Victoria Janssen's Blog, page 11

#TBRChallenge – Blue Collar: Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart

Tweet

Perfect Circle by Sean Stewart is one of those books I pre-ordered and then kept on my TBR for years afterward. Stewart is one of my all-time favorite fantasy writers, but he has gotten away from writing novels in recent years, and I don’t know if he’ll ever write another. These days, he writes interactive fiction and “mixed reality” games. My response to this change in his career was hoarding this last novel, waiting for the perfect time to read it. Rejoice! The time is now!!!

This review ...

My July Reading Log

Tweet

Fiction:
Abandoned in Death by J. D. Robb is the fifty-fourth in that series, wow, and there are currently two more scheduled to follow. These are comfortingly repetitive despite being about sometimes truly gruesome serial murders, because the killer is always caught and jailed in the end. I also find it interesting to watch the near-future worldbuilding shift and change as it gets closer to present-day. In Romance, the plot is Happily Ever After; in Mystery, the plot is Justice is Served. ...

#TBRChallenge – Vintage: Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Tweet

On one of the few occasions when I met the late Ursula K. LeGuin, I asked if she would recommend me a book to read. She suggested Lolly Willowes: Or the Loving Huntsman by Sylvia Townsend Warner, published in 1926. Though I bought a copy of the book fairly soon after, it was soon buried under books I was reading for review, and has been languishing on my TBR shelf for a number of years.

I am here to tell you that this was a splendid recommendation. Despite knowing many people who love Sylvi...

My June 2022 Reading Log

Tweet

Fiction:
Aunty Lee’s Deadly Specials is second in this mystery series set in contemporary Singapore. Aunty Lee provides catering, including a dish that can be deadly if prepared improperly, and two people die after eating it. As you might imagine, the dish did not kill them. As in the previous installment, the mystery is very character based, with Aunty Lee being a classic Nosy Old Lady Who Solves Mysteries character; I like her and her sidekick Nina a lot. One of the murder victims is a ga...

#TBRChallenge – After the War: The Great Silence by Juliet Nicolson

Tweet

The Great Silence: Britain from the Shadow of the First World War to the Dawn of the Jazz Age by Juliet Nicolson is nonfiction about, well, the time after the First World War. I took this month’s theme very literally!

I bought this book because I’d read a previous work by the author, The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm, which I wrote about in this 2011 post. At that time, I was doing research for a fiction project set just before World War One and looking forward to read...

My May Reading Log

Tweet

Fiction:
Strong Wine by A.J. Demas is third in a trilogy about former solider and all-around mensch Damiskos and his spy/dancer lover Varazda, set in a world reminiscent of Classical Greece. I’d recommend reading this series in order, as a lot of book one, both characters and plot, is revisited in book three. Damiskos has been visiting Varazda in Boukos and wants to move into his household there; Varazda and his household want this too, but they haven’t yet sat down to discuss it. Also, Dam...

#TBRChallenge – Tales of Old: Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson

Tweet

Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson is set in New York City before the United States has entered World War Two; it seems to be an alternate history in subtle ways. In this world, people of color with mystical/magical talents are known as having “saints’ hands,” which are not necessarily as helpful as one might imagine. The hands or the power that enables them want their possessors to push back against White supremacy, but the humans with powers have difficult decisions to make: how do ...

My April Reading Log

Tweet

Fiction:
Can’t Find My Way Home by Gwynne Garfinkle is a ghost story that’s also a period piece. Vividly set in mid-1970s New York City, it features Joanna Bergman, a young actress in a soap opera who’s developing an intense crush on a married co-star while simultaneously trying to deal with her guilt and grief over the untimely death of her best friend, Cynthia. The story moves back and forth in time between Joanna and Cynthia’s college years, when they were activists in the antiwar and an...

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

Tweet

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 S...

My March Reading Log

Tweet

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...