Siavahda's Blog, page 55

October 30, 2022

October DNFs

Four books that crashed and burned for me this month – all of them ARCs.

The Nightland Express by J.M. Lee
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Trans MC, Black MC
PoV: 3rd-person, past-tense, dual PoVs
Published on: 22nd February 2022
ISBN: B0851981ZT
Goodreads
three-stars

In antebellum America, two teens bury their secrets and join the historic Pony Express, and soon discover the mortal world is not the only one on the brink of war.

Young, poor, and orphaned in rural Missouri, Jessamine Murphy frets over her very pregnant sister, not at all sure how to feed their family until the baby is born, let alone after. When Jessamine comes across a recruitment poster reading "Pony Express Special Assignment: St. Joseph, Missouri to California. Two riders wanted. Orphans preferred," her tomboy heart skips a beat: not only for the ample risk wage, but for the adventure and the chance to track down their wayward father in California. Jessamine cuts her hair, dons a pair of pants, and steps into the world as Jesse.

At the Pony Express station, Jesse meets Ben Foley, a quiet but determined boy, so secretive about his origin story there is little doubt it must be turbulent, and they become partners. They are an odd pair—one excitedly navigating the world as a boy for the first time, the other a mixed-race young man trying to defend his freedom—yet their esteem for each other grows as they head west across the United States.

As they encounter mysterious portals that carry them miles in an eyeblink and unusual creatures with uncanny glowing eyes, it becomes clear that this is no normal mission. A second, magical realm exists just below the surface of the mortal one, intertwined since the beginning of time—but the divisive violence of colonization and war are tearing the two worlds apart.

As Ben and Jesse struggle to find themselves, they discover their unlikely alliance may be the only thing that will save them . . . and the creatures and environment of two struggling worlds.

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 forced my way far past my usual cut-off point for a DNF – 20% – and made it halfway through the book before I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I’ve been looking forward to Nightland Express since the publishing announcement – what, two, three years ago? But unfortunately, the book didn’t live up to my hopes. The pacing is frantic, which gives neither reader nor the characters any time to process the magical events they’re caught up in; and the magic itself felt so blunt and dry. There wasn’t any sense of wonder to it, no beautiful-and-terrible vibes even though that was pretty clearly what Lee was going for. The prose was very bare-bones and unlovely, and although I liked the diversity of the main characters – a gay, white-passing Black youth and a young trans man – after a reasonably strong beginning both characters seemed to lose most of their personality, becoming very two-dimensional.

It’s an easy read, a quick read, and it’s not terrible. It’s just that it’s extremely basic (although granted, maybe the second half of the book would have wowed me with its originality…if I could have made it that far) – nothing about it stands out as special or interesting. I was literally nodding off (in the middle of the day) even as All The Things were happening.

Pass.

The Daughters of Izdihar by Hadeer Elsbai
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Egyptian-coded cast, sapphic MC
Published on: 10th January 2023
ISBN: 0063114771
Goodreads
three-stars

From debut author Hadeer Elsbai comes the first book in an incredibly powerful new duology, set wholly in a new world, but inspired by modern Egyptian history, about two young women--Nehal, a spoiled aristocrat used to getting what she wants and Giorgina, a poor bookshop worker used to having nothing--who find they have far more in common, particularly in their struggle for the rights of women and their ability to fight for it with forbidden elemental magic.

As a waterweaver, Nehal can move and shape any water to her will, but she's limited by her lack of formal education. She desires nothing more than to attend the newly opened Weaving Academy, take complete control of her powers, and pursue a glorious future on the battlefield with the first all-female military regiment. But her family cannot afford to let her go--crushed under her father's gambling debt, Nehal is forcibly married into a wealthy merchant family. Her new spouse, Nico, is indifferent and distant and in love with another woman, a bookseller named Giorgina.

Giorgina has her own secret, however: she is an earthweaver with dangerously uncontrollable powers. She has no money and no prospects. Her only solace comes from her activities with the Daughters of Izdihar, a radical women's rights group at the forefront of a movement with a simple goal: to attain recognition for women to have a say in their own lives. They live very different lives and come from very different means, yet Nehal and Giorgina have more in common than they think. The cause--and Nico--brings them into each other's orbit, drawn in by the group's enigmatic leader, Malak Mamdouh, and the urge to do what is right.

But their problems may seem small in the broader context of their world, as tensions are rising with a neighboring nation that desires an end to weaving and weavers. As Nehal and Giorgina fight for their rights, the threat of war looms in the background, and the two women find themselves struggling to earn--and keep--a lasting freedom.

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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This was one of my most anticipated releases of 2023…but I hate it.

It’s not that it’s technically bad? But I was expecting lush, gorgeous prose to go with the setting and that fabulous cover, and instead the writing is extremely basic, even blunt. The first few chapters are just a barrage of clumsy telling-telling-telling, all of it far more simplistic than I expect from Adult Fantasy. I was looking for intricate, detailed worldbuilding and politics and all, and I just didn’t find it here.

And it’s boring. The sexism the women have to deal with is appropriately rage-inducing, but a whole bunch of people were acting pretty stupidly because, I guess, the plot required them to. (Using blasphemous magic to attack a counter-protestor? Sure, that’s exactly what a real leader of a movement would do, and nevermind that the crowd is a breath away from rioting already! But the riot has to happen for the plot, so insert shrug here, I guess.) Events moved incredibly quickly, so there was no time for any of it to have real emotional impact, which in turn made them uninteresting. It didn’t help that most of the characters felt two-dimensional at best, defined by just one or two traits rather than being fully fleshed out. There was nothing to latch onto with any of the cast, no way to really make myself care about any of the characters.

I really, desperately wanted to love this. I tried to. But it wasn’t meant to be, I guess.

Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 15th November 2022
ISBN: B09RX4Q7BP
Goodreads
two-half-stars

Celeste, a card sharp with a penchant for trouble, takes on the role of advocatus diaboli, to defend her sister Mariel, accused of murdering a Virtue, a member of the ruling class in the mining town of Goetia, in a new world of dark fantasy.

High in the remote mountains, the town of Goetia is booming as prospectors from near and far come to mine the powerful new element Divinity. Divinity is the remains of the body of the rebel Abaddon, who fell to earth during Heaven's War, and it powers the world’s most inventive and innovative technologies, ushering in a new age of progress. However, only the descendants of those that rebelled, called Fallen, possess the ability to see the rich lodes of the precious element. That makes them a necessary evil among the good and righteous people called the Elect, and Goetia a town segregated by ancestry and class.

Celeste and Mariel are two Fallen sisters, bound by blood but raised in separate worlds. Celeste grew up with her father, passing in privileged Elect society, while Mariel stayed with their mother in the Fallen slums of Goetia. Upon her father’s death, Celeste returns to Goetia and reunites with Mariel. Mariel is a great beauty with an angelic voice, and Celeste, wracked by guilt for leaving her sister behind, becomes her fiercest protector.

When Mariel is accused of murdering a Virtue, the powerful Order of the Archangels that rule Goetia, Celeste must take on the role of Advocatus Diaboli (Devil’s Advocate) and defend her sister in the secretive courts of the Virtue. Celeste, aided by her ex-lover, Abraxas, who was once one of the rebels great generals, sets out to prove Mariel innocent. But powerful forces among the Virtues and the Elect mining barons don’t want Celeste prying into their business, and Mariel has secrets of her own. As Celeste is drawn deeper into the dark side of Goetia, she unravel a layer of lies and manipulation that may doom Mariel and puts her own immortal soul at risk, in this dark fantasy noir from the bestselling mastermind Rebecca Roanhorse.

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I’m bored, I’m bored, I’m so fucking bored.

To be fair, there was also a miscommunication here: where the blurb talks about Virtues and Archangels and so on, I thought it was referring to literal Virtues and Archangels – not humans who use those terms as titles. I went in expecting – and excited for – a very different world than the one Roanhorse created here.

But even so, I found it so incredibly dull and eye-rolling. I grit my teeth over the name Celeste (which literally translates as ‘heavenly’) but her surname is Semyaza? As in, the leader of the Watchers??? A link which is never pointed our or explained? (I ran a search in the ebook to check.) And then just a few pages in, we get, I kid you not, a mention of a saloon girl named Lilitha?

Picture me shoving my face in a pillow and screaming. And not in a good way.

I’m not even going to get started on Abraxas, the sort-of love interest who was a General in the war against Heaven (how is he still on Earth when the rest of Lucifer & co are not??? Who knows!)

My point is, if you’re interested in Tread of Angels because you’re into angelic lore, this is not the book for you. You will catch all the oh-so-clever little references and they will make you wince or grind your teeth, because they’re not half as clever as they think they are.

Even without all of this, the story is incredibly dull. Maybe it would have worked better as a novel, so the plot could have moved a little more slowly and been a fair bit more complex? It reads as rushed, in novella-form. And while I liked Celeste in theory, I don’t understand how she got to be the way she is – good (and quick) with a knife but also very naive, which doesn’t really make sense given her background and living situation. Abraxas is an embarrassing cliche. The worldbuilding is disappointingly simplistic and not very interesting.

Very much not recommended.

Where it Rains in Colour by Denise Crittendon
Genres: Sci Fi
Representation: Black cast
Published on: 13th December 2022
ISBN: 9781915202130
Goodreads
two-half-stars

Swazembi is a blazing, color-rich utopia and the vacation center of the galaxy. This idyllic, peace-loving world is home to waterless seas, filled with cascading neon vapors, where tourists and residents alike soar from place to place in a swift wind force called The Sweep. No one is used to serious trouble here, especially Lileala.

Lileala is a pampered, young 50-year-old whose radiance has just earned her the revered title of Rare Indigo, the highest and most sacred of honours. But, her perfect lifestyle is shattered when a band of drug-addicts from a dying planet come up with a way to infect her with a fatal skin disease. They succeed and the unthinkable happens – Lileala Walata Sundiata loses her ability to shimmer. Where her skin should glisten like diamonds mixed with coal, instead it dulls and forms scar tissue. And she starts to hear voices in her head.

Distraught over her condition, she flees to the village where her Rare Indigo predecessor, Ahonotay, is said to be hiding. Ahonotay reveals a destiny to Lileala that awakens a new power inside her and she realises her whole life, and the galaxy, is about to change…

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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The worldbuilding of Where It Rains In Color is amazing, and usually that would mean devouring a book to the end, regardless of the actual story – I care a lot more about interesting, epic worldbuilding then I do plot.

But even worldbuilding isn’t enough when the prose doesn’t work for me, and unfortunately that was the case here. The beginning chapters, in particular, are incredibly rough – the writing starts to smooth out around the 20% mark, but the overall rhythm is jerky and stuttering, with abrupt starts and stops that just don’t come together and had me grinding my teeth. There are too many sudden shifts in tone and rhythm and scene, as if it can’t figure out what its own style is.

The dialogue is, flatly, appalling. There’s a lot of exposition-through-dialogue that isn’t handled very well, so it feels like we’re just getting lectures from a bunch of different characters, but mostly it just…feels stilted and false, a bad script that just doesn’t sound like real people talking. And I’m not talking about the speech patterns Crittendon has created for her futuristic society – those are fine. I’m talking about how the characters switch gears mid-speech and the disjointed sentences and the seemingly random changes in topic and I just Could Not, okay? I was constantly cringing.

“Otto? The Otto next door to me?”

“Yes, that Otto,” Lileala replied, taken aback. “Don’t act so surprised. He’ll be my devoted in a few months.”

“You and Otto are getting joined?” Zizi faked a cough. “Never imagined the two of you.”

“Why?” Lileala rolled her eyes. “We were always friendly.”

a) Zizi has been away for two years – why is Lileala taken aback that Zizi doesn’t know of an engagement that happened while she was away?
b) Why is Lileala rolling her eyes? Isn’t that a weird way to talk about your fiance???

The whole book is like this. (Or, to be fair, the chunk that I read. I did DNF it. Maybe it gets a whole lot better in the second half.)

Lileala is…a character??? I don’t know what else I can call her when she seems to have a complete personality shift every few paragraphs. She goes back and forth between childish and mature, defiant and whining, shy and the life of the party. She’s chill one second and mad the next for no reason I can follow. It started off confusing and quickly became frustrating. And I still have no idea why she wants to be the Rare Indigo – okay, she entered training as a child, but she’s now an adult who hates the restrictions placed on her. So why not quit? I don’t know.

I read far enough for the book to shift away from Lileala and introduce us to a new character on a different planet – and honestly, that was even worse. One character goes from yelling, to cackling, to burying his head in his hands in three short paragraphs, and I couldn’t follow why. I mean, it’s clear in the scene why he’s angry, but the sudden about-faces to laughing and then defeated?

And then there’s this

“Listen to her,” Haliton whispered to him. “She’s crafty. That’s why she dared such an abomination as this. She and her birthmarks and her poetic way of talking, they help her get away with a lot.”

That’s just…incredibly clunky? The phrasing is so awkward. Or is it just me?

It might just be me – we’ve established I’m overly sensitive/picky about writing rhythm – and if so, then I hope you pick this up and give it a go, if the premise sounds interesting to you. But forcing myself to read this one was making me miserable, so I’m calling it quits.

Hopefully there’ll be fewer disappointing books in November!

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

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Published on October 30, 2022 09:11

October 29, 2022

Run, Don’t Walk: Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares

A Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Hispanic gay MC, autistic-coded Egyptian gay love interest, M/M, major Japanese character
PoV: 1st person, past-tense
Published on: 1st November 2022
ISBN: B09TVFNN21
Goodreads
five-stars

A thrilling race across the multiverse to save the infinite Earths – and the love of your life – from total destruction for fans of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, The Time Traveller's Wife and Rick and Morty.

Film-maker Hayes Figueiredo is struggling to finish the documentary of his heart when handsome physicist Yusuf Hassan shows up, claiming Hayes is the key to understanding the Envisioner – a mysterious device that can predict the future.

Hayes is taken to a top-secret research facility where he discovers his alternate self from an alternate universe created the Envisioner and sent it to his reality. Hayes studies footage of the other him, he discovers a self he doesn’t recognize, angry and obsessive, and footage of Yusuf… as his husband.

As Hayes finds himself falling for Yusuf, he studies the parallel universe and imagines the perfect life they will live together. But their lives are inextricably linked to the other reality, and when that couple's story ends in tragedy Hayes realises he must do anything he can to save Yusuf's life. Because there are infinite realities, but only one Yusuf.

With the fate of countless realities and his heart in his hands, Hayes leads Yusuf on the run, tumbling through a kaleidoscope of universes trying to save it all. But even escaping into infinity, Hayes is running out of space - soon he will have to decide how much he’s willing to pay to save the love of his life.

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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~too good to be a debut
~pink-sand paradise
~an android drag queen
~rewriting the laws of physics = true love
~it is, in fact, illegal to be that smart

Every now then, a debut comes along that makes you do a double-take; that makes you go online to check that it really is a debut, because no way. No way! What?! How can somebody’s debut be this freaking brilliant?!

I double-checked, folx. This really is Tavares’ first published novel.

It’s very hard to believe after reading it, though. It’s just so good!

Fractured Infinity takes place in a near-future where humanity has more or less gotten their shit together; climate change is being fixed, the cures for all cancers have been found, and the world’s running on clean energy, finally. The USA has been knocked off its pedestal – hard – and broken into a bunch of different pieces, including the Commonwealth of Great Basin Nations, a sovereign territory of Indigenous peoples, which is the setting for the first chunk of the book.

Because that’s where the top-secret facility is. The one with a machine that predicts the future. Which might, or might not, be a gift sent to our world from another universe.

None of this means anything to Hayes, who makes indie documentaries that are probably never going to make him famous. But it was an alternate version of him – another universe’s version of him – that built the machine, and that makes him involved.

Hayes is a brilliant, incredibly relatable, incredibly human main character, and I’m so glad Tavares decided to write Fractured Infinity in first-person, because Hayes’s voice – and the style of his narration – is a big part of what makes this book rock. He’s a mess with a huge heart, capable of morphing into whatever’s required for him to Get The Story but with a streak of something so damn genuine running through him at the same time, underneath his facade of blithe confidence. He’s a little bit broken and he cares so very much and sometimes he gets mad at reality, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to make it just a little better.

Or: he’s selfish and irresponsible, an unreliable narrator, manipulating the reader, always ready with a justification. He claims he’s no one special but acts as if he is, decides the rules don’t apply to him, fucks over multiple universes so he gets to keep his boyfriend.

Both these descriptions are true. So is he a good guy or a villain?

Neither. Both. It’s just not that simple.

Hayes isn’t just narrating: he’s actively talking to the reader, which gives Tavares so much more narrative freedom. For instance, telling-not-showing is something that typically drives me up the wall. (Because it’s usually done badly.) But here, it makes sense – Hayes summarising the Hardcore Science for us as best he understands it, etc – and even more importantly, it works; it’s not a lecture, it’s a conversation that the reader is a part of. It certainly doesn’t hurt that Hayes is so personable, so self-aware and sarcastic and wry when he’s talking to us (as opposed to when he’s talking to Yusef). Every so often he pauses to have an ‘if this were a movie’ moment, which a) are always brilliant and b) really highlight that despite living in the future, the Millennial vibes are strong in him!

“And Hayes Fig,” the voice continues—notice the nice white bread last name because this movie can’t have two ethnic-y leads, not when it’s already a gay story, I mean really—“was so used to helping others fight for their rights and tell their stories. But what about his own story?”

Which is not to say that the rest of the cast are slacking off: Yusef is impossible not to adore, simultaneously super sweet and brilliantly rational. As someone on the spectrum myself, he read as autistic to me – so much so I was actually surprised the word was never used. He’s funny and incredibly intelligent, passionate and a little shy, beautifully and mercilessly logical, out to make the world a better place and wary of the temptations of a machine that tells the future. I had no problem seeing why Hayes would fight so hard to keep him alive, and keep him period.

Kaori also deserves a mention: the head of the project studying the machine, she’s even better at camouflage than Hayes, and ruthless in going after what she wants. And I liked her. I’m sure not every reader is going to, but even if you don’t like her I think everyone has to appreciate her, not just for her genius-level smarts but because she’s interesting, all secrets and masks around a core of adamant.

And – perhaps ironically, perhaps obviously – she’s really the clearest-eyed person in the whole book.

Other than Hayes’ voice and style, what I loved most about Fractured Infinity was that it just refused to colour inside the lines, to play to expectations. Yusef does not freak out about something that we would usually see love interests freak out about; one of the villains, who could have been demonised so easily as cold and unlikeable, is not (and in fact both Hayes and the narrative repeatedly acknowledge that said person can’t really be considered a villain at all); and most of all, Tavares is not afraid to go there. Over and over again, he writes in what I can only call the dangerous direction, delving deep into the ugly, selfish parts we all have, asking tough questions and asking us to ask tough questions – of the characters and ourselves. We all know what the answer to the central premise is supposed to be – if it’s a choice between one life or billions, then you trade in the one. We know this. It’s obvious.

And yet – would you do it? Could you? When it’s not a nameless faceless hypothetical stranger, but someone you love?

Could you live with yourself after making either choice?

None of this feels like shock value: none of it is just because. And this is absolutely not a gotcha!-book. Instead, I’d call it…honest. Fast-paced and unstoppable as a train crash, full of utopias and disasters, what a story looks like when it’s not been sanded smooth and sanitized to fit what we think fiction is supposed to be. Despite the whole hopping-between-universes thing, Fractured Infinity reads like painfully, achingly real life, instead of following the script.

You know what I mean by ‘the script’. Outside of something like grimdark, as a general rule of thumb when we pick up a (SFF) novel we know it’s going to end more or less okay, and probably fairly happily. The bad thing never actually happens. The villains never actually win. No matter what the author puts you through, you know, deep down, that the love interest isn’t actually going to die. Etc. At the very last second there’ll be a secret uncovered or a loophole discovered and everything will be okay.

Fractured Infinity is not grimdark; not even close. And I’m not saying that Yusef dies! (…I’m not saying he doesn’t, either.) But that ending? I couldn’t believe Tavares went there. I couldn’t believe he went that far off-script.

I loved it. Loved it loved it LOVED IT. That ending catapulted Fractured Infinity from a solidly excellent four and a half stars to an utterly superb five stars. It’s been 48 hours since I finished it and I’m still stuck in a book hangover; I haven’t been able to read anything else because deep down, I’m still going AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

In a good way. The best way.

Lots of stories are about love. This one is a question: when you say you’d do anything for love, do you really mean anything?

Really?

This is a compelling, unconventional debut that is too freaking awesome to be a debut; a book that’s easy to read, but hard to recover from. I need absolutely everyone to read it, and if I don’t see it all over the best-of-the-year lists come December, I will be outraged.

I still can’t believe this is Tavares’ first published novel, and if you think I’m not setting up Google alerts to notify me of what he writes next, you are so wrong.

Fractured Infinity is out this coming Tuesday – which means you’ve still got time to preorder it!

The post Run, Don’t Walk: Fractured Infinity by Nathan Tavares appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

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Published on October 29, 2022 11:13

October 27, 2022

Come For the Perfume, Stay For the Murder: Base Notes by Lara Elena Donnelly

Base Notes by Lara Elena Donnelly
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Speculative Fiction
Representation: Pan/bisexual nonbinary MC, queer love interests, NB/F/M, past NB/M
PoV: 1st-person, past-tense
Goodreads
five-stars

A lasting impression is worth killing for in this intoxicating novel about memories and murder by the author of the Amberlough Dossier series.

In New York City everybody needs a side hustle, and perfumer Vic Fowler has developed a delicate art that has proved to be very lucrative: creating bespoke scents that evoke immersive memories—memories that, for Vic’s clients, are worth killing for. But the city is expensive, and these days even artisanal murder doesn’t pay the bills. When Joseph Eisner, a former client with deep pockets, offers Vic an opportunity to expand the enterprise, the money is too good to turn down. But the job is too intricate—and too dangerous—to attempt alone.

Manipulating fellow struggling artists into acting as accomplices is easy. Like Vic, they too are on the verge of burnout and bankruptcy. But as relationships become more complicated, Vic’s careful plans start to unravel. Hounded by guilt and a tenacious private investigator, Vic grows increasingly desperate to complete Eisner’s commission. Is there anyone—friends, lovers, coconspirators—that Vic won’t sacrifice for art?

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~art > people
~unconventional perfume
~fucked-up dynamics all around
~MC = terrible person + fantastic character
~it’s all capitalism’s fault really

Base Notes is not the kind of book I usually read – although the premise is that it’s possible to recreate memories as perfumes (so long as you make the perfume out of people!) it’s only barely speculative fiction. I’ve seen it described as a thriller, as psychological fiction, even as a mystery (how???), but most people probably wouldn’t call it SFF.

But who cares, because it’s Donnelly, and if you aren’t reading Donnelly, why are you even bothering???

Vic is the nonbinary head of Bright House, a perfumery that is struggling to stay afloat amidst bigger, better-funded, and more commercial competitors. Sure, Vic has long-since discovered the secret to capturing a single memory in perfume, but that’s not exactly consumer-friendly, since it requires the corpse of a person who shares that memory and only works for another person who shares the memory. But it might be the key to success after all – all Vic’s struggles will disappear if they can just complete one very impossible memory-scent commission…

Base Notes is sharp and elegant and merciless, bitter and desperate and precise, amoral and horrifyingly hypnotic. It is a book that stings like salt in a wound. Vic is a terrible, fascinating person, simultaneously ruthless and vulnerable – casual about killing, but soft and fragile when it comes to a haircut that fits their gender identity and self-image. That juxtaposition is what makes Vic, if not likeable, then still someone we find ourselves rooting for.

(Well. I was rooting for them. I suppose your mileage may vary.)

Donnelly executes (hah!) the story perfectly, the need and blackmail and resentment, the art and the arrogance, the spiderweb of seductions. We’re on the edge of our seats until the very last pages, breathlessly waiting to see if Vic can pull it off or if it will all come crashing down. Donnelly plays us like puppets, and I enjoyed every second of it. Her prose is crisp and sharp and wicked, and I was hooked long before Vic’s artistic passion, their bitterness and resentment towards the disgustingly wealthy, won me over.

Maybe surprisingly, Base Notes is very much about wealth and poverty, the haves and have-nots, the stranglehold capitalism places on art. It’s not an issues book – we’re never lectured about these things – but they are fundamental to the story; the base notes of the prose-perfume Donnelly’s concocted for us. Honestly, I was pleased; even as it adds bitterness, it brings a lot of depth to a story that would read incredibly differently without it.

And that ending! Wow. I was so impressed that Donnelly pulled it off without turning the whole thing into a caricature! In the hands of a lesser writer, it would have been ridiculous, comical, but Donnelly kept it…kept it real. I don’t know how to put it better than that without going into spoilers.

It’s bleak as fuck, but if you like that sort of thing – or are just here for a nonbinary serial killer, which, valid – then I must recommend Base Notes most strongly.

The post Come For the Perfume, Stay For the Murder: Base Notes by Lara Elena Donnelly appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

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Published on October 27, 2022 03:13

October 26, 2022

I Can’t Wait For…Inanna by Emily H. Wilson

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 Inanna by Emily H. Wilson!

Inanna (Sumerians #1) by Emily H. Wilson
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 1st August 2023
Goodreads

The fates of a young goddess, a warrior, and a mortal soldier collide in this enthralling and lyrical fantasy re-telling of The Epic of Gilgamesh that will captivate readers of Madeline Miller and Jennifer Saint.

Stories are sly things…they can be hard to catch and kill.

Inanna is an impossibility, the first full Anunnaki born on Earth. Crowned the goddess of love by the twelve immortal Anunnaki who are worshipped across Sumer, she is destined for greatness.

But Inanna is born into a time of war. The Anunnaki have split into warring factions, threatening to tear the world apart. Forced into a marriage to negotiate a peace, she soon realises she has been placed in terrible danger.

Gilgamesh, a mortal human son of the Anunnaki, and notorious womaniser, finds himself captured and imprisoned by King Akka who seeks to distance himself and his people from the gods. Arrogant and selfish, Gilgamesh is given one final chance to prove himself.

Ninshubar, a powerful warrior woman, is cast out of her tribe after an act of kindness. Hunted by her own people, she escapes across the country, searching for acceptance and a new place in the world.

As their journeys push them closer together, and their fates intertwine, they come to realise that together, they may have the power to change to face of the world forever.

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EXCUSE ME

WHAT

IS THIS REAL? CAN IT BE SO? HAVE ALL MY DREAMS COME TRUE AT ONCE AND NONE OF YOU TOLD ME???

You don’t understand, Inanna has owned my soul since baby!Sia read Hal Duncan’s Vellum – she’s probably my very favourite goddess ever, and I never meet anyone who knows about her, you have to hunt for stories where she’s even mentioned, and forget her being featured.

AND NOW IT’S HER NAME ON THE COVER AND I AM JUST SHRIEKING FOR JOY!!!

I’m already excited for Wilson’s take on the Anunnaki, just from the hints gleaned from the book description – and it’s a retelling of The Epic of Gilgamesh as well?! I don’t know what we did to deserve this but if you do, let me know so I can make sure it happens again!

I admit, it sounds like Wilson is not going with the homoerotic interpretation of The Epic (I’m genuinely surprised the blurb doesn’t even mention Enkidu, who is, depending on your take, either Gilgamesh’s bestie or lover, but in either case is very much Gilgamesh’s Most Important Person) which is a bit disappointing, but I will forgive a lot to see the original Queen of Heaven get the attention and adoration she deserves!

And the COVER, designed by Julia Lloyd! Someone really did their homework – those eight-pointed stars are Inanna’s symbol, a shape which is literally known as the Star of Inanna (or Star of Ishtar, Ishtar being Inanna’s Akkadian counterpart/aspect)! And her WINGS, and the ziggurat! I’m impressed and delighted and grateful for the care and attention to detail that went into this.

It makes me very hopeful that the book itself will be the same!

You can read an excerpt of the first chapter here!

I will be counting down the hours until this one!

The post I Can’t Wait For…Inanna by Emily H. Wilson appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

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Published on October 26, 2022 13:36

October 24, 2022

Must-Have Monday #109

The last week before Halloween is going HARD – we have ELEVEN new releases hitting the shelves tomorrow!

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

Unspeakable: A Queer Gothic Anthology by Enmanuel Arjona, James Robin Burton, Ryann Fletcher, Henry Glifort, Claire Hamilton Russell, Mason Hawthorne, Lindsay King-Miller, Ally Kölzow, Jenna MacDonald, Avery Kit Malone, Anna Moon, Jude Reid, E. Saxey, Eliza Temple, Sam Hirst, Heather Valentine, Katalina Watt, Katie Young
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 27th October 2022

Unspeakable contains eighteen Gothic tales with uncanny twists and characters that creep under your skin. Its stories feature sapphic ghosts, terrifying creatures of the sea, and haunted houses concealing their own secrets. Whether you're looking for your non-binary knight in shining armour or a poly family to murder with, Unspeakable showcases the best contemporary Gothic queer short fiction. Even dark tales deserve their time in the sun.

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A brilliant collection of queer horror originally funded on Kickstarter, now being (re?)released with a JAWDROPPINGLY gorgeous new cover! Talk about heart eyes!

Unthinkable: A Queer Gothic Anthology by Celine Frohn, K. Blair, Jillian Bost, Adriana C. Grigore, Stewart Horn, Kallyn Hunter, Diana Hurlburt, Gillian Joseph, G.T. Korbin, Solstice Lamarre, Hunter Liguore, Sydney Meeker, Antonija Mežnarić, Elisabeth R. Moore, Valentin Narziss, Tabitha O’Connell, Arden Powell, Kimberly Rei, Jamie Rose, M. Špoljar
Genres: Horror, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Queer MCs
Published on: 27th October 2022
Goodreads

Unthinkable: A Queer Gothic Anthology collects nineteen original Gothic tales primed to unsettle and entertain.

From a Southern Gothic tale of destruction and revenge, to haunted houses and cursed lovers, to an eco-Gothic saga, Unthinkable’s tales present undying themes of love and tragedy, life and death, all suffused with queerness.

Following on from the success of its predecessor Unspeakable: A Queer Gothic Anthology, Unthinkable features stories from a fresh batch of authors, showcasing the depth and breadth of queer Gothic literature.

Edited by Celine Frohn and featuring an introduction by A Dowry of Blood author S.T. Gibson, Unthinkable promises to haunt the reader long after the final page has been turned.

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A companion collection to Unspeakable – I love the escalation from unspeakable to unthinkable! Does that mean the stories in Unthinkable are even scarier…?

Into the Riverlands (The Singing Hills Cycle, #3) by Nghi Vo
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Agender MC
Published on: 25th October 2022
Goodreads

Nghi Vo's Hugo and Crawford Award-winning series , The Singing Hills Cycle, continues...

"A remarkable accomplishment of storytelling."—NPR on The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Wandering cleric Chih of the Singing Hills travels to the riverlands to record tales of the notorious near-immortal martial artists who haunt the region. On the road to Betony Docks, they fall in with a pair of young women far from home, and an older couple who are more than they seem. As Chih runs headlong into an ancient feud, they find themself far more entangled in the history of the riverlands than they ever expected to be.

Accompanied by Almost Brilliant, a talking bird with an indelible memory, Chih confronts old legends and new dangers alike as they learn that every story—beautiful, ugly, kind, or cruel—bears more than one face.

BOW DOWN FOR THE QUEEN! Nghi Vo is an auto-buy author for me, and I couldn’t be happier that we’re getting a new story in the Singing Hills setting!!! Plus, ALMOST BRILLIANT IS BACK!

Empire of the Feast by Bendi Barrett
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Science Fantasy
Published on: 25th October 2022
Goodreads

In Empire of the Feast, we awaken with Riverson, 32nd ruler of the Stag Empire, as he attempts to govern without the memories of his previous lives. To survive the ever-sharpening gears of war, he will need to mend the political schisms threatening to tear his empire apart while maintaining the erotic rituals holding off the eldritch horror known only as the Rapacious.

A Science Fantasy empire built on sex magic? AND it’s queer??? I got to read this early and can promise that it’s delicious, weird, and will leave you hoping for more from this author and this setting!

A Touch of Moonlight by Yaffa S. Santos
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Latina MC
Published on: 25th October 2022
Goodreads

From the author of A Taste of Sage comes another charming and engrossing novel in which a young woman must navigate her family’s expectations, the demands of her job, a new love, and a secret about her magical identity.

Larimar Cintrón works hard at three things: her job as brand manager for Beacon Café, a New York based corporate bakery chain; taking care of her parents and her abuela; and hiding that she’s a ciguapa—a mythical creature of Dominican folklore with long, straight hair and backward feet. Larimar may be a ciguapa only during full moons, but she feels like an outsider in her family the rest of the month too. Her love of ’90s punk rock music and style further sets her apart. But when her best friend introduces her to Ray, a bakery owner and fellow punk rock lover, Larimar thinks she may have finally found someone with whom she can be her true self.

As Beacon Café's brand manager, Larimar oversees all new location openings, including its newest in New Jersey, which could be the project that finally lands her a coveted promotion. But when she discovers the location is right across from Ray’s bakery, Larimar is torn between impressing her boss and saving Ray’s business. As she continues to grow closer to Ray, and as the new store’s opening looms, she struggles to hide the truth about herself and her job. But embracing her magical nature may be the only way Larimar can have everything she wants.

I don’t know how prevalent the SFF elements in this are, but I’m always excited for Latin American mythology (which I don’t know nearly enough about)! Plus, this sounds genuinely cure and fun???

Miss Percy's Travel Guide to Welsh Moors and Feral Dragons (A Miss Percy Guide #2) by Quenby Olson
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy
Published on: 25th October 2022
Goodreads

First, there was a trunk. Inside the trunk was an egg, and inside the egg was…
Well, it certainly was not a chicken.

Miss Mildred Percy, former wallflower and current adventurer, is now in charge of a dragon. Along with Mr. Wiggan and Mrs. Babbinton — our stalwart companions from the first volume of Miss Percy’s adventures — she embarks on a journey across Wales, in search of the mysterious Nyth y Ddraig, or Nest of Dragons.

But traveling with a young dragon in an unfamiliar land proves more difficult than anticipated. Between angry mobs, midnight rescues, and recalcitrant sheep, they battle (figuratively) their way across the countryside, defend themselves against enemies old and new, and discover something remarkable hidden in the mountains of Wales.

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I will always show up for dragons, and have to confess to an irrational delight that Miss Percy is heading to Wales in this instalment (I’m half-Welsh, and can confirm that Wales is very much dragon country!)

Dirt-Stained Hands, Thorn-Pierced Skin by Tabitha O’Connell
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Nonbinary MC
Published on: 25th October 2022
Goodreads

A queer, Beauty-and-the-Beast-inspired novella

Heron thought ey wanted to be with handsome, charming Tiel—but the relationship hasn’t quite lived up to eir expectations. With Tiel’s confidence comes a tendency to be overbearing, and now he wants Heron to leave eir farm life behind and move to town with him. And Heron can’t figure out how to explain to him that ey doesn’t want that.

When an accident strands Heron’s mother at a castle rumored to belong to a family of mages, Heron rushes off to make sure she’s all right—only to find the castle occupied by a single man who isn’t a mage at all. Prone to hiding behind his long mess of hair, the mysterious Theomer possesses a long-neglected, semi-magical garden. A job tending it is Heron’s perfect opportunity for some time away from Tiel while ey decides what to tell him.

Heron did not plan to be drawn in by Theomer’s attentive gaze and understated sense of humor. But as an undeniable bond forms between them, ey’s soon going to have a much bigger choice to make…

This is the second queer Beauty and the Beast retelling (that I know about) this month! We are being SPOILED!

The Atlas Paradox (The Atlas, #2) by Olivie Blake
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Published on: 25th October 2022
Goodreads

The Atlas Paradox is the long-awaited sequel to Olivie Blake's New York Times bestselling dark academic sensation The Atlas Six—guaranteed to have even more yearning, backstabbing, betrayal, and chaos.

Six magicians were presented with the opportunity of a lifetime. Five are now members of the Society.Two paths lay before them.

All must pick a side.

Alliances will be tested, hearts will be broken, and The Society of Alexandrians will be revealed for what it is: a secret society with raw, world-changing power, headed by a man whose plans to change life as we know it are already under way.

"The Atlas Six introduced six of the most devious, talented, and flawed characters to ever find themselves in a magical library, and then sets them against one another in a series of stunning betrayals and reversals. As much a delicious contest of wit, will, and passion as it is of magic...half mystery, half puzzle, and wholly a delight."—New York Times bestselling author Holly Black

Sigh. I initially said I wasn’t going to read Paradox, because the ending of the previous book pissed me off so much…but I’d kind of like to know if this series will live up to its ‘queer dark academia’ rep by making any of the queer subtext of book one textual in book two.

Of Feathers and Thorns by Kit Vincent
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: M/M
Published on: 25th October 2022
Goodreads

A stunning queer fantasy perfect for fans of Carry On and A Marvelous Light.

After manifesting thorned magic and nearly destroying his hometown, Kieren Belltower is summoned to join the Magic Service—an institution in charge of magical affairs—and start an apprenticeship with a high-ranking magician. But instead of the mage assigned to teach him, Kieren is greeted by his haughty and annoyingly handsome senior apprentice Esten, who clearly has more important things to do than chaperone some newbie. Their teacher has disappeared on a secret assignment, leaving Esten no instructions other than a warning not to trust a soul. But as Kieren’s unruly magic proves too dangerous to leave unattended, Esten has no choice but to involve him in the matter.

Together they retrace their teacher’s last known mission—an investigation into the illegal use of magic and its connection to the devastating phenomenon called sludge, which has plagued the country for weeks. But as Kieren and Esten grow closer, they uncover a plot that thrusts their lives into danger and threatens to shatter everything they know about magic and the world they were born into.

“Packed with adventure, swoony romance, and of course, magic. This book will enchant you!”— Adriana Mather, NYT Bestselling author of How To Hang A Witch

I’m a sucker for a gorgeous cover, okay? Okay. Plus, I’ve only heard absolutely glowing praise for this book from early readers!

The Scratch Daughters (Scapegracers, #2) Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Sapphic MC, bisexual Asian-American secondary character, queer Black secondary character, nonbinary secondary character, bi/pansexual tertiary character, background M/M
Published on: 25th October 2022
Goodreads

It's been a wild year for Sideways Pike. After forming a coven with the three most popular girls in school and developing a huge crush on a mysterious stranger named Madeline, Sideways' Halloween was ruined by finding out that Madeline wasn't trying to make out with her, but to steal Sideways' specter, the force that gives witches the ability to cast magic spells. From Madeline's perspective, it's not her fault: after a doomed relationship with one of the creepy near-identical Chantry Boys turned into a witch hunt, they took her specter, so, really, she's only borrowing Sideways' until she can recover her own and punish the Chantrys.

The specter-less Sideways is in a horrid, distracted mood, unable to do magic and with part of her consciousness tied to Madeline's, on the lam as she uses Sideways' specter to hunt Chantrys. The other Scapegracers are much jollier, heading into the winter holidays having set up shop as curse crafters for girls in their school who've been done wrong by guys. When Sideways—through Madeline—gets a flash of how to track down both her foes at once, she asks the Scapegracers to help entrap them, only to be told her plan is unsafe and unwise. So if she's going to find Madeline, her only ally is Mr. Scratch, the inky book demon currently inhabiting her as life support until she gets her spectre back.

Sideways is used to being an outcast loner, and is desperate to do magic again, so she's not going to let little barriers like facing a betraying crush and a family of six demented witch hunters practically alone stop her. But she and her trusty stolen bike are in for a bumpy ride...

Hands down one of the best book of the year – even better than the first book in the trilogy! If you’re looking for queer witches, prose that sizzles and sears, and/or magic that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, you NEED to be reading this series!

You can read my review of The Scratch Daughters here!

The Sevenfold Hunters by Rose Egal
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Lesbian MC, hijabi-wearing MC
Published on: 25th October 2022
Goodreads

There’s nothing hijabi alien hunter Abyan wants more than to graduate from Carlisle Academy and finally rid the Earth of aliens, the Nosaru.

Everything is going to plan until the Nosaru kill one of Abyan’s squad mates. To make matters worse, the school admins replace her elite squad member with a sub-par new recruit, Artemis. Despite Artemis failing every test—and bringing the team down with her—their cutthroat instructors refuse to kick her out.

Together Abyan, Artemis and the rest of the team unravel the mystery of why Artemis is actually there, what the Nosaru really want, and what Carlisle Academy has been hiding from them all.

The reviews for this one have been more mixed, but I’m still willing to give it a go!

Into the Windwracked Wilds (The Up-and-Under, #3) by A. Deborah Baker
Genres: Fantasy, Portal Fantasy
Published on: 25th October 2022
Goodreads

When the improbable road leaves Avery and Zib in the land of Air and at the mercy of the Queen of Swords, escape without becoming monsters may be impossible. But with the aid of the Queen's son, the unpredictable Jack Daw, they may emerge with enough of their humanity to someday make it home. Their journey is not yet over; the dangers are no less great.

Listen, I will always read anything and everything by Seanan McGuire, under any and all of her pennames!

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

The post Must-Have Monday #109 appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

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Published on October 24, 2022 02:51

October 23, 2022

Gender Euphoria and Wrathful Witchery: The Scratch Daughters by H. A. Clarke

It's been a wild year for Sideways Pike. After forming a coven with the three most popular girls in school and developing a huge crush on a mysterious stranger named Madeline, Sideways' Halloween was ruined by finding out that Madeline wasn't trying to make out with her, but to steal Sideways' specter, the force that gives witches the ability to cast magic spells. From Madeline's perspective, it's not her fault: after a doomed relationship with one of the creepy near-identical Chantry Boys turned into a witch hunt, they took her specter, so, really, she's only borrowing Sideways' until she can recover her own and punish the Chantrys.

The specter-less Sideways is in a horrid, distracted mood, unable to do magic and with part of her consciousness tied to Madeline's, on the lam as she uses Sideways' specter to hunt Chantrys. The other Scapegracers are much jollier, heading into the winter holidays having set up shop as curse crafters for girls in their school who've been done wrong by guys. When Sideways—through Madeline—gets a flash of how to track down both her foes at once, she asks the Scapegracers to help entrap them, only to be told her plan is unsafe and unwise. So if she's going to find Madeline, her only ally is Mr. Scratch, the inky book demon currently inhabiting her as life support until she gets her spectre back.

Sideways is used to being an outcast loner, and is desperate to do magic again, so she's not going to let little barriers like facing an betraying crush and a family of six demented witch hunters practically alone stop her. But she and her trusty stolen bike are in for a bumpy ride...

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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~book devils have VERY WEIRD appetites
~know your history and your legacy
~every coven needs a scratchbook
~hex the haters
~bring the house…up?

:this review contains spoilers for The Scapegracers!:

This isn’t a book. It’s a snarl, a shout, a scream equal parts defiance and fury and exultation. It’s a hex hissed at every boy who wants to hurt a girl, a pitch-black choke-chain wrapped around their throats. It’s an ink-devil beneath your skin, hugging you from the inside, pouring power through your veins. It’s weaponised barbie dolls and an ouija board whipped up with stickers, mirrors tying sisters past to sisters present, haircuts lifting the scales from your eyes. It’s hunger and need and belonging, broken glass and broken angels, a bright pink knuckleduster to the heart. It’s magic queered and queerness magicked until it’s impossible to tell what the difference between them is.

(Spoiler: there is none.)

Take apart the words, the shapes of the letters on the page, and the sigil they make will show you your soul in your hand.

Bring it to your mouth and swallow it down.

This book. This book! This BOOK!

I stayed up until 6am devouring it and I regret absolutely nothing.

I didn’t think The Scratch Daughters could be better than Scapegracers, you know??? I didn’t think anything could be better than Scapegracers, because that book is fucking flawless. I would have bet Scratch Daughters would be equally incredible, because I can’t even begin to imagine Clarke writing anything that isn’t.

But I didn’t think it was possible for anything to be better.

What do you call something that’s better than perfect? Do I need to invent a new word again??? I think I need to invent a new word again.

clarkegelant
adjective

1. beyond perfect
2. of or like H. A. Clarke’s writing style, especially in excellence

THE SCRATCH DAUGHTERS IS CLARKEGELANT.

THAT IS ALL.

Do you have any idea how this review has been shredding me, because how the fuck do I talk about this book? How sharp and beautiful and aching it is, a feral rainbow with bruised knuckles, so intense the pages vibrate under your fingers, make your hair lift off your freaking head with static? It crackles like Pop Rocks and snaps like bone and roars like dragon’s breath coming for the patriarchy. It’s distilled down to liquid night and nitroglycerin and I dare you to do shots. I dare you.

(You can’t. You won’t. The Scratch Daughters is a book you devour all in one go because putting it down is impossible.)

Everything that made Scapegracers perfect is here; the decadent, revelling prose that tells you to keep up or shut up; the fierce rawness of what it is to be a teenager, especially a teenage girl; the overwhelming, overpowering rush of true friendship; the unrepentant glorying-in defiance of queer as in fuck you. And of course the cast, the unforgettable, incomparable Scapegracers themselves, Sideways-Jing-Daisy-Yates, the four-pointed compass star leading us deeper and deeper into the magic and mystery.

Teenagers spawning nuclear reactors inside their throats.

But gods, Clarke has levelled up with this one. The wait for Scratch Daughters has been so-much-more than worth it; if we’d been waiting twice as long, ten times as long, I would still be here telling you the wait was worth it.

Fuck.

It was so weird being inhabited by something that often felt really jealous of pens.

I’m not going to tell you much about the plot, because you’re going to read this for yourselves, but I can’t not talk about how Clarke conflates queerness and magic in Scratch Daughters even more explicitly than they did in Scapegracers. The parallels drawn in neon between magical legacy and queer history make me foam at the mouth, okay, I am rabid for this, for how vitally important both are to the characters and the story and the reader. Just as so much queer history was lost with a generation of queer elders killed by ~~Reagan~~ AIDS, the Scapegracers are walking in the footsteps of covens burned by witch hunters – and need to reach into the void of where those earlier witches should be to survive, to grow, to fully realise their potential. If Scapegracers was about our four favourite witches finding each other, Scratch Daughters is the realisation that they’re part of a much bigger community – and the discovery of that community’s history, the horror and fury at the understanding of the full scope of what that community has suffered. The determination to make sure it never happens again.

This witch burns back, bitch.

Scratch Daughters is so much about community – and especially, specifically, queer community. It’s about making room for those who need it and keeping secrets that aren’t yours to share; dropping everything to extend a hand to, and keep safe, fellow queers. It’s about the bond that exists between everyone on the (black-brown-trans-)rainbow spectrum, regardless of our other differences. It’s about how people new to the community have to learn these rules, fast, because the first priority is having each other’s backs and that overrides pretty much everything else.

“I’m a fucking dyke, {spoiler}. I can’t not care.” Even soulless. Even when you loudly don’t deserve it.

Which is another way that Clarke draws a line between queerness and witchcraft, because witches need to have each others’ backs too, are under attack by a society that is indistinguishable from the one going after queers; that might actually be the same damn people because FUCK, and also FUCK THE CHANTRYS, and the worldbuilding that was in hindsight very much underlying Scapegracers unfolds spectacularly in Scratch Daughters in a reveal that made me want to claw some eyes out.

the world is a very sharp place for daughters

(It’s not like I could predict where this series was going before – Clarke is not interested in being predictable – but now Scratch Daughters has me really wondering about our final destination. According to what I found online, this is supposed to be a trilogy – but how can the Scapegracers burn the system down in one more book? AND THE SYSTEM NEEDS TO BURN, PEOPLE. THAT’S NOT UP FOR DEBATE.

Gods, I can’t wait to see it.)

To sidestep to a happier topic: as a nonbinary person, I am here to tell you that the Gender Stuff in this book made me so happy. The exploration of girlhood, finding a skin that fits, the reclamation of the face in the mirror, what it is to be femme or butch or something else entirely. The way it’s treated, important but not the Only Thing, not a gasps-shock-wtf thing, is so entirely correct. Clarke approaches it as something natural and normal, and if it was possible to fall in love any harder with this series, I would.

your knuckles bruising like a pride flag

And all of this is woven deftly through a plot that grabs hold of you and doesn’t let go. Anything that tried to draw my attention away from Scratch Daughters was almost physically painful; I already told you I was up till 6am because who the fuck needs sleep when Sideways and her coven are impatiently waiting for you? How was I supposed to put this book down when Maddie was courting spontaneous combustion and Daisy was using flying-magic at cheer practice, when Mr Scratch was hungry and Yates wanted a Secret Santa, when Sideways was coming apart and the world was coming for all of them?

I couldn’t, obviously.

And you won’t be able to either.

The Scratch Daughters is a rainbow with razored edges, electric starfire caught in print, a war-cry and a scream of triumph and celebration. This is a book to devour, to treasure, to reread again and again as a shield against the world and a reminder that witches burn back. Speaking of: forget wordsmith, Clarke is a wordwitch, and has once again worked pure fucking magic with a sequel that, impossibly, outshines its predecessor.

It’s everything I wanted and more than I ever could have hoped for, and come 2029, it’ll be on my Best of the Decade list.

The post Gender Euphoria and Wrathful Witchery: The Scratch Daughters by H. A. Clarke appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

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Published on October 23, 2022 09:13

October 21, 2022

Wrings Your Heart Out and Leaves It Glowing: The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming: Practice by Sienna Tristen

The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming: Book Two: Practice by Sienna Tristen
Genres: Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Asexual POC MC, nonbinary MC
PoV: 3rd-person, past-tense
Published on: 22nd October 2022
ISBN: B0BFXP2G4X
Goodreads
five-stars

"All good theory stands up to the test of practice."

Freshly-risen from the underworld of his insecurities, Ronoah Genoveffa Elizzi-denna Pilanovani is halfway through his journey to the fabled Pilgrim State. But the world this side of the Iphigene Sea is not an easy one: violence and subterfuge litter the way forward, and something meaner stalks the edges of Ronoah’s certainty, something that threatens to turn the very reason for his pilgrimage to dust.

To survive, he will have to be clever and kind in equal measure. To ask for help from the acrobats and queens-to-be and foreigners’ gods that cross his path. To confront that beguiling, bewildering companion he travels with, the one whose secrets are so vast and unforgivable. He will have to draw on every story he knows in order to make it to the Pilgrim State with his soft heart intact—and then make it home again.

Mythic and multilayered, the final installment of the Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming duology is a love letter to losing and regaining faith in the ways you move through the world.

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

Highlights

~Passing For a Demon 101
~all is the Wish and the Wish is all
~the secret’s in your pocket
~fire-dancing
~how to fall back in love with the world

:this review contains spoilers for Book One: Theory!:

This is one of the top books of 2022, hands down. Hells, it’s one of the top books of the decade.

On every level, in every regard and aspect, it is flawless. It’s wondrous. It’s intimate and mythic, thoughtful and dazzling, intricate and wildly imaginative. It’s heartwarming and heartrending. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before and like coming home, both at once.

A portrait; a portent. A promise.

The story picks up right where Book One: Theory left off, with Ronoah and his mysterious, wonderful, impossible companion on their way to the Pilgrim State. But the being who once went by Reilin – and who uses the name Chashakva for the first chunk of this book – asks that they make a pit-stop, and Ronoah is more than happy to delay the end of their adventures by taking on a side-trip. Just a brief pause to find out how an ancient war in the area ended, since Chashakva last came this way.

watching the clouds as they polished the black opal of the sky.

It turns out to be less side-trip and much more capital-q Quest, though. Because the war, which should have been long over, is still going.

Little wishgranter, half-formed, cooing in the cradle of its god.

If Theory‘s main plotline took place in Ronoah’s inner landscape, then this part of Practice is a little more conventional, as it takes place outside of Ronoah (although he remains a vital part of it). In Theory, though he touched other lives and was touched by them, the only one who could get hurt as a result of his actions was himself; this time around, Ronoah’s words and actions will have ripple effects over an entire country and its religion – this time, he’ll be leaving his signature on history.

That’s a lot of responsibility for someone who’s just reached internal equilibrium with their clinical anxiety!

But he had also traced himself a new tributary, carved a new river of thinking by hand.

I said this storyline was more conventional, but that doesn’t actually make it conventional. Ronoah is not a warrior or a mage; there are no forces of evil to fight, no daring heists to pull off, no feats of (physical) strength to perform. In the stories that are told of these events by future generations, he will be mentioned, but not featured. Chashakva has the spotlight, always. Ronoah is not the main character of the story happening around him. Which means we’re really getting two stories: the one that Chashakva is spinning, the one that is designed to become legend, and the smaller, more intimate, more accurate human perspective.

It’s incredible.

their hopes and expectations followed him like goats over the grazing lands, but his own heart was the goatherd, always had been.

And this isn’t even the whole book! The War of Heavenly Seeds, and Ronoah and Chashakva’s work to bring it to an end, takes up maybe the first third of Practice; at most, the first half. They still have to make it to the Pilgrim State, and the journey there includes a metaphorical journey to the emotional underworld, as Ronoah reels from the implications of the truth about the Heavenly Seeds. And then there’s what happens when they actually, finally, reach the Pilgrim State at last.

What it looked like when you became a worldshaker.

It’s only appropriate, I think, that Practice is…harder than Theory was; practice is harder than theory. Practice touches on and explores darker themes than its predecessor did; there’s slavery, war, human sacrifice, and what I’m pretty happy to call clinical depression. But I don’t want to give the impression that this is a grim and miserable book, because it’s not, and that’s maybe the most impressive part of it all: the fact that this is, like Theory, a fundamentally optimistic, loving, joyful story.

Theory was a book of personal growth and self-transformation, a gentle and exquisite look at how wondrous the world is – and how we need to let go of the things holding us back from embracing it. It is probably not inaccurate to compare Ronoah to a butterfly here; Theory was his caterpillar and cocoon stage, and the end of the book saw him finally emerging from that cocoon. Wings still wet and fragile, maybe, but no longer locked inside himself.

Practice, then, is Ronoah learning how to fly. With wet and fragile wings. And not on a calm summer’s day, either.

Because the world outside the cocoon is A Lot, and Tristen wastes no time in taking all the theory of Theory and putting it into practice. Love the world and love yourself is easy to say – and do – when all is well, but what about when it’s not? What do you do when your heart is broken – how do you fall back in love with the world? How do you hold onto that love when the world is ugly and frightening and terrible?

“Being’s harder than it sounds, isn’t it,”

I would adore Practice for the magical prose, wonderful characters, and Tristen’s incredible imagination alone, but I can’t tell you how much it means to me to see an optimistic story go there. Because most don’t. I don’t know how many warm-soft-optimistic stories have failed to stick the landing for me because they just didn’t acknowledge that some parts of the world/life are hard, are terrible, and how are we supposed to stay warm-soft-optimistic then? But Tristen doesn’t back away from that question, from that reality, and the result is a magnum opus I want to hug to my heart and weep over.

(In a good way! Joyful tears, I promise!!!)

The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming: Book Two: Practice is about stories, about truth and lies and the thin line between them, about the cost of each. It’s about games and trickery and friendship, manipulation and mistakes, gods and monsters and faith and the loss of it – and how to find it again, maybe. It’s fire-dancing and jade beads and cloves, it’s empathy so intense it becomes synaesthesia, it’s falling apart and putting yourself back together better and stronger than you were before. It’s intense and true and heartwringing, it’s an embrace that promises you’re not alone, it’s a mirror and an outstretched hand and magic. Tristen wields language like they invented it, effortlessly imbuing the smallest of details with beauty and meaning that transforms them into something mythic. This is a book – and a writer! – that gently scrapes the calluses from your heart to leave you aching and raw and overflowing with the sheer gorgeous wonder of being alive, and there are no words – there is no review – that can do justice to that.

It makes my heart shy to meet you.

It turns out that Practice leaves me just as breathless, speechless, deliriously and wonderfully helpless as Theory – if not more so.

Practice starts (releases) tomorrow. You’ll be missing out on a peerless masterpiece if you don’t read it for yourself.

The post Wrings Your Heart Out and Leaves It Glowing: The Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming: Practice by Sienna Tristen appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

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Published on October 21, 2022 08:01

October 17, 2022

Must-Have Monday #107

TEN fabulous new SFF books this week for us to get our grubby paws on!

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

Marend of Marloven Hess, The Norsunder War 1.5 by Sherwood Smith
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 18th October 2022
Goodreads

In the recently defeated warrior-kingdom of Marloven Hess, two enemies, one a defeated king hunted by the conquerors, and the hunter who did the conquering, duel for the soul of a conflicted young teen.

This short novel takes place between the events of the first two volumes of The Norsunder War: Ship Without Sails, and Seek to Hold the Wind.

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I am still desperately playing catch-up with this verse, and Smith is ALREADY delivering more Sartorias deles goodness!!!

Deadbeat Druid (Adam Binder #3) by David R. Slayton
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay MC
Published on: 18th October 2022
Goodreads

The living cannot be allowed to infect the dead.

Adam Binder has lost what matters most to him. Having finally learned the true identity of the warlock preying on his family, what was supposed to be a final confrontation with the fiend instead became a trap that sent Vic into the realm of the dead, where none living are meant to be. Bound by debt, oath, and love, Adam blazes his own trail into the underworld to get Vic back and to end the threat of the warlock once and for all.

But the road to hell is paved with more than good intentions. Demons are hungry and ghosts are relentless. What awaits Adam in the underworld is nothing he is prepared to face. If that weren’t enough, Adam has one more thing he must do if he and Vic are to return to world of the living: find the lost heart of Death herself.

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This is the third installment of the Adam Binder series, so don’t peek at the blurb unless you’re read book 2! But I have heard nothing but praise from this series from all directions, so if you’re into queer urban fantasy, you might want to look into it!

Besides, you have to respect a series where the title of every book alliterates!

Self-Portrait with Nothing by Aimee Pokwatka
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Published on: 18th October 2022
Goodreads

If a picture paints a thousand worlds...

Abandoned as an infant on the local veterinarian’s front porch, Pepper Rafferty was raised by two loving mothers, and now at thirty-six is married to the stable, supportive Ike. She’s never told anyone that at fifteen she discovered the identity of her biological mother.

That’s because her birth mother is Ula Frost, a reclusive painter famous for the outrageous claims that her portraits summon their subjects’ doppelgangers from parallel universes.

Researching the rumors, Pepper couldn’t help but wonder:Was there a parallel universe in which she was more confident, more accomplished, better able to accept love?A universe in which Ula decided she was worth keeping?A universe in which Ula’s rejection didn’t still hurt too much to share?

Sometimes living our best life means embracing the imperfect one we already have…

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I did not fall head over heels for the sneak peek of this, but the premise has me so curious I’ll still be giving it a go.

Singer Distance by Ethan Chatagnier
Genres: Sci Fi
Published on: 18th October 2022
Goodreads

The odds of the planet next door hosting intelligent life are—that’s not luck. That’s a miracle. It means something.

In December 1960, Crystal Singer, her boyfriend Rick, and three other MIT grad students take a cross-country road trip from Boston to Arizona to paint a message in the desert. Mars has been silent for thirty years, since the last time Earth solved one of the mathematical proofs the Martian civilization carved onto its surface. The latest proof, which seems to assert contradictory truths about distance, has resisted human understanding for decades. Crystal thinks she’s solved it, and Rick is intent on putting her answer to the test—if he can keep her from cracking under the pressure on the way. But Crystal’s disappearance after the experiment will set him on a different path than he expected, forever changing the distance between them.

Filled with mystery and wonder, Ethan Chatagnier’s Singer Distance is a novel about ambition, loneliness, friendship, exploration, and love—about how far we’re willing to go to communicate with a distant civilization, and the great lengths we’ll travel to connect with each other here on Earth.

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I ADORE the idea of Martians communicating with Maths, and I really want to see what humanity would look like in a world where that was happening. But there have been some hints that this may be more Literary Fiction than SFF in tone… Gonna cross any fingers that it isn’t so!

You Fed Us To the Roses: Short Stories by Carlie St. George, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor
Genres: Horror
Published on: 18th October 2022
Goodreads

Final girls who take care of each other. Dead boys still breathing. Ghosts who whisper secrets you can never share. Angels beyond the grave, yet not of heaven. Wolves who wear human skins.

Featuring ten contemporary dark fantasy and horror stories, You Fed Us To the Roses is a visceral, triumphant collection by Carlie St. George that you won't want to miss.

Stop by for the murder...and stick around for the feels.

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Listen, if you have Merc Fenn Wolfmoor as part of the project, I want to read it, it’s that simple! And I believe Wolfmoor played editor for this collection, so hell yes, I’ll be picking it up!

When the Angels Left the Old Country by Sacha Lamb
Genres: Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Agender MC, disabled MC, sapphic MC, F/F
Published on: 18th October 2022
Goodreads

For fans of “Good Omens”—a queer immigrant fairytale about individual purpose, the fluid nature of identity, and the power of love to change and endure.

Uriel the angel and Little Ash (short for Ashmedai) are the only two supernatural creatures in their shtetl (which is so tiny, it doesn't have a name other than Shtetl). The angel and the demon have been studying together for centuries, but pogroms and the search for a new life have drawn all the young people from their village to America. When one of those young emigrants goes missing, Uriel and Little Ash set off to find her.

Along the way the angel and demon encounter humans in need of their help, including Rose Cohen, whose best friend (and the love of her life) has abandoned her to marry a man, and Malke Shulman, whose father died mysteriously on his way to America. But there are obstacles ahead of them as difficult as what they’ve left behind. Medical exams (and demons) at Ellis Island. Corrupt officials, cruel mob bosses, murderers, poverty. The streets are far from paved with gold.

P R A I S E
“Liars, lovers, grifters, a good angel and a wicked one—all held together with the bright red thread of unexpected romance, enduring friendship and America’s history. You don’t have to be Jewish to love Sacha Lamb—you only have to read.”—New York Times Bestseller, Amy Bloom

★ “Steeped in Ashkenazi lore, custom, and faith, this beautifully written story deftly tackles questions of identity, good and evil, obligation, and the many forms love can take. Queerness and gender fluidity thread through both the human and supernatural characters, clearly depicted without feeling anachronistic. Gorgeous, fascinating, and fun.”—Kirkus (starred)

★ “Richly imagined and plotted, this inspired book has the timeless feeling of Jewish folklore, which is further enhanced by the presence of two magical protagonists, and not one but two dybbuks! In the end, of course, it’s the author who has performed the mitzvah by giving their readers this terrific debut novel.”—Booklist (starred)
“I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH!!!! I read it in two days and then I spent the next two weeks thinking about it. Literally forgot to take my lunch break at work because I was busy thinking about it. This book is SO fun and funny and beautiful. Inherently, inextricably deeply queer-and-Jewish in a way that makes my brain buzz. I am obsessed.”—Piera Varela, Porter Square Books

“I love this book more than I can say (but I’ll try!) I was delighted by the wry narrative voice of this book from the first paragraph. The author perfectly captures the voice of a Jewish folk tale within an impeccably researched early 20th century setting that includes Yiddish, striking factory workers, and revolutionary coffee houses. It gave me so many feelings about identity, love, and their obligations to the world, themselves, and each other. This story will forever have a place in my heart and in my canon of favorite books. I can’t wait to have it on my shelves!”— Marianne Wald, East City Bookshop

“A beautiful story of an angel and demon set on helping an emigrant from their shtetl, and the fierce girl that joins them on the way... A must read for all ages—one filled to the brim with heart.”—Mo Huffman, Changing Hands Bookstore

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I’ve been looking forward to When the Angels Left the Old Country ALL YEAR! I’m just vibrating with excitement and have no idea how I’m supposed to sleep tonight. SIA NEEEEEDS!!!

The Whispering Dark by Kelly Andrew
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy
Representation: Deaf MC
Published on: 18th October 2022
Goodreads

The Raven Boys meets Ninth House in the most exciting debut of 2022 -- a dark, atmospheric fantasy about a Deaf college student with a peculiar connection to the afterlife.

Delaney Meyers-Petrov is tired of being seen as fragile just because she's Deaf. So when she's accepted into a prestigious program at Godbole University that trains students to slip between parallel worlds, she's excited for the chance to prove herself. But her semester gets off to a rocky start as she faces professors who won't accommodate her disability, and a pretentious upperclassman fascinated by Delaney's unusual talents.

Colton Price died when he was nine years old. Quite impossibly, he woke several weeks later at the feet of a green-eyed little girl. Now, twelve years later, Delaney Meyers-Petrov has stumbled back into his orbit, but Colton's been ordered to keep far away from the new girl... and the voices she hears calling to her from the shadows.

Delaney wants to keep her distance from Colton -- she seems to be the only person on campus who finds him more arrogant than charming -- yet after a Godbole student turns up dead, she and Colton are forced to form a tenuous alliance, plummeting down a rabbit-hole of deeply buried university secrets. But Delaney and Colton discover the cost of opening the doors between worlds when they find themselves up against something old and nameless, an enemy they need to destroy before it tears them -- and their forbidden partnership -- apart.

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The Whispering Dark is another that’s been on my radar all year – I’m not sure I’ve ever read a book with a Deaf MC, and a university that teaches interdimensional travel?! (Or something like that???) I WANT!

Greywaren (Dreamer Trilogy, #3) by Maggie Stiefvater
Genres: Fantasy, Contemporary or Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Gay MC
Published on: 18th October 2022
Goodreads

This is the story of the Lynch family.

Niall and Mór escaped their homeland for a new start, and lost themselves in what they found.

Declan has grown up as the responsible son, the responsible brother--only to find there is no way for him to keep his family safe.

Ronan has always lived on the edge between dreams and waking... but now that edge is gone, and he is falling.

Matthew has been the happy child, the brightest beam. But rebellion beckons, because it all feels like an illusion now.

This world was not made for such a family--a family with the power to make a world and break it. If they cannot save each other or themselves, we are all doomed.

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I’ve only read the first book in this trilogy (which meant CAREFULLY AVERTING MY EYES from Greywaren‘s blurb!) but with the finale out tomorrow, I guess I can marathon all three books now!

Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove by Rati Mehrotra
Genres: Fantasy
Representation: Desi-coded cast & setting
Published on: 18th October 2022
Goodreads

To learn what she can become, she must first discover who she is.

Katyani’s role in the kingdom of Chandela has always been clear: becoming an advisor and protector of the crown prince, Ayan, when he ascends to the throne. Bound to the Queen of Chandela through a forbidden soul bond that saved her when she was a child, Katyani has grown up in the royal family and become the best guardswoman the Garuda has ever seen. But when a series of assassination attempts threatens the royals, Katyani is shipped off to the gurukul of the famous Acharya Mahavir as an escort to Ayan and his cousin, Bhairav, to protect them as they hone the skills needed to be the next leaders of the kingdom. Nothing could annoy Katyani more than being stuck in a monastic school in the middle of a forest, except her run-ins with Daksh, the Acharya’s son, who can’t stop going on about the rules and whose gaze makes her feel like he can see into her soul.

But when Katyani and the princes are hurriedly summoned back to Chandela before their training is complete, tragedy strikes and Katyani is torn from the only life she has ever known. Alone and betrayed in a land infested by monsters, Katyani must find answers from her past to save all she loves and forge her own destiny. Bonds can be broken, but debts must be repaid.

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I have been hearing excellent things about this for quite some time!

The Heretic's Guide to Homecoming: Book Two: Practice by Sienna Tristen
Genres: Fantasy, Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Cast of colour, asexual MC, major nonbinary character
Published on: 22nd October 2022
Goodreads

"All good theory stands up to the test of practice."

Freshly-risen from the underworld of his insecurities, Ronoah Genoveffa Elizzi-denna Pilanovani is halfway through his journey to the fabled Pilgrim State. But the world this side of the Iphigene Sea is not an easy one: violence and subterfuge litter the way forward, and something meaner stalks the edges of Ronoah’s certainty, something that threatens to turn the very reason for his pilgrimage to dust.

To survive, he will have to be clever and kind in equal measure. To ask for help from the acrobats and queens-to-be and foreigners’ gods that cross his path. To confront that beguiling, bewildering companion he travels with, the one whose secrets are so vast and unforgivable. He will have to draw on every story he knows in order to make it to the Pilgrim State with his soft heart intact—and then make it home again.

Mythic and multilayered, the final installment of the Heretic’s Guide to Homecoming duology is a love letter to losing and regaining faith in the ways you move through the world.

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I have had the privilege of reading this early, and hopefully I’ll have my review up in the next few days, but I can already tell you that it’s even richer and more breathtaking than the first book. You need this duology in your life!

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

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Published on October 17, 2022 10:51

October 13, 2022

Epic Central American Fantasy: The Stone Knife by Anna Stephens

The Stone Knife (The Songs of the Drowned, #1) by Anna Stephens
Genres: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Representation: Central American-coded cast, Deaf MC, M/M, bi/pansexual MC, queernorm world
PoV: 3rd-person, past-tense, multiple PoVs
ISBN: B0875ZRBCW
Goodreads
four-stars

A fantasy epic of freedom and empire, gods and monsters, love, loyalty, honour, and betrayal, from the acclaimed author of GODBLIND.

For generations, the forests of Ixachipan have echoed with the clash of weapons, as nation after nation has fallen to the Empire of Songs – and to the unending, magical music that binds its people together. Now, only two free tribes remain.

The Empire is not their only enemy. Monstrous, scaled predators lurk in rivers and streams, with a deadly music of their own.

As battle looms, fighters on both sides must decide how far they will go for their beliefs and for the ones they love – a veteran general seeks peace through war, a warrior and a shaman set out to understand their enemies, and an ambitious noble tries to bend ancient magic to her will.

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~a ‘guild’ of deaf monster-hunters
~music is a weapon
~a charm for every wedded promise
~bring down the pyramids
~do not expect a happy ending

Stephens’ first trilogy was – so I was told – grimdark, which made me hesitate in picking up The Stone Knife. If you’ve hung around here for a little bit, you know I definitely do not have the stomach for grimdark! So I wasn’t at all sure I’d be able to handle Stephens’ newest book (which I am very late to; it was released in 2020).

But I just couldn’t resist Epic Fantasy in a setting inspired by ancient Central America. I mean, who could?!

Reader, I dipped my toe in – and the very first character I met was Xessa, a Deaf woman who fights monsters with her incredible service dog Ossa!

I WAS SOLD SO HARD.

Which is not to say that The Stone Knife isn’t fucking dark, because quite a lot of it really, really is. This is in huge part a book about war, and that means violence, and Stephens doesn’t try to make it pretty for us. There’s slavery, and human sacrifice (not Aztec-style), and killing for pleasure – all of which is on top of the sadistic, man-eating monsters that the empire called the Setatmeh and Xessa’s people call the Drowned. Near the end of the book, one of the service dogs is killed horribly (not Ossa). You should know all of this going in.

But for me, personally, the story was worth it. I freely admit that I started skimming the scenes of violence/war after about the halfway point, and that probably helped. Things get so unbelievably fucked-up. But Stephens has created a really cool world and populated it with a brilliant cast, and I just had to know how it all went down.

The Empire of Songs is massive, and practically all-powerful. At the heart of their power is the Song, a magical, mind-influencing music created by the holy Singer and transmitted via the empire’s pyramids so that every citizen and slave is, as they put it, ‘under the Song’. The Song is beautiful, hypnotising, and convinces all who hear it that the empire is the greatest good. What the Singer sees, feels and experiences is transmitted into the Song to affect everyone who hears it, and so he is surrounded with beauty and peace, and is absolutely forbidden to engage in violence.

That last bit is especially important.

The empire’s goal is to waken the world-spirit – which can only be accomplished once everyone lives under the Song.

The Takob – Xessa’s people – are Not Fucking Interested. But the empire is coming, whether they like it or not.

There’s just so much to love here. Xessa is unquestionably my favourite; fiery and unbreakable, she’s an ejab, one of those who fight the Drowned in order to get water for their city. Since the Drowned have siren-song magic of their own, ejab are those who are either born deaf or become so through accident or age, and those who use spirit-magic to become temporarily deaf and immune to the Drowned. I absolutely adored how vital this made Deaf people to the community, how everyone speaks sign-language as a matter of course because the ejab are not social outcasts, but honoured, and no one wants them to feel excluded from the people around them. Xessa herself gets a frustrating taste of that exclusion from some of the refugees fleeing the empire, who do not speak sign, and all the tiny (and not-so-tiny) culture-clashes like this just made the whole situation feel very real.

Xessa’s closest friend and his husband are both PoV characters as well: Tayan, a shaman who’s been Xessa’s friend from childhood, and Lilla, a high-ranking warrior. (This is a queernorm setting; no one bats an eye at two men being married, not even in the Empire.) Both of them bring very different perspectives to the story; Tayan is hopeful that the empire can be reasoned with, while Lilla is forced to brace for the fact that reasoning is probably not going to work. Through Tayan especially, we glimpse the vast differences between Takob and Empire culture, gulfs that are simply never going to be able to be bridged – and yet Tayan is the one who starts to find himself seduced by the Song, even as he’s (rightfully!) horrified by…pretty much everything else about the empire.

On the other side of the divide, we have Enet, primary lover of the Singer, mother of his son, and one of the highest-ranking officials in the Empire; Pilos, a general who truly believes in what he’s fighting for; and…another character I’m not going to talk about, because there’s no way to do so without spoilers. It’s clear that we’re meant to despise Enet and, albeit reluctantly, respect Pilos, and I’d say that Stephens is very good at making us do so. Pilos is loyal, clever, and respects his enemies even as he destroys them; Enet gets what she wants with sex and carefully cultivated devotion. I have to admit, I’m Tired of reading about women who use sex to gain power…but there’s no slut-shaming vibes or anything, and we’re never left in doubt of Enet’s incredible intelligence and determination. Sure, sex is one of her tools; why not? If it works? Surely that’s more damning of the Singer than Enet herself.

And Enet has a great deal more than sex to work with. She’s read books that shouldn’t exist, and knows far more than anyone is supposed to about the Singers and how their power works.

It gets messy.

The Stone Knife is intrigue and magic and war, the clashing of cultures and faiths, in a world not quite like anything I’ve ever seen before. There are secrets and horrors and reveals, love and monsters and family that goes beyond blood, desperate acts and terrible ones. It is not a hopeful book; the Empire is implacable and merciless, and it’s not really a spoiler to say that it’s clear how it’s all going to end by the time you’re halfway through the story. It’s the rest of the trilogy that is a giant question mark; I have no idea where this series is going, if the Empire can be brought down, if the world-spirit can actually be awakened, what the hell songstone really is. Is this a story about empires, or is the fate of the world at stake too? What’s going to happen to all of the characters? Is there a way to deal with the Drowned permanently? I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS!

If you don’t mind your Fantasy fairly brutal, and are Tired of Medieval Europe settings, then this is a damn good book that needs to be on your list. The prose is clear and clean (even when the scenes very much aren’t), with invented idioms and such woven throughout to make it interesting; the cast is phenomenal, even the characters we’re supposed to hate; and the attention to detail throughout the worldbuilding is fantastic. The plot is on an inevitable grim, downward spiral of despair and awfulness, but that doesn’t mean various twists won’t have you gasping (or gagging).

And honestly, the whole thing is worth it just for the amazing monster-hunting service dogs!

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Published on October 13, 2022 00:19

October 12, 2022

I Can’t Wait For…The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

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 The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera!

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
Genres: Fantasy
Published on: 11th July 2023
Goodreads

Nestled at the head of a supercontinent, framed by sky and sea, lies Luriat, the city of bright doors. The doors are everywhere in the city, squatting in walls where they don’t belong, painted in vivid warning. They watch over a city of art and avarice, of plagues and pogroms, and silently refuse to open. No one knows what lies beyond them, but everyone has their own theory and their own relationship to the doors. Researchers perform tests and take samples, while supplicants offer fruit and flowers and hold prayer circles. Many fear the doors as the source of hauntings from unspeakable realms. To a rare unchosen few, though, the doors are both a calling and a bane. Fetter is one of those few.

When Fetter was born, his mother tore his shadow from him. She raised him as a weapon to kill his sainted father and destroy the religion rising up in his sacred footsteps. Now Fetter is unchosen, lapsed in his devotion to both his parents. He casts no shadow, is untethered by gravity, and sees devils and antigods everywhere he goes. With no path to follow, Fetter would like to be anything but himself. Does his answer wait on the other side of one of Luriat’s bright doors?

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The Saint of Bright Doors is a Tordotcom book, which means it was already on my radar – I always pay attention to Tordotcom releases, because 92% of the time they are exactly what I never knew I wanted – but only kind of vaguely? I knew about it, but the super short premise we initially had didn’t make my heart beat faster or anything. I didn’t write it into my (obsessively kept) book releases calendar.

BUT THEN.

Then they released the cover, and that didn’t do it – it wasn’t until later that I looked at it closely enough to see that the outline of the blue part makes the silhouette of a city! – but the excerpt they posted with the cover?

That had me hooked SO FAST.

Go on, go check it out, if you haven’t already. I’ll wait!

There, see? DOESN’T IT SOUND AMAZING?

It was love at first line for me;

The moment Fetter is born, Mother-of-Glory pins his shadow to the earth with a large brass nail and tears it from him.

Picture me swooning, okay?

Usually, a book has to be queer for me to need it this bad. I have no idea if Bright Doors is queer or not, and for once, folx, I do not care. I am in love. I HAVE A MIGHTY NEED. I will be counting the days until this one releases!

Obviously I’ve pre-ordered it already. YOU SHOULD TOO!

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Published on October 12, 2022 12:30

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