Short Story: A BALANCE OF BLESSINGS AND BLOOD

| Jessica Crawford

I wrote this short story for consideration for inclusion in an anthology about Morgana le Fey. Alas, it was not accepted, but I am quite fond of it and so decided to share it here. Let me know your thoughts!

I opted to write about a version of Morgana as described by Geoffrey of Monmouth in his narrative poem, Vita Merlini, which was published in 1155 AD and was the enchanting figure’s first appearance in literature that is currently recognized. Her name is given as Morgen in that work, and so that is how I chose to refer to her in my story.

The sea swells and surges up the shores of Avalon. The swash rises through the air in a spinning rush of water, forming an aqueous column that coalesces into the form of a naked woman. The figure solidifies in a gradual progression from the bottoms of her bare feet to her water darkened tresses.

Morgen has returned home.

Her sisters have been awaiting her arrival. Glitonea, taking her turn as lookout, approaches with a robe held open before her. “What word?” she asks as she wraps the garment about her eldest sister’s shoulders, which are glistening with water droplets and adorned with gooseflesh.

Her lips pressed into a thin line, Morgen looks to Glitonea and gives a bare shake of her head. The news is grim.

But she is surprised to see that beyond a brief furrowing of the brow, her sister does not seem as dismayed as she might. Morgen realizes that the Glitonea is harboring news of her own, and it is something that has her excited. She waits for the other woman’s storm colored eyes to meet her own.

“What is it?”

“Men have come to the island.” The words are expelled in a rush.

“Men?”

“Mortals.”

Buffeted by the bracing sea air, Morgen pulls the ends of the robe tightly around her body and gazes up at the tor that juts up from the coastline while considering this news. After a moment, the two women begin the trek up the cliffside path to the keep, the home they share with their seven other sisters. Glitonea soon breaks the silence.

“Did you really find nothing?” she asks in a faint voice.

Morgen did not find nothing. Her travels through the seas took her to Greece, where she found a dragon with no less than one hundred heads thwarting her efforts to seek a meeting with the Daughters of the Evening. She found waters in Europe that restored sight, waters that drove its drinkers mad or bestowed great strength. She had been soaring over yellowed plains when through the air came to her an albatross’s cry resonating in such torment that her own wings missed a beat and her heart dropped in her breast. She had encountered a species of bird that brings forth life through the shedding of its own blood, a sacrificial offering of balance.

What Morgen did not find was an answer to how to stop the golden apple tree at the center of Avalon from continuing to wither and die, and with it the island’s magic.

The boons of the Fortunate Isle are tied to that singular tree with its resplendent fruit. Its roots feed enchantment into the soil, sending its gifts outward through its communion with the rest of the land. It is thanks to this tree that Avalon is so fruitful of its own account, without need of plough or toil. For its devoted inhabitants, the land provides without fail the fruit and grains that feed them and the herbs they use in their healing balms, unguents and tonics. It is the exceptional nature of the place that grants the sisters that call it home the alacrity and ease with which they have been able to focus and enhance their spellwork. Their conjurations are threefold as strong as they would otherwise be.

And now it all decays. Over the past months an insidious rot has taken hold, the effects of which have been subtle as of yet, but worrisome all the same.

“Nothing of use. At least not that I can see,” Morgen answers. As they climb the wooden steps to the elevated entrance of the keep, she says, “Tell me of these men.”

Glitonea obliges gladly. “At first we thought it was just three of them, two warriors in hauberks and a man dressed like a bard, all ferried by Barinthus on his barge. But as they came ashore we saw there was another man, wounded, laid out on the deck.”

“You offered healing?” Morgen asks. What she really means is, were you able to heal the man, or have your abilities deteriorated even too far for that?

A look of consternation steals over Glitonea’s face as she explains, “We each of us tried. But you have always been the most skillful healer among us. Perhaps you will succeed where we have not.” Then, somberly, “It is a most grievous wound.”

Crossing through the eastern solar of their home Morgen sees more of her sisters, some alone and others arranged in groups. Save for Thitis, who is drawing doleful music from a cither, her favored instrument that she has not found the will to take up much in the past months, they appear to stand or lounge around purposelessly. They have been thrown from their routine with the arrival of strangers and do not know quite what to do with themselves. One of them lets escape a titter and Morgen glances over her shoulder to look for the source. Moronoe and Tyronoe are leaned in close conversation with one another before a tapestry depicting a stag posed within a ring of hazel trees. The former holds a hand clasped over her mouth. It is unsurprising to Morgen that those two, despite the grave manner of the men’s visit, would yet be delighted by their presence. The opportunity for social exchange outside of their circle appeals to many of the women, of course, but there are those who are especially enamored with the potential for commerce of the sexes. There are also those who will have been disappointed that the ferryman had not brought them fresh female company.

As she exits the room and approaches the keep’s central staircase, Morgen tells Glitonea, “I will go to my chamber to dress. Then I will see to these men.”

Standing in her bed chamber and dressed now in a sleeved undergarment, Morgen plaits the damp tangle of her hair with a deft hand. She slips into a dark green peplos, fastening it at the shoulders with brooches. All the while her mind is a churning maelstrom.

There had been seasons of Morgen’s life when mortals coming ashore would have appealed to her foremost as an opportunity for exercises in love. Such activities held little interest for her these days, and not only because she has tired of partners scorning their beloved the moment they grow bored, all lovers feeling jilted in the end. If one of the paramours is skilled in enchantment, well, the accusations flung become all the more absurd.

But now. The golden apple tree waning for the first time since the sisters had made the island their home decades before, and Avalon’s magic with it. The ill portent of the albatross’s lament. And now the arrival of mortals. What did it all mean? Had she missed some sign writ in the stars? Had her skills reading the heavens diminished so much?

From the cabinet beside her bed, Morgen pulls out a corded belt to cinch around her waist. From one side she hangs a pouch of herbs, from the other a ceremonial blade in its leather sheath. Before shutting the cupboard door, something catches her eye. On the floor, half hidden behind her slippers, is the drinking horn she had once spelled. The charm she laid over the instrument was designed to reveal infidelity by causing any unfaithful lover who attempted to drink from it to spill its contents without a single drop passing his or her lips. For many days and nights she had struggled to perfect the magic. Finally, she learned that in order to force a person’s secrets into the open in this way required her to divulge one of her own. Only after speaking her greatest shame into the mouth of the vessel would it perform as intended. This took further consideration on her part, as Morgen is a woman who does not involve herself overmuch with the concept of shame. Just as she feels an entirely changed being from the one she was at the time of the horn’s creation, she feels no antagonism for that woman of the past; some of her actions may have been misguided, but her feelings then were just as valid as her desire to restore Avalon’s glory now.

Toeing the horn further to the back of the cabinet, she shuts the door and goes to see about healing a wounded man.

The prostrate form has been laid out atop the golden coverlet over Tyronoe’s bed. His chain mail and greaves have been removed, leaving him stripped down to tunic and breeches. His brow is furrowed and his mouth twisted in a grimace, but his eyes remain closed; he has withdrawn into himself. Blood-covered hands are crossed gingerly over the black stain spread over his abdomen, an unconscious guarding of a wound that draws the eye like a baleful storm cloud on the horizon.

Arrayed around the bed are those who accompanied the injured man to the island as Glitonea has relayed. One of the soldiers has yellow curls, the other brazen eyebrows and a beard halfway to gray. The bard doffs his cap and falls to his knees before Morgen where she stands next to Glitonea just inside the threshold.

“Great Lady! I am called Taliesin. These good men of Caerleon are of the king’s retinue. You, Lady, are renowned across the lands for your great skill in healing ailments of all kinds, your talents said to be matched only by your wisdom and beauty. We come to beseech you: please, do what you can to save the life of the Benevolent and Wise King Arthur!”

Halfway during this speech, Morgen had returned her eyes to the figure on the bed. The man Taliesin remains kneeling on the floor as he awaits her response. Morgen turns her head slightly in her sister’s direction and speaks in a soft undertone. “You did not say he was a king.”

“Does it matter?”

Morgen crosses the room in measured steps, approaching the bed. “How did he sustain this injury?” she asks. The bard struggles off his knees to stand behind her.

“Run through with a sword wielded by his own nephew,” the younger of the soldiers answers. He glares through his curling locks as he speaks these words, but Morgen knows his animosity is directed at this nephew, not at her.

Stopping at the bedside, she continues to assess the sight before her. The muscles of the king’s throat work as he labors to swallow what moisture his body is able to muster, eyes still screwed shut. Eventually she shifts her scrutiny down toward the gash in his belly. She begins to reach a gentle hand toward laceration when she is surprised to find the man’s own suddenly gripping her wrist, more strength in his hold than she would have thought he was capable of summoning in his current state.

She looks up and finds his eyes open and staring into hers. She notices they are green.

Silence commands the room for several long moments while they observe one another. Finally one of his soldiers ventures, “My Lord King?” Arthur’s grip loosens until he eventually drops his hand to his side, but his eyes remain open. He does not speak.

Morgen returns her attention to the wound. It is not a clean cut, but jagged as though his opponent had wrenched the steel in a twisting motion before tugging it free. It seems a cruel act born of a singular enmity. She lets her fingers hover over the rent in the flesh and extends her senses, confirming what she has already begun to suspect.

It is too late to save this man. The injury is a grievous one, yes, but his body’s reaction to the insult has passed the point of reversal, birthing a cascade of further catastrophes throughout his systems, setting a multitude of fires that cannot all be doused before he succumbs. Looking at the man’s face, Morgen sees he has shut his eyes once more, and notices now the gray shadow that has begun to tint his skin. She imagines he does not have much time left.

To the side of this throat she can see the fluttering of a pulse, the blood yet coursing through his veins, albeit more feebly than usual. The blood of a king. The eddies within Morgen’s mind swirl with a new turbulence as she considers this.

“I have heard of you, Arthur of Pendragon,” she says. She believes he can still hear her, though he makes no response. “You are known to have united the peoples of your land. It is said you champion equality among your advisors, allowing no unfair advantages due to birth or other circumstances left to fate alone. You treat all persons with respect without requiring them to earn it, but rather allowing them the agency to lose it by their own efforts. You have been found worthy across varying fields. You, Arthur, are a Great King.”

She hears one of the other men choke back an expression of grief. It does not do to weep or otherwise conspicuously convey sorrow before a death has occurred, as it may draw the attention of forces from the Otherworld that would only hasten that outcome, even if it had not been an inevitability.

Morgen takes a moment to arrange her face before lifting it to address Taliesin. “You must leave him here with us. His recovery is not a thing that can be managed in a short time.”

It is as though a flame has been lit within the bard, the way his face lights up at these words. “You can heal him, then!” he cries. Morgen makes no answer. “Yes, yes, we will leave him in your capable hands, Lady. Your divinely appointed skills cannot be rushed, we understand! No motte and bailey is raised in a single day.”

Morgen nods and then resumes her position next to her sister. They watch as the men huddled around the recumbent form in the bed, taking their leave of their lord and speaking their reassurances and pledges to him. The women see tears of relief upon the younger soldier’s cheek. They and several other of their sisters walk the men down to the beach, where Barinthus is already waiting with his barge, as he is always aware when his services are needed. The bard continues to effuse gratitude and praise even as the vessel pushes off from shore.

Some of the women pull away and return to the keep. Morgen and Glitonea remain the longest, watching the forms of the departing mortals recede along the bobbing waves.

“You let them believe we would heal him,” Glitonea remarks after several long moments.

Morgen swipes away strands of hair that the wind blown in off the sea has stuck to her lips. “They heard what they wanted to hear,” she demurs.

“What you wanted them to hear,” Glitonea amends. Morgen makes a swift tilt of her head as if to say: these things are the same. “What is it you are planning?”

Looking her sister full in the face, Morgen explains. “You asked if it mattered that he is a king. In calling himself a king, a man dons a mantle of importance like a cloak, granting himself a significance that may not have been there before. This consequence goes beyond surface level. He is changed in ways he may not have anticipated.”

Glitonea stares out to sea, considering these words. In time, Morgen says, “Help me gather the others. We will need a litter to convey him.”

The nine sisters stand in Avalon’s central grove, arrayed around a dying man laid beside an apple tree. The tree is also dying.

The browned edges of shriveled leaves curl inward. The golden fruit is wrinkled and dull. Usually while standing in this orchard there can be heard a low, sonorous tone that seems to originate in the earth itself. Always faint, the sound is now nearly imperceptible.

Thitis kneels on the ground with the man’s head and shoulders laid in her lap, holding him tilted slightly so that he is angled toward the tree. Had he been aware of his surroundings, perhaps a hope that the women were about to feed him one of the golden apples said to grant immortality would have flared within his chest. Yet he is heedless. Before transferring him to the litter to bring him to the tree, Morgen had tipped one of her draughts into his slackened mouth and induced him to swallow. His brow had soon smoothed and he now slept the peaceful sleep of the untroubled, pain nothing more than a bad dream from which he had moved on to sweeter visions. It was not his suffering Morgen sought; she was not a monster. In fact, she found herself wishing for a moment that she had had the chance to meet the man before fate had come calling on him. Her words before had been sincere. The deeds he was known for were mostly cause for great admiration, although ruling a kingdom was never a bloodless endeavor.

They would drop his armor into the sea, after, as an offering, and in supplication for his safe passage to the Otherworld.

Morgen lowers herself to her knees before him.

“Sisters,” she calls out. “For decades the magic of Avalon, spawned from this very spot, has provided life to the island. Sustenance. Restoration. Knowledge and guidance. But in all things, there must be a balance. The magic is owed its due. What can we offer as equipoise for these gifts?” She looked at the others, all standing with their heads held high, except for the kneeling Thitis, who stroked the man’s hair. Morgen slid her blade from its sheath on her belt and answered her own question. “We offer the death of a king!”

In one sure motion, Morgen glides her blade in between King Arthur’s ribs and upward into his heart. She withdraws it and Thitis tilts him further, so that his heart’s blood pumps directly onto the earth housing the tree’s roots.

The women all begin wailing, their keening sending birds from the surrounding foliage into startled flight, as the golden apple tree unfurls verdant leaves, its fruit plumpens and gleams, and the earth sings.

Avalon lives.

Book Review: NIGHT WATCH by Jayne Anne Phillips

| Jessica Crawford

Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips is a 276 standalone novel published by Knopf in 2023, and the winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Genre:

Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

Synopsis:

In 1874, in the wake of the War, erasure, trauma, and namelessness haunt civilians and veterans, renegades and wanderers, freedmen and runaways. Twelve-year-old ConaLee, the adult in her family for as long as she can remember, finds herself on a buckboard journey with her mother, Eliza, who hasn’t spoken in more than a year. They arrive at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia, delivered to the hospital’s entrance by a war veteran who has forced himself into their world. There, far from family, a beloved neighbor, and the mountain home they knew, they try to reclaim their lives.

The omnipresent vagaries of war and race rise to the surface as we learn their their flight to the highest mountain ridges of western Virginia; the disappearance of ConaLee’s father, who left for the War and never returned. Meanwhile, in the asylum, they begin to find a new path. ConaLee pretends to be her mother’s maid; Eliza responds slowly to treatment. They get swept up in the life of the facility—the mysterious man they call the Night Watch; the orphan child called Weed; the fearsome woman who runs the kitchen; the remarkable doctor at the head of the institution.

Opening Line:

I got up in the wagon and Papa set me beside Mama, all of us on the buckboard seat.

My Thoughts:

This book, the winner of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, is stirring literary historical fiction. It tells the story of ConaLee and her family and the many ways their lives are affected by the Civil War.

The fighting has ceased, but not the grief.

The family includes a daughter of Irish immigrants working as indentured servants on a plantation, and the infant born of a slave raped by the master who can pass as white. When the latter leaves his pregnant wife to fight for the Union, he is obviously subjected to the horrors of war – but so are his family, left on the homestead to protect themselves from deserters from both sides of the war. After enduring the resulting traumas, ConaLee and her mother find sanctuary at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum of Weston, West Virginia, and its moral treatment regimen.

It’s common in these times. So many of our patients, all classes of society, find themselves sole survivors, nine years on, of our–national catastrophe. It is still–unspooling, O’Shea said, like malignant thread.

Important to note that this novel is written in a way that will turn some readers off. Dialogue is not in quotation marks. The flow of each paragraph meanders a bit. It worked for me, but it won’t for everyone. It is a very well researched book, and includes several photographs of the asylum as well as contemporary artwork of the Civil War era.

I greatly enjoyed this story overall, but the writing style did have me feeling rather distanced from the climax scene, making it much less impactful than it should have been, and I was underwhelmed by the ending as a result. But still 4.75 stars altogether!

Book Review: THE MOST WONDERFUL CRIME OF THE YEAR by Ally Carter

| Jessica Crawford

The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter is a 304 page standalone novel published in 2024.

Genre:

Romance, Mystery

Opening Line

Excerpt from the Official Police Interrogation of Margaret Chase and Ethan Wyatt

December 25

Mrs. Chase: Well, of course I have his blood on my hands.

Synopsis:

Knives Out gets a holiday rom-com twist in this rivals-to-lovers romance-mystery from New York Times bestselling author Ally Carter.

The bridge is out. The phones are down. And the most famous mystery writer in the world just disappeared out of a locked room three days before Christmas.

Meet Maggie Chase and Ethan Wyatt:

She’s the new Queen of the Cozy Mystery.

He’s Mr. Big-time Thriller Guy.

She hates his guts.

He thinks her name is Marcie (no matter how many times she’s told him otherwise.)

But when they both accept a cryptic invitation to attend a Christmas house party at the English estate of a reclusive fan, neither is expecting their host to be the most powerful author in the world: Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death herself.

That night, the weather turns, and the next morning Eleanor is gone.

She vanished from a locked room, and Maggie has to wonder: Is Eleanor in danger? Or is it all some kind of test? Is Ethan the competition? Or is he the only person in that snowbound mansion she can trust?

As the snow gets deeper and the stakes get higher, every clue will bring Maggie and Ethan closer to the truth—and each other. Because, this Christmas, these two rivals are going to have to become allies (and maybe more) if they have any hope of saving Eleanor.

Assuming they don’t kill each other first.

My Thoughts:

This book was pretty good, but a bit confusing in that it seemed to try to be many kinds of stories all at once. Was it a murder mystery or a romance? Cozy and lighthearted comedy, or dark and twisty?

I was the most excited when I thought it was an elaborate game in which our characters, a colorful and eccentric group gathered at an English estate, were to compete against one another to be the first to solve a fabricated mystery. But then it winds up being about actual attempted murder, and being snowed in with a would-be killer who continues to create mayhem. Then the final answer to the murder mystery portion of the story seemed to kind of come out of left field (the motive is something that the reader is not aware of until the actual moment of the final reveal). And I hesitate to call it a locked room mystery, because you never actually get the answer to the how the missing person disappeared from the locked room.

But this book is actually mostly a romance. While I liked Maggie and Ethan each individually, the romance was actually a tad creepy (he has loved her from afar for years and is way, way too intimate way too fast for someone who has yet to receive any indication that his attentions are welcome). And Maggie repeatedly doubting and needing constant reassurance had me annoyed with her by the end.

This review sounds like mostly complaints, but really it wasn’t bad. Part of my issue, too, may be that I listened to this on audio, which doesn’t always work for me. There is one narrator for Maggie’s chapters (the majority of the book), and a separate one for Ethan’s chapters. One seems very talented in general, but has some very noticeable vocal fry. Both were a bit cringey when doing voices for the opposite gender, but one far moreso than the other. And they acted out some of the same characters quite differently (e.g. one of them portrays a particular character speaking in a bold and sassy manner, while the other acts her out as super timid). With all of these things taken together, I gave this one 3.75 stars, but it may have been a 4 if I had read it with my eyes instead of my ears.

Book Review: THE WEDDING PEOPLE by Alison Espach

| Jessica Crawford

The Wedding People by Alison Espach is a 384 page standalone novel published in 2024 by Henry Holt and Co.

Genre:

Contemporary Fiction

Opening Line:

The hotel looks exactly as Phoebe hoped.

My Thoughts:

“I suppose I didn’t realize that’s what it would feel like getting older.”

“…it is all about moving on. Saying goodbye to whoever you thought you were, whoever you thought you would be.”

I LOVED this book that is equal parts cathartic and laugh out loud funny.

Phoebe’s life has imploded over the past several years. One final straw in the midst of a deep clinical depression sends her to The Cornwall (a fancy historic hotel in Newport, Rhode Island she had always hoped to visit one day) in a green silk dress, equipped with no luggage but instead a plan to end her life.

But she decides that’s how some people are (she decides that she likes deciding things now that she is forty and alone, that’s how some people are). Some people don’t ask for what they need. Some people are like religious children that way, mistaking suffering for goodness.

In the meantime, Lila has booked the hotel for her wedding week, and it was supposed to only have guests for the wedding staying. Phoebe’s reservation was a clerical error. The two women meet on the elevator and Lila asks Phoebe what she’s doing there. Unemcumbered by any concerns about what may or may not be socially appropriate, experiencing a sense of freedom by the thought that she will not live past the night, Phoebe tells the truth. She is there to kill herself. Lila, who has spent years and one million dollars planning the perfect wedding, is horrified. This could totally ruin everything!

In her bid to talk Phoebe out of her decision, Lila is more her true self around her new acquaintance, not putting on an act of the perfect bride like she is for everyone else. Phoebe, thinking it won’t matter for long, continues to feel able to speak and act in a brutally honest, direct manner. This itself opens up to her a new way she could choose to be moving forward. Coming across the wedding people like this actually helps her realize that there is another option besides taking her own life, a different way to approach living.

Over the course of a week the two women help each other face hard truths and find a way forward, which was really heartwarming. As someone who has struggled with depression, I loved reading about Phoebe moving through it and coming out on the other side stronger with a little help from authentic human connection. I laughed, I cried! This is a strong contender for my favorite book of the year.

There is a metaphor with a Newport diner that has been demolished by hurricanes and rebuilt several times:

Phoebe imagines that rebuilding after each devastation must be a real chore, especially for a place like Flo’s, which has knickknacks covering every inch of the walls. To rebuild each time with the same level of bursting, idiosyncratic personality–how do you do that?…How do you act like this singular and quirky existence is entirely natural and will never be destroyed again?

All the feels! ❤️❤️❤️

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Book Review: THE SPELLSHOP by Sarah Beth Durst

| Jessica Crawford

The Spellshop by Sarah Beth Durst is a 384 page standalone novel published in 2024. (I saw it labeled as “Librarians of Alyssium #1” somewhere, but I can’t find where – but either way, this story can stand by itself.)

Genre:

Fantasy

Subgenres:

Cozy Fantasy, Romantasy, Romance

Opening Line

Kiela never thought the flames would reach the library.

My Thoughts

When revolution makes the city of Alyssium a dangerous place to be, librarian Kiela and her sentient spider plant assistant flee to the outer island of Caltrey. There they meet caring neighbors, winged cats, merhorses, and more, while also growing their own ingredients to make and sell jam. If anyone from the city ever learns that Kiela is illegally using spells to heal the island’s ecosystem, there could be dire consequences. Also there is a gentle romance.

This book was intended to be like a warm hug, eliciting the coziness of drinking hot cocoa and eating pastries. In this regard, it is a success. My preferred reads tend to be darker, grittier, and more dramatic, so based purely on my personal enjoyment I would say this was a 3 star read. But I knew to expect a warm cozy fantasy with sweet relationships, and that’s exactly what I got, so taking that into account it’s a 4.

🌿🍓🧜🥧❤️🌈

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Book Review: VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED by Frances White

| Jessica Crawford

Voyage of the Damned by Frances White is a standalone debut novel published in 2024.

Genre:

Fantasy

Subgenres:

Young Adult, Queer Romance, Murder Mystery

Opening Line:

My father always said: ‘You can’t run from your responsibilities,’ but he lacks imagination.

My Thoughts:

Confession: I bought this book solely because of how pretty it was.

Now that VOYAGE OF THE DAMNED by Frances White is a nominee in two categories of the 2024 Goodreads Choice Awards, I picked it up from my TBR stack. For the first chapter or two, I didn’t think it was going to be my jam, but I did wind up enjoying it quite a bit for what it was.

This book is YA Gideon the Ninth.

The young scions of each of the twelve provinces of the empire of Concordia are stuck on a ship with one another when they start dying mysteriously one by one. Each of them has their own special power (Blessing), as well as a hair and eye color based on their province (i.e. all people from Ox Province have red hair and red eyes, while everyone from Tiger Province has blue hair, etc.). The super snarky underdog queer main character has to figure out what’s really going on in this locked room murder mystery with magic.

This book thinks it is adult (and it is a nominee in the Fantasy category of the Goodreads Choice Awards, not Young Adult Fantasy), and so there are F-bombs and other curse words sprinkled throughout, plus plenty of sexual innuendo. But the tone and writing style were very young adult. I thought the main character was a teenager, until a good while in he tells someone he is twenty-two and a quarter. You know who describes their age using quarters? Children. All of the other characters are of a similar age and act pretty young.

The worldbuilding does not stand up to any amount of scrutiny whatsoever. But as long as you’re willing to just take it at its word and enjoy the ride, this is a fun story with lots of magic and murder, and a queer romance to boot. And that’s just what I was able to do – not question things too much, and have a good time!

Book Review: WICKED: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE WICKED WITCH OF THE WEST by Gregory Maguire

| Jessica Crawford

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire is 406 page novel published in 1995 by ReganBooks, and is the first in The Wicked Years series.

Genre:

Fantasy, Retelling

Opening Line:

A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind’s forward edge, as if she were a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling by the turbulent air.

My Thoughts:

Oh, this book–I wanted to live in its pages forever!

I can certainly see how this book would not be every reader’s cup of tea. It is not a fast paced, action packed, plot driven narrative. The writing is very literary in style as readers are planted in the world of Oz and learn of its cultures, religions, and politics through the lens of one woman’s life story. But the writing is also absurd and humorous at times, surprising laughs out of me when I wasn’t expecting them. The five Parts of the story follow different eras of Elphaba’s life, each section taking place several years after the previous one. Through her life story we confront questions of morality, faith, and philosophy. And though it fell apart a bit at the end for me and left me with many questions, I loved every minute of my time spent in Maguire’s Oz! (To be clear, I definitely would not want to LITERALLY spend time there.)

In Part I, Munchkinlanders, we meet Elphaba’s parents: Frex, the unionist minister, and Melena, often left alone at their remote cottage to console herself with mind-altering substances. Frex is on a mission to preach against tiktokism and the pleasure faith that is becoming more popular when Melena gives birth to their first child, who is born shockingly green of skin and with razor sharp teeth (and because the author seems to be rather fixated on male genitalia in this first part of the book, she is born with “a bit of organic effluvia” or something in her groin that makes the midwives argue at first over whether the infant is a boy or a girl). She also avoids water at all costs, as it seems to pain her. Frex and Melena believe this child is meant as a punishment for them, or perhaps that she is possessed by some devil.

Perhaps, thought Nanny, little green Elphaba chose her own sex, and her own color, and to hell with her parents.

When Melena is expecting again, she faithfully takes capsules provided by Yackle, a crone at an alchemy shop, to try to prevent a recurrence of the defects of her first child (instead, little Nessarose is born without arms). In the reading of tea leaves, Yackle predicts greatness for Melena’s children, two sisters.

“She said history waits to be written, and this family has a part in it.”

In this part of the story we also get introduced to the Quadlings of southern Oz, as Frex and Melena befriend a foreigner named Turtle Heart. Quadlings seem to be seers of some sort, and to be the only residents of Oz who are aware of our/Dorothy’s world. Quadling Country is swampy land where the people build their homes in the trees, connected by platforms secured with ropes. Workers from the Emerald City have begun to build dikes and divide the land into parcels that will no longer be self-sustainable, and then they find the land is rich in rubies. The Quadlings have foreseen a cruel and mighty stranger king arriving in Oz via hot air balloon, exterminating them in order to pillage their land for its riches. Frex decides this means the population down south are more in need of his ministrations, and he sets off with his pregnant wife, toddler daughter, and Quadling friend in tow.

“She is herself pleased at the half things,” Turtle Heart said. “I think. The little girl to play with the broken pieces better.”

In Part II, Gillikin, 17 year old Elphaba is off to university. She winds up befriending her pretty roommate, Galinda, which could not be more of a surprise to either of them.

Galinda was slow coming to terms with actual learning. She had considered her admission to Shiz University as a sort of testimony to her brilliance, and believed that she would adorn the halls of learning with her beauty and occasional clever sayings. She supposed, glumly, that she had meant to be a sort of living marble bust: This is Youthful Intelligence; admire Her. Isn’t She lovely?

Galinda does not understand why Elphaba spends so much time reading old sermons about the nature of good and evil. Pagans of yore believed evil originated with the vacuum created when the Fairy Queen Lurline, who they considered to be the the creator of Oz, left them: “When goodness removes itself, the space it occupies corrodes and becomes evil, and maybe splits apart and multiplies. So every evil thing is a sign of the absence of deity.” But the early unionists argued evil was an invisible pocket of corruption floating around, “a direct descendant of the pain the world felt when Lurline left”, and anyone might pass through it and become infected with evil by no fault of their own.

“But they believe in evil still,” said Galinda with a yawn. “Isn’t that funny, that deity is passe but the attributes and implications of deity linger-“

“You are thinking!” Elphaba cried.

During her time at this institution of higher learning, Elphaba becomes aware of the growing discrimination, encouraged by the laws passed by the Wizard of Oz who had usurped the Ozma Regent years before, against Animals (anthropomorphized, sentient and speaking versions of lower case A animals). One of their professors, Doctor Dillamond, is a Goat researching the biological basis for what makes an animal different from an Animal and from a human, to disprove that Animals are lesser and stop the inhumane treatment of those who had, up until the arrival of the Wizard, been considered equal members of society. It is during this time in her life that Elphaba learns her righteous indignity, a spirit of activism, and her derision for political machinations. This part of the story includes a murder, and a bid to recruit Elphaba, Glinda (who has changed her name for reasons I can’t explain without spoilers), and Nessarose into the service of the despotic Wizard. His Oz is “a seething volcano threatening to erupt and burn us in its own poisonous pus”, with “communities on edge, ethnic groups against one another, bankers against farmers and factories against shopkeepers”. The one attempting the recruiting assures Elphaba she can harness her spirit and she “needn’t live a life of unfulfilled rage”.

Also, an old woman named Yackle works selling tickets at some questionable sex club.

In Part III, City of Emeralds, we see Elphaba’s time as a secret agent, an underground activist. It is also when she carries out a romance with Fiyero, and I find I have to comment on his character here. I have never seen the Wicked musical, but I see that in the upcoming version, Fiyero is played by Jonathan Bailey, who seems lovely. I am a bit confused by this casting, though, as the character of Fiyero is an Arjiki prince from the Vinkus to the far west, a dark-skinned man with blue diamond tribal tattoos over his entire body. He is described as dark-skinned multiple times, ochre-skinned, and one character observes that his skin is the color of shit (this book is all about prejudice and discrimination in “civilized” society.) So why is he played by a white dude?

Also, Fiyero is kind of the worst. All he does is patently disregard and disrespect all of Elphaba’s clearly expressed wishes, so I don’t understand the romance between them at all. But he does allow for conversations with Elphaba about the ethics of her righteous campaign and the eschewing of personal responsibility for any collateral damage. There is talk of terrorists hiding behind their ideals, and when questioned about the chance for innocent bystanders to be caught in the crossfire, Elphaba goes so far as to say, “Any casualty of the struggle is their fault, not ours.” This is also when we first hear about Elphaba questioning the existence of souls, and that she certainly does not believe that she herself is in possession of one.

After some more murder, we find ourselves in Part IV, In the Vinkus. At the end of the previous section, Elphaba arrived at a mauntery (a convent) in a state of “dreamless, sleepless grief” and is welcomed by a decrepit old woman, mad Mother Yackle. Seven years later, it is time for Elphaba to finally leave the mauntery “to conduct an exercise in expiation”:

“You feel there is a penalty to pay before you may find peace. The unquestioning silence of the cloister is no longer what you need. You are returning to yourself.”

Elphaba joins a caravan headed into the Vinkus accompanied by Liir, a young boy raised among the orphans at the Cloister of Saint Glinda. They travel to Kiamo Ko, the seat of the royal family of the Arjiki, where Elphaba plans to seek forgiveness from Fiyero’s wife, Sarima. But Sarima will not hear of it:

“You want to throw down your burden, throw it down at my feet, or across my shoulders. You want perhaps to weep a little, to say good-bye, and then to leave…This is my home, I am a nominal Dowager Princess of Duckshit, but I have a right to hear and I have a right not to hear. Even to make a traveler feel better.”

There is more talk evil and good (“in folk memory evil always predates good”), and there is the question of who Liir’s parents are or were (I felt so bad for that little boy!) But Elphaba will not leave Kiamo Ko without being forgiven for what happened with her and Fiyero, and so she and Liir over time become part of the household and family. During this time, Munchkinland secedes from Oz.

In Part V, The Murder and its Afterlife, things have not been going well for Elphaba. Now her sister (who had come to be viewed as a religious tyrant) has been killed be a house falling from a tornado, and some foreign girl has the magic shoes that Nessarose had promised would be Elphaba’s if she were to predecease her. The Wizard and Elphaba each have something the other wants. There is more talk of Yackle, the Kumbric Witch of legend, the Clock of the Time Dragon, the Other Land, souls, good and evil, parentage. Who is in thrall to whom? And it all comes to a head in an ending we are familiar with from the Wizard of Oz, albeit through a different perspective than that told by the victor of the story.

What I didn’t love about this last part was that Elphaba here hardly seemed recognizable as the Elphaba in all the rest of the book. So I couldn’t really understand her motivations here. Some reviewers describe it as her descent into madness, so I guess that could explain it. But boy did I enjoy the journey getting to this point, and I think this book presented me with things I will be thinking about for a long time.

Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven, so you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it.

I think I MUST read the sequel at some point, since people seem to say it answers some of the questions left by this book. I look forward to it!

People who hated this book seem to primarily have picked it up either under the belief that it would be like the Broadway musical, which it apparently isn’t (and now I’m wondering if I really want to see the movie version of the musical after all, since I loved the book so much and will probably be disappointed by how different the movie/musical is), or under the belief that it was a children’s book because the source material it is reimagining was for children. So be aware: the musical based off of this book apparently takes liberties and does not follow it precisely (this grim story also seemed like a very odd choice to turn into a musical, to me); and this story explaining everything that Elphaba went through to shape her into the Wicked Witch of the West painted as the villain is most certainly not for children.

Book Review: THE MESMERIST by Caroline Woods

| Jessica Crawford

The Mesmerist by Caroline Woods is a 336 page standalone novel published by Doubleday in 2024.

Genre:

Historical Fiction, Mystery

Opening Line:

The poor young woman, the one everyone would take to calling the “ghost girl”, or worse, in a matter of weeks, found her way to the Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers by walking the railroad tracks.

My Thoughts:

The Mesmerist is historical fiction based on a real place in Minneapolis, The Bethany Home for Unwed Mothers, as well as on a true crime story that transpired in the area in 1894.

One night a newcomer arrives at Bethany Home seeking sanctuary, a traumatized young woman who, judging by her dress, worked as a “sporting woman” in a brothel. She does not seem to speak, but she does come with a suspiciously large amount of money on her person.

Abby Mendenhall doesn’t expect her charges at the Home to provide their real names, but she can’t help but wonder who the newcomer, given the appellation Faith, is—especially as it becomes clear there are people looking for her and stories of dead madams and prostitutes begin to circulate. The other inmates in the Home begin to speculate that Faith is a notorious mesmerist, and they keep their distance from her, spooked.

May is a woman whose one year at Bethany Home is almost at end, but she plans on getting herself a proposal from a gentleman before she is forced to choose between returning to grueling work in harsh conditions or else a brothel. She has set her sights on Hal, and when she meets his friends, she realizes that Faith also had crossed paths with them, in her life “before”. But what is the connection, exactly?

I enjoyed the vibes of this late nineteenth century, “Gilded Age” story, spending time among the philanthropic society ladies and unfortunate sporting women, in the parlors where various facets of spiritualism were having their heyday as entertainment. The chapters alternate among Faith, May, and Abby. The mysterious elements of the story were rather good. Sure, I gave the book some side-eye when characters convince themselves they acted against their will because someone with a magnetic personality (i.e. a mesmerist) suggested they do so. And there were some parts I would have liked to have delved into a little deeper. But the experience of reading the story was quite to my liking overall. 4.75 stars!

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Book Review: DEAREST by Jacquie Walters

| Jessica Crawford

Dearest by Jacquie Walters is a 304 page novel published by Mulholland Books (Hachette) in 2024.

Genre:

Horror

Opening Line:

When Flora wakes, her mouth is so dry that the inside of her cheeks are stuck to her teeth.

My Thoughts:

Flora’s military husband is deployed when she gives birth to their first child, Iris. By the time the baby is three weeks old, Flora is suffering from infected nipples on top of the sleep deprivation and the concerns about her fitness as a mother – she could really use some help. Somewhat desperate, she reaches out to her mother, who she hasn’t spoken with in four years. Jody shows up to help, but will Flora regret it?

This book started out really strong for me. Much of this horror novel is spent wondering, “Is there something nefarious going on, or is it postpartum psychosis?” Toward the end things went off the rails a bit, and though I still overall enjoyed it, I wasn’t completely satisfied with all of our answers. At one point burning the birth tusk was a bad thing we didn’t want to happen, why all of a sudden is it our goal? That is just one question I was left with, but overall I’d say this was still a 4.5 star read for me.

I listened to this on audio, and it’s narrated by the author herself. She has a nice voice and doesn’t do cringey things with it when speaking the dialogue of different characters, BUT the way she chose to say some things was really odd to me. Like, the parts of character’s lines she chose to emphasize, where she paused a bit too long – if I had read those lines of dialogue they would have come across perfect for the situation, but the way she chose to read them aloud was how no one would actually speak.