strange and random happenstance

Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi
Published by: Anchor
Publication Date: March 6th, 2018
Format: Paperback, 496 Pages
Rating: ★★
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In Orïsha King Saran put an end to the maji. He didn't just find a way to stop the flow of magic he also murdered all divîners over the age of thirteen to protect his land. A decade later divîners are still persecuted. Maligned, taxed, and looked down on, they are second-class citizens. Zélie is a powerless divîner still mourning the murder of her mother. But she trains with Mama Agba so that she will be able to protect her family should King Saran send anyone else to finish the job he already started a decade ago. On the day of her graduation royal guards descend on the fishing village of Ilorin and levy an increase in taxes. One Zélie and her family can ill afford. Zélie and her brother Tzain decide to go to the capital city of Lagos to sell a rare fish at market to pay the new taxes. While they are successful in making money they also run into a heap of trouble, the Princess Amari. She has stolen a scroll from her father after he used it to awaken the powers of Amari's one and only friend whom she then witnessed him murder. Hiding Amari in Ilorian will put the entire village at risk, especially as Amari's brother Inan is the commander of the Royal Army and will do anything to prove his loyalty to his father, even hunt down his own sister and burn a village of innocents to the ground. It's Mama Agba who tells Zélie, Tzain, and Amari that they must travel to the ancient temple of Chândomblé to restore magic. Their journey will not be an easy one with Inan on their tail. Especially as it turns out he is a maji who can infiltrate Zélie's dreams. It is his self-loathing that drives him to carry out his father's wishes. At the temple Zélie's powers are awakened, though it leaves her in a weakened state. Once again escaping the clutches of Inan they realize that he isn't the only risk as Orïsha is rife with those who wish them harm from corrupt guards to nefarious nobles. Battles, kidnappings, corruption, the trio are hunted but occasionally they find help from those who want magic restored and the balance of power to shift. But can they succeed when the odds are stacked against them? Will Zélie be able to forge a link with her ancestors back to the Sky Mother and save Orïsha? Only time will tell.

I read this book when it was released and the one thing that I hoped would come of it is that it would open the door to similar, though better written, literature. Which if you peruse the shelves of your local bookstore or library you will see it has done. Because without it's legacy this book is nothing. It doesn't even feel like a finished book. It needed to be more polished, more refined, and the errors definitely had to be removed. And don't get me started on how rough the worldbuilding is. Orïsha doesn't work, compass points are all over the map. And not figuratively. This feels like it was rushed to print. They saw their chance to label Tomi Adeyemi the next J.K. Rowling and went for it. A label that hasn't aged well. At all. In fact with the big climactic scenes it almost felt as if this was a treatment for a movie. Tomi Adeyemi would just fill in the details later with the VFX people and not bother to put it on the page now. But seeing as the film adaptation has been in production limbo for years now, perhaps the time could have been taken to tighten up the book? Because, shocking as it may be to some people, a book can be the final form of a story, not everything has to be adapted into a film or television show. In fact some people don't want their favorite books adapted to appease the masses. And who is this book really written for? The sheer amount of tropes strung together to faintly resemble a story shows Adeyemi to be an immature writer. The story is told through different character's voices and you could not tell the voices apart. When I really lost it though was when I found lines in this book that were in a "Which YA Trope Do You Hate?" Quiz that I took online. The most notable being "she released the breath she didn't know she was holding." Though in fairness, a lot of authors stumble into that one. It was more the cumulative effect that got to me. The lack of originality, the warring evolutionary progress of different people, and the fact that she did high seas Hunger Games. That one was just a step too far. A desert town wastes ALL there clean water to have a battle to the death on boats? Um, why!?! I mean, really, why!?! In the end this book had me wondering what the actual fuck. But at least reading other reviews I don't feel alone. Everyone was confused. Well almost everyone. Those few who weren't were this book's target audience.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Adaptation, Africa, Children of Blood and Bone, Diviners, For the Love of Book Clubs, J.K. Rowling, Legacy, Maji, Mythology, Orisha, Sky Mother, The Hunger Games, Tomi Adeyemi, Tropes, VFX, Worldbuilding, YA, Zelie

The Grandest Game by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Published by: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
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The official patter:
"Get ready for a new series that brings readers deeper into the lush, romantic, and puzzle-filled world of the #1 bestselling Inheritance Games series (over 3 million copies sold!), set a year after we last saw Avery and the Hawthornes.

Seven tickets. An island of dreams. The chance of a lifetime.

Welcome to the Grandest Game, an annual competition run by billionaire Avery Grambs and the four infamous Hawthorne brothers, whose family fortune she inherited. Designed to give anyone a shot at fame and fortune, this year's game requires one of seven golden tickets to enter. With millions on the line, those seven players will do whatever it takes to win.

Some of the players are in it for the money. Some for power. Some for reasons all their own. Every single one of them has secrets. Amidst it all is Grayson Hawthorne, tasked with a vital role in this year's game. But as tensions rise and the mind-bending challenges push the players to their limits - physically, mentally, and emotionally - it soon becomes clear that not everyone is playing by the rules.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Lynn Barnes delivers a brand-new series in the world of The Inheritance Games, where fan-favorite and new characters collide in a game you'll never forget.

Do you have what it takes to play?"

I have somehow become addicted to this Hawthorne Universe (HU?) and can not wait for this book.

Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell
Published by: William Morrow and Company
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 400 Pages
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The official patter:
"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor and Park and Attachments comes Slow Dance - a bright, beaming power ballad of a novel about a love so true it refuses to be forgotten.

Back in high school, everybody thought Shiloh and Cary would end up together...everybody but Shiloh and Cary.

They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh's porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha - Shiloh would go to go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh's thirty-three, and it's been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She's been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she's back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she's invited to an old friend's wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there - and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It's the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start."

And hopefully, maybe, ending up together.

Look in the Mirror by Catherine Steadman
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
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The official patter:
"From the New York Times bestselling author of Something in the Water comes "an utter white-knuckle ride that took me into a heart of darkness" (Lucy Foley, author of The Paris Apartment).

Nina, still grieving from the loss of her father, discovers that she has inherited property in the British Virgin Islands - a vacation home she had no idea existed, until now. The house is extraordinary: state-of-the-art, all glass and marble. How did her sensible father come into enough money for this? Why did he keep it from her? And what else was he hiding?

Maria, once an ambitious medical student, is a nanny for the super-rich. The money's better, and so are the destinations where her work takes her. Just one more gig, and she'll be set. Finally, she'll be secure. But when her wards never show, Maria begins to make herself at home, spending her days luxuriating by the pool and in the sauna. There's just one rule: Don't go in the basement. That room is off-limits. But her curiosity might just get the better of her. And soon, she'll wish her only worry was not getting paid."

Dood, with the super rich, NEVER go where it's off-limits.

Return to Wyldcliffe Heights by Carol Goodman
Published by: William Morrow and Company
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Jane Eyre meets The Thirteenth Tale in this new modern gothic mystery from two-time Mary Higgins Clark Award-winner Carol Goodman, about a reclusive writer who is desperate to rewrite the past.

Losing yourself inside of a book can be dangerous. Not everyone finds their way out.

Agnes Corey, a junior editor at a small independent publisher, has been hired by enigmatic author Veronica St. Clair to transcribe the sequel to her 1993 hit phenomenon, The Secret of Wyldcliffe Heights. St. Clair has been a recluse since the publication of the Jane Eyre-esque book, which coincided with a terrible fire that blinded and scarred her. Arriving in the Hudson Valley at St. Clair's crumbling estate, which was once a psychiatric hospital for "wayward women," Agnes is eager to ensure St. Clair's devoted fans will get the sequel they've been anticipating for the past thirty years.

As St. Clair dictates, Agnes realizes there are clues in the story that reveal the true - and terrifying - events three decades ago that inspired the original novel. The line between fact and fiction becomes increasingly blurred, and Agnes discovers terrible secrets about an unresolved murder from long ago, which have startling connections to her own life. As St. Clair's twisting tale infiltrates Agnes's psyche, Agnes begins to question her own sanity - and safety. In order to save herself, Agnes must uncover what really happened to St. Clair, and in doing so, set free the stories of all the women victimized by Wyldcliffe Heights."

I don't know... never finding your way out of a book sounds nice right about now.

The Most by Jessica Anthony
Published by: Little Brown and Company
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 144 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From "one of our most thrilling and singular innovators on the page" (Laura Van Den Berg), a tightly wound, consuming tale about a 1950s American housewife who decides to get into the pool in her family's apartment complex one morning and won't come out.

It is an unseasonably warm Sunday in November 1957. Katheen, a college tennis champion turned Delaware housewife, decides not to join her flagrantly handsome life insurance salesman husband, Virgil, or their two young boys, at church. Instead, she takes a dip in the kidney-shaped swimming pool of their apartment complex. And then she won't come out.

A riveting, single-sitting read set over the course of eight hours, The Most breaches the shimmering surface of a seemingly idyllic mid-century marriage, immersing us in the unspoken truth beneath. As Sputnik 2 orbits the earth carrying Laika, the doomed Soviet dog, Kathleen and Virgil hurtle towards each other until they arrive at a reckoning that will either shatter their marriage, or transform it, at last, into something real."

There's something so nostalgic about this book.

Murder at the White Palace by Allison Montclair
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In post-WWII London, the matchmakers of The Right Sort Marriage Bureau are involved in yet another murder.

In the immediate post-war days of London, two unlikely partners have undertaken an even more unlikely, if necessary, business venture - The Right Sort Marriage Bureau. The two partners are Miss Iris Sparks, a woman with a dangerous - and never discussed - past in British intelligence and Mrs. Gwendolyn Bainbridge, a genteel war widow with a young son entangled in a complicated aristocratic family. Looking to throw a New Year's Eve soiree for their clients, Sparks and Bainbridge scout an empty building - only to find a body contained in the walls. What they initially assume is a victim of the recent Blitz is uncovered instead to be a murder victim - stabbed several times.

To make matters worse, the owner of the building is Sparks' beau, Archie Spelling, who has ties to a variety of enterprises on the right and wrong sides of the law, and the main investigator for the police is her ex-fiancée. Gwen, too, is dealing with her own complicated love life, as she tentatively steps back into the dating pool for the first time since her husband's death. Murder is not something they want to add to their plates, but the murderer may be closer to home than is comfortable, and they must do all they can to protect their clients, their business and themselves."

Love, marriage, and murder!

A Lethal Lady by Nekesa Afia
Published by: Berkley Books
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 336 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Louise Lloyd's time away in Paris is everything she was hoping it would be until a shocking murder turns her entire world upside down.

Louise Lloyd is finally living the quiet life she'd longed for, working in a parfumerie by day and spending time with her new friends every night at the Aquarius club in Paris. When a desperate mother asks for help locating her artist daughter, Louise initially refuses to keep her hard-won but fragile peace intact. But the woman comes with a letter of introduction from an old friend in Harlem, and Louise realizes she has no choice but to do what she can to find the missing young woman.

The woman's daughter, Iris Wright, is part of an elite social circle. Louise soon finds herself drawn into a world of privilege and ice-cold ambition - a young group of artists who will do anything to get ahead - but would they murder one of their own? With the help of some friends from home, Louise must untangle a web of lies, jealousy, and betrayal to find out what really happened to Iris while fighting to keep her new life from crashing down around her."

Ah, the duplicitous lives of starving and striving artists!

Into the Goblin Market by Vikki Vansickle and Jensine Eckwall
Published by: Tundra Books (NY)
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 48 Pages
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The official patter:
"A picture book ode to Christina Rossetti's classic poem and a clever homage to familiar fairy-tale villains, this story about two sisters will enthrall readers with its beautifully detailed art and enchanting writing.

Millie loves her quiet life on the farm, but Mina longs for adventure.

When the Goblin Market comes to town, Millie knows it's a bad idea. They've been told stories their whole lives about the dangers of the Goblin Market. But Mina just can't resist...

When Mina doesn't come back, it's Millie's turn to brave the market to bring her home. She will use all her smarts and all her courage to try to outwit the goblins and save her sister...but will it be enough?

This gorgeous and intriguing tribute to both "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti and classic fairy-tale villains is also a story about the bond between sisters and a celebration of courage, intelligence and resilience."

Two things I love coming together to form a third!

Our Wicked Histories by Amy Goldsmith
Published by: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A teen girl's attempt to make amends with her former friend group takes a sinister turn during a weekend getaway at an ancestral Irish estate in this atmospheric, literary horror from the author of Those We Drown.

There's something in the lake at Wren Hall. At least, that's what the locals say. Not that Meg cares much about the rumors. When she's asked to spend Halloween weekend at the Ireland retreat of the wealthy Wren twins, she recognizes the invitation for exactly what it is: her last, and only, chance to save her spot at Greyscott's, the exclusive British art school she attended on scholarship until last summer. Clever, beautiful, and talented, the twins are the pride of Greyscott's, and kindhearted Lottie Wren was once Meg's closest friend. But not anymore.

None of Meg's old friend group have talked to her since she left school - and they especially don't talk about the incident that resulted in her suspension. Now, Meg is willing to do whatever it takes to earn their forgiveness.

But Wren Hall turns out to be far from the idyllic country manor Meg was expecting. The house is damp and drafty, the mirrors are all covered, and the weed-choked lake is at the center of legends that haunt the property to this day - a tainted legacy the estate seems unable to shake.

The truth is, people aren't the only ones who keep secrets. Places can keep them too - and Wren Hall is drowning in them. When the past bleeds into the present and ancient sins rise to the surface, Meg must ask herself how well she really knows her one-time best friends...or whether any of them will survive the weekend."

Sometimes the secrets of places are far more dangerous than the secrets of people.

Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber
Published by: Wednesday Books
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A delicious and dark Gothic romance from bestselling author Romina Garber!

THE HOUSE IS ALWAYS HUNGRY...

After a mysterious attack claims the lives of her parents, all Estela has left is her determination to solve the case. Suffering from survivor's guilt so intense that she might be losing her grip on reality, she accepts an invitation to live overseas with an estranged aunt at their ancestral Spanish castle, la Sombra.

Beneath its Gothic façade, la Sombra harbors a trove of family secrets, and Estela begins to suspect her parents' deaths may be linked to their past. Her investigation takes a supernatural turn when she crosses paths with a silver-eyed boy only she can see. Estela worries Sebastián is a hallucination, but he claims he's been trapped in the castle. They grudgingly team up to find answers and as their investigation ignites, so does a romance, mistrust twined with every caress.

As the mysteries pile up, it feels to Estela like everyone in the tiny town of Oscuro is lying and that whoever was behind the attack has followed her to Spain. The deeper she ventures into la Sombra's secrets, the more certain she becomes that the suspect she's chasing has already found her...and they're closer than she ever realized."

I'm all about spooky Spanish castles.

The Mirror of the Beasts by Alexandra Bracken
Published by: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 496 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"#1 New York Times bestselling author Alexandra Bracken is back with the electrifying sequel to Silver in the Bone, in which fresh betrayal ignites ancient magic to wake the dead, and a cursed girl with no magic of her own must put the past to rest.

With the dream of Avalon in ruins, Tamsin and her friends are all that stands in the way of Lord Death's plans to unleash the horrors of Anwnn on the world of the living. As the Wild Hunt carves a bloody path across continents, Tamsin is mustering allies, tracking down powerful artifacts, and traversing into new otherlands in search of a way to stop him.

Legend tells of a "Mirror of Beasts," powerful enough to trap even Lord Death in its accursed glass, but the mirror is not all that it seems. Tamsin must confront her own darkest secrets if she hopes to tap the mirror's strength to defeat her enemies.

Arthurian legend bleeds into contemporary action, and scars of the past are torn open anew by a starcrossed love that refuses to go quietly. This riveting conclusion to the Silver in the Bone duology will hold you in its thrall until the very last page."

Oh my, I'm such a sucker for anything Arthurian! 

It Came from the Trees by Ally Russell
Published by: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 240 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The legend of Bigfoot gets a bone-chilling update in this scary story about a young girl and her scout troop who are willing to brave the woods to find her missing friend when no one else will. Perfect for fans of Daka Hermon and Claribel A. Ortega!

The wilderness is in Jenna's blood. Her Pap was the first Black park ranger at Sturbridge Reservation, and she practically knows the Owlet Survival Handbook by heart. But she's never encountered a creature like the one that took her best friend Reese. Her parents don't believe her; the police are worthless, following the wrong leads; and the media isn't connecting the dots between Reese's disappearance and a string of other attacks. Determined to save her friend, Jenna joins a new local scout troop, and ventures back into the woods.

When the troop stumbles across suspicious signs: huge human-like footprints near the camp, scratch marks on trees, and ominous sounds from the woods, Jenna worries that whatever took Reese is back to take her too. Can she trust her new scout leader? And will her new friend Norrie - who makes her laugh and reminds her so much of Reese - believe her?

After the unthinkable happens, the scouts, armed with their wits and toiletries, band together to fight the monster and survive the night."

A cryptid caper!

Brothersong by T.J. Klune
Published by: Tor Books
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 480 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Brothersong is the fourth and final book in the Green Creek Series, the beloved fantasy romance sensation by New York Times bestselling author T.J. Klune, about love, loyalty, betrayal, and family.

The Bennett family has a secret: They're not just a family, they're a pack. Brothersong is Carter Bennett's story.

In the ruins of Caswell, Maine, Carter Bennett learned the truth of what had been right in front of him the entire time. And then it - he - was gone. Desperate for answers, Carter takes to the road, leaving family and the safety of his pack behind, all in the name of a man he only knows as a feral wolf. But therein lies the danger: wolves are pack animals, and the longer Carter is on his own, the more his mind slips toward the endless void of Omega insanity. But he pushes on, following the trail left by Gavin.

Gavin, the son of Robert Livingstone. The half-brother of Gordo Livingstone.

What Carter finds will change the course of the wolves forever. Because Gavin's history with the Bennett pack goes back further than anyone knows, a secret kept hidden by Carter's father, Thomas Bennett. And with this knowledge comes a price: the sins of the fathers now rest upon the shoulders of their sons."

Get ready for a final trip to Green Creek!

The X-Files: Perihelion by Claudia Gray
Published by: Hyperion Avenue
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The Truth Is Out There...But So Are Lies.

#1 New York Times best-selling author Claudia Gray extends the story of The X-Files beyond its eleventh season into thrilling new territory!

Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are still reeling from the death of their son William as they struggle to find purpose away from the X-Files. Though their current relationship is tenuous, they hope to seize their second chance to be a family, despite the many questions surrounding Scully's pregnancy.

Then the FBI asks for their help on a case that hits all too close to home: a serial killer in the Washington, DC area who targets pregnant women. The killer appears to possess a mysterious, uncanny power over electricity, which is enough for the Bureau to re-open the X-Files - if Mulder and Scully are willing.

They cautiously agree, concerned about the safety of their own unborn child yet committed to finding justice for the killer's victims. But their return to the FBI sparks the interest of a shadowy cabal, the heirs to the now-dead Syndicate, and Mulder and Scully soon discover that what at first seems to be just another X-File is connected to a worldwide threat on an unprecedented scale...one with their own future at its heart."

If there's anyone I'd trust to continue The X-Files it's Claudia Gray. Heck, maybe if she'd been working on them longer we wouldn't have Scully pregnant. Again.

Maria by Michelle Moran
Published by: Dell
Publication Date: July 30th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Maria von Trapp. You know the name and the iconic songs, but do you know her real story? This dramatic novel, based on the woman glamorized in The Sound of Music, brings Maria to life as never before.

In the 1950s, Oscar Hammerstein is asked to write the lyrics to a musical based on the life of a woman named Maria von Trapp. He's intrigued to learn that she was once a novice who hoped to live quietly as an Austrian nun before her abbey sent her away to teach a widowed baron's sickly child. What should have been a ten-month assignment, however, unexpectedly turned into a marriage proposal. And when the family was forced to flee their home to escape the Nazis, it was Maria who instructed them on how to survive using nothing but the power of their voices.

It's an inspirational story, to be sure, and as half of the famous Rodgers and Hammerstein duo, Hammerstein knows it has big Broadway potential. Yet much of Maria's life will have to be reinvented for the stage, and with the horrors of war still fresh in people's minds, Hammerstein can't let audiences see just how close the von Trapps came to losing their lives.

But when Maria sees the script that is supposedly based on her life, she becomes so incensed that she sets off to confront Hammerstein in person. Told that he's busy, she is asked to express her concerns to his secretary, Fran, instead. The pair strike up an unlikely friendship as Maria tells Fran about her life, contradicting much of what will eventually appear in The Sound of Music.

A tale of love, loss, and the difficult choices that we are often forced to make, Maria is a powerful reminder that the truth is usually more complicated - and certainly more compelling - than the stories immortalized by Hollywood."

While I've never been a fan of The Sound of Music due to an unfortunate incident of Chickenpox I am a big fan of Michelle Moran and can't wait to learn more about Maria von Trapp!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Alexandra Bracken, Allison Montclair, Ally Russell, Amy Goldsmith, Catherine Steadman, Claudia Gray, Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Michelle Moran, Nekesa Afia, Rainbow Rowell, Romina Garber, T.J. Klune, Vikki Vansickle

The Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Published by: Verso
Publication Date: 2008
Format: Paperback, 227 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Baltimore was collapsing around him as Ta-Nehisi grew up. But in an age of decline you can always find a way to survive and, perhaps, thrive through the cracks even during a crack epidemic. You just need to have a goal and to have the knowledge, or, as his brother Big Bill would say, the "Knowledge;" the ability to survive in a culture of violence. These were lessons his family taught Ta-Nehisi well. His father, Paul, believed strongly in education and in raising his sons to be proud black men despite a society that points to those very black men as the problem. Even though people like to think of the seventies and in particular the eighties in America as some sort of economic renaissance, America was, and still is, a deeply racist country, stigmatizing those of color, and Paul knew that this knowledge was paramount to the raising of his sons, and maybe that's why he was so hard on them, he would never let his sons forget this while at the same time making sure they were proud of their heritage. Paul Coates, Conscious Man, was a vet and member of the Black Panthers and an autodidact. He believed in the power of words and language and ran a publishing house out of his basement, the Black Classic Press (BCP), that was committed to distributing the collective stories of the African-American people. But he also had a deputy patriarch with his son Big Bill who helped Ta-Nehisi with the Knowledge. Ta-Nehisi, as seen through the eyes of his family, had an exemplary life ahead of him, if only he'd see his future clearly. Though when Ta-Nehisi starts telling his story, he doesn't yet have a goal, he doesn't have a Mecca, he just wants to survive in an uncertain world. Yet the thing about children is they eventually grow up. But having his father not just encourage but insist on intellectual curiosity paid off. Ta-Nehisi moves beyond the lures of rap culture and basketball and begins to think about what he wants to do with his life and he starts to take his education seriously. He gets into Baltimore Polytech, a magnet school that is his way out of Baltimore and to his chosen Mecca, Howard University. Though Ta-Nehisi isn't as academically gifted as his siblings and is soon kicked out of Baltimore Polytech. But he does eventually reach Howard University, after walking the halls of many a Baltimore-area school. He has struggled to survive in a hostile world and he has made it out. Thanks to his family.

I'm not a big fan of nonfiction in general so I'm not singling out memoirs as something I don't like to read. In fact they're probably the only subset of nonfiction I'm OK with, with notable exceptions. But this is never a book I would have ever picked up of my own volition. The thing is, I don't really like reading about other people's lives. I should clarify, "real" peoples lives. I love me my "fictional" friends. Even people I like and respect I won't often pick up a book about them because I often find out something that colors my opinion of them for the worse. I can't make it go away, so I'm sorry, Nelson Mandela, you gave pictures of your wife and daughters to inmates to masterbate to, and every time your name is mentioned that is the first thing I think of. As for how Bob Geldof lost his virginity... That's best never mentioned. Then there's the disconnect. You're reading about someone's life and you're thinking that for once, you've found someone on the same wavelength as you, and then they say something or do something, and you're just done with them. I will point out that this generally happens for me when reading nonfiction books by female authors when they start talking about having kids. But it's a obstacle that can not be overcome. So I didn't have many hopes going into Ta-Nehisi Coates's memoir. Though this would stand for any memoir. It was interesting. Will I ever read it again? No. Do I respect Ta-Nehisi Coates more after reading about him? Perhaps. He's at least now no longer that guy who wrote the highly lauded Black Panther run but a celebrated author in his own right. What I found most interesting was that he's only three years older than me so we have many of the same cultural touchstones. I saw some reviewers complaining that when he mentioned Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings that it brought them out of the narrative, that it felt like he was trying too hard to show his geek cred and that he was "aware" of white culture. Whereas I thought it was a good framework to help those who are completely ignorant of the privilege that they grew up in that while these cultural moments are moments of connection for all of us we need to look at what else was happening in his life. There is a part of us that is the same but there is a part of him that we can never understand because these aren't our lived in experiences. And that's what made this book for me. That chasam, that gap between white privilege and black power, I felt that he told it in a way that made me connect and that is so rare in a memoir. I might not truly be able to understand his life but I get it if that makes sense. I empathize and applaud.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 6:17 PM 0 comments  

Labels: African-American, Baltimore, Black Panthers, Bob Geldof, For the Love of Book Clubs, Knowledge, Memoir, Nelson Mandela, Star Wars, Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Beautiful Struggle, The Lord of the Rings, White Privilege

The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
Published by: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication Date: January 9th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

On a hot summer day in 1969 the four Gold siblings, ranging in age from seven to thirteen, embark on an adventure. Daniel, age eleven, has heard rumors of a woman on Hester Street who will tell you the day that you will die. They have combined their allowances into a bag and head off in search of the woman. For an epic quest she is found quite easily, only they must each face her alone. They never speak of what they learned except once, nine years later, after their father's funeral, when they will be together for the last time. Klara dares her siblings to reveal when they will die. Varya has a long life ahead of her, Daniel will only life to forty-eight, Klara to thirty-one, Simon just says it's when he's young. It is clear that all of them have spent the last nine years dwelling on their fates and this knowledge will forever shape their lives consciously and unconscionably. Simon, youngest sibling and soonest to die, has his life laid out for him. Varya and Daniel went off to college, Klara has always had a weird desire to be a magician, but Simon, Simon is the last sibling at home, taking care of their mother and the family business. But Klara knows that his fate is weighing on him so she offers him an alternative, follow her to San Francisco and live the life he was meant to lead now. He throws himself into dance and hedonism and dies four years later from AIDS, on the day he was told he would die. This shakes the siblings considerably, but seeing as they didn't know his exact date, they can't lend too much credence to it. It's Klara who makes sure her death date is right to continue the augury. Is there any chance for Daniel or Varya to avoid their fates? Or were they given self-fulfilling prophecies? And is it better to burn bright and flame out than exist without really living?

The undeserved success of The Immortalists is why I will never like populist literature. This book wanted to be everything to everyone and failed because the vision and the execution were worlds apart. There is no unifying style, first we have Armistead Maupin shorthand, then magic, then vengeance, then Michael Crichton, yes, I get it, the siblings are vastly different, but a book needs to feel cohesive, and this doesn't. Could we perhaps have had one narrator? An overseer or omniscient being, perhaps one of the siblings that unifies all their stories, not shatters it. Klara is the only one whose voice didn't feel like nails on a chalkboard. She was mystical, magical, she could have been our narrator. After all she believes she can hear Simon after his death, why doesn't she carry the narrative weight? Because as this stands, the only way to really fix The Immoralists would be if each sibling had their own book instead of some shorthand story that is painted in such broad strokes that it doesn't just verge on but is stereotypical. And that is why I loath this book. Take away the fact that the storylines are nothing special and you see that Chloe Benjamin is a lazy writer. She wants readers to connect to a time instead of to a character. She uses cultural shorthand, Forest Gumping her way through the 20th century, so that us readers will connect to their own nostalgia of that time versus bothering to create characters who the readers can connect to on their own. I mean, these siblings literally can not have been there for all these events. Oh, the day they found the fortuneteller was the day of the Stonewall Riots? And the day Simon hooked up with his boyfriend was the day Harvey Milk was shot? Oh, they were listening to Paul Simon's Graceland? Give me some more rampant consumerism in-between cultural touchstones why don't you? Because I know Benjamin has to be shilling for the drug companies and I know she wants some Milwaukee's pickles! She is supposedly now a Wisconsinite after all but does she actually know that Devil's Lake isn't between Chicago and Madison but further north? And that no one has ever referred to Door County as a collection of islands.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: AIDS, Armistead Maupin, Chloe Benjamin, For the Love of Book Clubs, Forest Gump, Fortune Teller, Harvey Milk, Magic, Michael Crichton, Nostalgia, Populist, Prophecy, Stonewall Riots, The Immoralists, Wisconsin

Queen B by Juno Dawson
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: July 23rd, 2024
Format: Paperback, 224 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"This next spellbinding installment of Juno's "irresistible" fantasy series Her Majesty's Royal Coven (Lana Harper) takes us back to the reign of Henry VIII and the origins of Her Majesty's Royal Coven under the beautiful, the bewitching, Anne Boleyn.

It's 1536 and the Queen has been beheaded.

Lady Grace Fairfax, witch, knows that something foul is at play - that someone had betrayed Anne Boleyn and her coven. Wild with the loss of their leader - and her lover, a secret that if spilled could spell Grace's own end - she will do anything in her power to track down the traitor. But there's more at stake than revenge: it was one of their own, a witch, that betrayed them, and Grace isn't the only one looking for her. King Henry VIII has sent witchfinders after them, and they're organized like they've never been before under his new advisor, the impassioned Sir Ambrose Fulke, a cold man blinded by his faith. His cruel reign could mean the end of witchkind itself. If Grace wants to find her revenge and live, she will have to do more than disappear.

She will have to be reborn.

In this gripping, propulsive, sultry short novel, Juno Dawson takes us back to the bloody beginnings of Her Majesty's Royal Coven to show us the strength, steel and sacrifice it takes to make a sisterhood."

For all those who knew Anne Boleyn was a witch and wanted vengeance in her name.

The Haunting of Hecate Cavendish by Paula Brackston
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: July 23rd, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The Haunting of Hecate Cavendish is book one in New York Times bestselling author Paula Brackston's new, magic-infused series about Hecate Cavendish, an eccentric and feisty young woman who can see ghosts.

England, 1881. Hereford cathedral stands sentinel over the city, keeping its secrets, holding long forgotten souls in its stony embrace. Hecate Cavendish speeds through the cobbled streets on her bicycle, skirts hitched daringly high, heading for her new life as Assistant Librarian. But this is no ordinary collection of books. The cathedral houses an ancient chained library, wisdom guarded for centuries, mysteries and stories locked onto its worn, humble shelves. The most prized artifact, however, is the medieval world map which hangs next to Hecate's desk. Little does she know how much the curious people and mythical creatures depicted on it will come to mean to her. Nor does she suspect that there are lost souls waiting for her in the haunted cathedral. Some will become her dearest friends. Some will seek her help in finding peace. Others will put her in great peril, and, as she quickly learns, threaten the lives of everyone she loves."

Books that are chained for reasons other than theft have always intrigued me...

Feisty Felines edited by Kevin J. Anderson and Allyson Longueira
Published by: Wordfire Press
Publication Date: July 23rd, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"When the witches and wizards are away, the familiars will play!

Gifted adventurers across time and space often travel with an animal familiar - usually a cat, but possibly other fuzzy, scaly, or prickly creatures. These magical companions lead their humans into mischief, help them out of sticky situations, or offer opinionated commentary along the way.

We're familiar with familiars...or are we?

Compiled by New York Times bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson and award-winning editor Allyson Longueira - and their Publishing graduate students at Western Colorado University - Feisty Felines and Other Fantastical Familiars features 26 never-before-published short stories and poems crafted by Mercedes Lackey, Heather Graham, Jody Lynn Nye, John Hartness, Steve Rasnic Tem, and many others.

You'll love this collection kitty-littered with surprises at every turn. Some stories are whimsical, some are sad, some will tug at your heartstrings - and some will stay with you long after you close this book.

From mischievous cats to cunning ravens, skittering spiders to - a cow? - these feisty familiars will take you on a magical trip to places even wizards don't tread."

Here's not just to awesome stories but awesome editors giving their graduate students due credit.

The Ornithologist's Field Guide to Love by India Holton
Published by: Berkley Books
Publication Date: July 23rd, 2024
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Rival ornithologists hunt through England for a rare magical bird in this historical-fantasy rom-com reminiscent of Indiana Jones but with manners, tea, and helicopter parasols.

Beth Pickering is on the verge of finally capturing the rare deathwhistler bird when Professor Devon Lockley swoops in, capturing both her bird and her imagination like a villain. Albeit a handsome and charming villain, but that's beside the point. As someone highly educated in the ruthless discipline of ornithology, Beth knows trouble when she sees it, and she is determined to keep her distance from Devon.

For his part, Devon has never been more smitten than when he first set eyes on Professor Beth Pickering. She's so pretty, so polite, so capable of bringing down a fiery, deadly bird using only her wits. In other words, an angel. Devon understands he must not get close to her, however, since they're professional rivals.

When a competition to become Birder of the Year by capturing an endangered caladrius bird is announced, Beth and Devon are forced to team up to have any chance of winning. Now keeping their distance becomes a question of one bed or two. But they must take the risk, because fowl play is afoot, and they can't trust anyone else - for all may be fair in love and war, but this is ornithology."

Does anyone else hope that the cover is velvet? I want to stroke it.

The Modern Fairies by Clare Pollard
Published by: Avid Reader Press / Simon and Schuster
Publication Date: July 23rd, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 272 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Lauren Groff's Matrix meets Ophelia Field's The Favourite in this wry, sexy, and sharp historical novel - inspired by true events - featuring an elite group of Paris intellectuals who perform fairy tales that will change the course of literature - and put both the storytellers and their closely kept secrets in grave danger.

Why don't they tell you it is the beautiful princess who becomes the evil queen; that they are just the same person at different points in their story?

At a safe distance from the intrigues of courtly life at Louis XIV's Versailles, an intellectual crowd of mostly women have been gathering in a Parisian home to share what hostess Marie D'Aulnoy herself has christened contes de fées: fairy tales. Recently ousted from court and still raw from the death of his beloved wife, Charles Perrault finds companionship and creative camaraderie at the salon, where he eagerly joins the storytellers. Their hostess is impressive, fiercely intelligent, but somehow unreadable. She is harboring secrets of her own: sold off as a child in marriage to a brutal baron, imprisonment, scandal. Despite the vicious Versailles gossip, Marie has mysteriously been allowed to return to polite society and establish her salon in the heart of Paris.

A devastating winter soon sweeps in, bringing with it all kinds of rumors and fears. A spate of poisonings at Versailles has led to several arrests, and no matter how high born the suspect, it seems no one is safe. Paranoia stokes the King's insecurities, and there is a wolf among the salon's members - someone more dangerous than any force they could conjure in their own tales, watching and waiting, reporting on the secret goings-on, and threatening to destroy them one by one.

Brilliant and bawdy, witty and wise, Modern Fairies is a dazzling novel of stories within stories, familiar tales spun with fresh and provocative meaning, perfect for fans of Jenny Offill, Deborah Levy, and Angela Carter."

I mean, I'm all about stories within stories, but will it have copious nun sex? I'm just asking, because that is a large portion of Lauren Groff's Matrix.

Peking Duck and Cover by Vivien Chien
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: July 23rd, 2024
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Lana Lee and friends return for a fiery Chinese New Year celebration that rattles their quaint community. After all, an Asia Village party wouldn't be complete without an explosive finale.

Chinese New Year is supposed to be a time of fresh beginnings and celebrations of good fortune to come. Naturally, the shop owners of Asia Village jump at the chance to participate in creating a memorable holiday event that will bring positive light to the plaza, and prosperity for all those involved.

With Lana Lee as his right-hand woman and head event planner, Ian Sung orchestrates an extravagant evening filled with music, live entertainment, and generous giveaways. But at the end of the night, during an elaborate firework show in the parking lot, a member of the lion dance performance team is found dead backstage with a single bullet hole through the heart and a red envelope in their pocket containing four one-dollar bills - an omen of death.

When news of a curse on Asia Village make its way around the plaza, Lana readily agrees to find who killed the talented dancer before anyone else is marked for death."

AS a fan of this series personally I think this has the best title of the lot.

Charlotte Illes Is Not a Teacher by Katie Siegel
Published by: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Publication Date: July 23rd, 2024
Format: Paperback, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The déjà vu is strong for 25-year-old former kid detective Charlotte Illes when she lands back in Frencham Middle School - this time as a substitute teacher with a sideline in sleuthing - in the second zany mystery based on the much-loved TikTok web series from @katiefliesaway.

For fans of Poker Face, Knives Out, Elle Cosimano's Finlay Donovan Series, and anyone seeking to satisfy their Harriet the Spy, Encyclopedia Brown, or Nancy Drew nostalgia!

Mention "returning to the scene of a crime," and people don't usually picture a middle school. But that's where kid detective Lottie Illes enjoyed some of her greatest successes, solving mysteries and winning acclaim - before the world of adult responsibilities came crashing in...

Twentysomething Charlotte is now back in the classroom, this time as a substitute teacher. However, as much as she's tried to escape the shadow of her younger self, others haven't forgotten about Lottie. In fact, a fellow teacher is hoping for help discovering the culprit behind anonymous threats being sent to her and her aunt, who's running for reelection to the Board of Education.

At first, Charlotte assumes the messages are a harmless prank. But maybe it's a good thing she left a detective kit hidden in the band room storage closet all those years ago - just in case. Because the threats are escalating, and it's clear that untangling mysteries isn't child's play anymore..."

There's prepared and there's Charlotte Illes prepared with a detective kit hidden for over a decade just "in case."

The Drowning House by Cherie Priest
Published by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: July 23rd, 2024
Format: Paperback, 432 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A violent storm washes a mysterious house onto a rural Pacific Northwest beach, stopping the heart of the only woman who knows what it means. Her grandson, Simon Culpepper, vanishes in the aftermath, leaving two of his childhood friends to comb the small, isolated island for answers - but decades have passed since Melissa and Leo were close, if they were ever close at all.

Now they'll have to put aside old rivalries and grudges if they want to find or save the man who brought them together in the first place - and on the way they'll learn a great deal about the sinister house on the beach, the man who built it, and the evil he's bringing back to Marrowstone Island.

From award-winning author Cherie Priest comes a deeply haunting and atmospheric horror-thriller that explores the lengths we'll go to protect those we love."

There's not many authors who are must buy for me. Cherie Priest is one. If only so I can get the undying devotion of her cat Monty.

The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville
Published by: Del Rey Books
Publication Date: July 23rd, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A mind-blowing epic from Keanu Reeves and China Miéville, unlike anything these two genre-bending pioneers have created before, inspired by the world of the BRZRKR comic books.

She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.

There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who's seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he's known simply as "B."

And he wants to be able to die.

In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own.

In a collaboration that combines Miéville's singular style and creativity with Reeves's haunting and soul-stirring narrative, these two inimitable artists have created something utterly unique, sure to delight existing fans and to create scores of new ones."

I'm just saying, most celebs get a relative unknown as a coauthor, but then there's Keanu who gets China Miéville!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Allyson Longueira, Anne Boleyn, BRZRKR, Cherie Priest, China Mieville, Clare Pollard, Feisty Felines, India Holton, Juno Dawson, Katie Siegel, Keanu Reeves, Kevin J. Anderson, Paula Brackston, Vivien Chien

Robin by Dave Itzkoff
Published by: Henry Holt and Co.
Publication Date: May 15th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 544 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Robin Williams' upbringing is perhaps not what you'd expect. He was scholastically gifted and was from an affluent family where his closest companion was the maid in their palatial forty room house. He even got accepted into Julliard where his classmates were Christopher Reeve, William Hurt, and Mandy Patinkin. Though his own comedic style and love of mimicry and accents wasn't exactly what the classical and staid school was known for they could see he was a genius but he left without getting a degree conferred on him. He started his stand-up career in San Franscisco but to really make it you had to go to Los Angeles, so that is what he did. He worked the clubs as well as working whatever television work he could pick up especially during pilot season. Though he was notorious for stealing the jokes of other comedians, no one really thought that this was malicious, he just heard it and didn't know from where and so incorporated it into his act. Which was problematic to the comedians who had actually written the material, because once Robin had done it no one else could use it. But it was a last minute spot on an episode of Happy Days that would change his life. The episode "My Favorite Orkan" was so popular his character of Mork got his own television show. Mork and Mindy was a juggernaut. Everything from magazines to lunchboxes featured Robin's face. Despite it's success and cultural status the show was cancelled after four seasons. But that seemed fine with Robin because he was now chasing bigger Hollywood dreams. He desperately wanted awards and an Oscar. This is where the Julliard training starts to make sense. With The World According to Garp, Good Morning, Vietnam, and Dead Poets Society his serious credits started to roll in. Though it wouldn't be until 1997 and Good Will Hunting that he would get the respect of his peers he had been longing for with an Oscar. In the meanwhile he was making his name as serious business at the box office with films for a younger audience with Hook, FernGully, Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Jumanji. But behind the scenes there were issues, and not just with Disney who actually sent him an apology Picasso. He burned through three marriages and had severe addiction problems. At least his addiction to cocaine had a check on it when John Belushi died the morning after they had partied together. But later his alcoholism took a toll. Though it was the Parkinson's diagnose that led to his suicide in 2014 at the age of 63. A blazing talent gone in an instant.

I've never really considered myself a fan of Robin Williams. He was just a fact of life, like death and taxes. He was omnipresent. Or at least for those of a certain age. Growing up in the eighties and nineties he was everywhere; films, television, Comic Relief, there was no getting away from him. And the truth of the matter is, I'd never really thought about it. I had never realized his complete and total omnipresence in my life until I read this book. It's like my childhood paralleled his fame and he was there every step along the way as I grew up. When Nick at Nite started in the mid eighties I watched it religiously. Perhaps six was a little too young to be watching some of the fare, but my grandmother and I watched it together, so my theory was if she thought if was inappropriate she would have turned it off. Now that I'm older I realize she wouldn't have. But there was Robin on Mork and Mindy and Happy Days and SCTV! He was there for my formative years with his manic humor. And no one of my generation can forget the mega success of Hook followed by Aladdin. I can't even count the number of times my friends and I in college got together and just watched Aladdin, well, sang along to Aladdin, just as comfort viewing. As for the number of times I watched Toys... I don't even want to guess, it was one of those films that was so odd that whenever it was on I just watched it all. As I aged I started watching other films of his, my discovery of Kenneth Branagh and Terry Gilliam led to so many favorite films that Robin is in, Dead Again being at the forefront. And I will never forget the time my friend Sara became obsessed with Good Will Hunting and watched it on a loop while recovering from having her wisdom teeth removed. So many memories. In fact it's because of Robin Williams that I will NEVER go to the bathroom during movies. I missed the end of Hook and was traumatized for years. Robin was just in my life, watching movies at home with friends or going out to the theater with my family, he was always there. And this book brought home that fact to me. I'm not one of those people who will forever mourn him. He randomly trends on Twitter because people miss him. I don't. But he was, unbeknownst to me, so much a part of making me me that this book was a very personal experience. Yes, it's uneven and spends the bulk of it's time on his early career and not enough on his fame, but I can forgive it that. I can forgive it a lot of the nostalgia.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Aladdin, Childhood, Comic Relief, Dave Itzkoff, Dead Again, For the Love of Book Clubs, Good Will Hunting, Happy Days, Hook, Julliard, Mork and Mindy, Mrs. Doubtfire, Nick and Nite, Nostalgia, Robin Williams

The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe
Published by: Orb Books
Publication Date: 1972
Format: Paperback, 252 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy

The sister planets of Saint Anne and Saint Croix were founded by French colonists, long since gone, but their influence can still be felt along the streets of Saint Anne. At 666 Saltimbanque Street is a house that the gentlemen of Port-Mimizon are known to frequent. High up in this house lives a young boy and his brother David. Behind the barred windows they can hear the clients down in the garden and up on the rooftop, surrounded by orange trees. Though it is their father and the woman, Madame, they find far more intriguing. One day the boy is brought to his father's study and told he will be called Number Five and visit him nightly to run tests. Previously Number Five and his brother David were taught by Mr. Million, a robot that acted as nanny and tutor, drilling the kids in science and rhetoric and often taking them to the library and slave market. Now that Number Five is older he will also start to pull his weight around the house, they all have their work cut out, his father keeps the girls clean, and now Number Five will be acting as gatekeeper for the brothel. But it's the tests his father puts Number Five through that are destroying him. He suffers immensely and has long blackouts, sometimes lasting months. Number Five finally realizes that he must kill his father, only this has implications for one of their clients. John V. Marsch is an anthropologist who was working on Saint Croix, searching for the lost Annese, the aboriginals of the planet. He came to the house on Saltimbanque Street in search of Dr. Aubrey Veil to ask about Veil's Hypothesis, wherein the doctor posited that the aboriginals could mimic the settlers so completely that they killed them and took their place. Dr. Veil is in fact Number Five's aunt and the Madame of the brothel and this means Marsch often visits resulting in him being arrested for the murder Number Five commits. While stuck in prison Marsch chronicles his imprisonment and his research on Saint Croix. He even assembles a story about the early aboriginals. Yet how could a man born on Earth know so much about a culture that has moved into the back of beyond if it even exists? The answer might lie in Veil's Hyposthesis and the young man, V.R.T., who claimed to be half-aboriginal and whom Marsch hired to take him out into the wilderness for years. In a future world where cloning is possible does it seem that far-fetched that shapeshifters could exist too?

There are books that people go back to and read over and over again because they feel like they keep missing something the last time they read it. They feel that the book hides new discoveries that will be revealed to them one day if they are patient enough and work for it. While I am a proponent of rereading a book on the other hand if the book is elliptical and dense and just too much work to read it the first time I think it is the definition of insanity to attempt to read it again. And that is how I feel about The Fifth Head of Cerberus. It's dreamlike, it's dense, and whatever it was trying to tell me, well, I don't care to find out because reading every single line in this book was painful. I finished it. I did that much at least. But I just don't get it. Because while the structure of the three connecting novellas initially works, what increasingly annoyed me was that this book felt less and less like something written with an audience in mind and more and more like a writing experiment that Gene Wolfe did to entertain himself. I'm all for experimentation in writing, but at the end of the day you still have to be able make it intelligible. The elliptical writing that purposefully omits details, jumping around in the timeline without reason, and then not bothering to write full sentences, and randomly changing the narrative voice, this does not make me a happy camper. And as for the "dreamquest".... If I had wanted to read bad origin myths like I was forced to read as a freshman in high school where a lady was trying to have sex with a worm but it turns out it was a stick, well I would have gone back and read that book again, you know, for nostalgia. I would not have chosen this. In fairness, Gene Wolfe perfectly aped that style of writing so on one level it succeeds, on another it just drove me crazy. Plus there are so many big moral issues handled in such a clumsy manner. We have cloning, slavery, sex work, and all of it is just part of the world and not really a problem. Well, to me it was a problem. When the only woman of power is a famous doctor who ends up working as a madame and all the other women are sex slaves to men we have issues. But issues that I will not delve further into because I will never pick up this book again to peal back the layers of the onion as it were.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cloning, Dreamlike, Elliptical, Experiments, For the Love of Book Clubs, French, Gene Wolfe, John V. Marsch, Number Five, Sex Workers, Shapeshifter, Slavery, The Fifth Head of Cerberus, V.R.T., Veil's Hypothesis

The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 464 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Diana Bishop journeys to the darkest places within herself - and her family history - in the highly anticipated fifth novel of the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling All Souls series.

Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, an Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clermont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana's family line.

Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family's future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It's time you came home, Diana.

On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family's dark past and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power - if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.

In this stunning new novel, grand in scope, Deborah Harkness deepens the beloved world of All Souls with powerful new magic and long-hidden secrets, and the path Diana finds at Ravenswood leads to the most consequential moments yet in this cherished series."

I know everyone else has been like me waiting impatiently for more of Diana's adventures. I just think seeing as it's only a month off AND on a Tuesday they should have released it on Diana's birthday. Which is August the 13th. And happens to be mine as well.

The Bright Sword by Lev Grossman
Published by: Viking
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 688 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Magicians trilogy returns with a triumphant reimagining of the King Arthur legend for the new millennium.

A gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find that he's too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive.

They aren't the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They're the oddballs of the Round Table, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur's fool, who was knighted as a joke. They're joined by Nimue, who was Merlin's apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur's death has revealed Britain's fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur's half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords lay siege to Camelot and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they'll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell, and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain's dark past.

The first major Arthurian epic of the new millennium, The Bright Sword is steeped in tradition, full of duels and quests, battles and tournaments, magic swords and Fisher Kings. It also sheds a fresh light on Arthur's Britain, a diverse, complex nation struggling to come to terms with its bloody history. The Bright Sword is a story about imperfect men and women, full of strength and pain, who are looking for a way to reforge a broken land in spite of being broken themselves."

Everyone has been waiting to see what Lev Grossman would do next. The answer? Awesomely it's Arthurian Legend!

The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer
Published by: Ballantine Books
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Inspired by C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes - just in case - from the author of The Wishing Game.

As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they'd gone or how they'd survived.

Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons' investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.

Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie's sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie's sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.

Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months - for only then can they get back everything and everyone they've lost."

It's not just Narnia I'm looking for, it's secret passages!

The West Passage by Jared Pechaček
Published by: Tordotcom
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A palace the size of a city, ruled by giant Ladies of unknowable, eldritch origin. A land left to slow decay, drowning in the debris of generations. All this and more awaits you within The West Passage, a delightfully mysterious and intriguingly weird medieval fantasy unlike anything you've read before.

When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey Tower fed her to the crows and went back to their chores. No successor was named as Guardian, no one took up the fallen blade; the West Passage went unguarded.

Now, snow blankets Grey in the height of summer. Rats erupt from beneath the earth, fleeing that which comes. Crops fail. Hunger looms. And none stand ready to face the Beast, stirring beneath the poisoned soil.

The fate of all who live in the palace hangs on narrow shoulders. The too-young Mother of Grey House sets out to fix the seasons. The unnamed apprentice of the deceased Grey Guardian goes to warn Black Tower. Both their paths cross the West Passage, the ancient byway of the Beast. On their journeys they will meet schoolteachers and beekeepers, miracles and monsters, and very, very big Ladies. None can say if they'll reach their destinations, but one thing is for sure: the world is about to change."

The whole plague of rats and crops failing might sound a little too close to home...

Cabaret Macabre by Tom Mead
Published by: Mysterious Press
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Victor Silvius has spent nine years as an inmate at The Grange, a private sanatorium, for the crime of attacking judge Sir Giles Drury. Now, the judge's wife, Lady Elspeth Drury, believes that Silvius is the one responsible for a series of threatening letters her husband has recently received. Eager to avoid the scandal that involving the local police would entail, Lady Elspeth seeks out retired stage magician Joseph Spector, whose discreet involvement in a case Sir Giles recently presided over greatly impressed her.

Meanwhile, Miss Caroline Silvius is disturbed after a recent visit to her brother Victor, convinced that he isn't safe at The Grange. Someone is trying to kill him and she suspects the judge, who has already made Silvius' life a living hell, may be behind it. Caroline hires Inspector George Flint of Scotland Yard to investigate.

The two cases collide at Marchbanks, the Drury family seat of over four hundred years, where a series of unnerving events interrupt the peace and quiet of the snowy countryside. A body is discovered in the middle of a frozen pond without any means of getting there and a rifle is fired through a closed window, killing a man but not breaking the glass. Only Spector and his mastery of the art of misdirection can uncover the logical explanations for these impossible crimes.

An atmospheric and puzzling traditional mystery that pays homage to the greatest writers of the genre's Golden Age, Cabaret Macabre is the third book in Tom Mead's Joseph Spector series, hailed by the Wall Street Journal as "a recipe for pure nostalgic pleasure." The books can be enjoyed in any order."

Heavy breathing. Family estate? Body in the middle of a frozen pond? More heavy breathing.

I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones
Published by: S and s/Saga Press
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From New York Times bestselling horror writer Stephen Graham Jones comes a classic slasher story with a twist - perfect for fans of Riley Sager and Grady Hendrix.

1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton - and a place where everyone knows everyone else's business. So it goes for Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, seventeen, and about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, the unfairness of being on the outside, through the slasher horror he lives but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic."

Period nostalgia and summer horror in one!

Where Are You, Echo Blue? by Hayley Krischer
Published by: Dutton
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 336 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A smart, juicy, and page-turning novel about celebrity, fandom, and the price of ambition following a journalist's obsessive search for a missing Hollywood starlet.

When Echo Blue, the most famous child star of the nineties, disappears ahead of a highly publicized television appearance on the eve of the millennium, the salacious theories instantly start swirling. Mostly, people assume Echo has gotten herself in trouble after a reckless New Year's Eve. But Goldie Klein, an ambitious young journalist who also happens to be Echo's biggest fan, knows there must be more to the story. Why, on the eve of her big comeback, would Echo just go missing without a trace?

After a year of covering dreary local stories for Manhattan Eye, Goldie is sure this will be her big break. Who better to find Echo Blue, and tell her story the right way, than her? And so, Goldie heads to L.A. to begin a wild search that takes her deep into Echo's complicated life in which parental strife, friend break ups, rehab stints, and bad romances abound. But the further into Echo's world Goldie gets, the more she questions her own complicity in the young star's demise...yet she cannot tear herself away from this story, which has now consumed her entirely. Meanwhile, we also hear Echo's side of things from the beginning, showing a young woman who was chewed up and spit out by Hollywood as so many are, and who may have had to pay the ultimate price.

As these young women's poignant and unexpected journeys unfold, and eventually meet, Where Are You, Echo Blue? interrogates celebrity culture, the thin line between admiration and obsession, and what it means to tell other peoples' stories, all while ushering us on an unruly ride to find out what did become of Echo Blue."

A fictional yet all to realistic look into what celebrity did to female stars at the turn of the century.

The White Guy Dies First edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker
Published by: Tor Teen
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"13 Scary Stories. 13 Authors of Color. 13 Times We Survived...The First Kill.

The White Guy Dies First includes thirteen scary stories by all-star contributors and this time, the white guy dies first.

Killer clowns, a hungry hedge maze, and rich kids who got bored. Friendly cannibals, impossible slashers, and the dead who don't stay dead....

A museum curator who despises "diasporic inaccuracies." A sweet girl and her diary of happy thoughts. An old house that just wants friends forever....

These stories are filled with ancient terrors and modern villains, but go ahead, go into the basement, step onto the old plantation, and open the magician's mystery box because this time, the white guy dies first.

Edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker, including stories from bestselling, award-winning, and up-and-coming contributors: Adiba Jaigirdar, Alexis Henderson, Chloe Gong, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, H. E. Edgmon, Kalynn Bayron, Karen Strong, Kendare Blake, Lamar Giles, Mark Oshiro, Naseem Jamnia, Tiffany D. Jackson, and Terry J. Benton-Walker.

A collection you'll be dying to talk about...if you survive it."

It's about time that the white guy dies first!

The Woman in the Garden by Jill Johnson
Published by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 336 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Eustacia has always been better with plants than people...

Eustacia Rose is a Professor of Botanical Toxicology with only her extensive collection of poisonous plants for company. Her life is quiet, her schedule is unchanging, and her closest friends are the specimens she tends to. But she does have one other hobby: watching her neighbors through her telescope, taking extensive notes on their lives for "research."

When Eustacia hears a scream one evening, the temptation to investigate proves irresistible. Through her telescope she catches a glimpse of her extraordinarily beautiful new neighbor, Simone, and soon becomes obsessed with her and her life. But who are these four men that orbit Simone? And why does Eustacia get the feeling she needs to protect her from them?

One day, Eustacia comes home to find her precious garden destroyed, and learns that someone close to Simone has been murdered with a rare poisonous plant. As she is drawn deep into the crime, Eustacia's closed-off life begins to crumble, forcing her to break free from the walls of her secret garden and take matters into her own hands. Soon, she's forced to realize that the world is filled with people who are just as toxic as her plants...

Fans of The Maid will revel in this perfectly tended tale of obsession. The Woman in the Garden explores the delicate balance between beauty and danger - infatuation and obsession - tightly woven together in a tense and unsettling mystery."

Is it wrong to really really want a poison garden?

The Perfect Sister by Stephanie DeCarolis
Published by: Bantam
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Paperback, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A woman's search for her missing sister on the sandy white beaches of the Hamptons uncovers a wealth of secrets worth killing for - a sultry and sumptuous psychological suspense from USA Today bestselling author Stephanie DeCarolis.

Alex Walker has always looked up to her perfect older sister. Maddie has succeeded in all the ways Alex has not: She escaped their hometown and seems to have put the memories of their unstable childhood behind her. But despite the different paths their lives have taken, the two sisters made a pact to spend one week together every summer. It was a promise they'd never broken...until now.

When Maddie suddenly cancels her annual trip home, Alex begins to worry. But when Maddie stops returning her calls altogether, Alex is certain something is wrong. Relying on the only clues Maddie left behind, Alex follows her sister's footsteps to the Hamptons where she meets the Blackwell family - the last people to have seen Maddie before she vanished into thin air. The Blackwells seem to have it all: wealth, beauty, and a beachside mansion on a private stretch of Hamptons real estate. It's a world unlike any Alex has ever known, but she quickly discovers that looks can be deceiving, and that a life of luxury always comes at a cost."

Oh, murder and mayhem in the Hamptons! Yes please!

Things Don't Break on Their Own by Sarah Easter Collins
Published by: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 272Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A heart-wrenching mystery about sisters, lovers, and a dinner party gone wrong.

Twenty-five years ago, a young girl left home to walk to school. Her younger sister soon followed. But one of them arrived, and one of them didn't.

Her sister's disappearance has defined Willa's life. Everyone thinks her sister is dead, but Willa knows she isn't. Because there are some things that only sisters know about each other - and some bonds only sisters can break.

Willa sees fragments of her sister everywhere - the way that woman on the train turns her head, the gait of that woman in Paris. If there's the slightest resemblance, Willa drops everything, and everyone, and tries to see if it is her.

When Willa is invited to a dinner party thrown by her first love, she has no reason to expect it will be anything other than an ordinary evening. Both of them have moved on, ancient history. But nothing about Willa's life has been ordinary since the day her sister disappeared, and that's not about to change tonight.

Sarah Easter Collins has written an extraordinary novel about memory, lost love, and long-buried secrets that sometimes see the light of day."

I mean, just for Willa's sake we all need to find out what happened to her sister! Yes, I know they're fictional. But still...

Women in the Valley of the Kings by Kathleen Sheppard
Published by: St. Martin's Press
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Hardcover, 320 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"The never-before-told story of the women Egyptologists who paved the way of exploration in Egypt and created the basis for Egyptology.

The history of Egyptology is often told as yet one more grand narrative of powerful men striving to seize the day and the precious artifacts for their competing homelands. But that is only half of the story. During the so-called Golden Age of Exploration, there were women working and exploring before Howard Carter discovered the tomb of King Tut. Before men even conceived of claiming the story for themselves, women were working in Egypt to lay the groundwork for all future exploration.

In Women in the Valley of the Kings: The Untold Story of Women Egyptologists in the Gilded Age, Kathleen Sheppard brings the untold stories of these women back into this narrative. Sheppard begins with some of the earliest European women who ventured to Egypt as travelers: Amelia Edwards, Jenny Lane, and Marianne Brocklehurst. Their travelogues, diaries and maps chronicled a new world for the curious. In the vast desert, Maggie Benson, the first woman granted permission to excavate in Egypt, met Nettie Gourlay, the woman who became her lifelong companion. They battled issues of oppression and exclusion and, ultimately, are credited with excavating the Temple of Mut.

As each woman scored a success in the desert, she set up the women who came later for their own struggles and successes. Emma Andrews' success as a patron and archaeologist helped to pave the way for Margaret Murray to teach. Margaret's work in the university led to the artists Amice Calverley's and Myrtle Broome's ability to work on site at Abydos, creating brilliant reproductions of tomb art, and to Kate Bradbury's and Caroline Ransom's leadership in critical Egyptological institutions. Women in the Valley of the Kings upends the grand male narrative of Egyptian exploration and shows how a group of courageous women charted unknown territory and changed the field of Egyptology forever."

Well any true fan of Egyptology already knows that women ruled Egypt in more ways that one... Now it's time for everyone else to find out!

Emergence by Kim Harrison
Published by: Ace
Publication Date: July 16th, 2024
Format: Kindle, 190 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"For better or worse, a solar eclipse brought humans and paranormal beings together, sparking one woman's battle to master magic or lose our world, in this riveting serialized adventure from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Hollows series.

As time has passed, Dr. Renee Caisson has begun to see the demonic, alien August as more than a research subject or an unlikely colleague - they've become friends. And together she and August have helped the two societies of Nextdoor and Earth through the confusion of first contact, the danger of misunderstandings, and the anger of mistreatment.

But when a popular blogger and conspiracy theorist twists August's words, an uproar ensues, turning a powerful section of human society against the Neighbors - and resulting in Renee's house arrest. Her could-be boyfriend, Major Jackson, says it's to protect her, though that’s not how Renee sees it.

Torn between duty and friendship, August jumps Renee to freedom, fully aware that the journey might reveal more to her than she should know. The wily Neighbor has pieced together that Renee has been unconsciously using their magic, a fact that, if revealed, will cause more, not less, conflict between the humans and Neighbors.

For if the people of Earth can master magic and exile August's people again, the Neighbors will not survive...."

Week three and we're at the grand finale!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Deborah Harkness, Hayley Krischer, Jared Pechaček, Jill Johnson, Kathleen Sheppard, Lev Grossman, Meg Shaffer, Sarah Easter Collins, Stephanie DeCarolis, Stephen Graham Jones, Terry J. Benton-Walker, Tom Mead