CBR18 Book 45: "Witch Season" by Julia Bianco

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR18 Bingo: Refuge (The Aestas coven works hard to be a safe haven and refuge for young witches who have snapped and would normally be ostracised by other witches) 

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC. This book is on sale now. 

There are two types of witches (in this world, all magic users are called witches, regardless of gender). The ones who are born from families with established magic, who grew up as part of a coven, and who are therefore guided and helped through the process of manifesting their magic, and then there are "unsettled" witches, who manifest their magic in their late adolescence or early teens in an explosive "snap", usually in a stressful situation or when they lose their temper about something. These snaps can cause immense injury and even death, and tend to be very traumatic for the young witch in question. 

Katherine Barnes, who is now the enforcer for the Aestas coven in Los Angeles, was one such witch, and when she snapped as a teenager, she collapsed an entire wing of her high school, leading to three deaths and countless injuries. Katherine ran from her home, abandoning her family, and ended up helpless and desperate in Los Angeles, where Sylvia, the leader of Aestas, found her and helped her through the very turbulent first years until Katherine's magic settled. Now she has a new name, a magically altered appearance and lives in constant fear and guilt about her past catching up to her. 

Katherine is trying to figure out who is manufacturing and selling magical drugs to regular humans. She's also trying to help a newly unsettled teenage girl named Lily come to terms with her recent snap. On top of everything, Aestas is expecting its annual "audit" from Noctis, the most powerful coven of the United States. Sylvia, Katherine's boss and mentor, is on edge and stressed. She's noticed her own powers fading and is having trouble keeping up with her responsibilities as coven leader. She fears that Silas Khatri, heir to the Noctis coven, is there to replace her (she's not entirely wrong - his parents have sent him to find faults with Sylvia's leadership so he can replace her, but he really doesn't want to take over the coven) and becomes desperate to find a solution that will allow her to retain control.

It's been quite a while since I read any new paranormal/urban fantasy, but this was a very promising start to what seems to be a new series. Katherine, our protagonist, lost her biological family when she snapped and has managed to find a new family among the Aestas coven. She takes her job enforcing the coven's rules very seriously, but her loyalty and sense of gratitude towards Sylvia also make her willing to overlook a lot of very questionable behaviour, which she would clearly not have tolerated from anyone else. 

On the surface of things, Silas Khatri might seem like the antagonist. He's rich, handsome, comes from what basically amounts to witch royalty, and there is clearly bad blood between his parents and Sylvia because of things that went down when Sylvia first discovered her own magic powers (she never snapped, despite coming from a non-magical family). However, Silas has no wish to be the heir to the Noctis coven; he just wants to live a quiet life and teach magically adept teenagers. He has no desire to snoop into the daily workings of the Aestas coven and replace Sylvia as leader. He is immediately attracted to Katherine, but also understands why she is so distrustful of him. She doesn't realise that he is a much harsher critic of himself than she can ever be. 

After there is a massive explosion in a shopping centre in Los Angeles, Katherine and Silas have to work together to figure out whether it was caused by rogue magic or something else. This proves to be a dangerous job, since someone is trying to murder Silas, and Katherine is caught in the crossfire. 

This first book establishes some of the world-building of the series, and the plot developments leave both of our central characters, Katherine and Silas, in new and difficult positions by the end of the book. I'm excited to see how Ms. Bianco further develops the series. 

CBR17 Book 49: "The Change" by Kirsten Miller

Page count: 480 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Buzzwords Cover Challenge 25: Pattern

CBR17 Bingo: Red (A book with a red cover)

Official plot summary:

In the Long Island oceanfront community of Mattauk, three different women discover that midlife changes bring a whole new type of empowerment...

After Nessa James's husband dies and her twin daughters leave for college, she's left all alone in a trim white house not far from the ocean. In the quiet of her late forties, the former nurse begins to hear voices. It doesn't take long for Nessa to realise that the voices calling out to her belong to the dead--a gift she's inherited from her grandmother, which comes with special responsibilities.

On the cusp of 50, suave advertising director Harriett Osborne has just witnessed the implosion of her lucrative career and her marriage. She hasn't left her house in months, and from the outside, it appears as if she and her garden have both gone to seed. But Harriett's life is far from over--in fact, she's undergone a stunning and very welcome metamorphosis.

Ambitious former executive Jo Levison has spent thirty long years at war with her body. The free-floating rage and hot flashes that arrive with the beginning of menopause feel like the very last straw--until she realizes she has the ability to channel them, and finally comes into her power.

Guided by voices only Nessa can hear, the trio of women discover a teenage girl whose body was abandoned beside a remote beach. The police have written the victim off as a drug-addicted sex worker, but the women refuse to buy into the official narrative. Their investigation into the girl's murder leads to more bodies, and to the town's most exclusive and isolated enclave, a world of stupendous wealth where the rules don't apply. With their newfound powers, Jo, Nessa, and Harriett will take matters into their own hands...

This was my IRL book club's selection for April (because a murder mystery starring three witchy women seemed really appropriate in the same month as Easter (see my description of traditional Norwegian Easter pastimes here). We had a very interesting discussion about it at the end of the month, and it turned out to be a bit of a divisive book. I absolutely loved it, but I suspect that if I'd been younger when I read it (as many members of my book club are) or a man, this book might not have worked for me on as many levels as it did.

One of the things that turned out to be an issue with a lot of the readers was the difficulty in pinpointing the genre of the book. This book isn't an urban fantasy novel, even though there are seemingly supernatural elements in it. It's not a straight-up mystery/crime novel. It's not literary fiction. It's very feminist, and some of the women in the story are described by others as witches, but it doesn't fit neatly into any one category, and for some of the members, that was apparently really frustrating. I've classified it as a contemporary fiction novel with magical realism elements, and there is a mystery to be solved, but it doesn't follow the traditional genre beats of a mystery novel.

Fully in my perimenopausal era now, there were many things in this novel that I recognised almost too well. Jo's overwhelming sense of rage at everyone and everything all the time. Harriet getting to a point where she just wants to do her own thing and doesn't give a single f*ck about what anyone says about it. Nessa is probably the nicest of the three protagonists, but also the one I identified the least with. Her supernatural gift, which it's established as something that women of her family have shared for generations, seems rather horrible. Being able to see the ghosts of dead women, who need the culprits brought to justice, and just not getting peace until the issue is dealt with - it seems like a heavy burden. Thankfully, she has the two other women to assist her in avenging these helpless victims (because while it starts with one dead body, it becomes clear that she is just one in a very long line of women who have met a horrible end in the area).

The POVs of the story mostly shift between Harriet (who was pretty much a middle-aged Poison Ivy), Jo and Nessa. We also get chapters from other women's POVs, including several of the dead girls whom they are determined to get justice for. It helps the reader see these young women as actual people, not just disposable victims. There's a subplot involving a True Crime podcaster, there to delve into the case, who previously did a season on a serial killer decapitating his victims and leaving the heads as grisly trophies. When asked about it, it turns out that he can easily remember every single location a head was found, but he struggles to remember the name of a single one of the victims. Getting to see the world through the victim's eyes, even for just one chapter each, made their tragic fates so much more impactful. 

This book could be summed up as 'F*ck the Patriarchy' or 'Not all men, but almost all of them, and quite a few women who facilitate their awfulness'. Not to say that there aren't some actually good men in the story. Nessa reconnects with the former partner of her dead husband, who is a genuinely decent man and a policeman determined to help with the cases, even when it becomes clear that many of his co-workers feel differently. Jo's husband, who is out of work and working on a screenplay, may not be perfect, but he clearly loves and supports his wife, and as someone who has been with a man for 25 years now, who, because of a whole host of mental issues, depression, and the like has struggled to hold down jobs for a lot of our time together, but who is still a caring husband and father, I got rather heated in my defense of a guy a lot of other readers thought was a bit of a useless sadsack.

To me, this book about righteously angry women, who set out to right the wrongs done by privileged, spoiled and callous men, was an almost perfect read. The latter half had some pacing issues that kept me from giving it a full five stars, but I really enjoyed it when reading, and had trouble putting it down. Strongly recommended, but it may work better for you if you are a woman of a certain age, who has experienced some of the varied awfulnesses that menopause brings. 

Judging a book by its cover: I have the UK paperback edition of this book, where the cover is the black patterns on the blood red background. On some versions, I've seen more of a black border around the edges, and there's red and even a bit of violet in the colour scheme. The American cover seems to be dark blue with sinister-looking thistles on the front. Here, there's just the woman's partially obscured face, and a bee very prominently on the lower half. Both are relevant to the contents. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 34: "The Witches of Vardø" by Anya Bergman

Page count: 416 pages

Rating: 2 stars

In 1662, a former mistress of the king of Denmark-Norway (Norway was a Danish colony for about 400 years, for those not big into their history trivia), Anna Rhodius is sent into exile to a fortress in Vardø in the very north of Norway. She convinces herself that she has been sent there to help root out witchcraft, and if she does a good job, she will be welcomed back by the king with open arms.

Zigri is the young widow of a fisherman, who lost both her husband and only son to the sea. For a time, her grief seems to make her insensible to everything, even her two daughters, but after she catches the eye of the son of the wealthy local merchant, not only does her family have enough to eat, but she seems a lot more cheerful. A beautiful woman having an affair with a much richer, married man rarely has a happy ending, however, and once his wife discovers the affair, Zigri finds herself accused of witchcraft and is sent to the fortress in Vardø.

Zigri's teenage daughter Ingeborg and her cousin Maren (whose own mother was tried and killed for witchcraft) band together to go to Vardø to attempt to rescue Zigri, aided by a local Sami tribe.

This was my fantasy/sci-fi bookclub's book selection for May, and I had read about a third of the book when we had our monthly meeting. In recent years, it feels like about half the time, I go to my book club meetings to see if I actually want to bother putting in the effort to finish the book. That was certainly the case here.

We get multiple points of view in this story. The sections with Anna Rhodius are first-person perspective, with her writing journal-like letters to the King of Denmark. The sections about Zigri, Ingeborg, and Maren are all in third person. There was a lot of potential here because the actual history of the witch trials in the North of Norway is fascinating, but this book did not deliver. There is a lot of tell, not show, and a lot of the plot is slow and plodding until it suddenly goes too fast. It reads like a debut novel, but some research shows that while Anya Bergman hasn't published anything else, she also writes under the name Noëlle Harrison, who has written at least ten other novels and four plays, according to her website. She's also the co-founder of a writers' retreat. In other words, she should be better than the author of this book is at crafting a story. 

In the end, I took the advice of several others in the book club and skipped more than half of what was left of the book, reading the final few chapters. The ending is over the top and several things happen that don't seem to make a lot of sense. There are some very baffling choices made, and one of the things that's frustrating about the book is whether magic is in fact real in this universe. The author seems to suggest that yes, some women actually have magical powers, while also suggesting that it's all superstition and all these women were arrested, tortured, persecuted, and executed for no good reason. 

It makes me sad that this book was so underwhelming since one of the things I studied a lot as part of my history degree was social history in the Middle Ages, the witch trials in the UK (and in other parts of Europe) as part of it. This book could have been so much better. I can't really recommend it. Slewfoot was a much better book about witch hunts. 

Judging a book by its cover: The orange flames and the blue lynx are both very striking, and the patterns remind me of woodcuts or old tapestry embroidery patterns. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 8: "The Secret Service of Tea and Treason" by India Holton

Page count: 368 pages

Rating: 5 stars

Alice Dearlove works for the secret organisation the Agency of Undercover Note Takers, or A.U.N.T., staffed by spies and agents disguised as ladies' maids, butlers, footmen, and other household staff who mostly go unnoticed by the higher classes, but are usually in a position to see and hear everything. She's one of their top agents, known within A.U.N.T only as Agent A. Usually, Miss Dearlove works alone and gets excellent results while doing so.

Now she faces one of the biggest challenges of her career. Not only does she have to cooperate with someone on her next mission, but her partner is none other than her biggest rival within A.U.N.T., the elusive Agent B, Daniel Bixby. Now Agents A and B have to learn to work together, while also pretending to be married. There's a plot to assassinate the queen, and Alice and Daniel have to pretend to be pirates, happily married, and fool an entire houseparty full of eccentric, murder-happy ladies and their husbands while trying to locate the potential weapon and foil the plot. 

Since they're consummate professionals, both Alice and Daniel are determined to complete the job quickly and efficiently while remaining strictly platonic the whole time. When more public displays of affection aren't necessary to play their parts, of course. Obviously, wanting to be convincing in their assumed roles, they might have to practice the duties of husband and wife in the privacy of their own rooms, as well. It's not like they'd get carried away and fall for one another, just because they are forced to be fake married, sharing a bedroom (with just one bed). After all, A.U.N.T doesn't allow for any affection between agents, and once their mission is done, Alice and Daniel will be going their separate ways, possibly never seeing one another again.

This might not be a 5-star book for all readers, but as the culmination of the Dangerous Damsels trilogy that India Holton started with The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels works on pretty much every level for me. Alice Dearlove and Daniel Bixby, whose acquaintance the reader makes briefly in The League of Gentlewomen Witches get their own novel and a chance at their own HEA, since clearly from their first meeting in the previous novel, they are perfect for one another. 

Both found in orphanages by A.U.N.T and raised under the strict tutelage of the organisation's teachers and trainers to become secret agents for the crown, neither Alice nor Daniel have ever really felt like they fit in among their fellow spies or people in general. It's quite clear from the description of them,  and their reactions to and thoughts about certain things, that they are both neurodivergent, and while this is not something likely to have been acknowledged in Victorian times, be they the real ones or the alternate history one we meet here, it's nevertheless a fact and makes them both excellent at their jobs, but not very good at making personal connections. 

Daniel Bixby worked undercover for several years as the butler of charming pirate captain Alex O'Reilly, gathering intel for A.U.N.T and making sure the pirates never caused too much havoc and destruction. He has great difficulty admitting that he and Alex actually became friends and that he cares for both the now-reformed rogue and the witch the pirate fell in love with. 

Alice Dearlove is the perfect ladies' maid and can serve the most infuriating of spoiled aristocrats, devious pirate matrons, or meddling witches. She hasn't really ever had any friends since the organisation doesn't exactly encourage emotional attachment to anything or anyone. She also gets very defensive by light touches and has no understanding of idioms or metaphorical language. Once Daniel discovers this, he's very helpfully tells her "Idiom" every time someone uses figurative language that baffles her. It was a very cute recurring gag and endeared me further to the man.

In various flashbacks, the reader is given insight into the rather dark upbringing both agents have had, in an organisation that doesn't really care for its employees as people, only pawns to move about on a large political gameboard. It helps that they share a lot of the same experiences, albeit in slightly different ways, but it also makes them both very aware of how difficult a potential happy ending would be for them, as A.U.N.T certainly wouldn't let them marry and be together.

Of course, Alice and Daniel, helped in parts by Ned, Cecilia, Alex, and Charlotte, end up with a very lovely HEA in the end. Alice has actual friends who care about her and they're all part of a bigger found family they have dreamed of for their entire lives. This book was a very quick read and made me very happy. India Holton's writing has gotten sharper and wittier with each book, and I'm very excited to see what she will publish next. 

Judging a book by its cover: Once again, it is an adorable cover and I really love the lavender shade of the background. I especially like the traditional spy movie poses of Bixby and Dearlove, with them in period-appropriate servants' attire instead of evening wear. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR16 Book 7: "The League of Gentlewomen Witches" by India Holton

Page count: 336 pages

Rating: 4.5 stars

Everyone knows there's no such thing as witches, but if there were, they probably wouldn't use magic in flashy and extravagant ways to fly houses around and try to rob and assassinate one another. If there were witches, they would probably use their magic in tidier ways, ensuring polite society was functioning properly. Possibly liberate those who have excessive financial resources of some of it to the betterment of those with less of it (like say, themselves). If there were witches, Charlotte Pettifer would be the next prospective leader of their League. There's even a prophecy that she's the natural successor to Black Beryl, the woman who first discovered the magic spell that the pirates use to make their houses fly. 

Charlotte makes the acquaintance of the dashing pirate captain Alex O'Riley when she is, in fact, trying to liberate him of his briefcase. After a very exciting pursuit, she manages to fly away on a bicycle, only to discover that the briefcase is empty. When the legendary amulet of Black Beryl is found and exhibited in a museum, Charlotte and Alex's paths cross once more, since any witch or pirate worth their salt is trying to be the first to get the amulet. When both are thwarted in their goal, Alex to his dismay, discovers that Charlotte has stowed away in his flying cottage, and refuses to leave until they retrieve the amulet together. 

Soon rumours are flying that Charlotte has been abducted by the roguish pirate, when all the witches know full well that Charlotte must have been the one doing the abducting. Neither group of opinionated, magic-wielding women is going to suggest that something untoward has taken place, as a marriage between a prominent witch and a pirate would possibly lead to peace between the two factions, a fate much worse than a young lady (or rakish gentleman) maybe being compromised. All the while, Charlotte and Alex are fighting and kissing and doing a fair bit of acrobatic compromising of each other, beginning to dread what will happen if they actually do manage to find the amulet and have to stop chasing it together. Because the future leader of the witches, and a prominent pirate, couldn't actually have a future together? Perish the thought.

While the first book in the Dangerous Damsels series was full of Brontë references, this one leans heavily into Jane Austen. Charlotte has lived a lonely life, strictly regimented to become the perfect leader of the League, and certainly hasn't been allowed to indulge in anything so frivolous as strong emotions or close friendships. So, like many other lonely people, she has sought solace in books and keeps wondering what Elizabeth Bennet, Eleanor Dashwood, Anne Elliot, or even Fanny Price would do, and early on, at least, she keeps comparing Alex to Austen's heroes (who surprisingly quickly come up short to an actual, living, breathing, fencing, flirting and bantering man). 

While there has long been an animosity between witches and pirates, Alex's reasons for disliking witches are more personal than most. Having lost his mother at an early age, and acquired a wicked stepmother of the witch persuasion instead, he has sworn never to get near any more witches but finds his promise difficult to keep once Charlotte invades his cottage and starts tidying up his abode and life. 

It took me a while to figure out what in the world was going on when I read the first book in the series. I don't know if it had a much more far-fetched storyline (probably not) or that I'm now just much more attuned to the sort of delightful quirkiness that features in India Holton's writing. Maybe I just liked "Lottie" and Alex more as a couple. Austen references are also always going to be more of a hit with me than Brontë ones. 

I already know that the third and final book in the series is about Alex's very efficient butler, Bixby, and the ladies' maid with unusual abilities, Miss Dearlove. I can't wait to see what silly shenanigans the two of them get up to. 

Judging a book by its cover: The covers for these books are adorable. I love the little details in the margins, such as Alex's cottage (which looks rather cozy, and not at all as run-down as a lot of people in the story would have you believe), the teacup, the broom, and so forth. And obviously Alex and Charlotte fencing at the bottom. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 80: "Her Majesty's Royal Coven" by Juno Dawson

Page count: 452 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

From the official plot description:

At the dawn of their adolescence, on the eve of the summer solstice, four young girls--Helena, Leonie, Niamh, and Elle--took the oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department. Now, decades later, the witch community is still reeling from a civil war and Helena is now the reigning High Priestess of the organization. Yet Helena is the only one of her friend group still enmeshed in the stale bureaucracy of HMRC. Elle is trying to pretend she's a normal housewife, and Niamh has become a country vet, using her powers to heal sick animals. In what Helena perceives as the deepest betrayal, Leonie has defected to start her own more inclusive and intersectional coven, Diaspora. And now Helena has a bigger problem. A young warlock of extraordinary capabilities has been captured by authorities and seems to threaten the very existence of HMRC. With conflicting beliefs over the best course of action, the four friends must decide where their loyalties lie: with preserving tradition, or doing what is right.

I really wanted to like this book, but due to some of the characterisation and plotting, and certainly the way the book ended, I merely think it's OK. The book tells the story from the POVs of all the main witches. Niamh is a country vet, Elle is a housewife trying to get used to the idea that her eldest daughter is manifesting powers. Helena runs HMRC and has to deal with politics and power struggles, while Leonie is trying to run her smaller, intersectional coven, whilst panicking slightly because her girlfriend seems to want to start a family. 

Both Niamh and Helena lost their romantic partners during the magical civil war and are still mourning them in their ways. Niamh's twin sister has been in a coma since the war and is kept under constant supervision. Elle mostly wants to forget about her magical nature. Now there is a terrifying prophecy looming, and a young troubled teen seems to be at the centre of it. Helena and her coven are convinced this person may bring forth the apocalypse, Niamh, who no longer wants to work with the coven, thinks they just need some stability and understanding, having clearly suffered a lot in their young life. As the plot develops, their diametrical views on young Theo will create a lot of conflict between them. 

Intersectional feminism is clearly important. TERFs are horrible. Juno Dawson is obviously allowed to feel and write whatever she wants regarding these things, but I didn't particularly enjoy some of the twists and turns this story took as a result of her needing to work through some things. I've heard that the second book is better, though, so I will give her one more chance. 

Judging a book by its cover: I don't think I'm particularly fond of this cover, or the alternative cover which is black, white, and red, with a turquoise font. The neon pink is certainly eye-catching, but I certainly didn't get this book because of the cover. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 66: "The Ex Hex" by Erin Stirling

Page count: 320 pages

Rating: 4 stars

Heartbroken after discovering that the gorgeous young man she'd spent all summer with may in fact have a "betrothed" back in Wales, Vivienne "Vivi" Jones gets very drunk and weepy and she and her cousin light some candles and throw together a curse, to make Vivi feel better. They think nothing of it, until nine years later, when Rhys Penhallow, Vivi's ex, and descendant of Graves Glen's founding father returns to charge the ley lines. Suddenly there are murderous plastic toy skulls, a talking cat, and a very pissed-off ghost to deal with, and if Vivi and Rhys can't work together to break the curse before Halloween, not only they but the entire town of Graves Glen might be doomed.

This was a fun read, which I read in less than a day during this year's October Readathon. I really liked Vivi and her cousin Gwyn (as well as Gwyn's mother), I liked the premise of a little town where witchcraft and magic clearly exist, but most of the residents have no idea, and I liked Rhys and his absolute disdain for his pompous father and the whole Penhallow family legacy. Vivi might want to hate Rhys, but they still have sizzling chemistry and there is some very excellent banter between the two of them. Who doesn't love a talking cat (although he mostly demands "TREATS")? 

I liked this, but I'm not exactly desperate to read the sequel immediately As far as I can see, the next book in the series is about Gwyn and one of Rhys's brothers, so I'm guessing yet another Penhallow is going to relocate from Wales to small-town America. Several of my friends seem to like it, so I'm sure I'll get around to it at some point in the next year or two. 

Judging a book by its cover: While the cover is cute, and makes me think of Bewitched, there isn't actually any flying around on broomsticks in this book, solo or as a couple. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR14 Book 34: "Mooncakes" by Suzanne Walker and Wendy Xu

Page count: 256 pages

Rating: 4 stars

CBR14 Bingo: Cozy (this is a super-sweet YA comic. While there are some dark themes, the main vibe here is absolutely cozy.) 

Nova Huang (she/her) is an orphaned young witch, although she sees the ghosts of her parents during each major holiday, and sometimes just when they feel she might need advice or a good talking to. She lives with her two grandmothers, who sell books of both the mundane and magical varieties. 

Tam (they/them)  on the other hand, seems to have been on their own for a long time. They had to run away from home once things got too bad there, and now they're back in the town they were happy as a child, but there is sinister magic threatening the place, and Tam knows they need to use their werewolf magic somehow in order to banish it. 

Nova's grandmothers are very powerful witches and used to dealing with supernatural threats, but even they find the demon presence in the woods impossible to vanquish. The best they can do is try to empower Nova and Tam to manage the task instead. 

This book has been on my shelf for far too long (at some point, it also appears to have sustained some pretty bad water damage to the latter half of the book. Neither my husband nor I can remember it happening, and it kind of sucks, because it meant the last few pages were stuck together and difficult to separate). It's a super sweet book aimed at young adults, which possibly hits every square on the diversity bingo card. Nova is a person of colour, cis-gendered, bisexual, and uses hearing aids in both of her ears to hear properly (her grandmothers have had to adapt her magic so that the technology and magic don't interfere with each other). Nova is raised by a lesbian couple, who seem perfectly accepted and loved in their little society. Tam is a non-binary lesbian werewolf. Both of the young protagonists have coming-of-age challenges to deal with on top of their growing feelings for one another. 

The story is relatively fast-paced and while there is danger lurking, it never feels too perilous. The art is gorgeous and the romance between the main characters is very sweet. Nova has a large, diverse and very supportive family (several members are of the supernatural persuasion). I loved that although her parents are dead, they are still an active part of her life as ghosts, she just doesn't see them all the time. 

My original intention was to use this for the "dough" square of the bingo card, because of the title. Sadly baking and baked goods play such a small part in the story that I decided it probably fit better for "cozy". I don't think I've ever spent as much time changing and rearranging my original plan for the book bingo as I have this year. It's a good thing I have such a big book collection, usually, there is more than one book that works for each of the squares.

Judging a book by its cover: Look at the cuteness of this cover! You can see why I thought baking was going to play a bigger part in the story. The cover gives you an idea of Wendy Xu's art style, which really enhanced the story for me. 

 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR13 Books 16-21: "Mystic Bayou series" by Molly Harper

CBR13 Bingo: Home (so many of the various characters come from very unstable family backgrounds and are only too happy to settle in Mystic Bayou, having finally find somewhere they can properly call home)

This is going to be a bulk review for the first six stories (four novels, two novellas) in the Mystic Bayou paranormal romance series by Molly Harper. I listened to all the books in audio, as they are available as part of the Audible Plus catalogue. Considering that I already pay quite a lot for that one credit a month, you'd best believe I jumped at the chance of getting all these extra audiobooks as a bonus. I also just discovered that there is a new book in the series, that was released earlier this week, so I know what one of my next listens is going to be.

I'll write a short plot summary of each of the stories, then do a sort of joint review of the series as a whole. 

Every story in the series is narrated by the same people, Jonathan Davis and Amanda Ronconi. This is a series of interconnected stories, all set in the same town, but starring different couples in each new installment. While at first, I thought it might be strange, the narrators mostly manage the various roles really well, different accents and personalities of the various characters included. It also means that the continuity throughout the series, where the protagonists from earlier books pretty much make up the core supporting cast. I was especially fond of the portrayal of the town's large and burly bear shifter mayor, and glad his accent and voice remained consistent throughout.

How to Date Your Dragon

Page count: 248 pages

Audio book length: 6 hrs 24 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Doctor Jillian Ramsey is preparing for her first field assignment in South America for the League of Interspecies Cooperation (a secret government body making sure that the existence of any and all supernatural creatures stays hidden from humanity in general) when she is suddenly told she's being sent to a small town in Louisiana instead. Mystic Bayou is a small town where the residents mostly keep to themselves, but it's very unusual in that supernatural creatures and humans live openly side by side without any major conflicts and even frequently inter-marry. The League knows full well that the truth about the supernatural will come out eventually, and want Jillian to write a research report on what exactly works and how the locals interact with one another, to use as a guide when some supernatural finally get themselves caught on camera in such a way that the wider world figures out that all the things that go bump in the night also live among them. 

Having prepared to only study one tribe of South American supernaturals, Jillian feels a bit unprepared to meet a small town full of all kinds of beings, but since she thrives on research and loves observing new places and meeting new people. She's rather overwhelmed by the hearty welcome she gets from the outgoing and very loud mayor, Zed Barron, a bear shifter, but rather more intrigued by his best friend, the more guarded and almost hostile sheriff, Bael Boone. She also can't figure out what kind of supernatural being Bael is (it's terribly rude to ask a supernatural about this), to the amusement of Zed and many other of the townsfolk (no points for guessing what he actually is, considering the title of the book).

Part of the reason there are so many supernaturals in Mystic Bayou and the surrounding area is a mysterious rift in the swamp, which seems to call to them and draw them towards the area. Recently, however, the rift seems to be changing, growing bigger and more overpowering. It also seems to not only cause supernatural babies to be born in fully human families, but also change the DNA of humans in the area, so they suddenly become supernatural creatures. As well as writing her report, Jillian tries to figure out what in the world could be causing this, by interviewing as many of the affected individuals as possible. 

While Jillian is pretty much adopted by Zed and his formidable Mama, it's Bael she keeps feeling drawn towards. While he keeps her at a distance initially, it's clear that the attraction is mutual, and once dead bodies start appearing among several of the people Jillian has been interviewing, Bael gets mighty protective, while also trying to figure out what links the serial killings to the anthropologist. 

Love and Other Wild Things 

Page count: 300 pages

Audio book length: 6 hrs 41 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Energy witch Danica "Dani" Teal is sent by the League to investigate the strange energy rift in Mystic Bayou that seems to keep expanding and is causing more supernatural babies to be born to regular humans, not to mention humans transforming into various shifters unexpectedly. She can see and manipulate energy and needs the commission she'll earn on the job to help pay off the debts on her grandparents' farm. Dani's irresponsible and shiftless father tricked her vulnerable grandmother into taking up loans at multiple banks, before running off somewhere, possibly India. Dani's grandfather, cousin, and herself didn't discover the truth until after her grandmother's death.

Dani easily strikes up a friendship with Jillian and has instant chemistry with the Mystic Bayou mayor, the large and enthusiastic bear-shifter Zed. Because of Dani's complicated past and family history, she really isn't looking for anything permanent, she just wants to do her job for the League and move on. Yet when she starts properly examining the energy flowing from the rift, she discovers that someone or something seems to be manipulating the strange portal, trying to open it wider and undoing all the work Dani puts in. This individual seems to also want to get Dani out of the way. Luckily, Zed isn't about to let anything harm the woman he's fallen for.  

Even Tree Nymphs Get the Blues

Page count: 106 pages

Audio book length: 3 hrs 3 mins

Rating: 3 stars

Ingrid Asher is a solitary Norwegian tree nymph intent on setting up her own dairy and ice cream production in the little town of Mystic Bayou. Having a very negative romantic encounter in her past, which she and her tree barely survived, she certainly isn't looking for romance. 

Rob Aspern, head of the League of Interspecies Cooperation's data science department is pretty literally stunned when he first encounters the beautiful Ingrid (she can control the trees in her vicinity and uses them well when it comes to defending her territory). He absolutely respects her need for privacy and independence, but they keep running into one another and their chemistry is undeniable. Encouraged by the enthusiastic female members of the League who have decided to take Ingrid under their wing, he tries to figure out why she's quite so reserved and uses his considerable intelligence to lay a plan to woo her.

Selkies are a Girl's Best Friend

Page count: 218 pages

Audio book length: 6 hrs 33 mins

Rating: 4 stars

Sonja Fong is human, but there are many in the League of Interspecies Cooperation who nevertheless feel that her abilities to plan, organise and procure unusual items is nothing less than uncanny, possibly supernatural. As the League's operations in Mystic Bayou are expanding, Sonja accepts a job as director of the League's research center, in part so she can be closer to her BFF, Dr. Jillian Ramsay. 

Sonja's love interest is the long-sought-after town doctor, who while new in the job, is actually a previous resident of Mystic Bayou. Will Carmody, a selkie or seal shifter, grew up in town and was very close with both Mayor Zed and Sheriff Bael, but left town several decades ago (shifters live a loong time and don't noticeably age much once they reach adulthood) and has worked in big cities like Seattle. He's sick of hiding his supernatural side and is happy to accept the job as the much-needed town doctor. 

While Sonja and Will flirt and their romance develops, the big energy rift that has been causing trouble in the Bayou is also becoming more dangerous. The rift appears to be unraveling, and Sonja, Will, and their friends and family have to work to try to save the town.

Always Be My Banshee

Page count: 226 pages

Audio book length: 7 hrs 11 mins

Rating: 3.5 stars

Cordelia Canton doesn't really do field assignments for the League of Interspecies Cooperation, she's much more used to working in the archives and keeping out of sight. She's a touch-know psychic and her abilities are sorely needed in Mystic Bayou to figure out the origins of and use for a mysterious artifact that has been pulled out of the strange and chaotic energy rift there. As merely being in the presence of the artifact has led other supernatural beings to end up in the hospital, Cordelia needs to be careful as she examines and tries to solve the mystery of the artifact.

Working with her is Brendan O'Connor, a male banshee, who is there to make sure the artifact doesn't harm Cordelia or anyone else. They discover that the artifact is, in fact, sentient and has an agenda of its own, but trying to communicate with it is difficult, and it soon becomes clear that someone is intent on stealing the box and won't let a psychic or a banshee stand in the way of their success. 

One Fine Fae

Audio book length: 3 hrs 10 mins

Rating: 3 stars

Another novella-length story, this book is as of yet only available in audio format, but like the rest of the series can be accessed for free if you have an Audible Plus subscription (which I do). 

Charlotte McBee is a fairy and a supernatural midwife and has come to Mystic Bayou because it is nearly time for Dr Jillian Ramsay, wife of sheriff Bael Boone to give birth, and as far as records show, there has never been a phoenix/dragon baby before now. Hence the pregnancy and impending birth can definitely be classified as unusual and challenging, but Charlotte isn't particularly worried. She's sure she can get the mother through the ordeal, she just has to hope the dragon shifter father doesn't get so stressed he eats her before the baby is safely delivered.

Charlotte is quickly smitten by Leonard, Sonja Fong's incredibly clumsy executive assistant. Charlotte, being used to bestowing benevolent fairy gifts on the babies she delivers, can recognise the victim of a fairy curse when she sees one, and becomes determined to help Leonard break his, even if he chooses that he doesn't want to be in a relationship with her (due to his family being cursed for generations, he's naturally rather wary of fairies).

What I thought of the series:

Considering the difficulties I've had finding time and motivation to read this past year, finding a fun and light-hearted audiobook series I could pretty much glom was a true blessing. These books are pretty much pure fluff and the relatively short length of each book (even shorter for the novellas) didn't make any of the listens a major commitment. The fact that I always listen at x1.5 speed helps with that. 

I think the early books in the series were stronger and more enjoyable than the later ones, possibly because there was more establishing world-building. By Always Be My Banshee, some of the obligatory peril that the characters had to experience as part of finding their HEA seemed a little bit forced. 

As I mentioned in my introduction, the series has the same narrators for each book, but they do an excellent job at embodying the various characters and ensure that previously established characters in the series also feel and sound the same. With each new story, the cast of returning supporting characters gets bigger, with the heroines from the first books, Jillian and Dani, making a concerted effort to adopt each new lonely soul in the Bayou into their circle of friends. The focus on friendship and found family is absolutely one of the things that won me over with this series. 

I get the impression that the fictional version of the Southern states of the USA is about as accurate as that portrayed in the Sookie Stackhouse books (i.e. a lot of liberties taken). With the exception of the occasional thrown-in Scandinavian word (all of them pronounced atrociously), I can't really speak much for the various accents or dialects used. Zed felt like he was possibly a little bit too much of a parody Cajun, but he's also one of my favourite supporting characters and a real darling, so I'm not going to complain too much. 

As we know, just as any body can be a beach body as long as it appears on a beach, any book you choose to read on a beach can be a beach read. Likewise, if you choose to read a book in the summer, it becomes a summer read, no matter what marketing tells you. However, these books really are excellent brain breaks and very frothy, entertaining, and none too serious reads, excellent for any time you need some lighter fare to get you through life. If you're looking for some fun paranormals and have access to Audible Plus, you could do a lot worse. 

Judging the books by their covers: Considering the first book was published in 2018 and the last novella I've reviewed here came out in late 2020, there's been quite a change in cover design over the course of the series. My least favourite of the lot is probably Love and Other Wild Things, where the male model looks like he's trying to attack someone, and the female model (neither of which look anything like how the characters in the book are described) looks constipated or gassy. Always Be My Banshee is also pretty bad, with a dude badly photo-shopped in front of some trees. If I have to choose a favourite (not wild on any of them, to be honest), it would be Selkies are a Girl's Best Friend, where the cover model at least looks to be of Asian descent and there isn't an awkward clinch or bad photo-shopping involved. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Book 33: "The Unleashing" by Shelly Laurenston

Page count: 385 pages
Rating: 3 stars

#CBR12Bingo: Cannonballer Says (previously reviewed by alwaysanswerb, yesknopemaybe and teresaelectro)

Official book description:
Kera Watson never expected to face death behind a Los Angeles coffee shop. Not after surviving two tours lugging an M16 around the Middle East. If it wasn't for her hot Viking customer showing up too late to help, nobody would even see her die.

In uncountable years of service to the Allfather Odin, Ludvig "Vig" Rundstrom has never seen anyone kick ass with quite as much style as Kera. He knows one way to save her life--but she might not like it. Signing up with the Crows will get Kera a new set of battle buddies: cackling, gossiping, squabbling, party-hearty women. With wings. So not the Marines.

But Vig can't give up on someone as special as Kera. With a storm of oh-crap magic speeding straight for L.A., survival will depend on combining their strengths: Kera's discipline, Vig's loyalty... and the Crows' sheer love of battle. Boy, are they in trouble.

There are so many elements of this paranormal fantasy that should make it exactly my thing - a lot of references to Norse mythology; hunky fighter dudes; a diverse cast of kick-ass warrior women; a big lug of a loyal dog, a romantic subplot- yet, it took me nearly a week to finish The Unleashing, because I kept putting it down and there was nothing much enticing me to pick it back up again to keep reading. Maybe I just read it at the wrong time, because I do not seem to have responded to it as enthusiastically as previous Cannonballers.

Kera is an ex-marine. She's tough, independent and very organised. She finds herself part of a near-immortal group of warrior women sworn to the Norse goddess Skuld (one of the Norns, think three Fates in Roman or Greek mythology). The sisterhood are called Crows and they live in a big, gorgeous mansion in Malibu. While they can manifest wings and claws and are fearless fighters, a lot of them also seem like bitchy sorority girls a lot of the time, all very busy doing their own thing, and no one really seems to bother to explain much of her new and very strange existence to Kera. At least her rescue pitbull Brodie was also brought over with her, with the unexpected side effects that the dog can also manifest wings and supernatural fighting powers now. Of course, Kera barely ever sees her dog, as her various new battle sisters keep taking the dog with them on runs.

Kera discovers that the reason she didn't die in the alley behind the coffee shop where she worked is because the hot, silent guy who frequently showed up there (who she believed to be a veteran of some kind with severe PTSD) is, in fact, a Raven, one of a legendary group of warriors sworn to Odin. Ludvig "Vig" Rundstrom is a gifted blacksmith and seems to make weapons for all the various groups of viking warriors (there's a whole bunch of them). Vig was too late to stop Kera being stabbed, but since he has a big old crush on Kera, he begged Skuld to give her a new chance at life. Since the Crows are less than forthcoming about Kera's new afterlife, except to say that she'll grow wings and have to fight when the time comes, Kera very much appreciates having Vig basically explain all the nitty gritty and also offer to teach her how to fight, as the army training she possesses isn't going to cut it in the sort of fights the Crows get into.

Even before Kera got an unfamiliar new afterlife, she was attracted to Vig, and we discover that he went massively out of his way to go to the coffee shop where she worked just so he could see her. So obviously the two act on their mutual attraction to one another. They just sort of decide that they're crazy about each other, without the reader really ever getting to see how that attraction, or affection for the other, came to be.

Generally, while quite a bit of the world-building here is interesting, the relationships, whether the romantic or platonic are not well established enough for me. While it's clear that there's a lot of tight-knit friendships among the already-existing Crows, they are all initially mostly surprisingly unhelpful and in some cases, really rather bitchy to Kera. While I can see that to their free and chaotic, self-indulgent party lifestyle, her tendency to wander around with a clipboard, trying to impose order and regular schedules on them (because this is what she's used to) is annoying, but there are more mature ways of dealing with things than how it goes down here. It didn't really become clear to me why I was supposed to like any of these women.

At least a couple of the main reviewers over at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books really rave about these books and talk about how funny and action-packed they are. Same with a lot of reviewers on Goodreads. I get the action part, there's quite a lot of fighting, but I really don't think this book was all that funny. It takes quite a while before the reader gets a clear picture of what has actually happened to Kera. The whole situation with a bunch of warrior tribes dedicated to various Norse gods is also not very clearly established until quite a long way into the book. There's a lot of switching between POVs, we don't just see things through the eyes of Kera and Vig, but a whole bunch of other supporting characters, including some antagonists. The book also ends really rather abruptly, on quite the cliff-hanger, so while the romantic subplot involving Kera and Vig is resolved, the reader is clearly going to have to keep going with the series if they want to see how the big battle between some ancient evil and what I'm assuming is going to be the united front of all the various Norse battle groups. Not a huge fan of that either. I have heard really good things about Laurenston's writing, and I already own the full trilogy (thanks, frequent e-book sales!), so I probably will keep reading, but I'm not entirely sold on this just yet.

Judging a book by its cover: First of all, I genuinely don't know if this is the first book to use what seems to be a stock image of that shirtless, very ripped guy in a hoodie, but I've seen variations of this exact image on a bunch of books during the last few years. Obviously, the others don't have a bunch of birds in the background, but otherwise, it really an image that's been doing the rounds.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 86: "Midnight Crossroad" by Charlaine Harris

Page count: 320 pages
Audio book length: 9 hrs 26 mins

Official book description:
Welcome to Midnight, Texas, a town with many boarded-up windows and few full-time inhabitants, located at the crossing of Witch Light Road and Davy Road. It’s a pretty standard dried-up western town.

There’s a pawnshop (someone lives in the basement and is seen only at night). There’s a diner (people who are just passing through tend not to linger). And there’s new resident Manfred Bernardo, who thinks he’s found the perfect place to work in private (and who has secrets of his own).

Stop at the one traffic light in town, and everything looks normal. Stay awhile, and learn the truth...

I really have read a LOT of Charlaine Harris' books. For my sins, I managed to force myself through the entirety of her Sookie Stackhouse series, just to see how it would end, long after I derived any enjoyment from them anymore. I've read her Lily Bard books, where apparently the character Bobo Whinthrop originates (I don't remember him, or much of the plot of the books at all). I have also read all of her Harper Connolly books, where Manfred Bernardo first appears (I vaguely remember him, but nothing of consequence). Generally, I find Harris' books perfectly entertaining while I'm reading them (except some of the later Sookie books, that pretty much just annoyed me), but shortly after reading them, I remember little to nothing of the plots.

Midnight Crossroad, which was adapted into the TV series Midnight, Texas on NBC (cancelled after two seasons) features a bunch of peculiar individuals living in the little town of Midnight in, you guessed it, Texas. Manfred Bernardo, a genuine psychic who makes his living telling fortunes over the phone and internet, moves there after the death of his grandmother. His new landlord is Bobo Winthrop, owner of the local pawnshop. One of Bobo's other tenants is a vampire, who lives with a gorgeous, but apparently very dangerous woman who travels a lot. There's Fiji Kavanaugh, who is a very powerful witch, but hides her actual powers by running a magic shop full of nick knacks. She has a talking cat. There's a nice gay couple, the rather strange reverend who gives non-denominational services at the local chapel (and conducts a lot of pet funerals), and Manfred falls pretty hard for Creek Lovell, the beautiful young woman whose overprotective father runs the gas station.

Harris' books always have a mystery element to them, as well. In this book, there's a group of neo nazis trying to harass Bobo, because they believe he knows the location of his crazy grandfather's legendary weapons arsenal. There's also a dead body found about a third of the way through the story, which turns out to belong to Bobo's ex-girlfriend, who he believed got sick of him and just up and left him one day. No one really believes that Bobo is guilty of murdering her, but it still takes quite a lot of time to figure out the guilty party.

As well as having been on my TBR list for years and years, this book fit into my Monthly Keyword Challenge in October. I listened to it on audiobook and it was perfectly fine, but really nothing more than that. Now, a month and a half later, I am hard pressed to remember any particular details - although I really did like Fiji's cat a lot - and the lisping way the narrator voiced him. My records show that over the years, I've acquired the entire series in various e-book sales, so I will most likely read the second two books eventually, as well, but I'm in no particular hurry to do so.

Judging a book by its cover: As with a lot of books, this one comes with several different versions of cover art. I think I like this one, with it's weird, crooked bird's eye view (which gives me a headache if I look at it for too long) of parts of the little town is my least favourite. Still, I own it in e-book, so it's not like I'll actually look at the cover a lot. I suspect Harris could sell books no matter what the cover art actually looks like.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

#CBR11 Book 75: "Wayward Son" by Rainbow Rowell

Page count: 416 pages
Audio book length: 8 hrs 57 mins
Rating: 4.5 stars

Spoiler warning! This is the second book in a series, and this review will contain spoilers for the first book, Carry On. If you haven't already read it, you should do yourself a favour and do so.

Simon Snow was the Chosen One, destined to bring an end to the threat to all magic. Of course, it turned out that he himself was in fact the thing that was threatening the magic in the first place, and his mentor/father figure (and actual biological father, although none of the characters in the story ever found out that part, only the readers did), the Mage, died in the process. As did Ebb, one of Simon's only true friends. Saving the world also meant Simon losing all his previously unlimited reserves of magic, so now he's just a normal human, albeit one with big red wings and a devil's tail. Dealing with the aftermath of saving the world is not going well for Simon. He spends most of his days on the couch, drinking cider and not really engaging with his boyfriend Baz or Penelope, his best friend and flatmate. He's not entirely sure why they bother with him anymore, considering how powerless and useless he is right now.

Basilton "Baz" Pitch spent most of his time growing up loving his roommate Simon in secret, hiding the fact that he was a vampire and mentally preparing to probably have to face Simon in some cataclysmic battle. Instead, he and Simon became boyfriends and he helped Simon stop the Mage. Unfortunately, Simon no longer seems to want to talk to Baz, or even be touched by him. He's clearly pulling away and in serious need of help in some way, but Baz really doesn't have the faintest idea how to help.

Penelope Bunce was so relieved when she, Simon and Baz managed to save the world without any major casualties (except poor Ebb, of course, and the Mage, but he was the villain, so he probably deserved to die). She couldn't really face going back to Watford for her final semester, but nevertheless graduated with top marks, and is really enjoying her time at University. It's a terrible shame that Agatha, Simon's ex-girlfriend and Penelope's sort-of friend, abandoned her wand and swore off magic and moved all the way to California, where she now pretty much refuses to answer Penny's calls or texts. Penelope also can't help but observe how miserable both Simon and Baz are, and desperate measures are clearly required to snap everyone out of their funk. She breaks multiple laws of magic to secure them tickets to the USA, and even magically forges a passport for Simon.

Agatha Wellbelove did indeed travel about as far away from Britain and her former life as she was able. Now she's enjoying her time as a college student in San Diego and trying to forget all the times she was kidnapped and/or threatened as a result of being Simon's girlfriend. She wishes Penelope would just take the hint and just leave her alone. Agatha's managing fine without magic, and has human friends now, like Ginger. It's not even like Agatha will be home when Penelope and the others are planning to visit, she's going with Ginger to some exclusive corporate retreat in the desert, along with Ginger's tech mogul boyfriend Josh. There will be yoga, and vegan cupcakes and all manner of chances of 'levelling up'. Agatha is doing just fine, she doesn't need any ties to her old life.

Penelope's plan is that they go visit Agatha, to ensure that she is actually doing as well as she claims she is. They'll start their journey in Chicago, so Penelope can catch up with Micah, her long distance boyfriend of many years. Of course, everything starts off badly (Micah has in fact tried to break up with Penelope for ages, and even has a new girlfriend already) and just keeps getting worse. Our three young wizards (as Penelope says, Simon is still a wizard even if he can't do magic anymore, just like an air plane doesn't stop being a plane just because it's on the ground) have absolutely no idea how magic really works in the USA, they don't really have a lot of money, and they are completely unprepared for just how vast the country is. All three of them are shocked to discover just how long the trip from Chicago to San Diego will be, although Simon is excited about the road trip.

They slay vampires at a Renaissance Faire, they get cornered by mysterious supernatural creatures with big guns in a magical dead spot, they have a rather tense run-in with an actual honest to God-dragon and discover that Penelope may have been right about Agatha, she really IS in trouble. Our intrepid trio also Shepard, a human with an all-consuming curiosity about magic and magical creatures of all kinds. He's not as easy to ditch as they were hoping, and comes to be an invaluable ally to them. Will he be able to get them to Agatha before it's too late, and she's turned into a vampire by corporate tech-vamps?

Carry On was my favourite book of 2015, and remains (with heavy competition) my favourite of Rainbow Rowell's novels. So Wayward Son is by far my most anticipated book release of 2019. Since it came out in September, I have now read it once in e-book, and re-listened to it in audio format (Euan Morton's interpretation of the various characters is now how I hear the voices in my head). When I greedily started devouring it, I had no idea that the book isn't just a long-anticipated sequel (four years is a long time), but in fact a bridging book, the second part in a planned trilogy. The book starts with an epilogue, and ends with a prologue. This made me very hopeful, and only a few days after the book's official release, Rowell announced the title of the third (and probably final book, Any Way the Wind Blows). Re-reading the book, knowing that this story isn't meant to be the end point for Simon, Baz, Penelope, Agatha and now also Shepard means that a lot of the questions and misgivings I had about the pacing and plot of Wayward Son were put to rest.

With Carry On, Rainbow Rowell wrote her own very clever take on the Chosen One story. Of course, we rarely, if ever, find out what happens to the Chosen One, and his allies and sidekicks afterwards. I can't really think of any other author who has explored the aftermath of surviving the big, cataclysmic events at the end of such a story, and what it would do to the characters left standing. So much of this book is exploring PTSD, and depression, uncertainty and fear. Anyone who was hoping for sunshine and kittens and Baz and Simon living happily ever after will have been disappointed.

While it was exciting and romantic and lovely that Simon and Baz got together during Carry On, there is no denying that their history prior to suddenly kissing and holding hands was a very fraught one. They believed themselves to be destined enemies, and even ignoring that, the sort of trauma Simon was put through throughout his childhood had to cause damage, even before he was forced to confront the fact that the only father figure he'd ever known was evil and had in fact murdered several people to get into and maintain power. As Baz observes at one point during Wayward Son, Simon is a warrior, a blunt instrument. He was never allowed to be anything else, trained by the Mage to fight and kill any threat. Simon was never particularly intellectual, but he didn't need to be, because he was so tremendously powerful, with inexhaustible magical reserves.

Simon never needed to really fear injury or death when facing off against terrible creatures, because his magic always allowed him to pull through. Of course, he discovered that he never ran out because he was literally sucking the magic out of everything around himself, and that would obviously have to stop. Simon Snow has completed the task he was chosen to do, now he has no magic anymore, no purpose and absolutely no idea what he's going to do with himself for the rest of his life. Now he feels like a burden, and is constantly reminded of what he's lost, because Baz and Penelope are both such powerful and effortless magicians.

Baz was only spoken of, but didn't appear until a full third into Carry On. He's by far my favourite character (Rainbow Rowell doesn't really hide the fact that he's her favourite too) and steals pretty much every scene he's in once he actually shows up, having escaped a kidnapping.  In Wayward Son, not only do we get him for the whole of the book, he is probably even more of a protagonist than Simon is. Baz is that incredible and forbidden thing, a vampire who can do magic. The mages of Britain hate vampires and hunt them down. In the USA, Baz discovers that not only do the wizards really mainly keep to themselves, in parts of the country, vampires pretty much rule whole cities. Having been bitten and turned as a child, Baz has always had to hide who he is, and feared and loathed the part of himself that needs to drink blood to stay alive. He only ever drinks animal blood, and he always kills the animal, terrified he may accidentally turn the animal otherwise. He comes to discover that he knows very little about what being a vampire actually means, and that in America, the furtive way he's been forced into hiding his true self may not be necessary.

My fellow Cannonballer, Jen K, found Penelope especially insufferable and annoying in this book. I can see where she's coming from, but I disagree. Penelope, even in Carry On, was always a bit self centred and oblivious to the true state of affairs. It takes her the longest time to actually catch on to the fact that Simon and Baz' relationship has changed and she has truly staggering capacities for denial if there is something unpleasant she doesn't want to face up to. She refuses to stop contacting Agatha, despite all hints and signs suggesting that Agatha has no wish to maintain a friendship. She impulsively decides they all need to go to the USA for a change of pace, breaking any number of magical laws to do so (despite the fact that her mother is the current head of the Coven and would be beyond appalled if she discovered what her daughter had done).

Penelope has been used to being the brains to Simon's brawn and thanks to a lot of luck and Simon's magical powers, they clearly got through a lot more scrapes than they should have. In America, she is completely adrift, with nothing working out the way she has planned and society functioning in entirely different ways to what she's used to. While she tries for the longest time to avoid it, Penelope needs to take a good hard look at who she is and take steps to change, because the person she was makes terrible decisions and ignores the well being of others. She needs to stop being selfish and so blindingly sure of her own rightness, and start listening more to those around her.

I very much liked the introduction of Shepard, the "normal" who thanks to kindness, politeness and a healthy curiosity has discovered all manner of magical secrets. Through him, it becomes obvious just how arrogant, prejudiced and unaware of their own privilege the British magicians are. Seeing Simon, Baz and Penelope through his eyes was fun, and he's quite obviously being set up as a new, better love interest for Penelope. She took Micah entirely for granted and has hopefully learned that she needs to be a bit more present in a relationship to actually make it work. There are a lot of loose threads surrounding Shepard, but I have no doubt they will be tied off nicely in book 3.

In Carry On, Midwestern Rowell takes on the UK and boarding schools and does a truly excellent job at writing characters that feel properly British, complete with class differences, snobbery and the like. In Wayward Son, she gets to expand her world building and show how the magical system she has created works in a large, decentralised country like America. Baz' list of things he hates about road tripping through the Midwest is comedy gold, and I really liked the idea of magical dead zones in places too far away from humans for magic to work.

Discovering that of course all the other magic-possessing creatures and beasties don't much like the "speakers", as the magicians are known, because of their arrogance and their belief that their control over and ability to do magic is the only one that really counts. Getting to read about the various different attitudes of vampires, and how sheltered poor Baz has been. Penelope seems shocked that Shepard knows so much about magic and the supernatural, and that there are internet message boards discussing these things. Wizards and magical abilities are topics that should be totally secret, she cannot imagine that normal humans might be fascinated by it and want to learn more.

This book is a lot shorter than Carry On, but also moves at a much quicker pace, since it doesn't need to spend as long setting the stage as the first book. Jen K complains that the ending is rushed, and I agree with her, but I still liked that against staggering odds, mostly disillusioned and deprived of their magic, our intrepid heroes still banded together and did their best to rescue their friend, even knowing they might all die in the attempt. I can't wait to see what the third book holds, and desperately hope that having set her various characters on a path of self discovery and gradual healing, we get a more hopeful tone as the series wraps up. This turned out to be a very different book than I was expecting, but since it turns out that there's more Baz, Simon, Penelope, Agatha and Shepard in my future, I'm happy.

Judging a book by its cover: This book has been released with a huge variety of alternate covers, depending on which country it's coming out in, or what book store is selling it. All of the covers feature amazing artwork by the very talented Kevin Wada, and I absolutely love both Simon and Baz' looks here. My only complaint is that the little car at the bottom doesn't seem to contain Penelope, although I suppose the scene could be from when she was lying down in the back seat of the car, all depressed and gloomy.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 11: "The Girl Who Drank the Moon" by Kelly Barnhill

Page count: 400 pages
Ratin: 4.5 stars

Because tradition dicatates it, each year on a certain day, the council of elders in the Protectorate take an infant and leave it in the woods as a sacrifice to the witch. Bad things will happen to the settlement if they don't (although no one is really clear what dire consequences there will be, because there has never been a time when they didn't place a child in the woods). Normally, the grieving family whose child has been selected meekly go along with the council's edict, but one year, the infant's mother rages, screams and tries to fight back (can't say I blame her). She's locked away in a tower, run by sinister nuns. Antain is a young apprentice elder, and he is deeply discomfited by the whole thing. Eventually, he quits the council and becomes a carpenter instead.

Xan, the witch in the woods, travels to the same spot in the woods each year, to pick up the poor, abandoned child left there. She feeds the babies starlight and finds them good homes in the cities on the other side of the forest, far away from the Protectorate. These star children are always deeply cherished and go on to lead especially successful lives. This one year, she's a bit late, and flustered, she feeds the baby moonlight instead of starlight. Moonlight gives the recipient magical power, and before Xan has a chance to rectify it, little Luna (as she names the girl) is clearly brimming with magical potential. Because of the accident, Xan can't give Luna up to another family and takes it upon herself to raise the girl herself. Aided by Glerk, a pessimistic, yet very poetic bog monster and Fyrian, a tiny, hyperactive dragon, she does her best to teach Luna, while hoping that she can prepare her properly for her magical gifts, that are likely to come bursting forth around puberty.

As Luna happily grows older in Xan's care, her mother sits locked up in a tower in the Protectorate, making elaborate birds from paper she seems to conjure out of nothing, longing for her lost child. Antain, horribly scarred after a meeting with the madwoman, becomes a very successful carpenter, marries and gets his own child. However, the Protectorate tradition has marked his unborn baby the next to be left in the woods. Antain decides he has to track down the witch and stop her once and for all.

This book has already been reviewed a bunch of times by other Cannonballers, and as far as I can tell, they all really loved it. That's because this is an absolutely wonderful middle grade book, which I would have adored if it had been available to me growing up. It's a different kind of fairy tale, and subverts the reader's expectations several times throughout the story. I loved the way magic seems to work in the story, and the way the story slowly unfolded, giving little glimpses of important backstory portioned out along the way, so it took quite some time to understand the whole picture.

I loved the found family of Xan, who end up raising Luna, despite being really rather unprepared for the task of bringing up a very magically gifted child. I felt immense sympathy for poor Luna's mother and think I may also have been driven utterly mad had someone stolen my child away from me. I was very glad when they were eventually reunited, even as I ached for all the years they had lost.

I saw a Goodreads review that complained that while there are a number of interesting and powerful women in this story, all the male characters are utter buffoons. I'm not entirely sure what book that person has read, because that is not my experience here at all. Yes, there are some male characters that are stupid, but others who are very heroic and capable, if misinformed for parts of the story.

This book won the Newberry Medal in 2017, as well as several others, plus it was nominated for a bunch it didn't win. It's a lovely story, which while sad at times, has a proper and satisfying resolution. I can't wait for my son to be old enough to read it for himself.

Judging a book by its cover: Such a sweet book, such a lovely cover. I love everything about it, from the glowing paper birds, to the tiny dragon, to the giant moon with the dynamic little girl in front of it. If I recall correctly, the cover is one of the reasons I wanted to pick up this book in the first place.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 5: "The Winter of the Witch" by Katherine Arden

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 5 stars

Spoiler warning! This is the third and final volume in the trilogy, and the action starts immediately after the second book. This is not the place to start. If you are not caught up, drop everything and start from the beginning with The Bear and the Nightingale. 

Vasilisa "Vasya" Petrovna managed to defeat one enemy, but at a great cost. Releasing the legendary firebird has caused much of Moscow to catch fire and the citizens, spurred on by the vengeful and jealous Father Konstantin are looking for a scapegoat. Vasya is dragged from the safety of her sister's home by an angry mob and accused of witchcraft. Suffering a great personal loss in the process, she is determined to protect those she loves from further harm, and goes along with the crazed crowd.

Yet it is not Vasya's fate to die in a fire on the outskirts of Moscow. In a desperate attempt to keep his beloved safe, the frost demon Morozko has made a deal with his demonic brother Medved and freed the giant bear, dooming himself in the process, all in order to keep Vasya from burning. However, no helpless damsel, Vasya finds unexpected reserves of her own and rescues herself, fleeing into the realm of the supernatural to heal up, figure out how to undo Morozko's bargain, save the people of Moscow from Father Konstantin's toxic influence and make sure no more harm come to her family. As if that were not enough for one young woman to carry on her shoulders, a war is looming and Vasya may be the only one who can stop it.

Our Vasya has come a long way from her rural upbringing in the Russian forest. Truly a worthy example of "what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger", Vasya is turning into a force to be reckoned with. She has learned a lot about herself and her heritage, and escaping Father Konstantin and the furious mob determined to end her leads her further down the path of her family history. Previously just accused of witchcraft because of her ability to see and communicate with the many hearth and nature spirits around, Vasya's several trials and tribulations appear to have actually made it possible for her to tap into magic. Now she just has to make sure it doesn't drive her utterly mad, which the demon bear Medved seems to be gleefully hoping for.

Not realising just how resourceful an individual Vasya actually is, he formed a foolish bargain with his formerly imprisoned brother to ensure her survival. It led to the chaos-hungry demonic entity being free to cause further mischief, primarily by causing plague to spread through Moscow and zombie-like vampires to roam the streets, only held back by the seemingly super powered Father Konstantin. Once Vasya heals up, she needs to locate the now imprisoned frost demon she has come to love, before figuring out how to stop Medved and Father Konstantin.

Her entire life, Vasya has seen how the modern world and especially the spread of Christianity seems to be threatening the adherence to the old ways, and the spirits and supernatural entities who have helped her throughout her life are fading away. With the Mongol army threatening to conquer Russia once and for all, High Prince Dimitri needs to unite his people against the external threat. He needs all the help he can get, and Vasya, along with the unusual allies she has acquired, can lend invaluable aid.

While I thought it had a slow start, I was amazed at how much the story of The Bear and the Nightingale stayed with me. The Girl in the Tower was an amazing second volume, expanding on the world building, history and folklore. My expectations for The Winter of the Witch were very high, but amazingly, this book managed to exceed them. I'm very far behind on my reviews, and finished this book more than a month and a half ago, yet the story has stayed with me, and I keep thinking about little details on and off, still marvelling at how well all the story strands were tied up and the trilogy was concluded.

The series is an amazing way to learn more about medieval Russian political and social history, mythology and folklore. as well as be thoroughly entertained. Vasya is such a complex and fascinating protagonist, and I love how Katherine Arden resists the temptation to populate her novels with one-sided character tropes. There are complex reasons for the antagonists acting the way they do, there is never simply good or evil, but a fascinating array of motivations. Vasya's stepmother, Father Konstantin, Medved - none of them are wholly irredeemable. The supporting cast are all excellent, which raises the stakes when the action becomes tense, as you don't want anything bad to happen to them either. Without saying too much, this book had me in tears very early on, after a gut punch of an event, showing just how much Arden makes you care for the various human and non-human characters in the story. I loved discovering more about Vasya's family history and seeing her reach her full potential, in full feminist glory, was so satisfying.

While this was one of the very first books I read this year, I'm going to be very surprised if it doesn't end up on my 'Best of' list of 2019. If you haven't read Arden's books yet, do yourself a favour and check them out - the trilogy is completed, so you can have so much satisfying story without any pesky waiting for the next book.

Judging a book by its cover: Having recently studied all three covers for the series quite carefully (the cover art is so gorgeous), I can't help but notice that the tone changes from dark to light over the course of the books. As our heroine, Vasya, grows and matures and properly comes into her own, the covers become brighter and lighter. The cover for The Bear and the Nightingale shows the darkened woods in the middle of winter. The Girl in the Tower shows the outskirts of Moscow at dusk, with the sky in reds and oranges from the setting sun. This depicts Vasilisa Petrovna alone, yet unafraid, facing an army, with the firebird lighting up the sky ahead of her. I can't imagine these choices aren't deliberate. With each book, despite all the harrowing and horrible things that happen to Vasya along the way, her future gets brighter and more open.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.