Tag Archives: fantasy

How to Summon a Fairy Godmother, by Laura J. Mayo*****

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“She was Theodosia Balfour. Good things did not happen to her.”

Theo is engaged to be married, despite her wishes; her mother has bartered her to an ancient, badly behaved duke for the prestige of his title and the money she must have to keep the family manse. Beggers can’t be choosers, amirite? Her stepsister and the prince have barred her from their castle due to her own unseemly behaviors, and her sister is about to be wedded to a more desirable man. There’s only one way out of it: Theo needs to find her stepsister’s notes on summoning a fairy godmother. Only magic can possibly get her out of this mess.

My thanks go to Orbit Books, Hachette Audio, and NetGalley for the review copies. This book is for sale now.

Because I am lucky enough to have both the print and audio galleys, I pair this book with my morning regimen on my exercise bike. While my feet are doing the work, my eyes and ears are on a pleasure cruise, listening to the story as read by the talented Josie Charles. At the outset, I’m not sure I’m going to enjoy it. After a handful of quick laughs, the story and voice actor seem to be a little over the top, perhaps trying too hard. However, a number of other reviewers that I respect have really enjoyed this thing, so I keep an open mind, and sure enough—about a third of the way in, I realize that I’m bonded to the protagonist. As I follow the narrative and become accustomed to the writing and narrative styles of the author and performer, the whole thing grows on me, and before long I find myself looking forward to my wretched exercise bike, because Theodosia needs me.

Once the fairy has been summoned, Theo is magicked away to fairy land, and she is provided with a set of tasks she must accomplish in order to be freed from the loathsome old toad to whom she’s betrothed. She is provided with some assistants and supervisors, and it’s a good thing because she needs rescuing now and then. The hardest part, perhaps, is the caveat that as she completes the steps required, she must behave respectfully—at all times!

The chapters are brief and have hilarious titles. A couple of examples: “Chapter 5 Where Theo Should Probably Think of Something Before She Ends Up Married,” “Chapter 11 Where It Becomes Quite Clear Theo Was Never Trained as a Lawyer.”  There’s lots of snarky dialogue, with a tender moment or two tucked in here and there.  There’s a twist at the end that I absolutely did not see coming.

Should you listen to the audio, or read the printed version? There are some American readers that don’t like a British accent, and Ms. Charles’s is a heavy one. Once I’m used to it, I rather like it, but you know what type of reader you are. Follow your usual go-to. If you enjoy an audiobook, this one could make your commute much pleasanter.

Highly recommended to those that enjoy fantasy and/or humor.

Starter Villain, by John Scalzi****

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I’m not going to write a full review for this one; my spouse got it for me for Christmas, so I don’t owe anyone anything. I will tell you, though, that it’s just what I needed, funny, warm, and of course, not even close to realistic. After all, it’s fantasy. The level of unreality is well crafted and consistent within the narrative, and it’s hugely inventive. This is my first John Scalzi novel, and I will read him again in a heartbeat.

Sharks In the Time of Saviors, by Kawai Strong Washburn*****

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A story like this one only comes along once in a rare while, luminous, intimate, and deeply affecting. My great thanks go to NetGalley and also Farrar, Strauss and Giroux for the review copy. This book is available to the public, and you should get it and read it.

Initially I was drawn to this book for several fairly superficial reasons. The cover is certainly arresting; the title is perplexing. But the biggest draw for me was that it was set in Hawaii, and all of the characters are native Hawaiians. In my corner of the world, the Pacific Northwest, there are a lot of Pacific Islanders. Why anyone would leave such an idyllic climate for the dark, soggy winters we see here used to be a mystery to me, but ultimately, people follow the jobs, and so many Seattle residents come from there.

As a history teacher, I’ve always felt that my students deserve to be included in the curriculum, and so in addition to teaching about Caucasians during whatever time period we’re examining, I work in African-Americans, Latinx, Native peoples, and a variety of Asian ethnicities, but time and again I hit a wall when I tried to find something for my Islander students. And when I’ve taught literature, it’s been the same struggle. Islander kids get shut out every time.  And so now I am retired, and here’s my appeal to other educators out there. Put this book in your classroom.

For the rest of you: apologies. Let’s get on with it.

As we open, the setting is Hawaii in 1995, and the protagonists are two parents and three children, all members of the Flores family. They’re on vacation when seven year old Noa falls into the ocean where sharks are circulating. But instead of devouring the boy, one of the sharks delivers him back to his family, carrying him gently in its jaws, “Like you were made of glass, like you were its child.” The first chapter is told in the second person, with Malia, the mother, recalling the event, speaking to Noa. She tells him, “The gods were hungry for change, and you were that change.” It’s obviously a miracle, and others see it happen also. Their lives will never be the same.

As the story continues, we hear from all of the family members. At first, Noa appears to be gifted with a magical healing ability, but he is still a child, and the demands on him are grueling, exhausting. But this is not the only change his magical abilities produce. Noa is the youngest child in the family, but now the siblings’ hierarchy is completely flipped, and the resentment felt by his brother and sister is dreadful. At one point Kaui, who is academically talented, fumes that she is “just his shadow, shaped like a sister.”  And his brother Dean, who is an athlete, explains:

You’re out at breakfast without him, eating cereal and joking with Mom and Dad, Kaui coming in, and you get them all laughing and smiling, just because of you. But then Noa shows up right, and suddenly it’s all questions about what’s happening with his day and did he sleep okay and here’s some thoughts about which extracurricular program he should enroll in…Hard not for get angry at that. I felt it like a fist flexing inside my own chest.

To make matters even more fraught, there’s an economic downturn that makes it impossible for the parents to support the family. They begin charging people that come to be healed by Noa, and so the youngest child is not only the golden favorite because of his miraculous ability; he’s also the family breadwinner. And again: it’s an awful lot to put on the shoulders of one small child.

The dialect combines with the authorial voice to create characters that I swear I would know if I ran into them, and in many ways, they remind me of the adolescents that I taught. Because I was so unconscionably late here, I checked out the audio version at Seattle Bibliocommons, and I have never heard an audiobook I loved more. The voice actors are so convincing that I can hear them now, more than a month and several other audiobooks, after I finished it.

For me, that would be enough. Create visceral enough characters and I don’t even care much about the plot. But the plot is also gobsmackingly brilliant! I believed I could track where it was headed up until perhaps the 60% mark, and then there’s one surprise turn, and another, and another, till at the end I was simply sitting with my mouth open and my eyes on the text as the audio gave way to the afterword and credits. I had to remind myself to breathe.

This is one of those rare galleys that I could see reading again just for the love of it. This review is my 923rd for NetGalley, and I have chosen to reread fewer than 10 of them, so let that indicate the measure of esteem in which I hold this novel.

The Land of Lost Things, by John Connolly*****

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“We must be careful of our fancies and wary of our dreams, lest the worst of them should be heard or witnessed, and something should choose to act upon them.”

Are you up for a partly sweet, partly sinister bedtime story? If so, John Connolly is your man, and this is your book. My thanks go to Net Galley and Atria Books for the review copy. This book was published in September, 2023, and I am disgracefully late, but this is largely due to my realization that I could not read the second in a two book set and review it effectively without first ferreting out the first book, The Book of Lost Things. Now that I’ve read them both, I can recommend both to you unreservedly. At the same time, I will caution you that—what with the titles of this and its predecessor—this is emphatically not a children’s book! When I saw the title, I wondered if, like so many authors of late, Connolly had decided he should write a book for tiny tots. This is not that! Don’t hand this book to your child, or anyone else’s, unless they are already both old and mature enough to enjoy the works of Stephen King—or for that matter, other books by Mr. Connolly.

In the first book, a boy named David, who is mourning the death of his beloved mother and increasingly alienated from his father, stepmother, and tiny baby (half) brother, begins to notice strange things about the books in his bedroom, which came with the house. Events lead him to a place near his house, where he is sucked into an alternate world in an alternate wood, and it is there that nearly all of the narrative takes place.

Now, in this story, we have one of David’s descendants, a young mother named Ceres, whose little daughter, Phoebe, lies comatose in a hospital. Because of the place’s location, she decides to stay in a family home that is not being used currently, what with being rundown, but which is convenient to the place where Phoebe is. And yes of course, it’s that house, and those woods are still there.

Nearly twenty years separate the publication of the first book and the second, and I can see the difference immediately. Whereas The Book of Lost Things is well written and quite memorable, The Land of Lost Things is even better. The pages turn themselves, and the words pop off the pages. The fairy tales that Connolly implants into the first half of the book are cleverly altered, and I laugh out loud more than once as I read them. And then, as things darken and become tenser, the dangers more palpable, it’s hard for me to look away. I learned years ago not to read Connolly’s work too close to bedtime, and that habit stands me in good stead here.

Part of the charm inherent in everything Connolly writes is his impatience with pretentious attitudes and behaviors, and his deep respect for women. Add to this his tight, resonant dialogue and his dark, crackling wit, and the result is a large, loyal fan base, of which I am obviously one.

For those that love satire and are drawn to things that go bump in the dark, this magical book—and its predecessor—are highly recommended.

The Matchmaker’s Gift, by Lynda Cohen Loigman*****

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“The heart is big enough to hold both grief and love.”

I read Loigman’s debut novel, The Two-Family House, followed by The Wartime Sisters, and I loved them both, so when Net Galley and St. Martin’s Press invited me to read and review The Matchmaker’s Gift, I leapt. Once again, Loigman has me at hello. This outstanding historical novel is for sale now, and you should get it and read it.

The story is told from the point of view of two protagonists, a woman and her grandmother; they were close, but Sara the grandmother has died, so her story is told in the past, beginning in 1910, when she arrives in the U.S. as a child, along with her family. Abby is her granddaughter; her story begins in 1994. Their stories are told alternately, but both are in the third person omniscient and told in a linear time frame, so I am free to lean back, relax, and get lost in their stories, without any confusion or doubling back to check things.

Sara was a matchmaker, although she initially had to be very careful, because Jewish tradition dictated that matchmakers be married men, and she was still just a girl. But she was gifted with visions of a sort, and could tell who belonged together. And so she was forced to create matches “in secret, pairing people together like a rogue puppeteer.” She never missed. And upon her passing, she leaves a cryptic message indicating that upon her death, Abby will inherit her special talent.

Abby is nonplussed by this, and even as she grieves her beloved grandmother’s death, she is confused as to what she should do. She’s a divorce lawyer, for heaven’s sake! Is she to toss her education and become a modern day yenta? She hasn’t even found a man for herself yet, let alone for others.

It’s always a joy to find a story that diverges from the well-worn path, and novels involving Jewish matchmakers—or any others, for that matter—are thin on the ground. But that is only a small part of this novel’s appeal. I love Sara and Abby; I almost feel they are my friends. I feel their sorrows and admire their courage and integrity. When either of them meets with unfair opposition, I want to smack their detractor with my cane.

But there’s something extra that’s infused into Loigman’s stories, an intangible but unmissable warmth. Nobody can teach anyone this. I can count on one hand the number of authors that can write heartwarming stories that don’t follow formulas or insult the reader’s intelligence. Loigman is one, and this makes her golden.

When I was halfway finished reading this glorious novel, I saw that an audio galley was available. I was a bit cautious, because I had already developed a firm sense of how these women sounded in my head, and I was afraid I might not like the narrators’ interpretations, but my concern was unfounded. I had a road trip ahead of me, and I listened to the next forty percent as I drove, and there wasn’t a single moment that I didn’t love. Narrators Eva Kaminsky and Gabra Zackman do a lovely job, and I have never had such a seamless transition from the digital galley, to the audio, and back again.

Highly recommended, and bound to be one of the year’s best loved books.

Unlikely Animals, by Annie Hartnett*****

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There are indifferent writers; good writers; outstanding writers; and then there are writers like Hartnett, that leave me with my jaw dropped down to my knees, thinking that I like to write, and you probably do, too, but friend, neither one of us will ever write like this. Not ever.

My thanks go to Net Galley and Random House Ballantine for the review copy.

Emma Starling is our protagonist, and she was born with healing powers in her hands. She went away to medical school, but was expelled for reasons that we don’t understand until later, and her healing touch is gone. She has quietly left school without telling a soul back home. She hasn’t even returned for a visit, but now she has been summoned unequivocally; her father is dying, and her mama wants her to come home. NOW.

There are enough points of view in this story to make your head spin. We have the graveyard crowd, for example, and since Everton, New Hampshire is such a tiny town, everybody knows everybody, dead or alive. When I first see that the dead are discussing the affairs of the living, I am dismayed, because the legendary Fannie Farmer has already done this in The Whole Town’s Talking. But soon it becomes obvious that this story isn’t derivative in the least; Hartnett takes this device and uses it in a different way, and it doesn’t dominate the story as Flagg’s does; these characters are there to provide a slightly more objective perspective than those that still live.

There are several points of view from among the living, too. And there are references throughout to the writings of Harold Baines, a naturalist instrumental in shaping the town and in particular, the iconic yet bizarre Corbin Park, which is open only to a chosen few. There are points of view offered from the critters as well; not all of the critters are real, however. And at the EXACT moment when I begin to think that the author should have pared this thing down, for heaven’s sake, because the organization appears to be all over the place, the narrative explains that “A good story doesn’t always follow an arrow, sometimes it meanders a little instead, so we hope you’ll excuse this tangent…It might seem unrelated, but sometimes a minor character doesn’t become important until later…The lives of the living often get tangled up in unexpected ways, especially in a town as small as ours, even when a ten-foot electrified fence splits it up.”

I howled, because it felt as if the author had read my mind!

An important plot point is the disappearance of Crystal Nash. Crystal was Emma’s best friend, and had lived with the Starling family as sort of an informal foster child. Crystal developed an addiction and disappeared; Emma and Crystal had had a falling out, and Emma tries not to think about her too much now. Clive, Emma’s father, seldom thinks about anybody else. He’s turned over every rock; slapped a poster on every telephone pole.

To say the least, it’s an interesting homecoming for Emma.

As if the many points of view don’t make for a complex enough story, Hartnett takes us back in time—sometimes just a few years, at other times, way back in the past—and I am awestruck at the way she pulls all of it together at the end, with no loose ends hanging. At the outset I had been sure that this story should have been streamlined, but at the end, when I look back to see what, if anything, could be cut without detracting from the story, there is nothing that’s superfluous. Not one thing. All of these odd bits and pieces are essential to the story she is telling; “meandering,” indeed.

Because I had fallen behind in my reading, I checked out the audio version from Seattle Bibliocommons, and it is brilliantly performed. Usually a story this complicated doesn’t work for me as an audiobook, but this one is outstanding and not hard to follow (although I did go back over the DRC for some quotes.)  Mark Bramhall and Kirby Heyborne do an exceptional job as narrators.

This is undoubtedly one of the finest novels we’ll see in 2022. Highly recommended in whatever format makes your heart happy.

Patricia Wants to Cuddle****-*****

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“You have to watch out for the quiet ones.”

I had an ugly upper respiratory flu, and this excellent novel was exactly what the doctor ordered. My thanks go to Net Galley and Zando Publishing for the review copy. Patricia Wants to Cuddle will be available to the public Tuesday, June 28.

As the story begins, we are midway through filming “The Catch,” which is a reality television show similar to “The Bachelor.” Our cast includes the four lucky women to have made it this far; producer Casey; a handful of crew members; and oh dear, Jeremy, a scuzz bucket if ever there was one. Jeremy is this season’s catch. We also have a handful of locals, since we are filming on location; included is a bashful cryptid in the woods, a lonely creature that reacts very badly to stressful situations. As you may guess, Patricia is that cryptid.

These people are on Otter Island, a fictional addition to the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State. Think deep woods, rain, and glamping. And…what the hell was that, just now? Too big to be a bear. And why are the sheep so agitated?

Baaaaa.

The contestants are mostly not interested in love; they are interested in publicity, for various reasons of their own. The shooting schedule leaves them sleep deprived on an almost permanent basis, and so given the premise of the show—competition, not cooperation—it doesn’t take long for the women to turn on one another.

Samantha Allen is new to me, but she’s on my radar now. This story is snicker-worthy at the outset, and by the time we reach the climax, I am howling with laughter. Part of the joy comes from the plot and pacing, but the biggest laughs for me are those that combine these outrageous events with some of the funniest figurative language I have ever read. In fact, were I to rate this story solely on its humor, without rating the more traditional elements such as character development, this would be a five star read.

This book will appeal most to those that lean to the left.

Recommended to those that love darkly hilarious fiction.

Favorites From the First Half

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From January to June, here are the ones I love best.

Two Nights in Lisbon, by Chris Pavone*****
Black Cloud Rising, by David Wright Falade*****
Violeta, by Isabel Allende*****
Ten Steps to Nanette, by Hannah Gadsby*****
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died, by Seamas O’Reilly*****
Funny Farm, by Laurie Zaleski*****

The Ogress and the Orphans, by Kelly Barnhill*****

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This book is not at all what I expected; it’s much better than that. My thanks go to Net Galley and Algonquin Young Readers for the invitation to read and review. This book is for sale now.

This lovely story is told in the second person omniscient, and we cannot tell, until the end, who the narrator is. Our setting is the sweet (fictitious) village of Stone-in-the-Glen, and it’s told in linear fashion. Because its telling is straightforward, with no changes in point of view or time period, and no heart-hammering suspense, it is ideal for bedtime reading. It’s marketed as a children’s book, and here I disagree, in part anyway. The vocabulary is too advanced for an early reader, but would serve well as a story to read aloud to students in upper elementary classes, or as a read-alone for the gifted child. There is no sexual content, drugs, or bad language.

Because I believed this was going to be a children’s book, I thought I’d whisk through it in no time and review it the same week I started, but I sensed immediately, once I’d begun, that this was not that kind of story. Its length, density of page and paragraph, and content call for a more leisurely pace, but also, it’s just too good to rush through. I am a sucker for excellent alliterative language (see what I did there?) and Barnhill is a champion in this regard. I found myself going back a page or two to reread, highlighting the best passages for no reason but my own pleasure.

The plot is easily summarized. The lovely little village is friendly and flourishing until the town library, which has magical powers, burns down. Without benefit of the library, villagers keep to themselves, and they become secretive and greedy. The mayor could help, but chooses not to do so. He’s a real piece of, um, work.

The orphanage in particular is in dire straits. They haven’t been getting their promised funding lately, and the place is starting to fall apart. The children are hungry. Were it not for the largesse of an anonymous donor, one that leaves big boxes of vegetables at the gate for them to find in the morning, they would starve.

The Ogress is their benefactor. We know this early on, so I don’t consider it a spoiler. However, due to the misconceptions of the villagers, which the mayor feeds shamelessly, the Ogress soon becomes a scapegoat. These two problems—local poverty, and the hostility toward the one among them that is different—form the basis of the story.

As to the allegory, which is dropped in midway through in a fairly heavy-handed manner, I am of two minds. On the one hand, my philosophy is similar to the author’s, and so I snicker when I see what she’s doing here. On the other hand, this is exactly the book one reaches for when one has had enough, enough, enough of current events and the outside world, and allegory becomes something of a distraction. When I see who the mayor represents, I start eyeing the other characters. Does the Ogress represent someone in the real world as well? What else am I missing? These musings are more likely to lodge themselves in the mind of a language arts teacher; I recognize that. But my preference would be to either turn the whole thing into a piece of political satire and own it, or to leave it alone and have a sweet story devoid of political content, one that readers on both ends of the political spectrum can enjoy—maybe even enjoy together.

These minor issues aside, I love this story. It’s my first taste of Barnhill’s writing, but it surely won’t be the last. Highly recommended.

The Memory Collectors, by Kim Neville***

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2.5 stars, rounded upward.

I was truly excited to read this book; perhaps too much so. It’s not a bad novel, but not the crowning wonder that I was expecting. My thanks go to Atria Books and Net Galley for the invitation to read and review.

Ev lives in poverty, sorting through trash in hope of finding treasures that she can improve upon and sell. As the story unfolds, we are momentarily off-balance, learning about Ev and the setting primarily through context. We learn early on that Ev has a traumatic past—with the particulars doled out in dribs and drabs to create suspense—and that she has an unusual gift, that of feeling the powerful emotions experienced by the item’s former owner. She wears gloves to prevent herself from becoming overwhelmed, particularly by the negative feelings some objects project.

Harriet is an elderly woman with similar gifts, and she’s in search of an heir. When she and Ev collide over contested objects, she wants to hire Ev. Ev resists at first, but is eventually drawn in after carefully negotiating her terms. An important side character is Ev’s long-lost sister, Noemi, who pops back into Ev’s life unexpectedly. Noemi’s role here is to reveal the past events that have scarred her elder sister, as well as to motivate Ev to be successful and build a better life.

At the outset, I am impressed by the writing, and it looks like the hype is deserved, because I am immediately engaged. But as the story moves forward, it becomes slower, then slooower, then slooooower…and I realize that this is one more fantasy novel in which the one original aspect, the “stains” that reveal the character of an object to people like Ev and Harriet, is just about all the author is going to give us. Everything else, from the revelations about the past, to the relationship between the sisters, to the dynamics between the elder and younger sensitive women, to the problem posed by another gifted but malign person, to uh, everything, is sort of lackluster and tedious. The character development is shallow and barely there. I never become comfortably acquainted with the world in which these women exist. It’s as if the author has trotted out this one device—I’m trying hard not to call it a gimmick—and then figures her job is done.  There isn’t much else that I haven’t seen done much better by other writers. In the end, I tossed it on the DNF pile.

I read this story digitally, but I alternated it with the audio version, and am inclined to recommend the audio version slightly more to those that plan to read it. Initially I don’t like the way that the reader, Emily Woo Zeller, voices Noemi, using a chirpy, almost shrill voice, but after I have listened for a bit over an hour, I become accustomed to it and grow to regard the character with a fondness I don’t find for the other characters. Instead of perceiving her as shrill, I begin to think, “Oh, it’s okay; that’s just the way Noemi is.” Since I don’t fully believe any of the other characters, I have to give Zeller props for her performance.

This book is for sale now; get it free or cheap if you’re interested, but don’t shell out the full jacket price unless your pockets are deep ones.