Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-GarcÃa: 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-GarcÃa 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.
