3.5 stars. I've read most of Susanna Kearsley's recent books, but I've bought a lot of her older ones on Kindle sales over the years that I still need3.5 stars. I've read most of Susanna Kearsley's recent books, but I've bought a lot of her older ones on Kindle sales over the years that I still need to read. This is one of those and, while I really liked parts of it, in other ways it shows its age (written about 30 years ago). Kearsley's definitely grown as an author since then.
The main character, 29 year old Julia Beckett, has been inexplicably and powerfully drawn to a historic home, called Greywethers, in an English village since she first saw it as a child. When it goes up for sale years later, she snaps it up. And immediately starts experiencing these odd events where she's reliving events in the life of Mariana, a young woman who lived in 1665, the plague year in England.
Mariana is forced to leave London when her mother's death from the plague leaves her as an orphan, and she moves into Greywethers with her self-righteous, abusive uncle, his downtrodden wife, their baby, and the wife's younger sister, who becomes Mariana's friend and confidante. Mariana also meets the local lord, Richard de Mornay, who is violently hated by her uncle, but Richard is clearly very interested in Mariana. Meanwhile, back in the present, a descendant of Richard's family is also very interested in Julia.
In Mariana Kearsley uses her patented dual-timeline approach, with one plotline set in our modern times and the other in a historical period (usually the late 1600's/early 1700's, which really seems to draw Kearsley). There's usually a paranormal element tying the two time periods together, and here it's **possibly a spoiler if you're particularly sensitive about these things, though it's disclosed pretty early in the book** (view spoiler)[straightforward reincarnation (hide spoiler)]. At least for me, that didn't work as well as the various other methods Kearsley has used in other books. (view spoiler)[ It was kind of odd when the heroine was reliving episodes in Mariana's life, because her body is walking around the town in modern times but her mind is back in the past. So kind of like sleepwalking? (hide spoiler)] There's also a lot of smoking by one of the main characters, which doesn't read so well for me in a 90's era romantic novel. Also: VERY abrupt ending. It's not terrible, but I would've liked a little more detail on how everything worked out.
YMMV. I thought this was a reasonably good book, but not one of Kearsley's best. I'd recommend The Winter Sea, The Firebird and The Rose Garden over this one. But if you're a Kearsley fan, it's worth a read....more
This review is for the spooky title story by Charles Dickens, "To Be Read at Dusk," published in 1852. You can download or read this story for free heThis review is for the spooky title story by Charles Dickens, "To Be Read at Dusk," published in 1852. You can download or read this story for free here at Project Gutenberg.
The unnamed narrator happens across five couriers sitting on a bench near a Swiss mountain, the Great St. Bernard, "looking at the remote heights, stained by the setting sun as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountain top, and had not yet had time to sink into the snow." <--Read: It's bloody red, and the imagery is underscored by the bodies of unlucky travelers stored in a nearby shed.
The couriers begin to talk of ghost stories - but not your ordinary ghosts. One story is of a young wife who has a portentous vision of a dark man that haunts her. The other story is of two twin brothers: when one brother falls ill, he tells the other brother, who is leaving on a long trip, "If I get quite better, I’ll come back and see you before you go. If I don’t feel well enough to resume my visit where I leave it off, why you will come and see me before you go." And apparently he REALLY means it.
This is a haunting story (or really three stories: two framed by a third) that can be read on a few different levels. Are there ghosts? Or is it a purely psychological tale, with no real ghosts, just people frightening themselves? Or is Dickens, perhaps, telling us a deeper tale, using symbolism?
I was scratching my head over some of the aspects of this tale and how to interpret them, so I went on a Google search and came across the most fascinating essay here: https://journals.openedition.org/jsse.... It’s a little dense and scholarly but has some really intriguing ideas in it. I recommend it if you want to do a deep dive!
In this recent novella sequel to Shakespeare's The Tempest, Prospero's daughter Miranda travels back to Milan with him and finds life a lot more unpleIn this recent novella sequel to Shakespeare's The Tempest, Prospero's daughter Miranda travels back to Milan with him and finds life a lot more unpleasant than she expected. Everyone treats her like some kind of monster, she's confined to her rooms and only allowed out with a heavy veil, her fiance Ferdinand has disappeared, and her father is distant and uninterested in her welfare. The only bright spot in Miranda's life is one of the maids, Dorothea. Maybe she can help Miranda figure out what's gone wrong?
It's a warmhearted and well-intentioned novella that puts a very different twist on Shakespeare's story, with distinctly modern social views and occasionally veering into preachiness. It got a little too clunky for me and the plot didn't always flow smoothly or make total sense, but it had its moments. If a queer, feminist fantasy take on Renaissance Italy sounds like your cuppa tea, I'd recommend it.
Available for free right now as part of a set of four Tor LGBTQ+ novellas, with Tor's ebook of the month club....more
I wasn’t at all sure this book was going to work for me when I realized that the plot revolves around financial fraud and almost all of the charactersI wasn’t at all sure this book was going to work for me when I realized that the plot revolves around financial fraud and almost all of the characters are deeply flawed at best and deliberately dishonest at worst. But I should have had more faith in the author of Station Eleven....more
Heads up on a giveaway: On about Jan. 14, 2021, one of the commenters on this FanLit thread will get a free copy of this book: http://www.fantasyliterHeads up on a giveaway: On about Jan. 14, 2021, one of the commenters on this FanLit thread will get a free copy of this book: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/give....
Personally I can't recommend this dark urban fantasy but I have a lot of friends who loved it. Review first posted on FantasyLiterature.com:
Galaxy “Alex” Stern (the name courtesy of her hippie mother) seems an obvious misfit at prestigious Yale University. Wealth, athletic talent and academic stardom are nowhere to be found in Alex’s life. Instead she’s a high school dropout with a history of dead-end jobs and drug use, and the survivor of a traumatic multiple homicide. But she has a rare talent that to date has brought her nothing but grief: Alex sees the ghosts of dead people.
As it turns out, that talent is highly useful to Yale’s eight elite secret societies, and they’ve had their eye on Alex for a while. Each of these houses specializes in a different type of black magic — Skull and Bones, for example, performs ritual vivisections of living people, examining their inner organs to predict stock market changes — and these dark rituals attract ghosts. A ninth Yale house, Lethe, polices the magical activities of those other eight houses and is tasked with keeping the ghosts in check, preventing them from causing chaos. Alex gets a full ride scholarship to Yale, provided that she joins Lethe. When a “townie” girl is murdered, Alex feels compelled to investigate it, gradually unearthing a hidden world of corruption, abuse of privilege and evil.
I was warned by a GR friend that Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo’s new contemporary dark fantasy, might be too grim for me, but I was all, I love Leigh Bardugo! I gotta give it a shot! The SIX OF CROWS duology is dark fantasy, so I thought I was prepared.
Silly me.
Ninth House features an onslaught of horrible events, one piling on the next. The trigger list is almost too long to get into, but it includes the aforementioned vivisection, drug abuse, self-neglect, murder … and that’s just in the parts I read or skimmed. I’m reliably informed that its plot also includes child and statutory rape, other types of sexual assault, and forcible eating of human waste. It’s a deeply unpleasant world that Alex Stern lives in, and I realized fairly quickly that I didn’t want to live in it with her, not even for the few days it would take to read this book.
I’m not much of a fan of horror literature in general, and occult horror in particular. You may like Ninth House if you’re a fan of occult horror and are mentally and emotionally up to dealing with the morass of human failings and foul deeds. Ninth House is well-written and detailed, but arguably too detailed and slow-paced. It examines the patriarchy of our society and the unearned privileges of rich white men, who do most (though not all) of the ugly things in this book. Alex herself is a hard-edged survivor, but still struggling to recover from past traumas and to survive the pressures of life at Yale.
This is clearly one of those “your mileage may vary” types of books. Know your reading tastes: if you have major qualms, it's probably not for you....more
This is the first in a set of (at least for now) four books that collect all of the “Welcome to Night Vale” scripts, along with a couple of pages of cThis is the first in a set of (at least for now) four books that collect all of the “Welcome to Night Vale” scripts, along with a couple of pages of commentary on each episode. I wasn’t previously familiar with Night Vale, but my 21-year-old daughter told me she listened to the podcasts regularly. Night Vale is a town where weird, sometimes spooky, often creepy things happen on a daily basis, and are reported on with equanimity by our radio announcer, Cecil.
They have a very dry, absurdist type of humor that I enjoyed, and I even listened to two or three episodes on YouTube. But I never really got into them, and it was too easy to set this aside for other more compelling reads.
I think fans of the podcasts will really enjoy these books. They’re probably not the best place to start for newbies, though.
I received a free copy of these books from the publicist for review. Thanks, and sorry they didn’t work out for me!...more
Update #2: Review added for "How to Swallow the Moon," a Locus Award nominated short story.
Two 2019 Hugo award nominees and a Locus Award nominee in tUpdate #2: Review added for "How to Swallow the Moon," a Locus Award nominated short story.
Two 2019 Hugo award nominees and a Locus Award nominee in this issue of Uncanny magazine, free to read online! 4 stars for each of these stories, which are very different: a sex comedy type of fantasy (Kingfisher's), a poignant story about ghosts, love and loss (Kritzer's), and a queer love story set in a mythic Philippine culture (Yap's). Reviews first posted on Fantasy Literature:
"The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society" by T. Kingfisher: A half-dozen faerie men, a bull selkie and a black pooka in the shape of a horse (except when he wants more beer) morosely gather around a campfire to commiserate. Each of them has a history with one Rose MacGregor, a lusty human who has unexpectedly turned the tables on them. Human women are supposed to pine after them, right? But somehow Rose never got that message.
“The Rose MacGregor Drinking and Admiration Society” is a short but very amusing sex comedy type of story (lots of innuendos in this one!). There’s a running joke about Rose’s lost sheep that adds to the humor, and as the men around the campfire share their stories, one can’t help but admire Rose’s strength of character while grinning at her disregard for the feelings of the guys … most of whom were planning to treat her worse than she treated them, so there’s that.
“Excuse me! I am a pooka! We drown people! None of this waiting around for them to die of a broken heart! We are efficient!”
“Yer a bunch of cads,” said the selkie. “At least we don’t go killin’ the ladies after.”
It’s a one-joke kind of tale, but a clever twist on the standard trope, and well-told (as always) by T. Kingfisher.
"The Thing About Ghost Stories" by Naomi Kritzer: Leah has been collecting ghost stories from people for years; mostly ordinary people, though with a few mediums in the mix (who Leah views with suspicion). These ghost stories were the basis of her doctoral dissertation for her PhD in folklore, and now she’s looking to write a book based on the stories she’s collected, analyzing their types, geographic variations, connections to popular culture, and so forth. Leah briefly retells some of the ghost stories she’s assembled as she narrates this tale, and they intermingle with Leah’s own story about the loss of her mother ― first to Alzheimer’s and then to death ― and the loss of an heirloom ring that Leah assumes was taken by one of her mother’s caregivers.
Mom had moved to Indiana with me, even though it was just for a year, because she said she thought I’d write my dissertation faster with someone there cooking for me. I figured she was just feeling lonely after Dad’s death. In retrospect, I wondered if she’d felt the first whispers of dementia, and figured that if she wrapped herself around my ankle early, it would be that much harder for me to shake her loose later on.
The Thing About Ghost Stories is a rather meandering tale at first, but it gradually gains focus as Leah’s own experiences begin to tie together with a few of the stories she’s being told by some of the people she meets. It’s far more poignant than spooky. Leah’s practical-minded narration strikes just the right balance between skepticism and belief. Naomi Kritzer has written a lovely, heartfelt story about ghosts, love and loss.
"How to Swallow the Moon": Isabel Yap, born and raised in the Philippines, makes great use of its traditional culture and mythology in this Locus award-nominated novelette. Anyag, not quite sixteen, is a binukot, a young women kept sequestered and pampered since early childhood in order to increase her beauty and her value in the marriage market, a practice that still persists. (Somewhat surprisingly, young men also occasionally have been binukots. But mostly, of course, it’s women.) The only people allowed to set eyes on her are her family and her servant, Amira, an orphan two years older than Anyag. Amira has served and loved Anyag since they first met nine years ago, though in recent years her love has grown into something more passionate. Amira doesn’t know if Anyag returns her romantic feelings, however, and in any case she knows Anyag is destined for a marriage that will bring honor and rewards to her family.
I also appreciated the way Yap weaves Philippine mythology into this tale. The Earth once had seven moons, but the bakunawa, a dragon-type monster, has eaten all but our one remaining moon. The bakunawa has been sated for many years by another binukot’s self-sacrifice to its appetite. But nothing lasts forever, and when a sly-eyed suitor appears, he represents a threat to Anyag and Amira on several levels.
“How to Swallow the Moon” emphasizes Amira’s feelings and the evolving relationship between the two girls; it lost some of its impact for me in its focus on romance and All. The. Feels. that Amira has. Still, Yap is a fine writer, and her twist on Philippine mythology and culture is an intriguing one....more
3.5ish stars? Lynette, aka Circus Girl, a former circus knife thrower/fire juggler, then prostitute (her way of escaping the circus life), then "lowly3.5ish stars? Lynette, aka Circus Girl, a former circus knife thrower/fire juggler, then prostitute (her way of escaping the circus life), then "lowly beauty technician," is startled one day to see "Mirror Boy," a childhood ghost that replaced her image in the mirror for several years until he faded away, staring back at her from the mirror again one day. She wants him to go away again, but Mirror Boy is there to warn her: there's a hunter, a man who's methodically seeking out all of the people Mirror Boy has haunted, and killing them. And now he's after Circus Girl.
This was almost a story that really worked for me. JY Yang has some lovely, evocative language and I really liked the basic idea of the plot. But some of the details grated (like the hunter's religious obsession and constant prayers to Leviathan), and the final resolution, though cheering, doesn't entirely make sense given the rules of the world that Yang set up. Hmm. I need to think about this some more.
Full review to come.
Content notes: some sexual content and a handful of F-bombs....more
4.5 stars for this short story, another in the current crop of Nebula award nominees. It's free online here at Uncanny magazine. Final review, first p4.5 stars for this short story, another in the current crop of Nebula award nominees. It's free online here at Uncanny magazine. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Armed with a doctorate in theoretical physics, you return to the house that haunted your youth since you were a bullied eight-year-old child, determined to wrest the truth and some measure of peace from this menacing house. It’s a place where pocket universes collide: its rooms contain scenes from your past ― a mother who insists on you finishing every bit of an inedible dinner that constantly refreshes itself, a younger brother who is hit by a car crossing the road ― or from alternative worlds where your life diverges from its present path.
“And Yet” is a haunted house story that’s more SF than fantasy, dips into theoretical physics and parallel universes, and went a completely different direction in the end than I expected, but which made perfect sense in the context of the story. The narrator is an intriguing character, with significant difficulties in their past, including difficult parents, a loss of a beloved sibling at a young age, and so-called friends whose cruelty becomes apparent. I had to grin when the narrator tells this horrified group of childhood friends that they “come from a universe that’s banned the internet and the only shows on TV are documentaries.” The narrator used two crutches as a child but now gets by with one walking cane; it’s an apt metaphor for their life. They’ve overcome many obstacles but are still troubled by past events.
I’m on the fence with the second person narration, which the author mentioned (here in her Uncanny magazine interview) gave her inspiration, but which is by far the hardest narrative voice to pull off well. But I did find the present-tense narration highly appropriate for this particular story. My co-review Bill (whose review appears below mine on FantasyLiterature.com) mentions in his review that he found the ending predictable, but personally I found it a gratifying surprise....more
Kincaid Strange is a 27-year-old woman who’s one of the only “zombie practitioners” in th3.75 stars. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Kincaid Strange is a 27-year-old woman who’s one of the only “zombie practitioners” in the Seattle area. She can temporarily (or permanently, for that matter) raise people from the dead, which is clearly handy when you want to temporarily raise a rich old man and ask him to amend his will in order to avoid a family lawsuit. Lipstick Voodoo opens with just such a scene, with a crotchety old man who’s not impressed with his family’s reasons for raising him from the dead, and an impressively sleazy lawyer.
The laws against paranormal dealings have been relaxed somewhat due to the fallout from the events of The Voodoo Killings, the first book in this KINCAID STRANGE urban fantasy series (obligatory spoiler warning here for that book). Unfortunately Kincaid still has a boatload of problems, many of which resulted from the events in that prior book. She has an on-again-off-again boyfriend, Aaron, a police detective whose new chief hates the paranormal division. So Kincaid’s best client, the police force, won’t hire her as a consultant any more, and Aaron is caught between his boss and his former girlfriend. The vengeful ghost of a powerful sorcerer, Gideon Lawrence, is massively unhappy with Kincaid, particularly since she burned a body that Gideon was planning on taking over and inhabiting.
What Gideon doesn’t yet know ― and Kincaid is afraid he’ll find out, since Gideon is entirely capable of choking her to death with a hair dryer cord or some other household object ― is that the body in question was accidentally taken over by another ghost, Kincaid’s roommate Nathan Cade, a grunge rocker who’s been dead (but not gone) for twenty years. Now instead of a ghost for a roommate Kincaid has a zombie, and one whose body is starting to rapidly deteriorate. Even the brain Slurpees (YUM) aren’t helping Nate’s body much. Despite her magical power and expertise in All Things Zombie, Kincaid can’t figure out how to untie Nate from this gradually decaying body.
In the middle of this, Aaron unexpectedly offers Kincaid a job helping him investigate a cold case, the apparent murder of a musician, Damien Fell, which occurred over twenty years ago. Nate once knew Damien; he claims not to know anything about Damien’s death, but he’s clearly hiding something important from Kincaid. As Kincaid digs deeper into the case, interviewing Nate’s old girlfriend Mindy and his bandmate and drummer Cole, people start dying in gruesome ways.
It’s always exciting when the sequel is better than the first book in a series, and that’s how I felt about Lipstick Voodoo. This one gets points for really sucking me into the story, much more than The Voodoo Killings. I had a couple of issues with the underlying logic of the mystery. For one thing, Damien Fell is described as a “devout Mormon” who never drank alcohol or even coffee or tea ― one of the reasons his death from a heroin overdose is suspicious. Yet Damien is also supposed to have been “hooking up” with Mindy before his death, which would contradict his character as a devout Mormon. There’s also an undeniably creepy demon-like power from the Otherside (the spiritual dimension) called Eloch, with black, smoky tendrils that reach out and freeze their victim, but the powers it displays didn’t seem to mesh very well when the answer to the mystery of Eloch was finally revealed.
These quibbles aside, Lipstick Voodoo wove a compelling mystery that kept me glued to its pages. It’s interesting reading a zombie fantasy where the zombies are the more sympathetic characters; it’s mostly the humans and the odd wraith and ghoul that cause the real trouble. As I mentioned in my review of The Voodoo Killings, Kristi Charish‘s writing is reasonably good. She’s not using any poetic language, evocative imagery or other literary tricks, just straightforwardly telling a story. So this is a fairly light, quick read.
Which brings me to my final quibble: reading the two books in this series back-to-back, I noticed a couple of places where Charish uses almost word-for-word the same language in both books to describe some secondary characters, including entire paragraphs. It struck me as a bit lazy or sloppy.
Several elements of the plot in Lipstick Voodoo hang heavily off of events from The Voodoo Killings, and there’s a lot of significant character development that carries over from that first book as well. In fact, I started reading this book before I’d read the first one, but called a halt about 100 pages in because so much of the plot here relies on understanding events and characters from The Voodoo Killings. So I went and read that book and then started this one over again. Hence, I’d very strongly recommend reading the books in this KINCAID STRANGE series in order.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher for review. Thanks!!...more
Gregory Funaro’s just-published Watch Hollow is a charmingly spooky (or perhaps spookily charmiOn sale now! Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Gregory Funaro’s just-published Watch Hollow is a charmingly spooky (or perhaps spookily charming) contemporary fantasy featuring an 11-year-old girl, Lucy Tinker, her 13-year-old brother Oliver, and their clockmaker father … and also a fearsome giant, a boy who mysteriously appears and disappears, and a full dozen magical talking animals sure to warm the hearts of middle grade readers.
After a brief prologue with a heart-stopping chase involving the giant, a traitorous crow, and a rat named Fennish Seven, the story shifts to our main characters, Lucy and her brother Oliver. Between their mother’s death from cancer two years earlier and their father’s lack of business acumen, the Tinker family is teetering on the brink of financial disaster. So it feels like a huge windfall when a stranger, Mr. Quigley, appears in Tinker’s Clock Shop and offers Mr. Tinker a fortune in gold coins to come to Quigley’s old, abandoned mansion, Blackford House, deep in the woods in Rhode Island, and fix a huge clock that’s built into the home and is the source of electrical power for the home. To sweeten the deal, Lucy and Oliver are invited along.
The Tinker family finds Blackford House an ominous place, dingy and dilapidated, with black twisted trees pressing in on every side. The broken clock is ten feet in diameter, with twelve animal-shaped holes where the numbers on the face of the clock would normally appear. Lucy finds two wooden statues of a snarling cat and a cute little dog that are the perfect size to fit in the clock face, but the animals’ positions are the wrong shape. The answer to that mystery is explained (at least in part) that night, when the wooden dog turns into a real one and begs Lucy for her help. Blackford House is sentient but weakened by an evil giant called the Garr who lurks in the woods. The house, its magical clock and animals, and even the Tinkers themselves are in danger.
Watch Hollow is an appealing magical adventure with just enough tension and creepiness to keep things exciting for younger readers. Both boys and girls will find the Tinker siblings sympathetic; they’re well-rounded characters with both strengths, like their courage and love, and problems, like Lucy’s tendency to get in fights with a bullying classmate and Oliver’s anxiety about his acne. The animal characters are also delightful, with some distinct personalities. Torsten Six, the little dog, is anxious but loving and eager to trust; Meridian the cat is far more suspicious of the Tinker family.
Funaro’s writing has improved noticeably since he wrote his first middle grade novels a few years ago, Alistair Grim's Odditorium and Alistair Grim's Odd Aquaticum. While Watch Hollow isn’t quite as crazily fantastical as those books, I found Watch Hollow more coherent in its plot, with improved flow and characterization. Funaro still occasionally does some telling rather than showing, but overall the plot flows well, with enough depth and interesting details to keep the reader engaged.
"Everything here was designed to work together in perfect balance ― sunstone and shadow wood, light and dark, day and night. For in such balance there is potent magic.
Watch Hollow is the type of book that would lend itself to reading aloud to younger children, as well as being given to middle grade readers who love fantasy, animals, or both. The story ends on an open note (not a cliffhanger, thankfully), with a second book, Watch Hollow: The Alchemist's Shadow, expected in early 2020. I look forward to the further adventures of Lucy and Oliver.
Thanks to the author for sending a copy of this book to me for review!...more
One more haunted house story for the road! This one is “A Haunted House of Her Own” by Kelley Armstrong, free online at magazine. Review first postedOne more haunted house story for the road! This one is “A Haunted House of Her Own” by Kelley Armstrong, free online at magazine. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
In this darkly humorous story, Tanya and Nathan are a married couple looking to buy an older house in Vermont with some money that Tanya has inherited, to set up as a bed-and-breakfast inn. But Tanya has something specific in mind: she wants a haunted home, convinced that will be a major draw for visitors. When they find an old Victorian home, it’s perfect in every way, except that it doesn’t have a ghostly tradition. The realtor reluctantly admits, however, that a kid once murdered his family in this house in the seventies. When Tanya meets a mysterious old woman outside that warns her of “Horrors. Blasphemies. Murders. Foul murders,” that’s good enough for Tanya. Sold!
But then after they buy the home, Nathan starts acting very strange, staring into space, listening to seventies music and sharpening knives, giving Tanya unpleasant recollections of The Shining movie.
“A Haunted House of Her Own” seems to be taking a well-worn, traditional path for a haunted house story, but has a surprise up its sleeve. Despite its dark subject matter, the plot is handled with a lighter touch than the other haunted house stories reviewed in my Halloween SFM column. It lacks the depth of the other stories, but it’s somewhat amusing and an easy, quick read....more
Another haunted house story for Halloween week: "House of Small Spiders." Does that sound horrible right there? Well, hang onto your seat, because it Another haunted house story for Halloween week: "House of Small Spiders." Does that sound horrible right there? Well, hang onto your seat, because it gets even worse. Texas Chain Saw Massacre levels of worse. This story by Weston Ochse is free online here at Nightmare magazine. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Susan, who is sixteen, lives alone with her father in a house that seems to be watching them and talking to them. They’re both disturbed people (for good reason, as we find out eventually); Susan has started cutting herself and her father, an accountant, has stopped going to work at all. And now they feel the house spiders watching them and hear them chattering.
For a soul to be born to a house, almost too many things have to happen. Three or more families have to have lived there. Someone has to die in the house. Blood has to be spilled. And something, even if it’s just an idea, has to be born in the house. You can always tell when a house has a soul because of the small spiders. They’re everywhere, non-obtrusive, and ever watchful. The small spiders are the eyes of the house, watching those who live in it much like a great beast would observe its own fleas.
A pair of Seventh Day Adventists disappears at the spiders’ behest. And then a handsome teenager named Del comes to their door and introduces himself to Susan, explaining that he just moved in across the street. Susan is interested in Del, but the spiders are screaming in her mind …
“House of Small Spiders” is atmospheric and well-written. I liked the underlying concept of how a house gains a soul (i.e., becomes haunted), and there were some great unexpected twists to the tale. It’s a very gruesome and violent story, though; too much so for my own personal taste. If you appreciate horror stories that are more than a little reminiscent of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, give this one a read.
I went on an online search for haunted house stories for my Halloween week SFM (Short Fiction Monday) column here at Fantasy Literature, which just poI went on an online search for haunted house stories for my Halloween week SFM (Short Fiction Monday) column here at Fantasy Literature, which just posted, yay! "The Burned House" was my favorite of the batch, not counting Shirley Jackson's "The Man in the Woods," which really isn't quite a haunted house story. This story is free online here at Nightmare magazine. (This review is only for that story.)
Sixty-one year old Agnes Swithin jogs past the abandoned, burned-out house that has been a blight on the neighborhood for years.
The house had neither been condemned nor selected for restoration; it simply was. Yet over those decades it could not be said to have deteriorated further, not in any significant sense. The roof ought to be gone, the walls collapsed, the house reduced to a pile of boards over its long years of neglect, and it was not. A gutter might have unhinged itself, a pilaster might have crumbled, but overall it aged with an enviable and impossible grace, apparently ticking along in its very own timestream.
This time Agnes sees something unusual: a young girl in a white dress ― or maybe a nightgown ― emerges from the house and invites her in for some coffee. Agnes considers that the girl might be a ghost, then talks herself out of it (the girl’s Georgia twang is not ghostly at all). When the girl takes her hand, though, Agnes knows that she’s touching a ghost. Still, Agnes goes into the burned house with the girl, for reasons she can’t entirely explain to herself.
Lynda E. Rucker builds a feeling of dread through this story, bolstered by the periodic quotes from an old jump rope rhyme that Agnes dimly recalls from her childhood: A rhyme that would keep you safe if you could recite it without an error. But the poem, naturally, builds tension rather than a feeling of security, along with the flashbacks to Agnes’s childhood and to discussions with her brother. The story gets a bit murky at the end, but I thought the creepy buildup was excellent.
Review first posted on Fantasy Literature (along with two of my co-reviewers' 3.5 star reviews):
Notwithstanding the publicity materials for this novelReview first posted on Fantasy Literature (along with two of my co-reviewers' 3.5 star reviews):
Notwithstanding the publicity materials for this novella, I’m here to say that Barren is not, in fact, a particularly satisfactory entry point for the DEMON CYCLE series. (I’ll also attest to the fact that I found the dialect, especially the repeated use of the word “ent” for “ain’t,” annoying.) I’m a complete newbie to the series, but when I unexpectedly received a review copy of this novella, it looked interesting enough for me to spend twenty or thirty researching the series and this world before launching into Barren. My research helped with a basic understanding of demons and wards, but it wasn’t enough to make Barren come alive for me.
Selia is an interesting protagonist, a 69 year old woman whose exposure to demon magic while fighting them has reversed her aging process, giving her the looks and vitality of a woman in her thirties. (One of my unanswered questions as a series newbie was why the reverse aging process has only recently begun for her. Is it just the recently discovered “combat wards” that lead to this effect?)
Selia is also a lesbian or “square,” in this society’s terminology. Since she’s living in a medieval-type society and in a small town, it’s pretty safe to assume that that lifestyle is not going to meet with general public approval. To make matters worse, Selia is in a secret relationship with 20 year old Lesa, which also raises squicky questions of age and power differences that are only partially addressed by Selia’s recent return to a more youthful appearance.
Other than Selia, most of the characters are fairly one-dimensional. In a series of flashbacks, we learn about Selia’s youthful relationships and how some key events at that time have affected her views and development as a person. Brett spends most of Barren exploring Selia’s personal relationships with three different young women, her struggles against prejudice and small-town politicking and power plays, and the effect of these things on Selia’s life, with the demon-fighting as more of a backdrop. I would have preferred it if the story had put more emphasis on the latter. Still, if I’d had the background of more of the series to add depth and color to the world, I think I would have appreciated Barren more.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher for review. Thank you!...more
Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day is a beautifully-told but slightly illogical novella about ghosts who can’t ― or won’t ― yet pass on, some of the surprising powers ghosts have over humans, and the fearful powers that human witches have over the ghosts. But on a deeper level it’s about those who are unseen and homeless, and about the power of love and of finding inner peace.
In 1972, Jenna dies in Mill Hollow, Kentucky as a young woman. Distraught over the suicide of her sister Patty, she runs into a stormy night in her nightgown and straight into a tragedy. Because Jenna died before her time, her spirit lingers on earth, eventually making its way to New York City where Patty had died. Since in this world, as imagined by Seanan McGuire, ghosts can be tangible at will during the day and pass as human, Jenna spends her days waitressing in a coffee shop and her nights as a suicide hotline volunteer.
Ghosts who die before their time are able to catch up to their fated time of death by touching living people and taking some of their time, leaving the human younger and fresher and the ghost closer to its fated time of death, when it can pass on to the other side. But Jenna feels such a huge burden of guilt over her failure to prevent Patty’s suicide that she’s not willing to take time from humans unless she’s “earned” it by helping suicidal people regain the will to live. Then one day Jenna realizes that almost all of the other ghosts in NYC have disappeared, and her home town of Mill Hollow seems to hold the answer.
Seanan McGuire does some nice world-building in this novel. In addition to the ghosts and the rules that both empower and bind them, there are humans with the power to see and even control ghosts: street witches, corn witches, water witches, and more. McGuire also weaves in some old superstitions about ghosts, like the need to cover a mirror used by a person who has died, lest their spirit kill the next person who looks in the mirror.
My biggest problem with Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day is that the internal logic of the story doesn’t hold water for me. There are too many coincidences and events that don’t really make sense to me, even within the context of the tale. The stealing and giving of time by ghosts never made logical sense to me, particularly in the way it works at the end of the story. And more questions: why would someone purposely kill another person before his or her time if they aren’t then taking steps to capture the ghost? I never saw an answer to this; it’s a stray plot thread that raises what seems to be a significant question, but then never leads anywhere. (view spoiler)[Why would the witch who captured the ghosts of New York City go to Mill Hollow? And how on earth could that one witch find the right mirrors to capture almost every single ghost in NYC? (hide spoiler)] That last item really made no sense to me at all, and was important enough to the plot to create a major needle scratch in my reading enjoyment.
If you’re not overly fussy about the internal logic of a fantasy tale, there’s much to appreciate in Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day. Though this novella lacks the wry humor of what I view as her best work, McGuire’s writing here is evocative ― even poetic at times ― and insightful. She appreciates the people who go unnoticed and unappreciated by the masses, and that’s a needed reminder to our sometimes thoughtless world....more
Susanna Kearsley is a popular Canadian novelist who writes historical fiction, favoring the dua3.33 stars. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Susanna Kearsley is a popular Canadian novelist who writes historical fiction, favoring the dual-timeline model with a current plotline and a historical one that intersect in one way or another. Her novels are generally spiced with a mystery, a romance (or perhaps two, one in each of the timelines) … and a paranormal element, such as time travel, ghostly spirits, or a character with psychic abilities.
Bellewether, Kearsley’s first novel in three years, is of the dual-timeline model. The historical plotline, set in about 1760, alternates between the points of view of Lydia Wilde and Jean-Philippe de Sabran, a French Canadian lieutenant who was captured during the French and Indian War (part of the Seven Years’ War) and is now billeted at Lydia’s Long Island home along with another French officer. Jean-Philippe speaks no English and Lydia ― for good reason ― carries a deep prejudice against Frenchmen and their military in particular, but neither of these things stop Jean-Philippe and Lydia from noticing each other.
In modern times, the story follows Charlotte (Charley) van Hoek, a museum curator who has moved up to the town of Millbank on the north shore of Long Island, to be with her grieving niece. In Millbank, the home of her ancestors (and where Charley’s estranged grandmother still lives), Charley also finds a welcome job as curator for the Wilde House, the Wilde's ancestral home now turned museum, though there are a few museum trustees who opposed her hiring and are still looking to make life difficult for Charley.
Charley begins researching the Wilde family history, and becomes particularly interested in the story of Lydia and her rumored romance with a French prisoner of war. Local legend has it that the Frenchman was going to run away with Lydia but was killed by Lydia’s brother, and that his spirit now haunts the Wilde House. Charley, of course, doesn’t believe in ghosts. But then some inexplicable things start to happen …
Bellewether is meticulously researched and clearly a labor of love for Kearsley, who incorporates several elements of her own family history into this novel, which she explains in a detailed afterword. Bellewether deals sensitively with issues like slavery and racial and national prejudice. The Wilde family keeps a teenaged black slave, Violet, which initially deeply offends Jean-Philippe, who has his own reasons for hating slavery, but it soon becomes clear that Violet’s history and situation are complicated.
I found Bellewether interesting but oddly placid. One might think that a novel including a centuries-old mystery, wartime romances and conflicts, and ghostly dealings would be gripping, but the characters always feel somewhat distant and the novel rather long-winded and slow-paced. It just never fully captured my heart or imagination. Everything works out suspiciously easily and neatly, and there’s very little intensity in any of the interpersonal relationships, including the understated, slow-burn romances in both timelines.
The title Bellewether is from the name of a beautiful, swift ship owned by Lydia’s brother. It’s nicely evocative, but a bit of stretch to name the novel after this ship, which plays only a minor role in the plot. With just a little imagination, though, one might envision a particular member of Lydia’s family is playing the role of a bellwether sheep, the leader of the flock. And that’s all I’m going to say about that!
Bellewether is a worthy, respectable novel, if you enjoy cozy, deliberately-paced historical reads with just a dash of romance and the supernatural.
I received a free copy of this ebook from the publisher and NetGalley for review. Thank you!...more
3.25 stars. Kindle freebie romance time again! (Now back to its 99c price point.) Gladly Beyond is an interesting twist on the paranormal romance genr3.25 stars. Kindle freebie romance time again! (Now back to its 99c price point.) Gladly Beyond is an interesting twist on the paranormal romance genre, involving an ancient gypsy gift/curse that gave the D'Angelo family the Sight, a powerful ability to see and hear both the future and the past, that passes from one first-born son to the next and inevitably drives them to suicide. Now the Gift has splintered between three triplets, easing the burden somewhat. Dante D'Angelo and his brother use their gift in their profession of assessing the authenticity and provenance of antiques. A full-time job being offered by a wealthy man called the Colonel (after Colonel Sanders, because of his KFC initials and appearance) could be just the thing to get the D'Angelo family back on solid financial ground.
Claire Raythorn, in the same profession, comes to Florence, Italy to try to rebuild her reputation after a couple of major setbacks, but finds she is competing for the same lucrative job not only with Dante but also Pierce, her ex-fiance. Pierce and she had a huge blowup a few months ago when she caught him in bed with another woman. Pierce unkindly posted an online video of Claire's meltdown (screaming and throwing everything in reach at him ... including tampons), which went viral, and now the whole world is laughing at Claire's perceived craziness.
So Claire's self-confidence and trust in men have been shattered ... which makes it tough when she and Dante share a mysterious connection, one he's very anxious to explore with her, despite their job competition. Meanwhile, Pierce is competing for the job as well, while being his smarmy jerk self and trying to win Claire back. And there's something odd about the Colonel, who is a little too interested in Claire personally. Not to mention Claire's anonymous stalker ...
Anyway, that's the set-up, and actually there's a lot to like about this book if you enjoy romances with a side of paranormal stuff, including reincarnation and past lives that affect the present. (I have to say I did enjoy the idea of Napoleon being reincarnated as Dante's mother's pet rat.)
Problems: The whole curse/reincarnation thing played out in some intriguing but rather inconsistent ways. And Claire's whole "I'm broken and will never love again" thing went on for way too long and was just a drag on the overall story after a while, not to mention the romance itself. I liked Dante a lot, but he's a Gary Stu character, practically perfect in every way, with no discernible flaws, not to mention smokin' hot (of course).
I'd recommend this to readers who love light romance novels and enjoy paranormal plots. The Italy setting was fun, and after making my mouth water with the descriptions of Italian food, the author was kind enough to include a recipe for roasted lemon-herb chicken at the end which I am FOR REAL going to try one of these days....more
This 1904 short story starts out as a treasure-hunt mystery spiced up with a little cryptography, like Edgar Allen Poe's The Gold Bug, but then takes This 1904 short story starts out as a treasure-hunt mystery spiced up with a little cryptography, like Edgar Allen Poe's The Gold Bug, but then takes a serious turn toward the spooky. A British gentleman, Mr Somerton, is perusing some old Latin texts talking about one Abbot Thomas, who died in 1529, and was reputed to have hidden away a treasure in gold. Somerton puts this text together with the pictures depicted in an old stained glass church window that he tracks down and realizes that he's got a serious clue as to the whereabouts of this fortune in gold.
Some intriguing sleuthing ensures, as Somerton figures out the clues, engages in some amateur cipher-breaking, and heads off to the area of Koblenz, Germany to try to track down the treasure ... but then something goes wrong. The next thing we know is that Somerton's valet has written an anxious and rather incoherent letter to a rector friend, Mr Gregory, begging him to come to Germany and help his master. And the mystery unfolds from there.
The turn-of-the-century writing is rather old-fashioned and it can get a little esoteric with all the Latin (which does get translated for the reader, thank goodness). But it's a well-crafted story with some pretty decent spookiness to it, once it gets rolling. It's worth reading if you like classic suspense stories. You can read it free online here at A Thin Ghost....more
DNF for this new stand-alone fantasy; it's a matter of taste. Final review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Magic is an elusive and dangerous thing DNF for this new stand-alone fantasy; it's a matter of taste. Final review first posted on Fantasy Literature:
Magic is an elusive and dangerous thing in the kingdom of Quandis, forbidden to all except a few select priests who spend their lives preparing to handle the ancient magic, and even then inhale only a few smoky tendrils of the powerful magic. Princess Phela thrives on sneaking through hidden passages of the castle, seeking to overhear others’ information and secrets. When Phela hears her mother, the queen, confessing (in a drug-induced haze) to her lover Linos Kallistrate that she, the queen, has been exploring the far depths of the castle seeking out the magic of the Four, who are the gods of Quandis, she’s appalled at the heresy, but eager to find a way to use this secret to further her own ambitions.
Meanwhile, among the Bajumen ― the hereditary slaves of Quandis marked by their deep blue eyes and serpentine brands ― Blane is seeking the only way out of slavery by becoming a novice in the priesthood of the Four … where he promptly begins seeking out the forbidden magic for his own purpose of freeing the Bajumen people from their oppression. His sister Daria, long thought murdered by her master, actually survived the attempt and, her telltale blue eyes somehow fortuitously changed to grey by her near-drowning and her brand hidden by coral scars, is now a powerful naval admiral. And Demos Kallistrate, a young nobleman engaged to Phela’s younger sister, experiences his family’s horrendous downfall. Is it due to his father’s illicit relationship with the queen?
Blood of the Four (2018), an epic stand-alone fantasy novel by Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon, focuses on the highest and lowest inhabitants of the realm of Quandis, telling the tale of the turbulence that hits this kingdom from multiple points of view. The story has several interesting elements, including power struggles in the royal family, slaves fighting for freedom, and conspiracies galore. It’s distinctly reminiscent of A Game of Thrones in some ways.
Unfortunately this fantasy novel is a DNF (Did Not Finish) for me, though I did do some skimming through the rest of the book to satisfy my curiosity about the plot. Blood of the Four is, if not grimdark, then standing within spitting distance of it. With near-unrelenting brutality, detailed violence, explicit sex (including group sex), multiple gruesome murders and assassinations, plenty of F-bombs, and magic with a seriously nasty edge to it, it’s aggressively not my thing. To be fair, there are some threads of hope, and some sympathetic characters to offset the many unpleasant ones. And the violence arguably isn’t as gratuitous as it is in A Game of Thrones, but there was certainly more than enough of it for my taste.
Judging from that amount I read, my sense is that if I hadn’t found the storytelling too off-putting for my taste, I would have rated it 3.5 to 4 stars, but I don’t feel like I read enough of it to give it an official rating. Epic fantasy fans who aren’t put off by hard R-rated novels may enjoy Blood of the Four.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, Harper Voyager, for review. ...more
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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