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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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