Storymusing Review: The Grey Wolf: A Novel by Louise Penny

 

The Grey Wolf: A Novel

by Louise Penny

November’s theme for our book club was “places you’d like to visit.” I’m afraid I didn’t so much look for books that fit that theme, taking me outside my comfort zone, as pick books I wanted to read anyway that were set in places I wouldn’t mind visiting.

British village? Yes, please. The Murders in Great Diddling by Katarina Bivald fit right in. I listened to that one on my commute and had many a laugh out of it. The characters were unique and quirky, bringing humorous twists to the traditional murder mystery. I highly recommend it.

My main read, The Grey Wolf: A Novel by Louise Penny, is set in Canada, throughout many parts of the countryside and Montreal, plus has characters flying off to Washington D.C. and Europe. I couldn’t have chosen a more perfect book for our theme if I tried.

I have wanted to read The Grey Wolf for a month, but it’s hard to get your hands on a copy in my library, digital or print. However, I was in a little village near home with my daughter and decided to stop in at the library there while we were killing time waiting for the farm store to open. Their display of books held not one, but two copies of The Grey Wolf. Small libraries for the win!

I’ve been reading in hard print whenever I can lately to help me unwind so I happily checked one out and sat down in my chair with a cup of coffee to start reading right after lunch.

The book begins with short chapters. I found each scene to be an individual puzzle piece with a certain color or pattern, defining a certain plotline or subplot of the story. As I read on, new chapters attached another piece to the puzzle until it all took on a shape and began to make sense.

Though the village in the story, Three Pines, is fictional, I love visiting there each time a new book comes out. It sounds so peaceful, with the village bistro for community and the little church to sit in and reflect.

The story opens in the village with our hero, Armand Gamache, head of the Surete in Quebec, relaxing in his garden with his wife, Reine-Marie.

A persistent caller that Armand does not want to speak to provokes him and our favorite village residents are soon drawn into the story. There’s the old poet Ruth and her swearing duck, the retired psychologist / bookstore owner Myrna, Gabri and Olivier who own the bistro, and the artist Clara. (Though I will say that Clara finding candy in her hair and actually eating it is a little off putting. But maybe that’s just me.)

Gamache is also surrounded by his family as the story progresses, with his daughter and son plus their families. There’s his trusty co-workers Jean-Guy Beauvoir and Isabel Lacoste.

Many important characters from past stories are revisited in this book, but not all in the capacity that we’ve known them. I was so disappointed in the choices some characters ended up making, characters we had once loved. But that is the crux of the story.

One of the biggest difficulties for Gamache in this book is knowing who to trust and who not to trust. Who are the bad guys? It’s not a new situation for him, but it’s a painful one at times.

How far will someone go? Do the ends justify the means? And keeping fear from leading to inaction is one of the biggest tests people often face.

One of my favorite parts of the book begins rather abruptly with Jean-Guy saying, “Oh God, oh God, oh shit.”

A pilot has insisted it’s okay to take off but now Armand and Jean-Guy are in a small plane flying through a storm and afraid they aren’t going to make it. The pilot isn’t sure anymore either.

The handling of the subplot for about thirty-five pages, intertwined with the rest of the story, the tension, feels like a masterful touch to draw the reader onward.

I adore the little bits of French that are sprinkled throughout the text, and the reminders that though we’re reading in English, they often aren’t speaking in English.

The pacing is not frenetic but it does move at a good clip. I think part of that is the judicious use of a variety of sentence lengths and the fact that there are tensions falling and rising, keeping the characters on their toes. I can’t stand stories where the tension rises and rises but nothing ever happens. Penny has things happen that the characters have to work through. She puts the characters in hot water and we see how they struggle and emerge, usually changed in some way.

I highly recommend this book. Three Pines is a wonderful place to visit.

Storymusing: The Haunted Season by G.M. Malliet

 

The Haunted Season

by G.M. Malliet

Well, I actually picked up a book in hard copy from our library for a change! I read one chapter at lunch and often one in the evening. It was just what I needed to unwind.

Our book club theme for October was simply “Spooky Reads” and I grabbed The Haunted Season based simply on its’ title and that it was a mystery, number five in the Father Max Tudor mysteries. It was a very pleasantly relaxing, slow, read set in the English village of Nether Monkslip.

I will admit that a couple of things gave me pause in the reading of the book.

First, Father Max Tudor is introduced in the most exalted terms. I almost gave up after reading it.

“…if Max had a fault, it was that he had been born open and trusting, expecting and generally receiving the best from people. Along with his handsomeness, it was the equivalent of a one-two knockout punch as far as women were concerned.”

Oh, really? I’m just not a fan of overly idealized characters. I prefer characters to look interesting. This had also come just after the author spent a very lengthy paragraph (fourteen lines) disparaging a middle-aged woman for her looks and the way she was dressed. Yeah, I almost chucked the book right there.

But, I kept going. I’m not big on giving up on a book and I’d already had a good prologue to pique my interest. In fact, the introduction of the junior priest in the parish, the Reverend Destiny Chatsworth, in a sauna where she overhears some incriminating conversation, was lovely. Unfortunately, we don’t see her again until nearly halfway through the book, and then only as a much more minor character. Kind of disappointing.

The mode of murder was interesting and the explanation of how it was accomplished was solid. Father Max is a former MI5 agent so that gives him some interesting background to draw on, and he’s quite besotted with his new son and his wise wife. (She seems a bit idealized as well.)

The identity of the murderer was not really something the reader could have figured out for themselves, but I’m okay with that. I was a little more annoyed by the *shocked gasp* presentation of who it was. While I couldn’t figure it out ahead of time, it wasn’t in any way shocking to me.

There’s a subplot going on that’s very minimal so its use at the end was a bit of a surprise.

I like the police procedural style of Father Max going and interviewing people, getting a lead, and following up on it, then reporting in with the local police. The plot is solid and pacing is good, edging toward slow.

I think the setting and description is one of the strongest points of the book.

“It was fall, and the patchwork fields around Nether Monkslip were changing color from gold and jade to bronze and topaz in that strange alchemy of the turning seasons.”

It’s a solid book, enjoyable and relaxing, I’d give it 3 stars out of 5. I might read another, but I also might look for something a little more modern. 

Have you read any of the series? What did you think?

Storymusing: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

 

Demon Copperhead

by Barbara Kingsolver

For September, our book club theme was “injustice.” I found Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Demon Copperhead in our Hoopla catalog and that seemed to fit the bill, so I downloaded it and started listening, not realizing at first that it was about 22 hours long.

I have to admit, I almost DNF’d (Did Not Finish) it a couple times in the first half. It was just so bleak to begin with. I kept thinking of the book by sociologist Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities. That title seemed to fit here very well.

Demon Copperhead is inspired by the novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens. It’s an updated version of the look at the inequalities of the criminal justice system, quality of schools, child labor, and class structure that bedeviled Victorian England, this time set in modern-day Appalachia and entrenched in the modern drug epidemic of prescription opioids.

Damon Fields, aka Demon, is born to a drug addicted young mother after his father dies in a swimming hole accident. Young Damon is watched over by the older next door neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Peggot, as much as they can, while they also take care of their grandson, Damon’s friend “Maggot.” Damon has far too much responsibility thrust on him at a young age, watching over his mother. Things get worse when his mother remarries, a hard man named Stoner.

It only goes down hill from there as Damon is put into foster care, which turns out to be a squalid tobacco farm where the boys are taken in for the check from DSS and the free labor. Eventually Damon ends up in a second placement that isn’t all that much better.

The story took a turn upward for me around the halfway mark as Damon set out to find his paternal grandmother. He meets some interesting characters along the way and fins his grandmother and her brother are decent people who find a place for Damon to live, back in his hometown with the football coach.

It’s an interesting story told in beautiful language through the eyes of Damon, whose saving grace is his way of seeing the world through his artwork. It also illuminates the trials and tribulations of addiction, though I can’t say how true to life that representation is.

Though one critic referred to it as “poverty porn,” I thought Kingsolver gives her characters dignity through even the most difficult situations. Good books often make people think hard and tend to receive a wide range of reviews. The book also received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, sharing it with Hernan Diaz’s Trust. 

I questioned where the author lives, as I'm always leery of people who write books of places well outside their sphere of knowledge, but Kingsolver lives in Appalachia so that does offer some credibility. 

It’s thought-provoking with some incredibly painful situations and some beautiful ones. Though long, it is a rewarding read and I recommend it. I have not felt my time was wasted. It has taken me on a journey and the characters will stay with me for some time to come.

I could say a great deal more about the story, but not without spoilers so I suggest you give it a try for yourself.

Storymusing: Purple Crayons: The Art of Drawing a Life by Ross Ellenhorn

 

Purple Crayons: The Art of Drawing a Life

by Ross Ellenhorn

First off, I have to confess, I haven’t finished this. In fact, I have decided not to finish it.

Our theme for writer’s group this month was “Dogs, Crayons, and Wellness.” I went to our Hoopla app, where I find audio books, and tried searching for “Dogs” and then “Crayons.”

This title caught my eye because it talks about Harold and the Purple Crayon, which I adored when I read it to my daughter as a toddler.

However, the reader is--not terribly enjoyable. Perhaps a little too clinical. Monotone. Boring. I find I enjoy a book when it sounds like someone is performing it, not when they are straight up reading it. That may be a fine distinction, but the amount of inflection and enthusiasm used needs to keep my attention. This reader did not do that.

Beyond that, I felt that the author gives some interesting background information which is useful in understanding where the author of Harold and the Purple Crayon came from and the social history of the time when the book was written. It can illuminate what influenced the artist, even if they themselves are unaware.

Then the author begins drawing some tenuous connections and making some very big assumptions.

The author ascribes some profound meaning to every aspect of how the book is drawn. I feel that is a mistake. Sometimes an artist decides to do something one way simply because they like it, and it feels effective to them.

I guess, in the end, I’m very leery of having a critic or anyone other than the artist explain how and why the artist did something, without drawing directly from a primary source of the artist’s own explanation.

I have found the reviews on Goodreads are equally mixed. I think a 3-star is appropriate and I would recommend it be read, rather than listened to.

Storymusing: Mango, Mambo, and Murder: A Caribbean Kitchen Mystery by Raquel V. Reyes

 

For book club this month, we had the theme of “summer heat” and what could be better than going south to Miami, Florida? I picked up a fantastically funny new series by Raquel V. Reyes set in Miami, called Caribbean Kitchen Mysteries.

The Spanish blended throughout with the English had my brain synapses firing and remembering words I’d long thought I’d forgotten from high school. I even found myself internally responding to things en Español. “Claro que si!”

Miriam is a food anthropologist who plans to publish a book, but in the meantime, she is on side quests to manage a move with her husband and child to Miami from New York, raise her sweet little boy Mani, AND do a weekly cooking spot on a talk show.

Her best friend from her teen years, Alma, is a very successful real estate broker and on a mission to reintroduce Miriam to the area. Miriam couldn’t manage half so well without her.

It’s Alma who gets her the guest spot on UnMundo doing a cooking segment. At first Miriam is dead set against it, being a scholar rather than a television personality or even a chef, but Miriam eventually realizes she is able to educate the masses about her beloved topic through this medium.

Alma also wants to introduce her to the successful people in the area. That means getting her in at the country club that Miriam’s mother-in-law belongs to. Of course, someone goes face first into their lukewarm mayonnaise and soggy chicken salad at the first luncheon she attends.

Miriam is sitting next to the unfortunate woman when it happens. The official story is the young woman died of a heart attack due to her drug use history, but Miriam is bothered by it all and can’t let it rest.

The author manages to keep things alternating between serious and humorous, alleviating the tension with great characters who have interesting reactions to serious situations.

Her mother-in-law becomes more clearly antagonistic, racist, and classist as the books progress. It’s presented as funny, but it’s serious too.

“…My mother-in-law appeared in my unfurnished living room. My mouth was faster than my good sense. ‘Did I leave the door unlocked?’”

The humor is real and relatable.

Then there’s the situation with her husband, Robert, who she refers to as Roberto. He’s always been a good guy but now he is working long hours and takes a job with a corporate firm, the antithesis of his goals as an environmental lawyer.

Miriam is understandably very worried when she begins to suspect that her husband is being pursued by a former girlfriend that her mother-in-law approves of far more than her.

It’s a very fun, fast-paced, and humorous cozy mystery series. There’s already two more— Calypso, Corpses, and Cooking and Barbacoa, Bomba, and Betrayal. I think they get better as they go along. I’m looking forward to the next book this fall. And the audio es perfecta! 

Storymusing: The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

 

The Yellow Wallpaper

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Last month, my thematic book club did something a little different — we all read a short story together for discussion.

I had always thought of The Yellow Wallpaper as a story where the main character is suffering from post-partum depression. Her husband locks her in an attic room to “rest” and she slowly goes insane, fixating on the yellow wallpaper. After reading it again, I have a very different perspective. This time I looked at it as a potential crime, and maybe even a ghost story.

One of the funny things that came out of the discussion was that two of us, who had read it before, had the same mistaken memory —that the main character had been locked in an attic room by her husband. Now, he does choose the upper-level room for them as a bedroom, but she is not locked in until she does that herself toward the very end.

The narrator and her husband have secured “ancestral halls for the summer. A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate.” She says it might be haunted but laughs it off.

There’s a beautiful garden and nice rooms that open on it, but her husband insists they take the upstairs nursery because it is airy and big. The narrator thinks it was “a nursery first and then playroom and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.”

In the article “House of Horror” (linked at the end) there is even the suggestion that enslaved people may have been kept restrained in this room and “By the end of the story the narrator has spotted ‘so many’ women who she believes have scrabbled free from the garish yellow prison.”

About her husband, she says, “He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.” Which can be seen as being kind or nit-picking, depending on your perspective.

“If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression — a slight hysterical tendency — what is one to do?”

She is able to go out and walk in the garden or down the lane a little, but as the story progresses, she spends more and more time resting in the bedroom. “It is getting to be a great effort to me to think straight.”

She says her husband loves her so much “But he said I wasn’t able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there,” when she suggests a visit to her cousin. It sounded very much like house arrest.

She tries to convince her husband that she is not getting better and they should leave, but he insists on staying because they have three weeks left.

Of the wallpaper, she says, “It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.” This was a light bulb moment for me. Green? Could arsenic be at hand?

The wallpaper is torn off in spots, the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, and there’s a heavy bed bolted down. Very strange for a nursery.

“But there is something else about that paper — the smell!” The rain makes it worse and it gets in her hair. She even notices it when she’s outside if she turns her head quickly.

A little searching around told me that it was widely known at that point in time that wallpaper with arsenic often had a “mouse-like” odor in damp rooms or smelled like garlic, especially in damp conditions.

I couldn’t help thinking that if he is such a learned physician, was he suffering from a God complex, or just stupid? I mean, did he really not even consider the fact that arsenic might be in the wallpaper, since it was widely known by the 1890s, or was he trying to drive her insane? Only his behavior at the very end seems to absolve him.

And she is stuck there, getting weaker, while he is out of the house working.

She mentions her husband threatening to send her to Weir Mitchell in the fall if she doesn’t get better. “But I don’t want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, but only more so!” So, she does realize how domineering and condescending they are, I think. Gilman contended that her own experience with Weir Mitchell nearly drove her insane and this story resulted.

There are very distinct aspects of the story that merit a great deal of praise. The details are developed in beautiful fashion. It’s perfectly creepy and even quite horrific when you consider how much her situation is out of her control.

Here is a young woman suffering from post-partum depression, made to endure a rest cure in a house that may well be haunted by at least the collective trauma of enslaved people, and set up to spend most of her time in a room that has arsenic wallpaper, which can flake off and even become gaseous under damp conditions.

It's a master class of a story, from my perspective.

You can read the full short story yourself at https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/theliteratureofprescription/exhibitionAssets/digitalDocs/The-Yellow-Wall-Paper.pdf

I also read

The Feminist Gothic in “The Yellow Wallpaper”

https://www.lonestar.edu/yellow-wallpaper.htm

House of horror: the poisonous power of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/feb/07/charlotte-perkins-gilman-yellow-wallpaper-strangeness-classic-short-story-exhibition

Death on the doorstep: Arsenic in Victorian wallpaper

https://www.slam.org/blog/arsenic-in-victorian-wallpaper/

Storymusing: Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Elle Cosimano

 

Finlay Donovan series by Elle Cosimano

What do I like about this series?

In part, it’s the reader – she does an AMAZING job of differentiating the voices. I was wondering how she does it so seamlessly. Does she do different tracks then put them together? I think it’s just plain talent and hard work. From male voices to female, and child to adult, she changes voices at the drop of a hat.

It does remind me a little bit of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series that started with One for the Money, but that may be because the main character, Finlay Donovan, regularly hears from her agent, Sylvia, and her nanny sidekick, Vero, is from New Jersey. However, there’s cops and mobsters and lots of fun back and forth too.

The characterization by the author is wonderful. I enjoy the fact that the main character, Finlay Donovan, is a divorced mom of two little ones under the age of five who writes for a living.

The plots are also quirky, fun, and fast-paced!

The series starts with Finlay Donovan is Killing It, as Finlay gets drawn into a real-life crime thriller when she is mistaken for a hit woman while talking about her latest book plot with her agent, Sylvia, in a Panera. Finlay is approached to dispose of a problem husband. Obviously, the answer is no. But she gets to wondering what would be bad enough for someone to pay a hit man, or woman, to take out a husband? She goes to check things out, not intending to do anything at all, but sees the guy slipping a woman a roofie.

Finlay can’t stand idly by and let the guy get away with what he is doing. She soon ends up with him in the back of her minivan, knocked out, driving home, not knowing what to do. She goes inside for a minute and when she comes back out to her garage, he’s dead. Her former Nanny, Vero, shows up and helps her dispose of the body.

Of course, there’s more to this than meets the eye, starting with what the guy had been up to and his ties to the mob.

The complications ramp up and continue into the next book, though there is a satisfying conclusion at the end of each book, no worries there.

The series continues with—

Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘em Dead- Someone puts a hit out on Finlay’s ex-husband, Steven, and the Russian mob is once again getting too close.

Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun- Finlay and Vero join the citizen's police academy to sleuth out the real criminal and free themselves from the mob's influence.

Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice- Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime Vero plan a trip to Atlantic City to negotiate a deal with a dangerous loan shark, save Vero’s childhood crush Javi, and hunt down a stolen car. Finlay’s ex-husband Steven and her mother insist on coming along too.

I’m looking forward to more in this series but, in the meantime, I looked up the person who reads the books and chose another series she voices. It certainly makes the drive go quickly.

Storymusing: Bogs, Brews, and Banshees by Rowan Dillon

 

Bogs, Brews, and Banshees: A Skye O’Shea Paranormal Cozy Mystery

by Rowan Dillon

This was a great, light read – just what I look for in a cozy mystery.

Skye O’Shea is an American nurse having a hard time finding a new position so when her gran sadly dies, and leaves her some property in Ireland, Skye flies off to her grandmother’s home, nervous but ready to take on a new adventure far away from her troubles. (Including the depressing failure of her previous marriage and the interference of her ex-husband.)

Sadly, but fortuitously, she has inherited her gran’s pub and guesthouse. Of course, there’s lots of work to be done, but before she can even begin, a dead body appears in one of her outbuildings and strange things begin to occur as Skye learns about her surroundings and the supernatural goings on.

Skye receives her grandmother’s car keys from the solicitor in Dublin. “The back logo said Suzuki Splash. I’d never even heard of that model. Perhaps it aspired to be a car someday. When it grew up.”

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and couldn’t wait to open it each day to read a little more. I liked the aspect of learning how the magic in this world works along with Skye as she is introduced to the strange happenings and realizes that the stories her grandmother used to tell her were not so made up.

Skye has always experienced the world a little differently. “I’d always heard bits of music in my head. However, I’d also long since learned not to mention it to anyone. Same with seeing colors on people. My weird brain often played tricks on me.”

The characters speech patterns and descriptions of Ireland transported me on a vacation to the Emerald Isle, along with the traditional tales and folk lore described in the book. The cat in the book, Faelan, is a bit unusual as well, which I enjoyed.

Of course, there is some unpleasantness, or it wouldn’t be a murder mystery, but it’s in keeping with a cozy mystery.

There’s even a little spark of possible future romance. It promises to be an enjoyable series with lots of potential for future developments.

Storymusing: Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time by Tracy Higley

 

Nightfall in the Garden of Deep Time

by Tracy Higley

Kelsey is running the Chestnut Street Book Emporium for her “Gran,” who is actually her adoptive grandmother. She doesn’t know who her parents were at all. But Gran has had a stroke and is now living in assisted living.

Unfortunately, a developer and the city itself are breathing down Kelsey’s neck to get Gran to sell. There’s a big luxury hotel going in next door and the developer wants the property. The city is after her for back taxes as well. She either has to commit to paying a chunk of the back taxes and doing installment payments or they’ll seize the property and auction it off. Can she commit to those payments when Gran is in care and the facility also needs to be paid?

Kelsey has also put her own dreams on the back burner. She wanted to write for a living but a little bit of discouragement from two sources over the years sent her reeling pretty quickly. She stuffed the manuscript in a drawer and left it there.

And Kelsey’s boyfriend? Don’t get me started. Not exactly supportive, but then they’ve only been dating for a month.

“Despite everything going on, I savor this moment in my happy place, grateful for this bookshop that is everything I love stacked and bundled and shelved into one cavernous and glorious space with a hundred mysterious corners.”

The author creates for us an old-time bookstore, and the city neighborhood replete with a variety of shop owners, old and young, of varying backgrounds. It feels like a bit of Sesame Street that lives in so many of our hearts.

“Listen, Kelsey, you let me know if you need me to chain myself to the bookshop or anything, to stop the bulldozers. You know I will.”

Was that her neighbor William or …?

The story is picturesque and idyllic in places, but in contrast to the heartbreak and pain of life.

When Kelsey visits Gran to talk about all this, Gran mutters cryptic statements about the garden being the key. But there’s no garden. Can things get worse? Of course they can!

Then, one night, Kelsey finds the garden in the walled off lot next to the store, and a host of people inside, both demanding and supportive. Is this just a dream? If so, it’s a very literary one. Can they help her figure out how to save the bookshop?

I loved so much of the story, it really is for readers and writers, in particular. She has so much to say about imposter syndrome without naming it.

I feel a certain kinship with Kelsey – pushing my own writing aside so often for the more immediate necessities of family life and work at the library. “Imagination doesn’t pay the bills,” Kelsey thinks to herself in the first chapter. Thankfully, my work at the library includes the writer’s group, which keeps bringing me back to my own writing.

The biggest problem I had was that the author “read” it while I’m used to voice actors “performing” a story. I still enjoyed it, but it took a while for me to get into the story, and I think I would have enjoyed reading it more if I’d read it in a hard copy instead of listening to it.

First person and present tense is an interesting choice, bringing a sense of immediacy to a rather long book. It’s a lovely homage to the arts. There’s a bit of a side quest that didn’t really connect to me. I felt like it could be tightened up a bit and still keep the lush prose and deep dive into what it means to be an artist and persevere. It’s a strong 4 stars for me. I’m definitely glad I spent the time reading it and would recommend it to others.

A Story Musing: A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow

 

A Mirror Mended

by Alix E. Harrow

Our book club theme this past month was “A Fairy Tale Retelling.” Alix Harrow has been one of my favorite writers of the past few years with books like The Ten Thousand Doors of January and The Once and Future Witches. Harrow’s writing is vivid with detail and energy. Her heroine’s have a great amount of agency in affecting how the story moves forward. Things don’t just happen to them, they make them happen.

A Mirror Mended is the continuation of an LGBTQ retelling of fairy tales that began with A Spindle Splintered. “Zinnia Gray has always been fascinated by Sleeping Beauty because she has a mystery illness. No one who has it has survived past their 21st birthday. Her best friend creates a Sleeping Beauty themed party for her on her 21st birthday. Of course, her story doesn’t end there, and Zinnia finds herself in a fight, not only for her life, but other sleeping beauties as well. I can’t recommend this one enough. It’s short and sweet, and beautiful and courageous.” https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2022/06/reading-lgbtq-books.html

This book picks up the story from A Spindle Splintered. Zinnia is able to jump from one dimension to another, and different versions of fairytales, through mirrors, to help people in other fairytales escape the doomed narrative.

There’s a certain aspect to this that reminds me of the funny space adventure movies I’ve seen where the hero or heroine is jumping from one adventure to another. She’s a swashbuckling heroine from my perspective, told in the first person with a strong sense of voice.

“You might think interdimensional travel is difficult or frightening, but it’s usually not that bad.” But this time is much worse than usual. “Maybe my conviction that my organs are turning themselves inside out is just a really shitty hallucination.”

This time Zinnia makes contact with yet another girl for help, but it turns out to be the evil queen. However, the evil queen isn’t quite as evil as the storytellers would have you believe, and Zinnia falls for the Evil Queen, who she dubs Eva.

This actually seems to be more of a Little Red Riding Hood story with a particularly horrific bend. But, again, this is not your usual Red, and there’s a science fiction feel there too.

As always, the writing is vivid with details, funny, and thought provoking. It’s not your typical fairy tale though it does retain some elements, like a happy ending, of a kind. I highly recommend.

Book Review: Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

 

Yellowface

by R.F. Kuang

Our thematic book club chose to read books for January with a one-word title. I happened on Yellowface by R. F. Kuang and had really enjoyed her book Babel so I opened up the description. Of course, as a writer myself I am drawn to anything that discusses the publishing world, so I downloaded the audio book from our Hoopla catalog.

I started the book on my ride home and was immediately sucked in. I listened to it every chance I got over the next few days.

June Heyward, is absolutely petty but sadly relatable in her initial jealousy of fellow Yale alum and author Athena Liu. Here is June, with her own first publishing contract from a publisher that paid her ten thousand dollars for her first book then folded, but her agent sells it to another publishing house for $20,000.00. (Sounds good to me!) But she is struggling with a lack of backing by her new publisher, as many authors do. Then her paperback release gets canceled. She finds herself deeply jealous of the meteoric rise to fame of her friend instead of taking it as inspiration and getting on with her next book.

Right off the bat, you get a sense of the narrator’s skewed perspective. She starts out telling us that Athena “has everything.” “Everything” though is apparently just in regard to her novels and publishing, because in the very next paragraph she says that Athena “has almost no friends.”

They aren’t so much friends as acquaintances with a shared interest in writing and publishing.

“…in recent years, I’ve developed another theory, which is that everyone else finds her as unbearable as I do.”

Then why, in the name of all that’s holy, are you spending so much time with her?!

This story can seem rather inevitable after a certain point but there are still a couple surprises and the author even gives us some situations to keep a little sympathy for June. For instance, there are some actions by Athena when they were at Yale that really make the reader wonder why June would even be friends with Athena? But June’s unreliability as a narrator makes that questionable too. You want to trust the narrator to at least tell you the truth, right? And June says other people didn’t like Athena, but then again, that’s what June says and can we trust June at all? (This is a dark and twisty path.)

June doesn’t exactly seem to be trying to ride Athena’s coattails. She never asks Athena to introduce her to her publisher, or editor, or agent. She just hangs out with her, taking advantage of free food and drinks.

When Athena dies horribly, choking on a half-cooked pancake, June does try to help her. Watching Athena die, unable to help her, other than trying to do the Heimlich and calling for help, sounds horrifying and traumatic. But then June steals Athena’s first draft of her latest book. Just slips it in her bag, along with some other docs, and sobs to the emergency workers then walks off with it. It’s wild. We don’t even see it happen, just hear about it afterward. Eventually, June starts editing and adding to Athena’s manuscript.

Okay, at that point, why not take it to Athena’s mother or publisher and say she wanted to finish this as a tribute to Athena? She could at least get credit that way, honestly. Instead, she turns it in as her own work. One of the most heinous things one writer can do to another.

Then there’s the cultural appropriation of using the name Juniper Song to make people wonder what her ancestry is. As I recall, this is the publisher’s idea and June pushes back on it but then gives in and totally rationalizes it. She even gets angry at people later in the book for making that assumption!  

June spends so much of the book justifying and rationalizing her actions that you end up just waiting for her to get her comeuppance.

Is what June achieves with the release of the book “success” or is it the illusion of success? Because it’s not her book. She edited it. She didn’t conceive of the story or write it. But then, did Athena? Or did Athena just transcribe stories of survivors then weave it together into a story that June finished?

In the end, the main actors in the story all seem to operate from a place of deep self-absorption. The blackmailer and the person who bring June down are not doing it out of loyalty to Athena, but because they want money or fame and are angry at June for themselves.

It’s a gripping story that confronts the worst aspects of publishing, including the required self-promotion on social media that feeds self-absorption.

Honestly, it makes you wonder if it’s all worth it or if I should just write the stories I want to write to amuse myself and put them in a drawer, never to see the light of day?

In the end, it’s a great story that keeps you glued to your seat and asks a number of questions but keeps the line moving. The authors way of describing things is detailed and nuanced. I highly recommend and am looking forward to her next book. 

Story Musing: At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities by Heather Webber

 

At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities

by Heather Webber

 

I’ve been a fan of Heather Webber’s writing for some time. I thoroughly enjoyed her Nina Quinn mysteries - a compulsively readable series that I wish hadn’t ended. I wrote a little bit about that series here https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2021/04/book-review-nine-quinn-mysteries-by.html

Her standalone novels often feature magical realism, another favorite genre for me. I reviewed Midnight at the Blackbird Café here https://storymusing.blogspot.com/2021/04/book-review-midnight-at-blackbird-cafe.html

At the Coffee Shop of Curiosities falls into the magical realism realm. It’s set in Driftwood, Alabama, on the coast. Maggie runs the coffee shop, Magpie’s, that her mother opened before she disappeared in a riptide swimming incident many years ago. Like a Magpie, Maggie collects little things and has an inspired ability to match people to these “treasures” that always mean more to them than anyone would suspect.

Driftwood is a close-knit community of wonderful quirky characters, very small town and homey. For example, Jolly Smith has a pet chicken that she walks with the Snail Slippers walking group. Sienna has coordination issues and is looking for a job where she doesn’t break everything. Estrelle makes pronouncements and has a terrible reputation for taking revenge, albeit in a witchy way, if someone does not follow her recommendations.

Everyone is very worried as Maggie’s father, Dez, has been acting a bit oddly. He’s talking about a ghost in the house and he has a tendency to collect things and not ever clear out. Then rumors start that he might be about to sell the coffee shop.

My heart rate skyrocketed. This didn’t make sense. My father wouldn’t sell the coffee shop. My mother’s coffee shop. Magpie’s was a fixture in Driftwood. It was the heart of this town. Closing it would be devastating.

Maggie’s blood pressure has been a threat lately, with a warning that she could have a stroke, and the rumors of her father selling the coffee shop don’t help.

In a fit of pique, Maggie posts an ad outside the coffee shop for someone to be a caretaker for her father and help him clean out his house. But she quickly takes it down.

Into this atmosphere drives Ava, half running from the terrible circumstances of her former boyfriend’s death and her own scary childhood of seizures. She’s been in remission from them, but something is going on and she’s scared they might come back.

Someone sent Ava the advertisement that Maggie put up then tore down and threw away. Ava has her own questions about how it arrived.

The letter had been sent by a dead man.

There was no doubt in my mind.

Fine. There was a little doubt. Okay, a lot of doubt. Buckets of it.

Everyone seems to have their own little secrets in this book, nothing too terrible, and some even they don’t know.

Along with her seizures, Ava has a hyperacute sense of smell and hearing that she doesn’t really want anyone to know about. They factor into the story in lovely ways. When Ava arrives at the coffee shop, there are a lot of sounds – “the blender, grinder, steamer, rattling ice, clank of silverware, music, and voices…..” But they somehow don’t overwhelm her. “Why did the whole town feel like a familiar song?”

Is it all coincidence, conniving trickery, unexplained but perfectly legitimate medical phenomenon, magic, or some otherworldly phenomenon?

I adore coincidences in fiction. I don’t need things to be scientifically and convincingly explained, as long as I’ve been given a good reason to suspend my disbelief. (Which is odd because the truth is that I’m something of a doubting Thomas in real life.)

The writing is lovely and humor features beautifully. There’s a dog that gives a quabark, half quack and half bark, according to Ava.

There are romantic interests for each Maggie and Ava, Donovan and Sam, that feature prominently in the story. They don’t have their own character arc, though they do have a little bit of mystery to their actions and motivations.

I love how you get Maggie and Ava’s perceptions about what is going on. They aren’t unrealiable narrators, but their perspective changes slightly as the story progresses and they find things out, which is real. It happens to all of us.

It was a very relaxing read, not too taxing or strenuous.

I anticipate reading more of Webber’s standalone novels and giving her Lucy Valentine mysteries a try soon.