I got this out of the library after requesting an ARC of the second in the series (on the strength of Sarah Millican's blurb saying she found the authI got this out of the library after requesting an ARC of the second in the series (on the strength of Sarah Millican's blurb saying she found the author hilarious), and oh my did I ever eat it with a spoon. Loved the story, loved the characters, GHC is a terrific narrator, I laughed my ass off as predicted by the estimable Millican and I expect I'll be buying every audiobook as it comes out.
No long review forthcoming but I want to say something about anachronisms, to wit there are some and it mattered not at all. I haven't figured out what signal some writers send to convey "I know my onions and I'm doing this on purpose," but whatever that signal is, Gabby Hutchinson Crouch is sending it.
This book was some of the most fun I've had in a while!...more
Nothing but nothing floats my boat like radical politics wrapped up in comedy.
Oh my goodness I loved this. Loved it loved it loved it, ate it with a sNothing but nothing floats my boat like radical politics wrapped up in comedy.
Oh my goodness I loved this. Loved it loved it loved it, ate it with a spoon, laughed my ass off, also wept a little, also pumped my fist in the air at Julian's speech, also will happily sit in a rotting crate in the alley with all three of the MCs, sharing crumbs with the possums.The elaborate insults at the cake competition are alone worth the price of admission, though I admit to feeling a little sorry for the seagulls.
And now for some Serious Reviewerly Words about the ending, specifically (view spoiler)[the fade to black. Sound decision by Rowland, because (1) any details she wrote into an explicit sex scene would have shut down other possibilities that we readers imagined for our intrepid lovers, and yes I get that not everybody feels this way but I want all those possibilities left open; (2) FTB is a neat little authorial joke, following on from, basically, a few hundred pages of edging. It's in keeping! (hide spoiler)]
Honestly I'm despondent much of the time these days. I needed this book and I'm grateful for it. ...more
A disclaimer, first: I'm not sure "Disco Witches of Fire Island" would have landed as hard for me if I hadn't lived through the 1980s as a young queerA disclaimer, first: I'm not sure "Disco Witches of Fire Island" would have landed as hard for me if I hadn't lived through the 1980s as a young queer person and wound up with a number of dead friends. But I did, so I can report that Blair Fell brought me right back to the grief and the desperate fear of those days, when everywhere queer you went seemed to be populated by young men with purple spots on their gaunt faces, and on their heads AIDS hair, unmistakably fine and thin.
By 1989, when the book is set, AZT existed, but all the other treatments addressed just the opportunistic infections, not the virus itself. So when one of the Disco Witches, Howie, prophesies to Joe, who's afraid to love an HIV+ man, that not everyone who has the virus at that time will die of it, Joe can only take that on faith. Joe has an arduous journey from hopeless grief toward willingness to rediscover love and joy; he gets there, but it's enough of a rough ride that while I'll accede to the ad copy's characterization of the book as romantic, no one should go into it expecting a genre romance.
Something I especially liked about "Disco Witches" is that besides its historical vividness about the early days of AIDS, it also presses exactly hard enough on the divide between well-off assimilationist gays (mostly male, mostly white, mostly "masculine") and the more radical queer community (imperfect, sure, but with more room for people of color, for femmes, for women, for openly kinky folks). These days I'm (wince) a legally married, monogamous homeowner, but when Blair Fell mentioned the Disco Witches' copy of "The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions" I could see the cover as clearly as if I were holding it my hands again. I think my copy's still around somewhere. Time to dig it out again, yes?
[ETA: I realize I omitted to say anything about the funny, light parts of the book. The Disco Witches are avatars of splendid queeny excess, caftans and glitter abound, and there's a lot of dancing involved. It's not all heartbreak -- it never was.]
Thanks to Alcove Press and NetGalley for the ARC....more
KJ Charles's tastes often don't align with mine, but on the basis of her enthusiastic review I gave this a go and it is priceless. Cast of oddballs anKJ Charles's tastes often don't align with mine, but on the basis of her enthusiastic review I gave this a go and it is priceless. Cast of oddballs and misfits running a "Fortean Times"-like weekly, whose editor is a less toxic but still hilariously irascible++ take on Jackson Lamb. Prepare for a certain amount of poignancy along with the humor, because despite the OTT-ness of it all, the characters do feel like real people.
The narrator, Brendan McDonald, is superb: that is to say, not only does he do half a dozen accents and half a dozen characters with distinct voices, he also passes the "male narrator voicing women without falsetto screeching" test. Stick around for the acknowledgments, in which C.K. McDonnell provides everyone with the precious gift of a custom obituary. Back in his stand-up comic days he opened for Sarah Millican, and if that's not a recommendation I don't know what is.
Library hold on the second book instituted immediately. ...more
An especially moving installment for me, because of Gabe's distress after witnessing Nemec's defenestration. Full marks to the author for conveying thAn especially moving installment for me, because of Gabe's distress after witnessing Nemec's defenestration. Full marks to the author for conveying the horror without resorting to gory description -- of course, this is possible partly because we know Gabe so well by this point, and the narrative hews so closely to his POV; but that in itself tells you how good the characterization is.
He is such an endearing character, and also his narrative style would 100% make you want to put your hand over his mouth sometimes if that was what it took to get him to stop....more
Puck, the deliciously unreliable narrator of "Confounding Oaths" and its predecessor, "Mortal Follies," hopes we're reading "primarily for the crueltyPuck, the deliciously unreliable narrator of "Confounding Oaths" and its predecessor, "Mortal Follies," hopes we're reading "primarily for the cruelty," which is fair warning that the upcoming comedy will be well mixed with pain and bloodshed. (And also, since Puck is unreliable, that spritely narrators may not be quite as heartless as they'd have you believe.)
The Mortal Follies books are what you might call reality-based fantasy romances: the protagonist of this one, John Caesar, is of mixed race and also is the grandson of an earl, so he and his family are privileged while also being subjected to the expectable racist nonsense. John's love interest, the dashing Orestes James, is a captain in the British army -- but he didn't buy his commission, rather being elevated to his present rank because he saved Wellington's life. He grew up in the slums of St. Giles; plus, he's Black. So he has the privilege of rank and the -- un-privilege, let's say, of race and class.
The plot and the perils here are set in motion when John (ineffectually) punches a snotty, racist major for insulting his sister and thereby incurs the major's book-long thirst for vengeance. Meanwhile the sister, Miss Mary Caesar, who has been (equally ineffectually) trying to live up to a slender, straight-haired, fair-complexioned ideal, makes a fervent wish for beauty -- which is granted. At, of course, a deadly price.
Mind you, "Confounding Oaths" is very funny; it's also coldly clear-eyed about its themes. John Caesar isn't a bad person at the outset, but he's trying to be the elder brother who knows what's best for his sisters, and he doesn't quite see either Captain James or the captain's men as fully valuable in the way he and his family are valuable. It takes some time, some sharp words from Captain James, and some humbling events for him to change. And there is, eventually, a happy ending of sorts -- but, as Puck reminds us, life is precarious and a soldier's life especially so.
Though the love stories in the Mortal Follies books end well (for a given value of "end well") and the curses are undone, high prices are paid. Gods and fairies demand blood sacrifices. Our world also kills. For my money, both books are underrated, I suspect owing to the combination of pretty covers with genre expectations about supernatural romance. You don't have to read primarily for the cruelty, but plan on it. Plan on being unsettled.
Thanks to Random House / Del Rey and NetGalley for the ARC....more
Regency comedy, again, but dark comedy this time -- very dark, even bitter. The supernatural world isn't a pretty place: the powers inhabiting it are Regency comedy, again, but dark comedy this time -- very dark, even bitter. The supernatural world isn't a pretty place: the powers inhabiting it are arbitrary, petty, and cruel.
For all that, Mortal Follies struck me as a more generous story than Something Fabulous, a book in which "justice" and "humor" read as victimization of a character who deserves understanding and sympathy he never gets. But the villain in Mortal Follies really is a villain, and -- a nice bit of moral complication -- the character who delivers his comeuppance isn't unscathed by her own actions.
Very nearly 5 stars, except that I didn't quite believe in Miss Mitchelmore's boldness and persistence in pursuit of her eventual lover, whose rejections were a mite too convincing....more
I more or less bounced off Le Carre years ago, and since I understood him to be the be-all and end-all of spy novelists I never again revisited the geI more or less bounced off Le Carre years ago, and since I understood him to be the be-all and end-all of spy novelists I never again revisited the genre ... until, in one of my pitiful attempts to forestall New Yorker bankruptcy, I was reading an early 2023 issue and happened across a profile of Mick Herron by ... Jill Lepore.
!!! sez I.
And, uh, I liked the man in the profile, and I really liked the snippets from his books that Lepore quoted, as well as her description of the Slough House series' premise, and this happened to be on sale cheap at Audible, and the sample suggested good narration, and I will just say that
1. I love everybody in this bar, even Roderick Ho and especially Jackson Lamb. 2. And especially especially Hassan Gul, who's not one of the Slow Horses but I wish him all the best now and forever because he is awesome. 3. Twistiest damn plot ever. 4. Two minutes after finishing, I dropped an Audible credit on the next in the series. ...more
It's the year 1087 and the city of Bari has two problems: (1) an epidemic of the pox; (2) insufficient tourist revenue. Inconveniently for himself, thIt's the year 1087 and the city of Bari has two problems: (1) an epidemic of the pox; (2) insufficient tourist revenue. Inconveniently for himself, the monk Nicephorus has a dream about St. Nicholas, which he takes to mean that he should go into the city and tend the sick, but which the Barese powers that be decide, conveniently for them, signifies that they should hire the Tartar saint-hunter Tyun to [euphemism incoming] collect the saint's bones from the city of Myra, where they have lain for hundreds of years giving off a sweet ichor that has some beneficial effect or other, such as for example being saleable.
Nicephorus is sent off with Tyun in the good ship, I kid you not, Epiphany.
The subsequent adventures have a picaresque quality -- road trip, mayhem, more mayhem, yet more mayhem. I'm not, in general, a fan of the picaresque; Lazarillo de Tormes et al. bored me to tears. Nicked did not bore me for one single solitary second, however. It's funny, for starters, with just the right touches of bitterness and salt. Take, for instance, the account of how St. Nicholas saved the city of Myra during a famine, by performing a variation of the loaves-and-fishes miracle. It ends like this:
So Myra was saved. I am not sure what they did about the famine down the coast a few miles at Antiphellos or Phoinike.
God’s mercy is infinite— an infinite eye— which, seeing all, favors none, and makes no particular distinction in quality between those who eat and those who starve.
Nicephorus is dryly observant, honest, and kind-hearted (and he mostly manages to hang on to his moral compass throughout -- I say mostly; he's surprisingly good at lying by telling the strict truth). Tyun the saint-hunter is harder to describe; he's amoral, he's out for the shiny shiny ducats, and he tells Nicephorus awful stories about his childhood that he later claims he made up, except that occasionally he finds himself unable to maintain a blithe tale-telling air, which suggests that some truth is creeping in around the edges. I was fascinated by the way Anderson depicted the growth of their relationship, with minimal direct narration of their feelings. They talk; they touch each other more than necessary, though only Nicephorus appears to be at all disconcerted by this; most tellingly, we see other people seeing them -- only that; we're not told exactly what they see, only that they see. It's not a "romance" as a 21st-century reader expects a romance to unfold. Rather, Anderson uses storytelling and characterization in a way that feels authentic for the period. (I don't mean that it is authentic, exactly, but it's well suited.)
Perhaps the most astonishing thing about Nicked is that it hews closely -- Tyun's dog-headed pal/crewman Reprobus aside -- to real historical events. Medieval Europeans got up to a lot of shady shenanigans with respect to the touristic value of holy relics, this I knew, but I would have said the story of St. Nicholas's leaky bones was preposterous if Anderson's afterword hadn't set me straight.
A marvel of a book on every level. Thanks to Pantheon and NetGalley for the ARC.
ETA: This is one of those books where it's a bad idea for me to so much as glance in the direction of the negative reviews, because my blood pressure immediately starts climbing. Make of that what you will. ...more
Look, if I think hard I can nitpick, and I still prefer Original Flavor Alexis Hall to Romcom Alexis Hall, but this hit just right for me. Jonathan anLook, if I think hard I can nitpick, and I still prefer Original Flavor Alexis Hall to Romcom Alexis Hall, but this hit just right for me. Jonathan and Sam(wise) both behave badly, in ways & for reasons that are credibly grounded in their histories and that didn't make them irredeemable in my eyes (unlike, for example, everyone except Valentine in Something Fabulous). The comedy was light-with-an-edge, by which I mean that I found it funny (unlike, for example, anything in Husband Material or Paris Daillencourt).
tl;dr: It's early to hope, I guess, but maybe Alexis Hall is back on form???
I read a library copy rather than buy the book, on account of too many recent AH disappointments, but I snagged the audiobook on sale, so had a listen to the last full chapter because I wanted to hear the accents. Will Watt's a gem; I could almost regret my aversion to het romances, because he's narrated a lot of them....more
Sometimes I'm tempted to tag a Daniel May book "fade to black" just to mess with people's heads. Anyway, this is filthy and deranged and I always worrSometimes I'm tempted to tag a Daniel May book "fade to black" just to mess with people's heads. Anyway, this is filthy and deranged and I always worry when the sub is chained to the bed overnight because what if they have to pee, but no notes, you just keep doing what you do, Mr. May....more
Professor Emily Wilde remains odd, brave, and engaging; Wendell Bambleby remains sexy and besotted with Emily and only semi-scrupulous. Shadow the griProfessor Emily Wilde remains odd, brave, and engaging; Wendell Bambleby remains sexy and besotted with Emily and only semi-scrupulous. Shadow the grim disguised as a dog is worrisomely old but he rises to every occasion; we have, in addition, Emily's niece, Ariadne, and a university colleague, Dr. Fariss Rose, whose characterization is for my money the only significantly wobbly feature of this book.
I thought Map of the Otherlands sagged a little at the outset, but the adventure picked up quickly; by about 20 pages in, I was gobbling up this second installment as fast as I did the first, and for the same reasons -- the principals, the endlessly inventive worldbuilding, the scholarly apparatus (God, how I love those footnotes), the way Fawcett leans into the preposterous narrative device of Emily's journal.
As I said, Dr. Rose's character is the one wobble -- he goes from being an outright enemy not only to Wendell but also to Emily, to taking a paternalistically protective attitude toward Emily while remaining hostile to Wendell, to apparently being onside with both of them, which is fine. But I never quite understood why any given change happened when it did -- his attitude seemed to lurch from point to point rather than to evolve organically, if that makes sense.
But that falls under the heading of "Who cares, when you're having this much fun?" Delicious, well-made confectionery is what Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands is, and there's not enough of it in the world.
Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey for the ARC. Honest review, etc.
Merged review:
Professor Emily Wilde remains odd, brave, and engaging; Wendell Bambleby remains sexy and besotted with Emily and only semi-scrupulous. Shadow the grim disguised as a dog is worrisomely old but he rises to every occasion; we have, in addition, Emily's niece, Ariadne, and a university colleague, Dr. Fariss Rose, whose characterization is for my money the only significantly wobbly feature of this book.
I thought Map of the Otherlands sagged a little at the outset, but the adventure picked up quickly; by about 20 pages in, I was gobbling up this second installment as fast as I did the first, and for the same reasons -- the principals, the endlessly inventive worldbuilding, the scholarly apparatus (God, how I love those footnotes), the way Fawcett leans into the preposterous narrative device of Emily's journal.
As I said, Dr. Rose's character is the one wobble -- he goes from being an outright enemy not only to Wendell but also to Emily, to taking a paternalistically protective attitude toward Emily while remaining hostile to Wendell, to apparently being onside with both of them, which is fine. But I never quite understood why any given change happened when it did -- his attitude seemed to lurch from point to point rather than to evolve organically, if that makes sense.
But that falls under the heading of "Who cares, when you're having this much fun?" Delicious, well-made confectionery is what Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands is, and there's not enough of it in the world.
Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey for the ARC. Honest review, etc....more
Séamas O'Reilly reads too fast, which is a problem for those of us not routinely exposed to Irish accents, but (a) my listening comprehension improvedSéamas O'Reilly reads too fast, which is a problem for those of us not routinely exposed to Irish accents, but (a) my listening comprehension improved after a while, and anyway (b) I replayed any number of passages because they were so insightful / heartbreaking / hilarious / all of the above.
I have to admit that (sorry, Mr. O'Reilly) I look askance at people who have large numbers of children, but Mammy and Daddy must've done something right, because Séamas became internet-famous for a Twitter thread about serving drinks to the president of Ireland while out of his mind on Special K. This, the acknowledgments inform me, is how he met his literary agent.
The ad copy isn't doing DYHMD? any favors, though, because this book is not "heartwarming" or in any other way odious; you're pretty well guaranteed not to spend any time saying "Awwww" while pressing your hand to your bosom. A family whose members genuinely love one another gets hit in the solar plexus with a two-by-four but keeps on going; there are plenty of Feelings, but these show up in the most matter-of-fact way. The anecdote that gives DYHMD? its title, for example, which invites us to consider the reactions of adults who showed up at Ms. O's wake to be greeted by cheerfully bouncy wee Séamas with a big announcement to make. I mean. He was five.
Adult Séamas has some perspective to offer on the inarticulate nature of a child's grief and anger, preserved intact for decades because, for good reason, there was no real opportunity to address it. So he breaks down weeping at the sight of Louise Bourgeois's giant spider Maman on a visit to the Guggenheim Bilbao. No, it's not the spider's supposed maternal feeling that hits so hard; but I'll leave it to O'Reilly to explain.
DYHMD? isn't organized chronologically; rather, each chapter takes up a theme. Linear narrative would have been a falsification -- more than any recounting of memory is falsification, I mean -- given how much of this is a childhood story. Inevitably, I guess, this entails some repetitive moments. But not many, and they hardly matter. Neither biography nor memoir generally appeals to me; this one's something special.
I don't read dystopian fiction or organized-crime romance, but I do read Kris Ripper, and this was half price on Smashwords all last month, plus I wasI don't read dystopian fiction or organized-crime romance, but I do read Kris Ripper, and this was half price on Smashwords all last month, plus I was if not dying of curiosity then at least feeling-under-the-weather of curiosity about what kind of assassins KR would dream up, so here we are.
On the basis of some rough patches in the writing and more typos than I'm used to seeing in a Kris Ripper book, I assumed this was an early effort, but as it was published in June of 2020 I assume there's an alternative explanation. Gosh, yes, a dystopia in which medical debt features heavily and the protagonist isn't able to visit his sister in the hospital sure does suggest a connection with the early days of the pandemic.
Anyway: mayhem, murder, filthy toilets, violence, murder, more filthy toilets, a surprising amount of love and loyalty under the circumstances, and an approximately happy ending, if one allows for the fact that this is a dystopia. I had fun, but I'm also glad this wasn't my starter Kris Ripper book, because it would have given me a misleading first impression. ...more
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