Book Round-Up

 Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner: Weiner's mystery is set in a very wealthy suburb of New York. One glamorous mother is killed, and another, not-so-glamorous mother tries to figure out who did it. The mystery itself and its resolution was interesting, but the narrator drove me nuts -- a very wealthy, white, educated woman who felt sorry for herself because she didn't fit in with the others, but she never really tried, she judged them just as much as they judged her, and she wasn't actually that different from them.

The Bookshop of Second Chances by Jackie Fraser: A delightful romance with grown-ups who (mostly) behaved like grown-ups, set in a bookshop, against the backdrop of Scotland's wild terrain. What's not to like?

Ombria in Shadows by Patricia McKillip: Another of her lyrical, somewhat unconventional novels. The various characters, and the city of Ombria as a whole, face a great upheaval with the death of the Prince, and lurking behind and underneath everything is a shadow city that may take over without anyone being the wiser. This last element reminded me of both Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere and China Miéville's The City and the City. But these three stories could not be more different in their interpretation of a hidden city.

Fossil Men by Kermit Pattison: my lone nonfiction read for Nonfiction November (not that I read a lot of nonfiction). In college I took a course in paleo-anthropology and read Donald Johanson's Lucy: the Beginnings of Humankind. This book served nicely to update me on all the advances, discoveries, and revisions since Lucy.

Book Round-Up: Darktober Edition

The Plague Court Murders by Carter Dickson: a locked-room mystery set in a creepy, gothicky house -- perfect for October! It was an enjoyable read, although the dialog was a bit much. Did people really talk like that in the 30s, or was it a literary convention?

Season of the Witch by Natasha Mostert: A corporate spy with a talent for remote viewing becomes entangled with two sisters who are witches. They weren't very witchy, though, as the novel focused on psychic powers, which was mildly disappointing. Nonetheless, it was entertaining enough, although the fetishization of the wealth of all the main characters got tedious. 

When Autumn Leaves by Amy S. Foster: This novel started strong, with each section devoted to a particular woman or two in a paganish, Stars Hollow-like town, but a couple of the later stories left a bad taste in my mouth. Apparently this was meant to be the start of a series, and I definitely would have read more -- I did enjoy most of the characters, and many of the story lines are unfinished in one way or another -- but the author (or the publisher?) changed her mind. As as stand-alone, then, the story might have been served better by integrating all the characters into a single narrative, rather than isolated chapters. 

Hide me Among the Graves by Tim Powers: I can't get enough of his blend of historical and supernatural fiction. This one is a kind of sequel to The Stress of Her Regard (which I have not read), and is about two vampires (a.k.a. the Biblical Nephilim) hunting the citizens of London, from mudlarks, former prostitutes, and veterinarians to the artists Christina and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. An excellent read, with a novel take on vampires.

The King in Yellow and Other Stories by Robert Chambers: The first few stories, quite spooky, have as a linking element a fictional play called The King in Yellow, which purports to induce madness in those who read it. However, the stories gradually transition away from any supernatural element into a more romantic style about artists and bohemians living in New York City and Paris; they were kind of a let-down, to be honest.

Those Who Hunt the Night by Barbara Hambly: Another vampire novel set in London, this time 1907, and it's the first in a series described as "for those who hate the Twilight books." James Asher is a former spy and current Oxford professor hired by a very dangerous vampire to find out who's been killing vampires. It's not as intricate as Powers's book, but very enjoyable.