I was loving this book so much up until we got to the third act. Then, by the time we got to the end, I wanted to throw my Kindle across the room. I fI was loving this book so much up until we got to the third act. Then, by the time we got to the end, I wanted to throw my Kindle across the room. I felt I had invested so much time and patience in this book that had gone from eerie, macabre, dark, and fascinating to scrabbling and messy and then it just slammed headlong into, “What the heck was that?”, and a general feeling that I had just wasted a great many hours of my time.
I love a good gothic horror mystery. I love good folk horror, and Jewish folklore is filled with some good material. I loved the premise of this book, and E. Saxey started this book out well! I was a happy little mouse, ensconced with Judith (our protagonist) as she stays alone (without a chaperone!) to grieve the loss of her sister’s fiance alone while her sister, mother, and her fiance’s brother are touring Italy together (they are, of course, under the assumption she has a chaperone, which is a con she set up herself so she could have the house and its quiet to herself). Sam, her sister’s fiance, perished roughly a year ago in an accident at a village festival when he fell and drowned in a river, though his body was never recovered.
Judith and her sister, Ruth, are big on rituals and harmless, made-up magic. Their father raised them on the folktales and mythology of England and fairy tales of the west when they first came to London. While their mother is selfish and cared not for much beyond wealth and their large house, their father spoiled them with pre-Raphaelite paintings, dresses straight out of middle ages so they could swan about like princesses, and a grand garden with a lake suited for two girls who wanted nothing more than to read about Lancelot and Guinevere or the Lady of Shalott. They were good Jewish girls, of course, until after their father died and they started keeping company with their new neighbors, Sam and Toby, and their mother never bothered to ensure her daughters’ reputations were kept secure. Ruth saw Sam as a sign that her prince had finally come. If only that had been true.
The first two acts of the book are filled with rituals, dread, fear, mystery, doubt, isolation, darkness, cold, feelings of wrong, rot, and decay. The feelings of being pushed, invaded, taken advantage of; but also the feelings of wanting to help but because you’re selfish, because you want, because you’re in the position to take.
Then, in the third act, it just starts to fall apart. Judith’s excuses for her actions fall thin and I lost my patience with her as a reader. The mystery has essentially been solved and yet she keeps hesitating to do the right thing. It feels like the book should be over and what hasn’t been resolved I had already guessed. The ending just unravels like a poorly-woven sweater, without any control to it. Then, the book just ends. No resolution. No denouement. It was like walking into a brick wall. I don’t know why E. Saxey chose that ending, but in my opinion it wasn't a fit ending for the book and it was a very poor choice. This review would’ve easily been a four star review without that ending.
I hope you like it better than I did.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Per personal policy this review will not appear on any social media or bookseller websites due to receiving a three star or lower rating. ...more
It’s not a good house for anyone, actually. Maybe a solitary adult male, but it seems that hypothesis has yet to be tested. Honestly, I think the housIt’s not a good house for anyone, actually. Maybe a solitary adult male, but it seems that hypothesis has yet to be tested. Honestly, I think the house just needs to be left alone. Maybe even knocked down. I don’t care how pretty and old and historic it is.
This book was honestly a creepier read than I thought it would be, but I think that may have something to do with being a mom. (If you aren’t a mom and it still creeped you out, then please feel free to let me know). I don’t creep out easily. I don’t get scared watching most horror films or reading most horror books, but one trigger I do have is my fitness as a mother and/or my capability to keep my children safe. A large part of this book has to do with mothers questioning their ability to keep their children safe and their fitness as a mother.
The setting does nothing but add to this dread. The titular house is called The Reeve, and it’s on a cliff in Dorset County in England. The house was built in the early 19th century, on top of those legendary Jurassic-era cliffsides, and has hardly been updated since. There are woods on one side of the property, and a large garden. In the early timeline, there’s a pond on the grounds. In the later timeline, the pond has been haphazardly filled in and covered with grass. This dwelling is far, far from any major city, sitting on the very southern coast of England where no one but locals and tourists have much interest in coming through because there’s not even a ferry crossing near the area. It’s isolated, on top of a hill, and doesn’t exactly look inviting. Not to mention, the locals all know The Reeve has a history to it, even if they don’t like to talk about it.
In the past timeline, set in the late 1970s, the story is told from the point of view of Lydia, a nanny for a widow named Sara who has four children. When Sara’s husband died, she sold their home in London and moved all of them out to The Reeve, which Sara’s husband had purchased for them as a summer home before he passed away. Sara works from home as an accountant, Lydia cares for the children, and a local lady named Dot comes in and does the cooking and some light cleaning.
In the present timeline, The Reeve is purchased by Nick and Orla, who were looking to move to the countryside and closer to his mom and dad. However, Nick didn’t even consult Orla before purchasing the home, and she felt obligated to go along with his decision. Their son, Sam, has selective mutism, and they have an infant girl as well. Nick promises to be home every weekend as he works during the week in Bristol, to help with the massive amount of repairs the house needs, and to buy Orla a car since he’s taking their only one. Nick, of course, either falls short on these things or doesn’t follow through at all.
Collins writes this book with an incredible sense of atmosphere and imagery. Her imagination is vibrant and she manages to capture on page these scenes filled with a combination of morbid wonder and fascinating dread: ghostly children sitting together on tree branches, ghost-white limbs disappearing around tree trunks, bushes, and through fields of tall grass. Dark hair whipping around a corner. A marble rolling down the stairs. Do ghosts live in a realm that adheres to temporal linearity? Are ghosts trapped only in their present and future, or is it possible that we can see ghosts of people who haven’t died yet?
I saw something that called this a feminist tale, and I have to disagree. Lydia doesn’t fully understand, comprehend, or try to empathize with Sara’s grief. All the women in town know there’s something wrong with Orla, yet they only make a token effort to intervene and support her. In the end, everyone–even the women–give up on Orla and Sara. No one tries to rescue them. It feels as if the mothers pay the price for the children, and that’s not feminist. Not at all.
Sadly, in a lot of cases it is realistic. And then those children are left without their mothers. Who says if they’re better off after that?
This book will creep you out and freak you out, but then it’ll make you think about the sacrifices women make in the name of motherhood and all the additional sacrifices we ask them to make. Ultimately, how much is too much to ask of a woman?
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
“...And women like hunting witches, too/ Doing your dirtiest work for you…”
From the first page until the last, this book is a deep well of sorrow and m“...And women like hunting witches, too/ Doing your dirtiest work for you…”
From the first page until the last, this book is a deep well of sorrow and mourning. It’s an elegy turned into a novel, a lament for all women lost to witch hunts (especially the specific one this novel is centered around). These pages are flooded with slow, creeping sadness; an ever-hovering sense of inevitability telling us readers things will only get worse. Things will only get uglier. Things will only get sicker.
We know how the witch hunts went. We know why they happened. We know how they spread. As much as we’d like to wholly point our fingers at the men in these stories, books like these remind us that we also need to check ourselves and remember we pointed our fingers at one another as well, ready to sacrifice even our sisters if it meant saving our own skins.
I applaud Margaret Meyer for choosing to write a main protagonist whose disability serves as both a physical and metaphorical plot device. Martha’s mutism (caused by a childhood illness) takes away her physical ability to speak up for herself or for any other woman and leaves her vulnerable to both ignorant and willful misinterpretation to those who would only see what they wish to see. In tandem, her mutism also metaphorically symbolizes the ways in which all women were not listened to, how their pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears, how no matter what they said their words were turned against them, and how in the end they fell silent on the noose. This aspect of the novel was both the saddest and most touching part, because no matter what Martha did, she knew there was precious little she could do to help when she had no voice. And that only made her feel guiltier.
Meyer composed a deeply moving novel that may be set against witch trials, but the themes of misogyny, internalized misogyny, male privilege, religious zealotry, bigotry, ableism, and more are all interwoven in an even, seamless pattern that starts off as simply ominous until all common sense, human compassion, or even a sense of human decency has been bled out of Martha’s village of Cleftwater. Then, and only then, when the village has hit its lowest low, can the tide begin to change. By this time, Cleftwater is left with a collective trauma.
Even though this book is full of despair and shows the deep, dark ugliness that can lie inside the human heart, it’s so impeccably crafted and beautifully written that I couldn’t stop reading it. I was glued to the page because I needed to see how these women would survive. I needed to know who would make it and how. I needed to see if any of them would make it, frankly. I needed to see if there would be vengeance. I needed to see what would be left at the end of the madness. I was engaged, I was invested, and I felt like I needed to witness this.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Folk Horror/Historical Fiction/Literary Fiction/Women’s Fiction ...more
This is not a romance. For the record, this isn’t a romantic book in any sense of the word. But, just like the title implies, it is a love story–just This is not a romance. For the record, this isn’t a romantic book in any sense of the word. But, just like the title implies, it is a love story–just not the love story between a boy and a girl (though a boy and a girl do fall in love, I suppose).
Iron Curtain: A Love Story is about Milena, one of communism’s Red Princesses, and though one might be tricked into thinking this is a traditional love story, it’s not. Milena is in love with one thing and one thing only, and that is her homeland, behind the Iron Curtain. That’s the genius behind this whole book, a communist Cold War twist on “There’s no place like home”.
Milena Urbanska ran away from her communist homeland not because she hated communism and wanted to defect; no, she ran away because she was young, she had witnessed something traumatizing when she was younger that had shifted some of her thinking, she didn’t want to be forced into marriage at her parent’s hands, she didn’t want to be a politiburo wife, and she was sick of being who she was and of everyone knowing everything about her and constantly being a subject of conversation across the country. So she decides to slip away to England and marry the young Irish poet she had fallen in love with when he was in her country a few years prior, even though she hates the western world. She’s hoping their love and his poetry fame will make up for living in a Capitalist society.
But best laid plans…
England is both everything she thought it might be and nothing like she knew it would be. She hates it. There’s only two things she loves about England: fresh vegetables and her in-laws. At first, she’s deliriously in love with her husband, too. But in Thatcher-era England, being poor was more than a kick in the teeth, and it didn’t help that Milena’s husband seemed to fancy himself a man who ran on Lady Luck and whimsy.
This novel is full of a specific type of ennui I love: A sense of listlessness, of not knowing what to do with oneself. It’s the feeling of being in some kind of suspended state between two choices or situations you’ve been presented with but not being able to determine which is the lesser of two evils. You hate your life, but either not enough to leave it or you’re too stubborn to give up just yet.
I’m a sucker for Cold War-era fiction. Well, I’m a sucker for Russian historical fiction in general. I loved the research and detail put into this book, both on the Russian and British sides. It couldn’t have been easy researching everything from Thatcher economics to Russian Nationalism and how one could fly from the USSR to Cuba and how many different stops they could make while doing so.
Vesna Goldworthy’s characters blaze to life, each so distinct in voice, style, and worldview they not only form the unshakeable framework for this novel but they also create the ebb and flow around Milena, moving her around in that suspended state, all making impacts large and small on her life and decisions as they go.
I can’t say anything else about this book other than it was a tremendously lovely read that I highly recommend.
I was provided with a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, views, and opinions expressed in this review are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: Historical Fiction/Literary Fiction/Political Fiction/Satire/5 Star Reads ...more
I went into this book expecting something different than what I got. Sometimes, this can be a good thing. This time, it’s not entirely the “blurb baitI went into this book expecting something different than what I got. Sometimes, this can be a good thing. This time, it’s not entirely the “blurb bait” that turned me sour, it was the prose. Jim Bartley may think he’s written a clever dark comedy full of unfortunate violence in the tradition of the Coen Brothers, but the book never comes off as that clever. It just comes off as quite boring.
I was also hoping there would be more to the romance between Wes and Cam than what was portrayed in the book. I’m not talking about explicitness–I’m talking about mentioning it at all in any terms besides just mentioning it as an afterthought here or there or whenever someone else brings it up in a (historically-accurate) derogatory way. The way their relationship is portrayed almost makes it feel cheap.
It was just a disappointment on my end.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. Due to this review being three stars or lower this review will not appear in social media. ...more
This novel, written with great care and love by Emilia Hart, is most obviously about women and their connection to the earth and to nature. To what beThis novel, written with great care and love by Emilia Hart, is most obviously about women and their connection to the earth and to nature. To what being kept away from it does to us and what being steeped in it does for us. That’s the way it’s always been.
It is also, under the surface, a treatise on how men fundamentally can’t (and therefore don’t or won’t) understand that connection women have to the earth and consistently covet them and snatch them up like magpies and then cage them and guard them sometimes to the point of violence. Men are the hunters. Women are the hunted. The more innate power a woman carries, the more men will be drawn to her. That’s the way it’s always been.
Weyward takes these two ideas, both of which are true if you dig down to our evolutionary roots, and soaks them in magical realism, lovely prose, vivid imagery, terrific world building, and careful character construction to weave together three timelines featuring women of the Weyward family line and how these two themes affect(ed) their lives, relationships, travails, and how the rest of their lives panned out. Each story is filled with earnest and heartfelt emotion.
While at times a touch too on the nose or melodramatic, this novel is one I’d definitely recommend picking up for a lyrical and moving read.
I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All views, thoughts, and opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: Historical Fiction/Literary Fiction/Magical Realism/Women’s Fiction/5 Star Reads ...more
There’s nothing that seems to sting more in the ARC reading business than having a novel you’ve been really excited about all year completely let you There’s nothing that seems to sting more in the ARC reading business than having a novel you’ve been really excited about all year completely let you down.
I’ve been looking forward to Silver Nitrate all year because it’s the first time I’ve been approved for the ARC of one of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novels. Come on, folks! Mexican horror films and Nazi occultism? How in the ever-living heck am I going to pass that up! How could I resist such plot yumminess?
I tried really hard to love this book. I tried to even like it. All this book did for me is fall absolutely flat and boring.
The error doesn’t fall with Moreno-Garcia’s writing, because she knows how to intrigue you, how to craft a plot, how to world build, and I don’t even want to know what her browser history looks like or how much time she spent in research libraries to get the world building as impeccable as she did. If there’s one thing you never have to worry about with Moreno-Garcia is atmosphere: the woman knows her craft. You won’t see a single anachronism in her books.
The issue I came across in this book was the completely unenjoyable and uninteresting main characters and the slow, plodding pace of the book itself. While I do enjoy a horror novel that builds dread and foreboding as it works towards its conclusion, this book just seemed to plod along without bringing along that dread and foreboding. Whenever something spooky or creepy happens, it just has a feeling of, “Oh, so that happened,” instead of feeling like something profoundly scary happened.
I really wish I could’ve come away from this novel saying it was as spectacular as I had hoped, but between the narration style, the snail-like pace, and the lack of chills, it just wasn’t my cup of tea.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. As per personal policy this review will not appear on any bookseller or social media websites due to a three star or lower rating. ...more
For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.
And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. (King James Version, Mark 5.8-9)
It’s 1905 in Pennsylvania, and we’re at a Catholic orphanage for boys. Our protagonist, Peter, has been at the orphanage for seven years, ever since his father shot his mother (accidentally setting the house on fire in the process), and then put his shotgun under his own skin and pulled the trigger in front of young Peter. Since that night he’s been at St. Vincent’s, and is almost ready to enter the priesthood himself, if he can decide he loves serving God enough to give up hopes of marrying the Hill girl down the road someday.
It’s early winter in Pennsylvania, and everyone is trying to get ready for the time when they’ll all be hunkering down as the snow falls, the rough roads become impassable, the game goes to ground or is all hunted down, and there is not even one root vegetable left in the ground. The orphanage, already living on Christian charity alone, barely has enough food to feed their charges, which number close to 40. They are completely full of growing boys of all ages, and not one of them isn’t living with their own inner demons.
Not the biblical ones, silly.
Not until one night, when the county sheriff brings his horribly injured and possessed brother to the door of the orphanage and begs the priests to help save his brother’s soul. That night, something dark is let loose on hallowed ground and into the vulnerable souls of damaged boys.
The thing about darkness is that you never know who it’s going to affect, why it’s going to affect them, and just how bad it’s going to be when it hits them. Sometimes it’s the ones you suspect the most. Sometimes, it’s the last ones you expect.
This book is stark and bleak, but vividly drawn with gore and terror. There’s a great juxtaposition between heroism and sainthood. There’s another great juxtaposition between being made evil and being primed for evil (we’re leaving the moral/philosophical argument about the notion of evil out of this since this book is set in a highly religious landscape and has a lot of biblical references). This book is no Hobbes v. Rousseau treatise: Everyone in this book is uniquely gray in their own way. It’s how they have dealt with their personal demons, how they have lived their life in the orphanage, how they have helped the other orphans, and how they handle the demonic infestation that endangers them all that helps to shine a light on their true natures.
Don’t think the adults are exempt from this same judgment. They have to face the same God, after all.
I was absolutely thrilled by the evil children, because I loves me some evil children. Especially if demons are involved. There’s a good deal of blood, guts, decay, and gore, so that makes me a happy horror fan. The fight scenes are violent and bloody and I’m here for it. It’s super violent and there’s a ton of death. It has an almost cinematic vibe to it, which absolutely thrilled me.
I don’t issue a laundry list of TW/CW, but I am going to say that if you are the type of person to have triggers involving kids, animals, or religion, then I think you might wanna stay away or look for a comprehensive trigger list online.
Otherwise, let the blood fly!
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, ideas, and views expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Gothic Fiction/Historical Fiction/Horror/Occult Fiction/Occult Horror ...more
I tried to like this book. I really did. But by 20 minutes into what was supposed to be an espionage thriller with some serial killer elements thrown I tried to like this book. I really did. But by 20 minutes into what was supposed to be an espionage thriller with some serial killer elements thrown in, I was bored out of my mind.
And the real story hadn’t even begun yet. Our protagonist, for lack of a better way to sum it up, hadn’t even accepted the call to adventure. More time in that 20% of story was spent describing how cold Belarus is than on the story itself.
We get it. Belarus is really cold.
This book is scattered, with no real through line and no steady story arc to hold the entire thing together. It’s like a whole bunch of really good thoughts that really needed a competent, solid editor to put their foot down and demand everything be brought together into something more cohesive. The book, as it exists, is like a tangled head of hair that needs to be brushed.
I just don’t understand how you can take this concept and make it so bland and, well, lost. I’m actually a little mad Kathleen Kent took such potential and wasted it.
I was provided a copy of this book by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, views, and opinions contained herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. Owing to the 3 star or under rating, this review will not appear on any social media or bookseller website. ...more
I think I know what this book was aiming for. I think I know what story it wanted to tell and what it wanted to say. The issue is that this book felt I think I know what this book was aiming for. I think I know what story it wanted to tell and what it wanted to say. The issue is that this book felt completely aimless. It took too long to get into the actual plot, it took too long to build the world, it took too long to get to know any of the characters, and it took until nearly halfway through the book to even get a good feel for what we were really looking at in a big-picture way.
This book is based on true events, but even when a book is based on true events that doesn’t mean the story writes itself. There still has to be craft there. I thought maybe this book could be incredible. The prologue was really interesting. It was enough to hook me and get me through the first 25% of the book hoping to recapture the feel of the prologue. At 50% I realized it never was going to be less of a slog and it was never going to recapture any suspense or thrill for me. It’s such a shame to waste that potential.
Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for granting me access to this title. As per personal policy this review will not appear on any social media or bookseller website due to the 3 star or lower rating. ...more
This is a book about bondage. Yes, it is somewhat about bondage like the cover shows, but it’s really about all sorts of bondage women could be bound This is a book about bondage. Yes, it is somewhat about bondage like the cover shows, but it’s really about all sorts of bondage women could be bound in the time period this book is set in, especially when that bondage involves the will of men or the power of money.
The cover calls this “a novel of suspense”, but if you’re looking for some high-wire suspense thriller or suspense mystery, you’re looking in the wrong place. This is more of a low thrumming, steadily beating, pastoral sort of suspense novel. The gothic isolation and overall story of trying to undermine and find a way out of an untenable situation with an awful patriarchal overlord is a more quiet and furtive pursuit for a lady’s maid in the 1800s than in most other suspense novels you may read this year. And this is, indeed, a rather quiet book, despite its cover.
I like this book, though, because it’s so unassuming and has no pretenses. It simply is what it is: a historical fiction novel that brings us some suspense, some mystery, some romance, and lovely prose. The narrative isn’t heavy, which can be an issue with some historical novels set in this time period, nor is the dialogue melodramatic, which can also be an issue. The small details a frequent reader of historical fiction would notice have been neatly taken care of, as far as I can tell, which is something I always look at in reading HF. The characters are outstanding, and their moral dilemmas, as written, would be quite consistent with the social mores and conventions of the time. Sure, even the Victorians got a little spicy and liked more than a little slap and tickle, but only the rich and privileged would have had the freedom to express such feelings without consequence (because they would have been the only ones who could pay for loyal silence).
This book does have a non-linear timeline of sorts, too. The book has scenes set in the past, when two of the main characters are young and live in one of London’s workhouses, and then in the present as they work together at Valor Rise. There are also letters from the FMC to an anonymous receiver interspersed throughout the novel. I greatly enjoyed the scenes set at the workhouse, because I believe the past scenes greatly helped to inform the present scenes. In some books I believe a juxtaposed timeline like this is extraneous, but in this book I fully believe it works really well.
Overall, it’s an enjoyable page-turning novel. I greatly enjoyed it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for granting me access to this novel.
I struggle with labeling this book as a young adult book. Not because I don’t think it’s age-appropriate, but because I think it’s doing the book a diI struggle with labeling this book as a young adult book. Not because I don’t think it’s age-appropriate, but because I think it’s doing the book a disservice: this book should be promoted to be read by all ages. There have been a great deal of novels over time that could technically be labeled as being “young adult” (“The Call of the Wild” comes to mind), but since they were written prior to the time when the publishing industry started marketing books toward certain demographics to maximize profit they simply were read by anyone who found them interesting and then some of them became classics. Now some of those same books and some that I would argue aren’t even relevant to young adults or even important for them to read during their formative years are still considered required reading, while books labeled as “young adult” still struggle to be included in middle school and high school curriculums, even if they might be more relevant to today’s teens and young adults. Not to mention there are a great many adults who turn their noses up at any books labeled as “young adult” simply for the label, when they might be passing up a great opportunity to read an important and beautifully written book.
Such is the case with “The Hunger Between Us”. The cover, on first blush, almost makes the book look like it’s a sapphic romance. What it is, though, is a tragic, moving, violent, desperate tale of a starving girl named Liza during the Siege of Leningrad during WWII (this event was not classified as a war crime at the time, but many historians consider it to be close to an attempted genocide). During the two-plus years this event lasted, Leningrad’s citizens were trapped in the city with no way to get food or medical help, causing millions to starve or die of various illnesses or infections. Many were brutalized by their own country’s soldiers, not to mention Russia’s secret police (the precursors to the KGB), who were hiding in plain sight everywhere and ready to report on anyone showing the slightest bit of disloyalty.
I have a… fondness for Russian history. On my father’s side there’s a good deal of Russian in our blood, and out of me and my two siblings, I look the most Russian. (My siblings look like great big Anglo Saxon Germans.) That’s what piqued my interest in this book, and I wasn’t disappointed. The research that went into his book shows in the intricate, depressing, atmospheric, and painful details. You could feel the illness and the starvation on a visceral level. You can vividly imagine the feelings of longing for just one person you could trust–just one person you could hold onto as your world crumbles around you. You can feel the momentary yearning Liza has every once and awhile to just close her eyes and give up. What keeps her going is the search for her best and closest friend, who went out for food one day and didn’t come back. Liza is determined to find her, no matter what she has to do to find the answer.
It’s a compelling read, but not an easy one. As a reader, I needed to find out the answer as much as Liza did, even though I had an inkling what the answer was from the start. I just didn’t want to believe it, because I wanted Liza to have just a smidge of something happy in her life. Just that one thing she yearned for, the one thing from her life before the war she could hold onto. Liza is so sick and so depressed, but she’s brave and determined in the face of so much hate, evil, violence, and death. I’m rarely so invested in seeing a character succeed like this. But if anyone deserves a happy ending in a book, it’s Liza.
Thanks to NetGalley and FSG for granting me access to this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to read a book based on real-life teenage twin spirit mediums from the early 20th century set in Sacramento, the ciI wasn’t going to pass up a chance to read a book based on real-life teenage twin spirit mediums from the early 20th century set in Sacramento, the city I’ve lived in most of my adult life (don’t look for me there right now though, lol). Not only do I love a good tale about spiritualists and spiritual movements, but I love historical fiction set in Sacramento. I think it’s the part of me that wants to test the mettle of the author and gleefully see if they’ve done their due diligence when it comes to researching California’s weird capital city.
I absolutely loved the accuracy Glaze got with all of the real-life historical elements of Sacramento, right down to the historically accurate street layouts of the time (which are somewhat different now) and the modes of transportation available at the time and which streets they were available on (for instance, the omnibus only ran on K Street). It’s that kind of research and detail that absolutely thrills a reader like me who is intimately familiar with the history of Sacramento (part of my Geography degree is in Urban Planning, so I did some field studies in our downtown area and became familiar with the historical layout of that area). And I love seeing mentions of real historical figures (Miss Crocker, whose family name and mansion would go on to become the Crocker Art Museum, which is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the city) and real historical landmarks like the Union Hotel, which is located inside of the Old Sacramento waterfront (a state historical park and a historical landmark) and currently houses an Irish pub.
Like I said, it’s stuff like this–the devil in the details–that separates great historical fiction from mediocre historical fiction.
So, I think it’s safe to say I loved the plot of the book. Where the book lost some points for me was the pacing. It started off slow and took me a while to get into. I honestly didn’t know if I was going to really get into it for about the first 25% of the book. Then it started to pick up a little, but I still wasn’t fully invested until close to 35%. After that? It was smooth sailing and I enjoyed it all the way through to the end.
I do have one warning: While I personally don’t have literary triggers, I know some others do. Eugenics is a huge trigger for me as a talking point, but not in fiction. There is some talk of eugenics and asylums due to the time period in which this book is set. If you feel this may trigger you, proceed with caution and take care of yourself.
Thanks to NetGalley and Union Square & Co. for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
I’ve expressed my deep and abiding love for a deftly crafted novella before. I trace this love of short stories and novellas back to a course I took iI’ve expressed my deep and abiding love for a deftly crafted novella before. I trace this love of short stories and novellas back to a course I took in community college, when we would take stories like these apart and analyze them to pieces. (In non-shocking news, that’s also where I got my love of literary analysis as a whole from). There’s just something so spectacular about authors who can master the art of economy of words. Who can tell a whole novel’s worth of story in 200 words or less. To leave you feeling as fulfilled by their story as you would if you had read a much longer one. You may think it’s an easy job, but many authors would be willing to tell you it’s not.
“Even Though I Knew the End” is a beautifully written example of genre mashup literature. By that, I mean that there are so many genres kneaded into this story that the bread of it is an amalgamation of historical fiction/romance/fantasy/mystery, occult fiction, and LGBT+ fiction/romance/fantasy. I tend to love when authors go wild like this, when they let their imaginations run free and their fingers out to play over theirs keyboards, not stopping to think too deeply about things like, “How can I make a sapphic romance in the 1930s if I add in occultism and some really wicked magic?” and just letting the words flow. I’m sure Polk had to reign herself in at some point to wrestle the book into submission and bring method to the madness, but short stories and novellas are a great place to let experimental pieces out to play.
The story itself is mostly a fantasy/occult mystery wound around a powerful private detective/magician (though that’s not the term they use for her in the book) who’s on a very tight schedule and is in a long-term relationship with a woman who she wants to protect at all costs. There’s a big bad in town, and a powerful demon client wants our protagonist to find it so it can be taken out. Problem is, the powers that be in Chicago don’t like our protagonist very much, considering she doesn’t have a soul. I’d tell you more, but there be spoilers, and I don’t deal in those.
The magic system isn’t explained in any real detail, but it’s not something that really could be explained unless you sat down and wrote a manual, because it’s based in things like phases of the moon, numerology, astrology, planetary hours (which is also known as the Chaldean order), sacred geometry, and prayers. It’s more fun just to roll with it, honestly, because why would you want to spend pages with magic system exposition when you could be spending time wrapped in lovely prose, an alternative version of 1930s Chicago, and a beautiful love story between two women who really just want to move to San Francisco someday?
It’s really a fabulous read. Entertaining, compelling, fun, and beautiful. I highly recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley, MacMillan-Tor/Forge, and Tordotcom for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
This book hit me like a gut punch. I’m telling you, my reaction to the first act of this book was visceral. I don’t normally find books hard to read, This book hit me like a gut punch. I’m telling you, my reaction to the first act of this book was visceral. I don’t normally find books hard to read, but I related so much to Alejandra as a mother who feels so isolated and lonely in her marriage and in motherhood that I was absolutely transfixed by this book despite how much it was making my heart hurt. I knew I had to keep reading, not just for Alejandra and her story, but for my own sake. I needed to see this story through.
I’m so glad I did. Books about generational trauma, no matter the culture (in this book it’s Mexican) are not only some of my favorite books to read but I feel like they are some of the most important books I read. They’ve become even more important as scientists discover more and more how different generational traumas (one example is poverty) can affect our DNA, truly passing the trauma down, right into our very genetic makeup. But besides the science, generational trauma is a real thing, and it can be a dangerous thing. My whole maternal line is full of generational trauma, much like Alejandra. Granted, mine doesn’t come with La Llarona, but it does come with mental illness, a need to please people, and a ton of built-in guilt, but what can you do?
This book is told non-linearly and from multiple POVs. It’s easy to see the rhyme and reason in taking this approach when you’re reading the book, and when Castro switches POV it’s only for a very short time. And when the timeline shifts, it’s always into the past to serve both as exposition and to show how the generational trauma has presented itself before in Alejandra’s maternal line.
I think this book may be a little divisive if you haven’t had kids or if generational trauma isn’t something that resonates with you for some reason. (Please note I said “may be”--not “will be”). We all know there are people in the developed world who know nothing but privilege. This book may not ring as true with those who have never known hardship.
The prose is spooky, ethereal, evocative, and emotionally moving. “La Llarona” itself is spectacularly ghoulish and demonic in how it is described, how it speaks, and in how Castro both explains the character and its motivations in the specter’s inner narrative. It was absolutely nice to actually find an antagonist to be creepy instead of just mildly freaky.
I was moved, I was creeped out, I was scared for Alejandra and her children, and I loved every single minute of reading this brilliant book. It’s a great read.
I was provided a copy of the title by NetGalley and the author. All opinions, views, ideas, and thoughts expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
You know, I’ve been seeing reviewers comparing this novel to “Knives Out”, and I honestly can’t see any resemblance between Real Rating: 3.5 / 5 Stars
You know, I’ve been seeing reviewers comparing this novel to “Knives Out”, and I honestly can’t see any resemblance between the two besides the two properties both being closed-loop mysteries involving the head of a wealthy family being murdered. Other than that, I can’t think of them being anything alike. So if you want to take this reviewer’s opinion into consideration when looking to read this novel, I can tell you (as a huge “Knives Out” fan who watches it all the time) that if you’re looking for a book that’s similar to that movies, then “Lavender House” is not it.
That’s not to say that “Lavender House” doesn’t have its own charms, though I don’t seem to have fallen in love with the book as many other readers and reviewers have. It’s a closed loop mystery in the style of Agatha Christie and her detective Hercule Poirot, but with some of the pulp charm of hard boiled noir detectives like Raymond Chandler’s Sam Spade. By this, I mean that the mystery and setting themselves are closer to Christie, but the detective himself is like a queer version of Sam Spade… or maybe queer Sam Spade just as he started up his PI business.
I’ve got a great deal of love for old dogs that are taught new tricks in our glittering world of literati: when we take the old tropes, genres, and more and breathe new life into them using the issues, themes, and conflicts we face today. What this book shows us, in a way, is that we faced these issues back when Raymond Chandler was even writing Sam Spade novels, but some of those issues more than often had even more life-threatening consequences back then than they do now. Consequently, it’s only now that authors can write novels using those genres and tropes to showcase those dangers without facing the end of their careers or worse.
“Lavender House” has a great story to tell and great lessons to impart about queer love in mid-century America and a little about queer history in San Francisco, but the mystery itself is where the story fell flat for me. It’s not that I could guess who was the killer; it’s rather that I didn’t much care. I ended up being much more intrigued about the family, the detective, and the other characters than I did about the mystery death at the heart of the book. I’d say you have a huge problem if your reader doesn’t care about the mystery in your mystery novel.
I still recommend it, because the glimpse of what it takes to live a queer life in 1950s San Francisco is really worth it.
Thanks to NetGalley and Forge Books for granting me access to this title.
While it was the title and its play on words (a clever twist on John le Carre’s novel “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”) that caught my attention (and I havWhile it was the title and its play on words (a clever twist on John le Carre’s novel “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”) that caught my attention (and I have no doubt that was the author’s intention), it was the blurb that got me excited. It promised a thriller: sinister and tantalizing. What I felt I got was a book that was so slow to start I wondered if I was even reading the right book (I don’t think the actual plot activated in any minor way until between 25% or 30% of the way in, which is just about anathema in any novel that purports to be a thriller, in my opinion). Even after the plot kicked in the pacing was uneven, the characters weren’t compelling, and the book simply never felt like a thriller.
Back in June, I read William Martin’s “December ‘41”, which is a WWII espionage thriller and WWII historical fiction novel. As a matter of fact, when I reviewed the title, it was categorized exactly the same as “Mother Daughter Traitor Spy” is on Amazon right now. That book is also set in the same time period, starts in Los Angeles with a lot of the same real-life players and the same real-life locations before spinning off into their own plots. Yet “Mother Daughter Traitor Spy” felt like a women’s historical fiction than a thriller at any time. Dramatic and suspenseful, sure, but a thriller? No.
I really wanted this book to wow me, to give me the female spy vibes I longed for. But it just fell flat.
Thanks to Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine Books, and Bantam for granting me early access to this title. Due to the 3 star or lower rating, this review will not appear on any social media or bookseller website. This is my personal policy as an ARC and book reviewer. ...more
“Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.” - Emily Dickinson
This stanza f“Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.” - Emily Dickinson
This stanza from one of Dickinson’s most well-known poems looped in the background of my brain the entire time I was reading Adalyn Grace’s “Belladonna”, almost as if this lovely set of four lines was the entire inspiration behind the book. For all I know, it could be: gothic, atmospheric, haunting, and romantic in nature, “Belladonna” is a book I could see a modern-day Emily Dickinson writing one of those little blurbs of praise that publishers use to market books to the masses.
Atropa Belladonna (beware the beautiful lady), also known as Nightshade, has been a staple of the poisoner’s arsenal for centuries, if not for over a millenia. On the flip side, as with most poisons, it also has positive medicinal properties (it can be used to ease cramps, for one). This book is filled with juxtapositions like this: beautiful ladies with ugly intentions, genial men with avaricious eyes, gentle souls with dark secrets, and so on. That’s only the start of what makes this book so interesting.
Adalyn Grace has managed to go back to the time of the Romantics and write an absolutely lovely book about death. About the love behind it. About how it’s not something to fear but something that’s inevitable and something to eventually embrace. Modern society does nothing but tell us day after day how we should do this and that to extend our lives. The pressure to be this or do that or buy this or eat that or don’t drink that thing you are craving but instead drink more wheatgrass pervade our screens, pages, billboards, subway stations, and bus stops. This book goes back to a time when you knew death would come for you one day, and sometimes death wasn’t fair. And, for those who were brave enough to step away from polite society, life could be lived to its fullest, in relative solitude, eating what one wished and drinking what one wished until such time as death came to one’s doorstep.
The prose is lovely and the world building is indulgent without tipping over into overly descriptive. The characters are striking and unique, even the ones you end up not caring for much by the end. In the end it’s a splendid book that will feed your gothic romance needs.
Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown for Young Readers for granting me access to this book.
Merged review:
“Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality.” - Emily Dickinson
This stanza from one of Dickinson’s most well-known poems looped in the background of my brain the entire time I was reading Adalyn Grace’s “Belladonna”, almost as if this lovely set of four lines was the entire inspiration behind the book. For all I know, it could be: gothic, atmospheric, haunting, and romantic in nature, “Belladonna” is a book I could see a modern-day Emily Dickinson writing one of those little blurbs of praise that publishers use to market books to the masses.
Atropa Belladonna (beware the beautiful lady), also known as Nightshade, has been a staple of the poisoner’s arsenal for centuries, if not for over a millenia. On the flip side, as with most poisons, it also has positive medicinal properties (it can be used to ease cramps, for one). This book is filled with juxtapositions like this: beautiful ladies with ugly intentions, genial men with avaricious eyes, gentle souls with dark secrets, and so on. That’s only the start of what makes this book so interesting.
Adalyn Grace has managed to go back to the time of the Romantics and write an absolutely lovely book about death. About the love behind it. About how it’s not something to fear but something that’s inevitable and something to eventually embrace. Modern society does nothing but tell us day after day how we should do this and that to extend our lives. The pressure to be this or do that or buy this or eat that or don’t drink that thing you are craving but instead drink more wheatgrass pervade our screens, pages, billboards, subway stations, and bus stops. This book goes back to a time when you knew death would come for you one day, and sometimes death wasn’t fair. And, for those who were brave enough to step away from polite society, life could be lived to its fullest, in relative solitude, eating what one wished and drinking what one wished until such time as death came to one’s doorstep.
The prose is lovely and the world building is indulgent without tipping over into overly descriptive. The characters are striking and unique, even the ones you end up not caring for much by the end. In the end it’s a splendid book that will feed your gothic romance needs.
Thanks to NetGalley and Little, Brown for Young Readers for granting me access to this book....more
While not as complex and layered in themes as her recent works like this year’s “Sundial”, Catriona Ward’s “Little Eve” is still an impeccably writtenWhile not as complex and layered in themes as her recent works like this year’s “Sundial”, Catriona Ward’s “Little Eve” is still an impeccably written gothic horror tale set in the early half of the 20th century in Scotland, involving a prophet-like “Uncle” and the cadre of girls, young ladies, and one boy who have somehow come to live with him by one reason or another and are bound by his beliefs and words about how they came from the sea, are for the sea, and that the world will end when a great serpent encircles the earth.
Catriona Ward knows how to cast a spell with her words and sentences: her writing could almost be mistaken for a cantrip with how the time passes so effortlessly as you read her books. Reading Catriona Ward is never a chore, for she knows the economy of words and the magic that comes from imparting just the right amount of information at the right time and leaving some more information for later. You have to leave them always wanting more, and she knows that. Like someone who’s been starved, you can’t just feed them a feast or they will get sick. You give them a little bit of what they need at a time until it’s okay for them to have more. That’s what good horror and good suspense is supposed to be like. That’s what good editing is like. A steady line that never slacks off or sways. You are fed a steady diet of horror, exposition, characterization, imagery, inner thoughts, side characters, and a bite of subplot here and there as you turn page after page after page.
The theme, while relatively simple and classic, is turned sinister and poisonous by its origin: competing for a father figure’s affections. Longing to appease the parental figure in your life and coming to realize that parental figure is human and fallible. While “Sundial” also deals with themes of family, “Little Eve” deals with it in a twisted and stained manner, with the word and notion that these people are “family” banned by their “Uncle” as if he can truly dispel the ties and bonds that come to form between people kept together in seclusion for so long together in an isolated castle by the sea.
The characters are complex, traumatized, and have that inherent vulnerability that emits from those who you know are inevitably damned, whether they live or die at the end. The plot arc is rich and satisfying, even if some of the great turn was easily guessed. Nonetheless, even a Catriona Ward book that loses one star is still well worth reading.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for granting me access to this title.
This book isn’t as disturbing as I thought it would be but is definitely sadder than I thought it would be. I knew going in I would feel a great deal This book isn’t as disturbing as I thought it would be but is definitely sadder than I thought it would be. I knew going in I would feel a great deal of anger reading this book, with its themes of sexualizing females too young in advertising and movies and how show moms and momagers live their showbiz dreams vicariously through their daughters in some self-serving narcissist power trip. These themes always make me mad yet somehow I will keep reading about them because narcissistic moms are a thing I can relate to and somehow I can never turn away books that seriously tackle the issues surrounding the exploitation of children.
T. Greenwood doesn’t have the same gift of prose as some other writers in this genre or who have written books about this or similar topics, but she does have a great way with words when it comes to world building, setting the scene, and building her characters. Luckily, since this novel is partially set in 1970s New York, which is one of the most popular and well-documented eras for the city, Greenwood likely had a wealth of information at her fingertips with which to comb through while doing her research. But we all know that you can give someone eggs and that doesn’t mean they can make an omelet. Greenwood took all that information and she pulled out exactly what she needed and wanted in order to bring New York in the late 1970s to life. She also has a way with description and imagery, giving us enough of the picture so we can see what’s necessary to see and then letting us fill in the rest for ourselves. We can fill in the smells and colors of both New York in 2019 and the late ‘70s.
Greenwood’s characters don’t necessarily leap off the page; they’re not as vibrant as all that. Instead, they lure you in. This whole book brings you into it instead of springing up around you. I think that’s the sheer nostalgia and melancholia that saturates the book. This book is steeped in fear, anxiety, and flight. This book doesn’t want to be friends with you, it isn’t welcoming. Like the main character, who has spent 30 years hiding from her acting career and her past, this book sees you as a voyeur, looking into a private life that isn’t yours to consume.
I personally don’t give trigger warnings for books, but if you worry about being triggered while reading this book, then you should really look into seeing if you can find them somewhere, because while I wasn’t triggered while reading it, I can totally see where some people might be.
It’s a dark, dramatic, sad read, but I still highly recommend it for those who enjoy these types of books and don’t mind the content.
Thanks to NetGalley and Kensington Books for granting me access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
File Under: Women’s Fiction/Psychological Fiction/General Fiction/Historical Fiction/Coming of Age Fiction ...more
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