House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

The Twelve Dancing Princesses was one of my favorite fairy tales as a child. I had a gorgeous version illustrated by Errol Le Cain; I flipped through the pages hundreds of times, sometimes reading the text and sometimes searching the drawings for a new detail. That book has long since worn out, but I framed the cover, with its 12 dancers in ornate ballgowns.

Erin A. Craig's debut novel is a retelling of the story: Annaleigh is the daughter of a duke, not a princess, and grieving over the mysterious deaths of four of her sisters. The all-night balls and worn-out slippers are here, but secondary to Annaleigh's determination to find out what happened to her sisters.

The story was a little long; I think Craig could have skipped some of the numerous and lengthy descriptions of dresses, palaces, and festivals. But the world she created was fascinating: the People of the Salt worship an ocean deity, and their lives revolve around the sea and its denizens. Gods and demigods walk the lands and regularly interfere in the lives of humans. There are ghosts and storms and monsters, an ancient, crumbling mansion and a salt-covered lighthouse -- perfect reading for November.

And look at the endpapers!

It's rare that I find a modern book with artistic endpapers. A fun detail for an enjoyable book.

Book Round-Up: Autumn Edition

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-García: This was a good read, a supernatural tale involving Mayan mythology set in 1920s Mexico. The third-person narration was a bit inconsistent in its voice, sometimes subjective and limited, sometimes objective and omniscient. The ending was bittersweet, and entirely fitting for the characters and world Moreno-García described.

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym: A melancholic look at four older characters, each lonely and uncertain to a greater or lesser extent as they approach the last phase of their lives. Pym's gentle narrative does not shy away from the sadness or regrets the four experience, but there are lovely notes of grace, too.

The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths: a rather gentle but still creepy modern gothic novel. It's a little meta -- one of the main characters is an English teacher specializing in gothic fiction -- and a wee bit satirical, with interesting characters and suitably foggy, dark atmosphere.

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware: a more traditional gothic novel, complete with crumbling mansion, nasty housekeeper, and cold, grey weather. There are cell phones and lattes, but the thrilling plot is timeless.

Yarrow: an Autumn Tale by Charles de Lint: in my early twenties I went through a period where I read a bunch of de Lint's works -- urban fantasy stories set in Canada, incorporating Old and New World mythologies and folklore. This fall I was in the mood to read more by him, so I picked up Yarrow. It's an early novel, and it shows. His storytelling style is there, in the use of parallel worlds and the importance of creativity, but the resolution wasn't quite coherent. On the other hand, his secondary characters, particularly the ones that aren't on the side of the protagonists, were more well-rounded than they would be in later novels. 

Day of the Dead Necklace

All Saints Day and All Souls Day rushed by too quickly this year, but I did manage to make it to Mass, and I whipped up a charm necklace:

It started with a set of Tierra Cast Day of the Dead charms I had. Blueberry Cove Bead's DotD box had teal and marigold beads, which I picked up in a destash sale they held; I added a strand of purple beads. I had a collection of black glass beads with different colored lampwork flowers, so I used the orange, green, and purple ones. I also had tiny metal purple roses. A large painted skull bead, a smaller skull bead leftover from earrings I made a while back, and some ceramic bone-shaped beads I picked up who-knows-where completed the theme. While rooting around my stash, I found a Guatemalan worry doll all by his lonesome; his clothes matched the colors I was using, so I added him, too.

The necklace isn't quite done. I feel quite strongly that I need a yellow orange flower bead at either end of the charms, to more obviously represent marigolds. The marigold beads are round, though, and trying to weave them into a flower shape will look too clunky. I have glass flower beads that would be perfect, but they are just a bit too yellow. So I will wait for the perfect beads, and wear the necklace as is in the meantime.