When Among Crows

When Among Crows by Veronica Roth, 176 pages

Dymitr is a man with a heavy burden, and he hopes that by procuring a legendary flower and helping a cursed woman escape that which weighs her down, he'll also be able escape what troubles him. Set in Chicago and filled with the creatures of Polish folklore, this short book sets Dymitr and the cursed woman, Ala, on a one-night quest to save them both. There's not much more I can say about the plot without major spoilers, but I will say that it's an intriguing urban fantasy featuring creatures with which I wasn't previously familiar. It's definitely enjoyable, though I wish a few things had been fleshed out a bit more.

*This book will be published May 14, 2024.

The Accidental Demon Slayer

 The Accidental Demon Slayer by Angie Fox  292 pp.

Lizzie Brown is a mild mannered, almost stodgy, preschool teacher who begins this book with the worst thirtieth birthday ever. Her long lost Harley riding witch grandmother shows up, her beloved terrier, Pirate, begins talking, there is an ancient demon in her bathroom, and she learns she is actually a demon slayer. Lizzie ends up leaving with Grandma on the Harley to meet up with the rest of the Red Skull Coven, a motorcycle gang of witches. Along the way they connect with Dimitri, a shapeshifting gryphon who has been designated Lizzie's protector. After an attack at a werewolf run Shoney's, Grandma has been captured and is stuck in the 2nd level of Hell. Now Lizzie must learn to slay demons to rescue her. Fans of excessive use of similes will adore this book. I listened to the audio version and, while the narrator, Tavia Gilbert, is great at voices, her performance was too overwrought. Amusing but I'm not interested in continuing the series.  

A Song Below Water

A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow, 288 pages.
Tavia, tying to navigate her Portland high-school while also trying to hide her powers as a siren (in a culture which fears and criminalizes this particular power), finds herself being outed by some of her classmates. The stress of this is exacerbated by the problems her close friend Effie is having. Effie, whose mother died several years ago, lives with Tavia and her family and believes that she is a mermaid. There's also a large stone gargoyle hanging out around their house. Oh, and a bunch of people around Portland are being turned to statues. Nicely paralleling Black Lives Matters themes, this is an interesting book and a rewarding read.

The Sword of Summer

The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan, 497 pages.
The first in the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series.
Riordan begins a new series focusing on the Norse Gods and he does it as well as he did with the Greek Gods (the Percy Jackson series), the Egyptian Gods (the Kane chronicles), and the Roman Gods (that other series the name of which escapes me). My sons love all of Riordan's books and we listened to this on a recent trip to South Bend, Indiana (Go, Irish!). We were skeptical at first, the narrator seemed a poor choice, but the story was so compelling that we soon stopped complaining and just listened. There are Valkries, svartalfar, elves, and all sorts of mythical giants and other creatures, all busily trying to help or hinder a homeless kid from New York as he begins an epic quest. A fun read.

Luka and the Fire of Life

Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie  240 pp.

After seeing the horrendous treatment of the animals of the "Great Rings of Fire" circus, young Luka Khalifa curses the circus owner. The curse causes the destruction of the circus. A month later Luka's father falls into a coma as a result of a curse placed by the owner of the destroyed circus. Luka heads off on a quest to retrieve the "Fire of Life" which is the only way to save his father's life. Accompanying Luka on his journey are a dog named Bear and a bear named Dog, two of the escaped circus animals. They are led by Nobodaddy, a hologram-ish representation of Luka's father who gains more substance as his father grows closer to death. Along the way they join up with a variety of magical beings who assist him in his quest against sinister rats, old Aztec gods, deities of extinct civilizations, and others. Rushdie includes elements of mythology, video games, and pop culture throughout the story at random moments. At one point there is a brief reference the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Who and his Tardis appearing, vanishing, and reappearing, Doc Brown from "Back to the Future," and the dwarves from Time Bandits dropping from the sky all along the River of Time. This was closely followed by the Eddies in the river, specifically known as Nelson, Duane, and Fisher. These and other random bits of humor pop up in the story but you have to be paying close attention to catch them. Somehow this mashup of fantasy, mythology, magical realism, and heroic quest all works to make a fascinating, if sometimes confusing story. It was written as a children's book but I know of few children who would really "get" it.

The Golem and the Jinni / Helene Wecker 486 pp.

I really wanted to like this book.  It's the story of Chava, a freshly-made Golem who finds herself all alone on the streets of late 19th century New York until she meets Ahmad, a centuries-old Jinni in much the same circumstances.  And Wecker wrote a terrific beginning, setting the stage for a story that promised suspense, romance and fairy tale magic.  The end was not bad either, wrapping things up in a satisfying if unsurprising way.  But the middle!  It went on for far too long so that finishing the book became a chore.  More disappointing was the inability to warm to either of the main characters. Yes, Chava is meant to be a destructive automaton made of clay, and she transcended that, but not by enough.  And Ahmad is peevish and 2-dimensional.  (A good trick, since his essence is fire.)  Wecker also seems to have backed away from the promise of the title: shouldn't such a book have something to say about the intermingling of the two cultures represented by all the Golems and the Jinnis of the world?  I couldn't find any strong contemporary resonance here, only hints of a better book that never materialized.