On the Edge (Novel of the Edge, #1)

On the Edge
by Ilona Andrews
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780441017805
Series: Novel of the Edge #1
Publication Date: September 29, 2009
Pages: 336
Genre: Fiction, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

Well, it just goes to show you: people change and you should never say never. I read this book back in 2016 and my review from that reading was … unfavourable, ending with my declaration that I’d never read the book again.

Shows you what I know. I not only read it again, I liked it better than I did the first time. It’s still a little too PNR for me, but I found it easier to get into the story, the setting and the characters. Maybe because I’d already read it and had a vague recollection of not liking the romantic interest, I found him less unbearable than I expected to, and the non-consent issues didn’t feel as egregious this time around, only typically arrogant.

I can’t really say why, except maybe I’ve read more Ilona Andrews’ since, or my mood was more receptive to the story. Who knows? But I went from rating this 3 stars and never reading it again, to rating it 4 stars and buying a copy of it for my shelves. Along with the other 3 book in the series.

I’ve been intending to read this since I ordered it back in July, but its arrival during Halloween Bingo was fortuitous; it’s a great fit for the Relics and Curiosities square. The story line centers on a powerful artefact from a previous civilisation that eats magic and spits out something very akin to a demon hound.

Ex libris

Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader
by Anne Fadiman
Rating: ★★★★★
isbn: 9780374527228
Publication Date: November 25, 2000
Pages: 162
Genre: Books and Reading
Publisher: Farrar Straus and Giroux

Anne Fadiman is--by her own admission--the sort of person who learned about sex from her father's copy of "Fanny Hill," whose husband buys her 19 pounds of dusty books for her birthday, and who once found herself poring over her roommate's 1974 Toyota Corolla manual because it was the only written material in the apartment that she had not read at least twice. This witty collection of essays recounts a lifelong love affair with books and language. For Fadiman, as for many passionate readers, the books she loves have become chapters in her own life story.

Writing with remarkable grace, she revives the tradition of the well-crafted personal essay, moving easily from anecdotes about Coleridge and Orwell to tales of her own pathologically literary family. As someone who played at blocks with her father's 22-volume set of Trollope ("My Ancestral Castles") and who only really considered herself married when she and her husband had merged collections ("Marrying Libraries"), she is exquisitely well equipped to expand upon the art of inscriptions, the perverse pleasures of compulsive proof-reading, the allure of long words, and the satisfactions of reading out loud. There is even a foray into pure literary gluttony--Charles Lamb liked buttered muffin crumbs between the leaves, and Fadiman knows of more than one reader who literally consumes page corners.

Perfectly balanced between humor and erudition, "Ex Libris" establishes Fadiman as one of our finest contemporary essayists.

I loved this from first word to last. A collection of essays first published in Civilization, each about some facet of the love of books or the written word.

Her first essay, Marrying Libraries started the collection off on a high note with me; after 10 years together, I still can’t quite embrace the marriage of my books with MT’s: he has his shelves and I, mine. I’ve only recently (last weekend) catalogued his books in my database software; until that point neither of us knew what he had or didn’t.

Other highpoints of the collection for me included Never Do That To a Book, My Ancestral Castles and Secondhand Prose. Fadiman’s essay on plagiarism was…interesting. I’m fairly sure it’s heavily satirical, (it’s 10 pages long and has 38 footnotes, some rather absurd) but reading it, it is clear that she has strong feelings about the theft of other people’s work. I was left with the feeling that she felt conflicted about such a sticky subject. She has also written an outstanding essay on compulsive proofreading, whose title includes those handwritten edits that are impossible to reproduce on a screen with nothing but a keyboard. But it’s one of my top three favourites of the book.

Ex Libris wraps up with a small chapter of recommended reading; a list of books about books; a list I’ll be using in the next few days as I look for more titles to add to my TBR.

Lost Lake

Lost Lake
by Sarah Addison Allen
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250019820
Publication Date: January 6, 2015
Pages: 296
Genre: Magical Realism
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

The first time Eby Pim saw Lost Lake, it was on a picture postcard. Just an old photo and a few words on a small square of heavy stock, but when she saw it, she knew she was seeing her future.

That was half a life ago. Now Lost Lake is about to slip into Eby's past. Her husband George is long passed. Most of her demanding extended family are gone. All that's left is a once-charming collection of lakeside cabins succumbing to the Southern Georgia heat and damp, and an assortment of faithful misfits drawn back to Lost Lake year after year by their own unspoken dreams and desires.

It's a lot, but not enough to keep Eby from relinquishing Lost Lake to a developer with cash in hand, and calling this her final summer at the lake. Until one last chance at family knocks on her door.

Lost Lake is where Kate Pheris spent her last best summer at the age of twelve, before she learned of loneliness, and heartbreak, and loss. Now she's all too familiar with those things, but she knows about hope too, thanks to her resilient daughter Devin, and her own willingness to start moving forward. Perhaps at Lost Lake her little girl can cling to her own childhood for just a little longer... and maybe Kate herself can rediscover something that slipped through her fingers so long ago.

One after another, people find their way to Lost Lake, looking for something that they weren't sure they needed in the first place: love, closure, a second chance, peace, a mystery solved, a heart mended. Can they find what they need before it's too late?

At once atmospheric and enchanting, Lost Lake shows Sarah Addison Allen at her finest, illuminating the secret longings and the everyday magic that wait to be discovered in the unlikeliest of places.

I’d heard through the book vine that Lost Lake was one of Allen’s weaker offerings, but its synopsis pulled me in more than The Peach Keeper‘s and it was the only one my library had.

Reading it, I can understand the meh reactions; emotionally, the book doesn’t have much of a build-up of tension. But I read First Frost and compared to that one, this was (sorry Ms. Allen) stellar. I really liked Eby and Kate… I pretty much liked all the characters. Even Selma, and I think that went a long way towards offsetting the lack of dramatic arc. Lisette did get on my nerves a tiny bit, but wasn’t so bad that she overshadowed the rest. I loved Billy. Like the apple tree in Garden Spells, Billy was my favourite of this book.

The climax of the story line between Kate and her mother-in-law Cricket ended weirdly: very much with a whimper instead of the bang I was expecting, although Cricket’s disappearance for the second half of the book didn’t feel odd except in hindsight. I thought it was refreshing to have two main characters that were not emotionally damaged or needed fixing; bad things happened to them but they pulled themselves up instead of running to someone else.

Overall, I just enjoyed the book. I didn’t love it like The Girl Who Chased the Moon or Garden Spells but I did like it enough to lose myself in the story.

This is my book for the Magical Realism square in 2016 Halloween Bingo.

As Death Draws Near (Lady Darby Mystery, #5)

As Death Draws Near
by Anna Lee Huber
Rating: ★★★★★
isbn: 9780425277720
Series: A Lady Darby Mystery #5
Publication Date: July 5, 2016
Pages: 342
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Mystery
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime

I love this book, but it’s getting a bonus 1/2 star bump for being both historically accurate and immediately relevant.

Gage and Kiera are on their honeymoon when they are summoned to Ireland to investigate the death of a young woman, a postulant at the Loretto convent; a recent convert from Anglicanism and a distant cousin of Wellington.

The story’s time – the early 1800’s – and its setting in Ireland, make it the perfect vehicle for exploring religious intolerance and prejudice. If I had to guess, I’d say the author is Roman Catholic, but it’s just a guess, as I think both the Protestants and the Catholics are treated equally. Either way, it is clear that the author is writing from a place of faith herself; the story does not proselytise and it’s not a ‘Christian’ book but its plot is entirely about religion and Huber writes without cynicism, whether she’s talking about its grace or its hypocrisy.

The mystery itself was devastating and complex; I was so very sure I knew where it was going, and I was so very wrong. I saw a small twist coming a mile away but it didn’t go where I thought it would at all. The ending was heart wrenching and gutting and that twist totally blind-sided me.

The author includes a note at the end that discusses what she used from history (a lot) and what she created; she also includes a few recommended reads for those interested in going further. This was an incredibly well-written, entertaining mystery with the added bonus of giving the reader quite a bit to chew on in terms of what people will do to each other in the name of religion and I thought it was handled deftly without being judgemental.

These people, these neighbors, both Protestant and Catholic alike, who spat at each other with such hatred that it sometimes erupted into violence, did so because their faith was slightly different. Because they couldn’t be bothered to learn the truth about each other.

Easily one of my top 5 favourite series – can’t wait for the next one.

The Curse of Tenth Grave (Charley Davidson, #10)

The Curse of Tenth Grave
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781250078193
Series: Charlie Davidson #10
Publication Date: June 4, 2016
Pages: 342
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

If one door closes and another one opens,
your house is probably haunted.
—Bumper Sticker

As a Part-time PI and fulltime grim reaper, Charley Davidson has asked a lot of questions throughout her life: Why can I see dead people? Who is the hot supernatural entity following me? How do I get gum out of my sister’s hair before she wakes up? But, “How do I trap not one malevolent god, but three?” was never among them. Until now. And since those gods are on earth to kill her daughter, she has little choice but to track them down, trap them, and cast them from this dimension.

Those are just a few of the questions Charley must answer, and quick. Add to that a homeless girl running for her life, an innocent man who’s been charged with murdering the daughter of a degenerate gambler, and a pendant made from god glass that has the entire supernatural world in an uproar, and Charley has her hands full. If she can manage to take care of the whole world-destroying-gods thing, we’re saved. If not, well…

Ah, this is much better. We’re back in New Mexico, Charley’s home and she has more than a couple of very cool cases. She’s owning who she is in a rather fabulous way; neither all good nor all bad and only either when it’s necessary.

The only bee in my bonnet was the whole relationship let’s-not-talk-about-what’s-bothering-us trope, and it was followed up by what should have been a fabulous scene consisting of several pages of Charley and Reyes talking everything out and uh…other stuff. In fairness, it was a good scene, but at that point I was itching to move the mythological story line along, so it was definitely my impatience, not Jones’ failure. On a side note, I’m totally going to use the Twister idea the next time my nieces are fighting (read the book; it’s not as weird as it sounds).

Jones kept me waiting for the mythology, but when she delivered, she delivered big. Fascinating stuff, tons of reveals, although it seems she’s going further than just stretching classical biblical mythology, using it instead as a springboard for a much larger polytheistic mythology of her own. I think she’s missed the point of Jehovah’s true nature, but I’m still on board – I want to see if she’ll take forgiveness as far as it actually goes. Lots of good theological conversation starters here.

Can’t wait for 11!

The Dirt on Ninth Grave (Charley Davidson, #9)

The Dirt on Ninth Grave
by Darynda Jones
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9781250074485
Series: Charlie Davidson #9
Publication Date: January 16, 2016
Pages: 326
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Charley Davidson is living in New York City as Jane Doe, a girl with no memory of who she is or where she came from. So when she begins to realize she can see dead people, she’s more than a bit taken aback. Strangers who enter the diner where she works seem to know things about her…Then she is confronted by a man who claims to have been sent to kill her. Sent by the darkest force in the universe. An enemy that will not stop until she is dead. Thankfully, she has a Rottweiler. And the diner’s devastatingly handsome fry cook, who vows to protect her even though he seems to be lying with every breath he takes. But in the face of such grave danger, who can Jane/Charley/whoever she is trust? She will find the truth even if it kills her…or the fry cook. Either way…

My personal health reality includes sleeping medications, so I rarely suffer from anything that could be called insomnia. Except on very rare occasions when they fail, and last night they failed spectacularly – I never went to sleep. I finally started to nod off when MT’s alarm went off and I briefly contemplated instigating a domestic disturbance.

The good news – I guess – is that I finished The Dirt on Ninth Grave in one sitting. I was engrossed enough in the story to not want to put it down, but I’d have preferred not feeling like a zombie on toast today.

I definitely, thoroughly, enjoyed this book but I liked it the least of the nine books so far. It was the amnesia thing. We finally got to a place in the story arc where we had answers and a clear goal in site and then this book comes along and we’re temporarily rebooted to Charley not knowing anything. I thought this would only last a few chapters… maybe half the book at the outside, but nope: Charley doesn’t snap out of it until the end.

I saved this book until The Curse of Tenth Grave was released because I’d read from several places that Ninth Grave ended on a cliffhanger. I’ll argue this ending isn’t a cliffhanger though, because the action comes to an end; the story is paused. A major story-arc plot twist is revealed, but it’s more a ‘how will this affect the arc’ twist, rather than ‘ohmigod is someone gonna die in chapter 1 of book 10?!?’.

…I think. Thankfully, I have the next book sitting here waiting, so I can find out. After I take a nap.

(I might use this book as the Book with a terrible cover Summer Book Bingo square. It’s not objectively terrible, but I don’t like it.)

Persuasion

Persuasion
by Jane Austen
Rating: ★★★★½
isbn: 9781435127432
Publication Date: January 1, 2012
Pages: 228
Genre: Fiction, Literature
Publisher: Barnes and Noble

This was my “comfort read” for the Summer Book Bingo. It’s a re-read, so there’s not much more for me to say than I’ve said before. It’s Austen. It’s brilliant.

I refrained from 5 stars only because it starts a bit slow and it’s not Pride & Prejudice, the standards by which I judge all my regency. 😉

On the Edge

On the Edge
by Ilona Andrews
Rating: ★★★
isbn: 9780441017805
Series: Novel of the Edge #1
Publication Date: September 29, 2009
Pages: 336
Genre: Fiction, Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Ace

I love the Kate Daniels series and the synopsis for this one sounded pretty good; a place where two worlds overlapped – an in-between space only certain people could live. Intriguing.

But… no. The writing is solid, descriptive, evocative. But this is much more a paranormal romance than an urban fantasy and animal cruelty is just treated too casually for me; it’s not graphic, but it’s prevalent.

This is also a book that would lose a lot of readers in the first half, especially those with low tolerance for male posturing and non-consent (no rape, to be clear, just the whole ‘I will have you! crap). Andrews’ here is a bit too clever for their own good (what is the proper pronoun usage for 2 people writing under 1 name?!?): a lot of readers won’t have the tolerance to stick around and discover just how wrong perceptions are in the first half of the book.

Overall, I’m not sorry I read it, but I won’t read it again and I won’t read the second book (I think there’s a second book…). I’ll stick with Kate and Curran.

Lost Among the Living

Lost Among the Living
by Simone St. James
Rating: ★★★★
isbn: 9780451476197
Publication Date: April 5, 2016
Pages: 318
Genre: Fiction, Paranormal
Publisher: NAL / New American Library

England, 1921. Three years after her husband, Alex, disappeared, shot down over Germany, Jo Manders still mourns his loss. Working as a paid companion to Alex's wealthy, condescending aunt, Dottie Forsyth, Jo travels to the family's estate in the Sussex countryside. But there is much she never knew about her husband's origins...and the revelation of a mysterious death in the Forsyths' past is just the beginning...

All is not well at Wych Elm House. Dottie's husband is distant, and her son was grievously injured in the war. Footsteps follow Jo down empty halls, and items in her bedroom are eerily rearranged. The locals say the family is cursed, and that a ghost in the woods has never rested. And when Jo discovers her husband's darkest secrets, she wonders if she ever really knew him. Isolated in a place of deception and grief, she must find the truth or lose herself forever.

And then a familiar stranger arrives at Wych Elm House...

Of the 5 Simone St. James books I’ve read (and she’s published), this is the one I’ve liked the least. Not to say it’s not a very good, well-written story–it is–it’s just much less gothic-y than at least 3 of the others.

This book felt like it was slow to start, because of that last line in the synopsis; they should have left that off, because I spent the first x% of the book waiting for the stranger to appear. Only after that happened did I feel like the book picked up speed. This story also felt somehow less creepy; maybe it’s just that I’ve read all the books too close together, and my threshold is lower. Old creepy mansion: check. Dark gray, misty atmosphere: check. Ghosts: check. But still, somehow, not that creepy.

Lost Among the Living was also a lot more of a straight-up mystery: while the other books had a mystery aspect to them, the focus was on the hauntings. Here, the focus is on what happened to Frances, the parallels between her life and Jo’s, and what Jo is going to do with her life going forward. There’s also a lot less (read: no) sexual tension in this book, and I do find that spices a read up, even when romance is not the point.

This sounds like a rather negative review, but I still thoroughly enjoyed this book; it’s a great story and it’s well written and it pulled me in. My small dissatisfactions stem from the expectations I had from previous reads that I unfairly applied to this book and the author isn’t writing cookie-cutter plots. Indeed, the next book’s preview is at the end of this one and it’s the first one she’s written that takes place in present day, with an alternating timeline in the 50’s. Not sure if I want to go there, but I have the next year to adjust to the idea.

An Inquiry Into Love and Death

An Inquiry into Love and Death
by Simone St. James
Rating: ★★★★★
isbn: 9780451239259
Publication Date: March 5, 2013
Pages: 355
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Historical
Publisher: NAL / New American Library

Boy howdy can St. James write a ghost story! I love this book; I woke up at 6.30 this morning and did nothing until I finished it and then I re-read a few passages just to make it last longer.

In 1920’s England, Oxford student Jillian Leigh’s uncle Toby, a renowned ghost hunter, is killed in a fall off a cliff, and she must drive to the seaside village of Rothewell to pack up his belongings.

Almost immediately, unsettling incidents—a book left in a cold stove, a gate swinging open on its own—escalate into terrifying events that convince Jillian an angry spirit is trying to enter the house. Is it Walking John, the two-hundred-year-old ghost who haunts Blood Moon Bay? Was Toby’s death an accident?

The arrival of handsome Scotland Yard inspector Drew Merriken leaves Jillian with more questions than answers. Even as she suspects someone will do anything to hide the truth, she begins to discover spine-chilling secrets that lie deep within Rothewell…

If you’re a horror or psychological horror lover, pass this review right on by; this book is a cream puff in comparison to your regular fare, but for the rest of us, this is truly an old-school, spooky ghost story with a mystery and a romance (oh the romance…). There’s nothing gothic about the story, but I keep thinking of the old gothics anyway, for lack of any better comparison.

I probably should have gone 4.5 stars because Jillian goes through an improbable – neigh, impossible – number of physical calamities to still be standing upright. Or breathing, really. But the story was just so good; I was sucked in so thoroughly that I was willing to overlook her superhuman regenerative powers. Inspector Merriken was incentive enough to spur on a rapid recovery.

Ok, anything else I say beyond this point would just be repetitive gushing. I loved this book; it gave me exactly the experience I hope for every time I start a new story and I’ll be looking for more of this author’s work.