🪄🐊🪼 🍱 Books with Magic and Magical Food

 

Enjoyed the spirit and intent of the book. Lovely characters. Worthy quest. Fun magic.

    Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong is a book about being transplanted from your native soil to a new home. Tao discovers she has the gift of seeing the future, and many want her to use it for them. She chooses to travel alone and tell small fortunes but finds she can't escape the pull of human connection. I liked this lovely YA book. It's a good story, well told, no matter your age.

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    What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez rides the line between fantasy and magical realism. There is magic in the world, but it is unacknowledged and ignored. The magic is fading away and resides in ancient objects. Inez Olivera receives a magic ring from her father in Egypt. This is followed by news of the death of her parents, making Inez the recipient of their considerable fortune and the ward of her mother's mysterious uncle, an Egyptian Archeologist at the height of the age of discovery in the late 19th century. She travels by ship from her home in Buenos Aries to Egypt to find answers but is thwarted by her uncle's handsome assistant. This book reminded me of adventure stories like The Mummy, with lots of twists and turns, kidnapping, and dark secrets held by almost everyone.

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    Like many people, I enjoyed Matt Haig's book The Midnight Library and eagerly looked forward to his next book, The Life Impossible. A strength of Haig is his ability to create fantastic premises to give his characters unique opportunities to confront their pasts. The Life Impossible is the story of 72-year-old Grace Winters, a retired math teacher who is done with life. She unexpectedly receives the gift of a house on the island of Ibiza in Spain. Some books are quirky, and some are weird. This book is a weird one. The plot is a little too crazy to feel coherent, but I found it interesting because weird is my jam.

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    I have discovered a type of genre from Japan that is whimsical and poignant, like Toshikazu Kawaguchi's Before the Coffee Gets Cold, We'll Prescribe You a Cat by Syou Ishida, What You Are Looking For is in the Library by Michiko Aoyama, and The Cat Who Saved Books by Susuke Matsukawa. I was talking with friends about how much I liked those books, and they recommended The Kamogawa Food Detectives by Hisashi Kashiwai. Here is the premise: a retired, widowed police detective runs an obscure, hard-to-find diner with a thirty-year-old daughter. They also run a food detective agency helping customers find the recipe that holds a significant place in their heart- the soup their dead mother made, a restaurant meal from when a lost love proposed, or a special dish enjoyed with a grandfather who now has dementia. These recipes are like keys to unlock a better understanding of the past that, in turn, makes the future brighter. This book will make you hungry!

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🦖😺🦶Another Week of Fantasy and Romance--Win!

 

    I'm obsessed with the Dungeon Crawler Carl Series and was ecstatic that book #7 dropped this week on Audible. This Inevitable Ruin, written by Matt Dinniman and read by Jeff Hayes, is a fantastic series. I always worry. I just do; I'm a worrier. But I especially worry that the next book in any series will disappoint. Book #7 is a terrific addition. Dinniman continues to expand the story beyond the dungeon without losing sight of the book's heart: Carl and Donut's relationship--the Frodo and Sam of this universe. Crawlers have reached the 9th floor of the dungeon, where they face mega-rich aliens from around the galaxy who pay for the sport of killing crawlers. This time it's different. Carl convinces the AI running the dungeon to remove the safeties that keep the warlords from dying for real. The stakes are high for everyone.  

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    I was surprised to find that What You Wish For is the fifth book by Katherine Center that I've read. At the core, her books are romance novels, but she infuses them with joy and triumph, making them brighten my day whenever I read one. Her main characters, Samantha and Duncan, have past traumas that are currently influencing their present lives. Center paced the novel well, dropping revelations in a timely way that kept me engaged. 

  Other reviews of books by Katherine Center: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Katherine+Center

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💘🎶👽Romance and Sci-Fi

    This week, I read The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center. It is an excellent example of the Romance genre. Emma Wheeler desires to be a screenwriter and has the chops to do it, but family tragedy prevents her. Her agent secures her a job writing with her idol in the screenwriting universe, Charlie Yates. She took the bold step of going to LA to find out that her agent hadn'hadn't her everything. Like, Charlie Yates didn't know she was coming. The book is humorous and sparkly, with highs and lows that made me wonder how it would all work out. Delightful.

I listened to The Rom-Commers on audio, and at the end, Katherine Center made a passionate case for the benefits of Romance books. She cited several scientific studies and a TED Talk. I have been a Romance Snob and long ago repented. A romance book usually involves challenging events and obstacles that must be overcome. Because it's instance, the reader is promised a happy ending—justice is served, true love is discovered, and rifts are mended.

I'm looking forward to reading more from Center.

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Space Opera by Catherynne M. Valente is a weird book that lives up to its title. Decibel Jones and the Absolute Zeroes, a washed-up band no longer, together become the unwilling representatives for Earth in the universe's version of Eurovision/Hunger Games. The bottom line is that if they don't place high enough, Earth will be destroyed. The book had a fun concept but it went on many wordy tangents that slowed the pace waaaaaay down so it got to be a slog. I almost gave it up but persevered. If you liked The Hitchhiker to the Universe, you will like this. It feels very British in its humor and plot.

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🐉🧌 🏞️ 🏰 So Much Reading!

 

    There was a lot of reading this week--mostly fantasy, but also literary. I was fortunate to get a copy of Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros. It came out last Tuesday and is the third in a planned five books in a popular series called The Empyrean. Yarros keeps the story moving about Violet Sorrengal and the many, many others. Having a character list to refer to would have been helpful, but I focused on the main characters and rode out the rest. Yarros does a fantastic job of solving some problems and raising new ones. It's an exciting read. A final boss battle gives the book a feeling of an ending but also drops a huge plot point that makes me wish the next book was written and waiting. 

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    Honestly, I will enjoy almost anything written by T. Kingfisher (AKA Ursula Vernon). Nine Goblins is the tale of an unlikely protagonist, a female goblin captain who gets accidentally transported behind enemy lines with her squad. She must get her band of none-too-bright goblins through a magical forest inhabited by enemy elves, deadly wizards, and hungry predators. It isn't as easy as it sounds.

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    Elizabeth Strout is a strong writer, able to evoke deep, unsettling emotions, bring them out, and critically examine them. Her latest book, Tell Me Everything, continues the narration of the life of Lucy Barton and connects her with Olive Kitteridge. I find this book challenging to describe. There are many plots and lives woven together. At the center is Lucy Barton. She tries to understand the why of life, especially lives that are blighted by the cruelty of others. Lucy and Olive tell each other stories of unrecorded lives and what they mean. It is thoughtful, gentle, and winsome. Strout well deserves her Pulitzer Prize.

Reviews of other Strout books: https://barbpruittwrites.blogspot.com/search?q=Strout

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    Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis reminds me of T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon--a compliment! A dark lord--evil sorcerer--finds himself in his burning workroom, minus his memories. A goblin minion is knocking at the door, asking if he needs help. He does, but who is trustworthy? Once, Dread Lord Gavrax, who now thinks of himself as Gav, must decide who he will be--good or evil or somewhere in between-- but he doesn't have much time before the scariest Dread Lord of all arrives, his town is destroyed, his captured princess is sacrificed, and the heroes storm the castle. 

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