3.75 stars. Pretty much the quintessential Regency romance/fantasy mix, with elves (of the cruel sort) supplying the magical element. It's clean and o3.75 stars. Pretty much the quintessential Regency romance/fantasy mix, with elves (of the cruel sort) supplying the magical element. It's clean and on the lighter side - it feels like a YA romance - but it does do a quite good job of delving into social issues relating to society's treatment of the poor.
The Witness for the Dead is the long-hoped-for sequel to Katherine Addison’s marvelous and unusual 2014 fantasy, The Goblin Emperor, in which we met Maia, a half-goblin, half-elf young man who unexpectedly inherited the throne of the elf kingdom when his father, the emperor, was killed along with his brothers in an airship explosion. Thara Celehar, an elven prelate and a Witness for the Dead, was a minor character in that novel who investigated the airship accident at Maia’s request and eventually was able to unearth the truth of why it occurred.
The Witness for the Dead is more of a companion novel set in the same world, rather than a direct sequel, so it can be read as a stand-alone book, but it’ll give you a better grounding in this world if you read The Goblin Emperor first. This book picks up with Thara’s life some time after he has left the elven court, leaving behind a slight cloud of scandal — Thara is gay, and his married lover was executed for murdering his own wife. Thara has now moved to the city of Amalo and taken up his calling again as a Witness for the Dead.
A Witness for the Dead wears several hats, including murder investigator, priest and funeral director, but Thara also has the unusual magical ability to touch a dead body and sense memories and impressions from the spirit of the person who died. When a woman’s body is pulled out of the canal in Amalo, Celehar is asked to investigate to find out who she is — which doesn’t take too long — and who killed her and why, which is far more difficult to determine. For one thing, her bones aren’t telling Thara anything really useful, so he has to rely on other, more mundane investigative methods. For another, the woman was an opera singer who had an unfortunate habit of making an enemy of nearly everyone around her. One of her enemies is the in-house composer for the Vermilion Opera, Mer Pel-Thenhior, to whom Celehar is rather reluctantly attracted.
There are a couple of other interesting subplots that help to liven up this murder mystery novel. One involves a missing pregnant woman whose family believes that her husband killed her, eventually leading to a trail of questionable deaths. The other subplot concerns the wealthy Duhalin family whose patriarch has died, leaving behind some greedy heirs who are disputing which of two wills is the real one and which is the forgery. When Celehar announces his finding, based on touching the grandfather’s cremated ashes, it has repercussions for him as well as for the Duhalin family members.
To try to avoid the resulting trouble, Celehar is packed out of town and told to take care of a ghoul problem in a small mining town two days’ journey away. Ghouls start out eating dead meat but sooner or later switch to killing and eating the living. Celehar’s talents include the ability to quiet and rebury ghouls (more permanently the second time around), but the journey turns out far more exciting and dangerous than he expected.
Actually I found both of these subplots more intriguing than the main plotline. The opera singer’s scandalous ways couldn’t quite make up for the plodding nature of Celahar’s investigation. The main beauty of The Witness for the Dead isn’t in the main murder mystery plot, which is serviceable but not particularly memorable, but in Addison’s extraordinarily fine world- and character-building.
Like The Goblin Emperor, The Witness for the Dead is somewhat slow-paced but lovely in its detailed world-building. Addison has created a richly-imagined, steampunk-flavored fantasy world, slightly touched by magic, and brimful with vivid, realistic details, like stray cats that impatiently wait for handouts and teahouses with fragrant, exotic offerings. There’s a wide variety of skin tones and eye colors, especially due to the mixing between goblins and elves, which is far more prevalent here than in Maia’s court.
Addison’s characters are well-rounded and realistic. Thara Celehar is a particularly complex soul: he’s humble and shy, tending toward melancholy and isolation, and on the edge of poverty. At the same time, he’s a decent, kindhearted man who’s resolutely determined to be honest and to do his duty, even in the face of daunting opposition. He’s also rather awkward and ill-at-ease with others, even with the charming part-goblin Pel-Thenhior … who is, unfortunately for Thara, one of the chief suspects in the opera singer’s murder.
The Witness for the Dead isn’t as brilliant or delightful as The Goblin Emperor (few books are), but it’s still well worth reading if you were a fan of that book and have been longing to return to that world. If Addison writes more stories or novels set in this world, I’ll definitely be there for them.
On sale now! 3.75 stars for this twelfth book in the UF Mercy Thompson series, and that's not counting the five closely-related Alpha and Omega books.On sale now! 3.75 stars for this twelfth book in the UF Mercy Thompson series, and that's not counting the five closely-related Alpha and Omega books. :) Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Fresh off her clash with black witches in Storm Cursed, Mercy Thompson — the coyote shapeshifter and Volkswagen mechanic whose urban fantasy series follows her adventures with vampires, werewolves, fae, witches and various monsters — is fretting about the distance that has built up between her and her husband, Adam, alpha of the local werewolf pack. Their mating bond has been shut down for weeks, keeping her from knowing his thoughts and feelings.
But other troubles raise their heads, distracting Mercy (at least temporarily) from the problems with Adam. The ancient power that is Underhill, the underground world of the fae, manifests in their home as Tilly, a creepy young girl (“I love battles. Blood and death followed by tears and mourning.”). Tilly has opened a door from Underhill into Mercy’s backyard, allowing a particularly dangerous creature to escape from Underhill. (view spoiler)[This smoke weaver can magically control whatever or whoever it bites, forcing them to attack and kill others, even those they are closest to. (hide spoiler)] The vampire Wulfe has developed a disturbing fascination with Mercy, stalking and spying on her. And a rogue werewolf pack has moved into the Tri-Cities area, (view spoiler)[led by a werewolf that’s a stone-cold killer, (hide spoiler)]and is challenging Adam’s pack for control of their territory.
Patricia Briggs packs a lot into Smoke Bitten, juggling all of these subplots and making them fit together. It makes this installment in the MERCY THOMPSON series more convoluted than usual. Briggs has a habit of raising new plots from the semi-cold ashes of older ones from previous books in the series. To a greater or lesser degree, most of the plotlines in Smoke Bitten have their genesis in events from earlier books. It adds continuity to the series and allows Briggs to build a more complex world, but also makes it imperative that readers have read and recall events and characters from the prior books in the series.
As a corollary, the reader never knows when an issue that seemed to be comfortably resolved at the end of one book might lead to a related problem in the next. Some of the plotlines in Smoke Bitten are even more unresolved than usual; Briggs is clearly building toward a major conflict — or two — in a future novel. It leads to a bit of a “middle book syndrome” feeling, but Briggs is a talented author, and the explanation underlying the smoke weaver plotline, and how it played out, was a particularly smart bit of plotting. Readers can deduce who the creature from Underhill is if they know their folklore and are paying attention, but Briggs gives the traditional fairy tale an unexpected and intriguing twist.
Great stories usually contain themes of love and redemption, and both of those play a key role in Smoke Bitten. Adam, facing a new problem that he doesn’t know how to solve, shows unexpected vulnerability. As Mercy comments, “Adam was good at saving people other than himself.” He’s making it difficult for Mercy to help him, though, closing her out in an effort to save her from his troubles. There are several poignant moments as this married couple navigates new and problematic shoals in their lives.
Smoke Bitten is a suspense-filled tale and a solid installment in the MERCY THOMPSON series. It leaves me anxious to see what happens next.
Initial post: I've been trying to figure out how I can get hold of the ARC for this book and LOOK WHAT JUST BARELY LANDED ON MY DOORSTEP. I yelled "YES!" out loud and probably scared the cat and dog. :D Thanks to the publicists at Ace/Penguin Random House for the ARC!
Murderous fae trouble for Mercy Thompson again. I CAN HARDLY WAIT....more
This creepy short story, free online here at Tor.com, originally came from an anthology called Robots vs. Fairies. It does, in fact, contain both roboThis creepy short story, free online here at Tor.com, originally came from an anthology called Robots vs. Fairies. It does, in fact, contain both robots and (a) fairy. The fairy, who narrates this story, is of the whimsically cruel type who will kill you just for the fun of it. But just possibly this fairy has met their match in Peter, a human that the fairy has taken a deep, long-term interest in.
The fairy first sets eyes on Peter at a lake, when Peter is a toddler and the fairy is in the form of a duck. (Why? Who knows?) Peter's parents are arguing - clearly in the process of divorce - and not paying as much attention to Peter as they should. The fairy contemplates what they'd like to do to Peter (replace his heart with a mushroom) but it doesn't work out.
When I poked my head out from under a lily pad, the proper ducks were shoving their beaks into the grass to get the last of the bread, and the man and the boy were gone, and the woman was sitting in the grass with her arms wrapped around her knees and a hollowed-out kind of face. I would have taken her, but there wouldn’t have been any sport in it. She was desperate to be taken, to vanish under the water and breathe deeply until silt settled in the bottoms of her lungs.
Besides. I wanted the boy.
Chills!
The next time they meet, the fairy is a cat ....
This story really didn't go in the direction I thought it would, but I recommend it if you don't mind a horror type of tale and dealing with two extremely unpleasant main characters. Kudos to Sarah Gailey for setting up the shift in sympathies and perceptions so well!...more
*Updated to add review for "Coyote Now Wears a Suit," an offbeat story about a closeted Hawaiian and his run-ins with the Sioux god Coyote. Familiarit*Updated to add review for "Coyote Now Wears a Suit," an offbeat story about a closeted Hawaiian and his run-ins with the Sioux god Coyote. Familiarity with Hawaiian slang is almost a must here. See review below.
5 stars on the strength of the first story in this issue, "Field Biology of the Wee Fairies," which is SO cool and fun (Girl Power!) and really should not be missed. You can read it free online here at Apex magazine. Reviews first posted on Fantasy Literature:
When Amelia turns fourteen, everyone assures her that she’ll catch her fairy soon. Almost every girl catches a fairy, and the fairy will give you a gift if you promise to let her go. The gift is always something like “beauty or charm or perfect hair or something else that made boys notice you.” What no one around Amelia realizes is that she doesn’t want to catch a fairy. Amelia has no interest in becoming more beautiful, through fairy magic or otherwise; what she really wants is for her science teacher, Mr. Crawford, to let girls join the high school science club. (It’s 1962, so no one is forcing Mr. Crawford to treat girls equally). Maybe he’ll relent if she wins the upcoming District Science fair with her mouse behavioral study?
So when Amelia sees a lovely little turquoise-clad fairy hovering in front of her face, she just ignores the fairy … until it occurs to Amanda that there might be other, more scientific reasons to catch a fairy. She wants to capture and examine the fairy without letting it touch her and possibly work some unwanted beautification on her. And those glass jars with perforated lids that Amanda uses for the mice in her behavioral study could be just the thing!
“Field Biology of the Wee Fairies” is an appealing story with some creative twists that really elevate the tale to something memorable. Naomi Kritzer deftly recreates a realistic 1962 America setting ― except, of course, with the addition of magical fairies. Amelia’s parents are fairly forward-thinking for the time (Don’t go trading away your brains, girl,” her father said. “You can have looks and smarts.”), but Amelia’s mother is still hoping for Amelia to pay just a little more attention to her outward appearance. Amelia’s conversation with the fairy is amusing as well as surprising, and the cute neighbor girl Betty plays a much more interesting role in the story than I anticipated.
3 stars for "Coyote Now Wears a Suit" by Ani Fox: Kupua is a member of a large, eccentric and colorful Hawaiian clan that careens from one crisis to the next. As the story begins, Kupua is helping to get a friend of the family released on bail. While they’re in the Honolulu Police Station, he sees Coyote ― as in, the Sioux trickster god ― sitting in the room with them. To Kupua, he looks just like a real dog, albeit dressed in an Armani suit, but he soon realizes that everyone else sees Coyote as “Cousin Mica.” But when everything starts to go wrong on this crazy day, Kupua is pretty certain he knows who to blame.
This story is also about the secrets that Kupua is hiding from his family: first, he’s gay, transgender, and a cross-dresser. Also, he’s an excellent student, and he’s sitting on an acceptance letter from Harvard University, including a full ride scholarship. The answer to Harvard is due in four days, but Kupua is afraid to leave his family and his boyfriend behind.
This story is rather chaotic in its style, though I have to concede that’s befitting of the trickster Coyote’s personality and methods; not so much of the narrator’s hidden academic personality, though it reflects the side of his personality he shows around his family. It’s somewhat hard to follow, both because of this writing style and because of the liberal use of pidgin Hawaiian (without translations) in the dialogue and narration. But it’s a goodhearted tale, balancing love of family with the need to follow your own path, and the Coyote element adds a nice twist … though I’m still not sure what the Sioux god was doing in Hawaii. Vacationing, maybe.
I also read "River Street" by S.R. Mandel, which is a short, poetic allegory about life and the destination we're all heading toward. It's okay but didn't really leave much of an impression on me. A soft 3 stars for that one....more
DNF. I read several chapters, started suspecting that it wasn't going to be my type of read, and skimmed about half of the rest of the book, which conDNF. I read several chapters, started suspecting that it wasn't going to be my type of read, and skimmed about half of the rest of the book, which confirmed my suspicions. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Thirteen-year-old Elliot is pulled from his geography class one day, packed into a van with three other students, and driven to a random field in Devon, England, where he watches his French teacher exchanges money with a woman standing next to a high wall.
The woman in odd clothing “tested” him by asking him if he could see a wall standing in the middle of a field. When he told her, “Obviously, because it’s a wall. Walls tend to be obvious,” she had pointed out the other kids blithely walking through the wall as if it was not there, and told him that he was one of the chosen few with the sight.
When the woman asks Elliot to come with her to the magical land on the other side of the wall, he promptly tells her no one will miss him (Elliot’s problematic home life is explored later in the book) and heads over the wall with her. There he finds, somewhat to his disappointment, that he’ll be attending school to be trained as either a warrior or councilor. Elliot, more inclined to using sarcastic words than his fists for fighting, quickly opts for the council course. He equally quickly begins to mock Luke, the handsome blond guy who seems inclined to act as the leader of the group of new students at the Border, and Luke’s smiling sidekick Dale, mentally dubbing them Blondie and Surfer Dude. And Elliot immediately falls in love with an “elvish maiden” warrior who introduces herself as Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle.
So begins Sarah Rees Brennan’s In Other Lands, which has been nominated for the 2018 World Science Fiction Society award for best Young Adult book ― a new category for the WSFS, which administers the Hugo awards. It’s a magical school set in a magical land peopled with the usual suspects: pointy-eared elves, short dwarves with beards and hammers, unicorns, mermaids. The fantasy worldbuilding is paper-thin; Brennan’s real attention here is focused on teenage relationships and growing pains. We follow Elliot and his friends and classmates over the next four years as they learn to navigate magic school, friendships and romances. There’s lots of sleeping around, and Elliot’s emerging bisexuality is one of the things he explores through several sexual relationships with both sexes. Gay, bi and straight relationships and sexual exploration are all accepted in this magical world with equanimity.
Elliot is a deeply insecure protagonist who gets along by being relentlessly antagonistic, hurling sarcastic insults at others at every opportunity. Many readers may enjoy his constant snark; it got old for me fast because there was so much anger and meanness underlying it. It takes Elliot years, not to mention way too many pages of this book, to grow up emotionally. Elliot’s dedication to obnoxiousness, combined with the superficial, chatty writing style Brennan uses in this book (one review I read compared it to fanfiction) and the lack of any originality or depth in the fantasy aspects of In Other Lands, were enough to make me abandon the book. I wasn’t ever able to lose myself in the story.
In Other Lands wasn’t my type of YA book, but if bisexual characters, gender-bent societies (the elves have a firmly matriarchal society where the women are the warriors and the men keep house), and a primary focus on teen relationships are particularly interesting to you, give it a shot.
Content notes: lots of teen sex, but nothing beyond the kisses is explicit....more
I paused my Kate Daniels readathon to inhale this installment in a different urban fantasy series - the one in ALPHA AND OMEGA that I managed to skip I paused my Kate Daniels readathon to inhale this installment in a different urban fantasy series - the one in ALPHA AND OMEGA that I managed to skip over when reading all the others. I went into this one a little leery because of a few negative reviews ... but I actually really enjoyed it!
Though it does help if you are fond of horses. (Walter Farley and Marguerite Henry were a huge part of my junior high school reading diet, so no trouble there.)
Add to the horses a murderous fae, children in grave peril, an aging childhood friend of Charles, and some family drama, and this book kept me glued to it through the end.
Full review to come, after it posts on Fantasy Literature....more
2020 reread for my IRL book club. We had an excellent discussion and I have a pretty good Powerpoint on this book that I made for our book club meetin2020 reread for my IRL book club. We had an excellent discussion and I have a pretty good Powerpoint on this book that I made for our book club meeting if anyone ever needs it, lol. And I still think this book is marvelous.
All the stars!! One of my favorite fantasies ever ... I think it's officially part of my desert island collection. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
It’s not often that I end a novel in awe of characters, the world-building, and the depth and complexity of the themes, while still being absolutely delighted with the storytelling. In Spinning Silver, Naomi Novik does all that and more.
In medieval Lithvas (according to Novik, a fantasy version of Lithuania with a little Russia and Poland blended in), Miryem Mandelstam is the daughter of a Jewish moneylender in a small town. Panov Mandelstam is a gentle, kindhearted man: too kind to be a successful moneylender, in fact, since he’s constitutionally unable to demand repayment of the money he’s lent out, leaving him and his wife and daughter destitute. When her mother falls ill, Miryam has had enough. A bit of winter has found its way into her heart, and that combined with her stubbornness (and her threats to involve her wealthy grandfather and the law if the villagers don’t repay her what they owe) makes her a success at her new job as village moneylender.
Miryem takes on a strong village girl, Wanda, as a household servant, letting her work off her father’s debt. Miryam doesn’t realize it, but Wanda is actually grateful for the chance to avoid her abusive father, and to stealthily put away the extra money that Miryam pays her. Miryam’s parents are alarmed at the increased iciness in her heart, but she has no intention of handing the moneylending job back to her ineffective father. Miryam rather defiantly tells her mother that she shouldn’t be sorry that her daughter has the ability to change silver into gold.
[image]
However, there’s a magical road that appears and disappears in Lithvas during the winter, controlled by the fae-like Staryk, and other ears have heard Miryam’s boast to her mother during her journey back to their village. Soon she finds herself entangled in the Staryk king’s demands to change his silver into gold. Miryam comes up with a brilliant plan, but meeting the Staryk king’s demands may be almost as bad as failure.
[image] (I get a Thranduil vibe from the Staryk king, except ... needs more ice)
Spinning Silver begins with these allusions to the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale, but Novik is weaving far more into her story than this one tale. Miryam’s plan involves the ambitious duke of Vysnia and his daughter Irina, who is thought too plain to attract the handsome young tsar of Lithvas, Mirnatius. The Staryk silver may tip the balance for Irina, but she soon finds that gaining Mirnatius’s attention is a highly dangerous thing indeed. Irina’s story quickly becomes as compelling as Miryam’s, as she needs to use all her wits and some gifts of her heritage to escape with her life and soul intact.
Novik’s unique moneylender twist on the story of Rumpelstiltskin is highly creative. Eastern European folklore is woven in as well. The (literally) icy Staryk king and his winter kingdom called to mind Morozko, the Russian frost-king, and I had an appreciative shudder of recognition when a certain fiery demon is named.
[image] (hat tip to Marvel for the Surtur image)
Novik takes her story far beyond a retelling or recasting of old tales, though. I particularly enjoyed the fascinating concepts dealing with cold Staryk silver and the warm gold from the “sunlit world.” It played into the plot in a way that I hadn’t anticipated.
The sensitive, meaningful way in which the Jewish faith and culture were incorporated into Spinning Silver was lovely. Antisemitism is addressed, but doesn’t weigh down the story. The focus is more on personal connections, like the love between Irina and her old nurse, the understanding and respect that Miryam gains for the Staryk people, and the family bonds that develop between the Mandelstams and Wanda and her brothers.
Without tipping over into unrealistic anachronism, we also see women characters who are empowered by the actions they take to save themselves, as well as others they care about, in spite of the fact that each of them ― against their desires ― is promised, given, or simply taken in marriage. It’s a fairly subtle connection between our three main characters.
Spinning Silver is an enchanting fantasy, woven of fire and ice, sunlit gold and Staryk silver, icy faerie winter and Lithvas spring. Naomi Novik has crafted a truly wondrous novel.
ETA: If you really hate the two marriages (view spoiler)[of the main characters (which are more or less true to medieval times but unhealthy and even abusive starts) (hide spoiler)], I was alerted to the original novelette version that Novik turned into this novel. It only focuses on Miryam's initial story but goes in quite a different direction. You can find it in The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year #11, which I picked up on Kindle for just 99c.
Initial posts: The author of Uprooted strikes again, with what appears to be a take-off on Rumpelstiltskin. Can't wait for July!!
ETA: I'm dying here. I didn't get the ARC (the publicist was unmoved by my sad email) and my local library, which I thought would jump right on this one, still doesn't have it in their catalog. I HAVE BROKEN DOWN AND BOUGHT THE DANG BOOK. In hardback, no less. Stay posted!...more
Alice Proserpine has always led a drifter’s life with her mother Ella. They scrape by on the edge of homelesReview first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Alice Proserpine has always led a drifter’s life with her mother Ella. They scrape by on the edge of homelessness, constantly moving from place to place, staying with friends until they wear out their welcome, bad luck relentlessly dogging their footsteps wherever they go. And they never speak about Ella’s mother Althea, a reclusive author who lives in a grand, nearly impossible to find estate called the Hazel Wood, and who was famous for Tales from the Hinterland, a mysterious, nearly impossible to find collection of dark and bloody fairy tales. All Alice knows about this tantalizing book (before her mother snatched it away from her, never to be seen again) is the titles of the stories, including the intriguingly named “Alice-Three-Times.”
When Ella gets word that Althea has died, she’s determined to stop running from life. She marries a rich New Yorker after a whirlwind courtship and she and Alice try ― or not ― to adjust to a different lifestyle. Alice is seething with anger and frustration most of the time, and Ella’s marriage rapidly begins fraying.
Then their lives get upended again, but in a way that blindsides Alice: Ella is kidnapped by two people who say they are from the Hinterland. She disappears without a trace, leaving behind only a message for Alice: “Stay the hell away from the Hazel Wood.” Which message, of course, Alice has absolutely no intention of heeding. Alice enlists her friend Ellery Finch, a longtime fan of Tales from the Hinterland, to help her in her search. But she has no idea where to find the Hazel Wood, or what awaits her there.
The Hazel Wood begins as a quirky, bleak urban fantasy set in our contemporary world. In the first half of the book the plot unrolls at a leisurely pace, enlivened only by Ella’s kidnapping, Alice’s search for the Hazel Wood, and some occasional run-ins with suspicious dark characters. But the murky horror of the Hazel Wood and the Hinterland cast a gloom over every page, reinforced by Finch’s occasional retelling of some of the stories from the copy of Tales of the Hinterland that he read long ago.
The pace picks up in the second half when the novel suddenly shifts gears to a dark fairy tale type of setting. I enjoyed the creativity and fantasy of this part of the novel much more than the first part, though I was underwhelmed at a couple of key points: the climactic scene and the ending both struck me as weak.
Melissa Albert’s writing, though Alice’s first person narrative voice, was a major plus for me. Her language is lush and evocative, though I’ll admit it sometimes sidles toward purple prose:
There was a funny glitter in [Ella’s] eyes as she watched herself in the mirror. I thought of that later, when she came home with a twin glitter on her ring finger: a rock as big as the Ritz.
My memory of that night is tattered, a movie screen clawed to pieces. The glint of the ring lodged in my eye like a shard of demon glass, and the anger overwhelmed me.
The main character, Alice, is rude, inconsiderate, foul-mouthed and, more often than not, angry; certainly not an easy character to appreciate. She's not at all politically correct, so readers sensitive to those nuances have an additional reasons to be perturbed with her point of view. Alice's main good point is her deep devotion and love for Ella. I wasn’t as irritated by her as Ray and Jana (my FanLit co-reviewers) were, partly because the reason for her irascible nature, when finally disclosed, was an unusual and compelling one. Still, the amount of swearing (a Kindle search informs me that there are 22 F-bombs in this book) was a definite turn-off for me for a YA fantasy.
At one point Finch tells Alice:
"I got my hands on Althea’s book. And it was perfect. There are no lessons in it. There’s just this harsh, horrible world touched with beautiful magic, where shitty things happen. And they don’t happen for a reason, or in threes, or in a way that looks like justice. They’re set in a place that has no rules and doesn’t want any."
Much the same could be said of this book: It’s harsh and flawed but there’s creativity and beauty in it. Despite its shortcomings, I enjoyed The Hazel Wood.
I received a free copy from the publisher through NetGalley for review. Thanks!...more
99c Kindle sale, March 7, 2018, for this urban fantasy about faeries, with a few wizards thrown in the mix. Worth grabbing if you like that sort of es99c Kindle sale, March 7, 2018, for this urban fantasy about faeries, with a few wizards thrown in the mix. Worth grabbing if you like that sort of escapist read! 3.5 stars, rounding up. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Colin Leffee (aka Lord Coileán le fae) is an immortal half-human, half-fae being, who’s exiled himself from his mother Titania’s court in Faerie for her various misdeeds. For approximately the last eight hundred years he’s been whiling away his time on Earth, protecting humans from the terrors and mischiefs of less conscientious faeries, running an antique bookstore, and drinking far too much ― easy to do when you’re magical and can make booze, money or anything else appear with a thought.
[image]
But one day his past comes back to haunt him: Colin finds a teenage changeling that Titania has tossed out of Faerie, practically on his doorstep. Colin realizes, with a great deal of alarm, that this girl, Moyna, has magical powers and, worse, that his past connects him to Moyna and her mother Meggy, the only woman Colin has truly loved in all his years on Earth. In the process of locating Meggy and trying to reunite her with her daughter, who was stolen by Titania when she was a two week old baby, a trap is tripped that separates Colin from Meggy and her daughter and blocks the gates between Faerie and our world. Now the limited magical power that exists on Earth is slowly fading away; once the magic on Earth is exhausted, the magical gates sealing off Earth from the Gray Lands (“sort of a dark reflection of Faerie”) will fail, and dark magic will flood the earth. Besides, Colin can only imagine the tortures that his vindictive mother Titania is likely inflicting on Meggie and Moyna.
As Colin and his allies study the complex binding spell that executed the trap and cut Faerie off from Earth, they realize that they will need some help to break it. They end up on an extended quest, searching for certain devices that contain previously stored-up magic that will power their spell-breaking efforts, since the magic on Earth is too weak now. Luckily the Arcanum, the organization of Earth’s wizards, just happens to have an interest in these magic storage devices. Not so luckily, Colin’s past run-ins with Arcanum wizards haven’t been entirely cordial.
Stranger Magics, a debut novel by Ash Fitzsimmons, is an enjoyable, breezy urban fantasy adventure. It focuses on fae characters and their society, but also features a few witches, wizards and merrows (merpeople who don’t look at all like the popular conception of mermaids). Colin’s helpers include a Catholic seminarian, a priest in training who begins to develop doubts about his vocation in the course of helping Colin with his search, and who has an unlikely enthusiasm for suits of armor, swords and nail guns.
The world-building in Stranger Magics is well-structured and, for the most part, clearly explained … with the exception of a frequently-mentioned distinction between spellcraft and enchantment that never really made sense to me. The three key players in Faerie ― Oberon, Titania and Mab ― have been at odds for centuries, with ongoing power plays that affect both Faerie and humanity, and the heartlessness that is typical of faeries. Colin and other half-fae have all of the powers and immortality of full-blooded fae, but are also able to feel love and guilt. This and some of the other plot developments occasionally seem suspiciously convenient. But the plot rolls along fairly smoothly, though a few extended flashbacks from Colin’s long life do create some speed bumps along the way.
Stranger Magics is a light fantasy with a fairly minor romance element and appealing characters. It doesn’t noticeably expand the boundaries of the urban fantasy genre, but fans of that genre should enjoy it. While Stranger Magics is currently a stand-alone novel, Ash Fitzsimmons leaves the door wide open for further adventures of Colin and his friends.
I received a free ebook from the publisher, Harper Voyager, for review. Thanks!
Content note: A few scattered F-bombs and magical violence/death....more
Polly is a capable young woman who has lived a completely ordinary life. Or so she thinks, until one day she's cleaning out her old bedroom and startsPolly is a capable young woman who has lived a completely ordinary life. Or so she thinks, until one day she's cleaning out her old bedroom and starts to remember - in great detail; it takes up most of the book - a different life, a second set of memories revolving around a somewhat older man, Thomas Lynn, who had been her friend while she was a child, and with whom she shared some very strange, otherworldly experiences. Polly realized (view spoiler)[that she was in love with Thomas when she was sixteen (hide spoiler)], but something happened and she forgot she ever knew him, until these old memories were triggered. Had these memories been erased from Polly's mind? How, and why?
I'm really torn about this one. It's a modern fantasy that's a retelling of Tam Lin, which ordinarily is like literary catnip for me, but it just didn't particularly grab me: Thomas Lynn was kind of bland and rather old for our heroine. Polly spent too much of the book as a pre-teen and young teen (ages 10-16, with a sudden leap to age 19 at the very end), and the ending was abrupt and kind of confusing. I thought it was a solid 3-star read, no question.
But then I read some Goodreads reviews from people who love this novel (though there are plenty of others who felt like me). And then I found Diana Wynn Jones' essay explaining all of the different ideas and mythologies woven into the plot - seriously, the list includes T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets - and it's clear this novel is a lot more layered and complex than I initially gave it credit for. And I love layered and complex. So I'm going to reread the last part of this book and reevaluate my feelings and my initial rating. Stay tuned!
ETA: I reread the ending. Maybe 3.5 stars? I'm still having trouble feeling the love for this book. The vastly ugly painting of the main characters on the cover of my paperback isn't helping, at all. These are supposed to be attractive people! And Tom, who is supposed to be in his early 20's, looks like he's in his 50's. Because of that I had put Tom firmly in the father figure category, and ultimately that's not where he's supposed to be, but my imaginary view of Tom is proved quite difficult to shift. Sometime I'll read this entire book again. BECAUSE I WANT TO FEEL THE LOVE, DANGIT....more
99c Kindle sale, Oct. 11, 2018. A solid, amusing start to this YA fantasy series, about a twelve-year-old millionaire evil genius. Okay, he's not real99c Kindle sale, Oct. 11, 2018. A solid, amusing start to this YA fantasy series, about a twelve-year-old millionaire evil genius. Okay, he's not really evil, but he is into criminal heists, especially since the family wealth is gone, his father has disappeared, and his mother is mentally ill, out of touch with reality. So Artemis, having used his brilliant mind to figure out that fairies are real, decides to restore the family fortune by kidnapping a fairy and holding him or her for for ransom. Fairy gold, that's the ticket!
Now Artemis and his assistants are up against the military and police forces of faerie. The resulting conflicts are both funny and tension-filled. It's kind of like Mission: Impossible with a magical element and a hidden society of magical folk.
Recommended! I've read the first four books (got them in a paperback set) and enjoyed all of them....more
$1.99 Kindle sale, Oct. 25, 2018. The sequel to this 2005 folktale retelling, West, was just published this week (it's still waiting on my Kindle).
Eas$1.99 Kindle sale, Oct. 25, 2018. The sequel to this 2005 folktale retelling, West, was just published this week (it's still waiting on my Kindle).
East is a retelling of the Norwegian tale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon;" you can read one version of it here. In East, a teenage girl named Rose has a sense of adventure that her worried mother has always tried, unsuccessfully, to quell. One day a huge white bear appears at their door and offers to magically to fix the family's dire financial and health problems if Rose will to come away with the bear, and she agrees. There's a hard and fast rule to their relationship, though, and when Rose eventually breaks it, the results are far worse than she imagined. Rose can go back home to her family ... or she can try to fix the problem she created.
Edith Pattou tells this story with lots of believable details. (view spoiler)[As Rose follows the bear's trail north to a hidden kingdom of ice and cruelty, (hide spoiler)]I really felt the cold. A fine retelling of an old, less well-known folktale....more
Winter Rose is Patricia McKillip's take on the Tam Lin folktale. It veers from the standard legend pretty dramatically.
An attractive young man, CorbeWinter Rose is Patricia McKillip's take on the Tam Lin folktale. It veers from the standard legend pretty dramatically.
An attractive young man, Corbet Lynn, moves to the medievalish village of Rois and Laurel Melior, two sisters. Rois (our narrator) likes to wander around outdoors barefoot, heedless of propriety; Laurel is the more proper sister, with a fiance who loves her. Somehow Corbet, who seems to be struggling with some kind of family curse, manages to upend both of the sisters' lives.
Beautifully told with McKillip's usual lyrical, nearly poetic language, but it gets a little strange and hard to follow as events become more obscure, and dreams seem to meld with reality until neither you nor Rois is sure what's what. Faerie has some kind of hold on the Lynn family and doesn't want to let go. Even though I got a little lost there toward the end - it's not clear exactly WHAT is happening (Tatiana's review calls it a "psychedelic trip" and I have to agree it's just about that weird) - I still enjoyed this story enough to read it a couple of times, and may well read it again sometime.
My recommendation: Just sit back and appreciate McKillip's lush and lovely language and don't try to make sense of everything that happens in this story. But if you do make sense of it, let's talk. I've still got some questions. :)
If you want a more straightforward, understandable retelling of Tam Lin, I recommend The Perilous Gard, a wonderful old YA novel. If you want a more adult version, you might like Roses and Rot. ...more
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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