strange and random happenstance

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst
Published by: Bramble
Publication Date: July 9th, 2024
Format: Kindle, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

When fleeing a revolution it's hard know to what books to pack. Kiela Orobidan is a librarian at the Great Library of Alyssium. She's spent the last eleven years safeguarding the spellbooks contained therein, third floor, east wing. Now that the emperor has been defenestrated and the flames are coming closer, Kiela, and her best friend Caz, a sentient spider plant, have to flee. She's been packing and repacking the library boats for about a week in case of this eventuality, constantly conflicted over which books are the most irreplaceable, and now that the day has arrived, well, she doesn't know what to do. If she's honest with herself she didn't think the day would arrive. Rulers come and go but libraries are eternal. She thought the library would be secured by the rebels not looted! After all who doesn't love books? Perhaps the revolutionaries when the knowledge has been hoarded and kept out of the hands of those who could use it.... Well Kiela and Caz have their hoard and given the destruction they've witnessed, they might possess the last of the greatest treasure of the Crescent Islands Empire. The books have to be protected, first and foremost, and after much contemplation a plan is formed. It might not be the best plan, but it's the only plan they've got. They are returning to Kiela's home island of Caltrey. Her parents left to live a better life and give Kiela more opportunities. She might have gained a calling in the library but she lost her family, her freckles, and gained a host of antisocial disorders. Coming back though will only be temporary. They'll protect the books and not think about the fact they could be charged with theft, and lay low until this whole revolution business is settled. Upon returning to Caltrey the plan is to hide out in the house where Kiela grew up in, which is technically hers she realizes. Pretty soon though it's clear that there will have to be some interaction with the islanders. She has to eat. Also, there's her neighbor, Larran Maver. He's cute and way too helpful. Years ago she was kind to him and now he wants to repay the favor. Only Caltrey is suffering. It used to be that the emperor would send his sorcerers out on a regular rotation to tend to the outer islands. They'd cast spells that balanced out whatever nonsense they'd done in the capital city to build their palaces and fuel their lavish lives while ordinary people suffered. This threw the weather out of whack but then sorcerers stopped coming and the problem continued. Fish began to get scarce, and the merhorses, which Larran breeds, have dwindled. Kiela feels a need to do something. But protecting the spellbooks is a whole different kettle of fish than using them. If she's caught it could be disastrous. But if she doesn't help all of Caltrey will suffer.

I have been trying to not buy as many books and utilize my local library more. But then I borrow a book like The Spellshop and my resolve is out the window. Before I even finished reading it I was trying to find out where to get a signed copy of it and it's "sequel," The Enchanted Greenhouse. The Ripped Bodice in Los Angles came through for me and I'm hoping they will again this year when Sea of Charms comes out. Because I had to have a signed book. When I go all in on a book it isn't by half measures. And this book is my jam, in more ways than one. As literally everyone I know has said, this book is like the hug you didn't know you needed. This book embraces you in a world of sentient plants and jam and merhorses and winged cats, I mean, come on, winged cats! I want a winged cat. I also want some jam too. Yes, you will get hungry reading this book but you will also be satiated. The Spellshop is about finding your home, found family, and realizing that the more friends you have the safer you are. It's about building a community and coming together when times are rough. And, well, times are very rough, so I think we could all use a little bit of compassion. I want to live in this world. I want some defenestration and good trouble. What I love about fantasy is that it is magical and wonderful but it also holds up a mirror to our world. Basically the Crescent Islands Empire is in the midst of their own French Revolution. They literally cannot take the corruption for one more minute. Sound familiar? But what I love is that Sarah Beth Durst shows how, in this world, climate change is happening because of magic. Caltrey and other islands are almost destroyed by these horrific storms and it's all because the emperor has stopped sending out sorcerer envoys to fix the problems. They keep doing what they're doing, fiddling while Rome burns, and they just say damn the consequences. Does this sound relevant? As I write this the EPA literally just said they no longer care about the cost of human lives. As long as the rich are getting richer why bother trying to save people who they really don't want to save in the first place? But that's why we form communities, that's why we help each other, that's why we need at least 3.5% of us to finally have had enough. On a more personal level though this book help up a mirror to myself. The awkward book nerd who just wants to sleep in the stacks and be left alone. Whose anxiety at interacting with others is occasionally off the charts. I am Kiela. So can someone point me towards my sexy merhorse breeder? I'd even settle for a sentient spider plant!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Caltrey, Caz, Climate Change, Community, Crescent Islands Empire, Defenestration, Flying Cats, Found Family, Kiela Orobidan, Larran Maver, Library, Magic, Merhorses, Revolution, Sarah Beth Durst, Spider Plant, The Spellshop, Top Ten

Tomb of the Queen by Joss Walker
Published by: Two Tales Press
Publication Date: June 8th, 2021
Format: Kindle, 468 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

Jayne Thorne has spent a life on the run. She didn't know that's why her sister Sofia moved them at least three times a year until Jayne was in high school. She never understood the reason for the depths of Sofia's paranoia until recently. This was just a part of her everyday life. So when your surroundings are liable to change you hold onto the constants in your life. And for Jayne, books have always been a constant. As well as pie. Which is why she's a librarian who loves to eat pie. What's the point of dinner without dessert is a mantra she lives by. A month ago she started a dream job at Vanderbilt Library's Public Services and Reference Department where she works with everything from rare books about the history of Vanderbilt itself to fascinating Afro-Cuban manuscripts. She loves Nashville. Sure, it's not Dublin. And she's not in charge of the Book of Leinster at Trinity College which Jayne wrote her thesis on, but Vandy is a close second. Perhaps settling for a dream job versus the dream job is enough for now. Plus Sofia probably couldn't handle Jayne going overseas. As it is their not living together for the first time in their entire lives seems to have Sofia on edge. As do the news reports of people combusting into flame. Which is why Jayne doesn't tell her about a weird experience. She thinks it's just another ocular migraine but the green stars were a bit out of the ordinary. She could sure use that drink with her sister. But that wasn't any ocular migraine. That was magic. When Jayne touched a book that just happened to be a spell book she sent a shock wave through the magical community. Luckily the CIA gets to her first. The Torrent Control Organization, TCO for short, is a small, quiet, and little-known branch of that monster organization. And they want to recruit Jayne in their fight against the terrorist organization known as the Kingdom. The Kingdom wants to return the world to the way it was, with magic flowing freely and no technology. Anyone not adept in magic would basically be a serf. As for those who rely on technology to survive? Well, of course, in any great upheaval there will be casualties. To do this the Kingdom needs necromantic grimoires and the TCO is pretty sure that the Book of Leinster is one of them. The way the torrent reacted to Jayne combined with her thesis indicates that not only is she the only person for this job, but that she might be the first Master in a very long time. So she's off to Dublin. Sofia has no idea. But Jayne's about to find out what they've been running from their entire lives.

I have rarely read a book where I couldn't care less what happened. The characters were flat and the story felt lifeless. Yes, I was glad that for once an author in creating a bookish heroine had said character like books other than Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. But that doesn't mean Jayne doesn't like Harry Potter and all the Harry Potter references for a book released in 2021 was too unfeeling. The only thing I really appreciated is that I honestly thought they were setting up the Kingdom to be a cult like group that had decent goals and could legitimately divide Jayne's loyalties. Oh no. They were a cult. An evil cult. They were evil as fuck and I applaud that. There was no ambiguity in this book that could be seen as slightly Copaganda adjacent. They killed people. They stole. They cut Jayne open and told her to heal herself. You go evil Kingdom, you take down the island! And that's where all my problems in this book stem from, the way the Kingdom's goals are presented shows a weird lack of sensitivity to Ireland, Irish Car Bomb cocktail aside. There was all this cool Irish history that could be explored with the Book of Leinster being Queen Medb's and yet, I'm not sure that Joss Walker understands how important Ireland's national identity is. Back to the "island" comment. So, the Kingdom's plan to return the world to the way it was is to destroy the power grid. By blowing up a substation near Medb's tomb in Knocknarea, Ireland, it dominoes to take out Northern Ireland and then England. Yet aside from two places in the book when referencing this plan they include Ireland as part of the UK. As someone who is proudly of Irish heritage while also being an Anglophile, and yes, I know, that can be complicated, I say what da fuk!?! Ireland is not part of the United Kingdom! Northern Ireland is, Ireland isn't. Dublin is in Ireland. Got that? NOT Northern Ireland. Knocknarea? Again, NOT Northern Ireland. IRELAND IS IT'S OWN COUNTRY! It has been since the partition in the nineteen twenties. I mean, you think setting a book in Ireland you'd know a bit about the history of the country when the protagonist is a self-described history nerd! Likewise, it could be just a lack of clarity and Joss Walker does know the difference. Or knew the difference for those two times it was stated correctly. But this glaring and offensive an error put me off the entire book. I almost want to read the next book to see if she insults the French. Almost.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: An Urban Development, Books, CIA, Dublin, Harry Potter, Ireland, Jayne Thorne, Jayne Thorne CIA Librarian, Joss Walker, Magic, Pie, Queen Medb, TCO, The Book of Leinster, The Kingdom, Tomb of the Queen, Trinity College, United Kingdom

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros
Published by: Entangled: Red Tower Books
Publication Date: January 21st, 2025
Format: Hardcover, 640 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

They weren't rebels, they were revolutionaries. They fled the lies they had been told but in Navarre's darkest hour they returned. They were able to raise the wards around Basgiath. They saved those they could. But so many were lost and so many more will be lost. Violet's mother, General Lilith Sorrengail, is dead. Aretia's wards will fail. And Xaden is... Xaden channeled from the source to save Basgiath. The price will be his soul. He will become venin. Violet will not believe this. Just because there are no accounts of initiates just walking away from the power doesn't mean that Xaden isn't strong enough. They just have to be careful. After the loss of her mother Violet can't face the loss of the miracle that is her and Xaden. What they are is the result of a precise combination of tragedies that broke them both so completely that when they collided they became something entirely new. But the venin call to Xaden. Jack Barlowe is locked up down in the cells calling to him. Tempting him. Though Jack won't give up the name of his Sage or anything other than trivial information. The venin want Xaden ignorant so that he will have no choice but to become one of them. As their desiccation of the Continent has shown, they are greedy and will stop at nothing. That greed means they won't be satisfied with just Xaden, they want Violet and her irid as well. Which is one piece of needed information that the venin accidentally gave up. Violet now knows exactly what kind of dragon Andarna is. She's an irid scorpiontail. The seventh dragon species now has a name. Which means they can search them out and perhaps power the second wardstone and protect Aretia. But the systematic erasure of history in the archives has them hitting wall after wall. Violet needs her father's research on the second Krovlan Uprising. Which, much like the irids, isn't in Navarre, and definitely isn't on the Continent. She must follow in her father's footsteps, she must journey to Cordyn and from there book passage to Deverelli. She must seek out the merchant Narelle Anselm and take with her the rarest item she possesses. Only there is no magic beyond the Continent. A journey beyond the bounds of magic with dragons and gryphons in search of knowledge and irids seems foolhardy to those in charge. But it is a journey that they must undertake. No matter the dangers. No matter the sacrifices. Though can Violet and Tairn survive if it's Xaden and Sgaeyl who must be sacrificed?

I love this series a ridiculous amount. And one of the reasons is how ridiculous it is. It's angst and trauma and death turned up to eleven. It's like reliving your teenage horrors but with the foreknowledge that nothing good is going to come of it. Yet beneath the trappings of dragons and hot sex there's the message about the importance of history and libraries and books. Oh, this is a series that is really pro book. And, in this day and age, we need that. While the previous two volumes dealt with the systematic erasure of the horrible history of Navarre and how they saved themselves at the cost of everyone else and then erased their history so no one would know of their crimes against humanity, this volume is about personal versus national history. Unbeknownst to our cast of characters they are going to get a whole heaping of personal trauma due to secrets in their past. Ironically while slowly turning into a soulless monster Xaden gets off the lightest with only having to confront his mother Talia. Sure, it's the dinner party from hell, a lot of poison might be involved, but at least it's over quickly. Whereas Violet has to face up to the fact that her parents were keeping a lot of secrets from her and she now has no one to confront about the lies. The least of which is that her paternal grandmother Niara isn't the one who cut off communication with her son and his family, it was the other way around. Because Violet's father, Asher, was up to a whole lot of shady shit; trying to dedicate his daughter to the goddess of war, writing books and secreting them away on other islands, teaching her best friend languages so that he could help her, basically planning for the end times and his daughter's education, but in secret. Sure, it's nice to know the answers are out there and your father was always thinking of you, but wouldn't it have just been so much easier to just be honest? The duplicity and lies have to be eating away at Violet. But then again, her brother made her believe he was dead, so it's not like anyone in the Sorrengail family knows what a healthy relationship is. Though nothing will destroy you as much as what Andarna has to face. She went on this perilous journey with Violet in the hopes the irids would help, or at least fire the wardstone, but she really just wanted to know her family. And her family are assholes. They tell Andarna that she is broken. She was nothing more than a test for humans and they failed. To be told you're nothing, to be told you're broken, my heart broke for Andarna. Damn. All these characters just need hugs. But Andarna gets to go first, come here you pretty irid you!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Andarna, Aretia, Asher Sorrengail, Basgiath, Broken, Dragons, Empyrean, Family Secrets, Irid, Irid Scorpiontail, Jack Barlowe, Magic, Navarre, Onyx Storm, Rebecca Yarros, Summer School, Venin, Violet Sorrengail, Wardstone, Xaden Riorson

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: August 11th, 2009
Format: Paperback, 402 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Quentin Coldwater is special. He has a GPA higher than most people realize they go. But every time he reaches a goal he no longer wants it. He is dissatisfied and disillusioned with his life at seventeen. Then something happens to him that feels like it could be lifted straight from his favorite book series by Christopher Plover, Fillory and Further. On a cold bleak fall day in Brooklyn after discovering a dead body and having an odd interaction with an attractive paramedic, Q walks through a community garden and ends up on a sea of freshly cut summer lawn. There's someone waiting for him. His exam is about to start. Never mind that Quentin knows nothing about this mysterious place or this exam, something in him tells him that the fictional Chatwins would rise to the challenge and so will he. After a series of honestly baffling tests he is told what he has started to suspect since he walked onto that lawn; magic is real. Not only that but he has been accepted to the prestigious Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy. Here, after five years of matriculation, he will graduate a magician. His former life will be left behind and a new world will be opened to him. Quentin leaps into his new life but is distressed that his dissatisfaction seems to have followed him. His new life is nothing like his old life and yet the depression is seeping in. He has a new group of friends, the Physical Kids, Eliot, Janet, Josh, and Alice. Especially Alice. They are a prestigious clique, hanging out in their cottage and just drinking in their youth and their powers. But this grows stale. Eliot, Janet, and Josh graduate a year before Quentin and Alice and by the end of their final year at Brakebills Quentin seriously doesn't care about anything, not even his relationship with Alice, which he spectacularly destroys by sleeping with Janet and Eliot. And just when the entropy of his life is almost too much to bear in walks what might save him, what has to save him... The knowledge that Fillory is real and that they can go there. These books saved Q's life again and again. Who knows, maybe they will save him again? Or perhaps he's doomed to a life of despair and disillusionment.

I have now read this book three times in order to write a review that will do The Magicians justice. The problem is that each time I have read it my opinion has been so vastly different I don't know how to take in all these variables. I mean, how much of my opinion was shaped by my love of the television series? Well, the second time I read it, a lot. I was even changing Janet to Margo in my head. But four years after the show has ended so much has changed that I feel like I'm seeing the book with new eyes. There's such a jaded quality to Q. Nothing will ever bring him satisfaction or contentment. This is postmodernist Brideshead Revisited, or, as my friend Flavia said, nothing more than a "wall of pure nihilistic snobbery." And yes, that is true. But given the way of the world and all that we've been through over the past few years, I'm feeling in a very jaded and nihilistic mood. What really connected to me this time though was the fallibility of authors. Christopher Plover's Fillory and Further series is like Narnia or Harry Potter. That comfort read that so many children retreat to even as they age. Because the more adult you are the more you need that comfort blanket. Though much like real authors of that era, J.M. Barrie, Lewis Carroll, Plover had a dirty secret. A secret that changed Fillory forever. But time and time again these older authors aren't mentioned, it's J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter that is entwined with The Magicians. And J.K. Rowling is such a problematic author I don't even know where to start. There were rumors for years that she wasn't the beacon of light many people took her to be. It was only in 2013 when she started writing under a pseudonym chosen because Robert Galbraith Hall created conversion therapy that the mask started to slip. Though not many people picked up on the significance of her nom de plume. By Troubled Blood, the fifth book published as Galbraith in 2020, the mask was fully off. She's a full on TERF. The hate she spews is almost incomprehensible, unless you look at the world around us. Make America Hate Again! That disillusionment with her means this hit just right. Throw in the horrors of what Amazon and Netflix are frantically trying to cover up about Neil Gaiman, and well, this book reads less postmodernist, less open to interpretation, and more, the world sucks, magic isn't going to help, everyone is horrible. And somehow that was very cathartic. Unvarnished truth.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brakebills, Brideshead Revisited, Christopher Plover, Fillory, Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, J.M. Barrie, Lev Grossman, Lewis Carroll, Magic, Neil Gaiman, Nihilism, Quentin Coldwater, Summer School, The Magicians

Babel by R.F. Kuang
Published by: Harper Voyager
Publication Date: August 23rd, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 560 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy

Magic exists. It exists in the words etched into bars of silver and the latitude in the interpretation of a single word from one language to another. But you are always giving something up in the conversion and it's the bar that manifests what's lost in translation into being. At the Royal Institute of Translation in Oxford, commonly called Babel, they make magic with words and hoard the knowledge. The bars are used for anything from curing disease to holding up a bridge to making your carriage have a less bumpy ride. The newest most powerful bars rely on Chinese, Sanskrit, and Arabic. The romance languages have become overused and English, being such a magpie language, means that words from whole dialects soon lose their power. Therefore if you know an obscure language, you are a valuable commodity. Because the thirst for, the need for this knowledge of rare languages, is unending. Which makes the tower the epicenter of colonialism. It feeds the need for expansion because language is an infinite resource so long as you can find and control it. But silver is not. Which means that in order to keep your carriage comfy war is necessary. Because the Royal Institute of Translation doesn't help the poor, the downtrodden, those societies where they spirited their scholars from, they help the rich, the professors lining their pockets, and, above all, the Crown. Robin Swift is soon going to learn all this in his short life. Professor Lovell rescues Robin from a cholera outbreak in Canton and brings him to his home in England. There he trains Robin in all the rudiments necessary for entry into Babel. When Robin achieves this goal he thinks that his life will be perfect. When he arrives in Oxford and meets Ramy, a member of his cohort from Calcutta, the two of them spend a few blissful days until the other students arrive and they realize they are men at Oxford not Oxford men. Which makes them stick to the tower and their work and the other members of their cohort, Victoire, from Haiti, and Letty, a true Brit. They are united because of Babel and their precarious position that makes them simultaneously bold and terrified. Though the more they learn of the outside world, and the shadowy Hermes Society which Robin's brother Griffin is a part of after his ouster from Babel, life becomes about a moral compromise to survive. But translation itself is a betrayal, you are doing violence to the original by warping if for foreign ears. When what you do on a daily basis is a violent act, how long does it take until you make a real stand?

The Princess Bride. It's a classic. It's perfection. Which is why so many people try to lure you in by saying something is "like" it. It took thirty-seven years for me to agree with critics that something was worthy of that honor. The recipient is My Lady Jane which was cancelled prematurely. I'm still bitter. My love for Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell is close to if not equal to The Princess Bride which is why, again, when someone says "this" is a worthy successor, I look at them with confusion in my eyes, because they keep saying that word and I do not think it means what they think it means. Babel in particular should not be mentioned in the same breath as Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Just because it's set around the same time period in Regency England and there's magic doesn't make it a worthy successor. Yes, it can be in the conversation if that conversation is how to trick people into reading a book where each chapter felt longer than the whole book. And this isn't figurative, it's literal. My reading speed is about a book a week, Babel took me eighteen days to read. And it's not that it's badly written, it's just unedited spewing forth of irrelevancies. This book isn't what this book was billed as. It's not about magic and the marvels of the written language and how words grow and change and evolve and how languages have to be lived to be understood and Oxford is the opposite of real life, it's a book about colonialism and the stupidest stand in fictional history. Babel, or the Necessity of Violence is supposedly an "Arcane History" and it reads, to that extent, like a history book. A very boring history book about what you might call the translators' war. Because Robin goes nuclear and destroys Babel. Oops, sorry, spoilers, but I did warn you about the stupidest stand in fictional history and that's it. So we're supposed to be intrigued by these scholars that are able to move past the realm of ideas into the realm of action, something Oxford was wholly unprepared for? I'm sorry, but I literally did not care. Robin and his stand? Sure, it ground things to a halt for a few days and caused probably more harm than good but I just didn't care. I just couldn't get behind these characters plodding about and being too dumb to live. They literally didn't even know how to dispose of a body. Seriously!?! They were on a boat. But overall this book just left a bad taste in my mouth because it felt like it was preaching that violence is the answer and yet the violence answered nothing. Especially not why this book was written. Unless it was to show that higher education is a scam, because, yeah, it did show that.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Babel, Colonialism, DEATH, History, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Language, Magic, My Lady Jane, Oxford, R.F. Kuang, Regency England, Robin Swift, Summer School, The Princess Bride, The Royal Institute of Translation, Violence

This actually all started with me thinking I should reread Donna Tartt's The Secret History. You will soon find out that this didn't happen. I had every intention of doing so, but, well, maybe I should just trust my first impressions and not bow down to everyone telling me that I was wrong about The Secret History. Not every book is for everyone. And it just wasn't for me. But when I had plans to reread said book I started plotting out books to read that are set in academia. They didn't have to be dark academia, in the expected sense, they could have just a murder or two and no magic. That's dark right? But of course there would be dark academia as well. There's a reason it's so popular and I, for once, have fallen for a populist trend. Though I haven't gotten to the point where I'm redecorating to bring those vibes into my everyday life. I don't feel the need to have skulls on display. At least yet. Anything could happen. So I started gleefully composing reading lists of books that fit the loose and narrow definitions of dark academia and pretty soon I had such a long reading list I could do nothing but read this genre for years and not run out of books. Therefore I picked the ones I was most interested in, or in some cases, decided to read and belatedly realized that it was dark academia, and before I knew it I had three months plotted out. Or a summer.... And there's nothing more delicious then spending time when you don't have to be in school reading about school.... And thus Summer School was born. Get ready for some Leigh Bardugo, Olivie Blake, Lev Grossman, Maureen Johnson, Cari Thomas, Rebecca Yarros, and more! Because school is in session! 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Cari Thomas, Dark Academia, Donna Tartt, Genre, Leigh Bardugo, Lev Grossman, Magic, Maureen Johnson, Murder, Olivie Blake, Popular, Rebecca Yarros, School, Skulls, Summer, Summer School, The Secret History, To Be Read

The Magicians by Lev Grossman
Published by: Penguin Books
Publication Date: August 11th, 2009
Format: Paperback, 402 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy

Quentin Coldwater is special. He has a GPA higher than most people realize they go. But every time he reaches a goal he no longer wants it. He is dissatisfied and disillusioned with his life at seventeen. Then something happens to him that feels like it could be lifted straight from his favorite book series by Christopher Plover, Fillory and Further. On a cold bleak fall day in Brooklyn after discovering a dead body and having an odd interaction with an attractive paramedic, Q walks through a community garden and ends up on a sea of freshly cut summer lawn. There's someone waiting for him. His exam is about to start. Never mind that Quentin knows nothing about this mysterious place or this exam, something in him tells him that the fictional Chatwins would rise to the challenge and so will he. After a series of honestly baffling tests he is told what he has started to suspect since he walked onto that lawn; magic is real. Not only that but he has been accepted to the prestigious Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy. Here, after five years of matriculation, he will graduate a magician. His former life will be left behind and a new world will be opened to him. Quentin leaps into his new life but is distressed that his dissatisfaction seems to have followed him. His new life is nothing like his old life and yet the depression is seeping in. He has a new group of friends, the Physical Kids, Eliot, Janet, Josh, and Alice. Especially Alice. They are a prestigious clique, hanging out in their cottage and just drinking in their youth and their powers. But this grows stale. Eliot, Janet, and Josh graduate a year before Quentin and Alice and by the end of their final year at Brakebills Quentin seriously doesn't care about anything, not even his relationship with Alice, which he spectacularly destroys by sleeping with Janet and Eliot. And just when the entropy of his life is almost too much to bear in walks what might save him, what has to save him... The knowledge that Fillory is real and that they can go there. These books saved Q's life again and again. Who knows, maybe they will save him again? Or perhaps he's doomed to a life of despair and disillusionment.

I have now read this book three times in order to write a review that will do The Magicians justice. The problem is that each time I have read it my opinion has been so vastly different I don't know how to take in all these variables. I mean, how much of my opinion was shaped by my love of the television series? Well, the second time I read it, a lot. I was even changing Janet to Margo in my head. But four years after the show has ended so much has changed that I feel like I'm seeing the book with new eyes. There's such a jaded quality to Q. Nothing will ever bring him satisfaction or contentment. This is postmodernist Brideshead Revisited, or, as my friend Flavia said, nothing more than a "wall of pure nihilistic snobbery." And yes, that is true. But given the way of the world and all that we've been through over the past few years, I'm feeling in a very jaded and nihilistic mood. What really connected to me this time though was the fallibility of authors. Christopher Plover's Fillory and Further series is like Narnia or Harry Potter. That comfort read that so many children retreat to even as they age. Because the more adult you are the more you need that comfort blanket. Though much like real authors of that era, J.M. Barrie, Lewis Carroll, Plover had a dirty secret. A secret that changed Fillory forever. But time and time again these older authors aren't mentioned, it's J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter that is entwined with The Magicians. And J.K. Rowling is such a problematic author I don't even know where to start. There were rumors for years that she wasn't the beacon of light many people took her to be. It was only in 2013 when she started writing under a pseudonym chosen because Robert Galbraith Hall created conversion therapy that the mask started to slip. Though not many people picked up on the significance of her nom de plume. By Troubled Blood, the fifth book published as Galbraith in 2020, the mask was fully off. She's a full on TERF. The hate she spews is almost incomprehensible, unless you look at the world around us. Make America Hate Again! That disillusionment with her means this hit just right. Throw in the horrors of what Amazon and Netflix are frantically trying to cover up about Neil Gaiman, and well, this book reads less postmodernist, less open to interpretation, and more, the world sucks, magic isn't going to help, everyone is horrible. And somehow that was very cathartic. Unvarnished truth.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Brakebills, Brideshead Revisited, Christopher Plover, Fillory, For the Love of Book Clubs, J.K. Rowling, J.M. Barrie, Lev Grossman, Lewis Carroll, Magic, Neil Gaiman, Nihilism, Quentin Coldwater, The Magicians

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

Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven by Bella Forrest
Published by: Bella Forrest
Publication Date: August 27th, 2018
Format: Paperback, 402 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

When you spend years bouncing around the foster care system you really don't have any recourse when you start to develop magical abilities. This is beyond the typical inheritance of blood type and eye color and the likelihood of developing cancer. This is something "other." But Harley Merlin has learned to roll with the punches. Sure, she can sense people's emotions, that just makes her a valuable asset to a local casino. She can pinpoint anyone cheating, a skill most pit bosses would kill for. At the age of nineteen she's kind of given up on ever finding anyone like herself so when an actual gargoyle attacks her and a warlock helps save her ass one night after work her eyes are opened. She's not alone. Only the arrogant Wade Crowley might not be the best guide to this new world. He has issues, mainly a severe superiority complex. He gives her his card and tells her she has twenty four hours to call him and turn herself into the San Diego coven. Harley wonders if she could ignore the summons. Or she could run. Leave San Diego behind. After realizing there's no escaping him, he is persistently annoying, they meet up at the Fleet Science Center which hides the entrance to the coven. She is given a magical infodump and tour. Harley is tested and possess a wide range of skills but doesn't have the power to be anything other than mediocre. Yet they will still train her to properly use her abilities to the extent that she can. The most interesting aspect of the coven is their Bestiary. This magical menagerie of monsters might seem harmless, but the gargoyle that attacked Harley was one of its numbers. Which means not only does someone want to kill her, it's someone in the coven who knew about her before she knew about herself. Which means she has to look to her past. She has to find some information about the parents that abandoned her when she was just three years old. Her legacy and heritage is darker than she could have ever imagined, it's no wonder someone is out for her blood. But her new coven will protect her. They will find out who's behind the attacks. They will form teams and get to the bottom of things. Because she is one of them. Whether she likes it or not.

The real "secret" of Harley Merlin is how Bella Forrest wrote twenty-one books in five years. The answer is obviously she didn't but it wasn't "public" knowledge yet. Back when I read this book in 2019 there were only twelve books in the series but the math of one author writing it all just didn't add up. In fact my book club tried to do the math and we calculated that she would have to be writing constantly just to meet her deadlines. And that's just writing, no editing, no rewriting, just wordcount alone. So we knew there had to be ghostwriters. Since then it has come out that we were indeed correct. In a lawsuit filed in the Bahamas it came out that "Bella Forrest" is a team of freelance ghostwriters and there was a dispute over who owned the "name" which was really more of a brand at this point and Amazon pulled the books from their site. At this point there seems to have been a verdict but it's just hearsay backed up by some possibly related court documents and I'm not sure if anything is resolved because you still can't get the books on Amazon but you can from the official author site... But is that official site the "real" author? It's anyone's guess. Plus it looks like the entire catalog was bought and a Bella Forrest Publishing imprint has been created as of the beginning of this year. I don't have the inclination to go down this rabbit hole at this moment in time, but if you're interested in doing some online sleuthing of your own, be my guest. Reddit oddly has some good theories. Also I'm not judging Bella Forrest for employing ghostwriters, it happens more than you think. All I'm saying is if you're an author and someone else helps you write a book just give them credit. Be like James Patterson. The real reason for me airing my grievances here is I loved this Bella Forrest book, Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven, the second one, Harley Merlin and the Mystery Twins, not so much. So I want to know who wrote the one I liked. Seriously, who had this deliciously snarky voice that just spoke to me? That wrote this book that arrived at just the right time in my life. A book that was just fun and occasionally goofy and really, didn't make much sense, but filled a magical void in me that needed filling. And now that I reread that it sounds dirty. It's not. It's just a case of the right book at the right time and I would like to know who really wrote it, that is all. Internet sleuths, if you do know, drop me a line!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Bella Forrest, For the Love of Book Clubs, Gargoyles, Ghostwriting, Harley Merlin, Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven, Harry Potter Pastiche, James Patterson, Lawsuit, Magic, San Diego Coven, Wade Crowley

The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch
Published by: DAW
Publication Date: January 31st, 2017
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Peter owes Lady Ty. When he was trapped under the platform at Oxford Circus she saved his life for a favor. And she has come to cash it in. Her daughter, Olivia McAllister-Thames, was out with her classmates from St. Paul's. The teens had snuck into the posh One Hyde Park where they were partying in a vacant flat when Olivia's classmate, Christina Chorley, overdosed. Christina died on the way to the hospital. Lady Ty wants Olivia kept out of it. She doesn't just want her daughter exonerated, she wants her daughter's name never to be even mentioned in connection to the overdose at One Hyde Park. But that isn't how Peter works, even if he does owe her his life. He was willing to go easy on Olivia, but that became complicated when she admitted to supplying the drugs that killed Christina. And that's when Olivia was arrested and low-lying areas around the Tyburn were in danger of flash flooding. Just because Olivia confessed doesn't mean she actually did it, and Peter is nothing if not thorough, you kind of have to be when you're a magician, so he starts digging. And what he finds is interesting and disturbing. Interesting in that Olivia is obviously covering up for someone, who turns out to be her girlfriend, she just hadn't come out to her mother yet. Disturbing in that Reynard Fossman seems to be involved. Peter and Nightingale have never figured out quite what he is. Is he the spirit of Reynard the Fox? Is he someone who wants people to think that? Or is he just a creepy pedophile who just happens to get in their way? Whatever he is other than a pedophile, because that is confirmed, he seems to have been up to something with Christina Chorley. They were selling stolen magical artifacts. But Reynard didn't realize that his partner had been stupid enough to put them up on eBay. Magical artifacts need to be sold secretly, by word of mouth, because otherwise everything goes tits up. Which is what happens here. The main item of interest is Isaac Newton's Third Principia, rumored to have the secret of eternal life and turning lead into gold. Everyone wants it. The Americans, the Linden-Limmer's, the Folly, and any other practitioner who ever had a classical education. Which means Christina put a big ol' target on her back. Moreso because, if Peter and Nighttingale are correct, the Faceless Man is involved as well. Anyone could have killed her, but one thing is certain, it probably wasn't the pills but magic.

Peter and the crew are back in top form in The Hanging Tree with architectural collateral damage and big developments on the Faceless Man front. Though what I really connected to with this volume was the interwoven narrative of women within the magical community. In the present day we see that the Folly is quite open to female practitioners, with Lesley being taught by Nightingale, before her betrayal, and with plans for Abigail to be taught once she comes of age. But other than the Night Witch, Varvara Sidorovna, most magical women are creatures from the demimonde or Genius Loci. Here we get not just witches, but the history of witches. Lady Helena Linden-Limmer and her daughter Caroline Linden-Limmer might both have had connections to the Faceless Man of their generation. Helena was revolutionary in her medical experimentation and healing, which she only recently started to have qualms about. Whereas her daughter encountered Peter before in his pursuit of the Faceless Man and has one goal in life, to learn how to fly. And she doesn't mean aviation. The two of them come to the Folly for tea and sympathy and in short order they are setting history straight. Because back in the days when Isaac Newton was codifying magic men and women were equals. They were hanging out at disreputable coffee houses and taking on the mysteries of the universe. Together. This Society of the Wise then was able to get a premise on Russell Square and the doors of the Folly were closed to women. Women didn't take this lying down. They continued teaching each other in secret. Magic was passed down through the female line for generations. Magic that men couldn't even contemplate. At one point Peter tries to figure out the forma of a spell Caroline is doing and it's unlike anything he's ever seen. Because women invented, created, worked around all that was standing in their way, and they made their own branch of magic. What I love about this isn't the sad history that is all too common of women being shunned, what I love is that they persisted. They developed their own skillsets because they were pushed aside. I mean, there's a part of me that wants to liken this to "home arts" and wise women and their healing, which I think Aaronovitch is implying, but it's so much more, because domesticity doesn't mean what some people think it means. Just because women have been pigeonholed for so long it doesn't mean they've let these restrictions hold them back. It's like Lesley was always saying to Peter with regard to rebuilding her face, it's not like the Folly knows everything. Just because they are the academic repository of magical knowledge doesn't mean they're the only way. There's more in heaven and earth and all that, especially if you're trying to deny the abilities of half the people on the planet. Let the world of magic expand!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ben Aaronovitch, Caroline Linden-Limmer, Faceless Man, Lady Helena Linden-Limmer, Lady Ty, London Calling, Magic, Nightingale, Peter Grant, Rivers of London, The Folly, The Hanging Tree, Tyburn, Witches, Women

Rowankind by Jacey Bedford
Published by: DAW
Publication Date: November 27th, 2018
Format: Paperback, 473 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

When freed many of the rowankind took the Fae's offer to return to their homeland, Iaru. Yet there are those that stayed behind in Britain. They have made lives for themselves and have no desire to return to a homeland that they've never known. The humans though don't feel safe. They have treated the rowankind worse than slaves for hundreds of years and now those slaves have the power to fight back. And they are. In retaliation the humans are killing the rowankind. Reports of mass executions happening all over the country have reached the ears of the Fae and they want to take revenge. But Ross and Corwen beg the Fae council to let them attempt a diplomatic approach first before razing all of Britain. A major problem though is in educating the Fae that the world has changed. They have cloistered themselves in Iaru for so long they don't understand that being King isn't as powerful as it once was. The King has to answer to Parliament and they have to answer to the people. This will not be an easy fix and yet the Fae expect it to be. They expect Ross and Corwen to just walk up to the King and get him to make his subjects behave. In order to stop more bloodshed the couple are willing to attempt the impossible. And it really looks like it shall be impossible, George III isn't well, and the reason shocks Ross when she discovers it, the King has magic. Magic he isn't using. Much like Corwen's brother denying his wolf half, the King is denying his magic and it's making him very ill. Yet once contact is made Ross really hopes that they can reach some sort of agreement. But the Fae think they are taking too long and start demonstrating what they are capable of. If the populace was scared of a few rowankind with not much magic how are they going to feel about the Fae turning their beer into water and bringing about a blight to their crops? If everyone would just behave and trust each other for one minute perhaps everything will work out and Ross and Corwen can have their happy ending. Perhaps.

Rowankind doesn't really bring anything new to the table with regard to this trilogy but it does satisfactorily tie up all the loose ends. And there are many, from rescuing missing men to reinstating Gentleman Jim on his island. And there is also much politicking. Because the merging of two worlds, with magical citizens living in a nonmagical world, needs policies. There need to be laws to protect their rights and their bodies from harm. And it's a sad day when fictional Fae end up having more rights than many people do today. But that's just the world we live, and proves once again why I want to live in books and in particular this series. But while the politics do take center stage along with several notable politicians of the day, that's not all this book is about. We get one last piratical adventure, another shooting of London Bridge, a final Walsingham showdown, some more family drama, and lots of happily ever afters. Because this is fantasy and that means the good prevail, the bad fail, and everyone gets to sail off into the sunset. Plus there's just this wonderful message of the healing powers of love and that love is love. Ross is able to find love again even though she thought she never would after the death of her husband Will. Her brother David finds love with a rowankind servant Annie. Her brother-in-law is able to tame his beast due to the love of his partner Roland. Her Aunt Rosie reunites with her lost love Leo. Even the servants get in on the love with her maid Poppy marrying Yeardley. And, now that I think about it, this whole series is about finding your family, those who you love with your whole heart and soul. You don't have to be related by blood, I mean look what Ross had to do to her brother.... It's about finding your tribe. Be they pirates or pixies, when you find your people the world is so much better because they are there for you in good times and in bad and most importantly, they will fight for you and even help you burying the bodies. So here's a shout-out to all my family, I love you like I love books, and you know how much that is.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Britain, Corwen, Execution, Fae, Family, George III, HEA, Jacey Bedford, London Bridge, Love, Magic, Pirates, Politics, Regency England, Regency Magic, Ross Tremayne, Rowankind, Silverwolf, Trilogy, Winterwood

Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch
Published by: DAW
Publication Date: April 12th, 2022
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

In one of the most secure places in London a man loses his heart by an invisible assailant. The London Silver Vaults rarely has anyone stupid enough to attempt a robbery, and yet that's just what David Moore more tried to do, and failed, when a giant hole appeared where his heart should have been. This case has Falcon written all over it, those "special" cases that the Folly comes in to handle. The victim was looking for a ring that his ex-wife supposedly sold. A ring that he desperately wanted back. A ring that his ex-wife was still in possession of. When Peter Grant and Danni Wickford, who's on the Basic Falcon Management Course, show up at her house to say Althea Moore is channeling Gollum would be an understatement. The ring is unique, it can expand to form an armillary sphere and has writing inside from more languages than they can recognize. Soon though that ring is stolen. When they stumble on another dead body with the same cause of death as David Moore, they start to form a picture of what's going on. Years ago up in Manchester, a man named Preston Carmichael, AKA the second body, ran a prayer group that David Moore was a part of. There were seven members of the group in total, seven rings for the dwarf-lords in their halls of stone. And these rings were magical. They were also misfiled at a local library instead of with the Sons of Weyland, the magical blacksmiths whom Nightingale learned from. Which is how they got into the hands of the public. Obviously something magical happened at one of these meetings and since then the bearers of the rings have become overly attached to them. It is when they are questioning one of the other members of the group that Peter has to fight off what he is quite sure is the Angel of Death. Now is not the time for him to die, Bev is about to give birth to twins any day now and he's not going to leave his daughters fatherless. Plus the Folly hasn't really ever come across "angels." And anyhow what would an angel want with rings? Whatever it is there are obvious religious connotations, it's just figuring them out before another person dies, another person that hopefully isn't Peter, that is going to be tricky.

There are very few authors whose sense of humor is perfectly aligned with mine. Ben Aaronovitch happens to be one such author. I honed my humor at the feet of Monty Python. I watched the entire series and then rewatched it while bootlegging it. I know bits off completely by heart, enough to retroactively know that my friends in eighth grade really biffed up the "Dead Parrot" sketch for our talent show that year. Needless to say I, like many, especially the writers of the film Sliding Doors, have a strong reverence for "The Spanish Inquisition" sketches. So when I saw that the title of the next Rivers of London book was Amongst Our Weapons I instantly hoped beyond hope that it was in reference to said sketch. Needless to say, it was. Aaronovitch hasn't let me down yet. But what's more it's used as a structure for the book as well, creating a flow not seen since Whispers Under Ground. Plus, it's not just a a humorous veneer, though I did snort laugh when DCI Seawoll uttered a certain profanity before declaring he "wasn't expecting them," Aaronovitch has worked the Spanish Inquisition into the plot of the book making the reference so important and tying it into the ever expanding magical world. One of the reasons that "The Spanish Inquisition" sketches resonate with me is because I had eight years of Catholic school. Needless to say eight years made me pretty convinced that there isn't a God and there had to be something else that people got out of going to church. Whether it was a sense of community or safety or patronage, I felt that there was something other than God that had to be why thinking people kept going back. I am not alone in thinking this way, and one person who has spent quite a considerable about of time on it is Professor Harold Postmartin D.Phil, F.R.S. As the Folly's literary liaison he is convinced that mass is actually magic. A form of magic that allows one practitioner, the preacher, to use the gathering of the congregants to work a spell. Thus giving Postmartin some tangible reason as to why the congregants would believe, because they got something out of it despite having no magical ability themselves. And I buy this theory, but the more I learn about this world Aaronovitch has created the more I need to know. The Catholic Church might have their own version of the Folly!?! And there are just so many different magical traditions all over not just Britain, but the world. This series could be hundreds of books and it would never be enough. More!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Amongst Our Weapons, Ben Aaronovitch, Beverly Brook, Catholic, London Calling, Magic, Monty Python, Peter Grant, Professor Postmartin, Religion, Rivers of London, The Spanish Inquisition, Whispers Under Ground

The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch
Published by: DAW
Publication Date: January 31st, 2017
Format: Paperback, 304 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★
To Buy

Peter owes Lady Ty. When he was trapped under the platform at Oxford Circus she saved his life for a favor. And she has come to cash it in. Her daughter, Olivia McAllister-Thames, was out with her classmates from St. Paul's. The teens had snuck into the posh One Hyde Park where they were partying in a vacant flat when Olivia's classmate, Christina Chorley, overdosed. Christina died on the way to the hospital. Lady Ty wants Olivia kept out of it. She doesn't just want her daughter exonerated, she wants her daughter's name never to be even mentioned in connection to the overdose at One Hyde Park. But that isn't how Peter works, even if he does owe her his life. He was willing to go easy on Olivia, but that became complicated when she admitted to supplying the drugs that killed Christina. And that's when Olivia was arrested and low-lying areas around the Tyburn were in danger of flash flooding. Just because Olivia confessed doesn't mean she actually did it, and Peter is nothing if not thorough, you kind of have to be when you're a magician, so he starts digging. And what he finds is interesting and disturbing. Interesting in that Olivia is obviously covering up for someone, who turns out to be her girlfriend, she just hadn't come out to her mother yet. Disturbing in that Reynard Fossman seems to be involved. Peter and Nightingale have never figured out quite what he is. Is he the spirit of Reynard the Fox? Is he someone who wants people to think that? Or is he just a creepy pedophile who just happens to get in their way? Whatever he is other than a pedophile, because that is confirmed, he seems to have been up to something with Christina Chorley. They were selling stolen magical artifacts. But Reynard didn't realize that his partner had been stupid enough to put them up on eBay. Magical artifacts need to be sold secretly, by word of mouth, because otherwise everything goes tits up. Which is what happens here. The main item of interest is Isaac Newton's Third Principia, rumored to have the secret of eternal life and turning lead into gold. Everyone wants it. The Americans, the Linden-Limmer's, the Folly, and any other practitioner who ever had a classical education. Which means Christina put a big ol' target on her back. Moreso because, if Peter and Nighttingale are correct, the Faceless Man is involved as well. Anyone could have killed her, but one thing is certain, it probably wasn't the pills but magic.

Peter and the crew are back in top form in The Hanging Tree with architectural collateral damage and big developments on the Faceless Man front. Though what I really connected to with this volume was the interwoven narrative of women within the magical community. In the present day we see that the Folly is quite open to female practitioners, with Lesley being taught by Nightingale, before her betrayal, and with plans for Abigail to be taught once she comes of age. But other than the Night Witch, Varvara Sidorovna, most magical women are creatures from the demimonde or Genius Loci. Here we get not just witches, but the history of witches. Lady Helena Linden-Limmer and her daughter Caroline Linden-Limmer might both have had connections to the Faceless Man of their generation. Helena was revolutionary in her medical experimentation and healing, which she only recently started to have qualms about. Whereas her daughter encountered Peter before in his pursuit of the Faceless Man and has one goal in life, to learn how to fly. And she doesn't mean aviation. The two of them come to the Folly for tea and sympathy and in short order they are setting history straight. Because back in the days when Isaac Newton was codifying magic men and women were equals. They were hanging out at disreputable coffee houses and taking on the mysteries of the universe. Together. This Society of the Wise then was able to get a premise on Russell Square and the doors of the Folly were closed to women. Women didn't take this lying down. They continued teaching each other in secret. Magic was passed down through the female line for generations. Magic that men couldn't even contemplate. At one point Peter tries to figure out the forma of a spell Caroline is doing and it's unlike anything he's ever seen. Because women invented, created, worked around all that was standing in their way, and they made their own branch of magic. What I love about this isn't the sad history that is all too common of women being shunned, what I love is that they persisted. They developed their own skillsets because they were pushed aside. I mean, there's a part of me that wants to liken this to "home arts" and wise women and their healing, which I think Aaronovitch is implying, but it's so much more, because domesticity doesn't mean what some people think it means. Just because women have been pigeonholed for so long it doesn't mean they've let these restrictions hold them back. It's like Lesley was always saying to Peter with regard to rebuilding her face, it's not like the Folly knows everything. Just because they are the academic repository of magical knowledge doesn't mean they're the only way. There's more in heaven and earth and all that, especially if you're trying to deny the abilities of half the people on the planet. Let the world of magic expand!

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ben Aaronovitch, Caroline Linden-Limmer, Faceless Man, Lady Helena Linden-Limmer, Lady Ty, London Calling, Magic, Nightingale, Peter Grant, Rivers of London, The Folly, The Hanging Tree, Tyburn, Witches, Women

Foxglove Summer by Ben Aaronovitch
Published by: DAW
Publication Date: January 6th, 2015
Format: Paperback, 336 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)

The disappearance of children has traditionally fallen to the Folly for two reasons, the Fae and dark magic. The Fae and changelings are actually real, and well, dark magic, it's dark for a reason. Which is why Peter is off to Herefordshire. Two eleven-year-old girls, Nicole Lacey and Hannah Marstowe, just walked out of there respective homes one night and didn't return. Nightingale would like Peter to check in on an old colleague in that area, Hugh Oswald, to make sure Hugh can be ruled out as a suspect. The idea that the sleepy old wizard could have kidnapped two rambunctious preteens is laughable to Peter, so one possible theory eliminated, Peter makes himself known to the local investigation team and offers up his help to see if this case might be designated "falcon." With the rise of magic and the police's desire to never use that word supernatural cases are now earmarked as "falcon" to help everyone's delicate sensibilities and to stop the public at large knowing about magic. The country is gripped by the case and the press frenzy is fierce which means that Peter has to step carefully. And for awhile it looks like he will be nothing more than another body on the ground, aiding the police with their inquiries until the girls' cellphones are found. The batteries have been fried. But fried in a very specific way that Peter recognizes as he's lost so many phones in the same manner. Magic fried the phones. But they weren't fried where they were found. So that means there might be a crime scene with vestigia, an imprint of the magic used, and this is the first concrete lead the police have had. Peter is hesitant to declare the case as falcon, he thinks it might be more falcon adjacent, until more and more evidence piles up proving that he is indeed the one man for the job. It would be helpful if Nightingale could come and lend a hand but with Lesley's betrayal the Folly cannot be left unattended, due to that mysterious door in the basement that Peter still hasn't uncovered the secret to. But cavalry arrives in the from of Beverley Brook, a genius loci, who might have ulterior motives for helping, and they involve Peter and getting him to admit there's something between the two of them. Finding the missing girls might be easier than finding out what being Beverley's boyfriend would be like.

Foxglove Summer is a hot mess, with neither word bearing more weight than the other. First, would it kill England to have air conditioners? I mean, how do they survive? Do any cars have cooling features? Because seriously, I thought the majority of the characters might just drop dead due to heat exhaustion. And reading this on a suspiciously hot week did add some verisimilitude, which I could have done with a little less of if I'm honest. Yet one can't really complain about a book that successfully drags you into it to such an extent that you're complaining about fictional weather, so therefore the mess becomes the important part. I just don't know what was going on here. You expect some sort of Broadchurchian mess with the disappearance of children with all the town being suspects and Peter arriving late and playing catch-up, but this was a hot mess, and I'm no longer talking about the weather. Instead of the plot shoring up as the investigation progressed it got more convoluted. That's not how it's supposed to go! I even had a hard time distinguishing between the Lacey and Marstowe families, not surprising giving some of the later obvious reveals, but I should have at least been able to keep the two girls straight and who had the magical unicorn friend and who didn't. But it all merged together in a giant ball of confusion. And here's the thing, Ben Aaronovitch could have saved it in the end and he obviously chose not to. I'm now going to spoil some things, so if you have delicate sensibilities, much like those who don't like to speak the word magic, look away now. So at the end it's revealed that it is the Fae, that there is a changeling involved, and Peter does a hostage swap using himself as collateral assuming that Nightingale will rescue him. Firstly, Peter's naivete that the Fae live on another plain of existence is sheer stupidity for someone so smart, but I will forgive him, he's been through a lot. But after Peter is rescued, the book just ends. Which leaves SO MANY questions unanswered. Why did the Fae take the children in the first place? I mean, yes, it could have been the whole changeling angle, but then why didn't they keep Hannah? What are they going to do with the original Nicole? How did the original Nicole get magical powers? Why did the "gates" to fairy cause the ground to be acidic and grow foxglove? Was the Fae's kidnappings related to the felling of the trees? If not, how can they make sure this doesn't happen again? And would it have killed them to have included a map? I mean, I think the only question I felt was answered at the end of this book was why it was dedicated to Terry Pratchett. Which means The Hanging Tree better start out with some answers.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Ben Aaronovitch, Beverly Brook, Broadchurch, Changling, Fae, Falcon, Foxglove Summer, Heat, Herefordshire, Kidnapping, Lesley May, London Calling, Magic, Nightingale, Peter Grant, Spoilers, The Folly, The Hanging Tree

Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
Published by: Gollancz
Publication Date: January 10th, 2011
Format: Paperback, 392 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy (different edition than on reviewed)

PC Peter Grant feels his police career slipping through his fingers. He's had his career progression meeting with Inspector Neblett and has been told they think he'd make a good fit with the Case Progression Unit. He'd be "performing a valuable role" by doing paperwork that no one else wants to do. He's too easily distracted is the kindest way his partner Lesley can think of to put it. And technically it is a valuable role. This vision of his future spurs Peter into doing something desperate. The day before he and Lesley were both guarding an important crime scene. A man literally had his head knocked off in the middle of Covent Garden. When Lesley was off getting them coffees Peter happened to find a witness. A witness that has been dead for over a hundred years. Peter's a sensible man, he doesn't believe in ghosts, but if that ghost could give him valuable information leading to the killer, who is he to complain? And then goodbye Case Progression Unit, hello murder team. Of course when he's off secretly ghost hunting he runs into a senior officer, Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale. And in that moment all possible futures collapse into a singularity. He knew he was bound for the Case Progression Unit. Until Neblett informs him that he has been seconded by Nightingale, who he is to meet in a Japanese restaurant. Nightingale informs Peter that ghosts do in fact exist, as do ghouls, faeries, demons, witches, warlocks, elves, goblins, but no aliens, as yet. As for the current investigation, they are on the lookout for the uncanny, a flash of laughter and violence. Nightingale is offering Peter something beyond the ordinary, an apprenticeship to a wizard. He'd be a part of the Special Assessment Unit based out of the Folly instead of pushing paperwork with the Case Progression Unit. Peter's rather quick to swear his fealty, which is something they still do apparently, because he wants to make a real difference. Only maybe he should have paid attention to the fine print. This is a dangerous job and as more people die in oddly theatrical manners with killers whose faces reshape itself into a mask he realizes he'll be lucky to survive his first case.

Rivers of London is a supernatural police procedural that fills a very specific niche that I don't think many people realized they were missing in their lives. Aaronovitch has created a world were we have a protagonist who has grown up in a mundane world with a scientific background and is thrust into a world of magic. And while that world of magic has drawn comparisons to Gaiman and American Gods in particular due to the personification of rivers, though you could make an argument for Neverwhere too, this book does for me what American Gods was never able to do, make me enjoy the ride. I apologize to all those American Gods fans out there, but sometimes Gaiman's execution doesn't live up to the concept. And I'm by no means saying that Rivers of London is a perfect book, it fumbles the explanation of exactly who the villain is in the end, but would I read this book again? You bet. Because I just love this tension of magic and science. Peter Grant is unwilling to accept that magic can't be explained by the scientific method. So he tests magic. He notices that if he does magic it will fry his phone, so perhaps the magic is draining the energy from the battery, thus proving that the energy magic needs doesn't come out of thin air and also answering the lifelong question of anyone who reads magical books, why don't electronics work in conjunction with magic. Plus he does it with calculators. It's way cooler than I make it sound. But in the end it's the theatricality that sold me on this book. The spirit of riot and rebellion that brings together the bizarre history of Punch and Judy with a V for Vendetta bent. I challenge you to actually find a more dramatic, in all senses of the word, climax than the one at the Royal Opera House. It's scary, funny, and totally over the top. And now I will end with a random aside, I think Ben Aaronovitch has had bowel issues. All the gastroenterology jokes combined with referring to the Punch "possession" as a sequestration, when acid sequestration is a way to rebalance the biome of the gut, it just tracks as it were... Also you DO NOT want to know why I know so much about this.

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: American Gods, Ben Aaronovitch, London Calling, Magic, Mr. Punch, Neil Gaiman, Nightingale, Peter Grant, Procedural, Punch and Judy, Rivers of London, Royal Opera House, Sequestration, Theatrical, V for Vendetta

The Mythmakers by Keziah Weir
Published by: S and s/ Marysue Rucci Books
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 368 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"From an acclaimed senior editor at Vanity Fair comes an intoxicating debut novel about a young journalist who discovers a short story that's inexplicably about her life - leading to an entanglement with the author's widow, daughter, and former best friend.

Sal Cannon's life is in shambles. Her relationship is crumbling, and her career in journalism hits a low point after it's revealed that her profile of a playwright is full of inaccuracies. She's close to rock-bottom when she reads a short story by Martin Keller: a much older author she met at a literary event years ago. Much to her shock, the story is about her and the moment they met. When Sal learns the story is excerpted from his unpublished novel, she reaches out to the story's editor - only to learn that Martin is deceased. Desperate to leave her crumbling life behind and to read the manuscript from which the story was excerpted, Sal decides to find Martin's widow, Moira.

Moira has made it clear that she doesn't want to be contacted. But soon Sal is on a bus to Upstate New York, where she slowly but surely inserts herself into Moira's life. Or is it the other way around? As Sal sifts through Martin's papers and learns more about Moira, the question of muse and artist arises - again and again. Even more so when Martin's daughter's story emerges. Who owns a story? And who is the one left to tell it?

The Mythmakers is a nesting doll of a book that grapples with perspective and memory, as well as the battles between creative ambition and love. It's a story about the trials and tribulations of finding out who you are, at any stage in your life, and how inspiration might find you in the strangest of places."

The intriguing question for me has always been, do you have the right to tell someone else's story...

You Can Trust Me by Wendy Heard
Published by: Bantam
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this "slick and stylish thriller" (Wanda M. Morris, All Her Little Secrets), two best friends grift their way through the California elite, until a scam goes awry.

Summer and Leo would do anything for each other. Inspired by the way each has had to carve her place in a hostile and unforgiving world, and united by the call of the open road, they travel around sunny California in Summer's tricked-out Land Cruiser. It's not a glamorous life, but it gives them the freedom they crave from the painful pasts they've left behind. But even free spirits have bills to pay. Luckily, Summer is a skilled pickpocket, a small-time thief, and a con artist - and Leo, determined to pay her own way, has learned a trick or two.

Eager for a big score, Leo catches in her crosshairs Michael Forrester, a self-made billionaire and philanthropist. When her charm wins him over, Leo is rewarded with an invitation to his private island off the California coastline for a night of fabulous excess. She eagerly anticipates returning with photos that can be sold to the paparazzi, jewelry that can be liquidated, and endless stories to share with Summer. Instead, Leo disappears.

On her own for the first time in years, Summer decides to infiltrate Michael's island and find out what really happened. But when she arrives, no one has seen Leo - she's not on the island as far as they know. Plus, there was only one way on the island - and no way off - for the coming days. Trapped in a scheme she helped initiate, could Summer have met her match?"

Rule one, if you're looking to pull a fast one make sure you can actually get out on your own.

Speak of the Devil by Rose Wilding
Published by: Minotaur Books
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Seven women, inextricably linked by one man, must figure out which of them killed him in order to protect one another in this electrifying debut thriller.

New Year's Eve, 1999.
Seven women are gathered in a hotel room at midnight; a man's head sits in the center of the floor. They all had a motive to kill Jamie Spellman. They all swear they didn't. But in order to protect one another, they have to find out who did.

The ex, who drowns her darkest secret in a hip flask as the woman she loves drifts further away.
The wife, living out her fairytale marriage in a house tucked into woods so thick no one can hear a scream.
The widow, praying to a past she no longer knows whether she can trust.
The teenager, whose wide-eyed crush has trapped her in an unrecognizable future.
The mother figure, battling nature versus nurture under the weight of her own guilt.
The friend, forced to choose sides over and over, until she learns the price of choosing wrong.
And the journalist, who brought them all together - but underestimated how far one of them would go to keep believing the story they'd been told.

Against the ticking clock of a murder investigation, each woman's secret is brought to light as the connections between them converge to reveal a killer. Marking the debut of an extraordinary new talent, Speak of the Devil explores the roles into which women are cast in the lives of terrible men...and the fallout when they refuse to play pretend for one moment longer."

But why wouldn't they just agree to protect each other and NOT solve the case? That way they have legitimate deniability if ever caught by the cops.

The Gulf by Rachel Cochran
Published by: Harper
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this electrifying debut literary thriller, set on the gulf coast of Texas in the 1970s at the height of the women's liberation movement, a closeted young woman attempts to solve her surrogate mother's murder in a tight-knit, religious small town.

In Parson, Texas, a small town ravaged by a devastating hurricane and the Vietnam War, twenty-nine-year-old Lou is diligently renovating a decaying old mansion for Miss Kate, the elderly neighbor who has always been like a mother to her. Mourning her brother's death in Vietnam, Lou dreams of enjoying a more peaceful future in Parson. But those hopes are crushed when Miss Kate is murdered, and no one but Lou seems to care about finding the killer.

The situation becomes complicated when Joanna, Miss Kate's long-estranged daughter and Lou's first love, arrives in Parson - not to learn more about her mother's death but for the house. Her arrival unearths sinister secrets involving the history of the town and its residents...revelations that may be the key to helping Lou discover the truth about Miss Kate's death and her killer.

A gorgeously written, gripping story of forbidden love and devastating secrets that is a surprising twist on the traditional small-town story, The Gulf is a riveting and unsettling mystery that holds up a mirror to the values - and failures - of America."

The murder is nice, but like the daughter, here for the house.

The Long Way Back by Nicole Baart
Published by: Atria Books
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"When an Instagram-famous teenager mysteriously disappears, her mother grapples with the revelation of dark secrets in this twisty, atmospheric thriller - from the author of the "poignant, riveting" (Wendy Walker, author of Don't Look for Me) Everything We Didn't Say.

Mother and daughter Charlie and Eva never sought social media fame, but when a stunning photo of Eva went viral, fame found them. Now, after more than two years documenting life on the road in their vintage Airstream trailer, the duo has temporarily settled on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Eva is happily finishing her senior year of high school and applying to college, but Charlie longs for the adventures they left behind.

When Eva goes missing less than a week before her graduation, it's Charlie who is immediately suspected of foul play - not just by their fans, but also by the police and the FBI. As a fight about one more road trip comes to light, and the truth about their relationship is questioned, Charlie realizes the rosy facade they portrayed online hid a complicated and potentially dangerous reality. Now, to clear her name and find out what has happened to her daughter, she'll have to confront her own role in Eva's disappearance - and whether she knows her daughter at all."

I mean technically the North Shore of Lake Superior is Canada, so FBI!?! But if you count the bit in Minnesota I guess...

How to Kill Men and Get Away with It by Katy Brent
Published by: HQ Digital
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"Meet Kitty Collins.

FRIEND. LOVER. KILLER.

He was following me. That guy from the nightclub who wouldn't leave me alone.

I hadn't intended to kill him of course. But I wasn't displeased when I did and, despite the mess I made, I appeared to get away with it.

That's where my addiction started...

I've got a taste for revenge and quite frankly, I'm killing it.

A deliciously dark, hilariously twisted story about friendship, love, and murder. Fans of My Sister the Serial Killer, How to Kill Your Family and Killing Eve will love this wickedly clever novel!"

Hopefully the Killing Eve books and first three seasons because if it's anything like season four it's a big hard nope.

Something Close to Magic by Emma Mills
Published by: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"A baker's apprentice reluctantly embarks on an adventure full of magic, new friendships, and a prince in distress in this deliciously romantic young adult fantasy that's perfect for fans of Margaret Rogerson and Gail Carson Levine.

It's not all sugar and spice at Basil's Bakery, where seventeen-year-old Aurelie is an overworked, underappreciated apprentice. Still, the job offers stability, which no-nonsense Aurelie values highly, so she keeps her head down and doesn't dare to dream big - until a stranger walks in and hands her a set of Seeking stones. In a country where Seeking was old-fashioned even before magic went out of style, it's a rare skill, but Aurelie has it.

The stranger, who turns out to be a remarkably bothersome bounty hunter named Iliana, asks for Aurelie's help rescuing someone from the dangerous Underwood - which sounds suspiciously like an adventure. When the someone turns out to be Prince Hapless, the charming-but-aptly-named prince, Aurelie's careful life is upended. Suddenly, she finds herself on a quest filled with magic portals, a troll older than many trees (and a few rocks), and dangerous palace intrigue.

Even more dangerous are the feelings she's starting to have for Hapless. The more time Aurelie spends with him, the less she can stand the thought of going back to her solitary but dependable life at the bakery. Must she choose between losing her apprenticeship - or her heart?"

A baker off on a big adventure? Count me in!

Parallel Hells by Leon Craig
Published by: Sceptre
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Paperback, 224 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"In this deliciously strange debut collection, Leon Craig draws on folklore and Gothic horror in refreshingly inventive ways to explore queer identity, love, power and the complicated nature of being human.

Some say that hell is other people and some say hell is loneliness...

In the thirteen darkly audacious stories of Parallel Hells we meet a golem, made of clay, learning that its powers far exceed its Creator's expectations; a ruined mansion which grants the secret wishes of a group of revellers and a notorious murderer who discovers her Viking husband is not what he seems. Asta is an ancient being who feasts on the shame of contemporary Londoners, who now, beyond anything, wishes only to fit in with a group of friends they will long outlive. An Oxford historian, in bitter competition with the rest of her faculty members, discovers an ancient tome whose sinister contents might solve her problems. Livia orchestrates a Satanic mass to distract herself from a recently remembered trauma and two lovers must resolve their differences in order to defy a lethal curse."

I usually avoid short stories like the plague, but with this book, bring on the black death!

Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine
Published by: Flatiron Books
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 304 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"For fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue and Mexican Gothic, a novel set in 18th-century Venice at a prestigious music school, about two girls drawn together by a dangerous wager.

Venice, 1717. Fifteen-year-old Luisa has only wanted one thing: to be the best at violin. As a student at the Ospedale della Pietà, she hopes to join the highest ranks of its illustrious girls' orchestra and become a protégé of the great Antonio Vivaldi. Luisa is good at violin, but she is not the best. She has peers, but she does not have friends. Until Maddalena.

After a scandal threatens her noble family's reputation, Maddalena is sent to the Pietà to preserve her marriage prospects. When she meets Luisa, Maddalena feels the stirrings of a friendship unlike anything she has known. But Maddalena has a secret: she has hatched a dangerous plot to rescue her future her own way. When she invites Luisa into her plans, promising to make her dreams come true, Luisa doesn't hesitate. But every wager has its price, and as the girls are drawn into the decadent world outside the Pietà's walls, they must decide what it is they truly want - and what they will do to pay for it.

Lush and heady, swirling with music and magic, Maddalena and the Dark is a Venetian fairy tale about the friendship between two girls and the boundless desire that will set them free, if it doesn't consume them first."

Venetian fairy tales are everything to me, especially when they go to the dark.

The First Bright Thing by J.R. Dawson
Published by: Tor Books
Publication Date: June 13th, 2023
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
To Buy

The official patter:
"If you knew how dark tomorrow would be, what would you do with today?

Ringmaster - Rin, to those who know her best - can jump to different moments in time as easily as her wife, Odette, soars from bar to bar on the trapeze. And the circus they lead is a rare home and safe haven for magical misfits and outcasts, known as Sparks.

With the world still reeling from World War I, Rin and her troupe - the Circus of the Fantasticals - travel the Midwest, offering a single night of enchantment and respite to all who step into their Big Top.

But threats come at Rin from all sides. The future holds an impending war that the Sparks can see barrelling toward their show and everyone in it. And Rin's past creeps closer every day, a malevolent shadow she can't fully escape.

It takes the form of another circus, with tents as black as midnight and a ringmaster who rules over his troupe with a dangerous power. Rin's circus has something he wants, and he won't stop until it's his."

Who doesn't want to read about rival circuses? 

Posted by Miss Eliza at 12:00 AM 0 comments  

Labels: Authors, Circus, Emma Mills, Instagram, J.R. Dawson, Julia Fine, Katy Brent, Keziah Weir, Killing Eve, Lake Superior, Leon Craig, Magic, Nicole Baart, Rachel Cochran, Rose Wilding, Short Stories, Venice, Wendy Heard