CBR18 Book 30: "Black Water Sister" by Zen Cho

Page count: 384 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Monthly Keyword Challenge 26: Sister

Jessamyn "Jess" Teoh is feeling aimless and adrift. Born and raised in the USA, she has just moved to Malaysia with her parents, and they're staying with one of Jess' aunts while her parents are looking for their own place to stay. Jess is unemployed, broke and hiding the fact that she has a girlfriend in Singapore. Her girlfriend wants her to get a job in Singapore, so they can be together, but Jess keeps lying to her about her job searches. 

So when she starts hearing a strange voice in her head, Jess puts it down to stress. It takes a while for her to realise that the voice belongs to her dead grandmother, who used to be a spirit medium. Being mediums apparently runs in Jess' family, having skipped Jess' mother for some reason. Jess' Ah Ma was the avatar of a mysterious spirit goddess known as the Black Water Sister, and now a local businessman is threatening the park where the Black Water Sister's shrine lies. Ah Ma needs Jess' body to stop this, and settle a personal score against the magnate as well. Soon, Jess discovers that Ah Ma takes over her body at night, so she wakes up exhausted. She needs to figure out how to make a deal with her dead gran's ghost, before she ends up permanently possessed.

Black Water Sister is a rather unusual urban fantasy. Most urban fantasies are set in the USA or the UK, and the protagonists, often supernatural themselves, tend to solve paranormal mysteries involving all manner of creatures, like vampires, werewolves (or other shapeshifters), demons, angels, druids, witches, fae and the like. Our protagonist here is an aimless twenty-something who has no idea what she wants to do with her life, and the supernatural elements are ghosts and various spirit deities. The setting is Malaysia, a place I know very little about, in a culture I am also mostly unfamiliar with. 

While this was an interesting book, I found Jess a difficult protagonist to engage with. She's confused and depressed, and clearly has no idea what she wants with her life. While I understand why she needed to hide her queerness from her family, I also felt Jess was rather mean to her girlfriend, who only seemed to want the best for her. I'm frankly not sure what her girlfriend sees in her.

Obviously, having to share a body with the ghost of your estranged grandmother isn't exactly easy, especially when you're living with relatives you barely know and are struggling to understand the language. One perk of the whole experience is that while her Ah Ma is sharing her head, Jess becomes fluent in Malay very quickly. 

I read this back in March, and by now, I don't remember that much about it. The plot went in unexpected directions more than once, and there were both funny and some really rather gory bits. The only other Zen Cho novel I've ever read is Sorcerer to the Crown, a Regency-set story about magic, so if nothing else, this book proves that the author is able to write in different settings and time periods.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

CBR16 Book 9: "The Widow of Rose House" by Diana Biller

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Nowhere Book Bingo: Came out more than 4 years ago

CBR16 Sweet Books: New (new author)

It's 1875 and Professor Samuel Moore is doing marvellously, thanks to the many inventions he and his family are coming up with. What he really wants to do, though, is investigate and possibly prove the existence of ghosts, and to do that, he requires an introduction to the infamous Mrs. Alva Webster, a widow with a scandalous reputation. Sam doesn't really care about Mrs. Webster's apparently lurid past, he just wants to set up his instruments and investigate the old house she has purchased in upstate New York. Liefdehuis is rumoured to be haunted, possibly by multiple ghosts and he'd love a chance to make new discoveries. He does notice that Alva Webster is very beautiful, but at least initially, the science angle is the most important to him.

Alva Webster does indeed have a terrible reputation and a dead husband. All the rumours and scandalous gossip were started by her abusive husband after she took the courage to leave him once they lived in Paris. She was even looking into getting a divorce when he was killed during a robbery in Monte Carlo. Now her dream is to restore the once grand mansion, Liefdehuis, and document her process while doing so, hopefully resulting in a book on decorating and interior design. However, her odious brother-in-law is blackmailing her and the contractors she hired to start the restoration work at the house refuse to work, claiming there are ghosts there who scared them all nearly out of their wits. Samuel Moore keeps sending her letters, wanting access to the house, and eventually, she relents and lets him have access to the house, provided he promises to exorcise any ghosts he may discover as part of the process. 

Sam Moore is clearly a scientific genius, and while he's largely oblivious to social cues and what is considered polite and proper, he's also very observant and good at reading people. Having grown up in a loving family who all share a love of science and exploration, his life has been a very different one from that of Alva. The daughter of rich, but cold and status-hungry parents, she was married off to her husband (who needed a rich wife) after he seduced her when she was only 17 and who certainly didn't want anything to do with her once all the scandalous rumours reached them from across the ocean. The few times she's tried to contact them, her mother sends a harried maid out to shoo her away. She went from an emotionally abusive home to a physically abusive husband and even when she's trying to move on with her life and pick up the pieces of her tattered reputation, she's unable to forget because of her blackmailing brother-in-law. So she's naturally rather bitter and skittish, and while it's obvious that Sam finds her very attractive (he's not a man to hide his intentions or feelings), she is reluctant to get involved with anyone new.

This is set in the Gilded Age, mostly in New York, but with some flashbacks to Alva's life in Paris. While not as wealthy as her parents, Alva still has some of the fortune she came into her marriage with, but if she keeps having to pay her unscrupulous brother-in-law every month, she will struggle unless she manages to get her book finished and published. She keeps the truth from Sam as long as she can, since she's not used to having anyone to rely on or to support her.

Sam Moore is basically a big golden retriever of a man. He's tall and blond and clearly neuro-divergent in some way (most of his family seem to be, as well). Most of the time, he is accompanied by his best friend, Henry Van de Berg, a lawyer who makes sure that his patents are registered and that he and his family are paid what they are supposed to for their brilliant engineering solutions. Henry isn't exactly sure that making Mrs Webster's acquaintance is a good idea, but once Sam gets an idea in his head, he will pursue it tirelessly. So despite the potential complications of Sam's involvement in Alva Webster's life, he supports his friend. 

A novel featuring ghosts and a haunted house might be more of a paranormal fantasy. This is more of a straight historical romance with some supernatural elements. Minor spoilers, Alva's house actually IS haunted, and she and others are not imagining the horrible experiences they have with the ghost. But it's not the main focus of the story, for all that it plays an important part.

I really enjoyed this book and loved pretty much all the characters in the story. As far as I can see, Biller has written a novel about Sam's brother, but I hope she decides to give Henry a novel in the future as well. Possibly Sam's younger sister, as well. Either way, this delightful book ensures that I will check out Biller's other novels sometime later this year. 

Judging a book by its cover: Based on the cover image, I would have believed this book to be a much more straightforward historical novel. I certainly didn't expect a romance with paranormal elements. I suspect some readers picking this up would be surprised at getting a romance, while a lot of romance fans may have missed out on this one since it looks rather very different from most historical romance covers.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 1: "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

Page count: 224 pages

Rating: 1.5 stars 

Warning! This review will contain spoilers, because after my book club discussion yesterday, I'm actually quite cranky about this book, and it's impossible for me to rant properly if I can't spoil the heck out of these stories. Don't worry, you don't actually want to read this book anyway.

In a small, dark basement café in Japan, visitors can travel briefly back in time, if they observe a series of very careful rules.

1. They can only go back to meet and interact with someone who has also been to the café. 
2. Nothing that happens in the past will change the present. No matter what they go back to do or say, the present will remain unchanged
3. They have to sit in one specific seat in the café. This seat is usually occupied by a silent lady reading a book. The lady is in fact a ghost, and if you try to forcefully move her, she will place a curse on you. She leaves her seat about once a day, to visit the toilet (and yes, you can keep giving her coffee to speed the process along), that's when a person has their chance.
4. You cannot leave the seat when you are in the past, then you will immediately be returned to the present.
5. You travel back to the past when you are poured a cup of a special coffee. You have only until the coffee gets cold before you have to return. You also have to drink the entire cup of coffee, or you become a ghost and replace the current ghost lady.
6. You only get to do the time travel thing ONCE - no do-overs.

Suffice it to say, most people can't actually be bothered, considering all the rules and how short a time they get to visit a past moment in their lives. Nevertheless, this book is split into four stories, with four different people who choose to use the magical option. 

The first story is called The Lovers. At the start of it, a couple go to the café and the man dumps the woman. Quite a lot is made of how beautiful and accomplished the woman is (she could apparently be a model on the cover of magazines). Nevertheless, she is dumped by her programmer boyfriend who is going to America for a job. A week later, she's back at the café, desperate for a chance to go back in time, because she froze when confronted by the bad news, and she never got a chance to tell her man "Don't go!". You'd think a beautiful, successful woman (who it is described always has guys trying to get her attention) would look at what a big sea there was out there for her to explore, and how many figurative fish there were in said sea for her to potentially date. But no, even knowing that going back in time will NOT CHANGE the present, so her man will still be off in America pursuing his career rather than being with her, she chooses to go. 

By the end of her time travel meeting, he tells her to wait, and he'll be back in three years. The point of a lot of the first story is obviously info-dumping for the readers how the time travel thing actually works. We also get flashbacks to the couple's early days of their relationship. It seems it took something like ten coffee dates for the guy to even realise they were dating, so he wasn't the most perceptive of dudes. Our beautiful, kind, and successful career lady, who could clearly find a more deserving man at the drop of a hat is perfectly happy to be kept on the hook for THREE years, waiting for a guy who didn't have the guts to tell her he was going to America until the SAME DAY he was leaving. 

The second story is about a husband and wife, who have both appeared as supporting characters in the first story. The husband is a landscape gardener who suffers from Alzheimer's. He frequently spends his days in the café, reading gardening magazines and taking notes. His wife, a nurse, comes in to pick him up, but a lot of the time recently, he no longer remembers who she is. Someone overhears him saying he wants to use the time travel chair to give his wife a letter. So she decides to go back in time instead, and while you can't change anything about the present by visiting the past, you can apparently take back objects without any difficulties. She meets her husband of several years ago, and he gives her a letter. The letter is significant because, in their relationship, she was always the one who wrote long intricate letters. He is apparently barely literate and would normally respond to her with just a sentence or two. But now he's written her a letter, and it's all about how he knows that he's sick and his greatest fear is that she because she is a nurse, will stop being his wife once he stops remembering her, and just act in the role of his carer and nurse. He doesn't want that, and pretty much gives her his blessing to move on with her life, if need be. Wifey is very touched and insists that everyone go back to calling her by her married name. She proceeds to basically go on dates with her husband, whether he remembers her or not

The third story is about two sisters. Another of the recurring characters in the stories is a woman who frequently sits at the counter with her hair in curlers. She runs a hostess bar nearby and is clearly an exuberant person. It's mentioned that she makes people feel comfortable and welcome, and that's one of the reasons the little hostess bar she runs is so successful. Hostess lady has a younger sister, who comes around every few months, trying to see her older sister. During her most recent visit, Hostess lady hid behind the counter for several hours, just to avoid seeing her. This is because Hostess lady is convinced her younger sister must hate her. Their parents owned a successful inn somewhere in the countryside and always expected older sister to take over and run it one day. But she wanted no such thing and left the family about a decade ago, so now her parents have pretty much disowned her, and it became the younger sister's duty to run the inn. Hostess lady is convinced her younger sister hates her because she is stuck fulfilling the wishes of their parents, while Hostess lady is off in the big city, enjoying a life of independence. 

The reason Hostess lady suddenly wants to travel back in time is that younger sister dies. She's killed in a car accident on her way back from the city, and now Hostess lady's parents hate her even more, because they blame her for their youngest daughter's death. Hostess lady feels bad that she kept trying to avoid awkward conversations, so she wants to go back to her sister's last meeting and tell her she loves her. This time, when the sister arrives, Hostess lady is sitting in the magic time travel chair and they have a heartfelt conversation. Turns out little sister doesn't hate Hostess lady, she just misses her and had always dreamed of the two of them running the inn together. Which is sweet, I guess. Now comes the bit that's less sweet. After returning to the present, Hostess lady (who has spent the last decade or so happily living an independent life in the city, desperately avoiding having to run an inn in the countryside just to please her parents) decides that she must return and beg her parents' forgiveness and take over running the inn in the countryside, because it was her sister's dying wish. Which it wasn't even! Her sister (now dead) dreamed of them running the inn TOGETHER. Little sister is dead, it's sad and tragic and a horrible waste. Hostess lady pretty much ran away from home so she wouldn't have to ever succeed her parents and become an inn manager. They already hate her - so what if they hate her a bit more and blame her wrongfully for her sister's death? Instead of staying in the city, enjoying her single lifestyle, and doing her dream job, she goes back home and becomes an inn manager. But it's ok, she sends the people at the café a picture where she looks happy - so everything ended up OK in the end? Really... that's the moral here?

The fourth story is about the wife of the café owner, who is portrayed as this friendly, cheerful woman, who has always been sickly and in and out of hospital because of a weak heart. Now she's pregnant, but it's obvious that the pregnancy is taking a massive toll on her. Her husband doesn't want to make a choice between his wife or the baby (i.e. tell her to get an abortion), and the wife wants this baby, even if she is most likely going to die giving birth to it. Wifey wants to use the very unusual option of going FORWARD in time, a much more tricky situation, as when you go back in time, you can think about a specific event, where you know the person you want to meet will be there. Going forward in time - who knows what will happen? 

The waitress who works at the café, and who is always the one to pour the special coffee for the time travelers, promises Wifey that she will make sure her daughter is in the café at the agreed-upon time and place in the future. Even so, there is a mix-up, with the date and time, and neither the waitress nor Wifey's husband is present when she pops into the future. The café even seems to be run by someone else. However, in a stroke of luck for Wifey (it's her only chance to travel in time, remember?), her daughter appears to be working in the café part-time and enters with enough time for her mother to see her and talk to her. Instead of jumping forward to when her daughter would be about ten, Wifey has jumped to when her daughter is a teenager. A teenager who has actually appeared in the café as a time traveler to the past, showing up to take a selfie with herself and Wifey (no one understood the significance at the time). Wifey is reassured that her daughter is doing well and that neither she nor her father seems to resent Wifey for the choice of having a baby, and then leaving her husband as a widower and single father, and her daughter mother-less. In fact, it seems like the woman from story nr one, The Lovers, now works in the café and has been something of a foster mother for the daughter. So maybe she doesn't get back with her dead-beat boyfriend? Who knows? 

One of the members of my book club ended up listening to the entire series of these books (there are four translated into English so far) and while he agreed that on the surface, some of these stories might seem quite nice, the core values expressed by the author throughout the stories are deeply conservative and pretty much all amount to women conforming to the traditional values of good wives and daughters. If a sacrifice has to be made, it's always the woman who makes it. I didn't think too hard about the various stories as I read the book (during the two days before our book club meeting), but during our one-hour discussion, we discussed each of the stories in more depth and agreed that most of them ended up being quite unsettling. This was supposed to be a nice, cozy winter read, and instead turned out to be a rallying call for the patriarchy, apparently. So I'm not going to apologise for spoiling all the stories. I don't plan to read any more from the author, and I don't think anyone else should either. 

Judging a book by its cover: The cover image doesn't capture the fact that on the hardback copies at least, the teal green is all shimmery, and the wallpaper looks like actual brocade. This is still a cozy cover, but the hardback book is so pretty. The cat on the cover is a total lie, however. There is no cat at any point in any of the stories. They'd probably be better if there had been. Most books are better with cats.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 12: "Cemetery Boys" by Aiden Thomas

Page count: 352 pages

Rating: 4 stars

#CBR15 Passport Challenge: Different genres (paranormal fantasy)

Being a queer teen can be difficult enough, even if you don't come from a long line of magic users with very traditional gender roles. In Yadriel's family, the brujos can summon the spirits of the dead and help them find peace in the afterlife. The brujas have tremendous healing powers. However, Yadriel's family won't let him go through the traditional rite for brujos, because of the gender he was born with. The only ones who seem to fully support him are his uncle, who never really seemed able to tap into the family's magic in the first place, and his cousin Maritza, who is vegan and refuses to use blood of any kind (chicken blood is traditional) to perform her healing spells. 

Yadriel and Maritza sneak into their church and perform the ritual themselves. Yadriel appeals to Lady Death, their family's patron saint to grant him the abilities of a brujo, and is both a bit shocked and elated when his chosen gender is accepted and he gains the powers to raise the dead. Of course, the first spirit he raises refuses to be sent off to his final rest - he wants to know both how he died so suddenly and unexpectedly and make sure that his friends are safe. So Yadriel is forced to hide the ghost boy from his family, who can all see the spirits of the dead, and help Julian (the ghost) try to figure out how his little gang/found family of outcasts is doing.

It helps that most of Yadriel and Maritza's family members are busy both preparing for the upcoming annual holiday that they all celebrate and trying to figure out what has happened to Yadriel's cousin Miguel, who seems to have disappeared without a trace. Of course, because this is a young adult novel, there is also the rather impractical and rather impossible attraction that Yadriel feels for Julian (who may not be gay, who may have an issue with Yadriel being trans, and most importantly, who is already dead and supposed to be sent on to his final resting place). Without spoiling too much, the first two issues don't turn out to be problems, the third is rather insurmountable. 

This was the February pick for my local fantasy/sci-fi book club, but I was unable to go to the meeting to discuss it, as my mother very suddenly passed away on the very day that I was going to help chair the meeting. So no book club for me that month. From what I gathered from the other members, however, the book was fairly well received, although some felt it was not exactly aimed at them. Trine, the lovely lady who founded the book club in the first place, said that she very quickly needed to find out more about the author and the author's background, as there is so much in this book about being Latinx, and also about being trans, and it set her mind at ease that this was very much an #ownvoices story based in part by the author's own experiences (pretty sure the raising the dead part is creative licence, though). 

I liked the central characters, Yadriel, Julian, Maritza (so great), Maritza's "boys", the little group of queer kids who Julian has been the leader of. It may be just that I've read a lot, but the overarching mystery of what happened to Julian, or what was up with Miguel's disappearance, and who was behind it all was not very difficult to figure out. It didn't really ruin the book for me that I had both the guilty party and the circumstances surrounding the crimes all figured out but to some readers, it might be annoying. I'm assuming some of it may come down to the fact that this is the author's debut novel. 

It should come as no surprise to anyone that a young adult novel about a gay, trans Latinx kid falling in love with a ghost boy has appeared on a bunch of Banned Books lists in the USA, especially in Texas. I hope it means that a lot more teenagers get tempted to read it because it was a very worthwhile read (even with the partially predictable ending).

Judging a book by its cover: I really like the cover, and the characters look very much like they are described in the novel. I think my favourite part is the rather macabre depiction of Lady Death in the background. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR15 Book 9: "Hell Bent" by Leigh Bardugo

Page count: 484 pages

Rating: 4 stars

This is the second book in the Alex Stern series. This review will contain some spoilers for the first book in the series, Ninth House because I'm not sure how to review it without referencing things that happened in the last book. So if you're new to this series, start there. 

Darlington is still missing, "in Spain" to those not in the know, and in Hell, possibly dead to those initiated in the secrets of Lethe House. Galaxy "Alex" Stern doesn't have a lot of friends, and she's not going to let anything or anyone stop her from finding a way to rescue Darlington. Thankfully, her fellow Lethe member, Pamela Dawes is firmly on board with the plan, even when the higher-ups in Lethe forbid them from trying. Of course, finding a portal into hell isn't going to be easy and they have no guarantee that they're going to succeed in bringing Darlington back. 

In addition, a blast from Alex' past is making things complicated for her. Her dead boyfriend's former drug dealer boss has figured out what Alex did before she ended up in hospital and later at Yale, and unless Alex agrees to do some work for him, he's going to kill her mother. There's also a series of mysterious murders on campus, which may or may not be magical in nature. Alex and Turner try to figure out the cause and the culprit, but begin to fear that the murders are connected to the dark presence at Black Elm, Darlington's family home, and the bigger challenge of retrieving him from Hell.

I re-read Ninth House in preparation for this and am very glad that I did. Otherwise,  I would never have remembered all the intricacies of the magical houses of Yale and all the bad stuff that Alex suffered before becoming a student there. After the dramatic finale of the previous book, Alex is aware that she can do much more than see ghosts. She can hear them, almost constantly, and she can pull them into herself to gain almost superhuman strength for a while. That makes her more confident, but she nevertheless faces some pretty steep challenges in this book, the least of which is passing her classes at Yale. 

Alex has clearly been a loner for much of her life, and the only true friend she's had so far died in horrific and tragic circumstances. So learning to depend on others and finding people she can trust is very unfamiliar to her, and it was great to see that over the course of this book, she finds some true friends and allies, and is much better prepared for whatever challenges the next book is going to throw at her. After all the danger in the previous book, Alex and Dawes are now firm friends and completely united in the rather mad and dangerous quest of rescuing Darlington from Hell. Once they discover that to open the portal to Hell that is hidden on the Yale campus, they need to recruit some extra help, and the cranky Turner and happy-go-lucky Tripp Helmuth also join their band of unlikely allies. The final member of their little band is Mercy, Alex' roommate, who in many ways seems a lot more suitable to be Virgil of Lethe than Alex ever was. She is fascinated and intrigued to discover that magic exists. 

This book doesn't just have a creepy cover, it has certain scenes that were almost too close for comfort for me. I really don't like horror, and certain sections of this book were uncomfortably over the edge in that genre. Still, I made it through and am glad I persevered, because this book was a thrill ride. The previous book took me longer to get into, and I wasn't really sure about Alex and Darlington as characters. With all the world-building setup and major characterisation sorted out in the first volume, this could just pick up and get right into the action. It was a much quicker read than Ninth House, but got so intense in places that I had to put it down and read some other stuff in between just to not be overwhelmed. 

As with the previous book, this one ends on a cliffhanger. I found the one at the end of this one slightly less frustrating, however, and will happily wait the extra year or so to find out how Alex' supernatural adventures continue. 

Judging a book by its cover: This is a book cover with a sinister aura. The poor bunny can't help being albino, but there's something about the big, seemingly naked ears, the red eyes, and the very pink paws that just screams creepy. Well done, publishers, I'm immediately on my guard. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR14 Book 31: "She Who Became the Sun" by Shelley Parker-Chan

Page count: 416 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR14 Bingo: Star (Zhu might be described as something of a rising star within the Chinese power structure of the day, and also the sun is literally a star. I'm so very clever).

Back in the 14th Century, the Mongols had conquered and ruled Imperial China. In a small village, drought and famine have killed the majority of the population. A nameless girl (one of the few children left in the village) has managed to stay alive thanks to her ingenuity. When her older brother, who had been prophecied a glorious future and her father die, the girl is has the choice to accept death as well, or to fight fate itself by assuming her dead brother's identity and striving to achieve the greatness likely. Zhu Chongba walks to the nearest monastery and despite all of the monks' attempts to drive her away, waits patiently outside, taking no food nor water for three days and three nights, until the monks relent and take her in as a novice.

Several years later, when novice Zhu Chongba has just been anointed as a monk, the Mongol's infamous eunuch general comes to the monastery and demands enough tribute in support of the ongoing war that the abbot there flatly refuses, and as a result the general orders the whole place burned to the ground. Zhu survives and has to seek out the Red Turban rebels, the Chinese warriors who oppose the Mongols. Small and ridiculed, Zhu ends up in the army vanguard as they are off to fight the Mongols, and through a combination of cleverness and pure luck (or is it the fates looking out for her), Zhu sets in motion a series of events that lead to a very unlikely victory for the Red Turbans. Zhu Chongba's rise toward success continues.

Zhu may be smaller than most warriors (and obviously hiding a big secret), but she is very intelligent and uses her smarts to maneuver the intricate politics of the Red Turbans, steadily rising in the ranks, until she is leading a large part of their army herself. Again and again, her path seems to cross with that of Ouyang, the eunuch general, and with each encounter, Zhu relentlessly finesses herself closer to her ultimate goal, the greatness her young, long-dead brother was promised. 

This is Shelley Parker-chan's debut novel, which she herself described as" a queer reimagining of the rise to power of the founding emperor of the Ming dynasty. It’s also a fun story about gender". So She Who Became the Sun is a fantasy retelling of actual historical events. Some of the people in my book club thought the book was almost more of a straight historical fiction with some fantastical elements (there are ghosts and a smattering of magic) rather than a straight fantasy. Even if the book title hadn't given a pretty strong hint as to how our protagonist is going to fare (it's not called The little peasant girl who died nameless and forgotten), history itself may provide some spoilers. The novel has been nominated for a number of big literary awards, like the Locus, Aurealis and Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Fiction. Parker-Chan is the first Australian author to be nominated for a Hugo award for Best Novel, and while the book didn't win that award, it won both Best Newcomer and Best Fantasy Novel at the 2022 British Fantasy awards. 

The book was the September book in my local fantasy and sci-fi book club, and we had a record number of attendees for the actual meeting, with the majority of participants having really liked the novel. The discussion continued way longer than the normal hour we usually spend because so many people had interesting things to say about it. Some of the readers thought that a lot of the Chinese terms and descriptions of the culture were a bit complicated, and could have been explained better. It was pointed out that similar things happen in more Euro-centric fantasies all along, with no one batting an eyelid, and the fact that the author just assumes that the readers will figure out what terms like "the Mandate of Heaven" entails, and how Mongol and Chinese cultural norms and values are similar or different from context clues was one of the book's strengths. 

It was very interesting to read an unashamedly queer novel where two of the central characters, our protagonist Zhu Chongba and her antagonist General Ouyang are both fascinating, complex, ambitious, and driven. Both are rather amoral and at times very unsympathetic, willing to sacrifice pretty much everything to achieve their goals. In Zhu's case, this is to achieve the greatness that was promised to her dead brother, to be able to fool heaven itself into letting her assume his identity. In the case of the general, an ethnically Chinese man who was enslaved by the Mongols, and castrated rather than murdered along with the rest of his family for perceived treason, is seemingly loyal to the Mongols but has secretly been plotting to avenge his kin by overthrowing his Yuan masters. 

Very few people realise that Zhu is a woman assuming the identity of a man, and she doesn't really embody any of the virtues and qualities her society ascribes to women. She's also described from the start as small and ugly (frequently like a cricket) Meanwhile, General Ouyang is described as uncommonly beautiful and despite his gift for strategy and his military successes is reviled and mocked by the majority of the Yuan elite. He fights his attraction to his best friend (unfortunately also the son and heir of the man who killed his family and enslaved him) and strives to be the epitome of masculinity. Another interesting contrast to Zhu Chongba is Ma Yingzi, the woman Zhu ends up marrying. Also very intelligent and observant, and sadly ignored and overlooked by most people in her life, Ma fulfills the more traditional feminine ideal in society. 

There are a lot of interesting explorations of identity and gender in the book, which is also a relatively fast-paced and action-packed novel that explores a period of history in a part of the world most Western readers certainly rarely know a lot about. In my book club, several people commented that they were surprised at how short the section where Zhu is in the monastery ends up being, while the plot moves our protagonist into the company of the Red Turban rebels and starts charting Zhu's uncommonly rapid progression through the military ranks until she is a Commander. 

If I'm not mistaken, this is the first in a duology (although I won't exactly be surprised if it ends up being a trilogy - it wouldn't be the first time), and based on this, I'm very much looking forward to seeing where the story goes next. 

Judging a book by its cover: There are two main covers for this book, both in shades of yellow and orange. I much prefer this one, with its big windy Chinese dragon, to the other one, where you see the silhouettes of a bunch of horse-mounted warriors, led by a shadowy figure. There's a big orange sun in the sky and some dark banners floating in front of it. I much prefer the dragon cover. I'm not super happy about the "tag line", as I'm really not sure the third part - hero, is applicable to anyone in this story, certainly not Zhu.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR14 Book 28: "Svarte-Mathilda" (Black Mathilda) by Tor Arve Røssland

Page count: 154 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Twenty years after a teenage girl was brutally murdered in a small town near Bergen, Elizabeth moves into the long-empty flat with her mother. Elizabeth's parents are going through a divorce, and in a tragic accident a while back, Elizabeth's older brother died in a fire. She hates that they had to move away from her old home and her friends in Bergen, that her mother doesn't seem to want to talk to her at all, and she certainly doesn't like their new home. The flat never seems to get warm, even if they keep a fire on in the fireplace and turn the heating up to high. In addition, Elizabeth's phone doesn't seem to be holding its charge and has very spotty reception, so she can't call or message her friends.

In the first few days there, Elizabeth also experiences some really scary things. She's convinced the sees blood all over the bathroom floor at one point and gets locked in there while she feels long clawed fingers reaching for her. She also hears voices whispering and is getting very freaked out. Meanwhile, her mother hasn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, except the unusually cold temperature in the flat, and she thinks Elizabeth may have a delayed grief reaction and considers getting the girl a therapist.

When Elizabeth starts her new school, the teacher seems shocked when she announces where she lives, and one of the boys, Philip, claims that her flat is known as the "murder place". He recounts how twenty years earlier, Marie van Vleet was found locked in the bathroom, stabbed multiple times, with her face all scratched up. Philip's dad is a policeman and this was his first murder case, so it made an impression on him. Elizabeth is a bit skeptical, but at the same time, her new home being the location of an unsolved murder might explain some of the strange paranormal stuff she's been experiencing. When she gets home, after spending several hours at the local burger joint listening to Philip recounting grisly murder details, her mother is upset that she's late, but also happy she seems to be making a friend. Later, Elizabeth once again finds herself locked into a room, this time, it's her own bedroom and a voice seems to be whispering warnings to her. She feels something shoved into her hand and discovers that it's the library card of Marie van Vleet. 

Elizabeth convinces Philip to accompany her to the local library the next day, where they make up a story about Philip's bedridden aunt who really wants to find a book she borrowed over twenty years ago. The junior librarian, Viggo, helps them but is reprimanded once the senior librarian discovers what he has done, and whose book records he's shown the two nosy teenagers. She explains that Marie van Vleet is long dead, and the teenagers should stop lying and leave the library. Viggo, however, is quite intrigued and offers to help the kids do research. Marie was clearly doing some research of her own, having read a lot about local history and a lot about folklore and the supernatural. They find a picture of a dark-haired and dark-eyed young girl called Mathilda from the 1880s and Viggo remembers an urban legend of a "Bloody Mary" style ghost called Black Mathilda. Supposedly, if you go into a dark room with a mirror, holding a lit candle or a flashlight, and call her name seven times, she will appear. He claims it's all coincidence and superstition, but Elizabeth is not so sure. Viggo has also found what seems to be Marie's diary among the library archives, and gives it to Elizabeth, as it's not really library property.

When reading the diary, Elizabeth discovers that the ornate and creepy mirror in their bathroom, which seems very old and not at all in the style of the other bathroom fittings, was in fact put there by Marie, who found it in the attic along with some old paintings. She, like Elizabeth, was living with her mother after her parents split and seemed determined to do as much as possible to aggravate her Mum. Putting in an ancient mirror seems to have done the trick. Further reading of the diary seems to suggest that there might be a link between the 19th Century Mathilda and the mirror, and the urban legend might not be so fictional after all. When Philip suggests they test the theory by locking themselves in the bathroom with a flashlight and calling for Mathilda, Elizabeth reluctantly agrees, and unsurprisingly, some really creepy and very much supernatural stuff goes down.

Parallel with the story of Elizabeth, Philip, and their investigation of Marie's murder, the readers get the story of a young happy couple in the 1880s settling on a large, prosperous farm in the west of Norway, a few hours away from the town where Elizabeth now lives. The wife has a baby, whom they name Mathilda, but she dies while Mathilda is very young, and a persuasive and slightly scary governess is hired, who brings her own daughter with her to the farm. Mathilda befriends the girl, who is disabled and seems to be feared by the other local children. As the years go by, the governess comes to wield a lot of power in the household and keeps persuading the father, who is also the local magistrate, to spend more time away from the farm. Then one by one, the local children start disappearing and are found dead and mutilated in the woods. How does this sinister tale intersect with that of Elizabeth and Marie?

Svarte-Mathilda is the first book in a trilogy about Elizabeth and her scary experiences with Black Mathilda. In the first book, Elizabeth's friend Philip disappears without a trace after they foolishly perform the ritual. Elizabeth is left stabbed in the stomach with her mother convinced Philip attacked her and ran away. Elizabeth needs to figure out the connection between the scary mirror in her flat, her friend's disappearance, and the historical events she has read about, or the curse of Black Mathilda will end up with her dead. 

This is a really rather creepy ghost story, with the suspense gradually building and some really nice touches throughout. All three books in the series have apparently been bestsellers and very popular among teens, and nominated for "Uprisen", a national book award voted for by teenage readers throughout Norway. My colleagues and I who teach Norwegian are currently all reading a little bit of the book out loud to our Norwegian class each lesson, and I obviously had to read the book myself before teaching it in class. Since our second theme of the year (very suitably for autumn) is going to be Scary things, reading a horror mystery seemed fitting. Some of the kids have already read the book, but are very good about not spoiling things for the rest of the class. 

I can see why this book has remained popular among teens since it was released in 2010. At under 200 pages long, it's a quick read and it mixes historical fiction with a contemporary murder mystery and a ghost story really well. Some of the contemporary mystery stuff could easily have been the plot of a 'monster of the week' episode of Supernatural. 

While my TBR list for the coming months is pretty packed, I'm absolutely going to find the time to read the two sequels as well. I need to find out more about how Mathilda became a vengeful ghost and whether Elizabeth is successful in locating and saving her friend Philip.

Judging a book by its cover: While maybe a bit simple, the cover strikes a nice tone for a mystery, with the font being very old-fashioned, in keeping with the historical side of the story. The fancy frame of the mirror, complete with a creepy child and blood-red background seems like a very obvious choice. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

CBR14 Book 14: "The Other Side of the Grave" by Jeaniene Frost

Page count: 424 pages

Audio book length: 13 hrs 13 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Back in 2007, Jeaniene Frost published the first volume in her paranormal fantasy series Night Huntress, Halfway to the Grave, about half-vampire Catherine "Cat" Crawfield (the unlikely offspring of a vampire and a human), who hunts vampires because her mother has raised her to hate them, and since Cat has never really felt loved or accepted by her mother or grandparents, hopes that her crusade to end as many undead as possible will earn her family's affection. Cat runs into English master vampire Crispin "Bones" Russell one day, and once he discovers her unique nature, not to mention starts falling head over heels for the hot-headed young vampire slayer, decides to train her to become much better at her chosen extra-curricular activity, mainly so she doesn't get herself killed the next time she runs into a really strong vampire. That the training forces her to spend lots and lots of time with him, well, that's also a bonus.

The series, where Cat and Bones inevitably fall in passionate love with one another, ended up being seven books long, not to mention there being a bunch of novellas, not to mention spin-off books where Bones' vampire friends found HEAs of their own eventually. Now Frost (whose books I think I initially picked up because she's BFF with Ilona Andrews) has decided to pull an E.L. James, or Stephenie Meyer, or what will you, and rewrite her first book in the series from Bones' POV. Selfish cash-grab? Maybe, but I found myself really enjoying the book, and wanting to revisit the series once more (I read the first books in the series back in 2009). Since I own at least the first few of the books in paperback, I found myself curious and compared a lot of the scenes. Frost writes that it's obvious that people remember things in different ways, so some scenes are pretty much word-for-word recreations, while a lot of the book covers all the stuff Bones did when Cat wasn't around. 

As I said, I found myself amused by the book. Frost has updated a lot of the technology and references in the book to make it seem like it was set now (apparently Bones had a beeper in the first book, that's just objectively hilarious). After reading about a third, I got the audiobook version because I wanted to be able to listen to it when I was taking walks, and doing chores, and the narrator is mostly very good. I very much disagree with his accent and intonation for Bones (he sounds too thuggish), but all in all, it was a really fun listen, and at a time when I can barely find entertainment that holds my attention, the fact that I wanted to keep listening was absolutely a plus. Not sure Frost needs to write the rest of the series from Bones' POV though.

Judging a book by its cover: While this book has a pretty bad cover (that is just NOT how Bones looks in my mind's eye), it's a million times better than the eyesores that were the early covers of the Night Huntress series. Seriously, paranormal fantasy covers back in the day were SO ugly, you guys. Like so very very bad. The fact that the cover model portraying Cat on the first book looked to be in her mid-thirties (Cat is 22) didn't help. So I guess I shouldn't complain too much about this cover. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR13 Book 27: "Ghost Squad" by Claribel A. Ortega

Page count: 288 pages

Audio book length: 5 hrs 31 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Lucely (pronounced Lu-sell-i, at least by the audio book narrator) Luna may be living alone with her father (her mother left them when Lucely was little) but due to an unusual family legacy, she's able to see the presence of all the family's departed members. Her father, who once had the gift, can only see them as fireflies but accepts that they're there and cooks massive meals to provide for all the extended members who keep Lucely company. The family spirits are all tied to the large tree in the family's backyard, so when a member of the bank comes and announces that if Lucely's dad can't cover his mortgage payments any longer, the family will be evicted, it doesn't just mean potential homelessness for Luna and her dad, but they'll be separated from the family spirits forever. 

Lucely really needs to figure out a way for her father's failing ghost tour business to get more customers and she and her best friend Syd are trying to wrack their brains. Halloween is coming up, and something sinister is brewing in the little town of St. Augustine, where they live. Lucely's grandmother delivers a very ominous warning to her granddaughter and then seems to fade away, her firefly lazy and lethargic. Lucely and Syd rummage through the secret collection of Syd's very alive and formidable grandmother, Babette (rumoured to be an actual witch). They find a spell that they hope will make Lucely's grandmother come back, but it turns out to be something a lot more sinister, and soon the girls are forced to come clean to Babette and enlist her help, and that of her cat Chunk, to reverse the spell and send the malevolent ghosts back where they came from - otherwise the town will be overrun on Halloween.

One of my goals for my seven-week-long summer vacation was that I was going to get on top of my massive review backlog. Now, here we are, with me starting work again tomorrow morning, reviewing books I read in the middle of May. I'm generally trying really hard to focus on the many things my husband and I have achieved during the holiday, while also both struggling with depression, corona-induced cabin fever, and the challenge of constantly entertaining and responsibly raising a boisterous three-year-old. So, not couning this one, there are still fifteen reviews left for me to do before I catch up. My memory of the finer plot points of this middle grade adventure novel, which I read as part of the CBR Book Club this spring, Young at Heart. 

I'm obviously not the main target audience for this book, but every time I read children's or middle grade books, I am struck by how much more diverse and imaginative they are than most of the ones I remember from my own adolescence. The official book description for this book tries to sell it as a sort of mix of Coco meets Ghostbusters, which as is often the case with these quick pitches is at least halfway misleading. There are a lot of Latinx family vibes in the story, absolutely, and there is absolutely a supernatural element, but the Ghostbusters side of the pitch is more accurate, if those busting the ghosts are two determined girls, an over-weight cat and a grandmother with a lot of arcane knowledge.

Family is a huge focus in the story. The Lunas may only have two living members, but the various ghost relatives who show up to support Lucely in different ways (even willing to risk their afterlife to fight bad ghosts with her) are great. We don't see much of her overworked father, but he clearly cares a lot about her. There's also the family you choose, Lucely's best friend Syd, and Babette, who not only has a house full of cats (all named for characters from The Goonies), but also may or may not be an actual dyed in the wool witch.

This book was fast-paced, adventurous and suitably creepy, I'm sure I would absolutely have adored it if I read it in my tweens. Almarie Guerra does a very good job with the narration, and I shall keep a look-out for her on future audio books.

Judging a book by its cover: I don't have a lot to say about this, except I love the art style and the depiction of the girls, not to mention Chunk, in all their (don't remember what gender the cat is) overweight glory. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 92: "Haunted Heroine" by Sarah Kuhn

Page count: 400 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Spoiler warning! This is the fourth novel in the series Heroine Complex and this review may contain spoilers for earlier books in the series. I suspect it will also be a lot more satisfying for someone who's read the preceding three books. Begin with Heroine Complex. 

Official book description:

Everything in Evie Tanaka's life is finally perfect. As a badass superheroine, she defends San Francisco from demon invasion on the regular. Her relationships with superhero partner Aveda Jupiter, little sister Bea, and hot, half-demon husband Nate have never been stronger. Maybe it's possible for a grad school dropout turned put-upon personal assistant turned superhero to have it all?

As if things can't get any better, Evie learns she's pregnant. She's overjoyed, but also worried about whether she's cut out for motherhood. Before she can dwell on her dilemma too much, a women's college reports a string of mysterious "hauntings," and Evie and Aveda are called in to investigate. When the hauntings turn deadly, they decide to move into the dorms full-time, going undercover as grad students.

As she lives out a bizarre version of her grad school life, Evie can't help but wonder about the road not taken: what would her life be like if she'd stayed here instead of pursuing superheroing with Aveda?

Poor Evie is not having a fun time of it in this book. While she's excited about her pregnancy, she's also terrified. She was given strange superpowers through demonic energy and her husband is half-demon. Said husband is also completely on edge about Evie and super protective of her. He pretty much wants her wrapped in cotton wool until the baby is born, and to Evie's frustration, absolutely refuses to engage in anything resembling physical affection (so as not to elevate her blood pressure). Neither Evie nor Nate exactly had good parenting role models, and while Evie and her younger sister Bea now have a close and mutually supportive relationship, Evie is still feeling guilt and inadequacy in how she handled a lot of her responsibilities when she pretty much had to raise her teenage sister on her own. 

Aveda, on the other hand, is in full cheerleader mode and does whatever she can to support and encourage Evie. She's also the one who insists that she and Evie go back to Morgan College for a reunion. Evie doesn't feel like she belongs at a reunion, after all, she didn't graduate, but quit her degree, exhausted from juggling her studies and taking care of her sister. It's also the place where her powers first properly manifested, when she burned down the campus library in a rage, after finding her college professor boyfriend Richard cheating on her. No matter, Aveda won't take no for an answer, and once they're on campus, they discover that there may be some kind of malevolent supernatural activity there, actually harming the students. Morgan College has always had a reputation for ghosts, but only in brief and occasional appearances. Lately, there have been several harmful and dangerous encounters, and Aveda and Evie are asked to investigate.

Since Evie isn't all too happy with her husband, she agrees to go undercover with Aveda as grad students, which involves not only having to interact with her weaselly ex-boyfriend, Richard but to try out a very different student experience than she was ever able to first time around. 

While it's eventually sort of explained, Nate, Evie's one true love, really is a big dumb stupid for a lot of this book. He kind of makes up for it towards the end of the book, but it takes far too long, in my opinion. So anyone looking for a lot of romance is going to be disappointed, there's mostly angst and pregnancy worries here instead. 

There is, however, the new and much-improved friendship between Aveda Jupiter and Evie Tanaka. They have come a very long way from Evie being Aveda/Annie's long-suffering and put-upon assistant in book 1. With Bea away researching paranormal activities and only able to communicate with her sister long-distance, Aveda is Evie's staunchest supporter, and when Evie finally breaks down and confesses her worries and fears, does her best to put her mind at ease. She's also determined that Evie get to experience all the various college things she never got to do the first time around (except get blinding drunk, no alcohol while she's gestating). 

The two women also befriend several young women who are connected to the case of the malevolent hauntings, and older, stronger, and much more confident Evie gets a chance to finally confront her ex and tell him just how badly he treated her and how f**ked up the power dynamic of their relationship was. By the end of the book, Evie has exorcised a lot of personal demons and is in a much better place.

This book is the start of a new trilogy about the Jupiter/Tanaka superheroines, and it was a lot of fun revisiting this fantasy world again. I reiterate what I said at the beginning of this review, though, I would recommend not starting with this book, there is so much important back story about the various characters and their interpersonal relationships to learn about before reading this one. 

Judging a book by its cover: These books really have absolutely amazing cover art. All kudos to Jason Chan, the artist, for time after time knocking it out of the park with fun, creative, and very accurate ways in giving the reader a glimpse into what the book will feature. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 26: "Ninth House" by Leigh Bardugo

Page count: 476 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Official book description:
Galaxy “Alex” Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. By age twenty, in fact, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide. Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most elite universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?

Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs” are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.

Leigh Bardugo has become a popular name in YA fantasy, with her Grisha trilogy, the duology Six of Crows, as well as the Nikolai duology (which is still incomplete). This is her attempt of paranormal fantasy aimed at adults, and in case the black and grey cover left you in any doubt, it doesn't take long before the reader is made very aware that this book is "not for kids". Our protagonist, Galaxy "Alex" Stern has the rather unusual ability to see ghosts, which has mostly been a horrible burden throughout her life so far, making her a seemingly mentally unstable outcast who ended up hanging with the wrong crowd and numbing her senses with drugs just to get some peace.

Nevertheless, the sole survivor of a horrible multiple homicide in a sketchy drug den, Alex is given the opportunity to come to prestigious Yale, precisely because her ability to see and sense ghosts is useful to those in power there. There are nine secret magical societies at the university, and Alex is a member of Lethe, the one that "polices" the others. It's also the smallest of the societies, with hardly any members. The senior member, who trains the younger one, is known as Virgil. The younger member is Dante. Alex is the Dante to Daniel "Darlington" Arlington's Virgil, and they don't exactly have the warmest or friendliest of relationships. Unlike Alex, Darlington has to drink a special potion to see ghosts. The potion is both foul-tasting and can be lethal if over-used. There's also the fact that Darlington seems to come from a privileged and wealthy background, while Alex was pretty much literally living on the streets before she got the chance to come to Yale. There's also Dawes, the shy research assistant who seems infatuated with Darlington and rather hostile towards Alex.

The book's plot is not told chronologically. The prologue is set in early spring, while other chapters are set in the autumn and winter, with alternating POVs from Alex and Darlington. It's clear from the prologue that Alex in the spring is in a pretty bad place, so it's going to be quite the ride to figure out how she ended up in such a tight spot.

As well as introducing us to some very interesting world-building, with a lot of creepy supernatural stuff going on, there is a murder mystery to be solved. A young girl is murdered on the Yale campus, and while a lot of people seem to brush it off as a lovers' quarrel gone wrong, Alex knows that there's more to the story and keeps poking her nose into places it doesn't belong.

As I mentioned in my first paragraph, while Bardugo has previously written for teens, this book is much darker and more serious, complete with all sorts of adult themes. I was surprised at how gory and f**ked up it got, on occasion. I should probably also add that while the main mystery of the story is solved at the end, there is very much a cliff-hanger sort of a feel to the ending, with the purpose of the sequel very much established. I'm already looking forward to seeing where Alex ends up next.

Judging a book by its cover: I know I finished the book about three months ago, but I'm trying to remember if there was a snake prominently featured in the story at any point, and coming up blank. I think the snake may have been put on the cover to create a cool visual, and I do like the black on black, with the grey font. It may be that the snake is a metaphor I'm too stupid to have understood, of course.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 59: "A Million Junes" by Emily Henry

Page count: 398 pages
Rating: 4 stars

From Goodreads:
Romeo and Juliet meets One Hundred Years of Solitude in Emily Henry's brilliant follow-up to The Love That Split the World, about the daughter and son of two long-feuding families who fall in love while trying to uncover the truth about the strange magic and harrowing curse that has plagued their bloodlines for generations. 

In their hometown of Five Fingers, Michigan, the O'Donnells and the Angerts have mythic legacies. But for all the tall tales they weave, both founding families are tight-lipped about what caused the century-old rift between them, except to say it began with a cherry tree.

Eighteen-year-old Jack “June” O’Donnell doesn't need a better reason than that. She's an O'Donnell to her core, just like her late father was, and O'Donnells stay away from Angerts. Period.

But when Saul Angert, the son of June's father's mortal enemy, returns to town after three mysterious years away, June can't seem to avoid him. Soon the unthinkable happens: She finds she doesn't exactly hate the gruff, sarcastic boy she was born to loathe. 

Saul’s arrival sparks a chain reaction, and as the magic, ghosts, and coywolves of Five Fingers conspire to reveal the truth about the dark moment that started the feud, June must question everything she knows about her family and the father she adored. And she must decide whether it's finally time for her—and all of the O'Donnells before her—to let go.

First of all, must all forbidden love between the children of antagonistic families be compared with Romeo and Juliet? Will this play always be the template for forbidden love, no matter how different all other aspects of the stories being compared? It annoys me. Anyway, about this actual book. The comparison to One Hundred Years of Solitude is more accurate, although I wouldn't say that they're very close either. But this is a story that features magical realism, and the story of several generations of two families, plus a lot of odd and inexplicable behaviour from local animals.

Our poor heroine, who is in fact the fourth Jack O'Donnell of her family, despite being a girl (and mostly goes by June) has always been told that she must stay away from the Angerts. However, her best friend has a crush on Saul Angert, who has recently returned after three years away, and insists on dragging June along on a strange sort of double date. While both June and Saul know from their family history that they should stay away from one another, there is undeniable attraction between them.

One of the aspects of the "family curse" that the O'Donnells experience seems to be that they can't really travel too far away from their home and the apple tree there. So while June's mother and supportive stepfather (her dad is dead) would like her to think about college, June hasn't really considered this to be an option for her. Yet she signs up for a creative writing class run by a new teacher and becomes almost obsessed with doing well in it, trying to write down the family legends, told to her by her father before she died. While her stories clearly have promise, her writing teacher wants her to improve her craft, and Saul, whose father is a NYT bestselling author (and constantly sarcastically referred to as such by Saul) offers to tutor her to make her writing better.

Both June and Saul have been told to stay away from each other their entire lives (because the O'Donnells and Angerts have been enemies for four generations, and that's just the way it has to be) and that they must never go to the waterfall in the woods. June keeps seeing visions of her dead father, and after a while, she and Saul discover that they can both see pieces of their pasts (he sees his dead twin sister) and they start to piece together what actually happened way back in the past that led to the generations long feud and cursed both families. They are both very invested in getting to the bottom of the curse's origins and figuring out a way to break it, so they can have the possibility of a future together.

I really liked June (she also goes by Jack and Junior, what with being Jack O'Donnell IV) and Saul, as well as their sidekicks (June's BFF Hannah is especially great), not to mention June's family. The first three quarters of the book were engaging and kept me entertained, but in the final quarter, where the mystery finally starts to unravel and June and Saul work to break the curse, the storytelling became a bit of a mess and the whole dramatic resolution to the story went a bit off the rails. Overall, the book was a nice, quick read, though and a lot of the writing advice that June gets from Saul and her creative writing teacher is stuff that I may shamelessly steal and use when trying to coax my own future students into becoming better and more entertaining writers. This is my first book by Emily Henry, but I doubt it will be my last.

#CBR10Bingo: Listicles. From FYA's "Swoony YA books for your next Beach Vacation"

Judging a book by its cover: In the acknowledgements, Emily Henry thanks the cover designer for doing a great job. I cannot say I agree with her. This appears to be a blurry stock photo of a waterfall in the woods, with a badly cut out silhouette of a girl awkwardly stuck on top of it. This is not a cover that would make me want to pick up a book, rather the opposite.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 56: "My Plain Jane" by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton and Jodi Meadows

Page count: 464 pages
Rating: 4 stars

This review will contain spoilers for Jane Eyre, but that book is more than 170 years old, and therefore, if you don't know the gist of the plot already, that's really not my fault.

In this slightly alternate universe, King George III of England was not actually mad, he just saw ghosts and could talk to them (making others believe he wasn't quite right in the head). He founded a society "for the Relocation of Wayward Spirits", led by none other than the Duke of Wellington himself. By the time of William IV, the Society was no longer receiving proper patronage from the king any longer, and they're down to only a few trusted ghost hunters. Alexander Blackwood is Wellington's trusty favourite, and when he's not hunting down ghosts for the RWS, he's trying to avenge his dead father.

While trying to relocate a ghost near Lowood School, Alexander comes into contact with two young ladies. One is the intriguing Jane Eyre, the other her friend Charlotte Brontë (who wishes to become an author, of course). Alexander discovers that Ms Eyre can see ghosts, and while the RWS in the past did not employ women, Wellington is getting desperate, and insists that Alexander recruit her into the Society post haste. Yet Jane Eyre is terrified that the Society will "relocate" her best friend and ghost companion, Helen Burns, so she wants nothing to do with Alexander. She is adamant that she wants to become a governess above all else. Charlotte cannot understand why her friend would give up a life of excitement and adventure, not to mention a very extravagant salary and tries to persuade Alexander to take her in Jane's stead (her brother Bramwell is Alexander's apprentice, after all).

Jane (and Helen) go off to Thornfield Hall (where very strange things are afoot), while Alexander and the two eldest Brontë siblings accompany him, trying to aid in recruiting Jane into the Society. While at Thornfield Hall, Alexander also begins to suspect that Mr. Rochester may in fact have something to with his father's death. While Jane is strangely smitten with her broody new employer (and he with her), and soon (despite ghostly Helen's warnings and misgivings, not to mention very much alive Charlotte's), they are engaged to be married. The dramatic scene in the church, where it is revealed that Mrs Bertha Rochester isn't dead at all, but has been locked in the attic for years, plays out rather differently here.

The final third of the novel, after the disastrous wedding, plays out rather differently than the source material. The true reason for Mr Rochester's strange behaviour and his imprisonment of his wife is revealed, Alexander eventually discovers the true culprit behind his father's murder, the Brontë siblings discover a new and benevolent relative and Jane (and Helen) look to get their own happy ending too.

This is the second book in The Lady Janies series, where Ms Hand, Ashton and Meadows irreverently play with English history and/or literature to create their own thing. I really enjoyed My Lady Jane back in 2016 and was very excited when I heard that their second book would be a Jane Eyre retelling, as I love that book. I fully understand that it is not for everyone and that from a modern perspective, there are a number of very troubling elements to the grandiose and Gothic romance between poor, plain, yet resilient Miss Jane Eyre and her much older and broody employer, Mr Edward Rochester. The age difference, his strange treatment of her, his mind games and his attempts at manipulation are not cool, but the book is, as I pointed out earlier, 171 years old and it was a different time. Besides, it's not like Charlotte Brontë doesn't make Rochester suffer for his early arrogance and attempts at bigamy. He is thoroughly punished, while unassuming, kind and oh so virtuous Jane Eyre is rewarded (after much suffering and nearly dying on the moors). She may start the book poor and without any kindly relations, but at the end of the novel, she has inherited a fortune, discovered long lost cousins and finally, in a position of power, gets to the man of her choosing, when she is suddenly his social superior.

In this book, due to the presence of ghosts (and their ability to possess people), we get a story that seems similar on the surface, but goes somewhere rather different in places. Both Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre get happy romantic endings, with men who are closer to them in age than was often the case in Victorian England. There is danger and intrigue and several dastardly villains along the way, but all comes right in the end. This was a fun enough book, but I think overall, I preferred the first one. I was excited to discover that there will be a third book in the series, out 2020, about Calamity Jane (who I only really know from the Deadwood TV series). With the two books in the series so far, I've been very familiar with both the historical (the Tudor era is my favourite) and literary (see my aforementioned love for the source material) background. With Calamity Jane, I'm more in the dark.

#CBR10Bingo: So shiny

Judging a book by its cover: I'm not sure if the cover model is supposed to be Jane Eyre or Charlotte Brontë (or someone completely different), but while the collar of the blouse/dress may be suitable for a Victorian lady, this girl is wearing way too much makeup (and while her brow game is excellent, it's also anachronistic). Nor do I like the bright yellow or the font used for the title. Not a great cover, guys.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 71: "Greenglass House" by Kate Milford

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Milo Pine lives at the large and sprawling Greenglass House with his adopted parents, Nora and Ben. The house is an inn that tends to cater to smugglers and other people not always on the right side of the law, but during the Christmas season, it's normally empty and quiet and Milo is looking forward to a few weeks of relaxation and quiet with his family. His parents are extremely surprised and Milo rather annoyed when they seem to be absolutely inundated with guests only a few days before Christmas Eve. This is really going to put a damper on Milo's vacation.

Greenglass House has an illustrious history, and once belonged to legendary smuggler Doc Holystone. Somewhat of a local hero, he was eventually cornered by law enforcement and died on the property. As the days pass, it turns out that all the strange guests who have shown up have some sort of connection either to Doc Holystone, Greenglass House or the mystery surrounding him. While the group is snowed in by the inclement weather, it turns out that someone is stealing items from some of the guests. Milo and his new friend Meddy, the housekeeper/cook's youngest daughter decide to investigate and figure out what is going on, and try to locate not just the missing items, but who is responsible for stealing them.

Greenglass House is a middle grade mystery novel with a frame narrative. While there are several mysteries to be solved, the book is also very much about story telling of various kinds. The main story about Milo, his parents and the various strange guests is a frame narrative. There is also the book of local legends and stories that Milo is lent by Georgie, one of the guests, and the many stories that the various guests are persuaded into telling in the evenings, both to entertain and for the various individuals stuck at the house to get to know each other better. Some of the stories obviously turn out to have more of a significance to the plot than others, but even the more throw-away ones are a delight to read.

Milo starts the story as a rather shy and introverted boy, who is forced out of his comfort zone more than once because of the unusual pre-Christmas events he becomes part of. Meddy is a much more outgoing and impetuous individual and she persuades Milo to investigate, while also creating "roles" for them, using the rules of an old role-playing game of sorts. Meddy knows all of the rules and character traits for the various personas, and badgers Milo until together they've created Negret, who is in many ways the direct opposite of the youth. Meddy becomes Sirin, an incorporeal spirit, who will be invisible at all times, so she will be able to observe the various people as Milo has to do most of the active investigating and questioning. As the story proceeds, and Meddy encourages him, he becomes a lot more assertive and brave.

While it's not a major plot point in the story, the fact that Milo is adopted and doesn't look like his parents (he's of Chinese origin) does come up. While he's lived with Ben and Nora since he was a baby and loves them and never feels anything less than absolutely treasured, he does still occasionally wonder about his biological family and what they may be like. He's painfully aware that new guests who arrive at the inn will always instantly see that he's adopted and looks nothing like his parents. While role-playing Negret and solving mysteries with Meddy, he's able to work through some of his identity qualms in a pretty good way.

While this seems to be a contemporary story, there is a lack of much identifiable technology, and some of what is mentioned appears almost Steampunky. There is also a supernatural element, but I don't want to say too much about it, so as to not spoil anything for new readers. The plot with a number of colourful individuals stuck together by circumstance, while a mystery needs to be solved, is also reminiscent of a lot of cozy mysteries, like those by the excellent Agatha Christie. Here the detective is not an eccentric Belgian or a village spinster, but a clever young man instead, which made for a nice change. The book won an Edgar Award in 2015 and has been nominated for a number of other ones.

This is the first Kate Milford book I've read, after having heard so many good things about her. This book was a fascinating read, because of the multiple levels of story telling, the mystery and the wonderful interplay between the characters. I can highly recommend it to anyone looking for something quick and entertaining to pass the time.

Judging a book by its cover: This cover is absolutely lovely, giving the reader a very good idea of what the fanciful Greenglass House and its snow-clad surroundings look like. I like the various shades of green that are used, in the title font, the various trees in the woods and the colourful glass of the house. Such excellent cover design.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 70: "The Ghost Bride" by Yangsze Choo

Page count: 368 pages
Rating: 3 stars

The former Chinese colony of Malaya (current day Malaysia) is now under British rule, but the Chinese population there still try their best to stick to their ancient customs. Li Lan's family was once wealthy, but after her mother died from chickenpox, her father tried to cover his grief by taking opium and now they are nearly bankrupt, with very few promising marriage prospects for Li Lan. One day, however, her father claims that the wealthy and influential Lim family have offered her a ghost marriage. The son and heir of the family died last year, and they want Li Lan to marry him in a proxy ceremony. Her future would be secured, and she would always have a comfortable home - but Li Lan is appalled by the suggestion.

The Lim family want to persuade Li Lan and invite her to their opulent mansion. Here she meets the new heir, Tian Bai, cousin of her deceased intended bridegroom. They seem drawn to one another, and later Li Lan discovers from her father that before the son of the Lim family died, there was an arrangement where she was intended for Tian Bai. Now that he's the heir and her family are in debt and out of favour, the match seems impossible.

Li Lan comes to realise that the reason the Lim family are so eager for her to be a ghost bride is that her dead bridegroom is haunting the household, and is determined to win her, reluctant or not. He starts haunting her dreams, trying to curry her favour, and Li Lan becomes increasingly more desperate to get rid of him. Seeking the aid of an wizened old lady who claims to be a medium (against the dire warnings of her nurse), Li Lan is given drugs and incantations that are supposed to keep her ghostly suitor out. Unfortunately, she finds herself in a coma-like state, separated from her body. Li Lan finds that she has to visit the underworld to try to figure out why her suitor is so obsessed with her, so she can figure out a way to get rid of him once and for all. Being away from her body for too long holds its own dangers, though, there are vengeful, restless spirits that could take possession of it, and if her spirit is gone for too long, she'll waste away and die.

This was the Vaginal Fantasy book club pick for June (and yes, I'm only NOW getting around to writing about it - I'm well behind on my reviews), and since I'd bought it in an e-book sale ages ago, I figured it was as good a time as any to read the book. While all the VF ladies really liked the book, I must admit, I was rather more underwhelmed by the whole thing. Learning more about a part of the world I knew little to nothing about (colonial Malaya) and the customs and beliefs around death, funerals and the afterlife in this culture was fascinating. That part worked really well. The actual story of the book, though, never managed to really engage me.

First of all, Li Lan seemed rather useless and while she actually does go out and do quite a lot over the course of the book, she still managed to come across as rather passive and uninspiring. Brought up in a culture where upper class women were pretty much supposed to be mainly ornamental won't have helped with this, of course. Nevertheless, I had trouble warming to her as a protagonist. I wanted her to grow more of a backbone and show more spirit.

I also thought the structure of the book left something to be desired. It's got a very slow start and as I have already mentioned, struggled to make me really interested in the story of Li Lan. She's facing a pretty creepy scenario, I wanted to feel for her, but I kept on with the book partially in the hopes that just around the corner, something was going to hook me in. The middle part of the book takes place in the afterlife, which was also potentially cool, but here the story got a bit confusing, and I never really understood the motivations behind Li Lan's vengeful dead suitor or the corrupt afterlife officials who seem to be exploiting him somehow. During the last third of the book, Li Lan has to fight to get her body back, after it's possessed. There is also a new and rather unexpected love interest introduced, a bit late in the story, in my opinion. I found it especially vexing because he was one of the most fascinating characters in the book, and we didn't get to spend enough time with him. I also would have liked for there to be more interaction between him and Li Lan, she seems to fall for him awfully and conveniently quickly.

 It's clear from the reactions of the four really rather different VF hosts and much of the VF Goodreads forum that most people liked this book a lot more than I did. It should absolutely be applauded for doing something different and teaching the reader about a different time and culture. I don't regret buying or reading the book, but I doubt I'll ever be re-reading it, and if it wasn't a digital copy, this would end up in my "give away to a charity shop" pile.

Judging a book by its cover: I think the cover for this is really beautiful, and if I recall correctly, that along with the description (as well as it being on sale) was what made me buy the book in the first place. The flowers in the foreground, the sparkles, the partially out of sight woman, the foreground of the picture being out of focus. I'm sorry I didn't like the book as much as I do the cover.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.