Siavahda's Blog, page 37

I Can’t Wait For…Princess of the Pomegranate Moon by Emily Wynne

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is Princess of the Pomegranate Moon by Emily Wynne!

Princess of the Pomegranate Moon by Emily Wynne
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bi/pansexual nonbinary trans MC
Published on: 17th November 2023
Goodreads

In this late age, seasons have lost their steady cadence, and the Pomegranate Moon rises over the Mountain.

In the Season of Shadows, a silver light is cast by a moon crowned with an ominous rainbow mist—the Pomegranate Moon. A small, fearful village crouches below, hidden in the shadow of a forbidden sacred mountain rumored to be the gate to Faerie.

Out of the darkness emerges Elsinore—a dancer in a brightly colored dress and rainbow shawls. While she drums a hypnotic beat and dances with floating flames, the townsfolk watch and wonder over her origin and identity—mysteries Elsinore herself seeks the key to.

A hallowed priestess and sorceress, Elsinore has spent a lifetime embracing the woman she has always known herself to be. But deep within, the painful enigma of her youth keeps her shackled to the past, haunted by guilt and grief. Disregarding the whispers and ancient warnings, Elsinore descends into the heart of the Mountain, seeking the final truths of her identity.

Will Elsinore uncover what she needs to become whole, or will she lose herself to the Mountain?

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I only just heard of Princess of the Pomegranate Moon, thanks to Danni Finn’s review on Before We Go – and now I’m absolutely dying to get my hands on it! “You should read this book if you want a trippy romantic fantasy adventure with a nonbinary trans heroine seeking the key to her identity deep in a mythological mountain.” –yep! YEP, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I WANT, PLEASE AND THANK YOU, CAN THE 17TH COME A LITTLE FASTER PLEASE???

Seriously, if you aren’t won over by the book’s blurb, you really need to read the review linked above – which goes into a lot more detail and gives a LOT more reasons for why this instantly became a must-read for me!

Digging around the net, I managed to find a few excerpts – there’s this short one from Wynne’s twitter, and you can read the whole first chapter here, at the publisher’s website. I’m extremely picky about prose – in terms of whether I enjoy a book or not, it matters more than any other element – and this is satisfyingly lush and descriptive.

ALL BOXES HAVE BEEN TICKED!

Right now you can preorder the ebook of Princess of the Pomegranate Moon over on Itch, and I’m sure if we keep an eye out, paper copies will be available around pub day!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Princess of the Pomegranate Moon by Emily Wynne appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #161

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

TEN books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

We Are the Crisis (Convergence Saga #2) by Cadwell Turnbull
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: BIPOC cast, Black asexual MC, Black bi/pansexual MC, Puerto Rican bi/pansexual MC, M/F/F polyamory, nonbinary characters
Published on: 7th November 2023
Goodreads

In We Are the Crisis—the second book in the Convergence Saga from award-winning author Cadwell Turnbull—humans and monsters come into conflict in a magical and dangerous world as civil rights collide with preternatural forces.

In this highly anticipated sequel, set a few years after No Gods, No Monsters, humanity continues to grapple with the revelation that supernatural beings exist. A werewolf pack investigates the strange disappearances of former members and ends up unraveling a greater conspiracy, while back on St. Thomas, a hurricane approaches and a political debate over monster’s rights ignites tensions in the local community.

Meanwhile, New Era—a pro-monster activist group—works to build a network between monsters and humans, but their mission is threatened by hate crimes perpetrated by a human-supremacist group known as the Black Hand. And beneath it all two ancient orders escalate their conflict, revealing dangerous secrets about the gods and the very origins of magic in the universe.

Told backward and forward in time as events escalate and unravel, We Are the Crisis is a brilliant contemporary fantasy that takes readers on an immersive and thrilling journey.

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The sequel to the mind-warping No Gods No Monsters! I am happily in the middle of this right now, and I thought I’d be bothered by the timeskip (I usually don’t enjoy timeskips this big) but no, it’s perfect, and I’m loving every second of it!

A Power Unbound (The Last Binding, #3) by Freya Marske
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M, queer cast, secondary F/F
Published on: 7th November 2023
Goodreads

A Power Unbound
is the final entry in Freya Marske’s beloved, award-winning Last Binding trilogy, the queer historical fantasy series that began with A Marvellous Light.

Jack Alston, Lord Hawthorn, would love a nice, safe, comfortable life. After the death of his twin sister, he thought he was done with magic for good. But with the threat of a dangerous ritual hanging over every magician in Britain, he’s drawn reluctantly back into that world.

Now Jack is living in a bizarre puzzle-box of a magical London townhouse, helping an unlikely group of friends track down the final piece of the Last Contract before their enemies can do the same. And to make matters worse, they need the help of writer and thief Alan Ross.

Cagey and argumentative, Alan is only in this for the money. The aristocratic Lord Hawthorn, with all his unearned power, is everything that Alan hates. And unfortunately, Alan happens to be everything that Jack wants in one gorgeous, infuriating package.

When a plot to seize unimaginable power comes to a head at Cheetham Hall—Jack’s ancestral family estate, a land so old and bound in oaths that it’s grown a personality as prickly as its owner—Jack, Alan and their allies will become entangled in a night of champagne, secrets, and bloody sacrifice . . . and the foundations of magic in Britain will be torn up by the roots before the end.

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The finale to Marske’s The Last Binding trilogy! Again, I’m reading an early copy of this at the moment, and so far, it’s proving my favourite of all three books! I adore these characters, Marske’s prose is, as usual, compulsively readable, and this is officially the kinkiest instalment of the trilogy. (I do not disapprove at all.)

Power to Yield and Other Stories by Bogi Takács, Ada Hoffmann
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary and nuerodivergent MCs
Published on: 7th November 2023
Goodreads

COMPLEX COMMUNITY

Power to Yield is a collection of speculative tales exploring gender identity, neurodivergence, and religion from author Bogi Takács, who deftly blends sci-fi, fantasy, and weird fiction.

An AI child discovers Jewish mysticism. A student can give no more blood to their semi-sentient apartment and plans their escape. A candidate is rigorously evaluated for their ability to be a liaison to alien newcomers. A young magician gains perspective from her time as a plant. A neurodivergent woman tries to survive on a planetoid where thoughts shape reality . . .

​These are stories about the depth and breadth of the human condition—and beyond—identifying future possibilities of conflict and cooperation, identity and community.

PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR

“A seamless juxtaposition of intricate truths and bold fictions, these stories mesmerize.” (Nicky Drayden, author of Escaping Exodus and The Prey of Gods)

“It’s rare to find an author that truly deepens the speculative genre and human experience simultaneously but Takács is clearly one of them. E deftly unravels our preconceived notions of the self, society, culture, desire, power and the other and re-braids them in new insightful ways in each story. As you move through each richly-crafted story, you are challenged and transformed whether you realize it or not. This intimate yet expansive collection is not one to miss.” (Sloane Leong, author of Prism Stalker, Graveneye, and A Map to the Sun)

“Bogi Takács’s stories never fail to awe with their breadth and depth of thought, precise prose, and fascinating characters. In Power to Yield and Other Stories, Takács reveals emself to be a masterful gardener, cultivating these tales of science and magic, of immigrants and exiles, of deep loss and abiding hope. Whether you’re new to eir work or know it well, this collection will welcome you, for it is expertly tended and blooming with glorious sights, its roots stretching across cultures, bodies, worlds, and ages.” (Izzy Wasserstein, author of All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From)

“[“Power to Yield”] is a fascinating take on aspects of power, history, personal obsession, and sadism, the latter all taking place within an asexual framework that removes those questions from their normal sexual-overtone-laden context.” (Karen Burnham, Locus Magazine)

“[“Power to Yield”] is laced with pain and with the fractured lines of a people stitched together from trauma and systemic abuse, who come together out of necessity and the need for freedom to make something powerful and beautiful. [...] And it’s a lovely, rending read that I definitely recommend people check out immediately!” (Charles Payseur, Quick Sip Reviews)

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Ada Hoffman, one of my fave sci-fantasy authors, has written the foreword for this collection, which is enough all by itself for me to pounce on it! I’m so glad she mentioned it in her newsletter, because this sounds so up my alley; nuerodivergence and Gender Things and spec fic + religion! Yessssssss, Sia wants!!!

Valid: Dystopian Autofiction by Chris Bergeron, Natalia Hero
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Trans MC
Published on: 7th November 2023
Goodreads

A gender-bending speculative look at a dark future, Valid shares the story of one trans woman leading a revolution.

This is a mutiny.

If our mutiny is to succeed, I must name things well, without diversion. Lacking this, you will not deviate from your certainties.

Here it I am trans.

As in transgression. I have broken genres. I have removed myself from the rules.

I am trans.

As in translation. I have dragged the elements that make up my person from one state to another. My geometry is variable.

And tonight, I am a revolution.

/ code red… fetch-query protocol enabled… transmission failed… standby/

Set in a disturbingly transfigured Montreal in the year 2050, Valid is a monologue delivered over the span of eight hours by Christelle, a seventy-year-old trans woman forced to live as a man in order to survive. Speaking to her captor, an ever–more powerful AI, she turns the tables and mounts her own revolution by showing her truest self. Part autofiction, part dystopic speculation on an all-too-possible future characterized by corporate power, ecological collapse, and political havoc, Valid is an ambitious work that is as much philosophical as it is confessional.

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I think this was originally written-and-published in French? It sounds very powerful, but also quite grim; I’m definitely nabbing a copy, but it may linger on my tbr for a while until I’m in the right headspace for it.

The Princess of Thornwood Drive by Khalia Moreau
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Biracial Afro-Caribbean MCs
Published on: 7th November 2023
Goodreads

Two sisters are trapped on opposite sides of reality in this entrancing and deeply moving debut novel that weaves together a contemporary narrative with a parallel fantasy world.  

One year ago, a tragic car accident killed 22-year-old Laine’s parents and left her 18-year-old sister, Alyssa, paralyzed and nonverbal. Now—instead of studying animal nutrition or competing as one of the few equestrians of color—Laine is struggling with predatory banks, unscrupulous health care organizations, and rude customers at the coffee shop where she works. That’s why when Lake Forest Adult Day Center offers to take care of Alyssa, free of charge, Laine is relieved.

Alyssa isn't relieved, though. After all, in her mind, there was never a car accident. Instead, she and her parents—the king and queen of Mirendal—were attacked one year ago in the forest, her parents kidnapped while she was cursed, and now must spend her days in Lake Forest's Home for Changels—a temple caring for mortals such as herself. Perhaps there, she could meet other changels who show her how to embrace her new life.

However, there is a dark prince at Lake Forest, one who has taken a peculiar interest in not only Alyssa but her sister as well. And while Laine struggles to make ends meet on an everyday basis, Alyssa finds herself leading a battle that threatens to destroy not only her and her sister but their entire kingdom.

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This one did not work for me, but not because it’s a bad book; we just didn’t mesh. I think readers who are looking for strong character voices and less complicated fantasy elements could really enjoy this. I didn’t read far enough into this to find out if the sister’s magical worldview is a delusion or not, so be braced for either to be true!

The King-Killing Queen (Old World Tales Book 1) by Shawn Speakman
Genres: Fantasy, High Fantasy
Published on: 7th November 2023
Goodreads

In this first book of a new trilogy author Anna Smith Spark calls “a dark love letter to high fantasy,” a woman discovers her unknown past carries with it a terrible future.

When Alafair Goode lay wounded during his quest to destroy Mordreadth the Great Darkness, a witch magicked and saved the future High King’s life to fulfill his destiny. Thereafter, all born to his line also cannot die, to be only undone by natural death.

Decades later, Sylvie Raventress is the devoted apprentice to the Master Historian stepbrother of the High King. It is a life of scholarly pursuit and privilege where one day she will take her instructor’s place and write her own histories. But beside Alafair’s deathbed, Sylvie and his scions learn a surprising truth—she is no orphan but is his named heir. Worse, when he dies, the witch’s curse is no more, leaving all of them suddenly mortal and vulnerable.

With her siblings loathing Sylvie’s selection and vying for her throne, she must rely on a Fae guide, a disgraced former First Knight, and a cantankerous light-weaver to restore the fracturing kingdom and become High Queen. And yet the thing none of them know is destiny has its own part to play too.

For the witch saved Alafair Goode for her own reasons…

Set 400 years before the events of The Dark Thorn, The King-Killing Queen is a perfect place for new and established Speakman readers.

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I freely admit that this is not the kind of book thatr would usually catch my eye – but I do love the idea of a queen killing kings, and, even more importantly, I happen to know a unicorn appears in this book somewhere. That’s enough for me to be willing to give it a go.

The Manor House Governess by C.A. Castle
Genres: Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary/genderqueer MC
Published on: 7th November 2023
Goodreads

This spirited debut pays homage to the British classics—with a genderfluid protagonist and 21st-century twist—perfect for fans of Emily M. Danforth and Andrew Sean Greer.

Set against the rarefied backdrop of high society, this one-of-a-kind, queer novel features 5 stunning illustrations of modern-day Cambridge.

Orphaned young and raised with chilly indifference at an all-boys boarding school, Brontë Ellis has grown up stifled by rigid rules and social “norms,” forbidden from expressing his gender identity. His beloved novels and period films lend an escape, until a position as a live-in tutor provides him with a chance to leave St. Mary’s behind.

Greenwood Manor is the kind of elegant country house Bron has only read about, and amid lavish parties and cricket matches the Edwards family welcomes him into the household with true warmth. Mr. Edwards and the young Ada, Bron’s pupil, accept without question that Bron’s gender presentation is not traditionally masculine. Only Darcy, the eldest son, seems uncomfortable with Bron—the two of them couldn’t be more opposite.

When a tragic fire blazes through the estate’s idyllic peace, Bron begins to sense dark secrets smoldering beneath Greenwood Manor’s surface. Channeling the heroines of his cherished paperbacks, he begins to sift through the wreckage. Soon, he’s not sure what to believe, especially with his increasing attraction to Darcy clouding his vision.

Drawing energy and inspiration from Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, E.M. Forster, and more, while bowing to popular fiction such as Plain Bad Heroines and Red, White, and Royal Blue, The Manor House Governess is a smart, sublimely charming novel destined to become a modern classic.

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It’s not super clear from the blurb, but this has a modern setting, not a historical one – those looking for the queer Jane Eyre would be better off finding a copy of Gaywyck. But knowing it’s contemporary going in, it still sounds interesting enough to check out.

DallerGut Dream Department Store: The Joyfully Magical Korean Bestseller by Mi-ye Lee
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Korean cast
Published on: 9th November 2023
Goodreads

|| THE NO.1 KOREAN BESTSELLER WITH OVER A MILLION COPIES SOLD||

In a mysterious town that lies hidden in our collective subconscious, there's a quaint little store where all kinds of dreams are sold . . .

Day and night, visitors both human and animal from all over the world shuffle in sleepily in their pyjamas, lining up to purchase their latest adventure. Each floor in the department store sells a special kind of dream, including nostalgic dreams about your childhood, trips you've taken, and delicious food you've eaten, as well as nightmares and more mysterious dreams.

In Dallergut Dream Department Store we meet Penny an enthusiastic new-hire; Dallergut, the flamboyant owner of the department store; Agnap Coco, producer of special dreams; Vigo Myers, an employee in the mystery department as well as the cast of curious, funny and strange clientele that regularly visit the store. When one of the most coveted and expensive dreams gets stolen during Penny's first week, we follow along with her as she tries to uncover the workings of this wonderfully whimsical world.

A captivating story that will leave a lingering magical feeling in readers' minds, this is the first book in a best-selling duology for anyone exhausted from the reality of their daily life.

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I’m so excited for this one! I think this week is only the UK release, and it’ll be out in the US next year; regardless, you can be sure I’ll be getting my hands on it! I love everything about this sweet, whimsical premise; it sounds like exactly what I’ve been craving lately.

Bird Life: a novel by Anna Smaill
Genres: Speculative Fiction
Representation: Japanese MC
Published on: 9th November 2023
Goodreads

The second novel by Booker Prize-longlisted author Anna Smaill. A lyrical and ambitious exploration of madness and what it is like to experience the world differently.

In Ueno Park, Tokyo, as workers and tourists gather for lunch, the pollen blows, a fountain erupts, pigeons scatter, and two women meet, changing the course of one another’s lives.

Dinah has come to Japan from New Zealand to teach English and grieve the death of her brother, Michael, a troubled genius who was able to channel his problems into music as a classical pianist—until he wasn’t. In the seemingly empty, eerie apartment block where Dinah has been housed, she sees Michael everywhere, even as she feels his absence sharply.

Yasuko is polished, precise, and keenly observant—of her students and colleagues at the language school, and of the natural world. When she was thirteen, animals began to speak to her, to tell her things she did not always want to hear. She has suppressed these powers for many years, but sometimes she allows them to resurface, to the dismay of her adult son, Jun. One day, she returns home, and Jun has gone. Even her special gifts cannot bring him back.

As these two women deal with their individual traumas, they form an unlikely friendship in which each will help the other to see a different possible world, as Smaill teases out the tension between our internal and external lives and asks what we lose by having to choose between them.

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I unabashedly adored Smaill’s incredible debut Chimes, which you absolutely must read if you have not (a world where music is everything, memories can’t be trusted, with a soft queer love story). Bird Life doesn’t grab me the way the premise of Chimes did, but based on how excellent her debut was I am very willing to give Smaill the chance to enchant me with Bird Life, too.

Sisters of Sword and Shadow by Laura Bates
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 9th November 2023
Goodreads

What if the Knights of the Round Table had been women?

This afternoon Cass's older sister will be married. Soon she will be too. Gone will be days of running through fields and feeling the earth between her toes. So when a beautiful leather-clad woman rides up and offers to take her away, Cass doesn't hesitate to join her.

Cass is introduced to the Sisterhood of Silk Knights - a group of women training to fight and working to right the wrongs of men. Cass is drawn into a world of ancient feuds, glorious battles, and deadly intrigue, where soon discovers she holds a power that could change the destiny of her sisterhood.

'An interesting thing happens, when a man is defeated in combat by a woman. He tells nobody.'

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I’m a little wary of women vs the patriarchy fantasy these days, and some of the early reviews have me concerned its approach to feminism is going to be super simplistic…but I still want to pick it up and give it a try, just in case it turns out to be wonderful! It’s also supposed to be queer somehow, although I wasn’t able to confirm that or get any details on what form that queerness would take.

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #161 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan!

Fathomfolk (Drowned World, #1) by Eliza Chan
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Southeast Asian setting and cast
Published on: 27th February 2024
Goodreads

From one of fantasy’s most exciting new voices Eliza Chan comes a modern, myth-inflected story of revolution and magic set against the glittering, semi-submerged city of Tiankawi, perfect for fans of Jade City and The Bone Shard Daughter.

Welcome to Tiankawi – shining pearl of human civilization and a safe haven for those fleeing civil unrest. Or at least, that’s how it first appears. 

But in the semi-flooded city, humans are, quite literally, on peering down from skyscrapers and aerial walkways on the fathomfolk — sirens, seawitches, kelpies and kappas—who live in the polluted waters below. 

For half-siren Mira, promotion to captain of the border guard means an opportunity to reform. At last, she has the ear of the city council and a chance to lift the repressive laws that restrict fathomfolk at every turn. But if earning the trust and respect of her human colleagues wasn't hard enough, everything Mira has worked towards is put in jeopardy when a water dragon is exiled to the city. 

New arrival Nami is an aristocratic water dragon with an opinion on everything. Frustrated by the lack of progress from Mira's softly-softly approach in gaining equality, Nami throws her lot in with an anti-human extremist group, leaving Mira to find the headstrong youth before she makes everything worse. 

And pulling strings behind everything is Cordelia, a second-generation sea-witch determined to do what she must to survive and see her family flourish, even if it means climbing over the bodies of her competitors. Her political game-playing and underground connections could disrupt everything Nami and Mira are fighting for. 

When the extremists sabotage the annual boat race, violence erupts, as does the clampdown on fathomfolk rights. Even Nami realises her new friends are not what they seem. Both she and Mira must decide if the cost of change is worth it, or if Tiankawi should be left to drown.

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Everything about this sounds unbelievably amazing. All kinds of (sentient, it sounds like?) water-beings! Water DRAGONS! Half-submerged cities! And very high-stakes political shenanigans, which, given that this is the start of a series, not a standalone, are unlikely to be neatly resolved by the time the book is over.

I love the sound of all three of our MCs – Mira, whose approach I can understand even if the slow changes would frustrate me too; Nami, who is, again, a WATER DRAGON, but also apparently hot-headed enough to ally with extremists – which you can understand, but BAD IDEA, I’m sure; and Cordelia, who sounds like the kind of ruthless that makes me go heart-eyes. (I have weird tastes, this is not news.) I suspect they’ll play off against each other amazingly.

How many, or what kind, of myths is Chan going to draw on, here??? Kappas are Japanese, and I’m pretty sure Japanese myth also has water dragons – but kelpies are from Irish and Scottish mythology, sirens make me think ancient Greece, and sea-witches could be drawn from any number of places. I’m such a sucker for worldbuilding that this might be the part of the book I’m most excited about, because it feels like I don’t often come across stories that mix-and-match from multiple mythologies like Fathomfolk is going to! And I really can’t wait to see how that works here.

Also, that is a frankly ridiculously beautiful cover, by the marvellous Kelly Chong.

This is SO going on my most anticipated of 2024 list!!!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Fathomfolk by Eliza Chan appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

In Short: October

Happy Samhain!

I got covid for the first time this month; it was fucking rough, and I’d like to never do that again, please, but I didn’t end up hospitalised (I’m immunocompromised, so it was a possibility). Even before I got ill, though, I was having a hard time concentrating enough to read, and I’m still struggling with the semi-depressed feeling of nothing appealing to me – I’m not interested or excited by any of the many wonderful books I have waiting to be read. Or am currently reading. Time to tweak the meds again…

ARCs Received

Crown of Starlight and Evergreen are both books I was extremely excited for…but have now become wary of, since discovering that they’re both in first-person, which generally doesn’t work for me. We’ll see – fingers crossed they prove the exception! And City of Stardust just emanates this sense of wonder that I CRAVE in my fantasy, so I have high hopes for it娴!

Read

16 books read this month – a bit better than August, but I’m still not back to my normal self. September was a lot of mood-reading crossed with some bedtime books (aka the Riddle Master trilogy, which is so boring, but so close to being wonderful, that it’s immensely frustrating) and a few arcs and books-to-which-my-arcs are sequels.

Menewood was glorious, as was Starling House; I have no idea why the Traitor Son Cycle acts as a comfort-read for me, when it’s such a technical and gory series; and Traitor of Redwinter turned the tables on me and left me GLOWING with delight.

I’m not even going to try and turn it into a percentage; only one book this month, No Gods No Monsters, was by a BIPOC author. Which is pretty terrible, but I don’t have the spoons to judge myself for anything reading-related at the moment.

Reviewed

Along with reading less, I’m getting much less written, and my reviews are suffering for it. All but Traitor of Redwinter were mini-reviews this month, and Traitor was not my best work, even if it was enthusiastic.

DNF-ed

I gave up on a lot of books I’ve been struggling with for months – most of these are reads I started months and months ago. Although Our Share of Night and Nightbirds are not books I’d call bad – Our Share of Night is just too scary for me, and Nightbirds is a book I’d like to come back to when I’m in a better headspace for it.

ARCs Outstanding

Well, I’m officially behind schedule: Dark Park, Jinn-Bot, Let the Dead, and Menewood are all still lacking reviews after their pub dates – and I’ve only actually finished reading Menewood.

Sigh.

Misc

Saint Death’s Daughter won the World Fantasy Award!!! FINALLY. I have long given up on SFF awards selecting winners that actually deserve it – it does happen, but far less often than I would wish – but GODS DAMN, IT’S ABOUT TIME SOMEONE GAVE THAT BOOK AN AWARD.

(For context, this is the book I called the most perfect book to ever book, and I stand by that.)

Looking Forward

November has many releases I’m massively looking forward to, even if I have arcs of a few. I know I’m not the only one jumping up and down for System Collapse, and Til Death Do Us Bard just sounds so cute. The other three I’m already reading arcs of, and enjoying immensely.

May November be a wonderful month for us all!

The post In Short: October appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

October DNFs

Eight DNFs this month – twice as many as September! – but one was a case of ‘this is too scary for me’, not ‘this is a bad book’. The rest were a mix of ARCs and books I bought myself, but ultimately let me down.

The Grief Nurse by Angie Spoto
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Pansexual everyone
ISBN: 1914518187
Goodreads

Imagine you could be rid of your sadness, your anxiety, your heartache, your fear.

Imagine you could take those feelings from others and turn them into something beautiful.

Lynx is a Grief Nurse. Kept by the Asters, a wealthy, influential family, to ensure they’re never troubled by negative emotions, she knows no other life.

When news arrives that the Asters’ eldest son is dead, Lynx does what she can to alleviate their Sorrow. As guests flock to the Asters’ private island for the wake, bringing their own secrets, lies and grief, tensions rise.

Then the bodies start to pile up.

With romance, intrigue and spectacular gothic world-building, this spellbinding debut novel is immersive and unforgettable.

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This is a book I’ve been trying to read since very early this year, but no matter how I try, it’s just not holding my interest. The prose is just a little bit off, like a song that’s just barely out of tune; the rhythm of it jars, is clunky instead of running smooth. And there’s so much telling, so much info-dumping, and I get that none of the characters are meant to be likeable – they’re clearly meant to be awful – but they’re not interesting. Awful-but-interesting is very allowed, but this cast is dull as dishwater, and while I liked the concept of the Grief Nurses, I really didn’t understand how this society had developed; the worldbuilding didn’t make much sense to me. I was interested in Lynx herself, and in the appearance of a second Grief Nurse in the household for her to interact with, but I couldn’t force myself through the out-of-tune prose to continue reading about her.

A Necessary Chaos by Brent Lambert
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Black queer MCs, M/M
ISBN: 1952086469
Goodreads

In a world of magical empires and the anarchists that would tear them down, two mages are each assigned to spy on the other by opposing sides. But when they both catch feelings, what happens when they’re commanded to kill their target?

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After an incredibly long wait, A Necessary Chaos was a real disappointment. The novella opens with so much telling not showing and general infodumping that it’s clear this story shouldn’t have been a novella at all: it needed to be a full novel, fleshed out and taking up space instead of rushing so fast it tripped over itself. The dissonance between what this story is versus what it could/should have been was almost physically painful. No thank you!

Winter Harvest by Ioanna Papadopoulou
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 21st November 2023
ISBN: 1739234863
Goodreads

From the moment of her birth, Demeter, the second born daughter of Kronos and Rhea, lived in darkness, trapped inside her father’s stomach, always fearing that inside her body a monster lived and she had to keep it caged. This rage inside her didn’t cease or grow any weaker when she was freed by her youngest brother, nor when she and her siblings defeated Kronos and his allies during the Titanomachy, the war that forever changed Greece. It stayed under her skin, always reminding her of its presence but never gaining control.

All that changed when her precious only child, Kore, vanished from the face of earth and Demeter found herself alone in her quest to regain her daughter. Unable to contain her rage, she gives in to all she tried so hard not to become and begins a period of starvation that brings humanity to the brink of extinction as she embarks on a journey to find Kore, filled with humiliation, further betrayal and desperation which reshapes her Godhood and changes her in a way she never expected nor wanted.

Winter Harvest is a stand-alone feminist mythology retelling which explores Demeter’s place in the Dodecatheon and her harsh and painful life as she becomes a chthonic Goddess, linked with both death and life. The novel combines various myths about Demeter, shaped like a fantasy novel which focuses on Demeter as a female goddess, struggling to fit into the patriarchal status quo of Olympus while she is constantly changing her identity in an attempt to find her place in the world and what it means to be female.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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I was really excited for a look at Demeter, a goddess who gets dismissed or simplified far too often…but this is not a book for me. I think it’s legitimately bad writing to have ancient Greek characters using modern terms like ‘okay’, and I kept running into sentences that seemed very awkward; sometimes anachronistic, sometimes oddly immature, sometimes just clumsy.

making my eyes change into something different and scarier

the quieter and stiller I remained, the more fake his laughter turned.

That would look bad on you.”

(That last one is intended to mean ‘that would reflect badly on you’, not ‘that would look bad on you’ like a bad outfit or something, to clarify.)

But the rest of my issues are more a matter of taste: I’m TiredTM of women being afraid of their monstrous sides, which Demeter spends a lot of the beginning being (afraid, that is, not monstrous), and I’m also sick to death of reading about rape.

(Yes, I know there’s a LOT of rape in Greek myth. Your point? These are RETELLINGS of FANTASY. The authors can do what they want. Papadopoulou chose to include a fair bit of rape in her story, and I’m not saying that’s not allowed, I’m saying that’s not something I want to read.)

Not to mention, I found the take on divinity itself confusing and dull, and wanted to bang my head against my desk when Zeus was the one deciding what everyone’s power/dominion was going to be. WHY? WHY DO THIS? I HATE THIS SO MUCH. I’m so sick of reading mythological retellings where women are given their powers by men! Even when they trick said men into giving more than they intended – I don’t want to read these stories, okay? If you’re giving me gods, I want beings whose dominions are innate, not things that are given to them. Especially when we’re talking about goddesses.

I think my review makes it clear that a lot of this is about personal taste – Winter Harvest was never going to be for me, it wasn’t written with readers like me in mind. And that’s fine. But I do also think the writing is not-great, and that’s what I’m rating it on.

The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Queer MC
ISBN: 1837860009
Goodreads

A lyrical, queer sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet as a locked-room thriller

Hayden Lichfield’s life is ripped apart when he finds his father murdered in their lab, and the camera logs erased. The killer can only have been after one thing: the Sisyphus Formula the two of them developed together, which might one day reverse death itself. Hoping to lure the killer into the open, Hayden steals the research. In the process, he uncovers a recording his father made in the days before his death, and a dying wish: Avenge me…

With the lab on lockdown, Hayden is trapped with four other people—his uncle Charles, lab technician Gabriel Rasmussen, research intern Felicia Xia and their head of security, Felicia’s father Paul—one of whom must be the killer. His only sure ally is the lab’s resident artificial intelligence, Horatio, who has been his dear friend and companion since its creation. With his world collapsing, Hayden must navigate the building’s secrets, uncover his father’s lies, and push the boundaries of sanity in the pursuit of revenge.

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I tried, okay? I really did. I made it to 60%.

But I was just. so. BORED!

I was excited for this because I adored Liu’s debut novella, If Found Return to Hell, and the early reviews for Death I Gave Him were really promising. But I feel like I read a different book than those reviewers did; that, or I’m just not intellectual enough to appreciate what I was reading. I’m usually a mega-fan of introspection, and this book is 99% introspection, but – it’s introspection in a very grim situation where we’re dealing with a lot of people who are grieving and/or clinically depressed and/or paranoid (in fairness, usually paranoid for very good reasons). I loved the relationship I saw developing between Hayden (Hamlet) and the AI (Horatio) that ran the lab they were all in – I’m pretty sure it was going in a romantic direction, and I was damn invested in that. But not enough to put up with the rest of it.

(If I’m honest, I’m also not sure it was super healthy for me to be that deeply in the mind of someone that depressed – even though I’m mostly past the point Hayden’s at, it felt somewhat triggering. Which just means that Liu is very, very good at writing believable messed-up people, but that might have been part of the reason I wasn’t enjoying myself.)

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez, Pablo Gerardo Camacho, Megan McDowell
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Latine cast, bisexual MC
ISBN: B09ZRSG6RZ
Goodreads

“We have children so we can continue, they are our immortality.”

A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travels to her family home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed. The woman they grieve came from a clan like no other—a centuries-old secret society called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of eternal life. For Gaspar, the son, this vampiric cult is his destiny.

Now Gaspar is in danger. As the Order tries to possess him, father and son take flight, yet nothing will stop the Order for nothing is beyond them. Hunted by evil and surrounded by horror, Gaspar and his father attempt to outrun a powerful family that will do anything to ensure its own survival. But can any of us escape the fate that awaits us?

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This is not a bad book in any way; this is simply an issue of, I am not enough of a badass for this book. It’s properly scary and horrifying in ways I can’t stomach, that’s all. Proper/hardcore horror fans should flock to this, because, you know, as a horror novel, it’s wonderful; complicated, with twisty characters and fucked-up lore and evil that continues after death. It’s excellent! But it’s going to give me nightmares if I keep reading, so I think I’d better stop!

A Blackened Mirror (Memoirs of the Borgia Sibyl #1) by Jo Graham
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
ISBN: 9781952456152
Goodreads

1489—When Giulia Farnese came to Rome to make an arranged marriage with young noble Orsino Orsini, she dreamed of learning and power in the glittering city of the Renaissance popes. However, her mother-in-law seems frightened, and her husband refuses to consummate the marriage at the direction of the head of his family, Lord Bracciano. But Giulia herself has a secret: she sees visions in mirrors and hears the whispers of spirits, the gifts of an ancient sibyl in an age when magic is heresy punishable by death. Is this ability the reason Bracciano has trapped her in this sham of a marriage?

As she struggles to unearth answers, Giulia finds herself drawn to her mother-in-law's cousin, Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia. Ruthless, sophisticated, and old enough to be Giulia's father, Rodrigo is a humanist, a collector of pagan art and heretical writings, and a loving father to his illegitimate children. He is a bright spot in Giulia's chilly life—but to Bracciano, he's a political rival to be removed. Bracciano's dark rites to summon demons may make Giulia the instrument of Rodrigo's destruction.

Dealing with demons is a mortal sin. Refusing Bracciano would be a fatal mistake. And Giulia’s growing attraction to Rodrigo might be her downfall—or the key to her salvation. To defy the demon's power and seize control of her life, Giulia will need to cross the line between innocence and dangerous knowledge. And once she's descended into that underworld, she is not coming back unchanged.

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Another book I’ve spent most of the year trying to read. Graham’s prose is lovely, and I like the main character fine, but…I’m bored. And, if I’m honest, sick to DEATH of 16yo girls having romances with men in their 40s. It’s historical fiction. In this case, historical fantasy. You can change the rules! You’re adding seers and demons and whatnot to the time period, literally NOTHING is stopping you from changing the ages at which people are marrying!

The MC is engaging and very proactive, which feels surprising but pleasing; and the 40yo love interest is genuinely charming. But the book takes so long to get anywhere, and when it does, the magic is a surprisingly low-key part of it. I just had nothing holding me to the story; I didn’t care where it was going (it’s easy enough to guess that the bad guys will be overcome, for example) nor how we were going to get there. The MC is great, but the story she’s in is too slow and doesn’t give her room to manoeuvre, if that makes any sense.

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig
Representation: Chinese cast
ISBN: 1639730389
Goodreads

For readers of Outlawed, Piranesi, and The Night Tiger, a riveting, roaring adventure novel about a legendary Chinese pirate queen, her fight to save her fleet from the forces allied against them, and the dangerous price of power.

When Shek Yeung sees a Portuguese sailor slay her husband, a feared pirate, she knows she must act swiftly or die. Instead of mourning, Shek Yeung launches a new plan: immediately marrying her husband's second-in-command, and agreeing to bear him a son and heir, in order to retain power over her half of the fleet.

But as Shek Yeung vies for control over the army she knows she was born to lead, larger threats loom. The Chinese Emperor has charged a brutal, crafty nobleman with ridding the South China Seas of pirates, and the Europeans-tired of losing ships, men, and money to Shek Yeung's alliance-have new plans for the area. Even worse, Shek Yeung's cutthroat retributions create problems all their own. As Shek Yeung navigates new motherhood and the crises of leadership, she must decide how long she is willing to fight, and at what price, or risk losing her fleet, her new family, and even her life.

A book of salt and grit, blood and sweat, Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea is an unmissable portrait of a woman who leads with the courage and ruthlessness of our darkest and most beloved heroes.

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Some similar issues to Blackened Mirror; too slow to get going, and I didn’t like where we were going. Bear in mind I’m also a bit of a prude with a weak stomach, which is exactly the wrong personality type for keeping up with a woman who’s going to become history’s greatest pirate queen. I wasn’t enjoying the prose and was confused as to how and why I wasn’t connecting with any of the characters; I think it’s at least partly because the writing style feels…very emotionally detached from the cast? Like we’re a step away from the story, behind a glass wall, rather than immersed in it. I’m sure it’s also partly that Chang-Eppig does nothing to romanticise the reality of piracy, and the reality is not comfortable or nice, and I’m not very good at enjoying books that are realistic about how un-nice life can be. Which is not a critique, just a matter of taste and preference.

Nightbirds (Nightbirds, #1) by Kate J. Armstrong
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC
ISBN: B0B2MHD7HH
Goodreads

The Nightbirds are Simta’s best-kept secret: Girls with a unique and powerful magic they can gift with just a kiss. Some would kill to possess them; the church would kill them outright. But protected by the Great Houses, the Nightbirds are well-guarded treasures.

As this Season’s Nightbirds, Matilde, Æsa, and Sayer will spend their nights bestowing their gifts to well-paying clients. Once their season is through, they’re each expected to marry a Great House lord and become mothers to the next generation of Nightbirds before their powers fade away. But as they find themselves at the heart of a political scheme that threatens not only their secrets, but their very lives, their future suddenly becomes uncertain.

When they discover that there are other girls like them and that their magic is far more than they were told, they see the Nightbird system for what it is: a gilded cage. Now they must make a choice—to remain kept birds or take control, remaking the city that dared to clip their wings.

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Yet another book I’ve been trying to read since early in the year…this one is a ‘soft’ DNF, though; I would really like to come back to it at some point. The prose is very pretty, and I can see myself enjoying this if I could just find the bandwidth to focus on it properly. As-is, it pleased me by being more complicated than I was expecting, but while I loved the old-school lore, I wasn’t very impressed with the 1920s-esque current worldbuilding. I did like the budding Girl Power vibes – they were more subtle than I often see them – although I’d be surprised if this series ever touches on where trans or nonbinary girls fit into the magic – even if we did get one sapphic MC.

Fingers crossed for fewer DNFs next month!

The post October DNFs appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #160

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

SIX books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

The Book of Queer Saints: Volume II by Mae Murray, Hailey Piper, Alison Rumfitt, Paula D. Ashe, Sam Richard
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 31st October 2023
Goodreads

The award-nominated anthology series returns with The Book of Queer Saints Volume II.

Featuring 19 new stories by some of the best queer horror writers working today, it includes works by Shirley Jackson Award-winning author Paula D. Ashe, Wonderland Award-winner Sam Richard, and Rhysling Award-nominee Alison Rumfitt (Tell Me I'm Worthless).

A group of black metal punks burns down a regenerating church. Scientists seek communion with a cosmic entity. A medieval peasant is possessed by a spirit. A chrysalis devours townspeople in Mexico. A trans girl becomes one with a machine hellbent on chaos and revenge.
The Book of Queer Saints, Volume II is a terrifying blend of the gory, erotic, and monstrous as told from the queer perspective.

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I was one of the original backers for volume one of Queer Saints – back when it was just Queer Saints, because no one had any idea there’d be enough demand for more volumes! (In hindsight, I feel like everyone should have seen that one coming. Us queers are freaks.) So I was EXTREMELY DELIGHTED to learn we were getting a volume two!!! Even if, ahem, the hubby will have to read it first, so I know which stories I’m likely to be able to handle…

A Season of Monstrous Conceptions by Lina Rather
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC, F/F, minor nonbinary rep
Published on: 31st October 2023
Goodreads

In 17th-century London, unnatural babies are being born: some with eyes made for the dark, others with webbed fingers and toes better suited to the sea.

Sarah Davis is intimately familiar with such strangeness—she herself was born marked by uncanniness. Having hidden her nature all her life and fled to London under suspicious circumstances, Sarah starts over as a midwife’s apprentice, hoping to carve out for herself an independent life. As a member of the illegal Worshipful Company of Midwives, Sarah learns to reach across the thinning boundary between her world and another, drawing on its power to heal and protect the women she serves.

When the wealthy Lady Wren hires her to see her through her pregnancy, Sarah quickly becomes a favorite of her husband, the famous architect Lord Christopher Wren, whose interest in the uncanny borders on obsession. Sarah soon finds herself caught in a web of magic and intrigue created by those who would use the magic of the Other World to gain power for themselves, and whose pursuits threaten to unmake the earth itself.

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This novella is a good dark read for readers like me, who don’t want anything actually dark. The prose is lovely, and the story was much queerer than I was expecting, which was lovely! Will definitely be keeping an eye out for Lina Rather’s work in future.

My review!

In The Garden Of Echo by H.S. Wolfe
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary MCs
Published on: 31st October 2023
Goodreads

Echo and Ender have existed nearly as long as the earth itself. They’re hungry, in love, and indestructible.

For centuries they’ve wandered across continents feeding from their favorite food source - humans. But the mess they’ve left in their wake starts their prey on the path of discovering that they are not what they seem.

After being forced to curb their feeding and go into hiding, a tragic incident leads Echo and Ender to learn about what they are, and the power they are truly capable of.

In The Garden Of Echo is an erotic botanical horror about two codependent monster of unknown origins born to torture the human race for their sins against the earth. Please see author's carrd for full TW's.

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Well. This sounds like amazing Halloween reading! I’m very Into edritch abomination-type creatures/characters, and this sounds right up my alley. Can’t wait to pounce on it!

What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Bolivian-Argentinian MC
Published on: 31st October 2023
Goodreads

Bolivian-Argentinian Inez Olivera belongs to the glittering upper society of nineteenth century Buenos Aires, and like the rest of the world, the town is steeped in old world magic that’s been largely left behind or forgotten. Inez has everything a girl might want, except for the one thing she yearns the most: her globetrotting parents—who frequently leave her behind.

When she receives word of their tragic deaths, Inez inherits their massive fortune and a mysterious guardian, an archeologist in partnership with his Egyptian brother-in-law. Yearning for answers, Inez sails to Cairo, bringing her sketch pads and an ancient golden ring her father sent to her for safekeeping before he died. But upon her arrival, the old world magic tethered to the ring pulls her down a path where she soon discovers there’s more to her parent’s disappearance than what her guardian led her to believe.

With her guardian’s infuriatingly handsome assistant thwarting her at every turn, Inez must rely on ancient magic to uncover the truth about her parent’s disappearance—or risk becoming a pawn in a larger game that will kill her.

The Mummy meets Death on the Nile in this lush, immersive historical fantasy set in Egypt filled with adventure, a rivals-to-lovers romance, and a dangerous race.

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Listen, there’s a certain subset of my generation who will pounce on anything if you comp it to The Mummy – and I am a gleeful member of that subset! I believe this is set in a slightly magical analogue of our world, rather than being straight-up historical fiction.

Sistah Samurai by Tatiana Obey
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Representation: Black MC, Japanese setting + cast
Published on: 1st November 2023
Goodreads

Afro Samurai meets The Sword of Kaigen in this anime-inspired novella

This is no revenge story. I ain’t got time for that. I’ve got errands to run and things to do and barely enough time to make it home before sundown. I don’t care why folks are going around stealing ink. I don’t care why the monks are acting kinda strange. I don’t care that everybody is expecting me to save them. I might be a Sistah Samurai but those days playing hero were back when my knees didn’t ache, and I wasn’t the only one left. So leave me alone.

All I want to do is get home, drink some green tea lemonade, and enjoy my peace. I’m not asking for much, so why are all these demons daring to get in my way?
I am not the one. Not today.

Sistah Samurai is an Action Fantasy novella that is an homage to the anime, Afro Samurai. Both works feature a feudal Japan-inspired setting that is rife with anachronisms. In the words of Samuel L. Jackson, “Is that a motherf—ing RPG?”

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Come on, I don’t actually have to sell you on this, do I??? THAT COVER. THAT PREMISE. SOLD.

Yours Celestially by Al Hess
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Queer MCs, autistic and adhd rep, disability rep
Published on: 2nd November 2023
Goodreads

After divorce, death, and having his reformatted soul uploaded into a new body, Sasha expected resurrection to be a fresh start. His time spent in digital Limbo with the program’s cheeky AI guardian angel, Metatron, was cathartic, but what good is a second life when he only sees his daughter on the weekends, he has all the same problems he had before he died, and he can’t seem to shake the ache for the married life he lost?

If that weren’t frustrating enough, a glitch in the program has given Sasha the ability to sense Metatron even outside of Limbo. And Metatron is in love. The angel’s sickly-sweet yearning for one of the souls still in Limbo has turned Sasha’s stomach into caramelized lead. It’s hard enough to move on without someone else’s feelings making the emptiness in his own life even more acute. He didn’t have playing wingman to an actual winged being on his bingo card, but he’s determined to help Metatron make a move on their crush so he can get love off of his mind.

Sasha takes a job with the resurrection company in order to covertly contact Metatron. Except Sasha’s new coworker, Mr. C, keeps showing up at the worst moments. The man is annoying, he’s pushy… and he’s incredibly hot. Sasha can’t decide whether Mr. C wants to blackmail him or be his new BFF, but he seems to know things about Metatron and the resurrection program that Sasha doesn’t. Getting close to him might be the key to solving Sasha’s problem, but if he isn’t careful, he’s going to end up catching feelings of his own.

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I didn’t enjoy Hess’ debut, but I fell hard for the premise of Yours Celestially the moment I heard about it, and thus am more than happy to give Hess another chance.

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #160 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Sunday Soupçons #25

soupçon/ˈsuːpsɒn,ˈsuːpsɒ̃/ noun
1. a very small quantity of something; a slight trace, as of a particular taste or flavor

Sunday Soupçons is where I scribble mini-reviews for books I don’t have the brainspace/eloquence/smarts to write about in depth – or if I just don’t have anything interesting to say beyond I LIKED IT AND YOU SHOULD READ IT TOO!

I’ve had a very hard time trying to put my thoughts into words about these two – I think this is the best you’re going to get.

Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual secondary protagonist, brown secondary character, minor F/F
PoV: 1st-person, present tense; third-person, present-tense
ISBN: 1529061156
Goodreads

A contemporary gothic fairy tale about a small town haunted by the history it can't quite seem to bury and the canny, clever young woman who finds herself drawn to the house that sits at the crossroads of it all.

Starling House is odd and ugly and fully of secrets, just like its heir. Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but it might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden, and it feels dangerously like something she's never had: a home.

But she isn't the only one interested in the house, or the horrors and wonders that lie beneath it. If Opal wants a home, she'll have to fight for it. She'll have to dig up her family's dark past and let herself dream of a brighter future. She'll have to go down, down into Underland, and claw her way back to the light.

Starling House is the sweeping, romantic new novel from New York Times bestseller and Hugo Award-winner Alix E. Harrow.

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So far, I’ve adored Harrow’s standalones, and struck out with her novellas. That pattern continues unbroken; I loved Starling House, even though it’s so completely different to The Ten Thousand Doors of January and The Once and Future Witches!

Which feel – January and Witches, I mean – like they have something in common with each other, even though they, also, are wildly different. But Starling House stands doesn’t share that inexpressible thing the other two novels have; if the other two are cousins, then Starling House comes from another family tree entirely.

(Which is actually pretty appropriate, when you think about the Starling family.)

It’s not a bad thing, though, because Starling House is still marvellous. I’ve seen some reviewers calling it Harrow’s best work yet, and while I’m not unbiased enough to give an opinion – I love January and Witches so much I don’t think I can look at them critically – I definitely understand why they’re saying so. Starling House is a razor slicing you open to the bone, too sharp to hold, but so painfully beautiful you can’t help trying anyway. And part of its beauty is that it is un-beautiful – its heroine and her love interest are not physically pretty, and the lives they live are ugly and hard, and so much of this book is hunger. So much of it is…things we are not supposed to want, but want fiercely, desperately, savagely, personally, anyway.

this is what it looks like when you swallow all your hunger. When you want what you can’t have, so you bury it like a knife between your ribs.

I wanted to read this book because it was written by Harrow; then I wanted to read it because of the lines and snippets she shared on social media. But it was when Tor released the sneak peek that I sat up like I’d been electrified, because that was when I learned that Opal – the MC – lives below the poverty line – somewhere SFF doesn’t often dare to tread. And her voice. Harrow wrote Starling House mostly in first-person – there are short third-person passages from the perspective of the love interest – and that was so absolutely the right decision, because Opal. My gods, Opal. She is everything we’re supposed to despise about ‘the lower classes’, she is sharp and cynical and vicious and crude and shameless, and I would be too intimidated by her in real life to ever be her friend, but I fell in love with her through Starling House.

Dreams aren’t for people like me.

People like me have to make two lists: what they need and what they want. You keep the first list short, if you’re smart, and you burn the second one.

Hunger, dreams, wanting: they’re all big, thorny themes in this book, entwined through every chapter, and I don’t know how to do them justice (which is why this is a mini-review rather than a full one). This is a book about monsters, about the ugliness and even evil that can lie behind a dream, but at the same time, the premise – the promise – that you can never be too poor, too broken, too anything for a dream. For magic.

It’s not a cheesy, Hallmark-y promise that Your Dreams Will Come True. It’s more like – magic is for everyone. It is okay, maybe even good, to want things. This is not a Disney story; there is blood in it, and monsters, (including the human kind), but magic does not belong to just the middle and upper classes. And neither do dreams.

dreams are just like stray cats. If you don’t feed them they get lean and clever and sharp-clawed, and come for the jugular when you least expect it.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say. I’ve never been as poor as Opal, and the closest I got to it was not a period that lasted long, thankfully. But there’s something wrenching about this feral young woman who has scraped and stolen and bared her teeth at the whole damn world, who is spiky and unlikable (but so lovable) as fuck, getting to have a story like this. An adventure, dreams, magic. Choosing and being chosen.

I think dizzily that I know exactly why Icarus flew so high: when you’ve spent too long in the dark, you’ll melt your own wings just to feel the sun on your skin.

Starling House is a book that goes for your throat – and while you’re trying to defend that, gets your heart instead. I can’t do it justice. It’s exquisite. And a must-read for everyone, imo.

Emergent Properties by Aimee Ogden
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Nonbinary MC
ISBN: 1250866820
Goodreads

Emergent Properties is the touching adventure of an intrepid A.I. reporter hot on the heels of brewing corporate warfare from Nebula Award-nominated author Aimee Ogden.

A state-of-the-art AI with a talent for asking questions and finding answers, Scorn is nevertheless a parental disappointment. Defying the expectations of zir human mothers, CEOs of the world’s most powerful corporations, Scorn has made a life of zir own as an investigative reporter, crisscrossing the globe in pursuit of the truth, no matter the danger.

In the middle of investigating a story on the moon, Scorn comes back online to discover ze has no memory of the past ten days—and no idea what story ze was even chasing. Letting it go is not an option—not if ze wants to prove zirself. Scorn must retrace zir steps in a harrowing journey to uncover an even more explosive truth than ze could have ever imagined.

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Ogden won me over with her (absolutely gorgeous) debut novella Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters – so even though Emergent Properties didn’t have a premise that interested me that much, well, I already knew I loved Ogden’s prose. And that’s often the dealbreaker for me; I can read (and enjoy) a story I don’t care about as long as the writing’s beautiful, but an incredible story is rendered unreadable for me if I and the writing don’t get on.

So when I find an author whose writing I like, I don’t give up on them easily, is what I’m saying here.

Pretty much as expected, I really did not care about the mystery that needed solving – I actually think it was a legitimate let-down, not because I didn’t care about it, but because it’s one of those where there’s no way for the reader to put the pieces together before the big reveal (or in hindsight, after it). At least this time, that didn’t have the effect of making the big reveal surprising; instead it was like a deflated souffle, something clearly MEANT to be big and grand and amazing, but which very much flopped instead.

That wasn’t really a problem, though, outside of reading the big reveal scene itself (which was a total fail). Emergent Properties is about Scorn, and Scorn more than justifies the pagecount just by sheer interesting-ness. Ogden’s take on what the inside of a (sentient) AI might look like was fascinating, but Scorn is also a legitimately engaging, funny character, and the combination of the two – Scorn’s personality and zir interactions with that personality in ways not possible for humans – was a lot of fun. I loved the way Scorn’s self-awareness had zir adjusting zir own personality – not in the ‘I will be polite when really I’m mad’ way, but literally adjusting the code of zir personality – in response to different situations; wow is that a useful feature. And I suspect I’m not the only one jealous of Scorn’s ability to turn zir emotions up, down, or entirely off!

The novella peripherally touches on topics like robot emancipation and AI citizenship, to which the best response is a question Scorn can’t help asking: why make your servants sentient in the first place? To which I’m just – yeah. That. Can we not do that? Let’s not do that. We’re far too casual, as a society, with creating new sentients (aka, having children) as-is: can we all agree we won’t make entirely new sentient lifeforms just so they can better serve us coffee, or whatever?

If we want servants, they don’t need to be sentient. If they’re sentient, they can’t be servants – or rather, they can’t be slaves. Let’s not do that again, either.

Basically, a quick, fun read with just enough meatiness to it to leave me with plenty to think about.

The post Sunday Soupçons #25 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Can’t Wait For…Power to Yield and Other Stories by Bogi Takács

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted over at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about but haven’t yet read. Most of the time they’re books that have yet to be released, but not always. It’s based on the Waiting on Wednesday meme, which was originally hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine. 

This week my Can’t-Wait-For Book is Power to Yield and Other Stories by Bogi Takács!

Power to Yield and Other Stories by Bogi Takács
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi, Science Fantasy, Speculative Fiction
Representation: Nonbinary and neurodivergent MCs
Published on: 7th November 2023
Goodreads

COMPLEX COMMUNITY

Power to Yield is a collection of speculative tales exploring gender identity, neurodivergence, and religion from author Bogi Takács, who deftly blends sci-fi, fantasy, and weird fiction.

An AI child discovers Jewish mysticism. A student can give no more blood to their semi-sentient apartment and plans their escape. A candidate is rigorously evaluated for their ability to be a liaison to alien newcomers. A young magician gains perspective from her time as a plant. A neurodivergent woman tries to survive on a planetoid where thoughts shape reality . . .

​These are stories about the depth and breadth of the human condition—and beyond—identifying future possibilities of conflict and cooperation, identity and community.

PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR
“A seamless juxtaposition of intricate truths and bold fictions, these stories mesmerize.” (Nicky Drayden, author of Escaping Exodus and The Prey of Gods)

“It’s rare to find an author that truly deepens the speculative genre and human experience simultaneously but Takács is clearly one of them. E deftly unravels our preconceived notions of the self, society, culture, desire, power and the other and re-braids them in new insightful ways in each story. As you move through each richly-crafted story, you are challenged and transformed whether you realize it or not. This intimate yet expansive collection is not one to miss.” (Sloane Leong, author of Prism Stalker, Graveneye, and A Map to the Sun)

“Bogi Takács’s stories never fail to awe with their breadth and depth of thought, precise prose, and fascinating characters. In Power to Yield and Other Stories, Takács reveals emself to be a masterful gardener, cultivating these tales of science and magic, of immigrants and exiles, of deep loss and abiding hope. Whether you’re new to eir work or know it well, this collection will welcome you, for it is expertly tended and blooming with glorious sights, its roots stretching across cultures, bodies, worlds, and ages.” (Izzy Wasserstein, author of All the Hometowns You Can’t Stay Away From)

“[“Power to Yield”] is a fascinating take on aspects of power, history, personal obsession, and sadism, the latter all taking place within an asexual framework that removes those questions from their normal sexual-overtone-laden context.” (Karen Burnham, Locus Magazine)

“[“Power to Yield”] is laced with pain and with the fractured lines of a people stitched together from trauma and systemic abuse, who come together out of necessity and the need for freedom to make something powerful and beautiful. [...] And it’s a lovely, rending read that I definitely recommend people check out immediately!” (Charles Payseur, Quick Sip Reviews)

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The incredibly hypnotising cover is by Galen Dara, but that wasn’t actually what caught my attention – it was learning that Ada Hoffman, aka the writer of the incredible Outside trilogy, has written the foreword to it!

And I mean. If Hoffman approves, the chances are very good that I’m going to adore it as well!

Even without Hoffman’s stamp of approval: anything exploring ‘gender identity, neurodivergence, and religion’ is going to be My Thing, practically by default. It really doesn’t hurt that the author is openly agender, like me! I wonder if e has ever had any of the same weird thoughts about gender as I have???

Guess I’ll find out on 7th November!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Power to Yield and Other Stories by Bogi Takács appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #159

Must-Have Monday is a feature highlighting which of the coming week’s new releases I’m excited for. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list of all books being published that week; only those I’m interested in out of those I’m aware of! The focus is diverse SFF, but other genres sneak in occasionally too.

EIGHT books this week!

(Books are listed in order of pub date, then Adult SFF, Adult Other, YA SFF, YA Other, MG SFF.)

The Innocent Sleep (October Daye, #18) by Seanan McGuire
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bi/pansexual MC, secondary queer characters
Published on: 24th October 2023
Goodreads

For one bright, shining moment, Tybalt, King of Cats, had everything he had ever wanted. He was soon to set his crown aside; he had married the woman he loved; he was going to be a father. After centuries of searching for a family of his own, he had finally found a way to construct the life of his dreams, and was looking forward to a period of peace—or at least as much peace as is ever in the offing for the husband of a hero.

Alas for Tybalt and his domestic aspirations, fate—and Titania—had other ideas. His perfect world had been complete for only a moment when it was ripped away, to be replaced by hers. Titania, Faerie’s Summer Queen, Mother of Illusions and enemy of so many he holds dear, has seized control of the Kingdom, remaking it in her own image. An image which does not include meddlesome shapeshifters getting in her way. Tybalt quickly finds himself banished from her reality, along with the Undersea and the rest of the Court of Cats.

To protect his people and his future, Tybalt must find the woman he loves in a world designed to keep her from him, convince her that he’s not a stranger trying to ruin her life for no apparent reason, and get her to unmake the illusion she’s been firmly enmeshed in. And he’ll have to do it all while she doesn’t know him, and every unrecognizing look is a knife to his heart.

For Tybalt, King of Cats, the happily ever after was just the beginning.

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Our second October Daye book this year, and our first one ever from Tybalt’s pov!!! This is very obviously NOT the place to jump into the series if you’re new to it, but it’s exciting as hell for all us long-term fans!

Traitor of Redwinter (The Redwinter Chronicles, #2) by Ed McDonald
Genres: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Bisexual MC, sapphic love interest, secondary gay character
Published on: 24th October 2023
Goodreads

The second in Ed McDonald’s Chronicles of Redwinter, full of shady politics, militant monks, ancient powers... and a young woman navigating a world in which no one is quite what they seem.

The power of the Sixth Gate grows stronger within Raine each day—to control it, she needs lessons no living Draoihn can teach her. Her fledgling friendships are tested to breaking point as she tries to face what she has become, and her master Ulovar is struck by a mysterious sickness that slowly saps the vitality from his body, leaving Raine to face her growing darkness alone. There’s only one chance to turn the tide of power surging within her—to learn the secrets the Draoihn themselves purged from the world.

The book can teach her. She doesn’t know where she found it, or when exactly, but its ever changing pages whisper power that has lain untouched for centuries.

As the king’s health fails and the north suffers in the grip of famine, rebellious lords hunger for the power of the Crown, backed by powers that would see the Crowns undone. Amidst this growing threat, Raine’s former friend Ovitus brings a powerful new alliance, raising his status and power of his own. He professes support for the heir to the throne even as others would see him take it for himself, and desperately craves Raine’s forgiveness—or her submission.

But the grandmaster has her own plans for Raine, and the deadly training she has been given has not been conducted carelessly. In Raine she seeks to craft a weapon to launch right into her enemy’s heart, as Redwinter seeks to hold onto power.

Amidst threats old and new, Raine must learn the secrets promised by the book, magic promised by a queen with a crown of feathers. A queen to whom Raine has promised more than she can afford to give…

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The sequel to last year’s Daughter of Red winter, Traitor brings this series to a whole new level. I got to read it early, and it blew me away – I really can’t recommend this series strongly enough!

My review of Daughter of Redwinter
My review of Traitor of Redwinter

Ogden: A Tale for the End of Time by Ben G. Price
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Published on: 24th October 2023
Goodreads

A story full of elemental magic It tells a tale about how an emissary from the Spirit of Nature arrives in the early days of industrialization, in the form of a young troll, to judge humanity's fitness for survival, or to doom us to extinction. The evil intrigues of men bent on eradicating the last of the trolls are offset by profound epiphanies as Ogden grows and matures from a callow babe in the woods into a burly troll who communes with the spirits of Nature. Through many adventures he learns the similarities and differences between the black magic of men conjured through deceit and clever technology and the life-affirming magic of Nature expressed in ways mysterious and infinite. Ogden is a unique fantasy novel set in the 18th century, full of magical creatures, learning, and love.

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I’ve been curious about this one for ages – I love the premise, though I hope it’ll be a bit more nuanced than ‘Nature good, technology bad’.

Organ Meats by K-Ming Chang
Genres: Speculative Fiction
Representation: Possibly queer MCs
Published on: 24th October 2023
Goodreads

Two girls are bound by red string and canine heritage in this vivid tale about female companionship and loyalty, from the National Book Award "5 Under 35" honoree and author of Gods of Want

Best friends Anita and Rainie have made countless visits to their home base: an old sycamore tree and its neighboring lot of stray dogs who have a mysterious ability to communicate with humans. The girls learn that they are preceded by generations of dog-headed women and women-headed dogs whose bloodlines knot them together like thread. Anita convinces her best friend Rainie to become a dog with her, tying a collar of red string around each of their necks to preserve their kinship forever. But when the two girls are separated, Anita sinks into her dreams and lands herself in a coma that only Rainie knows how to rouse her from. As Anita’s body begins to rot, her mind straying farther and farther away from the waking world, it is up to Rainie to rebuild her friend’s body and keep Anita from being lost forever.* Tasked with gathering new organs from the mythical landscape of their shared childhood, Rainie must return to the past and ask herself how far she is willing to go to reunite with the girl who has haunted her and hunted her in equal measure.

In rhythmically poetic and visceral lore, K-Ming Chang veers away from the ordinary and into the macabre. Filled with ghosts and bodily entrails, this is a story about the horror and beauty of intimacy, being tethered to another person across time and space, and transforming our origins.

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So this is apparently weird and surreal as fuck, which, yep, did get those vibes from the blurb. I suspect my stomach isn’t strong enough for this one, but it does sound like it might make for some good Halloween reading.

Jewel Box by E. Lily Yu
Genres: Fantasy, Horror, Speculative Fiction
Published on: 24th October 2023
Goodreads

A luminous collection of short fiction by award-winning writer E. Lily Yu, Jewel Box showcases incandescent stories from a master of language that reflect and refract the sharp intimacies of our world, burning brilliant against the dark.

Angels, monsters, and bees. Birdwatchers, emperors, and prison wardens. These and more populate the twenty-two new and old stories from award-winning author E. Lily Yu, collected for the first time here in her debut short story collection. From her early innovative work that won her the Astounding Award for Best New Writer, such as “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees,” to recent short fiction such as “Small Monsters,” E. Lily Yu’s writing has continued to garner award nominations and recognition from the literary community for its faceted beauty, cutting edge, and uplifting heart.

Collecting award-winning stories from across her career alongside brand-new pieces, Jewel Box rings with stories of delight and tales of tremendous weight. At turns bittersweet and boundary-breaking, poignant and profound, this collection of stories sing, as the oldest stories do, of what it means to be alive in this strange, terrible, beautiful world.

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I didn’t click with Yu’s debut novel, but I did love her prose, so I’m excited to check out her first short story collection!

The Privilege of the Happy Ending: S/M/L Stories by Kij Johnson
Genres: Speculative Fiction
Published on: 24th October 2023
Goodreads

The Privilege of the Happy Ending collects award-winning writer Kij Johnson’s speculative fiction from the last decade. The stories explore gender, animals, and the nature of stories, and range in form from classically told tales to deeply experimental works.

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I’ve heard lots of good things about Johnson’s short fiction, so again, I’m excited to check out this collection. And I love that cover!

Val Hall: Century by Alma Alexander
Genres: Sci Fi
Published on: 24th October 2023
Goodreads

THESE ARE THE STORIES OF A CENTURY IN A PLACE CALLED VAL HALL.

NOT VALHALLA. NOT ODIN'S GATHERING PLACE FOR GODS AND IMMORTALS.

VAL HALL, HOME AND LAST SANCTUARY FOR RETIRED SUPERHEROES (THIRD CLASS).

Val Hall, raised by the vision and devotion of one man for others of his kind... in the wreckage of the world left behind in the ashes of the conflagration of what they called the Great War.

Men and women in whom an extraordinary moment released one singular extraordinary power, gathered under theudefinition of Superheroes (Third Class), could gather here in the twilight of their lives in search of security, contentment, care, and peace - they could come here to find, and take shelter with, others of their kind.

From those who could know the unknowable, release gifts trapped in the minds of others, free ancient memories with a single touch, lead their kin back to the Promised Land or face down a volcano; from those who use the power of their voice to make others believe anything they say, or those whose task it was to turn annihilation from their people at any cost, or stand against the storm to protect the ones they love, or walk with the dead and glimpse the world beyond - or those who can bend time, see the invisible, or save the world from ruin in their own unique ways - their powers are banked... until the instant in which they are kindled into something unforgettable.

These are their stories.

Welcome to Val Hall.

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Superhero retirement homes??? That sounds – kind of amazing? Especially since Alexander’s superheroes don’t quite sound like comicbook-style heroes. ‘Knowing the unknowable’ and ‘leading their kin back to the Promised Land’? I am intrigued!

Shortage of Angels: A Novel by Penny Pickle
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 27th October 2023
Goodreads

Rural East Texas, 1968 Calvina ("Cal") Jean Prather is a 10-year-old precocious angel hunter living in Onward, Texas. She is blessed by birthright to be a "special purpose" child who can see the angels on Earth as they go about their celestial tasks. She lives with her mortician granddaddy in their combined house and funeral parlor. Cal's best friend is Moody, a child with social challenges. Enthralled by local legend, the duo secretly heads for the forbidden reaches of the Sabine River Bottom, where they witness a murder confession while playing an innocent game of Indian scouts. When the killers seek to silence Cal and Moody as witnesses, the children realize that they are tangled in a dangerous web. Cal must soon choose between her solemn oath not to call on the angels to intervene in Earthly matters, or risk the lives of those she loves. Only one angel can be summoned on such short notice who has the light and power to save her: Lucifer. Her gamble with the devil brings her to the jaws of death, and Onward to a reckoning with their own prejudices. Cal must choose between her promise, her loved ones, and her own place in eternity. The revelations reveal the circumstances of her mother's death, the origin of her powers, and who she can claim as her father.

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The paper release isn’t till next month, as best as I can tell, but the ebook is out this week! And while the blurb is a bit of a mess, I really liked the except of the first few pages, and I’m curious about where this story is going – and how it’ll get there. Plus, I’m nearly always interested in stories about angels.

Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #159 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Levelling Up (In All The Ways): Traitor of Redwinter by Ed McDonald

Traitor of Redwinter (Redwinter Chronicles #2) by Ed McDonald
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists, Epic Fantasy
Representation: Bisexual MC, sapphic love interest, very minor implied M/M
Published on: 24th October 2023
ISBN: B0BQGGPG4S
Goodreads

The second in Ed McDonald’s Chronicles of Redwinter, full of shady politics, militant monks, ancient powers... and a young woman navigating a world in which no one is quite what they seem.

The power of the Sixth Gate grows stronger within Raine each day—to control it, she needs lessons no living Draoihn can teach her. Her fledgling friendships are tested to breaking point as she tries to face what she has become, and her master Ulovar is struck by a mysterious sickness that slowly saps the vitality from his body, leaving Raine to face her growing darkness alone. There’s only one chance to turn the tide of power surging within her—to learn the secrets the Draoihn themselves purged from the world.

The book can teach her. She doesn’t know where she found it, or when exactly, but its ever changing pages whisper power that has lain untouched for centuries.

As the king’s health fails and the north suffers in the grip of famine, rebellious lords hunger for the power of the Crown, backed by powers that would see the Crowns undone. Amidst this growing threat, Raine’s former friend Ovitus brings a powerful new alliance, raising his status and power of his own. He professes support for the heir to the throne even as others would see him take it for himself, and desperately craves Raine’s forgiveness—or her submission.

But the grandmaster has her own plans for Raine, and the deadly training she has been given has not been conducted carelessly. In Raine she seeks to craft a weapon to launch right into her enemy’s heart, as Redwinter seeks to hold onto power.

Amidst threats old and new, Raine must learn the secrets promised by the book, magic promised by a queen with a crown of feathers. A queen to whom Raine has promised more than she can afford to give…

I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

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~a very shiny horse
~secrets of death-magic
~arguably the Best villain ever
~still shipping my OT3
~the Heels (you’ll know them when you see them)

*Spoilers for book one, Daughter of Redwinter (reviewed here)!*

Daughter of Redwinter was a huge surprise for me on every level – it wasn’t a book I expected to be for me, but I fell head over heels for it, not least because of how much I identified with Raine, the main character. But the magically-induced emotional numbing Raine experienced for most of Daughter was ‘healed’ – kinda-sorta-mostly – at the end of that book, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from Traitor. Would I still care about Raine? Would I even like her? How would her ability to experience the full range of emotions again affect her relationships with her new family – to say nothing of her two love interests? Daughter ended with Raine and the mysterious Queen of Feathers being pretty pissed at each other – what ramifications was that going to have?

I can tell you this: a lot has changed between the two books. Daughter and Traitor are very different in a whole bunch of ways.

But I would say that’s because Traitor of Redwinter levels the fuck up in every aspect, and the results are incredible.

Daughter of Redwinter was a book that took me by surprise; Traitor is a book that is nothing but surprises. Absolutely nothing went the way I thought it would; I never saw the twists coming, spotted the clues only in hindsight, and everything I was sure of slipped through my fingers. Something I thought was a beautiful but ultimately meaningless moment from the first book literally saved the fucking day here; something I thought was McDonald leaning on a lazy cliche was MINDBLOWINGLY NOT; characters I wrote off revealed themselves to be the exact opposite of what I’d thought them to be – which meant something very different for each one of those characters. Everything I thought I didn’t like – little details in the tropes, the plot, the worldbuilding, the politics, the character dynamics, anything and everything – turned itself inside-out into something completely and ridiculously epic before the book was over, and honestly, I want to stand up and APPLAUD. I love how many tricks McDonald played on me; I love how he played me, over and over; I love how this story is patently not going in the direction we’d quite naturally expect.

Epic Fantasy? Oh, definitely. But not like you’ve seen it before – honest.

Traitor opens eight months after the end of Daughter, and I won’t lie, that bugged me. I’m not a fan of timeskips generally, and this one stretched the bounds of belief when it came to the romantic tension between Raine and her two love interests, Sanvaunt and Esther. It’s a little difficult to buy into the fact that all of that stalled for eight months, after how intense both relationships were becoming towards the end of the previous book. But on the one hand, we have both Raine and Esther’s hesitation and confusion over their sapphic feelings, in a world where that’s not commonly accepted; and on the other hand, Raine and Sanvaunt both had A Lot to deal with in the final chapters of Daughter, so…it’s just about possible to let it slide. Just.

they’d lit a fire to the sheet music, and now they danced to a burning tune.

Especially because that’s really my only critique of anything in the book. And we dive right in immediately; Raine, with a fair bit more control over her sixth gate than she had when last we saw her, is being sent as part of a sort of ambassadorial party with several other apprentice Draoihn to (politely, not violently) deal with a rebel Draoihn lordling. Who, to be honest, has some pretty good reasoning for telling Redwinter to fuck off. Where Daughter of Redwinter gave us a tight, narrow focus on Raine and Redwinter itself, Traitor zooms out, giving us a much bigger, and clearer, understanding of Raine’s world. The politics of her country Harran, and its north/south divide, is one of the major driving forces of the plot; as are the not-always-so-distant schemes of their overlords in Brannlant. (Though don’t misunderstand me; this isn’t a book for fans of political intrigue. Raine is too blunt of an instrument, much as I love her, to be the star of a story that’s all politicking and intrigue and diplomacy.) We even get glimpses of some very far-away lands indeed, mostly through some of Raine’s expatriate teachers, but once through a very interesting choice of military fashion.

Our view of Raine’s world doesn’t just widen; it deepens. We learn a lot more about the dreaded Sixth Gate in this book, and its connection to the other gates…but what startled and interested me most was how much Raine’s relationship to the Queen of Feathers changed from the last book. Some of the things she says; some of the visions/dreams Raine has; some of the ways the two interact forced me to toss out all of my theories about who and what the Queen is…and the new ones have been keeping me up at nights.

I NEED ANSWERS SO BADLY!

For many people, their greatest weakness lies in not wanting to make a fuss.

Traitor of Redwinter is a bit of a contradiction; in many ways it’s an absolutely delicious power-fantasy, wherein Raine is growing into her powers and discovering her own deadliness. But it’s also like watching a train crash, because Raine is self-destructing even as she rises, self-sabotaging even as she claims her power. It’s hypnotic; morbidly fascinating, but also a rush; and you genuinely can’t tell whether or not you should be rooting for her. Is she good? Even if her motivations are, can the powers she has ever be used for good, or do the ends justify the means? Arguably my joint-favourite theme of Traitor is Raine’s approach to power, the thinking she does on the nature of power and law and rules and who they apply to, the advice she seeks out on the topic (or doesn’t seek out, but receives nonetheless), and the conclusions she comes to. I really appreciated that she doesn’t come to a conclusion quickly, and that she’s not afraid to change her mind when new experiences and perspectives make their case. It felt like very natural growth, and at the same time, like McDonald was making points to the reader that I’ve never seen or heard anyone else make before.

I’m very much inclined to agree with his final verdict, personally.

those thoughts sounded like echoes within my own mind. The voice of some other girl, an earlier conception of me. I may have still looked like that girl, though my body might have become harder. I might have still sounded like that girl, though my words have grown jaded. But I didn’t kill like that girl, not anymore, and if you brushed away the old dead skin then beneath her lay a different beast.

My other joint-favourite theme is… I don’t know whether to call it The Villain Reveal, or the feminism, because honestly, it’s both those things together? And I really can’t talk about the villain, obviously, except that YES, and FUCK YES, and I have been WAITING for more villains like this (I can literally only name two others across all the media I have ever consumed who fit this personality/character type) and THANK YOU, McDonald, for pulling absolutely no punches on this.

YES.

SO MUCH YES.

Men are always able to believe their own narrative when it comes to hurting women, no matter how absurd.

I mean – the RAGE I felt. Traitor gave me a lot of emotions, but the emotions around the villain – ARGH. And the villainry is tied so much into misogyny, it’s such a fundamental aspect of this person’s Villainous Nature, and the horrible thing is that it’s so fucking FAMILIAR. If you’re a woman or femme or AFAB, you’ve dealt with this kind of person, and if you don’t want to claw their eyes out you’re a better person than me, and I am a little bit shocked that a male author wrote this so well. There’s a bit of a running joke that (some) men really can’t write women (feel free to enjoy this subreddit, or just some highlights) but if I had any doubts about McDonald after Daughter (and I didn’t), Traitor would have atomised them.

It’s a relatively small part of the book, but the way McDonald writes women dealing with men – especially not-great men – just. Really, really impressed me.

I CAN THINK OF SOME OTHER AUTHORS WHO SHOULD MAYBE TAKE NOTES.

I was the enemy of the entire world, they just didn’t know it yet.

It’s probably appropriate to end this review by telling you that the book’s ending BLEW ME AWAY and DELIGHTED ME UTTERLY, and left me still holding out hope for a polyamorous endgame between Raine, Esther and Sanvaunt – if the two of them can ever convince her she deserves nice things. I’m keeping my fingers crossed. But either way, I am RABID for the next book, and I challenge anyone NOT to be after reading Traitor of Redwinter!

You still have time to preorder – it releases this week and you REALLY SHOULDN’T MISS IT!

The post Levelling Up (In All The Ways): Traitor of Redwinter by Ed McDonald appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.