Can you read this title?

Amazon’s “June First Reads” just arrived in my inbox. These are books that are being offered for free to Prime members, often just as they’re released. I’m seldom that interested, but I usually look them over.

This time, this cover caught my eye:

Can you read that word after “of the”? Is it “Flores?” It seems to be “Flores.” The meaninglessness of this word makes me doubtful. It looks like it might be Spanish for “Flower.” Let me check. Okay, it’s Spanish for “flowers,” plural. Since “curse” and “women” are in English, why is “flowers” in Spanish? How is it helpful to make sure the title is difficult to read unless you’re bilingual? And why is “flowers” plural? “The Curse of the Flowers Women” does not sound good in English. It sounds like it should be “The Curse of the Flower Women.”

Maybe “Flores” is a place name in the book. But if so, how is the prospective reader supposed to know that?

I just think this is a terrible title. I do like the cover itself, more or less. Here’s the description:

Eighteen-year-old Alice Ribeiro is constantly fighting—against the status quo, female oppression in Brazil, and even her own mother. But when a family veil is passed down to her, Alice is compelled to fight for the rights of all womankind while also uncovering the hidden history of the women in her family. Seven generations ago, the small town of Bom Retiro shunned the Flores women because of a “curse” that rendered them unlucky in love. With no men on the horizon to take care of them, the women learned the art of lacemaking to build lives of their own. But their peace was soon threatened by forces beyond any woman’s control. As Alice begins piecing together the tapestry that is her history, she discovers revelations about the past, connections to the present, and a resilience in her blood that will carry her toward the future her ancestors strove for.

Brazil? Does “flores” mean “flowers in Portuguese? Yes, google tells me it does. I don’t think much of this description, for several reasons. She’s fighting “even” against her own mother? How is that “even?” Practically all young women experience that. There’s a veil? A family veil? Is that like a family wedding dress? Are we supposed to know that? The Flores women? The protagonist’s name is Ribeiro, so “Flores” isn’t her family name. The town is called Bom Retiro, not Flores, so where does “Flores” come from? I just don’t think anything is clear from this description. Here’s the link if you want to click through and look at it yourself.

There’s one fantasy novel in this email. I think it’s presentation is a lot better. Here’s the cover:

The title is readable, and Still the Sun is evocative, and I like the cover. I don’t usually like stylized covers, but I do like this one. I’ve never heard of this author. Here’s the description:

Pell is an engineer and digger by trade—unearthing and repairing the fascinating artifacts left behind by the mysterious Ancients who once inhabited the sunbaked planet of Tampere. She’ll do anything to help the people of her village survive and to better understand the secrets of what came before. Heartwood and Moseus are keepers of a forbidding tower near the village of Emgarden. Inside are the remnants of complex machines the likes of which Pell has never seen. Considering her affinity for Ancient tech, the keepers know Pell is their only hope of putting the pieces of these metal puzzles together and getting them running. The tower’s other riddle is Heartwood himself. He is an enigma, distant yet protective, to whom Pell is inexplicably drawn. Pell’s restoration of this broken behemoth soon brings disturbing visions—and the discovery that her relationship to it could finally reveal the origins of the tower’s strange keepers and the unfathomable reason the truth has been hidden from her.

I think this description is better too, though I may be biased because I think the title and cover are better. It sounds more SF than fantasy to me. It’s probably in the intersection between the two. It sounds a bit like Elder Race by Tchaikovsky, a story I liked a lot. Reviews are mixed, but interesting. Since it’s free for Prime members, sure, why not. Picking it up now. If any of you have read something by Holmberg, what did you think?

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