Book life in 2024 by Alexandra_book_life ;) - part 2

180 messages in the thread, and 20 books read so far this year. I think this is a good time to start a new thread :)))

My current book is The Great Passage by Shion Miura. I am enjoying it a lot.

Blurb

A charmingly warm and hopeful story of love, friendship, and the power of human connection. Award-winning Japanese author Shion Miura’s novel is a reminder that a life dedicated to passion is a life well lived.

Inspired as a boy by the multiple meanings to be found for a single word in the dictionary, Kohei Araki is devoted to the notion that a dictionary is a boat to carry us across the sea of words. But after thirty-seven years creating them at Gembu Books, it’s time for him to retire and find his replacement.

He discovers a kindred spirit in Mitsuya Majime—a young, disheveled square peg with a penchant for collecting antiquarian books and a background in linguistics—whom he swipes from his company’s sales department.

Led by his new mentor and joined by an energetic, if reluctant, new recruit and an elder linguistics scholar, Majime is tasked with a career-defining accomplishment: completing The Great Passage, a comprehensive 2,900-page tome of the Japanese language. On his journey, Majime discovers friendship, romance, and an incredible dedication to his work, inspired by the bond that connects us all: words.

>2 Alexandra_book_life: I haven't read this one but I love Miura's books set in Kamusari. They are delightful!

Happy new thread!

>4 Karlstar: ⬅️ What he said!

>3 Sakerfalcon: Thank you! This is my first book by Miura, and I am more than willing to read others.

>4 Karlstar: >5 clamairy: Thank you! :)

Happy new thread!

>8 humouress: Thank you! :)

I really liked The Great Passage, this is a book that is good for your soul.

Some thoughts:

“A dictionary is a ship that crosses a sea of words.”

Here is a book about people who are in love with words, here is a book about the making of a dictionary. It’s heart-warming, geeky, poignant, funny. There are lots and lots of cool details about Japanese language, meanings of various words, and the process of editing and publishing a dictionary. My inner geeks and nerds were very happy.

When Aroki the editor has to retire and needs a successor, he knows that “my task is to find someone who loves dictionaries as much as I do – no, more.” Enter Majime, a walking definition of nerdiness and geekiness. Here he is, at a welcome dinner with his new colleagues:

“What’s your hobby, Majime?" Nishioka boldly asked, searching for a friendly ouverture.
“If I had to pick something, I guess it would be watching people get on the escalator.”

Silence descended on the table.

(There is an excellent explanation for this fascination with escalators, don’t you worry.)

For Majime, this is a story of finding his calling, his agency, a life he loves. Watching it happen is a pleasure. The romance is understated and cute. When it turns out that there is a potential love interest for Majime (Kaguya – she is a chef, and she is not letting anyone “interfere with her world”), the editorial team has to go and check her out. What if she doesn’t understand the lifestyle of dedication that lexicography needs? I really don’t know what this says about these people… ahem. By the way, Majime, when a girl you adore asks you out, you don’t start thinking about the deeper meanings of two similar verbs so that you forget to answer. Just a thought.

I like it when an annoying and obnoxious character becomes someone you can root for, just because the author switches POV.

“Majime was incapable of flattery. Since Majime had said it, Nishioka could believe it: he was needed. He wasn’t a deadweight after all. He felt a burst of joy and pride.
Majime had turned back to his desk with an unconcerned look on his face, little suspecting that he had been Nishioka’s salvation.”

Of course, there are deeper things at play here than just the process of dictionary-making. Words and language define us, connect us, define the world around us, and influence how we see the world. In the end there is sadness and joy, tragedy and a sense of accomplishment, and work that has neither a beginning nor an end.

“Words gave things form so they could rise out of the dark sea.”

5 stars!

P.S. Three five star books in a row, amazing! Not that I am complaining...

>10 Alexandra_book_life: Ooh. You're tempting me.

>11 humouress: Good to know :)

I think is time for Persuasion. According to my digital records, this is my fifth time reading it, but I suspect it's closer to the tenth...

Sir Walter never learns, does he? It's been over two hundred years, and his favourite book it still the Baronetage!

I finished Persuasion, and it was wonderful yet again. Naturally ;)

Some thoughts:

Persuasion is a novel of memories and regrets, a novel of second chances. The feeling is autumnal; and then, there is an unexpected Indian summer. While reading, I wondered – how many books about second chances for women have been written in the 19th century? There are the Brontes, of course, but I can’t think of anything else. This makes me love Jane Austen and Persuasion all the more.

“Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands.”

Ah, the layers of classics :)

When I open the book, the author takes my hand, gently but firmly, and drops me right in the middle of Kellynch Hall – and it’s as though I never left.

Jane Austen is merciless towards her characters, especially Sir Walter and Elizabeth, there are sentences that drip with delicious word poison. The satire is toned down here, though, compared to earlier novels. Persuasion is less exuberant, more mature.

Anne is an introvert in a family of extroverts who do not have wisdom enough and love enough to appreciate someone who is different from them. I just realized that Jane Austen was writing about found family long before the expression was invented. The Crofts! The Harvilles! They went right into my heart on this reread, and I loved them together with Anne.

There is so much more to enjoy: Anne keeping her cool in a crisis and everyone looking to her for guidance; everyone taking her into their confidence and complaining about each other – exhausting and hilarious; Anne talking poetry with Captain Benwick and recommending a larger dose of prose, for emotional health reasons – priceless, really. “...like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.” Ha. Mrs Smith’s info dumps are probably too long and way too convenient. But I do like a mental image of her as a lady spider (she is knitting in bed!) in her web, waiting for the juicy, juicy gossip to come to her.

Show me a person who doesn’t love Anne and Captain Wentworth! Every conversation they have after the events in Lyme is fantastic, there is so much emotional turmoil and delight.
Theirs is the love that has stood the test of time, it has matured, it has grown stronger. This is a romance for grown-ups. This is why Mr Eliot has neither the charisma of the likes of Wickham, Willoughby or Frank Churchill nor the dangerous potential to charm the heroine. Anne is not fooled by glamour and glitter; Wentworth can stop, think, and ask.

“She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.” (This sentence is genius, in its truth, its sarcasm, and its structure.)

I have yet to find a more amazing love letter than Captain Wentworth’s…

“I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone forever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight and a half years ago.”

A perfect conclusion of a perfectly crafted novel.

5 stars, of course.

Starting Kokoro, a Japanese classic. It's all because the characters in The Great Passage talked about it. Yes, I've taken a BB from fictional characters!

>14 Alexandra_book_life: Excellent review. This isn't my favorite Austen, but I completely understand why others love it so much. I suspect I need to revisit it, perhaps as an audiobook this time.

>14 Alexandra_book_life: 💖 I love Persuasion. It may be my favourite Austen - but it's hard to tell because I find it difficult to be objective about Pride and Prejudice.

>17 humouress: Hahaha. I can't be objective about that one either!

>15 Alexandra_book_life: I haven't read Kokoro but I really enjoyed Botchan and Sanshiro by the same author. I'm going to have to try and get hold of The great passage now!

>16 clamairy: Thank you. I think that every Austen novel can be revisited numerous times.

>17 humouress: I would say that it's impossible to be objective about Pride and Prejudice. As for a favourite Austen, I don't think I have one. It's usually the one I am reading/have just finished ;)

>19 Sakerfalcon: Oh, that's great to hear! I've read a few pages in Kokoro, and I like the writing very much already. It would be nice to read Natsume Soseki's other novels, too. I hope you enjoy The Great Passage

I finished Kokoro and liked it very much.

Some thoughts:

The writing is like looking at the sea, seeing the waves come and go. The rhythm lulls you and you follow along, almost despite yourself. It feels both light and heavy, simple and very intricate.

This short novel has 110 chapters. The reader can take a breath in between, reading slower, reflecting, letting thoughts settle for a moment. I liked that.

There are three stories here:

📖 The unnamed young narrator who meets and comes to admire an older man he calls Sensei. “Admire” is the wrong word, though, it is more of an intellectual obsession born out of loneliness and an undefined youthful longing for “something else”. A very strange, yet compelling, friendship dance follows, with the narrator always wanting more, and with Sensei always drawing back.

“...whenever some unexpected terseness of his shook me, my impulse was to press forward with the friendship. It seemed to me that if I did so, my yearning for the possibilities of all he had to offer would someday be fulfilled.”

There are hints of tragedy and dark secrets in Sensei’s past, and his marriage is a melancholy thing. Sensei seems to fear the young man’s admiration.

“The memory of having sat at someone’s feet will later make you want to trample him underfoot. I am trying to fend off your admiration for me, you see, in order to avoid your future contempt.”

📖 The narrator coming to his parents’ home to be with his dying father. These are harrowing chapters. Young man’s time with Sensei has corrupted him somehow, I feel, made him less of who he should be. The decision he makes at the end of Part 2 is impulsive and rash. We never see its aftermath, making it all the more tragic.

📖 The third story is Sensei’s letter, his confession. The love story has a lovely beginning. “Whenever I saw her face, I felt that I myself had become beautiful.” I found the portrayal of romantic love in a misogynic society interesting. How does a clever, sensitive man reconcile romantic love with his contempt for women in general? (He tries. He doesn’t, not really.)
With the love triangle in place, the story turns ugly. It is about people unable to express their feelings and talk to each other about them. This evolves into an emotional impotence and an inability to act when you need to (it gets tedious for the reader, though).Words said and words unsaid destroy everyone involved.

“Words are not just vibrations in the air, they work more powerfully than that, on more powerful objects.”

Sensei does a vile, dishonourable thing. After that, his life is but an imitation of one.

It’s interesting how things authors don’t show you can still be powerful – we never see the young man’s reaction to the letter, but just thinking about it hits you hard.

I feel melancholy after finishing, but I liked the experience of reading this classic.

4.5 stars.

I've got an ARC, it's the latest novella by Nnedi Okorafor, She Who Knows: Firespitter. It's due to be published in August. I enjoyed it!

Some thoughts:

This novella is the back story of one of the characters from Who Fears Death. I haven’t read it, but She Who Knows stands perfectly well on its own.

The world is post-apocalyptic, afro-futuristic and fascinating. There is technology, but also strange spirits, strange creatures and things that feel like magic. The vibes are reminiscent of Binti, but the story is less emotionally wrenching (it’s not a criticism, I just mean that it has a calmer feel).

Najeeba is of the Osu-nu, the “untouchables” of the Okeke peoples. Osu-nu harvest salt, and their salt caravans travel on paths forbidden to anyone else. People Know when to go on the salt path. It’s the men who do this (because tradition!), but then the girl Najeeba Knows as well. This is the path that will lead her towards other strange talents.

The writing sparkles with sunshine, salt crystals, and mystery. Nnedi Okorafor, thank you for yet another good story.

Thanks a lot to NetGalley and the publisher for the free e-book!

I happened to see A Man Called Ove on a book exchange shelf. So now I have read it, and I am happy I did.

Some thoughts:

A Man Called Ove – it was great to meet you

Here is a book about love, loss, grief, depression, perseverance against all odds, friendship, finding new purpose in life, and more love. This is all wrapped up in humorous writing – and by this I don’t mean laugh-out-loud funny, but writing full of absurd situations and descriptions.

Grumpy old men can have all the best reasons in the world to be grumpy, they have seen it all. I really liked how Backman slowly unveils Ove, page after page. The writing is so, so simple, done seemingly without effort, but this is deceptive, of course. It takes skill to make the reader enter the world of your book and stay there, see the characters, here them speak. Ove’s story is both beautiful and incredibly sad. I ended up loving him, and I loved his wife, Sonja.

“Loving someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren't actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfection, but rather for its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it's cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without them creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home.”

I rarely cry over books, but this time I had tears in my eyes. More than once. More than twice. More than three times. Thank you, Ove, thank you, Fredrik Backman.

P.S. There is a cat, too. The cat is wonderful.

5 stars.

>25 Alexandra_book_life: That sounds like a lovely book. I'll put it on the 'maybe' list.

>25 Alexandra_book_life: Ditto what >26 humouress: said.

>26 humouress: I enjoyed A Man Called Ove. The movie is pretty good too, (the Swedish one with subtitles* - I have not watched the American re-make starring Tom Hanks).

* Being a Swedish speaker, the subtitles are amusingly inaccurate in places.

>28 ScoLgo: I really liked the American movie. Haven't read the book or seen the Swedish movie.

>26 humouress: >27 clamairy: I hope you will enjoy it! I can recommend it wholeheartedly.

>28 ScoLgo: I have yet to see the movie - the Swedish one, that is. I might give the Tom Hanks version a try after that.

I've reread Brave New World for my book club.

Some thoughts:

A reread for my book club 😉

I first read this book as a tween/teen, with the reverence appropriate when reading an Important Classic. Thankfully, I don’t do this any more. I also have to confess that the vicious satire flew right over my teen head (not surprising, really).

The satire aspect was what I enjoyed the most this time. (What does this say about being an adult?😆) Henry Ford worship? Hilarious. Both polyamory and chaste monogamy get crucified, and so do religion and atheism. This world’s Solidarity Services with their Solidarity Hymns read like a pimped up version of a corporate team building exercise. (“Orgy-porgy!”) Naturally, we will go to a darker place with this by the end.

Otherwise, this book is a thought experiment that is trying to be a novel. Sometimes it succeeds (I liked the description of John’s childhood, for example). The dystopian society, with its castes, genetic predestination and conditioning, is quite horrifying. Everyone is happy, though (oh, the irony), they love their place as this or that cog in a society’s machine. They also get soma, the happy drug (I thought of our social media fixes).

I do have questions:

🤔 Giving your entire population access to a happy drug that apparently can kill you if you overdose enough is a bad, bad idea. Sure, the government controls the access, but has the author ever met a drug addict? How is this dystopia still functioning?

🤔 People are conditioned not to have close relationships with anyone, no intense emotions. Considering what we know about humans as social animals and emotional support that children need growing up, this should be a society of psychopaths. Ouch. I do like my dystopias to be more realistic, you know.

The “brave new world” has taken sexual freedom to extreme. Monogamy is a very very weird thing, nobody does this, “everyone belongs to everyone else.” Fair enough. But guess what, women are sex objects, they are ready to jump at any and every man, and they enjoy it, too, because conditioning. (Also, only the men seem to fly those helicopters the characters are always swishing about in. Women don’t have the skills, I suppose.) This dystopia is every macho’s wet dream, my friends! Please don’t ever use the word “pneumatic” in conversation with me. Those who have read the book will know what I mean.

As is usual in thought experiment books, the characters are not very interesting. They are vehicles that take the author’s ideas forward.

Since Brave New World was written in the 1930’s, some things have aged badly. Apparently “Negro ovaries” produce way more clones than the Caucasian ones. Gaah. Someone is described as an “octoroon”. What is that? I consulted a dictionary – “a person who is one-eighth black by descent.” Ouch.

So, it was a thought-provoking reread, but there is no love lost between the book and me. I did get some cool quotes out of this:

“And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.”

“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
“In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you are claiming the right to be unhappy.”

3.5 stars.

>14 Alexandra_book_life: Slow to respond, but yes, Austen's Persuasion is unsurpassed. Completely aside from the romance angle, I have always thought that Mrs. Smith was an interesting and well-rounded character all on her own.

>32 Alexandra_book_life: After numerous tries, I have never made it through A Brave New World. I didn't try it until I was an adult, and dystopia is decidedly not my thing.

>33 jillmwo: Unsurpassed is the right word! As for Mrs. Smith, I agree with you, she is an interesting character.

>34 MrsLee: I can certainly understand why ;) Dystopia is not my favourite genre, exactly. But I do find dystopias intriguing - in small doses.

Another day, another book. I finished a (very short) sci-fi novella by Victoria Goddard, The Seven Brides-to-Be of Generalissimo Vlad

Some thoughts:

This is the only sci-fi novella Victoria Goddard has written. Naturally, the fangirl has to try it.

Fun, snarky space opera detected! I am getting Lois McMaster Bujold vibes (in particular, A Civil Campaign and Captain Vorpatril's Alliance ). The author knows what she is doing, and there are very clear nods to Bujold.

Some genre tropes get dissected – in school, people of this universe are told that spaceship faster-than-light engines run on “magic”. I think these teachers were probably lying shamelessly, but this is how we roll. Do I dare suppose that Victoria Goddard had read some sci-fi? 😉

Her name is Portia. The name, the name! This is such a clever and lovely literary allusion from Goddard, you’ll see why later in the story.

Portia runs a galactic courier service, sometimes off the radar, but nothing illegal, mind. She is tough – of course. She is competent – of course. She is a great pilot – of course. Also, her hobby is making spaceship engine models – origami ones. Portia, I think you have my heart.

Now she is going to a wedding of a childhood friend. “I promised Vlad I’d be at his wedding when I was ten.” Portia keeps her promises.

There are some complications on the way, such as black holes, event horizons, and Lovecraftian monsters that attack spaceships (yes!). But she makes it, no worries.

Do you want some nice quotes? Here you go:

“Portia, how did you get here?”
“By spaceship. Yourself?”

“I couldn’t think what Trev’s interests were – drinking, I’d thought.”

“...when the Generalissimo came in surrounded by a pack of leaping puppies – sorry, young men of rank and station and good clothing…”

Do you think this story will end just like it’s supposed to? Can you guess? There was one very nice little twist that I didn’t see coming, though. Awwwwww.

Yes, it's 5 stars.

>37 Alexandra_book_life: Direct hit! Must get hold of The Seven Brides-to-Be of Generalissimo Vlad.

>38 tardis: Good, good, good. I'm happy to oblige :)))

I've been meaning to read Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher for a while, and finally, I did.

Some thoughts:

I liked the feel of the writing, it was a slow-moving river, taking its time to tell a fairy tale. This is Sleeping Beauty, set in a world somewhat like ours, but with a different history. So Sleeping Beauty becomes a very different story.

Toadling the fairy is adorable! It’s nice to have amazingly competent characters in fantasy and sci-fi - and it is also nice to have characters who are doing the best they can. Toadling is just trying to keep people away from the tower behind the thornhedge. Hundreds of years pass. Then someone who refuses to go away comes along. Halim should be in “The Nicest Knight in fiction” contest, he would probably win a prize of some kind. Toadling and Halim are very likeable together.

“The fairy stared down at the hand on her wrist, and her thought was not that she was caught, but that someone was touching her.
It has been many years since a living being had touched her.”

“Apologies made it worse. She had long experience with unkindness, but apologies undid her.”

“And you’re… um.” He shrugged. “Interesting. And sad.”
Toadling had been sad for a long time, but she was not used to being interesting.”

I liked the idea of changelings as aliens, exiles, who don’t know how to be in the world of mortals.

The characters in this novella didn’t have the depth of characters in Nettle & Bone (still my favourite Kingfisher book), and the narrative structure of Thornhedge was simpler; things were resolved too quickly and easily. Still, T. Kingfisher knows how to tell a good story and I am always ready for more from her :)

4 stars!

>32 Alexandra_book_life: I've been thinking about giving Brave New World a re-read, it has been decades since I read it last and the only thing I remember about it is that it was dull. Given your description, I'll likely push it to the end of the TBR pile.

>41 Karlstar: It was interesting to reread it, but I do think there are better thought-provoking books out there.

>42 Alexandra_book_life: Absolutely, Animal Farm is near the top of my list this year.

>43 Karlstar: Ah, that's a good one!

>32 Alexandra_book_life: & >41 Karlstar: I started Brave New World as an audiobook a couple of years ago and it wasn't grabbing me. I read it 40+ years ago and have no memory of it. I really should try again. As you both say, Animal Farm might be a better book to revisit.

>41 Karlstar: and >42 Alexandra_book_life: I find that Brave New World has stuck with me for far longer than Animal Farm or Nineteen-Eighty-Four. Perhaps it's just that I don't find George Orwell enjoyable. But bits and pieces of Brave New World still surface in the brain -- the drug, Soma, and the various means of programming each of the sectors of the population in order to minimize their discontent overall.

I don't think I remember much detail (if any) of either of Orwell's dystopian novels. Was the pig in Animal Farm actually named Napoleon? Or am I making that up in my own head?

>46 jillmwo: This is why I need to re-read Animal Farm. I should be able to answer the question, but I can't. :(

>45 clamairy: et al...

I first read BNW in 2011 and, while I liked it, probably won't read again. One thing that made the book work for me was that, while the setting is clearly dystopian, it is a utopia for every character in the book except one; Johnny is the misfit, while everyone else is perfectly content within their soma-bubbles.

>48 ScoLgo: clamairy recently shared this quote from Wyrd Sisters by Pratchett in Narilka's thread which seems oddly congruent with this book.

"There was something here, he thought, that nearly belonged to the gods. Humans had built a world inside the world, which reflected it in pretty much the same way as a drop of water reflects the landscape. And yet…and yet… Inside this little world they had taken pains to put all the things you might think they would want to escape from—hatred, fear, tyranny, and so forth. Death was intrigued. They thought they wanted to be taken out of themselves, and every art humans dreamt up took them further in."

>46 jillmwo: The pig is indeed named Napoleon ;)
I did find that I remembered quite a lot of things in Brave New World on rereading. I guess it is one of those books that sticks with you.

Finished my latest read, Upgrade by Blake Crouch.

Some thoughts:

A book club pick 😉

After two books, I knew what I was getting into with Crouch – a fast-paced sci-fi thriller that is sure to entertain, in one way or another. I really liked Recursion; I liked Dark Matter a lot less; this one falls somewhere in between.

It’s a near future setting, and the climate change is slowly wrecking everything. Also, scientists have been very naughty with genetic engineering, and now this kind of thing is banned, banned, banned. (Me: stupid, stupid, stupid.) There is a Gene Protection Agency in the US, hunting rogue scientists and other disobedient citizens who want to do gene therapy, create new life forms etc. Logan is a GPA agent – one day, he walks into a trap and gets infected with an influenza virus. The virus is carrying stuff that is going to alter Logan’s genome in exciting ways. Don’t you just hate it when this happens?

Logan starts getting smarter, stronger, etc. There is a conspiracy, of course. We get fugitives on the run, secrets revealed, cat-and-mouse games, lots of action. Stuff keeps happening!

The books asks some interesting questions. What does humanity deserve? Or doesn’t deserve? What price would you pay to “save everyone”?

“Being smart doesn’t make people infallible. It just makes them more dangerous.”

But we don’t go very deeply into these themes. So I think I would have preferred less philosophy and more sci-fi thriller candy.

The body count is high, people die in gruesome ways. It’s all very “technical”, like a video game. It bothered me.

Also, this is the third book by Crouch featuring a man forcibly separated from his family/loved ones. This is getting old…

By the end of the book, the plot moves too fast to make sense at times. Maybe Logan had gotten so smart that I couldn’t keep up?

I liked the ending, but I am not sure how I feel about it.

3.5 stars.

I'm done with Clarkesworld issue 207

Some thoughts:

A wonderful issue – mostly because of “Eight or Die” by Thoraiya Dyer. But other stories were good too :)

“Morag’s Boy” by Fiona Moore - I have read about Morag before, in “The Spoil Heap”, issue 198 of Clarkesworld. I wasn’t too impressed, and didn’t review it. This is the same dystopian universe, but the story is so much better. Morag adopts Cliff, and begins to understand that her post-apocalyptic world can be different. 4.9 stars.

“Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Cyborg” by Samara Auman - crows are mourning their cyborg friend. This one is virtually plotless, it’s poetical and philosophical. Nice, but I was left wanting more. 3.8 stars.

“In Memories We Drown” by Kelsea Yu - some people are living in an underwater station after some kind of catastrophe. They find a strange plant. It’s a beautiful story. It felt too short and somewhat incomplete, though. 3.9 stars.

“Waffles are Only Goodbye for Now” by Ryan Cole - in a war zone, a little boy befriends a smart refrigerator. Awww. 4.0 stars.

“The World’s Wife” by Ng Yi-Sheng - there is a body that becomes a whole world… Fun! 4.0 stars.

“The Last Gamemaster in the World” by Angela Liu - Here is the grandest online game ever! Interesting, but it didn’t quite move me. 3.9 stars.

“Kill That Groundhog” by Fu Qiang - three people are trying to escape their Groundhog Day, in various ingenious ways. So much fun! Hilarious. 4.4 stars.

“Eight or Die”, Part II by Thotaiya Dyer - continued from issue 206 of Clarkesworld. We are still on a mission on an alien world. It’s weird, it’s quirky, it’s fun, it’s tragic, it’s magic, it’s humane. It’s very unlike “regular” sci-fi (whatever that is). The writing is great. The characters are great. Everything is great. I’m fangirling. Here are 5 stars.

Phew. Here is to finishing a mystery novel. I have heard good things about KJ Charles, but since I don't read a lot of romance, I haven't done anything about it. Then she published a historical mystery, Death in the Spires, and it looked promising.

Some thoughts:

“He was frightened, and, once he recognised that, he realised he’d been frightened for a very long time, at a level so deep he hadn’t known it. One of the people he most loved had become a murderer, and he’d never trusted anyone again.”

They were students at Oxford, they were shining bright, clever and brilliant. There was friendship, there was love and longing. (Of course, they staged a play. Of course, it was Shakespeare.) Everything was so lovely and beautiful – on the surface, that is.

“He’s determined to make a reputation as the rudest man in Oxford.”
“No determination required. It’s effortless.”

Then there was a murder that was never solved, a murder that destroyed lives and loves and friendships.

This book is not really about the whodunit, it’s about the trauma, about living with loss of many things, about grief and a web of secrets and lies. (It also has a bit of romance and a possibility of second chances.) There is a smooth readability to the writing, and something very humane between the lines.

Ten years after the murder, one of them decides to investigate. Jem is an unlikely amateur sleuth – poor and broken. But he is stubborn, he is still clever, he can see patterns and think. And he is tired of being frightened. “That was a foul thought, planning to trap his friends into admissions, but they weren’t his friends any more, and one of them had murdered Toby.”

Ugly, foul things come to the surface. Yes, of course they do. Everyone’s emotional turmoil was very well written, I flew and flew through the last chapters. I hope the characters will heal and find peace. I really liked Jem, I’d like him to have many more evenings by the fire with his rediscovered friends, making tea and toasted cheese.

4 stars!

>54 Alexandra_book_life: Glad you enjoyed it, that is an excellent write-up.

>55 Karlstar: Thank you! It was a very, very nice book.

I felt like reading more short stories, so I finished another issue of Clarkesworld, Clarkesworld issue 208

Some thoughts:

It was a nice issue, with both nice and meh stories. There weren't any outstanding, 5 star ones, though.

"Nothing of Value” by Aimee Ogden - Humanity has invented teleportation, so now you can jump around the solar system. This is a story about both the impact of technology and very human emotional dead ends. 4 stars.

“Down the Waterfall” by Cécile Cristofari - Yet another take on time travel, roads not taken and moments you wished you had had. Very poetic, but it left me cold. 3.5 stars.

“Binomial Nomenclature and the Mother of Happiness” by Alexandra Munck - An engineer makes a machine that lets you see physical manifestations of emotions. I liked the world building and the characters. 4.2 stars.

“Stars Don’t Dream” by Chi Hui - Maybe it’s a dystopia, maybe it’s a utopia. Anyway, everyone is in the metaverse. Space exploration, what space exploration? But some people dream… Very nice hard sci-fi! 4 stars.

”Just Another Cat in a Box” by E.N. Auslender - Someone is trapped on post-apocalyptic planet, different versions of the protagonist awake one after another. It was pretty bleak and I did not like it. 2.5 stars.

“Rail Meat” by Marie Vibbert - Two con artists in a world it would be interesting to see more of. Very enjoyable! 4.3 stars.

“You Dream of the Hive” by C.M. Fields - what kind of existence do you want? The regular human one or… something else? Interesting! 3.9 stars.

”You Cannot Grow in Salted Earth” by Priya Chand - space exploration that had gone wrong. It felt more like a fragment than a story. 3 stars

I guess I will go with 3.5 stars.

I am done with Locklands

Some thoughts:

What I should have done, of course, was to read the conclusion to The Founders’ Trilogy in the autumn of last year, after the first two books. It was a mistake to read The Divine Cities in between… It made me realise what Robert Jackson Bennett is capable of, and this book is not quite it.

Anyway. I couldn’t quite remember what happened at the end of book 2 (a bad sign), but I got my bearings quickly (a good sign). Eight years have passed, the characters are still battling the new enemy from Shorefall. It was cool to see Berenice as a great general – but why on earth does her team keep addressing her as “Capo”? Yes, sure, the word might not mean the same thing in this universe as in ours, but I jumped every time it appeared on the page and I imagined Berenice as a mafia boss, lol. Sorry, I digress.

The mind magic is wondrous, I liked what RJB did here – a new kind of society and a different way of being human. The “cadences” are awesome, and I wish all these ideas had been explored deeper. They got lost in the action and dark places, though.

Naturally, we are on a mission to save the world.

“But there is no dancing through a monsoon, my love.”

Does it make sense when I say that the plot did not bore me, but the endless action did? The book is almost 550 pages long, and I felt like celebrating when I got to page 300. The characters run, hide, shoot at things, use magic, things go awry, things go awry again, someone has a new desperate plan. Repeat. There is lot of screaming as well, I lost count of “oh no no no oh god no no no’s”. I should have had a drinking game with this, really. Also, the dialogues and the characters’ reactions to events seemed very YA. I grew tired of them all.

Crasedes, the villain from book 2, makes things more exciting when he appears. (It’s “the enemy of my enemy” trope.) He is too entertaining at times, so that the I felt guilty about having fun, considering what happened in the previous book. A false note, I’d say.

Clef’s and Crasedes’ backstory, when it was completely revealed, was interesting and emotional. Yet this got lost in the action too, so it wasn’t interesting and emotional enough.

I liked the epilogue!

P.S. I am still looking forward to reading more books by Robert Jackson Bennett :)

3 stars!

>58 Alexandra_book_life: Yeah, Locklands fell a bit flat for me too, and for the same reasons you describe.

RJB seems to like musical instrument terms for character names. Every time I heard 'capo', I pictured a stringed instrument clamp and Clef, well... he was just bass-ically treble... ;-)

I have The Company Man and The Tainted Cup both waiting on my TBR shelf but plan to hold off on starting TTC until sequels are published.

>58 Alexandra_book_life: I am not familiar with this particular author, but I do like the line about not dancing in a monsoon! And, yes, non-stop action (from my perspective) is not always a good technique in writing. I keep remembering Dan Brown and the fact that no one ever had either the need or the time for sleeping or a bathroom break in either The Da Vinci Code or Angels and Demons. But they were best-sellers.

>59 ScoLgo: I have high expectations when it comes to The Tainted Cup! And it's nice to see that we agree ;)

>60 jillmwo: No, action doesn't always work in books - I like when there is a change of pace, actually. RJB did that very well in Divine Cities, though.

>58 Alexandra_book_life: I've absolutely read books where it felt like there was an action scene on every page. It is too much.

>60 jillmwo: I felt that way about The Road to Roswell, by Connie Willis. I got tired just reading the non-stop shenanigans. (I still enjoyed it.)

>59 ScoLgo: "...he was just bass-ically treble..." I'm dying here... 😆

>58 Alexandra_book_life: Thank you for the reminder to bump City of Stairs up the TBR list.

>63 Karlstar: An adrenaline overdose! Yes, it can get annoying.

>64 clamairy: You are most welcome! I hope you will enjoy it :)

>64 clamairy: I'm just chuffed that someone got my terribad dad joke.

I will second The Divine Cities trilogy. It was one of my top reads of 2019 and is coming due for a re-read soon.

I just finished the third book in Time Traveller's Guide series, Time Traveler's Guide to Restoration Britain. It's lengthy and slow, and very much worth your time :)

Some thoughts:

Ian Mortimer has taken me on yet another journey, and what a journey it was. The non-fiction books of this series feel like an adventure – of course they do, because I am traveling back in time!

“the past is best viewed close up and personally - in contrast to traditional history, which emphasises the value of objectivity and distance.”

The setup is familiar from the earlier books: descriptions of cities, people, their way of life, what to wear, what to eat and drink, how to travel, where to stay, what laws to obey, how much to pay for things.

This is more than a guidebook, of course. Ian Mortimer’s writing is intimate, humane, at times sarcastic; there is always sympathy for our ancestors, they are neither weird nor ignorant, they just are.

Second half of the 17th century in Britain is a time of great change: the beginnings of rationalism and science as we know it, there is a sense of wonder and discovery; the end of an absolute monarchy and the first imaginings of the social contract. With the restoration of monarchy and the fall of the Puritanical Commonwealth, people can go to the theatre again, listen to music more freely… and not get executed for adultery. (Hmmm… why does this sound familiar to me, a traveler from the 21st century?)
But women still get burned alive for killing their husbands – because it’s treason, even if he is an abuser and it was self-defence. And they hang students that ridicule religion after too many drinks.

This book is full of details, details, details. I think every reader will find things to love and be especially interested in, especially moved by. These are mine, in no particular order:

📖 The descriptions of London are lovely. The rebuilding after the Great Fire of London in 1666 was impressively fast. Also, this was then people in Britain started getting fire insurance. (Sensible.)

Here is some advice on how to preserve your inn while the rest of the town is on fire:
“He told me, by the help of some friends hoisting some hogsheads of beer out of the cellar and, being very diligent to cool those parts of the house that were very hot, they did preserve it.”
“Surely this is one of the greatest events in the annals of British fire-fighting,” comments the author.

📖 The child mortality rates are simply staggering. “37 per cent of all the children born in England do not make it to the age of fifteen.”

📖 The inequality between the sexes “amounts to sexism on a scale that you will barely be able to countenance.”
And legally, as a woman you can’t do anything at all unless your husband/father/some other dude with power over you says yes.
“What matters is that the law justifies the husband’s actions against his wife so completely that it makes him arrogant and uncompromising.”
Still, contemporary travelers note that women in Britain have more liberty than in other countries - they go places! by themselves! Amazing, right? And women begin to act on stage; to earn money as professional painters; to publish more books and plays.

📖 Servants:
“If you want to know what life in service is like for many women, think in terms of Cinderella’s daily grind of scouring, scrubbing, washing and polishing from before dawn to late at night - and having to comb the lice out of the hair of a man who beats you and forces you to have sex with him.”

📖 POC:
The concept of racism as we understand it does not exist yet. There are preconceptions about POC that are “deeply unpleasant”. I’m guessing that people are aware that there is slavery overseas that is financing their fine lifestyle, but they’d rather not think about it – and besides, they are not “like us.” There is debate on whether slaves should be considered free once they come to England (since there is no slavery there officially). What about those POC that have been baptised? Surely it’s wrong if a Christian enslaves another Christian. Interestingly enough, there are recorded legal cases with judges thinking like that, so that slaves are freed. Yes, sometimes there is hope for humanity...

📖 Don’t get me started on duels! It’s a miracle there were any earls and dukes left alive in Britain.

📖 Law and justice:
“If it is fairness you want from your legal system, I suggest you visit a period of history that prioritises the person over property, reality over religion, science over superstition, equity over influence and fairness over the process of law. In finding such a time, I wish you luck.”

📖 Beauty products:
“Puppy-oil” is distilled dog. No, I am not kidding. Girls, you are supposed to put that on your face and you’ll be beautiful. No comments.

📖 Cool new stuff:
Champagne! Fountain pens! Public transport! Coffee houses! Tea! First museums! (The museum geek says: this section should have been longer.) First public concerts!

This review is getting way too long, time to wrap up… I am kind of sad that I only have one book left in this series.

I love the closing lines of the last chapter, as the time traveler prepares to go to bed: “But therin lies a question: what does the day ahead hold? So many things, so many.”

And this last from the author:
“If you listen carefully at the door to the past, what you hear most - above all the distant sounds of daily life and death - is the beating of the most unstoppable heart.”

5 stars, naturally.

>68 Alexandra_book_life: "37 per cent of all the children born in England do not make it to the age of fifteen".

I'm inclined to consider that a remarkably low rate of attrition. I've been working on my family tree, and discovered that up to about 3/4-way through the 19th century, my lot had only about a 50% chance of making their 10th birthday, and rarely did more than two (of 8, 12 or more children) manage to have children of their own. Which makes sense, come to think of it: it means that the overall population remained roughly constant.

>69 hfglen: There are many factors that influence child mortality rates, so I can imagine it being higher than this in other times/places...

>68 Alexandra_book_life: I'm glad you've gotten so much enjoyment (I'm not sure if that's the right word) from of these books. I've been thinking about starting this series with Audible. I need to work through my backlog a bit before deciding.

>71 clamairy: Thank you! Enjoyment is probably not the right word, I agree - but it certainly was a very emotional experience paired with nerdy satisfaction ;)

Just finished Fresh Water for Flowers It was a bit of a mixed bag, but I did like it.

A book club pick 😊

Here is a story that grows slowly, putting its threads together – love, grief, loss, trauma, finding yourself again, learning to let the light in.

We meet Violette, a cemetery keeper. My favourite parts of the book were the descriptions of her daily routines, her colleagues (the funeral parlour owners and the gravediggers), the speeches at the funerals that Violette wrote down, the people who come to talk to her. There was a quiet, kind rhythm to the writing that was very pleasant.

“These folks who visit graves daily, they’re the ones who look like ghosts. Who are between life and death.”

“They never say that a man of fifty-five can die from not having been loved, not having been heard, getting too many bills, buying too much on credit, seeing his children grow up and leave home without really saying goodbye.”

One day, a police captain, Julien Seul, arrives - his mother, Iréne, wanted to be buried in Violette’s cemetery, her ashes laid to rest besides a man called Gabriel, a man who was not her husband. Julien wants to know why, and events are set in motion that uncover the past and rebuild the present.

I really enjoyed the first half of the book, yet struggled with the second. I believe that this novel is trying to do too much, in too many pages. Things got tangled. There were too many voices that rang false. I usually appreciate when POV’s change so that horrible characters become… not less horrible, bur human. It didn’t quite work this time. Besides, the only voice I wanted to listen to was Violette’s. The story of Iréne and Gabriel went on forever – it was touching at first, but then it descended into a melodrama with French clichés that was mostly exasperating. I wished they were done already.

Violette’s story also gets a bit lost among the tangles. Still, there were harrowing, heartbreaking pages there that were cruel and true. They hit me very hard.

The ending was touching, though, and it made me happy!

3.7 stars, rounded up to 4.

>73 Alexandra_book_life: I have a soft spot for books about cemeteries and those who are in them, having worked at one for a time. My favorite job ever, aside from raising/ schooling my kids. However, I think I will give this one a pass based on your reactions. Love the quotes you posted though, especially the first one. That thought crossed my mind while I was observing at the cemetery.

>74 MrsLee: Thank you for telling me. Those who work at a cemetery are very special people, I think...

I don't regret reading this book, but I won't be recommending it to everyone. So do give this one a pass, yes :)

Paladin's Strength - done!

Some thoughts :)

Yay, this series is all about pairing off those paladins! Well, of course it is, their god is dead, they are still traumatized, they need good things in their lives.

Thus Istvhan the paladin meets Clara the nun (lay sister - not sworn to celibacy – what a relief). They are sort of kind of compelled to travel together, while Clara is on the trail of her kidnapped sisters. Isvhan doesn’t really have time for this, he is hunting the supernatural mass murderers from the previous book, but...
“And if he did not turn aside and help a nun, his maternal relatives for nine generations would rise from their graves and come to his dreams to box his ears, with his mother at the forefront.”

Look, it’s instalove! Usually, I’m allergic to this kind of thing, but Kingfisher makes it cute and makes it work. But they shouldn’t! They have secrets! This is not the time! Let’s be very silly! Mwahaha, said the omniscient and experienced reader. (I do wish Istvahn would stop thinking about FMC’s breasts, though, I lost count of all the times he thought about them ;) Also, the “they keep getting interrupted” trope showed up way too many times – once is enough.)

Bandits show up.
“Protect the nun!” roared Istvhan, yanking his sword free. “Protect your own damn self!” Clara roared back.
Then she finds herself a weapon. So, she is a warrior nun! Yes, I know, it’s “lay sister”. It just doesn’t sound as cool. Clara’s secret is pretty awesome (This kind of thing only happens in a Kingfisher book, I tell you).

Interactions between Istvhan and Clara when Clara is … um …. her other self are hilarious.
Their “regular” interactions are entertaining as well.

“Making a bit of a mess of things, he observed internally. “Keep talking though. I’m sure you can make it worse.” Me: chuckle, chuckle, chuckle. Here is some excellent relationship advice, by the way: “Don’t assume she knows what you’re thinking.”

I make it all sound hilarious and fun, and it is. At the same time, this book is much darker than the previous one. There is a lot of grief and trauma, and the story behind the decapitating killers is dark, tragic and really sad.

The latter part of the book is full of adventure and danger, desperate battles. desperate escapes and sacrifices. The ending gets a thumbs up (naturally).

4.25 stars (or thereabouts)

Silent Parade - done!

Some thoughts:

First things first: it was nice to meet the familiar characters again. Yukawa, Kusanagi, Utsumi. As the series progresses, the detectives are getting better and better at their jobs. This is shown very well. Kusanagi certainly knows how to interrogate a suspect! Yukawa is still the smartest person in any room, though.

I really liked the police procedural parts, and conversations between Yukawa and Kusanagi, Yukawa and Utsumi.

“What’s all this about? Come on, tell me.”
“It’s so blindingly obvious, I really shouldn’t need to.”

“You shouldn’t be the one to decide if your idea is stupid or not. And you certainly don’t want to rush to judgment about something being impossible. Buried inside a crazy idea, you can often find useful hints for solving problems. You should come out and say it, and see what a third party has to say.”

As for the mystery itself, there are two missing person cases that seem to be connected. There is grief, trauma, perseverance in the face of grief and dreams of revenge. The investigation proceeds, and the case becomes more and more convoluted. Reader: I understand what happened! Author: No, you don’t. Reader: Well, I understand now. Author: Trust me, you don’t. Reader: Oh. Now I know what happened. Author: You don’t, I told you!”

Putting the puzzle together is very interesting, but gets too convoluted. I lost track of all the characters who were not the detectives and wasn’t emotionally involved, except in the end – unlike other books by this author I had read. The story is very dark, but I was more interested in the solving of the mystery than in feeling things.

Flawed Keigo Higashino is still better than many other things out there.

P.S. I am still planning to read everything by Keigo Higashino that had been published/will be published in English.

I think I am left with 3.7 stars rounded up to 4.

>76 Alexandra_book_life: I'm glad you're enjoying these. I will definitely be going back to this series, especially for the humor.

>78 clamairy: Thank you :) The first two books made me happy, so I'll be going back for more as well.

I just found out that John Scalzi's new book is coming out next year :) Apparently, it involves the Moon (yes, that's our Moon) turning into cheese. That's a lot of cheese! It sounds fun.

>80 Alexandra_book_life: I just picked up Starter Villain, so at least I'll be caught up when that book arrives. But, uh, cheese?

>81 Karlstar: Yeah, I know. Is it sci-fi? :)))

>80 Alexandra_book_life: Oh my!!! Cheese!!! That could be hilarious.

>83 clamairy: I am looking forward to it, I think.

>80 Alexandra_book_life: I just saw the blog post too. I'm looking forward to it :) Come on March 2025!

>85 Narilka: Come on March 2025!

Yes, exactly :)

My next book club discussion will be about Alien Clay :)

Some thoughts:

All right, this was very interesting. It’s probably one of the more interesting “Tchaikovskys” I’ve read so far. I liked it a lot, with some reservations that I have so far had trouble articulating. Writing things down usually helps, so here we go.

The totalitarian state of this universe has labour camps on planets it wants to explore. Convicts are shipped there, as cheaply as possible. (Me: labour camps on Earth are cheaper.) The author obviously knows about sharashkas of the Soviet Gulag – and the main character is to help the research into the alien artifacts of Kiln. (The research findings need to confirm to the state doctrine, of course.) The artifacts are creepy and fascinating and seem to have been made by a vanished civilization. I like this kind of mystery.

The labour camp dynamics and horrors were written well, yet there was a sarcastic detachment that bothered me. It is a legitimate narrative choice; it has been done before. It is just that in this particular case I had trouble feeling, experiencing, diving in. Things were happening, I wanted to know what would happen next, so on I read, that’s it. It also made the characters more puppet-like, and the beginning of the book had led to me to expect a more character-driven story…

I really liked the subversive nods to the French Revolution, as parts 1, 2, and 3 are Liberté-Égalité-Fraternité. As you read, it becomes more and more subversive and twisted. I loved that!

The world of Kiln is fascinating and amazing, truly alien, with frighteningly different (to conservative humans, that is) genetics and ecology. The references to Hieronymus Bosch are the loveliest things. I didn’t know I wanted a Boschian alien world in my books, but suddenly, there is was, and I happily ate it all up. The true nature of Kiln wasn’t that much of surprise, but Tchaikovsky is doing ambitious, ambiguous stuff here, so kudos to him. Is our narrator reliable, by the way? Ha! But I am always eager to see another take on the “there are many ways of being human (post-human?)” theme. (Also me, screaming: doesn’t anyone in this labour camp have an immune system??? Me, having caught my breath: ok, so Kiln stuff is good it adaptation, so maybe it fools the human immune system. But do mention it specifically, please?) The ending is not unexpected. Is it satisfying or horrific? It depends.

Quotes that I liked:
“Just because the tyrant dresses like a clown doesn’t mean he’s funny.”

“The greatest privilege of power is being able to overlook the fact that you’re even wielding it.”

4.25 stars!

Finished Mammoths at the Gates!

Some thoughts:

Oh. I think I have just read the best story in The Singing Hills series. Lovely! I am sorry to have read it so fast, too fast.

Yes, please, give me even more focus on Chih as a protagonist – thank you. They are coming home.
(And there are indeed mammoths at the gates. This is not a story about mammoths.)

Coming home is hard. Some things stay the same. Some things don’t. Your friends change. And some people are gone forever.

“The Divine says people change, remember? No one is as they were five years ago, or two years ago, or a week ago, or a moment ago. If you love somebody, you must let them change.”

“...growing up, growing older, was always a kind of loss, even if what was gained repaid it all and then some.”

How are we transformed by grief and loss? What form can justice take? What stories do we tell about each other, what stories do we know?

I loved the twist at the end – strange, poignant, and unexpected, but so right.

5 stars :)

>80 Alexandra_book_life: >83 clamairy: Well, a structurally divergent novel about cheese certainly qualifies as something to look forward to. I feel like there should be a bad pun there somehow, but nothing is springing to mind...

>88 Alexandra_book_life: This is good news. I will probably be getting to this soon.

>89 jillmwo: I am sure there is, but nothing is springing to mind.

>88 Alexandra_book_life: >90 clamairy: I just read the fifth installment this past weekend. The Brides of High Hills is probably my favorite after The Empress of Salt and Fortune introduced us to Cleric Chih and Almost Brilliant. I really enjoyed Into the Riverlands too but really, every one of these short stories have been a delight.

>89 jillmwo: Agreed!
I can't think of a bad pun either... I am sure it'll come to me... No.

>90 clamairy: I hope you will enjoy it a lot :)

>91 ScoLgo: This is great to know!
Singing Hills is a wonderful series and I enjoyed all of the stories. I am looking forward to the fifth one!

>80 Alexandra_book_life: to >89 jillmwo: I am irresistibly reminded of the Wallace and Gromit piece where they travel to the moon and find it's made of cheese -- I think it's A grand day out.

>95 hfglen: Oh, but of course! How lovely :)))))))

Rose/House - finished!

Some thoughts:

“When the house laughed, it sounded like the ripple of a storm, the hush and shudder of leaves and sand trickling down a dune.”

Shiver. Shiver. Shiver. What a creepy locked-room murder mystery! There is a haunted house, Rose House, that is also a ghastly AI.

I liked the sci-fi world building here, it is sparse, but the reader can easily fill in the blanks and paint a bigger picture. The world has a dystopian feel, but it’s not a dystopia. It’s just a version of the future, with good things and bad all mixed together. Sci-fi stories rarely wake my sense of wonder nowadays (I have read too much sci-fi, perhaps). This one did!

There are three POV’s in 120 pages, and they were masterfully done. This is not easy to write, I am very impressed. (Oliver’s POV was a respite from all the creepiness.)

How do you explain a dead body in a house to which only one person has access after the owner’s death; and that person has an alibi? The search for answers is very dark and kept me turning the pages.

I do hope that our future AI’s are not going to be like Rose House. This is during its phone call to the police to report a dead body:

“Cause of death,” said Maritza.
“I’m a piece of architecture, Detective. How should I know how humans are like to die?”

Maybe trying to come in is a bad idea, Detective…

“What is a building without doors, Maritza?” Rose House asked her, blandly inquisitive. “Have you opinions?”
“A prison”, Maritza thought, and went back to her car.”

The story grows more and more claustrophobic, you feel like you are getting lost in Rose House and mental fog. I have mixed feelings about the ending: it was anticlimactic and not quite clear, but it did seem fitting.

4.25 stars!

>97 Alexandra_book_life: This sounds very good! I like a good haunted house book and adding in the AI sounds like it adds a new twist on the genre. The touchstone, however, points to something completely different!

ETA Ah, it's by Arkady Martine. I'd expect good stuff from her!

>98 Sakerfalcon: I like this novella even better after I've had time to think about it.
Thank you, I've fixed the touchstone :)

I've had a wonderful weekend, but Monday was pretty horrid. We're going through a conflict resolution process at work, and I don't think it's going well. It seems to me that we are treating the symptoms instead of the disease. I am tired of drama and all my colleagues right now.
Does anyone have a good book about coping strategies to recommend? I want to be happy at work again...

Also, my current book is not very good. Hopefully. I will rant about it tomorrow, maybe I will feel better then...

>100 Alexandra_book_life: Oh no. I hope it's all sorted out soon.

>100 Alexandra_book_life: Human Resources would likely express concern, but I'd be happy to loan you a few titles on useful techniques of administering poison.

More seriously, no organization is able to offer a paycheck that is sufficient in making up for having to deal with workplace drama.

>100 Alexandra_book_life: I have never understood why people cannot just go to work, work, then go home. Why does it all have to get blown up and exaggerated? Perhaps you need a book on how to direct a drama? Give them a stage?

>101 clamairy: >102 jillmwo: >103 MrsLee:

Thanks a lot, everyone! You made me laugh a little, and this means a lot.
I wonder if my employer will like it if I mention all this drama in my next salary negotiation? I do want compensation, lol.
Directing a drama? I'd love to, actually. Some of my colleagues would be amazing in it.
I do wish people would leave more of their feelings at home when they go to work. No such luck, though. Anyway, I hope it will all get sorted out soon, it's been going on for months already, without getting better.

Maybe time to look around and see what the job market is like in your area.....

>105 reconditereader: The thought had crossed my mind, but I'll see what happens...

Navola - done!

Some thoughts:

Done, done, done, I am done! Oh joy.

This was not the reaction I was expecting when starting this book. I enjoyed Ship Breaker, and then NetGalley had a fantasy novel by the same author, so here I am.

We are in a kind of Renaissance Italy, a Venetian republic/Florentine republic of sorts, with hints of magic. There are nobles and merchant/banking houses that embrace the mafia lifestyle. Backstabbing is a feature, not a bug. Sounds like fun, right? I liked the very first pages, and how Davico (a very unwilling heir to the most powerful mafia family, sorry, it was banking house) talked about his father.

“He liked to say that he traded in goods, but more in promises, and he never failed to collect.”

After that, the further I read, the more annoyed I became:

😡 There is a lot of fake Italian/Latin/whatever. I had no trouble understanding the stuff, but it felt grating, annoying, pretentious. This sort of thing went on and on: “He sought to play in politics, where the art of faccioscuro is both sword and shield, and he held neither. He imagined he could sit parlobanco with your father.” Me: please stop already.

😡 There are many irritating editing errors, the most I’ve ever had in an ARC. I had to reread certain sentences several times before they made sense.

😡 (They drink a lot of tea. Is it a nod to all the tea-drinking in modern sci-fi? Anyway, why are we drinking so much tea in fake Renaissance Italy? And why are their cheeses always described as “bitter”? This is a crime against cheese, that’s what it is!!!)

😡 Davico, I am sorry, you lack depth, which means that you are not well-written. (This goes for all the other characters as well.) You are also annoying. The constant self-doubt, a naïveté that is almost aggressive, the “I don’t want this destiny, poor little meeeeee”, and being very juvenile in general… I got tired of them all after almost 600 pages. Davico grows a bit of spine ca 80% into the book – too little, too late.

😡 Infodumps! We are bombarded with endless descriptions and exposition: the ancient philosophers of this world; pages and pages of their mythology; a lot about their herbs and mushrooms (because Davico likes them). Last but not least: immediately after a Red Wedding wannabe event we are treated to several pages of the history and workings of this world’s banking system. But why?

😡 So the narrative stutters, loses momentum, gets lost, doesn’t go anywhere. It’s a bad sign when the reader asks “is anything at all supposed to happen in this book?” about 30-40% through.

😡 Sex, sex, sex. Sex? Sex, sex, sex! I’m no prude, but the whole society seems to be obsessed. Davico is a horny teenager, but when everyone behaves and talks like teenagers, it gets annoying. The one steamy sex scene makes a dirty voyeur out of the reader, it feels like pornography. I did not feel the characters’ passion. I wanted to go wash my eyes. How was this done? I am mystified.

😡 As the plot finally (finally!) thickens a bit towards the end, there is a lot of blood, gore, torture, humiliation, as well as blood, gore, torture, humiliation. The book gets as obsessed with those as with sex. Ouch.

😡 I wondered why so many Checkov’s guns failed to fire in this book. Then I came to the end, and it was written in a very clear “let’s have a sequel, maybe?” way. Where is my closure?

My reasons for that extra star:

👌The dialogues were very well-written, I enjoyed them.

👌Celia was interesting. We should have followed her instead.

👌The magic stuff was cool. When it did appear, I felt that I was reading a different (better) book.

👌When Davico goes to a neighbouring kingdom to negotiate, his hosts decide to cruelly test him. The test involved a vicious war horse. That was a good scene.

Judging by other reviews, I seem to be an outlier. You might want to check if you agree or not ;)

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free e-book!

2 stars...

>105 reconditereader: & >106 Alexandra_book_life: I was going to mention that my tolerance level for drama in the workplace seems to be about 6 years. That is the longest I could stay at my last two jobs (I'm not counting the job at the cemetery as I left that unwillingly due to health concerns). I didn't want to be a downer though! Starting around year five is when I would realize it isn't going to get any better, and by the end of that year I realized that my presence was not going to make anything better either, so for my own peace of mind, I moved on.

>108 MrsLee: 6 years is a high tolerance level! I am glad you could move on :)

Slippery Creatures - done!

Some thoughts:

It’s nice to read something that knows it’s pulp, doesn’t pretend otherwise, revels in it, plays with it.

WWI is over, and Will Darling is trying to find his place in Britain again. Inheriting his uncle’s bookshop is a stroke of luck! (Tons of books are looming over him, but he’s been through worse.)

Then aggressive people come calling, demanding “information” from Will. What information?
“Who the hell came armed to rob a bookshop?”
The War Office is very interested in Will, too, in unpleasant ways. He is not handing anything over to anyone, even if he doesn’t have it, thank you very much. Enter a certain Kim Secretan, providing timely assistance (very timely), a Guinness, and a sympathetic ear. Those dark eyes are very fine too. Will, you are too stubborn and too trusting, yes you are.

The chemistry between Will and Kim is nice. The romance is steamy-steamy-steamy. (I think I like more mystery and less romance in my books, but you can’t always have everything.) But what do you say, now that you’re more than friends?
“Thank God they were British. He took a deep breath. “Cup of tea?”

Oh, what a surprise, there are more layers of intrigue and more layers of betrayal. And the “information” shouldn’t be in anyone’s hands.

The latter part of the book moves fast, with kidnappings, rescues, more double-dealing, quick thinking under pressure and conversations a reader can quote.

“I haven’t lied to you in, oh, a good twelve hours.”
“Amazing. Did it hurt much?”

“Your ability to inflict damage with words as well as knives is noted. Can we agree I behaved appallingly and get to the part where I apologise and remove myself from your presence?”

“I don’t know anyone with whom I’d rather execute an ambush in a muddy field.” Awww, that’s romantic.

The ending is promising :)

P.S. I liked the part where Will was admiring an actor named Harrison Ford. You know, the silent movie actor, born in 1884. The author must have had so much fun with this.

>110 Alexandra_book_life: Sounds like good fun!

>111 clamairy: It was a relief to read this after Navola, which was no fun at all ;)

>110 Alexandra_book_life: That sounds like the title of a Talking Heads album.

>113 Karlstar: Ha ha, that's true.

Lord of the Flies - done!

Some thoughts:

A book club pick :)

Imagine two aliens landing on Earth, and attempting to study humans. One of them lands in a concentration camp in a totalitarian state, the other in a scout summer camp. They will have very different views of what humans are like. These views will not be untrue; neither will these views be true. They will be limited and one-sided.

Lord of the Flies is a fable of darker sides of human nature (disclaimer: I hate fables). The book is packed with symbols and allusions that I got tired of. I prefer not to be hit over the head with author’s messages. The characters are two-dimensional at best, and I would have preferred to care for them more. I liked Piggy, the voice of reason, very much. There was very obvious fat shaming, though. The bullying was awful. “Piggy was once more the center of social derision so that everyone felt cheerful and normal.”

The grisly, beastly things were true, very plausible, and horrifying. According to the book, this seemed to be the only possible view of human nature, though. The reader who thinks that this is not always true will not be satisfied.

But I thought that the writing was very good. Golding pulls you in, you keep reading almost despite yourself, you cannot let the book go, except to say “what a great sentence”. A saving grace!

“They were twins, and the eye was shocked and incredulous at such cheery duplication.”

“Darkness poured out, submerging the ways between the trees till they were dim and strange as the bottom of the sea.”

The ending has too much of deus ex machina and feels anticlimatic.

One more thing: other reviewers pointed to “the real Lord of the Flies”, a story that is quite different from this book. It’s an interesting read, I’ll say no more.

3 stars!

>115 Alexandra_book_life: Great article! It answered one of the questions I had since I read Lord of the Flies, what kind of person could write such a story? A former schoolmaster makes perfect sense! Of course he sees boys that way! Lol

>115 Alexandra_book_life: Nice to read a story about the good side of human nature.

>116 MrsLee: It does make sense, right? :)

>117 Karlstar: Yes, indeed...

>115 Alexandra_book_life: I don't know how I managed to escape reading Lord of the Flies during my adolescence, but I did. I had no interest in doing it on my own and none of my high school English teachers ever assigned it. I am not sure that anyone could persuade me to do so, now that I'm an adult. The brain just balks and firmly notes that it's not my kind of book, having such a negative perspective as it does.

That said, I did think the Guardian article you link to was interesting!

>120 jillmwo: I think you can do without Lord of the Flies in your life ;)

There should be more stories out there that restore your faith in humanity, right? (Somewhat, that is, I don't think it's possible to have complete faith in humanity ;))

A story is just one person's idea of what might happen so it shouldn't have too much influence on your view of humanity.

>122 jjwilson61: This is true, though I'd like to think there could be or should be more positive ones, so we can hope the positive is more prevalent.

>122 jjwilson61: I think most of us build a view of humanity based on what our day-to-day experience with people has been. I don't have a poor view of humanity as your basic life form ;>) OTOH, I do tend to view some of the social structures under which we operate as being "really sucky". At any rate, my rejection of The Lord of the Flies is simply one instance of refusing to engage with a depressing worldview. I have enjoyed many other fictional worldviews which may or may not be any more realistic in terms of human behavior. Cranford is one example; so is the more recent The Hands of the Emperor.

Edited to add relevant quote from Neil Gaiman: "Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over."

>124 jillmwo: Agreed! I really like the Neil Gaiman quote.

>126 hfglen: That is a truly memorable and shareable quote. I look forward to using it repeatedly; thank you lots.

A short story fell into my lap today, so I read it - The Monks of Appalling Dreadfulness

Apparently it's part of a series of novels, but it didn't matter :)

Some thoughts:

A delicious, fun morsel of 37 pages. I haven’t read anything by this author before - if another one of his comes my way, I’ll probably read it.

The Monks of the title are famous Multiverse assassins. They also wish that someone would finally agree to sign their own death warrant. It would save so much paperwork!

“Which is why we always forge their signatures.”

There is another assassination job waiting. I had a feeling it would not go as planned, because the characters due to be assassinated are having this conversation a few pages later:

“No, it’s your job,” said Nurd. “We took a vote on it.”
“I don’t remember a vote.”
“We had it while you were asleep. We didn’t want to wake you.”

No, things don’t go as planned, lol.

The footnotes were fun. They are very obviously Pratchett wannabees, but still chuckle-worthy.

“If someone says “Hey, come over here and listen to the sound of this crocodile breathing,” the correct answer is “No, thank you.”

3.8 stars, rounded up to 4.

The Stranger Times - done!

Some thoughts:

Yay. What a crazy journey!

Hannah has led a very rich and comfortable life, but now she is on her own, and is out job-hunting.

“Publication seeks desperate human being with capability to form sentences using the English language. No imbeciles, optimists or Simons need apply.”

The publication in question is The Stranger Times - ghosts, UFO’s, you name it, they write about it. A job interview from hell with a boss from hell (Banecroft, ha) follows.

“I’m sorry, do I not have your full attention?”
“Apologies, I was slightly distracted by your office now being on fire.”

She gets the job, of course. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a book 😁 There is a lot of hilarious stuff and the conversations are great. This is a very quick read, but I tried not to go through it too fast – it’s easy to overdose on this kind of humour, it is so for me, at least.

I liked how Hannah was gaining confidence through the book, learning to handle the boss from hell and her co-workers.

“I’m not some dog you can train to do tricks for food, y’know?
“No, you’re a big scary dragon – but I’m the woman with doughnuts. So, you can try for basic manners or you can just be you and go hungry. The choice is yours.”

The characters were very nicely written. I didn’t expect that going in, considering the genre, so it was a pleasant surprise.

You can’t have a newspaper writing about paranormal stuff in a book without weird paranormal stuff beginning to happen. Right? Right. It’s quite scary and heartbreaking, but it does go together with the humour, the author makes it work. (Kudos to the author.) The journalists investigate, the police investigate, and things get exciting. You fly and fly and fly through the book!

There are some unanswered questions by the end, so it’s nice to know that there are more books in this series.

4 stars!

>128 Alexandra_book_life: Welcome to the club of Stranger Times subscribers! It's such a great series! The characters, humour and plots are so perfectly drawn and in balance with each other.

>128 Alexandra_book_life: McDonnell is an author I pre-order books from. Haven't found a stinker yet in either of his series, although there are some I love more than others.

>129 Sakerfalcon: Subscribing to Stranger Times is going to be so much fun! I want to read more books in this series, oh yes I do :)

>130 MrsLee: I can understand why! I am very happy that I have discovered him - thank you, pub.

Lake of Souls - done!

Some thoughts:

A book club pick :)

I love Ann Leckie's work, and this collection does her writing justice.

Lake of Souls - a story about finding yourself; a poignant story of a first contact of sorts. Not everything is explained, but it doesn’t really have to be. It reminded me of the story in the Far Reaches colleciton, only this was better. 4.2 stars.

Footprints- a very short (2 minutes to read, said my Kindle) horror genre mix, featuring a very creepy teddy bear. 4 stars.

Hesperia and Glory- let’s mix old-fashioned mystery, nods to Edgar Rice Burroughs, and darker twists of imagination. The result is pretty cool. 4.3 stars.

Endangered Camp - dinosaurs build a spaceship to go to Mars. Then a meteor strikes Earth. Excellent stuff. 4.6 stars.

Another Word for World - a story about unlikely allies, people trying to co-exist and things lost in translation. Quite brilliant! 5 stars.

The Justified - aliens as Egyptian gods (or something). I’ve read this one before, in another anthology. It was great this time, too. 5 stars.

Bury the Dead - a Thanksgiving dinner with a twist. Very nice, but too short. 4 stars.

The Sad History of a Tearless Onion - a very short funny satire. Nothing special, but fun. 3.6 stars.

Stories from the Imperial Radch Universe:

Night’s Slow Poison - a long space voyage to a hidden planet, a planet hiding from the Raadchai. Is there a spy onboard? A poignant and heartbreaking story. 4.7 stars.

She Commands Me and I Obey - let’s have an Aztec ball game; on a space station, with high deadly stakes, and intrigues behind the scenes. Whoa. 5 stars.

The Creation and Destruction of the World - this is a myth/fairy tale. What does it have to do with the Raadchai universe? Is it one of their legends? Anyway, it wasn’t my cup of tea. 3.5 stars.

Stories from the universe of the Raven Tower:

The God of Au - never trust a god, and don’t make deals with a god. A bleak story with a good ending. 4.3 stars.

The Nalendar - Umri and a very small god (who is a skink) need to leave town and take a river boat together. Things are not what they seem. Adventures ensue. 4.8 stars.

The Snake’s Wife - the intrigues of gods and mortals make for a bleak and bloody story. Leckie is experimenting with gender yet again. 4.6 stars.

Marsh Gods - oh, it’s The Return of Martin Guerre plot! And very well done it is, too. 4.9 stars.

Unknown God - a god is trying to undo a bad bad thing he did and is having a spiritual crisis (oh, my). Lovely, fun, wise. I loved it! 5 stars.

Saving Bacon - a comedy of manners! It features a piglet. A fun story, 4 stars.

Beloved of the Sun - gods’ intrigues with mortals as pawns. Interesting, but I think I might have overdosed on “Raven Tower” stories by the end of this collection. So, 3.9 stars.

The average rating is 4.4, I am rounding up to 4.5 stars.

>128 Alexandra_book_life: Believe it or not they get even better! It's such a fun series. I'm saving the 4th for... I'm not sure what. I guess I just want to know I still have one waiting for me.

>134 clamairy: Oh, that's sooo good to know! Thank you :)))

The Last Duel - done!

Oh my, is this really non-fiction? What a page-turner :)

This is a story of a trial by combat, a duel between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris. The year is 1386. If the prologue doesn’t hook you, I don’t know what will.

We begin with the historical background – king this and duke that, this conquest, that war, intrigues, betrayals, marriage alliances. In unskillful hands, this sort of thing is usually text book boring, but Eric Jager writes so well that it feels like an adventure.

The everyday lives, the descriptions of castles, homes, clothes, weapons, feasts, legal processes are very vivid. It transports you back in time.

The rape of Marguerite, lady Carrouges, is very tough to read about. I could feel her terror and her helplessness. There was also rage. Telling the world (which meant being interrogated many times) and seeking justice took a lot of courage, too.

“Only a few medieval women had the means to raise their voices in protest against the idea that women even enjoyed being taken by force.”

“The prosecution and punishment of rape often depended on the victim’s social class and political clout.”

And it wasn’t really a question of sexual violence as a crime – it was “a property crime against her male guardian.”

Trial by combat is not the best way to obtain justice, but Marguerite and Jean had probably decided that they didn’t have a choice. I did wonder how you go about making such a decision, knowing that if your husband lost, you would die too, as someone accused of bearing false witness…

There are so many fascinating details in The Last Duel:

- Jacques de Gris’ lawyer, Jean Le Coq, kept a professional diary, and it’s one of the oldest surviving casebooks.

“Le Coq, clearly a close observer of people, also notes in his journal that the squire once asked him ‘whether I had doubts concerning him, because he saw me thinking.’ “

- Among other things not allowed during the duel were “any arms that have been forged with spells, charms, enchantments, or any other evil acts”.

And then...

“The two warriors sped toward each other, the sharp steel points of their lances flying through the air before them like deadly missiles. The combined weight of horse, man, armor, and lance put nearly a ton of galloping momentum behind each tip.”

From a contemporary chronicle:
“A feeling of great fear seized all those witnessing the battle. All mouths were stopped; people hardly breathed.”

No, I couldn’t breathe either.

5 knightly stars!

>124 jillmwo:
That is very like the quote I heard some time ago. I do not know the origin; perhaps you do.

"If you want to tell the truth, write fiction. If you want to tell the truth about the present time, write Science Fiction."

When I was at school there were six classes in each year. The state exams set a number of texts that the teacher could select for their class to study and answer questions on in the exam. I believe three classes had to work on Lord of the Flies. I was in a luckier class. Our text was The Card by Arnold Bennett.

>136 Alexandra_book_life: I'm glad you enjoyed it, it sounds intriguing.

>138 Karlstar: It was a very interesting read! I am still thinking about it.

>137 pgmcc: Discussed over early morning chores, my husband and I agreed that while the quote might be something said by Isaac Asimov, neither of us were entirely sure. We'd swear to nothing in court.

>136 Alexandra_book_life: That bit about the lawyer's diary being one of the oldest surviving casebooks is an interesting discovery!

>136 Alexandra_book_life: Your write up about this book was excellent, thank you.

>140 jillmwo:
Thank you for the suggested source. It gives me a direction to start my search.

Apparently the first half comes from Joshua Halberstam: “If you want to tell the truth, write fiction”
Perhaps Asimov added the following element.

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/215593.Joshua_Halberstam

>140 jillmwo: Yes, I thought it was fascinating! It would be interesting to read the whole thing.

>141 MrsLee: Oh, thank you! :) I am happy to hear that.

Clarkesworld issue 209 - done!

This issue was interesting, especially the short story by Isabel J. Kim. But there were too many underwhelming stories, unfortunately.

“Scalp” by H.H. Pak - janitors walk among people in tanks, who are living virtual lives. I think it’s supposed to be poignant, but I didn’t enjoy it at all. 2.5 stars.

“The Flowers That We Intend To Share” by Rajeev Prasad - the end of childhood, sentient mechs, flowers that drug you and creepy families. I liked the feel of this story. 3.9 stars.

“The Enceladus South Pole Base Named after V.I. Lenin” by Zohar Jacobs - an alternative history of sorts, with Soviet colonies on Saturn’s moons. It’s written as old school Soviet sci-fi, but it is subversive, of course. 3.8 stars.

“Kardashev’s Palimpsest” by David Goodman - of post humanity and love spanning millennia. I liked it! 4 stars.

“The Peregrine Falcon Flies West” by Yang Wanqing - This one is a nice mix of combating climate change, aliens, birds and bird-watching, and people refusing to conform. A cool story. 4 stars.

(It’s nice to see more Chinese sci-fi in Clarkesworld! Even when I don’t like a story, it’s still interesting to read something different from my “usual” sci-fi diet.)

“Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole” by Isabel J. Kim - a very vicious and brilliant dialogue with Le Guin’s famous short story. 4.5 stars.

“The Beam Eidolon” by Ryan Marie Ketterer - a story featuring a living planet and stupid humans. I’ve read similar stuff before. 3 stars.

“Lonely Ghosts” by Meghan Feldman - abandoned machine intelligences are trying to be less lonely. Nothing special, 3 stars.

3.5 stars overall :)

As of Saturday evening, we are on vacation. I dived right into vacation mode! It feels wonderful to be lazy and relaxed :)

And here are two morning photos...





I am also reading Tuyo, which is wonderful in so many ways :)))

Beautiful! Enjoy your vacation.

>147 MrsLee: Thank you, thank you :)))

>146 Alexandra_book_life: Very nice! Have a great time.

>146 Alexandra_book_life: Great shots. Enjoy the relaxation.

>149 Karlstar: Thank you! I am planning to :)

>150 pgmcc: Thank you, thank you :)))

>146 Alexandra_book_life: Great shots. Where is this scenery?

>153 hfglen: Thank you! :) We are in the south of Spain at the moment.

Tuyo - done!

Some thoughts:

How easily this book pulled me into its embrace…

I like it when my genre fiction transcends its borders and bursts from its constraints. This is such a novel.

Ryo, a young Ugaro warrior of the winter country, is left as a tuyo, a sacrifice for his people, to Aras, a victorious Lau warlord of the summer land. He doesn’t seem to be eager to put Ryo to death, though.

This is about the journey from enmity and bitterness to trust and friendship, a journey that is touching, cruel, frightening, heartwarming and wise. The world is harsh and these are harsh people who will be ruthless if necessary. But the willingness to learn was there, and so was the need to do everything with honour and justice.

The world building was so very interesting, and left me wanting more. I want to know everything there is to know about the peoples who live in this universe! The sorcery was truly terrifying, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like that before.

Ryo’s journey (this is also a coming of age story, among other things) is delightfully heartbreaking to follow. Being in his head is… Wonderful? Scary? Exasperating? Really nice? It’s all of the above and more.

“I had not realized how much I depended on any sign of goodwill from him. Still, I saw that it must be so for a man captive among enemies, and decided that I need not consider this a sign of disgraceful cowardice.”

I want to quote so many conversations!

“It’s not your responsibility to make me feel more comfortable about what I am doing to you, Ryo.”

I love books about people trying to be good in the face of dreadful events and horrible choices. I loved Ryo, I loved Aras. You are both awesome, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Their dreadful journey through the winter land after very traumatic events; the healing afterwards – these are the kind of pages that stay in your mind long after you finished your book.

Oh, Ryo’s family is quite awesome too. It took a lot of chapters until we met, but it was worth the wait. Here you have Ryo and Aras meeting Ryo’s mother.

“So you had won my son’s trust,” observed my mother. “How long did it take you?”

If I am to have any complaints at all, it would be that the evil villain of the story is very eeeeevil indeed. All the other characters are so wonderfully drawn, but the evil one is mostly just eeeevil I forgive this – easily, easily.

The latter part of the book is very exciting, very dark, very emotional. The ending feels like a reward ;)

I am very happy to have discovered this author and this series. There are more books! This includes those with Ryo’s POV. Good, I do need more Ryo in my life.

5 stars!

>155 Alexandra_book_life: broken record here chiming in to sing Tuyo praises. I love this series and so many of the characters!

>155 Alexandra_book_life: Oh, I am so happy to hear that :)))

Note to self: when in Spain and ordering a dessert you are not familiar with, don't assume it will be the same size as the menu photo will lead you to believe. This is called torrijas - brioche, caramel, cinnamon, cream, ice cream on the side. Husband and I should have shared one instead. It was delicious, though.

That looks delicious.

>159 Narilka: We liked it very much :)

>158 Alexandra_book_life: That looks great! I hope your trip is going well.

>146 Alexandra_book_life: Beautiful!

>155 Alexandra_book_life: I'm tempted. Oh - Rachel Neumeier; I like what I've read of her books.

>161 Karlstar: Thank you :) We are having a great time.

>162 humouress: Thank you, thank you.
I'll be reading more by Rachel Neumeier, I liked Tuyo very much and I have the next two books in the series on my kindle :)

Derring-Do for Beginners - done!

Here we are, back in the Nine Worlds! These are the beginnings of the famous Red Company (or rather, its first tentative baby steps). This is a story in which not very much happens… and at the same time it is so full of emotions, poignancy, longing, people trying to be good to each other. It’s just lovely.

I finally got to meet Damian, who was only mentioned in other books. It was a happy meeting. Damian is neurodiverse! He is genius swordsman, a sword fighting geek, he has an amazing visual memory, is badass, he is awesome. It’s just that he is sixteen and has no idea how awesome he really is. Knowing that you are different and just wanting to belong is difficult.

Oh, and here is young Jullanar! It’s delicious, being the reader who knows what the butterfly struggling in the cocoon will look like. She is uncertain what to do with her life, unmoored. Those university entrance exams did not go that well, so she is to take a veeery long journey to her university. Do I smell adventure? Things don’t go as planned (of course), so Jullanar gets a mission. I loved the description of her journey, the experience of leaving the Empire of Astandalas (while there still was such a thing) for a different world, and coming to see her Aunt Maude. And then it just so happens that several people decide that it would be good for Damian to have someone new to talk to, while Jullanar can have lessons in local language and customs. (Me: giggle-giggle-giggle.) The way Damian interprets his promise to keep Jullanar safe is… chef’s kiss!

The mingling of Damian/Jullanar POV’s in the rest of the book is wonderful and so well done!

“Yes, he could take her to the quiet places. He would wait and make sure she was what he thought before he took her to his secret places, but she had looked at the water and the land and the light on the water and the fragrance of the purple irises rising up and blushed for their beauty, and Damian was so, so glad…”

“She wasn’t sure she could describe the quiet beauty of the place Damian had taken her to, or the care with which he had positioned her hand on the sword, her feet on the ground, her arms in the air. He had corrected her pronunciation and frowned thoughtfully at her and acted out motion words, and she was tired and footsore and her arms were aching, but she had held a sword for the first time and, secretly, adored it.”

Damian’s family not understanding him and feeling exasperated is very sad and upsetting. The scene where they finally talk things out is very well done. And how awesome is Jullanar, really? She observes. She thinks. She wonders. She realizes what causes one of Damian’s problems and comes up with a solution - it broke my heart, but in a good way.

About 70% into the book, Jullanar and Damian meet Fitzroy... in the same way as some other characters do in The Return of Fitzroy Angursell Oh my, is this a trend? This was so lovely that I had to turn off my kindle immediately, to savour. Aaand they start having adventures! It is a delight that almost made me cry. Young Fitzroy is another butterfly struggling out of its cocoon… It’s touching and beautiful.

“Shall we be friends until the end of time, Jullanar?” “Oh, and beyond, most certainly,” Jullanar replied, giggling...”

The ending is quite perfect. Where is the next book in *this* series? What do you mean there isn’t one yet? I’ll be waiting… (I’ll just read other things by Victoria Goddard in the meantime.)

5 stars!

>165 Alexandra_book_life: I'm seriously peeved. Victoria Goddard first came over my horizon when I saw Jo Walton's description of The Hands of the Emperor as "ineluctantly Canadian". But ... No Australian publisher has picked her up, and no local library has the books. I can get them from Amazon here but the prices are extortionate. I don't know anybody who travels to Canada, and could possibly bring back umpteen pounds of big books. I know she sells ebooks direct, but I'd prefer to have real copies. What to do?

>166 haydninvienna: Oh, what a pity! Maybe you can get your library to purchase some books? I think you can buy real copies from her website as well, but I am not sure about shipping costs.

In the Company of Gentlemen: A Tale of the Nine Worlds - done!

I couldn’t bring myself to leave the Nine Worlds after Derring-Do for Beginners, so I read this short story. The former was like a huge glass of cold water on a hot day, drunk slowly. The latter was like a really good tea, made very strong – so you take one sip and say – wow. You will need some familiarity with the Nine Worlds to enjoy it properly, but what a punch these 40 pages pack, and I am so grateful for it.
Anyway, Uncle Zorey is asked to check how nephew Colin is doing at that expensive university, because Colin’s mother worries.
“He could see that Colin was trying to become a good man.
Zorey wiped his eyes hastily…”

(There is a very familiar character who makes a cameo appearance! Nice.)

To give Colin some much needed encouragement, Zorey decides to tell a story… about how he met the Red Company. Damian is in this story (yay), and he does amazing, miraculous things. This is truly the making of a legend.

“I’ve never forgotten that trust, how they had confidence that their captain would get them safely out of the pickle they were in. I think it was then I started to realise why people loved them.”

Oh, the way Zorey tells his story! I love his honesty and how he had no compassion for his young, flawed and damaged self. He was a person who hated beautiful things because he had no trust left in his soul. And then sword fights that cut your soul open come to you.

Such a lovely ending!

5 stars!

>165 Alexandra_book_life: Darn. Obviously I need to get more of these; I only have (and recently read) Stargazy Pie.

>166 haydninvienna: (Wait, are you in Austria or Australia?) Abbey's/ Galaxy in Sydney seems to have some that aren't too exorbitant.

>169 humouress: Australia. Dammit, I never even thought of Abbeys, although I have dropped a good few $$ there in the past. The hardback of The Hands of the Emperor is cheaper from Abbeys than from Amazon, and I suspect that for a book as long as that an MMP would be awkward reading. (Kinokuniya in Sydney can supply the paperback as well, cheaper than Abbeys.) Unfortunately there's small chance of my getting to Sydney any time soon.

Update: Amazon UK has the hardback for £28, which makes it by far the cheapest. Of course shipping it to Australia would wipe that out. But most conveniently my daughter will be visiting soon, and the book should be delivered to her in time for her to bring it to me. So I've taken the plunge. Almost wish though that Ms Goddard wasn't so prolific ...

>170 haydninvienna: Glad to hear you were able to find a decent price. Have you checked Blackwell's? No idea if they even service your region but, here in the states, I can often buy from them cheaper than elsewhere as they don't collect use taxes and don't charge shipping, (they appear to keep stock in an east-coast facility).

>146 Alexandra_book_life: Gorgeous photos! I'm glad you are having such a good time. The dessert looks perfect.
(I really need to get back to reading more Goddard!)

>172 clamairy: Thank you so much :)))

Nikoles - done!

The second book in Tuyo series is really a prequel, in which Nikoles, a side character from Tuyo becomes out main POV character.

Me: what, no Ryo? Where is Ryo? I want Ryo! But we reconciled quickly, the book and me.

It starts with a traumatic event Nikoles tells about in the previous book. Overpowered by anger and desire for vengeance, he made a wrong decision. Experiencing the consequences from Nikoles’ perspective was very brutal. A bitter conflict between the Lau and the Ugaro is brewing.

Enter Aras, Lord Gaur, to handle the situation. It was interesting to see Aras through Nikoles’ eyes (Aras was busy being awesome and clever, of course), and seeing the summer country from a Lau’s perspective. I liked the extra layers and colour it brought to the series.

Nikoles is attracted to competence, I think, and he wants to do right things so badly, after having done the wrong thing. He puts himself forward and starts helping Aras… and telling it like it is:

“But his words could be taken as permission to speak freely, if a man chose to take them that way and had no sense of self-preservation. Nikoles took a breath, straightened his shoulders, looked the scepter-holder in the eye, and said in his most level, matter-of-fact tone, “Lord Gaur, you are being a fool. …”
Aras takes it rather well, but does it his way anyway.

Nikoles’ family connection to the winter country and the Ugaro is a poignant story (and one that I would love to read), and serves as a good plot device in the book’s present. Perhaps there were too many coincidences, but I still liked how it came together.

Nikoles gets lessons in justice; lessons in responsibility; lessons in belonging. It was touching. I loved seeing him being quietly competent as he was adjusting to his new life. I was inhaling the book by this point.

“That was what this solidity was; he recognized it now. It was confidence in his place with Lord Gaur and with this company; a surety that he had come to rest in a place that would become a home.”

I am looking forward to the rest of the series!

5 stars :)

>174 Alexandra_book_life: Goodness, you're dangerous. The book is unashamed competence porn by the sound of it. You got me a multiple BB hit with Victoria Goddard and now this?

Oh it's TOTALLY competence porn.

>175 haydninvienna: Yay, I am taking this as a compliment! :))) And indeed, as reconditereader said, it is competence porn ;)

We got back from Spain on Sunday, it's been wonderful. (Back to work for now, but things are pretty calm, since many people are on vacation and I can just do my stuff in peace.)

We didn't do much sightseeing, we just stayed in one place, with long walks to and from the beach, enjoying the weather, great food, nice wine (with cheese), books, getting up early to see the sunrise. I've been to some wonderful places in Spain before, so I was perfectly fine with having a very lazy vacation. We all needed that! We did visit a very tiny and very eclectic local museum, featuring amphoras, salt-making things, chocolate-making things, movie posters, old cameras, old interiors, some paintings, and a collection of toys.

Our little boy was so happy during these two weeks, it was such a pleasure to watch him.

This is an early morning walk to the beach, with some mist :)


And this is one of the five or six sunrises we had managed to see :)


Since we were close to a nature reserve, we did a lot of involuntary bird watching. They were all over the place :)



I like this kind of older buildings very much, I think they are romantic :)

Just started reading: Easy Life in Kamusari. It was a BB from Sakerfalcon, and it's a good one. So, thank you :)

>177 Alexandra_book_life: Intended as such.

>178 Alexandra_book_life: Mad envy. I love Spain. Mrs H and I seriously considered moving there, but decided we couldn't handle the longer-term visa issues. We would have been OK for the first 2 years IIRC, but uncertain after that. At our age, that's something I don't want to have to deal with. (Thanks to Brexit and BoJo, I no longer have EU citizenship.)

>178 Alexandra_book_life: Wonderful photos. Thank you for sharing. I would love some details on the cheeses you ate when you get the chance, please.

>180 haydninvienna: I am sorry about all the visa issues...

>181 clamairy: And thank you!
Ah, the cheeses... Let me get my wits together and I'll write something up. Promise :)

>183 Alexandra_book_life: Thank you. No rush!

>178 Alexandra_book_life: Very nice, thank you for the pictures! Ditto on the cheeses.

Nice pics! Spain is a bucket list item for me.

>174 Alexandra_book_life: Oh - I hadn't realised that it's a 9 book series. Gosh - that's an investment in terms of $$$ and shelf real estate.

>187 humouress: I know! I've got the first two as e-books, so there is that, at least...

>181 clamairy: They make wonderful cheeses in Spain! I tend to like them all. The ones we bought and greedily consumed were all from a regular supermarket :)

This one is "semi-cured", so aged about three months. Mild and nice :)


Another "semi-cured" one, but made from sheep milk only, not a mixture like the first cheese. Still mild, but with stronger flavour. I liked it a lot.


Sheep milk and rosemary! What's not to love?


"Matured" sheep cheese, so this one has been aged for quite a while, maybe a year, maybe slightly less/more. The stronger the taste, the more I like it.


Cow, sheep, goat :) This one is both "matured" and "toasted" (I don't know how.) The taste is quite strong, with an even stronger aftertaste. It's kind of chewy? This is probably one of my favourite cheeses, and we brought a piece home, too :)

I would love to taste each and every one of those.

>189 Alexandra_book_life: Thank you for the photos and descriptions! There can never be too much cheese talk.

Mmmmm cheese...

>189 Alexandra_book_life: Madonna had a song that began "Last night I dreamed of San Pedro ...". Now I hear it in my head with "manchego" substituted for the last two words ....

>193 haydninvienna: Does Madonna know that she made a song about cheese? Anyway, there should be more songs about cheese!

>190 reconditereader: >191 MrsLee: >192 littlegeek: Thank you, everyone :)
No, you can't have too much cheese talk!

Girly Drinks: World History of Women and Alcohol - done!

Some thoughts:

So, this book wanted to take me on a journey, covering thousands of years, to explore the overlooked contributions of women in the history of alcohol – brewing, distilling, selling, serving, consuming, in different eras and cultures. Challenging patriarchal narratives is a pretty good idea, right?

“Who decided that drinking was a gendered act?”. and “Why is marking a drink feminine a bad thing in the first place?” Let’s dig in, I said.

We start with the first primates and ancient Mesopotamia, while the last chapters deal with modern times. There are lots of fascinating anecdotes and historical facts: the women of Mesopotamia who brewed beer and managed large-scale alcohol production; Hildegard von Bingen, a medieval nun who was the first to write about beer scientifically; the beginnings of gendering of alcohol seem to originate from the Code of Hammurabi (nice girls don’t go to taverns, it said, or something to that effect); the laws of the early Roman Empire that prohibited women from drinking. This is all both enlightening and infuriating. Also, the pattern through the ages seems to be as follows: women have a good and profitable thing going here, they are getting independent; patriarchy panics and takes it all.

O’Meara’s ambitious scope works against the book, though. There are frequent jumps between different stories. It felt rushed and jarring and pulled me out of the book. Some things that the author chooses to focus on, such as Prohibition, bar culture, and cocktails in the US were not very interesting to me (imo, of course). Meanwhile, we breezed through topics that I find more intriguing, such as the sake-makers of Japan or how the colonial and patriarchal structures intertwine when colonizers try to control indigenous women’s brewing.

The tone can sometimes come across as condescending, especially when the author assumes that her readers lack knowledge because “they went to American schools”. Sweeping statements like “Good riddance to Greco-Roman culture and its watery wine” feel out of place, they annoy and distract.

The last few chapters, which focus on modern-day female master blenders, brewers, and cocktail makers, don’t feel like a narrative any more, they are more like a list of accomplishments in a CV. They were a chore to read and I was impatient to finish. It’s a shame, because these women are pretty amazing.

I did learn lots of new things, so I can be satisfied with that.

3 stars!

Thanks for that, Alexandra - I have been eyeing Girly Drinks for a while, but now I think I'm going to pass. I'd be annoyed for the same reasons as you and want more historical and sociological information that it looks like she provides.

>189 Alexandra_book_life: Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! They all look delicious.

>196 Alexandra_book_life: I guess I'll be skipping this, too. I don't handle condescension well at all.

>197 Bookmarque: I had very high expectations, but it wasn't quite the book I wanted it to be.

>198 clamairy: You are most welcome! :)))

I had trouble with the tone in Girly Drinks. It's a pity, because the facts were fascinating. Oh well, there are other non-fiction books out there ;)

>196 Alexandra_book_life: I am another who would pass on that book. I do enjoy history, hadn't heard of this book, but I'm glad to know so I don't waste time or money on it.

I listened to an audio, can't remember whether it was a Great Courses, or another book, about history through the major beverages, from beer to Coca cola. I liked it, but it was light history. I think sometimes when an author picks a focus like that, the history can get bent to serve their purpose.

>201 MrsLee: I had a feeling the author was bending history a tiny bit, but I couldn't tell how much.

The Easy Life in Kamusari - done!

Some thoughts:

I was enchanted by Kamusari, a remote mountain village in modern-day Japan. Kamusari is a place where time slows down and traditions are important.

The Easy Life in Kamusari is a slice-of-life pastoral novel with a touch of magical realism. The story follows Yuki Hirano, a recent high school graduate who doesn’t know what to do with his life. His parents blackmail him (the nature of the blackmail is hilarious) into going to Kamusari to work as a forestry trainee.

Yuki is used to the hustle and bustle of his city, Yokohama. I really liked how the author let me experience the atmosphere of Kamusari through Yuki’s eyes: dense forests, rice fields, and traditional Japanese farmhouses. At first he is bored, he hates the village and the difficult work. Yuki’s transformation from a nonchalant city boy to someone who loves forestry and Kamusari way of life is very touching. The descriptions of the villagers and interactions between characters are quirky and humane. It adds a lot of charm to the book.

“Life here strikes me as pretty unusual. The people are funny in a way. They seem so mild-mannered, but then they’ll quietly say or do something totally destructive.”

“The incoherence of a crazy quilt, the orderliness of spun silk: these two opposites were subtly interwoven into village life.”

I have a lot to say about Miho’s and Yoki’s (Yoki is one of the forest workers) marriage, but I’ll just let Yuki observe instead:
“Miho, walking alongside me, murmured, “I suppose you think I am crazy?” Um, yeah, not being an option, I said nothing.”

The magical realism elements are not a big part of the story, but they add a lovely flavour. There are gods and spirits living on Mount Kamusari – they are essential to village life, but they are only there when the story requires it. Forestry is just as essential to Kamusari and its people – without the forest, there would be no village.

The writing is simple and concise, yet poetic. I loved the descriptions of spring, the summer festival and the awesome drama of the autumn festival. The slow pace lets the reader savour every page.

If you want to read a heartwarming coming-of-age story, then Kamusari is the right place. It made me happy.

4.5 stars!

>189 Alexandra_book_life: *whispers* 'Are the enforcers around?'

>203 Alexandra_book_life: Never heard of it, don't usually read this genre - but I'm tempted, thanks.

>204 humouress: 😁😁😁

You're welcome! It was a very nice book.

You've had an excellent reading streak recently - all those 5 star books! I'm glad you enjoyed Kamusari, it's such a nice read that restores your faith in humanity.
Your holiday sounds wonderful too! Those cheeses! Mmmmm ...

>206 Sakerfalcon: Thank you! :))) I am also pretty happy about it all.

And thank you for the Kamusari BB! Much appreciated.

I finished Stone Blind

Some thoughts:

A book club pick :)

“You’re the one who thinks anything that doesn’t look like you must be a monster.”

Natalie Haynes retells the myth of Medusa. This is a story of how we create monsters and who we think of as monsters, of rape victims being blamed for what has been done to them.

I love Greek mythology and I love seeing it retold. I had enjoyed Haynes’ non-fiction Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths and came to this book with high expectations. I ended up liking the what but not the how – the author’s take on the myth, but not the execution.

The things I appreciated about the book were:

👌 The way the Gorgons, Euryale and Sthenno, learned to take care of their mortal baby sister, Medusa, when she suddenly came into their lives.

“Sthenno had never felt a moment of fear in her life before she was responsible for a child.”
“This, she knew, was love. And she felt it even though she did not want it.”

👌 The scene in which Medusa meets Poseidon is very suffocating, very scary, and very emotional. It was heartbreaking how brave and discerning Medusa was.

“Imagine being a god, she thought, and still needing to tell everyone how impressive you were.”

👌 Haynes told Danaë‘s story very well, in a way that was humane and true.

My disappointed three stars are because of:

☹️ I was not fond of the writing, its simplicity created a detachment that kept pulling me out of the story. Sometimes I felt strong emotions, and sometimes I felt nothing at all and wanted the author to just get on with it.

☹️ The snarky dialogues sounded very 21st century. It was supposed to be amusing, and sometimes it was. But most of the time it didn’t work for me at all. It was simply annoying. (A random clever person might tell me that if I wanted hexameter, I should have just reread Homer. They would have a point.)

☹️ Gigantomachy chapter was meant to be riveting, but amazingly, I was bored.

☹️ Dictys, Danaë‘s rescuer, is the only decent male character in the book. He is probably asexual. I wonder if this was intentional? If yes, then I want to throw something and talk about the difference between toxic masculinity and masculinity in general.

☹️ All right, so Perseus was a spoiled, stupid, incompetent, cowardly brat. “Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence”, right? Fair enough, it’s Haynes’ retelling. But I felt that the approach was too simplistic and an easy way out for the author. Let’s make a hero into a villain, easy-peasy. At the same time, Perseus’ interactions with Hermes and Athene were priceless and hilarious – and they happened right after the narrator derisively told me not to have any sympathy for Perseus. This was jarring!

☹️ For a retelling of Medusa’s story, there was too little Medusa in this book. Would this novel have been better as a novelette, with a tighter plot?

So far, I think I prefer Haynes’ non-fiction to her fiction.

3 stars.

>208 Alexandra_book_life: I’ve been on the fence about trying this one. Retellings like this are often hit or miss for me, as I’m often very picky about them. Your disappointments make me think this wouldn’t work for me, particularly your point about the difference between toxic masculinity and masculinity in general. I’ve encountered that issue in a lot of newer books. Sometimes I can get past it, but other times it can ruin the entire book and put me off trying anything else by the author.

>209 ludmillalotaria: Retellings are tricky things! Sometimes you accept the author's interpretation, and sometimes you don't, sometimes it's the writing, etc.

Have you read Madeline Miller's books? I enjoyed her retellings very much.

>210 Alexandra_book_life:, Yes, I’ve read Circe and loved it. I had a mixed reaction to Song of Achilles, primarily because I have a pretty strong vision and opinions on many of the characters which was hard to let go of to fully appreciate some of Miller’s choices. I still enjoyed it, but not as much as the reviewers who loved it.

Ok, you've done me another service, sister. I've read 2 books from Natalie Haynes, the one you mention and the one about Greek/Roman goddesses, but now see I can stop there. I, too, have a hard time with any assertive masculine trait being labeled as toxic these days. Surely there is such a thing, but masculinity in itself isn't benign or harmful; ditto for femininity. I've always said my husband is the most manly man I've ever met in some ways, but he's never pushy with it or overbearing as those are traits he doesn't posses. I think we often mix things that have nothing to do with a gender traits themselves such as pride, fear, assertiveness, congeniality etc. I got some of that with Haynes's other books, but she also applied it to the women, so it wasn't so blatant.

>211 ludmillalotaria: Nice to hear! I remember that I loved Circe, more than Song of Achilles, mainly because of the characters. But I enjoyed the latter as well - but I can understand how difficult it can be to let go of your own vision on familiar characters.

>212 Bookmarque: You are welcome, then! :) I completely agree with your points.

I am still interested in her book about goddesses, though. After that I will see. There are many other Greek mythology retellings out there.

>208 Alexandra_book_life: I had grabbed this one from Audible during a sale. I haven't read any of her fiction before. Hopefully it won't feel as simplistic as an audiobook. I prefer to read complicated prose with my eyeballs, but my ears don't mind fluff so much.

>215 clamairy: Hopefully, you will enjoy it more than I did :)

Sleeping Worlds Have No Memory - done!

Some thoughts:

“There are so many stories I wish I could tell you, simple and funny and sad ones. I find myself remembering jokes because they might’ve made you laugh. And even though time is sand, when I am not looking closely, I still get these brief bursts of hope: I’ll come home, and I’ll tell you a story.”

I liked Tower of Mud and Straw, so I was interested in reading a novel version of it. Part I here is an extended version of the novella, and my memory tells me that there has been more editing, with the text tightened up, the characters made more vivid.

Shea Ashcroft is a disgraced minister, after he refused to massacre a rioting crowd. He is sent away from the court to oversee the building of the largest and highest tower in the world. It’s supposed to be an airship defense project, but it’s just a monstrosity of human hubris. When Shea arrives, he is not welcome.

There will be intrigues, assassination attempts, ancient legends come true, and a lot of tragedy.

I had a much better feel for the characters here than in the novella. I did not remember Brielle at all, and now I will not forget – so much poignancy, so much hurt, so much courage. She would be awesome in a book all her own.

I liked Shea and Lena together, their conversations, the small humane things that in the end meant both so little and so much. I don’t remember liking the romance as much in the novella version.

Shea’s character arc is about guilt and responsibility, about finally finding the right things to do.

The intermission between parts one and two, telling Aidan’s story, was extremely well done. I like having more insight into side characters.

The writing is so vivid, so beautiful, so evocative. It made me want to lose myself in this world. The book kept calling to me while I was doing other things. The more I read, the more I descended into a dream, a fever dream, a nightmare. It was eerie. Ghostly. At the same time, there is a lot of plot (a lot!), and action keeps you on your toes.

I might have wished for slightly better world building, but it was a minor thought, quick and fleeting. In the dreamy landscape I was in, perhaps it did not matter. Some things were very obvious parallels, but I understand why they were there.

“Evil wasn’t even in the crown prince: it hid in the silent consent, in every nod of approval and every “yes”.

About 84%, I began to read slower, pushing on the brakes. Suddenly, I was afraid to be let down. How was everything to be wrapped up? Well, the book did not let me down.

The ending was satisfying, with a sudden touch of the ridiculous that worked, amazingly enough.

4.5 stars!

Thanks a lot to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this ARC!