Six Books in a Week! 🥳👏

 

    The Golden Yarn is the third book in the MirrorWorld Series by Cornelia Funke. It is not the last book in the series, and the others are still waiting to be translated into English. So, I need to work on learning German. Other than the book ending on somewhat of a cliffhanger, it raced along with unforeseen plot twists and turns. I get the sense the series wasn't planned out from the beginning because each book has new characters needed to solve present problems. It works. 

🧚‍♂️🧝‍♂️🪡🦋

    This short book (129 pages) is powerful. Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan feels longer than it is. The main character, Bill Furlong, delivers coal in a small Irish town. It's a busy time, right before Christmas. He discovers something that troubles him and is unsure what to do about it. Small Things Like These could be melodramatic--unwed mothers, Christmas, powerful villains--but in Keegan's deft hands, this story accumulates tension as Bill Furlong's various obligations are in conflict. I know what I want him to do and understand what it will cost him. Keegan does a lot in 129 pages.

🎄👩‍👦⛪️

     In P. Djeli Clark's novella, A Dead Djinn in Cairo, what starts as a mysterious death becomes a race to save the world. Clark creates a world in early 19th-century Egypt, no longer occupied by the British but now inhabited by djinns, ghouls, and angels. The eccentric investigator from the Ministry of Alchemy, Fatma el-Sha'arawi, is investigating the mysterious death of a djinn. The deeper she digs, the more dangerous her situation grows. 

🧞‍♂️👼🧟‍♂️

If you liked Andy Weir's The Martian, you will probably like Kate Hope Day's In the Quick. I was surprised to discover that it is based on Jane Eyre! However, it makes sense. An intelligent, quirky woman is sent away by her aunt to a special school--that just happens to be for astronauts in training. June possesses a mechanical brilliance and the firm will to keep going despite opposition. She is the only person who believes that the missing presumed dead astronauts might be alive and could be rescued. Kate Hope Day writes a tight plot with a fierce central character. I enjoyed the melding of gothic fiction and sci-fi.

🚀🧑‍🚀🪐🌎

    The Dark Lord's Daughter by Patricia C. Wrede is a clever middle-grade fantasy. Kayla, her adopted mother, and her little brother are pulled into a different world, where Kayla is the lost daughter of the former Dark Lord. She is received with mixed emotions and motives. Everyone expects her to exert her power by killing her rivals and torturing her minions. She's not into it. Her desire is to return home. She has allies in her adopted mother and brother. Her tablet has become her familiar in the form of a flying monkey. Wrede has several plot "time bombs" that bring tension and propel the story. 

🏰🪄📱🍕

 

    Benjamin Stevenson is great at writing wry, comical murder mysteries. His debut novel, Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (reviewed here: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2023/08/great-mystery-and-amusing-short-stories.html), was the best mystery novel I read in 2023. His latest book, Everyone on This Train is a Suspect, continues with the same unlucky protagonist, Ern. He is at a writer's conference on a famous train in "Australia," The Ghan. Ern teaches mystery writing and follows closely to "the rules" of writing a fair play mystery novel. He keeps the reader periodically apprised of what he doing. At 20,000 words, the author should have introduced the murderer and used their name several times. Then, he listed the main characters and the number of times their names have been used. I find it transparent but also a red herring because I'm diverted into thinking about whose name has been mentioned the most instead of who's the killer. It's cleverly done.

🕵️‍♂️🖋️🚞🛤️🔎

Theology, Murder, and Fantasy--Typical Week

 

    Someone recommended Unoffendable: How Just One Change Can Make All of Life Better by Brant Hansen, and I've begrudgingly read it. I am suspicious of subtitles that say one change can make all of life better. I found it to be even-handed and generous. I frequently circle around the question of whether anger is good or bad, helpful or destructive. (I tend to be a black-and-white thinker. Surprise!) Hansen gave good arguments, especially for followers of Christ, to examine their anger and see if it is self-justifying or a check engine light pointing to a problem. This book is short, full of stories, and thought-provoking. It is worth reading and considering.

😡😤🕊️

    Lindsey Davis writes historical mysteries that take place in Ancient Rome, and they are terrific. I have been reading her Roman mysteries for over 30+ years. That's a long time. She doesn't disappoint. This week, I read #10 in the Flavia Albia series, Desperate Undertaking. This series is best read in order but optional. Desperate Undertaking is the tale of a serial killer with a fondness for theater and cruelty. Long-time readers will encounter characters from past adventures. Davis's previous series, Marcus Didius Falco, is about Albia's adopted father, who also solved crimes. If you have lots of time or want to read interesting, informative books about Rome involving murder, Lindsey Davis is for you.     

Here is a link to previous Flavia Albia books I've reviewed:

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Flavia+Albia

🎭🔍🐻

    This will be the first week in a long time that I haven't read a T. Kingfisher. I went online and typed, "If you like T. Kingfisher, you will like _______? We used to do this at the bookstore to find recommendations for people who wanted a book close to an author they liked. The all-knowing internet produced the author Cornelia Funke. Hurray! I've read her Ink Heart series and liked it a great deal. The past four days have been spent consuming her Mirrorworld series. The first book, Reckless, starts with William following his older brother, Jacob, into a mirror world where he is immediately infected by a curse that begins to turn his flesh, heart, and mind into a living stone. Jacob must use all his learned skills as a treasure hunter to find a cure for William. A cure that none of the withes, magicians, or fairies have been able to create. The second book, Fearless, continues the story, focusing on Jacob and his shape-shifting companion, Vixen, as they search for a powerful crossbow able to defeat entire armies. They aren't the only ones desperately needing to find this weapon of mass destruction. 

    This book reminds me of Star Wars. It has multiple plots, wars, a hint of romance, and a gritty, dangerous world. 

🏰🦄🧚‍♀️🧌🧙‍♀️

🛣️ Road Trips 📚 Mystery 😱Horror

    April's travel book for book club is On The Road by Jack Kerouac. I had heard of this book but had never read it, and a benefit of book club is exposure to books I might not choose. It is a book about travel both exteriorly by bus, car, and hitchhiking back and forth across the USA, and interiorly, away from conservative values and the confinement of society's expectations like paying your bills, being faithful to your spouse, and supporting your children. It is described as the voice of the Beat Generation and its influence on American culture. It is a book to read to have a window into the upheaval of the late 50s and 60s. I didn't like On The Road because I found it dishonest. There is no free life; someone will have to pay the cost of food, gas, and babies. Kerouac's idea of freedom is self-centered and comes at the cost of someone else taking on the debt.

    In contrast to other books I've read on travel, Wild, Eat, Pray, Love, and Travels with Charley give the writers an understanding of themselves and others; the result of Kerouac's trip feels like a spiral downward. His travel catalyst is his friend, Dean Moriarty, who abandons him and also fascinates him in turn. Dean is the main protagonist and the most exciting character. When he's not around, things are less interesting. Overall, I'm glad to have read On The Road because I won't have to ever read it again.

🗺️🚘👍🛣️

    I read The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield many years ago, but I didn't recognize the book until about halfway through. I couldn't remember how it ended! It feels like I'm not long from hiding my own Easter eggs. The plot of this excellent mystery is complex so I will give myself a break for not quite remembering the title. The book fits into a gothic mystery category with a crumbling house, orphan twins, and mysterious old women. It has surprising turns and mysteries within mysteries. A big plus is the protagonist works in a bookshop, and there is much book talk. I recommend reading it twice!

👩‍🦰👩‍🦰🏚️📚

 

    Speaking of gothic and adding horror brings me to T. Kingfisher's book The Twisted Ones. She has several titles--A House with Good Bones and The Hollow Places--that take place in the American South and are spooky weird. Here is a link to my reviews of the others.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1658929891i/70401.jpg

    The Twisted Ones follows Kingfisher's gothic horror formula of the female protagonist with a recent break-up, goes south to help or be helped by a relative, and lives in a creepy house that turns out to be a portal to horrible things. However, the book is populated with weirdly wonderful characters and evil villains that give the plot suspense. I like the heroes and dislike the villains. 

As a side note, if Kingfisher's actual grandmother is as bad as her written grandmothers, she's crafted an excellent revenge. 

    This is the last Kingfisher book for a while. I'm still missing a few, but I will have to find them outside my usual channels. Fortunately, there are many good books in the world that I still want to read.

💀😱🐶🌲

⚔️ More T. Kingfisher (Help, I Running Out!), 🪦Middleschoo Horror-ish, 🎑 and a Novel About Jimbocho, Tokyo 📚

 

    As I've read most of T. Kingfisher's backlog, I've done it out of order, reading what has come available on Libby. Mostly, it hasn't been a problem. There is an occasional reference that I don't get, but most of her books, even in series, can be read out of sequence. The Clocktaur War duology is the set of books establishing her Paladin universe. Clockwork Boys and The Wonder Engine set up  The Saint Steel series as well as Swordheart. Kingfisher's works have a distinctive style and repeating elements. There is reluctant romance, humourous gnoles, hidden backstories to reveal, a road trip, and the forces of evil to defeat. I knew it would all come right in the end, but I didn't know how it would all come right. A forger--Slate; a disgraced paladin--Caliban; an assassin--Brenner; and a monk scientist--Learned Edmund, must work together to defeat what no one else, including the army, has been able to stop, the Clockwork Boys. If they don't or refuse, they will be eaten by their demon tattoos. Well played, Ms. Kingfisher.

🤖🖊️⚔️🔪🦡

       The Doll Bones by Holly Black is horror-lite for middle schoolers. Three friends since elementary school, but are now in middle school. Change is inevitable, and it's scary. Black describes the turmoil of having a foot in two boats: who you've been and who you are becoming. Things that defined them as elementary kids are now "babyish." Black demonstrates how the skills from playing pretend and making up stories are still valuable and necessary.

                                 ⛵️🏴‍☠️👑🚍🪦

    I love reading books, and the next level up from reading a good book is reading a good book about someone who loves reading good books. Days at Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa, translated by Eric Ozawa, is that sort of book. It is a novel about a young woman who suffers a heartbreak and falls into a depression. Her uncle invites her to come live above his bookstore in Jimbocho, the used book district of Tokoyo.

🙀

This is an actual place, and I want to go there: https://booksandbao.com/jimbocho-tokyos-book-town-video-guide/. 

    The story is about relationships and learning to communicate with those you love. It had a different feel from the fantasy I've been reading lately. I quite enjoyed it.

📚🗾🎑

❤️‍🔥Romance/Fantasy, 🔍Mystery, 👻Horror, and 🎨 Fiction

 

    A Fire Endless (Elements of Candence #2) by Rebecca Ross is the second of a duology. The first is A River Enchanted. Here is a link to that review: 

https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2024/02/every-book-winner-or-came-close.html.

A Fire Endless was a satisfactory sequel/conclusion once I got into it. It was long (512 pages), and it started with adding more problems to the plot, making me regret starting it at first because the difficulties felt unsolvable. Still, Ross did bring them to a gratifying and surprising conclusion. A third of the way in, I got caught up in the story. Ross's plots are driven by relationships, and there are several passages of couples pledging undying love followed by sexy time. I read a review that felt the book was more of a romance than a fantasy novel. I agree. However, it was still diverting.

❤️‍🔥🧚‍♂️🧝‍♂️🎶🔥

    Tana French's The Hunter is the second in the Cal Hooper series. I read the first one before I started this blog. A retired Chicago cop moves to rural Ireland to find respite from the ugliness of broken, angry people. He meets a good woman, Lena, and gives his heart to a hurting teenager, Trey, who is hungry for a mentor. Then Trey's wandering dad returns after years of being gone, and he plans to make everyone who thought little of him rich. Trouble follows. Sides are chosen. Then someone ends up dead. French is an excellent mystery writer. She spins a good plot, but her greatest strength is her writing. Her language, descriptions, and images are lyrical. I get swept away. She doesn't write cozy mysteries where everything comes out happily ever after, but her endings are earned and authentic.

🇮🇪🕵️‍♂️🔍🐕

    Have I mentioned I like T. Kingfisher? What Feast at Night is the second in her horror series. Here is a link to the review of the first one:

 https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/2024/01/i-start-year-with-memoir-horror-and.html.

    Once again, soldier Alex Easton is in an isolated location where deadly, possibly supernatural, events are taking place. Kingfisher juggles the three suspects: science, superstition, and crazy. The main characters from the first book, What Moves the Dead, are present: Alex Easton, Angus, and Ms. Potter. This book centers on the themes of PTSD and superstition. 

🐴👻🏚️😴

    I heard about Painting the Light by Sally Cabot Gunning on vacation with my sister and her mother-in-law, Nancy. They both have strange ties to Cap Cod and have met Sally Cabot Gunning. They highly recommended her. They were right! Gunnings describes painting so accurately that I went looking for Ida Russell's work online. Gunnings has done plenty of research, and it gives her novel texture and gravitas as she describes sheep farming, food, laws surrounding inheritance, bicycling, and clothing. She had a propulsive plot with surprising revelations. It was an enjoyable read, and I felt like I painlessly learned things. Win! A criticism is the heroine behaved more like a woman in 2024 than in 1898.

🎨🖼️🌅🗳️🐑

Memoir📚📖 and More Kingfisher!🗡️🌳

 

    This is a powerful, eye-opening book. How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair is a memoir that reminded me of Educated by Tara Westover and Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance. All are stories of grinding poverty and oppression told by the adult children who survived but not without scars. I listened to the audiobook read by the author. Safiya Sinclair is a poet, which shows up in her powerful use of words and rhythm. She grew up in Jamaica and was the child of Rastafarian parents. Her dreadlocks made her the target of discrimination and bullying, but her intellect, drive, and her mother's fierce love her lifted her into hopefulness. 

🏝️🇯🇲📚

    Another week, another book--or two--by T. Kingfisher (AKA Ursula Vernon). Swordheart is in the same world as the Saint of Steel series, but not in the same series. A middle-aged widow who works as a housekeeper for her recently deceased uncle-in-law. He has left her his entire estate and his side of the family is not pleased but hopes to rectify the situation by having her marry her clammy-handed cousin. She is locked in her room for days and decides to kill herself using a decorative sword that has always hung on the wall above her bed. The magical sword contains an enchanted swordsman who, like a genie, must serve whoever holds the sword. From there, it only gets more interesting. The story and characters are unique, but the book cover--meh.

🗡️🦡🪄🐂

    When it comes to the horror genre, I'm usually a hard no. T. Kingfisher is slowly changing my mind, one scary, twisty book at a time. The Hollow Places will make you think twice before going into a museum of collected oddities ever again. I know I will. The story opens with recently divorced Kara moving into her uncle's Wonder Museum to help out while she regroups. After reading many books by Kingfisher, I'm starting to recognize her plot patterns. There is a disruption--divorce, death, economic threat--and the protagonist finds themselves on a different path with new characters. They make a magical or alien discovery, usually evil or dangerous, and spend the rest of the book fighting the evil while becoming a better person. Works for me. The Hollow Places is spooky but captivating. If you don't mind being a bit petrified, I recommend it.

🌳🦦🫎😼

🚆🛤️ Train Travel, More T. Kingfisher, and Lifting the Mental Load

 

    It's time for March's travel book for book club, and it's Around the World in 80 Trains by Monisha Rajesh. Rajesh is a British travel journalist who has an affinity for train travel--the pace, the people, the scenery. She convinces her fiancee to travel by eighty different trains for seven months. The experience was diverse. Some trains were luxurious, and some were rolling port-a-potties. She shares her research in the regions she travels through in a natural, exciting way. I enjoyed hearing how train experiences differ between Russia, Europe, North Korea, and North America. Taking a train across Canada sounds delightful. Her book is well-researched and balanced.

Here is a link to a map and list of her route and the trains she took: https://unselfishtravel.blog/around-the-world-in-80-trains-by-monisha-rajesh/ 

🚊🚞🚄🚆🚝🚇🚃🚞💺

    Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy T. Kingfisher?

Here is a link to my many blog posts about her: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=T.+Kingfisher

    After being on a waitlist for several weeks, I finally read  A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher. The protagonist is 14-year-old Mona, a baker's apprentice for her aunt. Mona has a unique magical affinity for dough, creating an unstoppable sourdough starter and a fierce gingerbread companion. Her city is reasonably tolerant of magical folks, but then they start disappearing. One early morning, Mona finds a dead girl on the floor of her bakery and is arrested for her murder. I enjoyed this rollercoaster of a story. She assembles a diverse, imaginative cast and several evil villains. Kingfisher's books are well-written and humorous, but she also addresses valuable themes, like being different, a minority, or outside of the mainstream, with understanding and kindness. Not to be trite, but she calls me to be empathetic and generous.

🍪🍞🥖🥐🧙‍♀️

    Paladin's Hope is the third in the Saint of Steel series. This one features Paladin Galen and his attraction to the Lich doctor (coroner) Piper. It is an LGTQ love story. Every book in this series is wrapped around the formula of a mystery and a reluctant romance. Galen and Piper, with help from Earstripe the Gnole, an intelligent badger creature, who brings comic relief between two earnestly avoidant but still attracted men. Of the three books I've read in the series, this one referred back to previously written books I haven't read. At times, I was lost in a history that informed the current story, but still mostly understood everything. 

🦡🧩🔎⚙️

    I saw The Wife App by Carolyn Mackler, recommended at Park Books (https://www.parkbooksmd.com/), and I borrowed it from Libby. Three women find themselves divorced single moms in NYC and, one tipsy night, decide to create an app that charges for the mental load women usually shoulder. Think insurance forms, shopping, appointments for everyone, etc. This book is an empowering romantic comedy. 

📋🎁👩‍💻🐶

A Big Week: Theology🌧️, Fantasy 🌹🌿🐻and Sci-Fi 🐙

 

A look at the need for lament in the Church and our hearts

    Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy: Discovering the Grace of Lament by Mark Vroegop was gifted to me by my good friend. We share an affinity to understand God better than we do, especially how we walk through challenging, sad events in our present and past, plus be prepared for the ones to come in our future. Pastor Vroegop speaks from his own life and many years of shepherding the members of his congregation through pain and suffering. He turns to the Psalms, where sixty-five of them--over half--are lament. Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy is more than comforting; it also encourages the rightness of mourning.

⛈️💨🌧️🌦️

    If you read this blog regularly, you will notice I've been on a T. Kingfisher reading binge. Bryony and Roses is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast with surprises.

🌹🥀💐

I started a new series this week. To write a good series, you need strong characters, demanding situations, and good peaks and valleys in the plot. Kingfisher has been writing many books (30+), and she knows what she's doing. It's by T. Kingfisher. It is a well-crafted fantasy series that examines, in turn, the surviving knights who served and lost their god. It has left them broken in mind and spirit. The first book, Paladin's Grace (The Saint of Steel #1), focuses on the knight, Stephen, and a perfumer, Grace. Paladin's Grace has lots of lovely tropes: broken hearts, dangerous enemies, menacing zombies, and afraid yet brave heroes. Kingfisher seeks to balance the woman who needs to be rescued because she's helpless and a woman who needs to be rescued because she's overwhelmed by schemers and events. Even though this book is the start of a series, there is a solid ending.

🏮🂼🧟🪴

    I also just finished the second book in The Saint of Steel series, Paladin's Strength. The main characters are another knight, Istvan, and a reticent nun on the run, Clara. They both carry secret burdens that put them and each other in danger, but they both have people to save and mysteries to solve. I like this book even better than the first one because of the road trip romance trope. It works well. 

🐻🧟‍♂️💪

    The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler is hardcore science fiction in the same vein as Neil Stephenson and Andy Wier. Nayler follows three antagonist in this near future story. It balances plot and action with speculation on what defines a human: consciousness, culture, collaboration? Naylor has well developed ideas that integrate well into the storyline and didn't veer into pontification. Also, octopus are a major feature, so win!

🐙🤖🌊 💻

Every Book a Winner or Came Close!

 

    North Woods by Daniel Mason is a fantastic book. It is filed under historical fiction but contains a ribbon of magical realism that gradually becomes apparent. The book starts with two Puritan lovers who run away to Western Massachusetts and proceeds through history until the present day, changing narrators with each chapter. It took a while to understand what was going on, I think, intentionally. As the filaments of stories coalesced into whole cloth, I was captured. I like a mind-bending story, and North Woods is that.

🌲🏚️👻🌳

 Good, Sad, Hopeful

    James McBride's award-winning book, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, is worth every minute spent reading it. The book opens with the discovery of a body in a well with a Mezuzah. The police go to the only Jewish person left on Chicken Hill in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, to find answers. The rest of the book, jumps back to the 1920s to explain the mystery. McBride vividly paints each character in his large cast, often giving their origin story. The reader comes to know Chona, Dodo, Nate, and others richly and is invested in their struggles. Because it is the 1920s and the characters are primarily black and Jewish, they face many hardships. McBride paints a painful picture of intricate relationships fueled by kindness, power, and the struggle to flourish.

🎶🕎🕍🎺

    I've been laid low this week with a stomach bug and sought comfort in fantasy. A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross was a great choice. It was nominated as Goodread's best fantasy novel of 2022. Ross builds an intricate web of a world. Jack Tamerlaine is summoned home by his Laird from his training as a musician on the mainland. Young girls are being stolen from the Eastern side of the divided island where the spirits of the water, earth and wind are both kind and cruel. Magic surrounds the inhabitants, but there is a steep cost to using it. River Enchanted meets all the requirements of a fantasy series: reluctant hero, strong heroine, love, rivalry, danger and mystery. It is also part of series, so I now I'm waiting for the next book to become available.

😕

🎶🧝‍♀️🌬️🌱🌊🔥

🎭🏺🏛️Greek Tragedy and 2 Fun Fantasy Books 🧙‍♀️🐲🦇🎨🖌️

 

    When the main character is famous for killing her husband, the king, because he sacrificed their daughter to the gods, you're prepared for tragedy. Costanza Casati's novel Clytemnestra balances the tragedies that Clytemnestra faces with her fierce intelligence and strength. As a warrior princess of Sparta who rules Mycenae while her husband fights in the Trojan War, Clytemnestra is a wonderfully complex woman. I found this book captivating and couldn't stop reading it except to occasionally go and look up a character to see what happened to them--like Aeschellus, Orestes, and Menelaus. 

🎭🏺🏛️

    Castle Hangnail by Ursula Vernon was a humorous middle-grade fantasy book. Ursula Vernon, also known as T. Kingfisher, is an author I'm crushing on currently. I'm willing to read anything she's written. Vernon writes delightful characters that you want to succeed. This book has an ensemble cast of minions like a goldfish, bat, and donkey/dragon, but the main character is a twelve-year-old trying hard to be a wicked witch. There are many secrets and "time bombs" that propel the story along. Castle Hangnail is aimed at middle-schoolers, but I was caught up in the story and had difficulty putting it down at bedtime.

🏚️🧙‍♀️🐲🦇 

    Illuminations by T. Kingfisher is a fantasy middle-grade book about an Italian Renaissance family who makes illuminations that give magical protection to the things they are painted on. Rosa Mandolini accidentally releases a Scarling--an evil mandrake who steals magic from illumination--who seeks to destroy the family's livelihood. As things go wrong, Rosa's family blames her for the damage. Afraid to tell her family, she needs to recapture the Scarling. It is not a job she can complete alone. To help her, she has a thieving crow and her no-longer-best friend. Kingfisher is a suspenseful, gifted storyteller.

🐦‍⬛🎨🖌️

Christmas🎄, Horror 💀, Fantasy 🧚‍♀️, and Black History Month

    I reserved this book in December, and it only became available this week, but I'm up for keeping Christmas in my heart all year! Three Holidays and a Wedding by Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley is a holiday romance book placed during the rare intersection of Ramadan, Hanukkah, and Christmas. Two main characters, Maryam and Anna, are on the same flight to Canada when the weather grounds them in a small, picturesque Christmas town. Even though the book is full of holiday romance tropes--meet-cutes, mistaken identity, being snowed-in, let's do-a-show, and a nod to Dickin's Christmas Carol--it is delightfully done. 

🎄❄️❤️

    I am relatively new to the author T. Kingfisher, but I'm a fan. Her book Nettle & Bone was my best book of 2023. This week, I read two of her books, A House with Good Bones and Thornhedge. A House with Good Bones leans into her horror side. Sam, a thirty-something archeological entomologist, returns to her childhood home for an unexpected extended stay with her beloved mother. Something is not right. Her mom is jumpy and terrified. The formerly cozy home is returned to its uptight decor of her grandmother. And why are there buzzards watching the house? It is a good blend of suspense, mystery, and Southern Gothic.

🦴🐞🪶🌹🏘️

    Thornhedge is a fantasy novella. Stolen by the fairies as a child and raised by toads, she is tasked to return to her family to save them from her changeling replacement. Kingfisher's characters are not superlative when it comes to beauty or bravery. This makes me root for them because they don't have advantages. They have to overcome themselves as much as the problems presented to them. I recommend this and everything I've read so far by T. Kingfisher.

Here are previous posts of some of her books: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=T.+Kingfisher

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    Why make a special to read black others one month a year? I would like to read widely about different genres and ethnicities all year. I try, but I find it beneficial to prioritize reading black authors one month a year. That makes it sound like I have a list ready to go. I do not. This is where I look to my library or Goodreads to help me find books. Here is a link to Goodreads's list of 100 Essential New Works of Fiction by Black Authors. https://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/2723?ref=ed_ads_1_24_bhm

 

    Leslie F*cking Jones by Leslie Jones is a lot. I listened to the audiobook by Leslie Jones. The word that describes this book to me is intense. Leslie Jones powerfully tells her dynamic story. As she narrates, she stops and gives advice. The advice springs from hard times and having to figure Hollywood, comedy, and finance out on her own. Jones is a yeller. She is. I cringe when someone yells at me, and sometimes, I felt overwhelmed by all of Jones's yelling and f-bombs. However, she is hilarious and fierce.

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A Large Helping of Sci-fi 🤖and Fantasy 🧚‍♀️with a Dollop of Historical Fiction⛓️

 

    The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year, edited by Jonathan Strahan, is challenging to review because it is about the pieces rather than the whole. Truthfully, I skipped a couple of stories, but for the most part, I enjoyed the variety and creativity. A stand-out fantasy story was "Probably Still the Chosen One" by Kelly Barnhill. An eleven-year-old girl enters a magical land under her sink and finds she's the chosen one. The priests train her and send her home, promising to return for her when the time is right. So, she waits, wonders, and grows up. On the science side, "Zen and the Art of Starship Maintenance," by Tobias Buckell, featured a rogue AI saving the day. Many of the science stories featured some form of AI. I appreciate a well-crafted short story, and many of these stories are that. It was an excellent book to read while watching three granddaughters for a week. I could finish an entire story and feel like I accomplished something! 

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    River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer is a historical fiction novel. Rachel is a slave on a sugar plantation in Barbados. In 1834, England ended slavery. However, the plantation owners say that even though they are no longer slaves, they are now apprentices, unable to leave for at least six years. Rachel runs away to find her missing children, who were all sold. Eleanor Shearer draws on family history and her studies for her degree in Political History. It is lush with tactile detail and a formidable struggle. Rachel reminds me of a mythical hero facing enormous odds as she moves from understanding the world as a runaway slave to living as a free woman. 

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Growing Old Wisely 🧠 and Hiking 🥾

 

    I have waited several months for From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life by Arthur C. Brooks. I am in the second half of my life and want everything the title proposes. Brooks' book is well-researched and thoughtfully written. I learned much about fluid intelligence and crystallized intelligence. If I suspect that my mind isn't as nimble as it once was, I'm correct. Cognitive decline begins after forty, as does physical strength, which is not the best news. But he balances that with the fact that the older brain is better at making connections and seeing significant patterns. The book is aimed at hard-charging career types, which I'm not, but I still found plenty to chew on. It is more fulfilling in the second half of life if you have close friends, less attachment to material things, and develop a spiritual life. That last one surprised me, but it's based on research. He's given me lots to think about. 

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    I've read Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed before and didn't like it. I tried to analyze why as I read it this time for book club. She is a terrific writer who makes a 1,100-mile trek on the Pacific Crest Trail fascinating. She is vulnerable about why she's walking--the end of her marriage, the loss of her mom and cohesive family, and her struggle with drugs. A theme of her book is loss. It's painful to experience it with her. She communicates it viscerally. It is a well-written book that ends on a happy note, but it leaves me sad. 

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Dystopian Sci-Fi 🦊🐰and Baking Show Murder Mystery 🍰

 

    In The Future, Naomi Alderman displays some of the best aspects of science fiction. She takes known facts and builds them into future possibilities. And she does it very well. This book was chilling. It is a multi-character story told by different people: a survivalist blogger, a cult leader’s escaped daughter, and tech billionaires whose primary concern is how well-stocked their bunkers are for when the time comes. The Future debates the questions of cities versus agrarian and hunter versus gatherer in an informed and complex way. Alderman had me guessing what would happen next, and I frequently guessed wrong. She draws from religion, economics, and computer theory to create an intelligent, provoking story I will be thinking about for a while.

“They laughed as children do when they are thrown high in the air. We are all falling, all the time, from the half-understood past to the unknowable future. The other name for falling without fear is flying.”
― Naomi Alderman, The Future

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    The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell is head-spinning. There are many characters to track and remember their motives and secret backstories. Maxwell works hard to individualize them, but I sometimes got a bit lost. Maxwell does an excellent job of classic mystery twists, turns, and red herrings, plus bringing a baking vibe that made me hungry. The closer I got to the end, the faster I went because I was curious about who the murderer was. 

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Surreal🦣, Bookish 📚and Historic👑🇬🇧

 

    Describing a Jasper Fforde book is difficult because his plots and characters are as surreal as a Dali painting. That's why I like them. Here is an indescribable Dali painting:

    Now, I will describe Jasper Fforde's book, Early Riser. It is a humorous sci-fi novel about good versus evil, but it is difficult to tell who or what is good and/or evil. The winter is so harsh, and few can survive it without hibernating. People are shamed for not being fat enough to survive the long sleep. When someone oversleeps, it could be by weeks, not hours. Charlie is a novice facing his first awake winter as a Winter Consul--someone who watches over sleepers, keeping them safe from evil villains and the cold. He can't protect them from a viral dream that leaves them as brain-dead entities that feed on anything and anyone. It gets only gets weird from there. As an extra bonus to me, I get to use the Wooly Mammoth emoji for the first time. Win!

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    I found The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt in a Books About Books list. This is the first thing I've ever read by deWitt. Bob Comet is a bookish, solitary person. It opens with his retirement from the library at seventy-two, and he is at loose ends. He starts volunteering at a senior center he discovers when he helps an elderly woman with dementia who has escaped. He finds a diverse community where he almost fits in. The book is a blend of melancholy, comfort, and contentment. I thought it would be about Bob's twilight years, but it recounts how hebecameo the quiet solitary man he is. It asks the question, can a small life be a good life? Spoiler Alert: yes, it can. It made me want to read more by deWitt. 

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    Well, I thought I was getting a book by David Mitchell, who wrote Cloud Atlas. This is different from David Mitchell, but I already had Unruly: The Ridiculous History of England Kidns and Queens, so I went ahead and read it. It is a humorous look at England's monarchy. There is a lot of killing and marrying of cousins. Frequently, English kings declared themselves kings of France, but it never worked out. Sorry if that's news to you. I am glad I read this enjoyable book because I feel virtuous when I read non-fiction, and it was a snort-laughingly fun read.

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