety of the world around us.

Book Review: Dust & Grim by Chuck Wendig

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Title: Dust & Grim
Author: Chuck Wendig
Release Date: 5 October 2021
How I Got It: borrowed from the library
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My close friends know this about me, but I suppose it’s probably not common knowledge on my social media accounts: I love middle grade fiction. I’ve raved on this blog before about Artemis Fowl (which I adore with my whole heart) but it doesn’t stop there. I love a lot of middle grade fiction. I used to read a lot of it when I was in my undergrad, and working at a Borders Bookstore as the children’s and YA expert. I’ve fallen a bit out of touch with some of the current releases though, so I decided I needed to change that. 

To start with, I picked up Chuck Wendig’s first foray into middle grade: Dust & Grim. I love Chuck Wendig’s adult fantasy and horror, and I’ve been following him on Twitter since 2010, where is a delightfully hilarious (and staunchly progressive) oddball. I trust him and his work well enough to go into Dust & Grim blind, so I picked it up at the library without looking at reviews and dove in.

And what a delight!

Here’s the basic premise: Molly Grim is a 13-year-old girl with a problem — her penniless, worthless, neglectful father has just died leaving her with nothing. But! There’s a bright side, turns out that the mother she has never known (also deceased) owned a funeral home which is half Molly’s by rights, and which is currently being run by the 18-year-old brother she has never met. Molly and her brother Dustin never knew the other sibling existed until the day Molly shows up at the funeral home with her lawyer uncle demanding that Dustin either sell the funeral home and give her half, or buy her out of the property. She’s not exactly nice about it, because she’s lost and snarky and feeling defensive. Dustin is not exactly nice about it either, because he’s got bigger things to worry about. Turns out, the funeral home is not your normal run-of-the-mill kind. It’s a funeral home for monsters, and Dustin is still trying to prove to the monster community that he can handle his mother’s old job, young though he is.

As you might imagine, things get messy quickly. Molly, while staying in the residential section of the funeral home with her brother, deals with ghosts, terrifying spectral wolves in a forest that is far larger than it should be, and her uncle pressing her to find dirt on her brother so they can strong-arm him into giving her the money she is owed.

I don’t want to say too much more for fear of giving some things away. But the book features a charming fay, a wizard who is also a chef, and the most normal/boring vampire ever seen. The book is the perfect balance of suspense and horror, with Chuck Wendig’s signature brand of snarky humor and pop culture references, all appropriate for a middle grade book but still absolutely enjoyable for an adult. One thing I particularly loved was Molly’s love for cosplay. Her big plan in life is to go to an art school that specializes in fashion and costume design. She spends the whole book devising various cosplay outfits that help her to face whatever new obstacle comes her way. She also makes lots of pop culture references — some real references like Star Wars and some that are made-up but obviously veiled references to things like Sailor Moon (I assume this was a matter of getting the rights to use the actual brand names). I giggled my way through most of it, and found a few descriptive sections genuinely creepy.

I will warn that, while the first chapter was sufficiently intriguing to start with, the next few chapters were a tad slow to get the action moving. There were a few points early on where Molly seemed slow to connect the dots and I wanted the book to just get on with it. But once things pick up, they really pick up, and the last third of the book especially is fast-paced and highly entertaining. The ending, while having a perfectly satisfying conclusion, leaves room for the possibility of further installments. I really hope the book does well enough that the publisher will pick up a sequel or two. I’d love to see more of Molly and Dustin. I think this could make for another really fun middle grade series like Artemis Fowl or the Percy Jackson books. I have my fingers crossed!

PS: in the spirit of getting back into current middle grade fiction, I also picked up Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao (which looks AMAZING) and hope to have time to read that one and review it as well soon!

Queer Romances Redux: Whyborne & Griffin Series

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Back at the beginning of June, I planned on doing several posts about queer romances I loved in the spirit of Pride Month. I made one post on the topic, and then (in typical Amanda fashion) disappeared again. I won’t spend several posts on the subject now, so far after the fact, but I wanted to at least talk about the one really big romance series that I’ve been obsessing over. I’ve mentioned in a couple previous posts, but wanted to dedicate a full post to it here.

I’m talking about the Whyborne & Griffin series by Jordan L. Hawk.

Jordan L. Hawk is a transmasc author with a long resume of writing queer romances, of which the Whyborne & Griffin series is just one option. While I plan to read his other books eventually, this series will probably remain my favorite. I love these books so much. I picked up the first book on Dec 23rd 2021. I remember the date specifically because I had spent days finishing a huge house-cleaning sweep in preparation for my grandmother coming to visit for the holidays. I finished cleaning on the afternoon of the 23rd, and my grandmother would be arriving in the evening, so I might a cup of hot tea and downloaded the first book, Widdershins.

I finished that first book that night. And downloaded the rest of the ENTIRE ELEVEN BOOK SERIES immediately. And proceeded to read the first five books in five days, while playing host to my grandmother over Christmas. The reading slowed down a bit after that because I had to go back to work, but I had still managed to finish reading the whole series by the end of January. I devoured them.

Then, I decided I wanted print copies, not just ebooks, so I bought a couple at a time and did a re-read as they arrived, finishing the series for a second time at the end of June. And now I’m already thinking about re-reading the first few again. That’s how much I love this series.

So here’s the basic premise: the series is set in late-Victorian New England, in a city called Widdershins. But this is not our New England, because this series is deeply rooted in the Lovecraftian universe. You do not have to be familiar with Lovecraft Lore to understand and enjoy the series (all the creeps and ghouls and eldritch gods are fully explained and fleshed out with the context of the series), but if you are already familiar with Lovecraft it is endlessly amusing to suddenly recognize a name or reference from the Lovecraft mythos. The main setting of the series, Widdershins, is a city of Hawk’s devising, but with references to Lovecraft lore. And in keeping with that mythos, the main character, Dr. Percival Whyborne (who goes only be Whyborne thank you very much), is a linguistics scholar who works at a museum and went to college at Miskatonic University.

Whyborne is a tall, perpetually-awkward, shy and repressed scholarly man who works in the basement of the museum. He comes from a wealthy family but despises his father and has renounced his claim to the family money or power. He is routinely harassed and bullied by other scholars at the museum, and has a single friend: archeologist Dr. Christine Putnam (who, being the only woman in a field of men, is likewise often harassed and bullied, but unlike timid Whyborne, has a mouth that NEVER STOPS SNARKING. And god I love her for it.) Whyborne is also gay, but he has never allowed himself to act on that knowledge.

Enter Mr. Griffin Flaherty: an ex-Pinkerton, turned private detective, and the most attractive man Whyborne has ever seen. Griffin is on a case to solve the mysterious death of a rich man’s son, and needs the assistance of a linguist to decipher a coded journal that belonged to the dead man. He also has several secrets to keep under wraps, not the least of which is that he has recently been released from an asylum.

Whyborne reluctantly agrees to help the enormously charming Griffin, and before long the two are on a fast-track to becoming friends and quite possibly more. Along the way, they discover that magic is real. In fact, it’s not only real, it’s deadly and it’s coming for the city.

I’m trying my best here not to give too much away, which leaves me speaking in vague phrases and doing lots of hand-waving. There is dark magic, eldritch terrors, necromancy, angst, and romantic drama. And that’s just the first book!

Each book ratchets up the drama, the dark magic, the danger, and the deadly horrors, building toward an overarching plot that is intricate and enormously satisfying. There’s also some of the best, steamiest sex scenes ever put to paper. And a few love confessions/speeches to make even the most hard-hearted swoon.

Perhaps what I love most about these books is that they deeply explore what it means to be an outsider, from many different perspectives. As a queer man, as a woman, as a person of color, as well as from the more genre-specific angles of being magical or non-human, perhaps even a “monster.” And that take on the monstrous is another thing I love about these books. Hawk’s takes the horrors of Lovecraft lore and examines them, dissects them, reimagines them until the characters and the readers are forced to reconsider what makes someone or something a “monster,” or whether the word has any real meaning at all.

These are also books about acceptance and love and family. Found family, mostly, which is one of my all-time favorite tropes. The characters throughout the series are often rejected by their actual families, their “people,” and so they come together in beautiful ways to make their own family (a family I would give my right arm to be a part of, lol).

The whole series is, to me, the perfect blend of queer erotic romance and dark paranormal fantasy adventure. I know some readers prefer more of one or the other, but I love the balancing act between the two genres played out here. It’s a style of writing and plot that would probably not have sold well twenty or thirty years ago, but in recent decades this kind of cross-genre/genre-bending work has become more and more popular (thanks at least in part to the post fanfic-internet-world, lol). And I, for one, am very grateful for it.

I guarantee you will love these characters — Whyborne and Griffin and Christine and the whole cast of people that come as the story progresses. You might even see yourself in one or more of them (I am entirely too much like Whyborne, it’s slightly embarrassing actually). If you love romance novels but are squeamish about some pretty gross-out-worthy horror elements; or, if you love dark fantasy/horror novels but are squeamish about some pretty graphic sex scenes, than these are NOT for you. But if you enjoy the mix of both in any capacity, I pretty much guarantee you will love these books!

Here’s a link to the first book on amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AHH0YF2?tag=jolha-20

Here’s a link to Jordan L. Hawk’s author page: http://www.jordanlhawk.com

If you’ve read these before and love them, sound off in the comments below! If you pick them up later, I’d love to hear your thoughts as well!

Re-Reading The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce

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I recently re-read the entirety of The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce, one of the parts that makes up her massive Tortall universe. I have been a fan of Tamora Pierce’s work since I first read the Magic Circle series (ironically one of only a small number of books NOT in her Tortall series), when I was in middle school. I can’t quite remember when I first picked these up — I’m guessing probably 7th grade, so around 1997.

Of course, after reading and loving the Magic Circle books I went back to pick up her first quartet: Song of the Lioness, which is the first installment in the Tortall universe. And loved those as well. I have since read every single book Tamora Pierce has released. Most of them multiple times. But my favorites have always been, and remain, The Immortals Quartet, the four books that immediately followed Song of the Lioness and really first opened up the setting from that first series into the far reaching universe it is now.

The four books in this quartet consists of: Wild Magic, Wolf-Speaker, Emperor Mage, and Realm of the Gods. It features the main character Daine Sarrasri, a 13 year old girl (in the first book) who discovers that she has a special kind of magic that allows her to speak with animals and understand their thoughts and behaviors from a uniquely insider perspective. She THINKS like “The People” (what animals collectively call themselves). Daine is an orphan, her mother and grandfather murdered by raiders in her small village, and the book opens with her gaining employment with a pony trader named Onua who taking a herd of ponies from Daine’s home country of Galla, to Tortall (where most of Pierce’s books are set). The first book follows Daine as she befriends Onua, the powerful mage Numair Salmalin who becomes her friend and teacher, and a whole bevy of characters in Tortall. In this first book, we also see the emergence of magical beings called Immortals (beings like centaurs and dragons but also horrifying creatures like human-spider hybrids called spidrens and Daine’s nemesis the carrion-eating Stormwings) who, though not gods themselves, were trapped in the realm of the gods by human mages centuries ago but who have mysteriously escaped their confinement.

I originally had the books with these covers, but they were sadly destroyed during flooding from Hurricane Ike in 2008

Throughout the series, Daine gains control of her magical ability and learns not only to speak with animals but actually shapeshift into them. She and her friends discover how the immortals escaped the realm of the gods, and befriend quite a few of the immortals, including a basilisk, a baby dragon that Daine adopts, and (much to Daine’s surprise and chagrin) even a Stormwing. The third book features Daine “losing her temper” (understatement of the decade) which remains one of my favorite parts of the entire series. In the fourth book they must wage full-out war against their enemies (both human and immortal), and Daine learns that her father was a minor hunt-god (which is how she comes by her magical ability), and she and Numair are temporarily trapped in the realm of the gods and must travel the dangerous terrain to return home.

I re-bought the books with these covers a few years ago. I don’t love these designs… I like the originals much better, but what can ya do…?

I love these books for a lot of reasons. Whereas most of the books in the Tortall series deal with lords and kings and knights, this series brings in much more focus on the commoner. Though Daine ends up befriending the king and queen of Tortall, and several nobles and knights (including the most famous lady-knight, Alanna — main character of the Song of the Lioness), Daine herself is a commoner, as is Numair (despite his fame now as a powerful mage), and Daine brings that much needed perspective to all these “fancy folk.”

I also love getting the fascinating perspective of the animals that Daine is friends with. Pierce showcases quite a lot of research (and obviously plenty of imagination) in giving us the inner voices and lives of horses and ponies, wolves, birds, squirrels, and all sorts of other animals. The addition of all the different immortals is a ton of fun as well — I love a big menagerie of magical creatures. I think it was a really nice development as well for Daine (and most of the characters) to assign moral qualities to each species of immortal as a whole, only to then slowly learn that these immortals are just as nuanced, as much a mix of good and bad, as humans themselves are. It was a powerful lesson to learn for the characters, and a nice way to introduce that kind of nuance to the target middle-grade/YA audience (particularly back in the 90s).

Perhaps most of all though, I am a SUCKER for the romance that is laced through the last two books between Daine and Numair. I will admit that this romance would probably not fly if it was written/published today. Daine is 13 and Numair is something like 26 when they meet. They are 16 and ~29 in the fourth book. Such an age gap, when one party is under 18 years old, would send up all kinds of red flags today. And I’ll admit that even just shifting Daine two years forward, so that she’s 18 by the last book, would probably look better on paper.

That said, I believe there’s room to discuss the age issues within their own context. Pierce is writing within the context of a medieval-ish (albeit a fantasy version) world, and it is discussed within the book series that having a girl married at 14 or 15 is perfectly within the realm of possibility and reasonable expectation. We accept this in other contexts — consider, for instance, that in Pride and Prejudice, Lydia is 15 years old when she marries Wickham, which is not only legal but relatively normal at that point in history. In addition, it is made very clear that Numair himself is painfully aware of the age difference, which is why he doesn’t say anything until Daine herself presses the issue. Also: as a kid reading these books, I was also very in love with Numair Salmalin, so I was hardly going to fault Daine for being too young for him. And the way the relationship develops between them over the course of the books, especially the last two, is just so sweet and cute that you can’t help but be enchanted (well, I can’t help it at any rate).

It had been quite a while since the last time I had re-read these books. But I’m finding myself in a major re-reading mood lately — I think because between work-stress and general-state-of-the-world stress, my anxiety has been at record highs and re-reading comfort books is just safer right now. I read each book in about a day, so the whole quartet in less than a week. And I gotta say, I love them just as much now at the age of 36 (nearly 37 – my birthday is in 2 weeks, fun fact!), as I did when I was 12. Some books never lose their enchantment and joy, no matter how old you get, or how many times you read them. This series is clearly one of them, for me at least.

3 Charming Graphic Novels by Ethan M. Aldridge

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[Note: apologies for the delay on posting this review! I had it mostly written well in advance, but then I forgot to finish cleaning it up and adding images and getting it scheduled to post on Saturday as usual. *sigh*]

For a change of pace, I thought I’d talk a bit about a few graphic novels I’ve read in the last few months. I’ve been following this artist/comics illustrator on Twitter named Ethan M. Aldridge (@ethanmaldridge) for AGES. I really love his style — all hand-drawn line art and watercolor with this really great dreamy quality to it.

He sells prints online, and I’ve been meaning to grab a few but funds are tight so I have to keep frivolous purchases to a minimum. But I did finally grab his first two graphic novels last autumn: Estranged, and Estranged: The Changeling King. And I loved those so much I went ahead and pre-ordered his most recent publication, the new graphic novel The Legend of Brightblade.

Title: Estranged, & Estranged: The Changeling King
Author: Ethan M. Aldridge
Release Dates: 2018, 2019
How I Got Them: bought them from my local comic shop
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

In Estranged Vol 1, the main characters are Edmund and The Childe — Edmund is a changeling, a magical being sent to replace a human infant by his biological mother, the Queen of the Fae. Edmund knows what he is, that he is not human, but he has long kept that secret from his human parents and older sister for fear of their reaction. He desperately wants to keep the secret safe, but also he wants to know why his biological parents sent him away in the first place. The Childe is the human that Edmund was sent to replace, who has been living among the Fae all his life as a kind of foster-son/pet for the royal family. He has spent his life trying his best to earn the respect and affection of the Fae, but they largely dismiss him as just a cute, powerless oddity.

When the King and Queen of the Fae are attacked and overthrown by a powerful sorceress named Hawthorne, The Childe escapes to the surface world of the humans and, with his companion the wax golem Wick, enlists the help of Edmund and his/their sister Alexis. They must work together to struggle past the complexities of their shared families and destinies, and save the fae kingdom of the World Below from Hawthorne.

Estranged Vol 2: The Changeling King, brings us back months later, with The Childe and Edmund switching back to their original worlds after the end of the previous volume. The Childe has now reclaimed his name, Edmund. And the changeling once known as Edmund is now called Cinder. Cinder has become the new king of the World Below, but when the magic begins to drain from their world, Cinder returns to his adoptive family for help. Together, Cinder, Edmund, and their sister Alexis — as well as Cinder/Edmund’s very confused human parents — must travel through the labyrinthine World Below to fight enemies old and new, and find a way to restore magic to the kingdom.

These two graphic novels are so wonderful. The relationship that develops between the three “siblings” – Cinder, Edmund, and Alexis — is truly delightful and one of my favorite things. I particularly love Alexis: she loves both the brother she was raised with and the biological one she comes to know over the course of Vol 1. She is protective, caring, and kick-ass (and she starts to learn some magic in the 2nd volume, which is awesome!). The art style remains beautiful throughout, and the creativity of some of the fae creature designs are very cool. I also really love the ending of Vol 2 (I’m not giving it away! You’ll have to read to find out!). I’m really hoping Aldridge writes a third volume, but there’s been no news on that yet.

Title: The Legend of Brightblade
Author: Ethan M. Aldridge
Release Date: March 2022
How I Got It: ordered online
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Ethan M. Aldridge’s newest graphic novel, The Legend of Brightblade, is not in the same universe as the two Estranged graphic novels. It takes place in a high fantasy realm, clearly inspired by Dungeons and Dragons aesthetics, and features a team of adventuring bards. This graphic novel opens with a little backstory: the hero Brightblade and her two companions saved the land from a highly powerful dragon, bringing about a new era of peace. Years later, Brightblade is the ruler of the land, attempting to forge a treaty with the trolls with whom they have long feuded. Brightblade has three children: two daughters and a son, whom she expects to fulfill their roles as rulers and peacemakers, but the son, Prince Alto wants nothing more than to be a bard and go on adventures.

So, he runs away. With little knowledge of the outside world and only his instrument and the magic he can control by playing, he dashes off and forms his own little troupe with two other misfit bards: a self-taught troll bard, and an apprentice blacksmith who would much rather play her violin. These three intrepid bards run into trouble, accidentally uncover a plot to sew chaos at the human-troll treaty-signing, and discover that their misfit natures are precisely what they need to win.

Like the two Estranged graphic novels, The Legend of Brightblade is hand-drawn and watercolor, in a beautiful fairy-tale-like style that I just can’t stop raving about. All of these graphic novels are technically middle-grade, and though they are not (for the most part) explicitly queer, they have that feeling. If that makes sense. All three graphic novels have similar themes threaded through them as well: issues of family obligation versus personal goals and desires, featuring characters who are all trying to find their own identities and be true to themselves. Each one is a quick read, great for a nice relaxing afternoon with a cup of tea. They are utterly delightful and light-hearted and fun, all about finding yourself and forging your own path. They make me smile, and I highly recommend all three!

Book Review: Nettle & Bone

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Title: Nettle & Bone
Author: T. Kingfisher
Release Date: 26 April 2022
How I Got It: received an ARC from publisher
Stars: 5 out of 5 (maybe 6 out of 5, I can do that, right? I mean, it’s my blog)

Today’s book review is for a book that is a currently the top contender for my favorite new release book of the year (obviously, its plenty early still, but…). Ursula Vernon, publishing under the pen name T. Kingfisher, has written quite a few very popular, well-received, and award-winning novels (her recent middle-grade novel A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking won several awards including the Locus, the Nebula, and the Mythopoeic Awards), so I knew she would be good. But I hadn’t yet read any of her works before I received the ARC for this one, Nettle & Bone.

Nettle & Bone is a dark fairy tale for adults, that borrows heavily from a myriad of fairy tale traditions and features many of the elements we would expect such as: princesses, damsels-in-distress, princes, knights, witches, fairy godmothers, curses, impossible tasks, and plenty of magic. Yet Kingfisher takes these familiar well-worn tropes, and twists them into new shapes and puts them to new purposes. The result is a story that feels both familiar and brand new, both magical and horrific.

The main character is Marra, a princess and third daughter of the royal family. When Marra is a child, her eldest sister is married off to a prince in a political marriage meant to protect their tiny harbor kingdom from the two much larger, more powerful kingdoms on either border. Then, when that eldest sister dies during an accident only a year later, Marra’s second sister is married to the same prince, for the same goals. At that point, Marra is shipped off to a convent — ostensibly for her protection, but really because the prince fears she may marry and have an heir before HE does. There, Marra is raised as an “almost-not-quite” nun for the next fifteen years, learning embroidery, gardening, and midwifery and living a peaceful if isolated life.

Everything Marra thinks she knows about life comes crashing down around her ears when, at the age of thirty, she finally comes to understand the truth about her sisters: the prince is evil and abusive and brutal,Marra’s eldest sister was beaten to death in a rage, and the middle sister, Kania, is in danger of the same fate. The only thing that has saved Kania’s life so far is her constant pregnancies, which keep ending in miscarriage, but during which the prince controls his more violent tendencies in hopes of producing an heir. When Marra finally understands the full extent of her sister’s predicament, she comes to a decision: the prince must die.

Thus begins an epic quest, during which Marra finds a wise and powerful grave-witch called the dust-wife (who’s familiar is a chicken possessed by a demon) who gives her three impossible tasks. In her quest, she also collects the loyalest and bestest of dogs, a disgraced knight, and her mediocre fairy godmother. Together, they set out to defy the roles prescribed to them, face a powerful magic that protects the prince, and endeavor to do the truly impossible: kill an evil prince and come out the other side alive.

Lyrical, dream-like, and sharp as a razor, this novel will cut through you with its heartbreak, beauty, wisdom, and hope. It asks the reader to consider how far one is willing to go for family and duty, what the difference is between justice and revenge, and what to do when the thing you hate most about yourself is precisely the thing that is needed. 

Marra is one of those characters that will stick with you long after you finish reading. She considers herself simple and not particularly intelligent or useful, and yet she is resourceful and brave and stubborn. Her determination and her rage are palpable. I simply adored her. I also really loved the other members of her ragtag team of ersatz assassins, particularly the dust-wife and her demon chicken.

The novel also features some of the best sentences I’ve read in quite a long time, including an opening-line that shot through me like an arrow. When I started reading this ARC, I opened the ebook, read the first line and STOPPED. And just sat there for a minute. And then I texted the first line to my best friend in a frenzy. Here, let me show you:

“The trees were full of crows and the woods were full of madmen. The pit was full of bones and her hands were full of wires.”

If that doesn’t stop you in your tracks like a lightning bolt, I just don’t know what to say to you.

Here are a couple of other lines that struck me like lightning as well:

“He isn’t my prince,” Marra said acidly.
“If you plan to kill him, he is. Your victim. Your prince. All the same. You sink a knife in someone’s guts, you’re bound to them in that moment. Watch a murderer go through the world and you’ll see all his victims trailing behind him on black cords, shades of ghosts waiting for their chance.”

And:

“Lots of people deserve to die,” said the dust-wife finally, “not everybody deserves to be a killer.”

I mean, OOF! Here’s another:

“She had the ruined fragment of the godmother’s tapestry, but unless it started glowing or talking, it didn’t seem like it was going to do any good. Another of life’s little intelligence tests, and as usual, Marra had failed to even learn the question.”

And just one more (sorry, these just PIERCE ME):

“Agnes wiped her eyes. “Dammit,” she whispered. “I have to go be impressive. I have to go be the wicked godmother. I can’t cry.”
“She’s at peace now,” said Fenris.
Agnes gave him an ironic glance. “She’s been at peace for centuries, I think. I still get to cry about it.”

WORDS OF WISDOM MY FRIENDS.

Ok, I won’t bombard you with anymore quotes, I think you all get the point. This book is filled with such amazing lines at turn poetic, pithy, and fucking brilliant. I absolutely devoured this book. It is very likely going to stay at the top of my fave reads of the year list for quite awhile at least. Everyone needs to buy and read it and be likewise amazed and flummoxed.

[CW: domestic/spousal abuse, violence, a semi-graphic description of magical teeth-pulling, and vague mentions of cannibalism; also, for those who need to know about the pets: the dog survives]

Book Review: A River Enchanted

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Title: A River Enchanted
Author: Rebecca Ross
Release Date: 2 February 2022
How I Got It: received an ARC through work
Stars: 5 out of 5

Let me just say that the somewhat lackluster cover does not do justice to the story it contains…

Rebecca Ross, author of several popular YA novels such as Sisters of Sword & Song, and Dreams Lie Beneath (among others), gives us her first adult fantasy novel here with A River Enchanted. This novel is the first in a duology (no word yet on when precisely the sequel will be released but to be fair, this did JUST come out), and is inspired by Gaelic/Scottish folklore. It is a beautiful, lyrical novel set on a magical island (that I imagine looks a little like the Hebrides, or the Isle of Skye) that reads like a grown-up fairy tale.

The Hebrides, an archipelago of Scotland

In this story, a young man named Jack Tamerlaine, who was banished from the island a decade before and stayed on the mainland to train as a bard, is summoned home from his position teaching at a university. Despite his resentments and misgivings, he answers the call because his Laird (leader of his clan) claims to need him. However, when he arrives home, on the magical island called Cadence, he discovers two things: the first is that despite the deep hurts the island’s people had caused him, it still feels irrevocably like HOME, and the second is that things are far more dire than he could have guessed.

The daughter and heiress of the clan Laird, Adaira, is actually the one who secretly called Jack home. A fact that infuriates Jack, as Adaira was his rival and tormentor as a child. But Jack is forced to listen when she explains that young girls are disappearing from their families without trace or explanation, and she has called him home to fulfill his role as bard and help her uncover the mysteries of the island that might help them recover the missing girls. In their clan, the bard of the clan is a both a political and magical role, and only he has the skill to do what is required — calling up the magical spirits of the island to demand answers. To complicate matters, no one is sure of the missing girls are the result of spirits gone violent, or the clan on the other side of the island, with whom the Tamerlaine’s have had a deadly feud for generations.

Over the course of their investigation, Jack and Adaira must confront their past history together. As they face down the powerful spirits of the island, they unravel secrets buried deep in their pasts — secrets that will change everything they thought they knew about their clan and themselves. And in the process they will also confront their own feelings, and develop a bond neither of them could have ever predicted.

Beyond the two (very interesting and entertaining) main characters, there are a handful of other characters who receive a lot of “screen time” and attention, and whose complexities bring so much depth to the story as a whole. There is Adaira’s cousin, the captain of the guard, who is burdened by hate and shame. And there is the captain’s second wife, who loves him but is afraid he only married her as a caretaker for his daughter from his first marriage. And there is Jack’s little sister, who he did not know existed until his return to the island, and who immediately becomes his greatest source of love and anxiety (for fear that she will vanish like the other girls have). And Jack’s mother, who possesses a magic that allows her to weave secrets into cloth, and who possesses a dire secret of her own.

There’s a lot to love about this book. It will be a treat for anyone who enjoys Scottish-infused fantasy, and loves a fast-paced adventure story. It also features a compelling rivals-to-lovers romance subplot, which is always a delight. Particularly because Ross does such a great job conveying the hidden depths of emotion in both Jack and Adaira long before either one of them are willing to admit to themselves. Both characters are intelligent and stubborn and loyal, and when they finally start getting on the same page it is an absolute joy to read/witness.

Perhaps even more than the love story, however, I appreciated the underlying themes about the power of music — as something that binds communities, and both hides and speaks truths, and as a kind of magic all to itself. Anyone who is a musician, or really loves music, will feel these ideas deeply.

At its heart of hearts, though, this is a story about secrets: secrets that bind people together, and tear them apart; secrets that weigh down a soul and a community. And about sacrifices: the sacrifices one is willing to make for power, and the sacrifices one is willing to make for love, all kinds of love that can save not only individuals but whole communities.

Just be prepared for a less-than-happy ending, which will hopefully (*fingers crossed*) come out alright in the sequel.

Though I have a long way to go, and many many books to read between now and the end of the year, I wouldn’t be surprised if this book ends up in my Top 5 favorite reads for 2022. Just saying.

March New Releases on My Radar

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As I did back in February, I would like to share a quick list of a few of the books that have been released in March that I made note of. These are books that I have not had a chance to read yet, but which caught my attention when I was looking for ARCs to consider for work. They sound interesting and promising, and I will probably read them eventually.

  1. The Unbroken by C.L. Clark —

This debut novel is an epic North African-inspired military fantasy by a queer woman of color, and it sounds AMAZING. The publisher’s blurb reads:

“Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought.
Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet’s edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne.
Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren’t for sale.”

Fun fact: I actually know the author. I don’t know her WELL, but we worked together as instructors one summer at the Duke University Talent Identification Program (a summer program of college-level course work for high-achieving high schoolers), and we’re still “Friends” on Facebook. She probably doesn’t remember me much (I don’t really stand out) but I remember her and she was VERY cool. At the time, she was just out of her MFA program and working on a number of short stories, so I was so excited to see the news when she announced her publishing deal. I WILL be reading this book when I can find more free time.

2. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro —

of course, Kazuo Ishiguro is very famous. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature for cryin’ out loud! And this is his first new work SINCE winning the Nobel. What’s exciting is that while Ishiguro is most well-known for his works of realism, he has dipped his toes into speculative fiction a couple times, and this new novel is staunchly in the realm of science fiction. The publisher’s blurb for this one states:

“Klara and the Sun tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her.”

3. Lost in the Never Woods by Aidan Thomas —

I love a fun twisty retelling of a classic fairy tale or children’s story. Don’t even get me STARTED on Alice in Wonderland retellings! I’m OBSESSED. So of course this book caught my eye! The blurb reads:

“It’s been five years since Wendy and her two brothers went missing in the woods, but when the town’s children start to disappear, the questions surrounding her brothers’ mysterious circumstances are brought back into light. Attempting to flee her past, Wendy almost runs over an unconscious boy lying in the middle of the road, and gets pulled into the mystery haunting the town.
Peter, a boy she thought lived only in her stories, claims that if they don’t do something, the missing children will meet the same fate as her brothers. In order to find them and rescue the missing kids, Wendy must confront what’s waiting for her in the woods.” 

I mean: YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU! This sounds exciting and amazing, and I will definitely be picking this one up eventually!

4. In the Quick by Kate Hope Day —

Something else I am ALWAYS obsessed with is space and astronauts. The cover ALONE of this book had me like WOAH. I mean, LOOK AT THAT COVER! The blurb describes it as:

“June is a brilliant but difficult girl with a gift for mechanical invention, who leaves home to begin a grueling astronaut training program. Six years later, she has gained a coveted post as an engineer on a space station, but is haunted by the mystery of Inquiry, a revolutionary spacecraft powered by her beloved late uncle’s fuel cells. The spacecraft went missing when June was twelve years old, and while the rest of the world has forgotten them, June alone has evidence that makes her believe the crew is still alive.
She seeks out James, her uncle’s former protégée, also brilliant, also difficult, who has been trying to discover why Inquiry’s fuel cells failed. James and June forge an intense intellectual bond that becomes an electric attraction. But the love that develops between them as they work to solve the fuel cell’s fatal flaw threatens to destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to create–and any chance of bringing the Inquiry crew home alive.
Equal parts gripping narrative of scientific discovery and charged love story, In the Quick is an exploration of the strengths and limits of human ability in the face of hardship and the costs of human ingenuity. At its beating heart are June and James, whose love for each other is eclipsed only by their drive to conquer the challenges of space travel.”

I will absolutely 1000% be reading this one eventually. Women astronauts! Dangerous missions and space exploration! Yes! I am also slightly amused because June is my mother’s name, and she’s always saying it’s a pretty uncommon name that you don’t see in media or pop culture much and I’m like: well here ya go!