Monday Book Recs--James, Dobson, Kirby

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

Yeah, so I love Pride and Prejudice and this was an easy sale. It did a lot of the things I wanted, like do a passable Jane Austen voice so that I could almost imagine this is what Jane Austen would write, if she did murder mysteries. It also brought Wickham, Elizabeth, and Darcy back together in tense circumstances. Wickham was not quite a villain, but never the hero, either. I don't want to ruin what happens, but it was a fun read. Not a romp, really, because everything goes at a very staid, Austenesque pace. What it didn't have was any of the romance I love with Jane Austen. It had some fun ties to other Austen books, and the mystery itself worked well. I enjoyed going back to Pemberley. If you are a diehard Austenhard, you probably will, too.

Scribe by Ben Dobson

This is, as far as I can tell, a self-published book on Kindle. I can't tell you the last time I read all the way through a self-published book. I'm pretty sure I never have, unless it was because I felt an obligation to a friend to do so. But this was no obligatory read. I really loved this book. It had a first person narration, which is always a draw to me, and one of the reasons I tend to prefer YA. It's also a book that is contained in one volume, another draw. And it isn't tedious in digressions, making it a thousand pages long. The "Scriber" of the title is Dennon Lark, a flawed hero who doesn't know his own worth. He brings death to all around him, and he hates himself for it in the way that all heroes should. But my favorite part of the book is probably Bryndine and her band of women warriors. These are women who for various reasons no longer have a normal female place in the world, some abused, some simply misfit. But they come together for a cause and under Bryndine as their leader. She is physically large, nearly 8 feet tall, but also large in heart. She protects her women fiercely and even her kingdom, though it has rejected her. There are some sweet romance moments, but it isn't a romance. It's an epic with a lot of the updated kinds of notes that I need to love epic.

Icefall by Matthew Kirby

I read and love The Clockwork Three in 2010 when it came out. Icefall is similar in some ways. It feels like a fantasy, but doesn't actually have any magical elements except perhaps some vague legendary hints. On the other hand, instead of The Clockwork Three, this one has a single narrator, Solveig, who is telling her own story as she learns how to become a storyteller. Now, normally I am annoyed by movies about filmmakers and novels about writers. But this story really worked for me. I loved Solveig's journey from undervalued daughter to heroine. I also loved the deeper threads of meaning about what storytellers do and who they are. Liars, yes, performers, yes. Twisters of the truth depending on who is listening, that, too. But the act of storytelling as heroic is dealt with in a multi-layered way that I am still thinking about as a storyteller myself. Kids will love it, too, with plenty of action, suspense, a forbidden romance, the Nordic setting in winter, and the happy ending.