#TBRChallenge – Location, Location, Location: A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney

A Spectral Hue by Craig Laurance Gidney was on my TBR for two reasons: first, I know the author, and second, I knew it involved at least one fictional quilter, and I love reading about quilting. It’s mostly a ghost story, though not a straightforward one; the ghost’s story is a puzzle which you grow to understand in bits and pieces of information coming from different times and settings and characters.

The town of Shimmer is surrounded by Chesapeake marsh, in coastal Maryland, the Eastern Shore. Art graduate student Xavier Wentworth goes there to study their long tradition of African-American “outsider” artists at the local Whitby-Grayson Museum, especially quilter Hazel Whitby and painter Shadrach Grayson. Xavier himself has moved from making art to writing about it.

I was very much amused that Xavier calls Whitby’s improvisational quilts “tapestries,” as if he can’t bear to use such a utilitarian name for fabric art. He points out that the quilts “aren’t functional.” Perhaps he associates quilt with Craft rather than Art, and places Craft lower in his artistic hierarchy, as his academic advisor does with casual verbal brutality. Perhaps he just wants to fight against a common perception that quilters, or at least Whitby, can’t be artists. Both of his academic advisors, the white gay man Giordano and the Black woman Devine, herself an artist, are doubtful Xavier will find enough to write about in Shimmer. Giordano calls the project “bourgeois mysticism” and Devine calls it “an art movement made up of Magical Negroes.” (For the record, I think the Art/Craft binary is useless except to expose the prejudices of those who are determined to force work into smug hierarchies of validity. But I digress…I could digress on this for a really really long time, but I won’t.)

As you might guess from the title, color is a huge part of this book, especially a vibrant shade between pink and purple that is the major focus of Whitby’s work. However, Gidney’s descriptions of the town, the people’s clothing, and their houses all feature lots and lots of color description, emphasizing its thematic importance. The fuchsia color flows through the whole story and through the obsessive art created by a sequence of artists who live in Shimmer.

My favorite thing about the book turned out to be the vividly drawn cast of characters, who get their own point of view chapters, some set in the 1860s, some set in the present, some set a decade or two earlier as we see events in the present-day characters’ pasts. All of these pieces gradually make a picture of the ghost and her origins, much like the quilts made by Hazel and the collages made by Tamar. I loved the small insights I had throughout the story.

If you’ve never tried Gidney’s work, this is a terrific place to start.

Posted in lgbtqia+, sf/f | Tagged | 2 Comments

My March Reading Log

Fiction:
Rescue Operations: Changes of Life by L.A. Hall, sixteenth in the Clorinda Cathcart’s Circle series, includes the return of Josh Ferraby to England amidst a complex plot, involving a vast number of people, to free a woman from an abusive husband and settle her where she can have a new life. Meanwhile, all anticipate the return of friends from their long journey to the Antipodes. At this point, I don’t always immediately remember the identity of all the very large cast of characters, many of them children of characters from the original Comfortable Courtesan series, but I’m starting to get a handle on more of them. Luckily, this is a series that rewards re-reading.

Forgotten in Death by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts) is fifty-third (!) in the Eve Dallas series of science fictional mysteries set in future New York City, starting off with the discovery of present-day and long-past murders in close proximity. In recent installments, I’ve noticed Roberts seems to be subtly updating what I call the “Jetsons future” of the books. The computers are still voice-activated, but she hasn’t used android cops/domestic servants/guards in a while, and “wrist units,” which seemed to be Dick Tracy-like communication units, aren’t mentioned as much. Some characters still carry a PPC (Personal Pocket Computer), which can be used to print documents. “Links” in the books are now a lot more like smart phones, I think, than they were when the series began in 1995. Tracing all that technology throughout the series could end up being somebody’s dissertation, maybe. Also of interest, there’s another wealthy and powerful villain, contrasted unfavorably with a retired mobster who nonetheless has a code of honor. I could not help making connections with real-life real estate dynasties in New York City who engaged and are engaging in criminal practices, and am pretty sure that was on purpose. I personally feel this book and the previous one include a fair amount of Roberts venting about present-day politics, while still keeping to her usual concerns of standing up for, and protecting, those who cannot protect themselves. For the most part Robb’s cops are strongly moral and dedicated to justice, with “protect and serve” being more than lip service; that’s a future I would like to believe in.

Binti by Nnedi Okorafor has been on my TBR for a while. It’s a novella in which a young Himba woman from the future version of Namibia, a mathematician and technologist, becomes the first of her people to be accepted to an interstellar university. She decides to go to the university against the wishes of her family. En-route, the ship is violently taken over by aliens, with Binti and the pilot being the only human survivors. Binti is able to communicate with the aliens through a piece of ancient technology she found in the desert and had with her on the ship; the device only initiates their interactions, however. The story revolves around issues being resolved through communication and willingness to learn about another culture.

The Queer Principles of Kit Webb by Cat Sebastian is a historical male/male romance between a former highwayman and the son of a duke, loosely set in Georgian England, by which I mean the aristocrat has some fabulous high fashion outfits, but there’s not much depth to the historical detail; however, the story does interrogate the idea of aristocracy and their ill-gotten riches. Cynical Kit, famous highwayman with a tragic past, had to give up his criminal life after a life-changing injury; he’s slowly and reluctantly seduced by Percy, Lord Holland, a flamboyant duke’s heir with impressive swordsmanship who needs to steal an important item from his awful father. It was a fun romp with secondary characters doing their own things in the background, some of which will no doubt be important in the sequel. My favorite was Betty the fence and critic of Kit’s love life.

Sword Dance and Saffron Alley by A.J. Demas were recommended by a Romance blog I follow, and they are absolutely gripping. The first two in a trilogy, the plots combine mystery with the ongoing romance between ex-soldier Damiskos, still dealing with the life-altering injury that cut his career short, and freedman eunuch dancer and spy Varazda, who is navigating a romantic relationship for the first time. The setting is secondary world fantasy based on Classical period Mediterranean culture; there are elements of Athens and Persia in particular; Damiskos’ military service has echoes of Afghanistan or a similar area destabilized by ongoing conflict and ruled by warlords. Content warning: this world includes slavery and enslaved eunuchs in a country the story does not visit.

Soulstar by C.J. Polk is third in the Kingston Cycle. Former nurse, medical student, and activist Robin Thorpe has worked for years towards freeing Aeland from monarchy in order to institute democracy. When these efforts bear fruit, and captive witches are freed from punitive asylums, she is finally reunited with her spouse after a gap of twenty years. Robin comes from the Samindan culture, which is beautifully depicted in ways totally integrated into the story. None of the characters’ goals are easy, and they have many opponents of different kinds. Everything takes community effort and thinking outside the box, so the resolution is very satisfying. My only very minor complaint is that a lot happens, in quick succession, and I would have welcomed slower pacing in order to feel the progress more fully.

Fanfiction:
The Warfare of Genghis Khan by victoria_p (musesfool) is a very short crossover between Leverage and Captain America, both concerned with justice in ways I’d love to see further explored.

The Hellhound of the Rockefellers by Flourish for kateandbarrel crosses over Elementary with Sleepy Hollow. I’d only seen most of the first season of Sleepy Hollow and a couple of episodes of Elementary but I could easily follow this version of The Hound of the Baskervilles. As you might guess, it has a mystery plot with supernatural elements.

Silver and Gold by scioscribe is a very long alternate universe story in which MCU Odin gives eight-year-old Loki to Heimdall for fostering, which leads to a much happier ending. Because I’m a huge fan of Found Family, I enjoyed this quite a bit. It has several appealing original characters and some fun worldbuilding, especially relating to the Vanir and the Jotun. Heimdall of the Nine Mothers only has three left when the story begins, but I could’ve read an entire epic just about them.

the more you say the less i know (wherever you stray, i follow) by notcaycepollard is an excellent AU of both Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which factors in Sam Wilson’s back story. Sam meets Bucky while still deployed in Afghanistan with the Falcon program. They end up on the run together, with subsequent changes to the movie’s plot that I found very satisfying.

My TBR Challenge book this month was Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, which is awesome.

Posted in fanfiction, historical fiction, lgbtqia+, mystery, romance novels, sf/f | Tagged | Comments Off on My March Reading Log

#TBRChallenge – Grumpy: Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki blends: a detailed portrayal of a particular mostly-Asian neighborhood in California; the competitive world of classical music, including performers and luthiers; a transgender queer violinist; lots of lovingly described food; and Faustian bargains condemning souls to the underworld. I know it sounds like a lot, but it’s a gripping story and I loved it.

Content warnings: mentions of death by suicide; racism; the unexpected murder of two people; and domestic abuse of the transgender woman character Katrina. She also experiences frequent microaggressions and harassment in the course of the book. (She later experiences a validating, happy ending.)

Alien beings, refugees from the oncoming Endplague of a galactic empire, are making a home in a doughnut shop while building a stargate…inside the giant doughnut atop the building. They’ve taken on human forms as the Tran family: captain/mother Lan; her Aunt Floresta; and her children Shirley, Markus, Edwin, and Windee. Meanwhile, renowned violin teacher Shizuka Satomi is seeking her seventh pupil, who like her previous six, is meant to sell their soul to hell, through her, in exchange for a brilliant career; this happens via a cursed violin bow made by the family of Lucy Matia, a luthier descended from a long line of luthiers, all male. Shizuka’s music cannot be heard anywhere on Earth until she delivers a seventh soul; should she fail by her February deadline, she dies. She and her accompanist/housekeeper Astrid have returned to Shizuka’s childhood home, in the same neighborhood as Starrgate Donut. Meanwhile, Katrina Nguyen runs away from her abusive family, only to be taken advantage of by the person she thought would help her. Katrina dreams of a career playing gaming and anime music on YouTube; she might be willing to trade her life to achieve her dreams. When she and Shizuka meet, it seems clear where the story is heading…except that isn’t where the story is heading. The specific details of the different worlds colliding make the plot and its outcome fresh and surprising.

There are many dark themes, but ultimately, this is a hopeful book, perhaps more so because the hope comes after serious darkness. Every one of the characters, even the minor ones, has an arc of self-discovery as well as in relation to the other characters. Lan, Shirley, Shizuka, Katrina, and Lucy all suffer from feeling they’re good not enough for the lives they actually deserve. Over the course of the book, they find their own power within, and figure out how to live the lives they want when the world is against them both passively and actively. In the end, this book is about wanting to live, and about discovering the things we truly live for.

I loved this book, and I look forward to more from this author.

Excerpt at Tor.com.

Strange Horizons review by Cat Fitzpatrick.

The Rumpus review by Krithika Sukumar.

Posted in lgbtqia+, sf/f | Tagged | 5 Comments

Embracing Refuge launches today!

Embracing Refuge, third in A Place of Refuge, launches today!

Cover of Embracing Refuge - a dark-skinned woman with short hair and cyborgian implants on her neck on a green background with planet and spaceship.

Is it too late for a cynical super soldier to right the wrongs in her past?

Enhanced soldier Faigin Balfour defected from a fascist military to the revolution. Once the deadliest of warriors, now she fights to settle into a peaceful life on the utopian planet Refuge. Her two closest friends, Talia and Miki, are there to help, and have invited Faigin to join their loving bond for a peace they can all share. Faigin’s not a romantic, but she still craves the intimacy they offer. That’s something she’s willing to work on. For her, though, love is not enough. She needs to contribute something of herself to the planet that saved all their lives, to pay back some good for the harm she caused. She needs a mission.

Refuge has no need for killers, so how can she find value, now, in the technological augmentations that changed her body and shaped her life? She’ll need to confront her past as child soldier and lethal guerilla, and ponder what actions she can take in the present to uphold life instead of death.

Can a killer become worthy of utopia?

Not your usual space opera, A Place of Refuge features badass lesbians in space, the kindness of strangers, banter, close-knit friends, found family, trauma recovery, and lots of delicious food.

Excerpt:
Faigin Balfour did not talk about her feelings, she did not think about her feelings, she didn’t even feel her feelings.

She snickered to herself and twisted in her chair, rubbing one gloved hand through her short, spiky hair. She stared balefully at the therapeutic worklist displayed on a virtual screen in front of her. It wasn’t true she didn’t have emotions, it was a million parsecs from true. It was more that she didn’t like to deal with her emotions, if didn’t like had more violent connotations. It had always been easier to just ignore painful thoughts and get on with the thing that had to be done next, because what was the point? The thing still had to be done, and someone had to do it, and that person might as well be Captain Balfour. Doing the thing at least gave a sense of accomplishment, while wallowing in unpleasant emotions did not.

Right now, the thing in front of her was this bloody worklist. Doing the thing meant reflecting upon her feelings. She blew out her breath and slid her finger along the various emotional scales in the display, as quickly as she could. Weeks in, she still hated this drill. When she’d finished it, the three freeform questions glowed an intentionally-soothing, annoying blue at her, requiring answers. About how she was dealing with her feelings.

She did talk about things with her most intimate friends, Miki Boudreaux and Talia Avi, but that was because they had known each other for over a decade. They’d spent most of that time fighting against overpowering odds with Jon Churchill’s dissenters, in rebellion against the oppressive Federated Colonies.

The threat of death, near escapes from death, and the occasional occasion of a comrade’s death tended to lead to more intimate conversations, but that wasn’t a workable strategy for day-to-day sharing. She was still thinking about the recent evening she and Miki and Talia had spent remembering and grieving Jon’s death.

Jon had left them, over a year before, on a mission that ended in his death. Then they’d thought Talia had been killed. Then, she and Miki had been captured by the FC.

After all that, they’d learned Talia was not dead. By then, the rebellion was quashed, the surviving dissenters had scattered to the stars, Faigin and Miki were hurled with extreme prejudice into a top security Federated cell…but Talia was alive. That had been a good day.

Talia had been imprisoned by the FC for thirteen months. The Supreme Commander of the FC military, Olawale, used her life as a bargaining chip, and for her sake, Miki and Faigin had agreed to make one last sensational appearance, flee the FC forever, and be declared dead, the rebellion with them. But they fled with Talia. All three of them together.
Now, they lived on the planet Refuge, a place Faigin had never even heard of until Miki, after much slinking around in data collections where she wasn’t allowed, had suggested it might be a place where the three of them could be safe. So far, she’d been correct.

Talia and Miki seemed committed to staying on Refuge indefinitely. Faigin would have liked to be committed. But after a month of private accommodations, excellent medical care, and copious quantities of delicious food, Faigin still couldn’t help but feel that everything they’d found here might be ripped away at any moment.

Gritting her teeth, she tapped the empty space following the first question, which wanted to know the healthy coping strategies she’d utilized this week. Exercise was acceptable. She exercised every day. Not only was it one of the few reliable mood-lifters she knew, but if she didn’t exercise, the interfaces installed in her body by the Federated military registered complaints with her muscles and nervous system.

Digging in the frozen dirt was really another sort of exercise, but according to the list she’d been given, gardening was a separate category from exercise, so she could enter that as well, and that activity had included meeting with some of their neighbors here in Port Liminal, so it counted double. Only one more and she could move on to the second question, which was unfortunately worse…oh, yes. She had eaten something new, in fact several new things, because Talia and Miki had brought back an assortment of pastries from their tour of bakeries in Port Liminal.

The medic Kaliska Dass sat nearby, her tall stout form curled snugly into a round red chair. She looked up from a scan of Faigin’s innards and commented, “I’m not going to mark your answers right or wrong, you know.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“Faigin. My worklists aren’t going to bite your face off, either.”

“Are you sure?” Faigin enjoyed Kaliska’s deadpan humor, though she hadn’t told her as much.

Kaliska’s solemn expression didn’t waver. “They’ll only bite off your toes, to start.”

Faigin snorted a laugh. “This second question is confusing. The line between healthy and unhealthy activities can be very thin.”

“Can it?” Kaliska had a deep voice; on these words it dropped even lower, and her gaze grew steely.

“You said getting drunk was not a healthy activity. Sometimes that’s the only coping mechanism available.”
Kaliska’s expression, and her voice, eased again. “Have you been drinking a lot?”

“No…not what I would consider a lot.” Faigin looked Kaliska defiantly in the eye. “I am going to list drinking with Miki, while we all talked about Jon being dead, as a healthy activity since our last meeting.”

“All right.”

“What do you mean, all right?”

“The worklist is for you, not for me. Fill it out however you want. Just fill it out.”

“Why does it always ask for three of everything?”

“I can change it to four of everything.”

“Bloody hell.”

All retail links to Embracing Refuge.

Posted in Kalikoi, promo, refuge series, sf/f | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Embracing Refuge launches today!

My February Reading Log

Fiction:
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers is a novella about crowdsourced interstellar exploration, astronauts sent off from a world suffering the ravages of climate change, with the twist that they do plan to come back, after interfering with the places they find as little as possible. Content warning for a distressing animal death. The four astronauts of varying gender expressions and ethnicities leave their families behind and go into torpor for interstellar travel. Their somatotypes are altered during torpor to deal with the conditions of the next planet or moon, so they emerge strangers to their own bodies. Each section is about a different environment they encounter, and the life they find there, and how they deal with it. Also, they must deal with the very belated news from Earth which can be emotionally difficult, and eventually frightening; they must make some difficult decisions. I found it gripping, thematically intense and thought-provoking.

Stormsong by C.L. Polk is second in The Kingston Cycle, secondary world fantasy that very loosely maps onto Edwardian/post-World War One Europe, in the sense that the technology level is roughly equivalent, and a terrible war has just ended. After the world-changing events at the end of Witchmark, the story picks up almost immediately from the point of view of Miles’ sister, Grace. Her life has been very different from his, raised as their father’s favorite to hold political power and manage wealth, but she’s now coping with revelations of how that power was gained and maintained, and attempting to make things right. There’s a lesbian romance subplot and also a one-sided romance subplot that the reader notices but the protagonist is oblivious to. I had pre-ordered this book, and started reading it quite some time ago, but lockdown brain meant I put it down pretty quickly. Once I started again last week, it went very quickly! I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as its predecessor, because Witchmark had more WWI-adjacent stuff, but I still think it’s excellent.

February’s TBR Challenge book is Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise.

Fanfiction:
something to believe in your heart of hearts by napricot is a lovely Fake Dating rom com featuring Bucky Barnes and Sarah Wilson in a sequel to the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I liked this a lot, especially Sarah’s point of view.

The Mechanics of Poetry by omgericzimmermann (HMS Lusitania) is a Check Please! romance between Will “Dex” Poindexter, of a large Catholic family in Maine, and Derek “Nursey” Nurse, whose parents are wealthy and exceedingly neglectful. Nursey spends the summer with Dex at his grandmother’s and it takes a while for them to realize they have feelings for each other and that a relationship is possible. Content warning for Dex’s homophobic older brother; Dex hasn’t come out to his family at the beginning of the story. Bonus Bitty, Jack, Ransom, Holster, Shitty, Lardo, and a cute threesome of younger students.

Posted in fanfiction, reading, sf/f | Tagged | Comments Off on My February Reading Log

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

I did a lot of experimenting with grilled cheese sandwiches this month.

I learned some things! Colby-Jack melted a lot more smoothly than cheddar, my previous go-to cheese when not using processed “American” slices.

For this rather excellent sandwich, I coarsely grated Colby-Jack cheese and very thinly applied mayonnaise to one side of the bread slices. The bread was a multigrain, fairly soft. I laid the bread, mayonnaise side down, in a buttered nonstick skillet. I arranged (previously cooked) bacon on one slice and grated cheese on the other. I didn’t mound up the cheese too high. When the cheese began to melt, I closed up the sandwich and cooked it a little more on both sides. I pressed a little with the spatula, but not a huge amount. The bread got really brown and slightly crunchy, while the cheese inside melded everything together. I sliced the sandwiches into traditional triangles.

The mayo gave a really crisp, browned finish outside. I did taste the mayo a tiny bit at one less crunchy corner. It occurred to me later that, for those who strongly dislike mayo, ghee might be a useful alternative. Ghee also has a higher smoke point than butter. I still want to try the coconut oil method that’s been recommended to me.

I meant to add a swirl of sriracha inside, and totally forgot. Next time.

Posted in recipe, writing | Comments Off on Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

#TBRChallenge – Fairy Tale: Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise

Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise is in conversation with Peter Pan, a story so familiar and entrenched in general English-speaking cultural consciousness that I’m counting it as fitting the fairy tale theme. Peter Pan is easily read as extremely creepy, and Wise runs with that as she explores Wendy’s experiences after returning from Neverland, and on her return. The book is speculative fiction on the dark side, with social commentary; it could also be classified as psychological horror.

This post contains spoilers for the book.

The events of Wendy’s past are interspersed with the 1930s, when adult married Wendy, mother of a daughter named Jane, once again encounters Peter Pan–and he takes her daughter with breathlessly terrifying casualness. Then the story flashes back to the years after Wendy’s initial return from Neverland: Wendy still remembers their adventures, and talks about them, but her brothers have forgotten, perhaps willfully. In 1917, after younger brother Michael returns wounded and shell-shocked from World War One, tensions among them reach a breaking point. Elder brother John, safe from war because of his poor eyesight but feeling grimly responsible for their family, commits Wendy to an insane asylum.

Wendy’s flashback experiences in the asylum reminded me of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in the way her lived experience is willfully suppressed, ignored, and punished for non-conformity to expected gender roles. However, she does make a friend of another inmate, Mary White Dog, showing the strength that comes from women working together against oppression; when an arranged marriage provides a way out for Wendy, she fetches Mary and employs her in the household. Their close relationship gives strength to both and is important to Jane’s rescue. In the 1930s, the only way to rescue Jane is to go in after her. Meanwhile in Neverland, Jane’s point of view gives a sometimes chilling outsider perspective on Peter, his abusive behavior, and his world’s magical rules. Jane, Wendy, and Mary survive, but once back in our world, have to decide how to move on with their lives.

Though for me this book was a rough ride, it was splendidly executed, and I recommend it particularly if you love retellings or transformative works of any kind.

Posted in sf/f, wwi | Tagged | 5 Comments

Updates on My Kalikoi Novellas

Finding Refuge received a lovely review at Phoebe’s Randoms: “Janssen has laid the ground floor for what could be an exciting series about PTSD, life after war, human and non-human relations, and just personal relationships in general.”

Sapphic Book Club noted Finding Refuge “…portrays the hardest part of recovery, the one where you have to accept to be deserving of good things, to think of a future and even dream of a better one.” Also, “Finding Refuge was a really therapeutic read for me.”

Embracing Refuge: A Place of Refuge, part three, will be released in less than one month! The cover, seen in this post, is by Augusta Scarlett, who also made the previous two covers.

I’m currently working on supplemental materials to include in an eventual omnibus of all three novellas. I’m writing at least two additional short stories as well as preparing an extensive character list and a small glossary.

Cover of Embracing Refuge - a dark-skinned woman with short hair and cyborgian implants on her neck on a green background with planet and spaceship.

Retail links for Finding Refuge (Talia’s point of view) have been updated to include Google Play.
Retail links for Accepting Refuge (Miki’s point of view) have been updated to include Google Play.
Pre-order links for Embracing Refuge, releasing March 7, 2022 are starting to go live. (Faigin’s point of view). If you don’t see your favored ebook retailer, please check again closer to the release date. If I’ve missed a place, please let me know!

Posted in writing | Comments Off on Updates on My Kalikoi Novellas

My January Reading Log

Fiction:
The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton is a bitingly satirical alternate Victorian England in which women have learned to make their houses fly, and of course have used this ability to become pirates, and also spend a lot of time trying to assassinate each other. It’s also a romance, though the satirical tone is maintained throughout, with the heroine gradually becoming aware of what her feelings mean. Plump Queen Victoria, who talks to a portrait of the deceased Prince Albert, makes an appearance and ends up playing a surprisingly large role in the plot.

Outcrossing by Celia Lake is first in the Mysterious Charm series, romances set in an alternate 1920s England whose magical population live alongside the oblivious non-magical population. This first installment is set in the New Forest, which has ponies! I wanted a lot more ponies than I got. However, I appreciated the cross-class issues and sadly brief portrayal of village magical ritual. The romance was sweet and people actually talked to each other to resolve their problems.

Goblin Fruit by Celia Lake is second in the Mysterious Charm series and features a very clear homage to Dorothy Sayers’ Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane in Geoffrey, Lord Carillon and Elspeth Penhallow. There’s more magical worldbuilding happening, and brief appearances by nonhuman magical beings, which made me want a lot more of this world.

Magician’s Hoard by Celia Lake is third in the Mysterious Charm series, a fantasy romance set in an alternate 1920s Britain with a secret magical society. Widowed heroine Proserpina, called Pross, runs a bookstore to support her and her daughter, but also does some paid research. Hero Ibis (a nickname; his actual name is Thutmose, and he’s half-Egyptian) ends up assigned to help her because his boss wants him out of the way of Shenanigans. They respect each other’s minds and that is very sexy and sweet; they help each other move forward with their lives.

Wards of the Roses by Celia Lake is fourth in the Mysterious Charm series, a 1920s alternate England with magic. Kate is a middle class Guard (magical police, essentially) who misses the more complex work she did during WWI; Giles is an upper class mathematician who was blinded during World War One (or this world’s version of it). Both are fascinated by puzzle solving. They end up working together to gain entry to a magical house has suddenly reappeared. As in the previous books in this series, the two of them help each other to move forward with their lives, stronger together than apart.

Out of Character by Annabeth Albert was a lightweight m/m contemporary romance, labelled New Adult, between a gamer and a former jock, which I read because of the fandom element. I still seem to be in the mode of being less interested in stories about people in their twenties coming of age, so though the book has a lot to recommend it, I found myself skimming parts, especially angst and sex scenes. But I think if you play, for example, the Magic the Gathering card game, you would enjoy this book a lot.

Spellbound by Allie Therin is also set in an alternate 1920s with magic, this time in New York City. There’s a somewhat complicated backstory about magical objects which leads to non-magical but wealthy and powerful Arthur, nicknamed Ace, encountering psychometric Theodore, who’s assumed the name of Rory for his role as the nephew of his employer, Mrs. Brodigan. In addition, there’s a Chinese man who walks the astral plane, a Black woman bootlegger telekinetic, and some magical enemies. There was a lot going on, perhaps too much, probably because this book was setting up a series. It was fun, but I am not sure I’ll read the rest of the books.

Division Bells by Iona Datt Sharma is a short but lovely male/male romance set in the British government after Brexit. Ari is a career bureaucrat, Jules is a special advisor, or “spad,” sent to the job by his wealthy father to jumpstart a career. Their romance is tangled up with Jules coming into his own and Ari navigating grief from a recent, painful loss. I learned a lot about British parliamentary procedure, and would have been happy to learn more, if taught by this author. Recommended.

Posted in alternate universe, contemporary, glbtqia+, historical fiction, m/m, romance novels, sf/f | Tagged | Comments Off on My January Reading Log

#TBRChallenge – Quickie: Instead of Three Wishes by Megan Whalen Turner

Instead of Three Wishes: Magical Short Stories by Megan Whalen Turner was the slenderest volume on my TBR shelves. I dearly love Turner’s “Queen’s Thief” series, marketed as Young Adult, that begins with The Thief. In my opinion this short story collection, like that series, doesn’t necessarily have to be considered as being for any particular age of reader, though it’s published as Children’s.

The seven stories all have a mythological or fairy tale feel, but none follows a staid, expected path. Please note there are spoilers ahead!

“A Plague of Leprechaun” examines the havoc wrought by tourists and small mishaps on a small New Hampshire town. “Leroy Roachbane” is a take on the fairy tale “Seven at One Blow” that also addresses a lack of diverse books in a local library. “Aunt Charlotte and the NGA Portraits” combines a selkie story with a puzzle and oil paintings, told to a young girl by her elderly great-aunt. It’s one of my favorites for the final line, “What you believe is up to you.” “Instead of Three Wishes” reminded me of the Armitage stories by Joan Aiken in tone and humor, with a cranky elf prince in a contemporary world. “The Nightmare” is a chilling story that resonated with me. It shows bullying bouncing back on the bully, and though he learns from the experience, the only way to escape is to push the retribution along to someone who asks for it: a person who is now bullying him. “The Baker King” is charming, a delightful conclusion to the collection. It reminded me a bit of her novels with its alternate world setting, and I loved the irreverent take on monarchy.

The ghost story “Factory” made me think the most. Content warning: it includes offstage suicide and child death; spoilers for the story in this paragraph. “Factory” is set in a world where capitalism and industry has taken over nature, and no one seems to have any purpose beyond factory jobs, though libraries still exist. Pigeons are called simply “birds” because they are the only birds left (though this world still has chocolate and cinnamon). The protagonist John, an orphan who’s recently started his first job, meets a ghost whose family home, in the midst of a nature preserve, stood where the factory was built. By dying with intention when they could no longer protect the land, the entire family still exists there, while seeing the living as ghosts moving through the land as it once was.

It’s a little unclear that the family chose to die; one of them is a toddler and two are ten years old, so they could not have fully consented, but it doesn’t seem like the mother cold-bloodedly murdered them, either. The ghost John meets, a young girl named Edwina, spends most of her time in an attic room, reading the books in the house when they all died. Edwina doesn’t change physically, but she has continuity of memory throughout being a ghost. John is able to check out library books and read them to her; she writes down the poetry she wants to keep. Then he introduces her to detective novels, which she loves.

John is relatively happy in his job as solo operator of the high crane because he gets to be alone and read books on his breaks, but his dearest wish is to have someone to talk to about the books he reads. In the end, after speaking with Edwina’s mother’s ghost, he checks out as many library books as he can and hides them with chocolates and spices all over the rafters of the factory, then takes cyanide. He and Edwina spend their afterlife–or perhaps it’s a second life?–together, reading books and eating chocolates, having escaped the dreary grind of the factory forever. It’s a story that will stick with me for a long time.

Posted in sf/f | Tagged | 2 Comments