October 18, 2019
Welcome to Day 18 of The Kasturi/Files at Speculative Chic, where Gemma Files and Sandra Kasturi discuss things filmish, things bookish, and things cocktailish. Today we look at Jim Jarmusch’s elegant little vampire comedy-drama, Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), starring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston as extremely long-term significant others, and Mia Wasikowska as a kind of bratty younger sister.…
October 18, 2019
Magic Binds (2016) Written by: Ilona Andrews Series: Kate Daniels #9 Genre: Urban Fantasy Pages: 342 (Paperback) Publisher: Ace Why I Chose This: My 2019 Resolution Project for Speculative Chic is to read the books in the Kate Daniels series and finish up with a first read of the final book. I first read Magic Binds in 2017 and reviewed it at my own blog.…
October 17, 2019
Welcome to Day 17 in our month-long horror movie madness here at Speculative Chic! Today on The Kasturi/Files, we talk about Jordan Peele’s deeply strange movie, Us. Plus a weird cocktail. This time we had a tough time finding book recommendations that really fit, because Peele’s movie is so uniquely his own very odd thing, that we couldn’t think of…
October 17, 2019
The Hunger (2018) Written by: Alma Katsu Genre: Fiction Pages: 373 (Hardback) Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Why I Chose It: Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres. Adding a supernatural element to the story of the doomed, cannibalistic Donner Party struck me as an excellent idea. The premise: A tense and gripping reimagining of one of America’s most fascinating…
October 16, 2019
One of the most common questions authors face is a deceptively difficult one to answer: “Where do you get your ideas?” Yet, the answers to that common question can be almost as interesting as the resulting story. Welcome to You’re My Inspiration, a new column dedicated to discovering what inspires a particular author and their work. Whether it be a…
October 16, 2019
It’s the Ides of October! The very hinge of the month! Welcome to Days 15 and 16 of The Kasturi/Files here at Speculative Chic! It’s a double-episode Spook-tacular! A Spec Chic SMACKDOWN! Could we use more exclamation points? Yes!!!! We’re basically halfway through the month, and on a roll. To have some fun, we thought we’d revisit a couple of,…
October 16, 2019
Happy October, Chicers! The air is crisp, everything is pumpkin-spice flavor, and my boots and sweaters are back in rotation. In other words, it’s decorative gourd season, mofos! (FYI, that article is a classic, but probably NSFW.) Not to mention, this awesome month comes with a prominent holiday: Columbus Day, where we celebrate the raping, plundering, and enslavement of… Wait. We…
October 15, 2019
Much like the television shows we get sucked into on cable or network television, The Kasturi/Files is taking a mid-season break. Wait, what? That’s right, for Day 15, we’re allowing our awesome authors Gemma Files and Sandra Kasturi to recover from their Canadian Thanksgiving, and if all goes well, we’ll be back tomorrow with not just one, but two movies…
October 15, 2019
The journey of the White Witch to the Beast’s Garden is a fraught and perilous trek through the beginnings of the realm of Faery, starting out at the dawn of humanity, with the first feminist fairy tale, that of the Animal Bride/Groom, in which, according to noted folklorist Terri Windling, “a human man or woman is married to an animal,…
October 14, 2019
It’s Thanksgiving Monday for the Canadians, and Day 14 for The Kasturi/Files here at Speculative Chic! Welcome back, and happy turkey day. We have just the thing for you to read now that you’re a bloated stupor and need a bit of a pick-me-up. What better than to argue about films, booze and books? Join us — Sandra Kasturi and…