A few years ago, my kids joined the swim team at our neighborhood pool. This meant many hours of me just sitting on a chair at the pool, having nothing to do but read. So I assigned myself a “pool book” — one that was longer than I might normally read, just so that I would never run out of stuff to read during practice. So far, just while the kids have been practicing, I’ve read all five books in the A Song of Ice […]
Sleeping Beauty, Environmental Warrior
Beauty is a complicated fantasy novel about fairy tales, feminism, environmentalism and the end of the world. It involves fairies, angels, humans, and time travel, and places a heavy emphasis on darkness vs. light, on creativity and destruction. There is a whole helluva lot going on, sometimes maybe more than the author can handle, but author Tepper, who died last year (because of course she did, it was 2016), certainly demonstrates great passion for her subject matter. The novel begins in 14th century Westfaire with […]
Basic Witch
The first in Juliet Blackwell’s Witchcraft Mystery series, Secondhand Spirits reminded me a lot of a cluttered antique shop–appropriate since the main character runs a vintage clothing store in San Francisco. There were a few quality pieces, a couple of unexpected treasures, and a whole lot of random crap that it made it difficult to find what I was looking for. What’s it about? Lily Ivory (I just can’t with that name) is a powerful witch with a troubled and lonely past. After years of […]
Comfy with Puns and Magic Stuff
Myth-Fits really reminded me of Jasper Fford’s YA series about a magic-user employment agency (The Last Dragon Slayer), although I don’t know which one was actually published first. The other big thing I noticed was that jumping into a series not in order (again- although this time, I was already aware before I started) is not terribly problematic. There are certainly references and nuances I know I didn’t understand, but overall I could follow things pretty well. The only thing I don’t know is what […]
Well, It’s Obviously Not a Vampire
There is a great mystery at the heart of Dreamcatcher, and it is this: I have no idea how it ended up on my e-reader. I didn’t buy it. Nobody gifted it to me. I’m not a King aficionada so it’s not as if it got lost in my enormous collection. But anyway: there it was, and for reasons that are entirely beyond me, I decided to give it a try. Let me preface this by saying I’d never read a Stephen King novel, […]
Joe Hill is the Best Thing Stephen King Has Created
After reading the underwhelming Rooms, and with the real life horror of the inauguration yesterday, I needed a sure thing to scratch my supernatural itch. Enter Joe Hill. Ever since Locke and Key, I’ve been a fan, and this is from someone who read too much of his dad’s coke-fueled 80s novels to be charitably inclined toward the family. Joe Hill had to win me over at first, but there’s no true believer like a convert. 20th Century Ghosts didn’t disappoint; a collection of short […]