Wooing the Witch Queen

 Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis, 304 pages.

Queen Saskia is desperately trying to hold onto her kingdom in a political situation where many of her neighbors would rather see her fratricidal uncle on the throne then a "wicked sorceress." She is totally dedicated to developing spells to stop the troublesome and aggressive imperial archduke next door from conquering her kingdom on behalf of her uncle, which leaves little time for either politics are organizing her inherited magical library. Little does she know that the archduke has at no point been in charge of his people, and that he has fled to seek her protection from his former regent, who he is sure wants him dead. Due to some early misunderstandings, Felix assumes the identity of "Fabian" a dark wizard who becomes Saskia's librarian. 

For reasons unknown, something about this cover really drew me to this book, and it was a pleasant surprise! It was overall a very sweet fantasy romance, with less villainy and evil then I would expect from a "wicked sorceress" and a "dark wizard." Both of the characters were mostly very sweet, and it was the kind of slightly ridiculous premise I prefer for my romances. I'd recommend this as a light fantasy romance novel about healing from childhood trauma, although maybe less for people looking for something with a darker edge.  

Somewhere Beyond the Sea

 Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune, 416 pages.

Linus Baker as found a home and a family with Arthur Parnassus and the weird and wonderful children of Marsyas Island. He hasn't looked back since he left DICOMY, but the organization isn't done with them yet. Arthur is summoned to testify about his experiences of abuse in a DICOMY orphanage, where he learns that the new head of the organization is a polite, respectable woman who also happens to be a bigot very dedicated to destroying the home he has so painstakingly built for himself. 

It was a real pleasure to get back to these wonderful characters. That being said, I didn't like this book quite as well as the first. It feels like while the first was very focused on character interactions, this one was more speeches than anything else. This makes an amount of sense, as the first book was about finding a home, and the sequel is more about fighting for it. Overall I would say this book is still very good, and important, but the reading of it is a very different experience than the first book in the series. 

The House in the Cerulean Sea

 The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune, 394 pages.

Linus Baker works for the Department in Charge of Magical Youth (DICOMY for short) and spends his rainy, grey life in a rainy, grey city evaluating government orphanages that house magical youth and filling out paperwork. His long and steady record leads Extremely Upper Management to send him to evaluate an extremely secret orphanage that houses children that are considered especially dangerous or unusual. The monthlong visit with the weird and wonderful children of Marsyas Island Orphanage floods him with all of the color his life was missing, and soon he's wondering how he will ever live without the children and their caring and enigmatic caretaker. 

This was a reread for me, and it was just as wonderful the second time (although perhaps not as desperately needed as December of 2020 when I read it the first time). I love all of the characters, Linus included, and the whole novel reads like a warm hug. At a recent author event I attended Klune mentioned that this was the first book of what he informally thought of as the "Kindness trilogy" (along with Beneath the Whispering Door  and In the Lives of Puppets) and I can't get over how completely apt that is. This is a book about compassion, finding love and community, and confronting biases (both internalized and towards others). A truly lovely book, highly recommended to anyone who hasn't already read and also people who have. 

A Sorceress Comes to Call

 A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher, 336 pages. 

Cordelia has always been frightened of her mother's violent moods and punishments. Years of total isolation under her mother's absolute control have made her timid and afraid to speak to other people. She has no idea how afraid she should be until she finds out her mother has decided to move on to greater ambitions. Soon she learns that her particular torments are unusual because her mother is a sorceress, and she has her eyes set on a bachelor nobleman. They are soon living the house of the man called the Squire and his intelligent unmarried sister, and Cordelia finds herself desperate to protect not only them, but also herself.

This was a truly disturbing book. Kingfisher did a masterful job blending supernatural horror with tragically human horrors, and in doing so elevated the dread from both. This is also, perhaps strangely, a really beautiful found family story. Kingfisher has always excelled at making deeply compelling and interesting ensemble casts, and that skill really shines in this book. That being said, I think the two primary protagonists (Cordelia and the squire's sister Hester) could also have carried this book on their own. My only note is that this book is marketed as a Goose Girl retelling, and I would say that it has very little of the original myth in it. Overall all I can wholeheartedly recommend this book as an emotionally gripping story that takes care of it's reader. 

8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster

 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster by Mirinae Lee, 304 pages.

An old woman at the end of her life tells her life story to an obituary writer in a South Korean nursing home; a story so astonishing that the writer has a hard time knowing what about it is true. The woman, who has had many names, was born in a small town in North Korea near the demilitarized zone, in a time before that zone existed. She lived through an extremely tumultuous century of Korean history and experienced much of it directly, living as a war refuge, a slave to the Japanese military, a North Korean spy, and many more identities besides. 

This book, in addition to being extremely informative, is very well written from a literary standpoint. We follow our protagonist through many tragedies, but the book doesn't seem to delight or wallow in them. We also follow her through many joys and triumphs, and that balance makes it much easier to keep reading this excellent story. I was very impressed overall, and would definitely read another book by the author if she published one. I would recommend this in particular for people with an interest in Korean history, fans of historical fiction in general, and people who appreciate a powerful and resilient female protagonist.

Our Share of Night

 Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, 736 pages.

The Order has been worshiping The Darkness for centuries, making terrible offerings of torture and murder to further their own power and fortunes. Juan Peterson is their most recent unwilling prophet, called a medium, who serves as an avatar for the power during their terrible rituals. But Juan has a son, and while The Order is determined that Gaspar will be his heir, Juan is even more determined that his son will have nothing to do with the ghosts and dark rituals. 

It is hard to summarize the plot of this book because it is sprawling and non-continuous. The book is divided into five parts, most with a different protagonist or protagonists. Four of the five take place in Argentina, and one in England, and the sections move back and forth in time. I found this division to be one of the weaker parts of the book. I found this novel shockingly lacking in momentum, which is a major problem for a book this large. Part of the problem was the leisurely pace of the plot, where very often nothing in particular is happening, and part of the problem is that every time the story starts to build any momentum it is often interrupted for something totally unrelated. It probably also doesn't help that, with the way the book is ordered, generally the audience knows much more about everything than any of the characters, so there are very few mysteries to resolve. I personally found that Enriquez's very good prose and the interesting elements of horror placed during the military dictatorship in Argentina unfortunately weren't enough to make up for the weak plot and characters. It feels like this book might be really good for someone, but I can't quite figure out enough of what it's goals were to figure out if it met any of them. 

Ash

 Ash by Malinda Lo, 264 pages.

This Cinderella retelling takes place in a fantasy kingdom that feels a lot like historical Ireland and makes some twists on the classic tale. For one, there are way more faeries, and they're often wicked. For two, Ash falls in love with the King's Huntress instead of the handsome prince.

I was pretty underwhelmed by this book, but that may be because I went into it with high expectations, hearing from several people that it was excellent. It feels like a pretty direct Cinderella retelling, and I could never quite shake the feeling that it was about to get good, but it felt like it never quite hit it's stride for me.

I'm Glad My Mom Died

 I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy, 320 pages.

Jennette McCurdy, most famous for her acting in Nickelodeon show iCarly and Sam and Cat, really wishes that wasn't the case. This memoir is told in two parts. The first is her unhappy childhood and adolescence in child acting under her extremely controlling and emotionally abusive mother. The second part is her struggles with alcoholism, bulimia, and various other traumas after her mom died.

This book is, unsurprisingly, pretty heavy. More surprisingly, it's often also quite funny. McCurdy has a masterful grasp on perspective, and you can see the perspective voice morph as she gets older, which makes many of the childhood scenes even more disturbing. It also ends in recovery, which is the kind of ending I really appreciate in these types of stories. I'm not often a memoir reader, but this one was definitely worth the time.

The Once and Future Witches

 The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow, 525 pages.

In alternate history 1893 there are no witches, just women who work a little minor magic. The powerful witches all burned centuries ago. But when an odd occurrence gives them hope that it may be powerful to bring witching back into the world the Eastwood sisters, long estranged and newly reunited in New Salem, decide to dedicate themselves to helping it come back. But the more magic they work the more obvious it becomes that much darker things are at work in New Salem.

I think that the most interesting part about this book, by far, is the setting. Which isn't to say anything against the plot or the characters (which are all very good), but rather high praise of how rich this alternate history is. In the world of The Once and Future Witches witches have always existed, generally openly, and this has shaped history in a number of minor and major ways (my favorite might be all of the historical and literary figures that are casually women, such as Alexandra Pope). At the same time it is in many ways just like our own world in 1893, complete with Suffragettes (who are sometimes racist), female investigative journalists, and a disaster clearly referencing the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. The world is rich and interesting, and if the plot is predictable at times it's fresh and surprising at others. Overall this is a really interesting book, and it's further cementing that I'll read and enjoy anything by Alix E. Harrow.

Monday's Not Coming

 Monday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson, 448 pages.

Claudia has one friend, and when she doesn't show up for the first day of school she starts to worry (Monday never misses a day of school). When she doesn't show up after a week she knows something is wrong. When she starts asking questions she quickly realizes that the answers aren't adding up. She also realizes that she seems to be the only one who cares about what happened to Monday Charles. As the months go by and Monday stays missing she has to balance learning to live without her best friend with trying to find out what happened to her.

This book reminds me a lot of Jackson's book Grown in both positive and negative ways. Both combine slow-building dread with the emotional equivalent of a gut punch. Both also contain a last minute twist that ends up making the whole book weaker overall. This is a pretty solid book, just don't let the fact that it's a young adult novel fool you, it's emotionally really tough to read.

The War that Saved My Life

The War that Saved My Life by Kimberley Brubaker Bradley  316 pp.

This was a re-read in preparation for the next Treehouse Book Club. My original blog about it is here. It's the story of a girl born with a club foot who lives with an abusive mother who keeps her hidden away. When her little brother is to be sent away because of the threat of London getting bombed by the Nazis, Ada runs (crawls) away with him. They end up in the care of a young woman who is bullied into taking them in but soon comes to love them and makes plans to get Ada's foot surgically repaired only to be thwarted by the children's mother. There is a sequel titled The War I Finally Won but I have yet to read it.

In My Father's House

In My Father's House: a New View of How Crime Runs in the Family / Fox Butterfield, 265 p.

An in-depth examination of one extended family, the Bogles, who have at least 60 members over several generations who have been in prison.  Juxtaposing current research on how and why crime is 'inherited' with the real life stories of these men and women makes for fascinating reading. 

Never Mind

Never Mind  (the Patrick Melrose novels book one) by Edward St. Aubyn  208 pp.

I started on this pentalogy before tackling the Showtime series "Patrick Melrose" starring Benedict Cumberbatch. This first book was quite dull until about half way through. In it we are introduced to  Patrick Melrose, the child, who lives with his horrible parents. His father is abusive to both his wife and son, and anyone else he can get away with. Patrick's beloved mother is an alcoholic who drinks because her husband is so awful to her. She is clueless about the seriousness of the abuse to Patrick. The couple socializes with several equally messed up people who end up looking saint-like in comparison to Patrick's father. It is a scathing assailment on the European upper classe. Apparently this series is semi-autobiographical and St. Aubyn uses this volume to suggest a cause for Patrick's problems in adulthood.

The Guilty

The Guilty by David Baldacci  420 pp.

CIA sniper/assassin Will Robie returns to his small hometown in Mississippi because his estranged father, a lawyer and local judge, has been charged with murder. After over twenty years away he finds many things changed but not his father's animosity towards him. He also discovers the existence of a new stepmother and a three year old half brother. In spite of the hard feelings between him and his father, Robie is determined to find the real killer. Soon Robie's partner from the agency, Jessica Reel, arrives to give assistance. They discover old families in the town that have criminal connections kept secret for decades. The twist at the end that reveals the killer was a bit of a surprise. I had previously suspected, then discounted the character who was the real murderer. Baldacci's Will Robie series is one of my favorites.

Mobile Library

Mobile Library by David Whitehouse, 264 pages

Thirteen-year-old Bobby Nusku is having a rough time at home. His loving mother left abruptly a couple years back, leaving him with with an alcoholic, abusive father. School isn't much better for Bobby, with plenty of bullies and just one slightly crazy friend. Then Bobby meets Val and Rosa Reed, a single mom and her disabled daughter who live down the street from Bobby. Val notices Bobby's bruises and takes him under her wing, introducing him to the bookmobile that she cleans for a living (as well as all the wonderful stories held by the bookmobile.

This is a great book, both heartbreaking and heartwarming, both very real and very full of fantasy (as childhood should be), both sad and funny. It's a quick read, but well worth it, particularly for those who love books and libraries. Not that there are any of those sorts hanging around library blogs...

Not My Father's Son

Not My Father's Son: A Memoir by Alan Cumming, 295 pages

In 2010, producers of the BBC genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? asked accomplished Scottish actor Alan Cumming to appear on the show and delve into his family's past, particularly the mysterious tale of his maternal grandfather, a soldier who died in Malaysia when Cumming's mother was a child. At the same time he was filming the episode, Cumming's father threw the actor into a tailspin with some revelations of his own. In this memoir, Cumming recounts that period in his life (as well as occasional flashbacks to his childhood to provide some perspective), offering insights into his troubled upbringing and the ways in which his experiences as a child affected his adult life and career.

This was an excellent memoir, full of revelations, humor, touching tales, and humanizing stories. Basically, it's exactly what you want from a memoir. However, don't go into this celebrity memoir hoping for industry dirt. Aside from a brief discussion of Patti Smith's penchant for spitting, this book focuses entirely on Cumming's life. And that's the way it should be; anything else would detract from this excellent book. (For additional enjoyment, listen to the audiobook, which the author reads.)

The War That Saved My Life

The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley  316 pp.

In England just before the war against Hitler began, nine year old Ada lives in forced confinement by an abusive mother who is embarrassed by Ada's  crippled foot. When Ada's young brother, Jamie, is  to be sent to live in the country to protect them from the bombing, Ada sneaks out and crawls to the railway station to go with him. They end up with a woman who, though she did not want to take them in, ends up changing their lives and giving Ada hope that her foot can be improved via surgery. This is a touching story with many themes worthy of discussion. I hope to use it in my kids' book club. 

Gypsy Boy: My Life in the Secret World of Romany Gypsies / Mikey Walsh 278 p.

This book was fascinating, and horrifying.  Mikey is one of several siblings growing up in a Romany family in southern England, traveling from campsite to campsite in his family trailer.  He vividly describes a childhood that sounds incredibly foreign; most notably the fact that he was only allowed to attend school for a very brief period.  He struggled to meet his culture's and more particularly his father's notions of masculinity; routinely very small boys are trained to box and forced into the ring against vastly larger and stronger boys who are urged to show them no restraint.  Worse, he was the primary target for his father's rage and was regularly beaten.  He was also publicly blasted with a power washer on a daily basis for bedwetting.

While I was perfectly engrossed by this story, by the end I found myself incredulous.  Can he really have been beaten (in his telling, sometimes nearly to death) without ever coming to the attention of the authorities?  In the entire twelve or thirteen year period the book covers, we read of no encounters with the police or social workers.  He describes an elementary school teacher who, when offering him a change of clothes after an accident, discovers that he has been dressed in red lace panties as a punishment and is covered in welts on his legs and backside. She does nothing more than send him home, apparently.  

In sum: kind of an icky reading experience.

Brewster / Mark Slouka 281p.

Jon Mosher, son of Holocaust survivors, grows up and attends high school in a small town in 1960s upstate New York called Brewster. He carries a personal loss within him which connects him with Ray Cappiciano, a seeming tough guy whose personal tragedy is even more vivd in the form of his horribly abusive ex-cop father. Jon discovers track as a means of escaping his unhappy home, while Ray falls in love, but their friendship may not be enough to see them through to happily-ever-after.

This was a reasonably suspenseful story, and a nice portrayal of friendship. Slouka's portrayal of Ray's violent father is insightful and smart. But if you're going to write about adolescent angst in a forgotten corner of upstate New York, you'll have to run fast to escape the shadow of Richard Russo's Empire Falls, and I'm obliged to report that Slouka's writing lacks that escape velocity. And there was just way too much Oliver Stone-ish Boomer cliche. Vietnam, John Fogerty's Fortunate Son, grass-smoking free lovers, Woodstock...blech. I suppose it's possible to write something fresh about this era, but it didn't happen here.

The House of Silk

The House of Silk: A Sherlock Holmes Novel by Anthony Horowitz  294 pp.

Anthony Horowitz who created and does an exemplary job of writing the popular British television series Foyle's War and the young adult Alex Rider series has captured the style and tone of Conan Doyle's tales of the consummate British detective, Sherlock Holmes. As in those familiar Conan Doyle stories Holmes friend/assistant/biographer, Dr. Watson, is the narrator. He relates the story years later, long after the death of Holmes and Watson's dear wife, Mary. Many characters from the original stories make appearances including Scotland Yard's Inspector Lestrade, Holmes housekeeper Mrs. Hudson, his brother Mycroft, Dr. Trevelyan who first appeared in "The Adventure of the Resident Patient" and the Baker Street Irregulars. What begins as a tale of an attempted robbery on an American train and the destruction of several valuable paintings soon becomes a saga of murder and intrigue in which Holmes finds himself jailed for the murder of a young girl. It is all connected to the mysterious "House of Silk" whose members have warned Holmes against further investigations and which no one, not even brother Mycroft, is willing to talk about. In the end the House of Silk is far more evil than the clues lead you to believe. There is more action than in the traditional Holmes stories including frequent gunplay and a "high speed" carriage chase. Horowitz has captured Holmes and Watson with great style while still managing to touch on the plight of orphaned children at the turn of the 20th century. I listened to the audiobook version read by by the actor, Sir Derek Jacobi (I, Claudius; Brother Cadfael). Jacobi captured the voice of Dr. Watson magnificently although in my mind Holmes & Watson will always look like Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.