Some months I read really chewy books that require analysis. Some months I read books that are just so excellently put together, it’s a pleasure to review them. And some months, everything is so chaotic, I just read for the simple escape of it. Some books are meals, and some are appetizers.
This is an appetizer plate for your consideration.
Mmm. Fresh spring rolls. Full of flavor, great dipped in sweet chili sauce. I read the first two books in the Reflected City series by Rabia Gale: Ghostlight (2018) and Ghoulfire (2019), self-published by the author. They’re gaslamp fantasy, which mixes magic with older times. The hero, Trevelyan Shield, is fairly standard for both urban fantasy and regencies: the magical, brooding loner with a painful past. However; the heroine, Arabella Trent, is wonderful. She’s determined, cheerful, and, in the first book, a disembodied spirit who needs to find her way back to her body. She’s also got a painful, secretive past that, after two books, has only barely begun to be revealed, but it’s not turning her into a mopey loner, nope! The magical worldbuilding is decent in the first book and takes a big step up in style in the second book. Both of these were enjoyable fantasy/mysteries with a tinge of romance and I am hoping book 3 shows up sooner rather than later.
Steamed gyoza! Warm and filling and you can eat way more than are good for you. Limelight (2020), the fifth book in the Arcane Casebook series, came out this month and I duly devoured it. This is another urban fantasy set in non-contemporary times. Author Dan Willis puts his private eye/runecaster in an alternate 1930s New York City. The plots are solid and twisty in the right ways; Alex Lockerby, the detective, is just the right amount of old-fashioned gumshoe to be entertaining without being misogynistic. Fans of The Dresden Files will probably love this. Just be warned: expect strange naming errors. They show up in every book where a character suddenly gets a different name during the course of a scene. I presume they’re leftovers from some sort of ebook, beta-reader tracking. By book 5, I kind of find them equal parts endearing and bewildering.
A fanfic! Because every appetizer tray needs that salty chewy chicken teriyaki onna stick. But this is an excellent novella in its own right. When I Die, I’ll Sacrifice (More Than Enough for the Afterlife) by notcaycepollard. It’s Avengers: Endgame fix-it fic centering on Natasha’s self-sacrifice for the Soul Stone. (Or something. I still haven’t seen Endgame. They killed NATASHA! Bastards.) This is one of my favorite tropes — the protagonist who gets that second chance to go back and redo things. Here, Natasha makes her sacrificial leap and lands in her past at the moment of her greatest regret. The novella is not particularly conflict heavy, but it is character rich and I adored it. So emotionally satisfying.
Next is that weird piece of tempura that you’re not actually sure about. You’re not sure what it is, but it tastes okayish, even if you never quite figure out what you just ate. Kobocha squash? Or a defective sweet potato? That’s kind of how I felt about The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (2019, Sourcebooks Landmark). The premise is fun: a man wakes up in the middle of a chase in a forest in a body that he does not recognize as his own. He learns that he’s there to solve a crime, the murder of Evelyn Hardcastle, and if he fails, then he’ll be trapped with the world’s most unpleasant house party forever. The story goes great for a while, then I got a little tired of the structure — the endless doubts and potential betrayals. But it had a satisfying resolution to the mystery part, and a wild detour into an SF world that remained all but unseen. So yeah, what did I eat? This one had some nasty aftertastes, including a gross chunk of really terrible fatphobia.
Technically not an appetizer, but they are bite-sized, so… Let’s enjoy those little mocha sponge cakes. No matter how often I have them, I love them and crave them. And that’s how I feel about Ilona Andrews’s Hidden Legacies series, which I binge re-read this month. As fellow spec-chiccer J.L. Gribble mentions in her Kate Daniels readathon, Ilona Andrews is so rereadable. So bingeable. The Hidden Legacies series consists (so far) of Burn for Me, White Hot, Wildfire, Diamond Fire, and Sapphire Flames. Like the Kate Daniels series, they take place in an changed USA. In this series, the Osiris serum unlocked magical abilities for some people, and created an entirely new social system of Houses, rules, and criminals. These are romantic urban fantasies, maybe more so than the Kate Daniels books. The first three books center on Nevada Baylor and “Mad” Connor Rogan. The powers here are superhero level and so much fun — when they’re not terrifyingly evil. The next books center on Nevada’s younger sister Catalina and her love interest, Alessandro Sagredo. But they’re also really all about a close-knit family making a name for themselves in this complex world of cutthroat houses. They’re addictive. So addictive. I just read them, and now I want to page through them again for all the wonderful family interaction.
So that’s been my meal o’ books this month. Anyone have anything particularly tasty to share?
I’m disappointed because I have seen The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle recommended a lot. But at least the library is semi-open and I can give books a chance without having to buy them.
The fatphobia was really annoying because it’s an otherwise reasonably interesting book. But it’s just so egregious. Everyone else at the party is a terrible person because of their actions and personalities. But this one character is “terrible” just because he’s obese. I hate that judgmental bs. Fat isn’t any kind of moral failing.
Lane