Nettle & Bone is fantasy from T. Kingfisher, and it’s lovely! There’s a good deal here that is more original than your standard fantasy fare these days.
Marra wants to protect her sister, even if that means killing a king. She isn’t some chosen one with supercharged powers, just a concerned relative and almost-nun who can embroider a mean stitch. It’s her determination that sees her completing unpleasant and even “impossible” tasks in order to recruit allies that can help her with her Quest.
The resulting fellowship is just plain wonderful: a wicked fairy godmother who enjoys gardening and animal husbandry, and who chooses blessings over curses; a warrior enslaved in the goblin market; a dust-wife who can communicate with the dead and who is accompanied by a hen possessed by a demon; and one Very Good Boy resurrected from bones. They must deal with a sorceress cursed with immortality and a catacomb filled with the royal dead, among other things.
And it’s FUNNY! If you like humorous cozy fantasy that still has high stakes, you should give this book a try.
How far would you be willing to go in the name of protecting your loved ones? And, perhaps more importantly, are you for or against demon chicken?
🐙 Come for the octopuses, stay for the story about communion, consciousness, and control!
The Mountain in the Sea is science fiction set in a near future when many industries are fully automated with AI. The Con Dao archipelago of Vietnam is a wildlife sanctuary for many species, including octopuses so intelligent they just might rivals humans. A tech corporation with a vested interest in seeing what can be learned from these animals has sent in researchers and sealed the area off, protecting it by deadly means if necessary.
The characters that this book primarily follows are:
Ha Nguyen, a marine biologist who struggles with the indifference people feel for the things that don’t personally affect them, and who learns the importance of connection, making oneself understood, and striving to understand others even if it doesn’t mean always agreeing with each other.
Rustem, a Tartar hacking genius who may have gotten involved in something bigger than he realized.
Eiko, a young Japanese man enslaved on an automated fishing rig.
Other characters include a badass mercenary security specialist from a nunnery, a scientist seeking mastery of creating consciousness in an attempt to fend off her own loneliness, and an android whose very existence puts them at risk from those who feel threatened by the idea of a nonhuman mind. Some of the verbal exchanges between the android and the security agent were a joy, very funny!
The octopuses feature a lot less in this book than I thought they would – I mean, a good portion of it is ABOUT the octopuses, but they actually only show up in a handful of scenes. It’s more about the people studying them, and how the world both exist in has been shaped by conscious ingenuity and all the good and bad it creates.
I was very excited to dive into this new fantasy novel from the creator of Murderbot, Witch King by Martha Wells! It comes complete with map, dramatis personae, and a gorgeous color palette.
Kai is a demon prince of the underearth. The book opens with him coming to, looking down at the corpse of his most recent host body in a glass coffin, and realizing he must have been murdered and then his consciousness trapped by magical means inside the tomb, preventing him from taking up residence another body. Lucky for him, a mage foolish enough to think he could control Kai and bind him as a familiar just unwittingly sprung him from his prison. Now Kai and his ride or die Zeide, who was also imprisoned, are on a mission to discover who betrayed them, and why.
This book presents alternating timelines. After a few chapters detailing this quest, there will be a chapter explaining Kai’s past, beginning more than a mortal lifetime ago: Kai as a young demon new to the mortal world, when a treaty between the underearth and a nomadic grassland peoples had resulted in the bodies of the latter’s dead being honored by hosting a demon, who will then briefly have access to the deceased’s mind and be able to share their final thoughts; Kai as a captive of the Hierarchs, a powerful civilization that came from the south and wiped out all societies in their path; Kai meeting the Witch Zeide, the Imortal Marshall Tahren, and the Prince-heir Bashasa of Benais-arik when the conquered peoples planned to rise up in rebellion against the Hierarchs and in hopes of ushering in a new world order. Along the way the reader is treated to plenty of action, adventure, and found family.
“How did it come to this, Kai? I remember how we started. Now you’re all razor blades and I’m an angry shrew.”
“No…You’re righteously furious. You’ve always had the high ground, Zeide…You’re right about me and the razors, though.” Most of the time he felt like he was made of razors, bleeding from the inside.
“I’ve always loved your razors, Kai. They’ve cut us out of a number of tangles. But it would be good if one day you could stop bleeding.”
There were many lovely characters and sentiments in this story. However, as much as I liked the world, the worldbuilding was rather complex and dense. There were also so many descriptions of what people were wearing, all the time. Descriptions of locations left me feeling a bit lost, as did the particulars of the different magic systems.
I liked Kai, but I’m a sucker for antiheroes and morally gray characters, and while even though Kai possesses (ha, a little demon humor there) some badass abilities, he is 100% teddy bear. Which will probably make him more sympathetic to some readers, just not as spicy. He is amusing at times, though!
“…why shouldn’t I sit next to a demon?” He turned to Kai. “Will I die if I touch you?”
“No,” Kai said, eyeing him. He seemed utterly sincere. “But don’t touch me.”
As much as I thought I was liking the story, I did find I had to keeping talking myself into picking it back up, so clearly I wasn’t 100% engaged. Then the final resolution of the “current day” timeline felt kind of anticlimactic. The things I mention here stopped me from loving this book, but I certainly still appreciated many things about it.
Leech by Hiron Ennes is Gothic horror set in a post-apocalyptic future. After climate disaster and the backfiring of man-made technology drove people underground, they finally resurfaced when it was safe(ish) and rebuilt, reclaiming some of the knowledge that was lost through records that were spared.
The main character is actually a gestalt intelligence formed by a parasite that takes control of the human hosts it infects. It hoards the world’s recovered medical knowledge for job security, in order to stay relevant and needed by humanity, and to maintain its evolutionary niche.
While working as a doctor for the draconian baron in the frozen wilds of the North (stalked by beings with unknown origins, but plenty of mythological possible origin stories), they discover a new (probably ancient but newly resurfaced) parasite that threatens everything.
The world-building here is truly impressive!
Of course the baron lives in a crumbling chateau and his family is comprised of a strange cast of characters (and ghosts?). Consent and bodily autonomy are big players in the story that unfolds.
Not for the faint of heart, this tale is creative, creepy, and really quite wonderful! I can’t wait to see what this author does next.
Between this book, Mexican Gothic, and What Moves the Dead, I’ve learned that apparently parasite horror is my jam!
Such a creative structure to this Pulitzer Prize-winning literary historical fiction novel! The form and some striking prose made this a 5 star read for me.
The four parts of the book are presented as a novel, the rough draft of a memoir, a complete memoir, and the entries in of private journal. You may be confused as to the point at first, but as you read along you will begin to realize what the different sections have to do with one another, and just what it is that they represent.
The story at the center revolves around the lives of a New York City power couple in the early twentieth century, a husband and wife whose social standing was gained through great successes on Wall Street. But taken together, the four parts of the book make the point that those in positions of relative power (due to wealth, status, sex, influence/reach) get to decide which voices are heard, thereby controlling the narrative and effectively “bending and realigning reality”.
And if the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction isn’t enough to tickle your discerning reader’s fancy, Trust was also one of The New York Times top ten books of 2022, longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, AND one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2022. BOOM!
After witnessing her teenage son kill a man she has never seen before, Jen finds herself further and further in the past each time she wakes up, and tries to understand what happened and why.
This time loop mystery not only keeps you guessing (well, I figured out the twists somewhere between pages 200 and 250, but it was still fun reading on to learn the “why” of things), it’s also a rather touching portrayal of how wonderful and difficult parenthood is.
Everything in parenthood feels so endless until it ceases.
They, mother and son, are a zipper, slowly separating as the years rush by.
The maternal habit of a lifetime, feeling guilty no matter which she chose.
Re-examining her relationships as she relives certain days from her past is just part of the investigating Jen performs while trying to understand what led to a stranger dead and her son in cuffs.
I do admit that several inconsistencies and oddities in the writing really got to me at times. Todd is described as pale in one scene, but then two days in the past he was tanned; he is said to have his father’s eyes and otherwise his features are all from his mother, but then later we read that he looks just like his father; a photograph of man with a shaved head is later described as a photograph of a man with light hair; the last time a certain day played out, we’re told both that Jen said something different to another character, but also that the last time it played out they never even saw each other. Jen’s husband has a tattoo of an inscribed date, the day he knew he loved her: “spring 2003” (that is a season, not a day); and a “quick, clean stab” resulted in three stab wounds. She assumed her son’s moodiness, secrecy, and weight loss were all just due to being a teenager; what could explain his recent bahavior: teenage rage, knife crime, gangs, or Antifa? I’m sorry, knife crime? That being included in that list just made me outright laugh.
Although it’s possible that some things I just misinterpreted due to differences in vernacular between British and American English (just as there was a lot of slang I wasn’t familiar with). They keep the office at 65 degrees, and whether that’s Celsius or Fahrenheit, either way seems too cold or much too hot. And she has a sofa in her kitchen at home, which Google tells me apparently is a thing, but just not a thing I can get on board with.
But despite these things, this was still a really engaging story, and I can recommend it without qualms to fans of thrillers and mysteries with a dash of sci-fi for flavor.
And for one last extremely relatable quote:
It’s useless to clean, she acknowledges, as she scrubs at the kitchen countertops and stacks the dishwasher. When she wakes up, yesterday, none of this will have been done, but isn’t that kind of always the way housework feels?
“What happens when the walls we raise outlive the dangers they were built to keep out? At what point does a fort become a cage?”
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott is a colorful adventure steeped in Eastern European folklore. It takes place in the current day U.S., and some magical elements borne of momentous events from long ago have left marks so profound they have been passed down through generations of the Yaga family.
“Lies? Of course, lies. But what is a lie if not a story? And ah, what power a story has when whispered into the ear of a man with a gun.”
A family of puppeteers and their newly inherited house on chicken legs are running from the Longshadow Man. But who/what/when is the Longshadow Man?
“We know plenty about what he isn’t,” Rummy offered with forced optimism.
“He’s not a jelly doughnut,” Sparrow contributed.
In essence the story is about bearing witness to past injustices that have taken on a life of their own and haunt the world still.
“A mob has no ears to call to, only a single mouth, yelling. A mob has no hands to hold, only a single finger, pointing. A mob has no head, only a single body, guideless, acting as it will.”
There a several interesting characters filling this tale, with nice LGBTIA+ representation, and a story as fun as it is meaningful. The prose is rather gorgeous. Thistlefoot was born to run, but catching hold of it will be well worth your while!
I’ve recently taken to listening to podcasts about books and reading, and a couple of them mentioned this gem. The problem with this situation is that the podcasts get me excited for new releases, and I have to either take my place on a long holds list through the library, or fork over the money to buy it—the takeaway being that my wallet has become MUCH lighter lately! But in this instance, I was good and waited for my turn with a library copy. Then promptly devoured it in next to no time at all!
The description of this mystery as a combination of Clue and The Great British Bake Off is an apt one! A popular baking competition reality TV show is filmed at the host, Betsy Martin’s, estate. Over the course of a week, contestants vie for the coveted Golden Spoon through a series of baking contests. But things are not going great for Season Ten, as an unwanted cohost has been foisted upon America’s Grandmother, and someone seems to be sabotaging the competition. First a contestant’s salt gets swapped with their sugar, but we know things are going to escalate quickly, as the prologue shows us Betsy discovering a dead body on set.
There was another family saga-type historical mystery with a Gothic vibe going on that I really dug. Many of the characters were a joy, even if I wasn’t 100% buying the characterization for some of them (looking at you, Hannah). There were some plot points I found a bit questionable, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying the heck out of this read, and consuming almost all of it in a single sitting (much like I do with baked goods). Brava!
It’s official: T. Kingfisher is now an autobuy author for me!
I adored the novella retelling of “The Fall of the House of Usher” that was What Moves the Dead, in all of its parasitic fungal glory; I greatly enjoyed Nettle & Bone, the rather original fantasy about a woman who aims to save her sister, relying on nothing more than sheer determination and her ability to gather a colorful fellowship to help her along the way. Now this Southern Gothic horror has clinched it for me. Take my money, Ms. Kingfisher!
A House with Good Bones follows Sam, an archaeoentomologist from Arizona, who goes to visit her mother in North Carolina in the house inherited from her real character of a grandmother. She is concerned because her mother has made some inexplicable changes to the house and is acting paranoid, as if someone is always listening. Plus there’s the committee of vultures (yes, that is the real term for it!) perched outside the house, watching. The handyman who takes care of her mother’s yardwork is a bit of a snack, but there’s something not quite right with the roses in the garden…
This book was so perfectly spooky with really wonderful characters (both the good and the bad), and it doesn’t hurt that the author and I clearly share some of the same social values. Not to mention I have a degree in anthropology, and so all of the archaeology bits were totally my jam. And the narration is very amusing! What’s not to love?
You have to drink a lot of coffee to cross Texas, but there are not rest stops nearly as often as there should be. Somewhere in West Texas, at the bottom of an off-ramp, a coyote is probably still wondering who left the strange mark in his territory.
Also, psychopomp is officially the word of the month, and the 1994 movie The Crow is the movie of the month, because both have come up in my reading/listening multiple times over the past few weeks (although it did hurt me when the 32 year old main character had never heard of The Crow…).
Jessica Crawford 