Siavahda's Blog, page 89

Must-Have Monday #29!

It’s been a few weeks, but Must-Have Monday is back! With perfect timing, because this week promises to be a good one!

Create My Own Perfection by E.H. Timms
Representation: Aroace MC
on 2nd April 2021
Goodreads

"It's not every day you get to put the fear of Medusa into a god."

Emma Stone, medusa, is the groundskeeper for Olson College of Extensive Education, a place where everyone is welcome, from the mythical to the magical. When her selkie best friend loses her skin in Fresher's week, the race is on to find it before someone uses it against her.

The search brings Emma face to face with her oldest enemy - and forces her to confront the worst nightmares of her past.

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This was released just last week, but it’s awesome so I’m including it. EH Timms wrote for Queerly Loving Volume One, which is where I first encountered their work, but this time they don’t need to share the spotlight! And doesn’t this premise sound amazing???

Local Star by Aimee Ogden
Representation: Polyamory
on 5th April 2021
Genres: Sci Fi, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Local Star is a polyamorous space opera with a fast-paced, action-packed adventure that’s sure to punch you in the feels. It follows guttergirl Triz as she saves her hub from invaders from the Cyberbionautic Alliance, all the while negotiating her rekindled romance with Kalo, her ex who's returned from battle and won't stop hanging around the wrenchworks.

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Local Star is out TODAY, and it’s by the same author as the incredible Sun-Daughters, Sea-Daughters, which is already one of my favourites of 2021! So I’m ridiculously excited to get to read this, and very glad it’s a Bank Holiday here in Finland so there’s nothing to distract me from it!

House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
on 6th April 2021
Genres: Urban Fantasy
ISBN: 0593110358
Goodreads

A dark, twisty modern fairytale where three sisters discover they are not exactly all that they seem and evil things really do go bump in the night.

Iris Hollow and her two older sisters are unquestionably strange. Ever since they disappeared on a suburban street in Scotland as children only to return a month a later with no memory of what happened to them, odd, eerie occurrences seem to follow in their wake. And they’re changing. First, their dark hair turned white. Then, their blue eyes slowly turned black. They have insatiable appetites yet never gain weight. People find them disturbingly intoxicating, unbearably beautiful, and inexplicably dangerous.

But now, ten years later, seventeen-year-old Iris Hollow is doing all she can to fit in and graduate high school on time–something her two famously glamourous globe-trotting older sisters, Grey and Vivi, never managed to do. But when Grey goes missing without a trace, leaving behind bizarre clues as to what might have happened, Iris and Vivi are left to trace her last few days. They aren’t the only ones looking for her though. As they brush against the supernatural they realize that the story they’ve been told about their past is unraveling and the world that returned them seemingly unharmed ten years ago, might just be calling them home.

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This is one of my most-anticipated April releases, especially after I fell in love with the prose from the excerpt posted online. I have no real idea of what to expect, story-wise, but I’m excited to find out!

First, Become Ashes by K.M. Szpara
Representation: M/M or mlm, Gay MC, Nonbinary MC
on 6th April 2021
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Urban Fantasy
ISBN: 1250216184
Goodreads

The Fellowship raised Lark to kill monsters. His partner betrayed them to the Feds. But Lark knows his magic is real, and he'll do anything to complete his quest.

K. M. Szpara follows Docile, one of the most anticipated science fiction novels of 2020, with First, Become Ashes, a fantastic standalone adventure that blends pain and pleasure and will make readers question what is real, and what is magical.

Lark spent the first twenty-four years, nine months, and three days of his life training for a righteous quest: to rid the world of monsters. Alongside his partner Kane, he wore the cage and endured the scourge in order to develop his innate magic. He never thought that when Kane left, he'd next see him in the company of FBI agents and a SWAT team. He never dreamed that the leader of the Fellowship of the Anointed would be brought up on charges of abuse and assault.

He never expected the government would tell him that the monsters aren't real--that there is no magic, and all the pain was for nothing.

Lark isn't ready to give up. He is determined to fulfill his quest, to defeat the monsters he was promised. Along the way he will grapple with the past, confront love, and discover his long-buried truth.

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Aaaaand, this is one of my most anticipated releases of the year. I loved Szpara’s debut Docile, and I’ve loved his short fiction, so I fully expect to love this one too. It sounds messed-up and queer as fuck and maybe-magical, which basically ticks all of my boxes.

I’m a terrible person, but this sounds like it’s going to be an incredible book.

The Infinity Courts (The Infinity Courts, #1) by Akemi Dawn Bowman
on 6th April 2021
Genres: Sci Fi
ISBN: 153445649X
Goodreads

Eighteen-year-old Nami Miyamoto is certain her life is just beginning. She has a great family, just graduated high school, and is on her way to a party where her entire class is waiting for her—including, most importantly, the boy she’s been in love with for years. The only problem? She’s murdered before she gets there.

When Nami wakes up, she learns she’s in a place called Infinity, where human consciousness goes when physical bodies die. She quickly discovers that Ophelia, a virtual assistant widely used by humans on Earth, has taken over the afterlife and is now posing as a queen, forcing humans into servitude the way she’d been forced to serve in the real world. Even worse, Ophelia is inching closer and closer to accomplishing her grand plans of eradicating human existence once and for all.

As Nami works with a team of rebels to bring down Ophelia and save the humans under her imprisonment, she is forced to reckon with her past, her future, and what it is that truly makes us human.

From award-winning author Akemi Dawn Bowman comes an incisive, action-packed tale that explores big questions about technology, grief, love, and humanity.
Westworld meets Warcross in this high-stakes, dizzyingly smart sci-fi about a teen girl navigating an afterlife in which she must defeat an AI entity intent on destroying humanity, from award-winning author Akemi Dawn Bowman.

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I have heard only good things about this book. It’s the start of a series, not a standalone, and the premise sounds amazingly interesting. I really want to see what Bowman does with this!

Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian
Representation: Indian-American MC
on 6th April 2021
ISBN: 1984882031
Goodreads

An Indian-American magical realist coming of age story, spanning two continents, two coasts, and four epochs, in razor sharp and deeply funny prose, Sathian captures what it is to grow up as a member of a family, of a diaspora, and of the American meritocracy.

A floundering second-generation teenager growing up in the Bush-era Atlanta suburbs, Neil Narayan is authentic, funny, and smart. He just doesn't share the same drive as everyone around him. His perfect older sister is headed to Duke. His parents' expectations for him are just as high. He tries to want this version of success, but mostly, Neil just wants his neighbor across the cul-de-sac, Anita Dayal.

But Anita has a secret: she and her mother Anjali have been brewing an ancient alchemical potion from stolen gold that harnesses the ambition of the jewelry's original owner. Anjali's own mother in Bombay didn't waste the precious potion on her daughter, favoring her sons instead. Anita, on the other hand, just needs a little boost to get into Harvard. But when Neil--who needs a whole lot more--joins in the plot, events spiral into a tragedy that rips their community apart.

Ten years later, Neil is an oft-stoned Berkeley history grad student studying the California gold rush. His high school cohort has migrated to Silicon Valley, where he reunites with Anita and resurrects their old habit of gold theft--only now, the stakes are higher. Anita's mother is in trouble, and only gold can save her. Anita and Neil must pull off one last heist.

Gold Diggers is a fine-grained, profoundly intelligent, and bitingly funny investigation in to questions of identity and coming of age--that tears down American shibboleths.

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A magical realism novel that appeared on my radar last-minute, this sounds like it has the potential to be really clever. I don’t know anything about Sathian, and magical realism is always a bit hit and miss for me, but I really want to give this one a try!

Star Eater by Kitty Shields
on 6th April 2021
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

Enter a different kind of L.A., where mobsters are daemons, high school students are possessed, and frozen yogurt is the first step to solving every problem.

Kai is possessed by his demon, Akuma, and has been for eleven years. And for eleven years he's managed to keep that tidbit of information a secret. His parents think the strange side effects of having a pet demon are due to a physical disability, but boy and demon have reached a happy equilibrium, and leaving Kai's parents in the dark is essential to that.

Life is, well, not grand but serviceable until a mobster recognizes Kai and Akuma for what they are, and he needs Kai's power to break out a very dangerous criminal. As Kai gets sucked into the L.A. supernatural underground, he finds that the mob knows more about his demon than he does and what he doesn't know is very, very dangerous.

As Kai and Akuma try and navigate through the sea of other monsters in the dark, they have to do it while pretending to be the most mysterious creature of all: a normal teenager.

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I know nothing about this author either, but the book sounds amazing (and the awesome title definitely doesn’t hurt). It’s also apparently queer??? I am immensely intrigued!

What books are you looking forward to this week?

The post Must-Have Monday #29! appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

I Give Up: Recent DNFs

I wish it were common practice to publish the first chapter of a book online before it’s published. There are always books that sound so great, but then the writing style turns out to be absolutely Not For Me, and if I knew ahead of time, I could just skip them instead of wasting more time on them.

Sigh.

So, a few books that have ended up on my DNF pile lately, and a little bit about why!

A Dark and Hollow Star (A Dark and Hollow Star, #1) by Ashley Shuttleworth
Goodreads

Choose your player.

The “ironborn” half-fae outcast of her royal fae family.
A tempestuous Fury, exiled to earth from the Immortal Realm and hellbent on revenge.
A dutiful fae prince, determined to earn his place on the throne.
The prince’s brooding guardian, burdened with a terrible secret.

For centuries, the Eight Courts of Folk have lived among us, concealed by magic and bound by law to do no harm to humans. This arrangement has long kept peace in the Courts—until a series of gruesome and ritualistic murders rocks the city of Toronto and threatens to expose faeries to the human world.

Four queer teens, each who hold a key piece of the truth behind these murders, must form a tenuous alliance in their effort to track down the mysterious killer behind these crimes. If they fail, they risk the destruction of the faerie and human worlds alike. If that’s not bad enough, there’s a war brewing between the Mortal and Immortal Realms, and one of these teens is destined to tip the scales. The only question is: which way?

Wish them luck. They’re going to need it.

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A Dark and Hollow Star was a book I was looking forward to for YEARS. And in total fairness, I’m not sure it’s a bad book. I think I’m just…growing out of/away from YA. Which is a shame, because YA is awesome, but I’m tired of books that feel like they’re talking down to me, simplifying everything for me. Which not all YA does, but a lot of it does.

ADaHS felt too simple. At first I was excited, because the set up seemed more complicated than I often see in YA – there are multiple faerie courts and also a whole nother realm of Immortals on top of that – but it’s like…like the author came up with a brilliant idea, and then someone told them to dumb it down. The prose is very generically YA; not as descriptive (read: purple) as I like, but not baldly bland either. The worldbuilding…it’s detailed enough for most readers, probably? I have exacting and unfair standards when it comes to worldbuilding, I know.

There’s nothing wrong with it. I just didn’t find anything it was doing really right, either. And I just don’t have the time or brain-space for books I’m utterly indifferent about.

The Other Side of Magic by Ester Manzini
on 6th April 2021
ISBN: 9781953539137
Goodreads

A revolution is brewing.

Everyone within the realms of Epidalio and Zafiria is born with magic. However, it is also true that for every spell each and every magic-user casts, their innate abilities begin to slowly wane until their power is feeble and depleted.

True, that is, for almost everyone.

Princess Gaiane Asares of Zafiria is the result of a nearly perfect genetic union. Harnessing royal and magical lineage in her conception, the princess was born infinitely powerful and with no limits upon her magic. Sequestered in a lonesome tower as her strength is used against her will to conquer the land of Epidalio, she must find a way to fight against her captors.

Elsewhere within the realms, Leo—a commoner—was born with no magic at all. Except for her brain, wits, and her own anger, she must confront the circumstances thrown at her without the magical gifts that so many take for granted.

THE OTHER SIDE OF MAGIC is a diverse fantasy filled with action and adventure that is sure to pull you in and hold you fast through each twist and turn!

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Another book I was excited about; another, far worse let-down. The Other Side of Magic… I didn’t even make it to the halfway point. The worldbuilding here is quite a bit better, I think, than Hollow Star, but the writing? Is appalling. It’s choppy, it’s blunt, it’s weirdly simplistic…forcing myself to read it was like making myself chew plastic. And there were so many typos and formatting errors (although granted, the copy I was reading was an arc, so maybe those are all sorted out in the final book). I didn’t have a chance to get to care about any of the characters because the writing was so…eugh. Queens acting like little children and so much exposition, horrifically awful dialogue…nope, no, thanks, there are too many other books to read.

Sankofa: Born Equal Only (Book One) by Ben (Beenie) T. Mel
on 1st May 2021
ISBN: 9780999534649
Goodreads

Sankofa: Born Equal Only is an Afrofuturism adventure that takes on gender injustice from the perspective of rival fraternal twins, Toomi and Ras, born to be the Guardians of Maat, the first Queen to rise to the throne in the kingdom of Axindar in a post-apocalyptic medieval Africa, where the future of our technology shapes the past of our time.

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This is not a bad book. What it is is a grimdark book, which is not at all clear from the blurb – but then, the blurb tells you nothing about the book at all, really. Written in alternating first-person (a pair of twins, and a future queen) – my second-biggest problem with this book was that if I didn’t know it was afrofuturism (from the almost non-existent blurb) then I would have no clue where or when the story is taking place. This is always difficult for a writer when your characters have grown up in a world unfamiliar to the reader – how do you explain to the reader what’s going on? Different writers find different ways to handle it, and here, it just wasn’t done at all. (Or maybe it was, some time in the second half of the book. I didn’t get that far.) There are new nouns everywhere but no clear idea of what any of them mean; new (or modified?) animals and birds are mentioned, even encountered, but not described, so I had no idea what I was supposed to be picturing. In general I had a really hard time figuring out what was going on – at several points a character is described as going into a bird, but in what sense is unclear. Something psychic? Is it something unique about the bird? Or at another point, a character is described as flying around the city, and it seems to be literal flying, but again – is she in spirit-form, or is this something she can literally do in her physical body? When she breaks into houses, is it astral projection or really happening???

But my biggest problem was just…how dark it is. And that’s not a flaw, really, it’s a matter of taste. When Born Equal Only says it’s going to be dealing with gender politics, it means it – in the sense that literally everything is misogyny and abuse and rape. That wasn’t what I thought this book was going to be doing (I thought we’d moved past that point in the conversation by now?) and sorry not sorry, I can’t handle it. I don’t want to read about raperaperape, or how all men are evil, or how apparently even in some far-off future women are still men’s playthings. I’m pretty sure the book or series plans on eventually evening the score, either flipping around the power structure or giving women a more equal place, but I’m not willing to swim through all that awfulness to get there. Got enough of that in the real world, thanks.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t been reading amazing books, because I have, and hopefully I can write something up about them soon!

The post I Give Up: Recent DNFs appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

In Short: March

It’s not been a great month; despite an incredibly wonderful birthday (the 1st) arranged by the hubby, my fibromyalgia has left my hands in pieces – meaning I can hardly read a book, nevermind review it. I also had (very!) minor surgery on my left arm, which has not helped with the not-able-to-read/write issue.

Oh well. Did the best I could anyway!

Books Read[image error]

14 books, and two novellas (or a novella and a short story?) I may have to just accept that that’s my average, since that’s three months in a row now I’ve only managed 14 full novels.

Trying to find out how many of the authors I read last month were queer felt really creepy and invasive, so I’m not doing that again. (Besides, #ownvoices is incredibly important, but I do think it’s different for queerness than it is ethnicity. Lots of queer people aren’t public with their queerness, and shouldn’t have to be if they don’t want to.) So I’m going to count race and gender (as best I can) but not queerness, since I have no idea how many of the writers I read might be in the closet.

So in March, out of 13 authors, I read;

12 women + 2 men3 authors of colour

I guess that’s better than the single non-white author I read in February, but still not great!

Of the books…

7 Rereads

In Other LandsSparrow Hill RoadMistress of SpicesA Dead Djinn in CairoDoor Into FireGirl in the Green Silk GownPalimpsest

4 Arcs

A Summoning of Demons Hall of SmokeA Ruthless Lady’s Guide to Wizardry No Gods, No Monsters

5 New-to-Me

The Haunting of Tram Car 015The Echo WifeHeart of StonePaladin’s StrengthCall of the Bone ShipsBooks Reviewed

Technically I did manage five reviews – same as last month – but two of them were mini-reviews so I’m not sure they should each count as a full review… I’m disappointed, but also glad at what I managed with my hands in such a state.

Books DNF-ed

Birds of Paradise was too slow – the plot had barely begun at the 40% mark – and The Wild Ones was just plain bad. You can read my review of it here.

ARCs Received

I finally managed to stop requesting so many arcs, and I’m very glad! But I did get access to several of my MOST ANTICIPATED READS OF THE YEAR, so, you know, pretty freaking delighted about that!

Unfortunately Wild Ones was a DNF for me (and a rare DNF review). Sankofa: Born Equal Only was a book I hadn’t heard of, but saw on Netgalley and thought looked pretty interesting. The writing style takes a little getting used to, but I’m enjoying it so far!

ARCs Outstanding

I feel like I’m not really making progress with my arc backlog, and I’m annoyed because that was specifically what I wanted to spend March doing.

(Technically I have now read Lady’s Guide, Hall of Smoke and Summoning, but I haven’t reviewed them yet!)

Looking Forward

Happily, April has a whole bunch of releases I’m excited about! Although there’s not much info available for The Other Side of Magic, the author has stated that the entire cast is queer, so that + the magic promised has me eager to get my mitts on it. I didn’t enjoy Rossner’s previous book, because half of it was written in verse and I kind of hate novels in verse, but I have high hopes for The Light of Midnight Stars – not least because it’s supposed to feature an F/F relationship where one of the girls is a star?!

House of Hollow grabbed my attention with its cover and sealed the deal with the excerpt that was published online, which makes it sound like it’s exactly the kind of prose that makes me swoon. And First, Become Ashes promises to be fucked up, queer as fuck, plus magic that may or may not be real. So, exactly my cup of tea, basically.

Here’s hoping and praying that my fibro will fuck off and let me get back to blogging properly next month! I have so many rec lists I’m dying to put together, not to mention all the reviews I have to catch up on.

Hope everyone else had a fab March! ONWARDS TO APRIL!

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

Some Mini Reviews: Ghost Road series (1-2) by Seanan McGuire

It was time for a reread of this series, and though I’m not up to writing a full review at the moment, I did want to get some thoughts down!

Sparrow Hill Road (Ghost Roads, #1) by Seanan McGuire
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Goodreads

Rose Marshall died in 1952 in Buckley Township, Michigan, run off the road by a man named Bobby Cross—a man who had sold his soul to live forever, and intended to use her death to pay the price of his immortality. Trouble was, he didn’t ask Rose what she thought of the idea.

It’s been more than sixty years since that night, and she’s still sixteen, and she’s still running.

They have names for her all over the country: the Girl in the Diner. The Phantom Prom Date. The Girl in the Green Silk Gown. Mostly she just goes by “Rose,” a hitchhiking ghost girl with her thumb out and her eyes fixed on the horizon, trying to outrace a man who never sleeps, never stops, and never gives up on the idea of claiming what’s his. She’s the angel of the overpass, she’s the darling of the truck stops, and she’s going to figure out a way to win her freedom. After all, it’s not like it can kill her.

You can’t kill what’s already dead.

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Sparrow Hill Road is the first book in Seanan McGuire’s Ghost Roads series, and if there’s anything you should know about McGuire, it’s that she can write – and rock – absolutely anything she sets her mind to. Sparrow Hill Road came out of nowhere back in 2014 and immediately earned itself a spot on my favourites shelf with its unique (and brilliantly clever) modern mythology, and a main character who knew when to dig her heels in and when to take off running.

What can I say: I love characters who know their own limitations, okay?

Rose is a ghost; she’s been 16 for over 60 years. Thankfully, (un-)living that long means she no longer has the mentality or psyche of a 16 year old; in fact, it’d be pretty hard to translate her maturity into a living human age. McGuire successfully writes a ghost who feels like a ghost, ie, still very human, but a human who has been around for a while and seen some very strange things. Her body might be frozen at 16; her mind isn’t, and her voice (the series is written in 1st-person) absolutely sounds like it. Rose never feels alien, though; if anything, she feels wonderfully normal – and brisk, and practical, and unwilling to put up with bullshit. She gets scared. She’s careful when encountering new supernatural creatures or practices she doesn’t know. She tries her best to be good, and sometimes she gets tired.

Sparrow Hill Road is set up more like a series of interconnected short stories and novellas, covering a number of Rose’s adventures with the afterlife – including her run-ins with the man who killed her living body and now wants to feed her ghost to his car. (It’s complicated). Besides Rose herself, my favourite aspect of this book has got to be the worldbuilding; McGuire has created an entire eco-system of ghosts and spirits, all of which are bound by unique rules and limitations, and while some draw on old mythology, most of it has been spun out of modern urban legends in really clever ways. As usual, though, McGuire doesn’t drown the reader in her worldbuilding, letting us put it together piece by piece alongside Rose, who also has to learn how the Ghost Roads work, while making friends, enemies, and allies all across the supernatural USA.

It’s a very easy read, soothing and exciting in equal measure depending on which of Rose’s adventures you’re reading about at a given moment. It’s definitely the coolest ghost book I’ve ever read!

The Girl in the Green Silk Gown (Ghost Roads, #2) by Seanan McGuire
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Goodreads

The second book in the Ghost Roads series returns to the highways of America, where hitchhiking ghost Rose Marshall continues her battle with her killer--the immortal Bobby Cross.

Once and twice and thrice around,
Put your heart into the ground.
Four and five and six tears shed,
Give your love unto the dead.
Seven shadows on the wall,
Eight have come to watch your fall:
One's for the gargoyle, one's for the grave,
And the last is for the one you'll never save.

For Rose Marshall, death has long since become the only life she really knows. She's been sweet sixteen for more than sixty years, hitchhiking her way along the highways and byways of America, sometimes seen as an avenging angel, sometimes seen as a killer in her own right, but always Rose, the Phantom Prom Date, the Girl in the Green Silk Gown.

The man who killed her is still out there, thanks to a crossroads bargain that won't let him die, and he's looking for the one who got away. When Bobby Cross comes back into the picture, there's going to be hell to pay--possibly literally.

Rose has worked for decades to make a place for herself in the twilight. Can she defend it, when Bobby Cross comes to take her down? Can she find a way to navigate the worlds of the living and the dead, and make it home before her hitchhiker's luck runs out?

There's only one way to know for sure.

Nine will let you count the cost:
All you had and all you lost.
Ten is more than time can tell,
Cut the cord and ring the bell.
Count eleven, twelve, and then,
Thirteen takes you home again.
One's for the shadow, one's for the tree,
And the last is for the blessing of Persephone.

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Book 2 in the Ghost Roads series sees Rose, at least initially, protected from the hungers of Bobby Cross, the man who killed her. But it wouldn’t be a story if he couldn’t figure out a way around those protections, now would it?

Unlike Sparrow Hill Road, Girl in the Green is a novel, not lots of interconnected short stories. And that makes sense for several reasons, not least of which is that ghosts don’t experience time in a linear fashion – hence moving back and forth along the timeline in the previous book – but in Girl in the Green, Rose spends most of the book…alive.

It’s funny, because Sparrow Hill Road had many moments that savoured life and celebrated its joys, but Girl in the Green is much more focused on the normalised grossness of being a living biological being. Both Rose and the narrative make it clear, over and over again, that Rose’s desire to be a ghost again is not the same as suicide, nor is suicide something to be encouraged; Rose wants to be a ghost again because that’s where her life is. She’s really not human any more; doesn’t think like one, act like one, or want to be one. All of her friends are supernatural beings who can’t interact with her while she’s breathing. Resurrection would have been a gift and a miracle to her if it had happened earlier, closer to her death, back when she was still more human than not. But now all it’s done is turned her world upside down, cut her off from the world she knows and the people she loves, and left her helpless and stranded in the modern world – a world she doesn’t know. It is, very believably, a nightmare for her.

Like everything McGuire writes, Girl in the Green is a smooth and easy read, complicated and interesting enough to keep you hooked, while also asking very little of the reader. I finished the last chunk of the book while waiting to undergo surgery (very minor, no worries) and it absolutely kept the jitters at bay. Even though this was my second time reading the book, I was still locked into the story, and when it was time to put the book away I was much calmer and more relaxed than I would have been otherwise.

Girl in the Green also delves a fair bit deeper into the workings of the Ghost Roads, and the rules (and rulers) of the Twilight, the next-door dimension where Rose and the other ghosts ‘live’. It’s not all pretty. It’s not supposed to be. McGuire is very, very good at creating fantasy…let’s call them ‘systems’…that are magical, but still feel very real, real because the rules are harsh and unfair. The means by which Rose is resurrected, in particular, struck me as the kind of horrible that I can absolutely believe in. If that makes any sense.

It’s a very solid, thought-provoking book that I for one found it so easy to sink into, and I’ve got to admit I preferred the novel format to the interconnected short-stories of the first book. But they’re both ridiculously good, and I recommend them heartily!

The post Some Mini Reviews: Ghost Road series (1-2) by Seanan McGuire appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

WWW Wednesday: 24th March

I’ve decided that, at least for the foreseeable future, I’m going to be participating in WWW Wednesdays, which is a meme hosted over at Taking On a World of Words. To take part, you just answer the three questions below, and link back to TOaWoW!

This is also where I include the occasional State of the Sia update, so: I actually had surgery yesterday! Which sounds far more dramatic than it actually was; it was a 30-minute outpatient surgery and I’ll be on antibiotics for about 10 days. Three days of sick-leave and I should be back to normal by next week. But if you’re wondering what’s slowed me down: that. I’ve been in (extra) pain for about a week and now I’m in recovery. I’m just not going to get much done this month, I guess.

Anyway!

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?Son of the Storm (The Nameless Republic, #1) by Suyi Davies Okungbowa
Representation: Cast of colour
on 13th May 2021
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Epic Fantasy
Goodreads

A young scholar's ambition threatens to reshape an empire determined to retain its might in this epic tale of violent conquest, buried histories, and forbidden magic.
In the thriving city of Bassa, Danso is a clever but disillusioned scholar who longs for a life beyond the rigid family and political obligations expected of the city’s elite. A way out presents itself when Lilong, a skin-changing warrior, shows up wounded in his barn. She comes from the Nameless Islands–which, according to Bassa lore, don’t exist–and neither should the mythical magic of ibor she wields. Now swept into a conspiracy far beyond his understanding, Danso will have to set out on a journey that reveals histories violently suppressed and magic only found in lore.

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I got approved for an arc of this and I’m adoring it so far! I almost wish this had been Okungbowa’s debut, because his first book David Mogo, Godhunter didn’t get the love it deserved, and maybe it would have done better once Okungbowa was better established. By which I mean, Son of the Storm feels a lot more familiar than Godhunter did; it’s epic fantasy, just with a setting that’s not quasi-Medieval Europe, and I think white western readers are going to have an easier time with this than they did with Godhunter.

Anyway, I just started and it’s freaking brilliant so far!

WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING?The Girl in the Green Silk Gown (Ghost Roads #2) by Seanan McGuire
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Goodreads

The second book in the Ghost Roads series returns to the highways of America, where hitchhiking ghost Rose Marshall continues her battle with her killer--the immortal Bobby Cross.

For Rose Marshall, life began when it ended. She has friends, a home, and a purpose in the strange twilight where she spends her afterlife. Sure, she's an urban legend who didn't live to see her eighteenth birthday, but she's had time to adapt, and while things could be better, she's pretty happy with her lot in death.

At least until Bobby Cross--the man who killed her in the first place--plays his ultimate card in the hole, resulting in her untimely, unwanted resurrection. Suddenly breathing and worse, suddenly mortal, Rose must find a way to solve the riddle she never wanted to contend with: how does a living dead girl make it back to the ghostroads without actually dying?

Her quest will make allies out of enemies and enemies out of allies as she runs from the lands of the living to the lands of the dead, trying to find a way safely home...and safely back to her grave.

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This was a re-read to get me ready for my arc of Angel of the Overpass, the third book in the Ghost Roads series. I love these books, for their wonderful eco-system of ghosts and their easy, addictive readability. This is what I was reading while waiting to go into surgery, and it was the perfect distraction: sucked me right in, even though I’ve read it before. *happy sigh* I can’t wait to jump to the next book!

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL READ NEXT?One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston
Representation: F/F or wlw, love interest of colour
on 1st June 2021
Genres: Urban Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don't exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can't imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there's certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.

But then, there's this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August's day when she needed it most. August's subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there's one big problem: Jane doesn't just look like an old school punk rocker. She's literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it's time to start believing in some things, after all.

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I GOT APPROVED FOR AN ARC OF THIS TOO SO YEAH, I THINK THIS IS NEXT UP ON MY LIST. CAN YOU HEAR ME SHRIEKING FROM FINLAND??? I AM PURE JOY.

That’s it for now! What’s everyone else reading?

The post WWW Wednesday: 24th March appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Beautiful Premise, Hideous Writing: The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad

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.

The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad
Representation: Cast of colour, queer cast
on 3rd August 2021
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Urban Fantasy
Goodreads

From William C. Morris Finalist Nafiza Azad comes a thrilling, feminist fantasy about a group of teenage girls endowed with special powers who must band together to save the life of the boy whose magic saved them all.

Meet the Wild Ones: girls who have been hurt, abandoned, and betrayed all their lives. It all began with Paheli, who was once betrayed by her mother and sold to a man in exchange for a favor. When Paheli escapes, she runs headlong into a boy with stars in his eyes. This boy, as battered as she is, tosses Paheli a box of stars before disappearing.

With the stars, Paheli gains access to the Between, a place of pure magic and mystery. Now, Paheli collects girls like herself and these Wild Ones use their magic to travel the world, helping the hopeless and saving others from the fates they suffered.

Then Paheli and the Wild Ones learn that the boy who gave them the stars, Taraana, is in danger. He’s on the run from powerful forces within the world of magic. But if Taraana is no longer safe and free, neither are the Wild Ones. And that…is a fate the Wild Ones refuse to accept. Ever again.

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I don’t like writing negative reviews. I tend not to; I mark a book as DNF or read and then just…keep silent about it. Maybe I put a sentence or two about it in my monthly wrap-up posts, but that’s all.

But I really, really hate this book.

And I hate that I hate it. I’ve been looking forward to this book breathlessly, ever since the publishing deal was announced. It’s magical queer girls of colour!!! With stars and magic diamonds and sparkly clothes! It’s everything I could ask for! When I was approved for an arc, I ran into the study to tell my husband the good news, I was so excited and ecstatic.

Today, I can’t decide whether I want to cry or scream.

There’s nothing wrong with the premise/concept, the plot, or the characters. I didn’t finish the book, but the issues I saw dealt with were not mishandled. It’s nothing like that.

It’s just that the writing is abominably bad.

This is confusing for a number of reasons, not least of which is that this is not Azad’s debut, and that book, The Candle and the Flame, had perfectly pleasant prose. I didn’t enjoy the book, but not because it was bad; it and I just weren’t a good fit.

Whereas The Wild Ones is just…so bad.

The first 50 pages are telling, telling, telling. Nothing is shown to the reader; it’s a never-ending lecture about the Wild Ones and the Between and non-humans and all the rest of it. One loooong info-dump. The writing is blunt and choppy; there are attempts at pretty description, but it’s cringingly clunky, with sentences like this

sweet, milky treats that taste a little like heaven if the place was a flavor.

An editor should have cut the last six words of that sentence and it would have been fine. Look

sweet, milky treats that taste a little like heaven.

Done. Much better!

The book is written in first-person; unfortunately, aside from brief excerpts from ‘the book of memories’ which are titled with a character’s name, half the time it’s not at all clear whose head we’re in. Sometimes it’s Paheli, but then in the next chapter someone else seems to be talking – because they’re referring to Paheli in third-person now – but there’s nothing to tell you who the narration has switched to. Whoever they are, they speak like very young, bratty children

I glare at Valentina and pretend I have all the answers. I am really good at pretending, in case you’re wondering.

A few lines later,

“We’ll find out more about this person later. All right?” stinky Valentina says, trying to make up for putting her foot in everyone’s mouth earlier.

‘Stinky Valentina’? What are you, five??? This from a character who has supposedly lived for over 70 years?

A lack of contractions makes the dialogue clunky and strange; it’s like a constant itch in your brain, insisting that this is not how real people speak – unless it’s for effect, which is definitely not the case here. Unless the intent is to create this niggling sense of wrongness, make it all feel artificial and false? I’m not sure why someone would do that on purpose. But putting the contractions issue aside, still, the dialogue is just…it reads like an appallingly bad script. The conversation about ‘this person’ mentioned in the previous quote goes back and forth, contradicts itself, and then is dropped like it’s nothing, even though this issue should be incredibly important to these characters.

Moments that ought to be immensely powerful and poignant fall flat in a way that’s almost painful. The Wild Ones are a group of girls and women who have been hurt by men, now made functionally immortal by magic. Early in the book, there’s a scene where they come to the rescue of a mortal girl, in the process revealing to the reader one of their powers –

We take a deep breath, and then all of us scream at the same time. The men fall to their knees, their hands around their ears. The lights in the festival flicker twice before returning to their original brightness. The men do not recover. They won’t. They will hear our screams in their dreams. The sound will haunt them. They will lose sleep. Their relationships will suffer. Perhaps they will lose their jobs and livelihoods.

The irony of having screams as weapons is not lost on us. Our screams work differently on humans and middle worlders. For humans, the effect is somewhat akin to having an excess of electricity in their brains. For middle worlders, a Wild One’s scream means being injected with more magic than their bodies can safely contain. The effect is the same.

“Let’s go,” Paheli says, and we heed her.

Magic screams, coming from the mouths of wounded women, is a powerful, meaningful concept. But it’s described so…limply, here. I don’t feel anything, there’s no thrill, no urge to cheer, no awe at the beauty and power of the moment. And then we get another paragraph of telling again.

What’s extra frustrating is that, there are brief glimpses of great writing. One of the earliest excerpts from the book of memory – a book containing the backstories of the Wild Ones – is from one girl who had an affair with an older man, and in comparing herself to the man’s wife, she says

I was the sin to be confessed on Sunday to a red-cheeked priest.

She would be flowers on afternoons, jewellery just because, and dinner out with decade-long friends.

See? That’s great! That’s wonderful! Why can’t we have a whole book of that?

And the world-building is so weak. Magical creatures are just ‘not-humans’. ‘The not-human man’. ‘The not-human woman’. I mean – you couldn’t even come up with a word for them? Really?

All in all, this was a massive disappointment that has me wishing this idea had been born in the mind of a different writer, one who could do it justice.

The post Beautiful Premise, Hideous Writing: The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Sharp as a Knife: No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

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.

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull
Representation: Black bi mc, Puerto Rican American sapphic mc, biracial bi ace trans mc, nonbinary side character, Black bi side character, Black side characters
on 7th September 2021
Genres: Queer Protagonists, Urban Fantasy
Goodreads

One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother was shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it.

As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence. A professor follows a missing friend’s trail of bread crumbs to a mysterious secret society. And a young boy with unique abilities seeks refuge in a pro-monster organization with secrets of its own. Meanwhile, more people start disappearing, suicides and hate crimes increase, and protests erupt globally, both for and against the monsters.

At the center is a mystery no one thinks to ask: Why now? What has frightened the monsters out of the dark?

The world will soon find out.

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~the conspiracy theorists are right (maybe)
~tech magic
~’I have never answered that question’
~a loving open relationship
~Dragon
~anarchists have the best bookshops
~skins are sometimes optional

I read this in two sittings, and it would have been one if I didn’t have to sleep. I pushed through the first few pages, which seemed to have nothing to do with the story promised by the blurb…and then I was completely hooked. No Gods, No Monsters was a book I resented having to put down, and I expect a lot of other people are going to feel the same way when they get it in their hands.

It’s not quite like anything I’ve ever read before.

Part of that is the structure: the book is divided into multiple parts, all of which are quite short, each of which is from the perspective of a different character. As the book goes on, the connections between these characters become clearer – several of them know each other – but here’s the thing: the first part, the opening that I found so confusing? That’s written in first-person. The rest are in third.

That’s not the weird thing.

The weird thing is that the first part, the first-person part, is pretty banal. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything. It’s only when we get to the second part, Laina’s part, that what seems like the story gets moving.

Laina’s brother has been shot and killed by the police. Turnbull sketches out the devastating grief, the disorientation and numbness and rage that come in the aftermath, with brutal precision. The prose is bare of ornamentation, almost bluntly so, until a shift in perspective – the perfect word, a poignant line – makes it clear that Turnbell writes as if wielding a scalpel in a surgery; precise, economical, and cutting through the meat right into the core. It’s a style that hooks you in and doesn’t let you go again, which is perfect for so many reasons, but most of all because that’s exactly what’s happening to the characters – they’re all being hooked in, dragged in, and not let go again.

Here and there within Laina’s part of the book – which is written in third-person, remember – is an occasional ‘I’ sentence. A line or two in first-person, in a voice that is clearly not Laina’s. There is no explanation for this. I was scribbling notes as I read, and surrounded in question marks were my theories invisible friend??? split personality??? something supernatural following her around???

Then Laina is approached by a voice. Not in her head, but somewhere in her dark bedroom. The voice asks if Laina wants the body-cam footage of her brother’s killing. Laina decides that she does. The voice promises to have it delivered to her.

And then the first-person occasional-narrator voice reaches out to the Other Voice. Still in Laina’s part of the book, but separate from Laina, outside of her.

It is here that I stop time. The world around us slows, all matter falls still, and all sound stops. There is only the voice and me. I reach out to the formless thing, trying to access its mind but finding nothing. In all my time traveling the fractal sea, this has never happened. Minds are always open to me.

“What are you?” I ask directly. “What is this?”

For a terrible moment, the voice doesn’t answer, and for the first time, I feel a sense of danger I’ve never thought to feel.

“I’ve signed a contract,” it finally says. “I am bound not to speak to you.”

“By whom?”

“The universe,” it says.

And the voice answers no more of my questions.

What. The. Hell.

The body-cam footage appears, mysteriously. As you’ve probably worked out from the blurb, it reveals that Laina’s estranged brother was a werewolf.

Werewolves are a thing now.

But of course, it’s not nearly that simple. Even after a pack of werewolves ‘come out of the broom closet’, people are quick to call it a hoax. Nobody publicly announces that they now believe in the supernatural…but the event sends quiet shockwaves through society anyway. People start being attacked, even killed, for being suspected witches or werewolves or anything else hateful people can dream up. We follow another character as he goes down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and secret societies…which ends nowhere good.

That’s actually where some of the pieces…not come together, but maybe start hinting that they might, possibly, at some undetermined time in the future, come together. We get glimpses of different factions, different groups of supernatural creatures (who call themselves ‘monsters’ in a way that’s very reminiscent – probably deliberately – of people calling themselves/using the label of queer). There’s a suggestion that some of these groups have agendas, but the problem – I think the biggest problem with this book – is that we don’t really have a clue what those agendas are.

Here’s the thing: Turnbull has great characters, great prose, and what looks like some seriously unique and interesting worldbuilding. The problem is that No Gods, No Monsters feels like the first half of the first book in a series, rather than a whole book in and of itself. Of course not all of our questions were going to be answered in book one – that’s a given. But NGNM leaves you feeling like you don’t even know all the questions yet. The plot, if there is one, is barely hinted at, sketched out so lightly that even if you squint, you can’t make out its shape. In some ways, that makes it feel more real – real life doesn’t have a neat plot that builds to an arc-ending climax before we start the next book arc, so maybe it doesn’t make sense to write fiction that way, especially when you want it to feel more like life than fiction.

On the other hand, even if that was Turnbull’s intent, I think it’s taken a bit too far. I don’t mind a looser plot, but I finished this book and realised I had no clue what was going on. We know that there are werewolves, and a few other kinds of monster, but the shape of the supernatural world is barely hinted at – all we get are tantalising, frustrating bits and pieces that promise that whatever we’re picturing, it’s bigger and weirder than that. No Gods, No Monsters ends up feeling like a drawn-out prologue more than it does a finished novel.

But it’s a prologue you can’t put down. The writing is so sharp, so perfectly crafted, and I was so in love with every character that I kept turning the pages even when it became obvious that there weren’t enough pages left for Turnbull to explain wtf. I didn’t care. It doesn’t matter. When I finished the book I immediately wanted to start it again, not because I still had questions – though I did and do – but because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this brilliant cast; to the magic which is both primal and, somehow, very contemporary; to the frenetic pacing, the sense of having hit the ground running and not being able to stop. Not wanting to stop. Even if we only see little pieces of them, glimpses, I love all Turnbull’s monsters, all the creatures and types that he’s created, some clearly inspired by mythology, some just as clearly unique and new to this story. I love the implications of the tidbits we get, the huge in-the-shadows world whose existence can be inferred from turns of phrase and brief mentions. We might not see all the worldbuilding, but it’s clearly there, influencing every aspect of the story, and I adore that.

And I desperately want to talk about the way Turnbull juxtaposes monstrousness with race and queerness. It really deserves an essay all on its own, preferably from someone who is both queer and not-white, aka, not me, but I have so many feelings. No Gods, No Monsters is full of queerness and queer commentary, and even I, who am whiter than white bread, can see what Turnbull is doing, starting off his book with a Black man being killed by police because they think he’s an animal, a monster. No Gods, No Monsters is an incredible, addictive story, but it’s also saying something. A lot of somethings. As much as it is about secret societies and parallel universes and shapeshifters, it’s also about community and solidarity and allyship, about coming out or keeping your head down, passing and not-passing, labels and names and giving the finger to capitalism. It’s not that Turnbull lectures the reader; there’s no info-dumping. This book is not a Jehovah’s Witness standing on your doorstep.

It just demands that you think about what the word monster really means.

So yes, I think you should read it. You should read it because it’s amazing, and it’s the start of what’s clearly going to be an incredible series. And I may not know where it’s going, but fuck yes do I want to be along for the ride!

The post Sharp as a Knife: No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

WWW Wednesday: 17th March

I’ve decided that, at least for the foreseeable future, I’m going to be participating in WWW Wednesdays, which is a meme hosted over at Taking On a World of Words. To take part, you just answer the three questions below, and link back to TOaWoW!

As for a State of the Sia update: my fibromyalgia has been incredibly bad the last week or so, and I’ve been struggling with my depression, and the long and short of it is that I’ve fallen behind on my reviewing. I’m typing this post up on my tablet, since using a stylus isn’t so bad for my hands. Sigh. Hopefully things get back to normal soon! At least I can still read.

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?The Charmed Wife by Olga Grushin
Representation: very minor F/F
Genres: Fantasy
Goodreads

A sophisticated literary fairy tale for the twenty-first century, in which Cinderella, thirteen years after her marriage, is on the brink of leaving her supposedly perfect life behind.

Cinderella married the man of her dreams--the perfect ending she deserved after diligently following all the fairy-tale rules. Yet now, two children and thirteen and a half years later, things have gone badly wrong and her life is far from perfect. One night, fed up, she sneaks out of the palace to get help from the Witch who, for a price, offers love potions to disgruntled housewives. But as the old hag flings the last ingredients into the cauldron, Cinderella doesn't ask for a love spell to win back her Prince Charming.

Instead, she wants him dead.

Endlessly surprising, wildly inventive, and decidedly modern, The Charmed Wife weaves together time and place, fantasy and reality, to conjure a world unlike any other. Nothing in it is quite what it seems, and the twists and turns of its magical, dark, swiftly shifting paths take us deep into the heart of what makes us unique, of romance and marriage, and of the very nature of storytelling.

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I was looking for something brainless…and instead my sluggish brain got lit up and sucked in to this subversive, poignant, and at times hilariously funny retelling! So far we’ve had lesbian mice and a brilliantly cynical witch and shoes made of soap…it’s really not a comedy, though, not at all. It’s about a gas-lit Cinderella deciding she’s had enough, if I had to sum it up in a sentence. I definitely wasn’t expecting to enjoy it as much as I have been so far.

WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING?[image error]Heart of Stone by Johannes T. Evans
Representation: MC with ADHD, Autustic MC, M/M or mlm
Genres: Historical Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

The year is 1764, and following a glowing recommendation from his last employer, Henry Coffey, vampire, takes on a new personal secretary: young Theophilus Essex.

The man is quite unlike any secretary - or any man, for that matter - that Henry has ever met.

---

'Heart of Stone' is a slowly unfolding period romance between a vampire and his inimitably devoted clerk: lushly depicted in flowing, lovingly appended prose, we follow the slow understanding these two men grasp of one another, and the cross of their two worlds into each other's.

Henry Coffey, immortal and ever-oscillating between periods of delighted focus upon his current passion project, is charming, witty, and seems utterly incapable of closing his mouth for more than a few moments; in contrast, Theophilus Essex is quiet and keenly focused, adopting an ever-flat affect, but as time goes on, he relaxes in his employer's presence.

Craving resounding intimacy but with an ever aware of the polite boundaries for their situation, Coffey and Essex perform a slow dance as they grow closer to one another, and find themselves entangled.

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This was exactly what I’ve been needing: a soft, languid, no-stakes (because you know they’ll end up together in the end) character-driven fantasy. It’s so sweet and gentle, and the fantasy elements are so elegant and brilliantly put together! I hope I can do it justice in my review, but know that I recommend it most strongly!

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL READ NEXT?Queens of the Wyrd by Timandra Whitecastle
Goodreads

Raise your shield. Defend your sisters. Prepare for battle

Half-giant Lovis and her Shieldmaiden warband were once among the fiercest warriors in Midgard. But those days are long past and now Lovis just wants to provide a safe home for herself and her daughter - that is, until her former shield-sister Solveig shows up on her doorstep with shattering news.

Solveig's warrior daughter is trapped on the Plains of Vigrid in a siege gone ugly. Desperate to rescue her, Sol is trying to get the old warband back together again. But their glory days are a distant memory. The Shieldmaidens are Shieldmothers now, entangled in domestic obligations and ancient rivalries.

But family is everything, and Lovis was never more at home than at her shield-sisters' side. Their road won't be easy: old debts must be paid, wrongs must be righted, and the Nornir are always pulling on loose threads, leaving the Shieldmaidens facing the end of all Nine Realms. Ragnarok is coming, and if the Shieldmaidens can't stop it, Lovis will lose everyone she loves...

Fate is inexorable. Wyrd bith ful araed.

Queens of the Wyrd is the brand-new epic Norse fantasy adventure by Timandra Whitecastle.

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I asked Reddit for recommendations for books with mums who go above and beyond for their kids – I had a sudden craving. Queens of the Wyrd was recommended a few times, and it was already on my tbr, so it got bumped up the list!

Here endeth the weekly check-in! What has everyone else been reading?

The post WWW Wednesday: 17th March appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

Must-Have Monday #28!

This week we have EIGHT new releases that should definitely be on your radar, ranging from pre-Islamic Arabic mythology to aliens to fox whisperers!!!

The Descent of the Drowned (The Descent of the Drowned, #1) by Ana Lal Din
Representation: Cast of colour
on 15th March 2021
Genres: Fantasy
Goodreads

She is bound to serve. He is meant to kill. Survival is their prison. Choice is their weapon.

As the sacred slave of a goddess, Roma is of a lower caste that serves patrons to sustain the balance between gods and men. What she wants is her freedom, but deserters are hunted and hanged, and Roma only knows how to survive in her village where women are vessels without a voice. When her younger brother is condemned to the same wretched fate as hers, Roma must choose between silence and rebellion.

Leviathan is the bastard son of an immortal tyrant. Raised in a military city where everyone knows of his blood relation to the persecuted clans, Leviathan is considered casteless. Lowest of the low. Graduating as one of the deadliest soldiers, he executes in his father's name, displaying his worth. When he faces judgement from his mother's people—the clans—Leviathan must confront his demons and forge his own path, if he ever hopes to reclaim his soul.

But in the struggle to protect the people they love and rebuild their identities, Roma's and Leviathan's destinies interlock as the tyrant hunts an ancient treasure that will doom humankind should it come into his possession—a living treasure to which Roma and Leviathan are the ultimate key.

Set in a colonised Indo-Persian world and inspired by pre-Islamic Arabian mythology, The Descent of the Drowned is a tale about power, identity, and redemption, and what it takes to hold on to one's humanity in the face of devastation.

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I’ll be honest, this wouldn’t be on my radar at all…if not for that bit about being ‘set in a colonised Indo-Persian world and inspired by pre-Islamic Arabian mythology’. Because that sounds amazingly awesome, and I am so here for it. Pre-Islamic Arabian mythology is my jam, and I’m so excited to be getting a story inspired by it!

The Blue-Spangled Blue by David Bowles
on 16th March 2021
Genres: Sci Fi
Goodreads

Tenshi Koroma’s people, the Aknawajin, were brought to the planet Jitsu as workers more than a century ago. Against all odds, they managed to win their independence from the world’s corporate owners. During a long period of isolation, a theocratic government arose, dominated by fundamentalist views. Now, as Jitsu begins to open itself to the rest of humanity, Tenshi—a controversial architect and leader of a religious reform movement—meets Brando D’Angelo, who has left Earth to accept a teaching position on Jitsu. As the two grow closer, Tenshi begins to teach Brando about her faith—The Path—and he decides to accept its tenets, to shatter his identity and rebuild himself with her guidance so that he can be worthy of a soul.

But the dogmatic struggles on Jitsu are a mask for the machinations of a diabolical mind, and the couple’s life will be forever altered by the cruelty of Tenshi’s enemies. In the aftermath, their family will find a perilous new Way along The Path. And their steps will echo throughout history.

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I really love this cover, and I’m intrigued by the blurb. I feel like I have no idea what the story’s about, but sometimes that’s fun, going in not knowing what to expect. I don’t know if I’m in the headspace for what this is hinting at – dogmatic struggles, etc – right now, but it’s definitely going on my tbr!

The Memory Collectors: A Novel by Kim Neville
on 16th March 2021
Goodreads

Perfect for fans of
The Scent Keeper
and The Keeper of Lost Things , an atmospheric and enchanting debut novel about two women haunted by buried secrets but bound by a shared gift and the power the past holds over our lives.

Ev has a mysterious ability, one that she feels is more a curse than a gift. She can feel the emotions people leave behind on objects and believes that most of them need to be handled extremely carefully, and—if at all possible—destroyed. The harmless ones she sells at Vancouver’s Chinatown Night Market to scrape together a living, but even that fills her with trepidation. Meanwhile, in another part of town, Harriet hoards thousands of these treasures and is starting to make her neighbors sick as the overabundance of heightened emotions start seeping through her apartment walls.

When the two women meet, Harriet knows that Ev is the only person who can help her make something truly spectacular of her collection. A museum of memory that not only feels warm and inviting but can heal the emotional wounds many people unknowingly carry around. They only know of one other person like them, and they fear the dark effects these objects had on him. Together, they help each other to develop and control their gift, so that what happened to him never happens again. But unbeknownst to them, the same darkness is wrapping itself around another, dragging them down a path that already destroyed Ev’s family once, and threatens to annihilate what little she has left.

The Memory Collectors casts the everyday in a new light, speaking volumes to the hold that our past has over us—contained, at times, in seemingly innocuous objects—and uncovering a truth that both women have tried hard to bury with their pasts: not all magpies collect shiny things—sometimes they gather darkness.

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This sounds soft??? Magical realism isn’t usually a genre I stray into that much, but this sounds really lovely somehow. I’ll probably end up giving it a go!

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore
Representation: Pansexual latina MC, past F/F, lesbian secondary character, minor M/M
on 16th March 2021
Genres: Magical Realism, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

"An unforgettable story of trauma and healing, told in achingly beautiful prose with great tenderness and care." —#1 New York Times-bestselling author Karen M. McManus

When two teens discover that they were both sexually assaulted at the same party, they develop a cautious friendship through her family’s possibly-magical pastelería, his secret forest of otherworldly trees, and the swallows returning to their hometown, in Anna-Marie McLemore's The Mirror Season...

Graciela Cristales’ whole world changes after she and a boy she barely knows are assaulted at the same party. She loses her gift for making enchanted pan dulce. Neighborhood trees vanish overnight, while mirrored glass appears, bringing reckless magic with it. And Ciela is haunted by what happened to her, and what happened to the boy whose name she never learned.

But when the boy, Lock, shows up at Ciela’s school, he has no memory of that night, and no clue that a single piece of mirrored glass is taking his life apart. Ciela decides to help him, which means hiding the truth about that night. Because Ciela knows who assaulted her, and him. And she knows that her survival, and his, depend on no one finding out what really happened.

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OBVIOUSLY the exception to my ‘no magical realism, please’ rule is McLemore!!! The Mirror Season is obviously going to be dealing with some rough topics, but between their grace and beautiful prose, I trust McLemore to not leave my heart in too many pieces by the end of the book!

Skyward Inn by Aliya Whiteley
on 16th March 2021
Goodreads

Skyward Inn, within the high walls of the Western Protectorate, is a place of safety, where people come together to tell stories of the time before the war with Qita. But safety from what?

Qita surrendered without complaint when Earth invaded; Innkeepers Jem and Isley, veterans from either side, have regrets but few scars. Their peace is disturbed when a visitor known to Isley comes to the Inn asking for help, bringing reminders of an unnerving past and triggering an uncertain future.

Did humanity really win the war?

A thoughtful, literary novel about conflict, identity and community; a fresh new perspective in speculative fiction from critically-acclaimed writer Aliya Whiteley. Jamaica Inn by way of Jeff Vandermeer, Ursula Le Guin, Angela Carter and Michel Faber, Skyward Inn is a beautiful story of belonging, identity and regret.

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This sounds so weird, but in a good way??? I am intrigued!

Body of Stars by Laura Maylene Walter
on 16th March 2021
Goodreads

Vox meets The Immortalists in this bold and dazzling exploration of fate and female agency in a world where women own the future but not their own bodies.

Celeste Morton has eagerly awaited her passage into adulthood. Like every woman, she holds a map of the future in her skin, every mole and freckle a clue to unlocking what will come to pass. With puberty comes the changeling period - when her final marks will appear, those that will solidify her fate - and that of those around her. The possibilities are tantalising enough to outweigh her worry that the future she dreams of won't be the one she's fated to have - or the fact the changeling period is the most dangerous in a woman's life. A time when abduction is rife.

For some, glimpses are not enough. There are men who wish to possess these futures for themselves. Whose only way to take control of the future is to take control of the women who hold the script. Abducted changelings return shunned from society with their futures stolen.

Celeste's life, and her marks, have always been closely entwined with her brother, Miles. Celeste's skin holds a future only he, as a gifted interpreter, can read and he has always considered Celeste his practice ground. But when Celeste changes she learns a secret about her brother, Miles, that she will do anything to keep to herself - and Miles is keeping a secret too. When the lies of brother and sister collide, Celeste determines to create a future that is truly her own.

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This premise is fascinating, but this is being hailed as another Handmaid’s Tale and I don’t think I can cope with that kind of story right now. But again, it’s definitely going on my tbr for when I can handle it!

What Abigail Did That Summer : A Rivers Of London Novella by Ben Aaronovitch
Representation: Black MC
on 18th March 2021
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Goodreads

Ghost hunter, fox whisperer, troublemaker.

It is the summer of 2013 and Abigail Kamara has been left to her own devices. This might, by those who know her, be considered a mistake. While her cousin, police constable and apprentice wizard Peter Grant, is off in the sticks, chasing unicorns, Abigail is chasing her own mystery. Teenagers around Hampstead Heath have been going missing but before the police can get fully engaged, the teens return home - unharmed but vague about where they've been.

Aided only by her new friend Simon, her knowledge that magic is real, and a posse of talking foxes that think they're spies, Abigail must venture into the wilds of Hampstead to discover who is luring the teenagers and more importantly - why?

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Pfft, like I would ever skip a Rivers of London book!!! This is one of my favourite series, and Abigail is freaking awesome, so I’m delighted we’re getting a novella all about her!

That’s it for this week! Did I miss any? Will you be reading any of these? Let me know!

The post Must-Have Monday #28! appeared first on Every Book a Doorway.

WWW Wednesday: 10th March

I’ve decided that, at least for the foreseeable future, I’m going to be participating in WWW Wednesdays, which is a meme hosted over at Taking On a World of Words. To take part, you just answer the three questions below, and link back to TOaWoW!

WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY READING?Sweet & Bitter Magic by Adrienne Tooley
Representation: F/F or wlw, queernorm world
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy, Queer Protagonists
Goodreads

In this charming debut fantasy perfect for fans of Sorcery of Thorns and Girls of Paper and Fire, a witch cursed to never love meets a girl hiding her own dangerous magic, and the two strike a dangerous bargain to save their queendom.

Tamsin is the most powerful witch of her generation. But after committing the worst magical sin, she’s exiled by the ruling Coven and cursed with the inability to love. The only way she can get those feelings back—even for just a little while—is to steal love from others.

Wren is a source—a rare kind of person who is made of magic, despite being unable to use it herself. Sources are required to train with the Coven as soon as they discover their abilities, but Wren—the only caretaker to her ailing father—has spent her life hiding her secret.

When a magical plague ravages the queendom, Wren’s father falls victim. To save him, Wren proposes a bargain: if Tamsin will help her catch the dark witch responsible for creating the plague, then Wren will give Tamsin her love for her father.

Of course, love bargains are a tricky thing, and these two have a long, perilous journey ahead of them—that is, if they don't kill each other first..

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This is every bit as beautiful as all the early reviews said it would be! I’m head-over-heels in love with this book and I’m only two chapters in!

WHAT DID YOU RECENTLY FINISH READING?A Summoning of Demons by Cate Glass
Representation: Secondary bisexual character
Genres: Secondary World Fantasy
Goodreads

Cate Glass's A Summoning of Demons marks the thrilling conclusion for the Chimera team, a ragtag crew who use their forbidden magic for the good of the kingdom.

Catagna has been shaken to its core.

The philosophists insist that a disastrous earthquake has been caused by an ancient monster imprisoned below the earth, who can only be freed with magic. In every street and market, the people of Catagna are railing against magic-users with a greater ferocity than ever before, and magic hunters are everywhere.

Meanwhile, Romy has been dreaming.

Every night, her dreams are increasingly vivid and disturbing. Every day, she struggles to understand the purpose of the Chimera's most recent assignment from the Shadow Lord.

As Romy and the others attempt to carry out their mission, they find themselves plunged into a mystery of corruption and murder, myth and magic, and a terrifying truth: the philosophists may have been right all along.

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I was so, so disappointed with this one – especially since I loved the first two books so much! But so much was squished into one book, it all felt cramped and rushed, with some pretty big things left unresolved or unexplained, and other things resolved too easily. Also, I despise it when storytellers just introduce huge big things in the last book instead of building up to it throughout a series. We got one or two clues in the first two books, but nothing that that added up to [HUGE SPOILER]. So I am not happy. Seriously unimpressed, in fact.

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’LL READ NEXT?The Golem and the Jinni (The Golem and the Jinni, #1) by Helene Wecker
Representation: Ethnically Jewish MC, Arabic MC
Genres: Historical Fantasy
Goodreads

Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a disgraced rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic, created to be the wife of a man who dies at sea on the voyage from Poland. Chava is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899.

Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert, trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York City, though still not entirely free.

Ahmad and Chava become unlikely friends and soul mates with a mystical connection. Marvelous and compulsively readable, Helene Wecker's debut novel The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.

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We’re getting the sequel to this in a few months, so I think it’s time for a reread! I utterly adored it the first time around, and I’m looking forward to revisiting it.

Here endeth the weekly check-in! What have you been reading?

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