More January Recommendations

January 2021’s being nice to me or I’ve just hit a lucky streak with enjoyable books. Last time, I talked about two good books; this week I’m going to talk about two even better good books.

So, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. Naturally. I was a fan of her writing in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell, so of course I perked up when I heard she (finally) had a new book coming out. Then I heard the premise: strange amnesiac caught in a house/world/labyrinth and thought eh, maybe not. But I checked it out of the library (LOVE THE LIBRARY!) and started it with some trepidation, expecting to find the narrative voice of Piranesi hard-going.

It’s not. There’s a gazillion capitalized Nouns for Reasons, and tons of seemingly random fantasy descriptions, sure, but I just sort of fell into it. Piranesi’s voice is enjoyable because he’s just so good-hearted, so willing to find the good in the world of the House full of ocean. By the time it becomes clear that this is a book about academicians run amok (love those! Ever since Tartt’s The Secret History.) I was really hooked. I read this straight through.

What I really loved about it is the strange kindness of this book. The theme of being an appreciative part of the world around you. To say more would be moving into serious spoiler territory so I’m stopping here. But it was a delight to read. And it made me revisit Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s etchings of ruined cities again. Beautiful art, which inspired a beautiful book.

My second “excellent” read of the week is all about the execution of the idea. Kate Alice Marshall’s YA novel Rules for Vanishing, has a premise that seems appropriate to any teen scream movie–a lost girl on a ghost road that only appears on certain nights at certain times, and is only traversable if you follow the rules. And even then, there are snares. It’s told as a series of transcripts, journal entries, texts, etc. Again, I can’t talk too much about it without spoilers, but Marshall has just constructed a really well-made horror novel (with a hopeful ending! thank you!).

Lots of nightmarish horror imagery but nothing that really squicked me. The characters are archetypes but still engaging, and the horrific core of the ghost road was really satisfying here. I am looking forward to her next release Our Last Echoes.

As a side note, I am apparently really slow when it comes to certain types of visuals–the face/vase illusion gets me all the time. And it took someone pointing it out to me that the cover of Rules for Vanishing had that type of illusion. Either a road surrounded by trees, or a girl’s figure in the trees. Yeah. Good job cover artist! Sorry it took me so long to appreciate it!

Girl?/Road? Can't be both;brain does not compute — Girl?/Road? Can’t be both;brain does not compute

Both Piranesi and Rules for Vanishing came from my local library, but I’m going to buy copies to add to my already groaning shelves.

Recently read, plus library book haul

Of late, my library hauls have been far more aspirational than actually readable, and that gets depressing, returning books without actually having had time to read them. So for the last haul, I allowed myself only three books, and determined to read them all. No matter what.*

(*Of course if I’d hated a book or just found it subpar for some reason, I wasn’t going to force myself, because better things to do!)

In the end, I read all three and enjoyed each of them in their own way.

I read Deanna Raybourn’s A Dangerous Collaboration, book 4 in the Veronica Speedwell mysteries. The previous three have been fun, but every single time I kept thinking, this reminds me so much of Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series. Book 4 of the Veronica Speedwell books broke that curse and I enjoyed it without once thinking wistfully of Elizabeth Peters. Veronica is a nearly impossible iconoclast in the Victorian Era, but Raybourn gets away with it because a) Veronica is so appealing and b) because she’s careful to show that other Victorian women have their own vibrant internal lives. Veronica is just overt about hers. And (small spoiler!) finally Veronica and Stoker get their relationship figured out.

I read Helen Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching, which has been recommended to me for years. And for years, I’ve side-eyed those who recommended it, thinking “really? I read it and it was AWFUL.” Oops. My bad. I had never read it. I read a book with a similar title (which was in fact awful). Once I realized my mistake, I sought out the actual book people were recommending. Oyeyemi’s White is for Witching is really enjoyable. In broad strokes, it’s sort of a haunted house story? But really, it’s a beautifully written and fascinating character study with a quiet, horror setting. TW: for eating disorders for anyone who wants to check it out. I will recommend it to readers in turn.

The final book I read was Jennifer Hillier’s The Butcher, a crime thriller with a gloss of horror. It’s not the best thing I’ve read in this genre by a long shot, but it was interesting enough that I’ll check out some of her other books. The characters are good though. The villain is suitably villainous and brazen. The heroine is suitably heroic. The greyscale boyfriend is… interesting. I liked that he wasn’t all good or bad. It’s definitely not a whodunit, because half the characters know who the villain is in the first chapter or so. (And the reader knows from the blurb!) So most of the tension is spent in wondering if the heroine will figure it out before she gets killed. Readable, at any rate.

Since that was successful, I decided to keep the next library haul small as well.

I picked up The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling which I want to read and am also kind of afraid to read. Caving. Not my thing. But space caving with horror? Maybe? The joy of the library. I can find out.

Liar’s Paradox by Taylor Stevens. Picked up on a whim. No clue whether I’ll like it or not. Again, yay for the library which lets me take these gambles.

Teeth in the Mist by Dawn Kurtagich. A YA horror novel in three time periods. I read Kurtagich’s Dead House and found it interesting enough that her name stuck with me, so I picked this up.

The final book is a cheat. I OWN this book, yet I checked it out from the library anyway. Because I haven’t finished it yet, and sometimes ebooks are just not satisfying. I don’t know. Some books want to be read on paper. Melissa Caruso’s The Tethered Mage is one of them. I actually checked this out once before, got five chapters in, went online and bought an e-copy. Then failed to keep reading it. IDEK. And now it’s buried under the pile of other ebooks. So, I figured maybe getting the actual book back in my hands will get me to finish it. I really loved what I read of it.

Reading Roundup

So last week or so I brought home the library haul. Five books, three of which I read completely, one of which I got 2/3rds through, and one that went back without really getting started. Then I hit the Raven Bookstore with a holiday giftcard for more bookloot. These are the results.

The Guilty Dead: Monkeewrench #9 Not a surprise that I really enjoyed The Guilty Dead, the ninth Monkeewrench outing. I skipped book 8 somehow, but each of these novels is pretty much standalone. One of the things I most like about this series is that even as the mysteries build to super high stakes, each step feels plausible. The characters are believable in their context. My favorite of the series is still probably The Sixth Idea, but this is a good entry. I understand that PJ Tracy is a solo act now after the death of her mother, but she’s doing her mom proud. Recommended for mystery lovers.

Creatures of Want and Ruin

I went back and forth on whether I was enjoying Creatures of Want & Ruin, by Molly Tanzer and in the end, the exceptional and out of the ordinary, characterization, demonology, and setting made this a win. Her books aren’t always paced the way I’d like, but they always make me feel rewarded for reading them. I’m looking forward to more in this world. Recommended.

Pop the Clutch! This is an anthology I picked up on a whim, despite not having any particular Pop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly, Monsters, and Hot Rod Horror interest in Rockabilly culture. And the book had some formatting/editing issues that really irked me–splash pages of art left blank with <IMAGE PENDING> left behind; stories that repeated a sentence twice, the constant misspelling of “altar”. But crankiness aside, there were some gems of stories in here. I really enjoyed “Tremble” by Kasey and Joe Lansdale about a singer with a grudge; “Dr. Morbismo’s InsaniTERRORium Horror Show” by Lisa Morton about schlock horror shows running into a real ghost; and “I Was a Teenage Shroom Fiend” by Brian Hodge which has them all beat for pleasantly weird.

Priest of Bones by Peter McLean. How many times am I going to check this book out before I Priest of Bones (War for the Rose Throne Book 1) finally finish it?!? At least one more. The deal is that somehow, despite McLean’s great writing, and treading the sweet spot between “gritty” and “nihilistic”, and me being invested in the characters, I just keep hitting a wall. This time, I got through the entire first act, much of the second, and well… I’m not as interested in the turn the book makes toward politics. Add in the fact that it’s not a stand-alone, and I lose momentum. I’m still going to recommend it though because it’s really well-written! And really compelling! And I’m going to check it out again. Recommended.

Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep. A DNF. Really, more of a DNStart. I blame the blurb. It told Kill the Queen (A Crown of Shards Novel Book 1) me too much of the exciting event to happen, so that I started the book on a mental timer, waiting for the slaughter to begin. And instead, I got a slow build, where the heroine notes all these “odd” things going on in the palace, but doesn’t draw any conclusion–which annoyed me, because I already knew what the conclusion was: SLAUGHTER!!! I was impatient and not in the mood. I sent it back to the library. It looks like it might be a lot of fun for the right reader. That’s apparently not me.

Picked up two mysteries at the local bookstore, one of which I disliked immensely because I thought the heroine and her family were horrible stuck-up snobs. Her sister met her fiance… ON THE INTERNET!!!! The Horror!!! And it tried really hard for quirky cast of characters but mostly just felt crowded and full of people I would hate to be around. Not going to name it. But it was one of those cozies that require the mystery to stop while the “gimmick” is run through. In this case, every meal involved a long description of the cooking process. Which, really, was maybe my favorite part? But… if I want to read about cooking, there are other books with that as the actual focus.

The Secret, Book, & Scone Society by Ellery Adams on the other hand was pretty good. It’s a little artsy for my taste in some places–the four women sharing their “dreadful” secrets and handing out secret keys, and the like–but in the end, I really liked these characters and would gladly read another book in the series.

Though I never read A Gentleman’s Guide to Vice & Virtue, that didn’t stop me from picking up the second book in the series, The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats & Piracy. I felt comfortable The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy doing this since it revolved around a secondary character from the first book as this book’s protagonist. And I’m always up for reading about a determined girl trying to break down the rules of society that get in her way. Things I really appreciated about this book? Multiple female characters, all fighting for their futures in their own ways, and learning to respect each other’s choices. That’s before you get to having an Ace protagonist, which is always refreshing. My only hiccup was that I was reading along assuming this was pretty much basic historical YA and suddenly there were magical dragon scales. So that sort of took me aback. Not badly, just a bit of blinking and wondering how MacKenzi Lee managed to convince the publishers to go for that!

And a personal fail. I bought a book I already owned. God, I hate that. A lot. At least it was a good book! A Treacherous Curse, book 3 of the Veronica Speedwell mysteries by Deanna Raybourn. I would recommend this series for anyone who loved the Amelia Peabody books by Elizabeth Peters.