Author Archives: Goddess in the Stacks

TTT – Ten Most Recent Additions to my To-Read List

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Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. She has a linkup on her blog to collect everyone who’s participating each week! This week’s topic is the ten most recent additions to my to-read list, so let me pull up Goodreads and see what I’ve added recently!

First up I have The Bones of Ruin by Sarah Raughley. I added it because I saw it on Twitter as one of those “this book was just bought by X publisher to be published some years from now” so there isn’t even a cover yet. It’s a fantasy set in Victorian England about a tightrope walker that cannot die. She’s drafted into some tournament thing and learns the “terrible truth” of what she really is, and it’s a POC author, and it just looks fantastic. It’s not due out until 2021, but with it on my To-Read list, I’ll  be notified of any ARC giveaways, and Goodreads will email me to remind me when it’s released.

After that is Nahoko Uehashi’s The Beast Player and Joan He’s Descendant of the Crane, both for the Year of the Asian Reading Challenge. (Descendant of the Crane I had my eye on previously, though. It looks lovely. And that cover is gorgeous.)

Next is Love Poems (for Married People) by John Kenney. It looks amusing. After that is A House of Rage and Sorrow, the sequel to A Spark of White Fire. No cover yet. Hannah Capin’s The Dead Queens Club, a high school version of King Henry and his wives, is up next. I’ve heard good things about it, and it seems appropriate since the Ren Faire I work at runs King Henry’s court as its plot. (Currently Catherine is out of favor and Anne Boleyn is winning the King’s eye – one of the people we play D&D with plays Anne’s father at Faire!)

A lot of these books aren’t out yet – that’s part of why I mark them as to-read on Goodreads, to take advantage of possible giveaways, and the notification when they come out reminds me they exist!

More 2019 releases are Erin Morganstern’s The Starless Sea, about a magic library, Mary Fan’s Stronger Than a Bronze Dragon, and No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America by Darnell L. Moore. That last comes out the soonest, on February 19th!

My tenth book is actually an older book, released in 1989. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts, by Maxine Hong Kingston, hits both the Year of the Asian Reading Challenge AND my 50 states goal (which I need to make a page for!), since it’s about growing up Chinese-American in California.

 

Book Review: Taste of Marrow

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taste of marrowTaste of Marrow
by Sarah Gailey
Alternate History
187 pages
Published 2017

Another quick novella, Taste of Marrow is the sequel to the bizarre alternate history novella River of Teeth. It picks up a few months after the ending of the first – people have had a chance to heal their injuries from the explosive ending of the first book, and hippos have begun to spread to previously safe waterways. The cast of this book consists of the surviving characters from the first, plus only one more semi-important character.

It’s not quite as good as the first – no explosions and it’s less of a rollercoaster – but there is some character development, and a deeper exploration of a few characters than we saw in the first book. I wish my library had the omnibus edition, because it includes two short stories set in the same world, and I’m very curious which aspects of the world she explored in those.

But this is a fun pair of books, very quick, easy reads, and it’s just fun to say you’re reading a book about hippos and cowboys!

From the cover of Taste of Marrow:

A few months ago, Winslow Houndstooth put together the damnedest crew of outlaws, assassins, cons, and saboteurs on either side of the Harriet for a history-changing caper. Together they conspired to blow the dam that choked the Mississippi and funnel the hordes of feral hippos contained within downriver, to finally give America back its greatest waterway. 

Songs are sung of their exploits, many with a haunting refrain: “And not a soul escaped alive.”

In the aftermath of the Harriet catastrophe, that crew has scattered to the winds. Some hunt the missing lovers they refuse to believe have died. Others band together to protect a precious infant and a peaceful future. All of them struggle with who they’ve become after a long life of theft, murder, deception, and general disinterest in the strictures of the law.

Sunday Freak Out

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Oh my god, people. I’m going to be a homeowner. (My husband insists on saying ho-meow-ner, but I refuse to humor him.) We’ve rented all our adult lives, but he graduated college in December, and went from an internship to a full-time position at his company, and we started looking at houses. We put a bid in on Monday, it was accepted Tuesday, and we have the Home Inspection tomorrow. We’re closing later this month and I am SO. RIDICULOUSLY. EXCITED. Our roommates have applied for a nearby apartment – they’ll probably move before we do, actually.

I can’t wait to not have roommates anymore.

The house is gorgeous, a recently remodeled 1920 Colonial. 4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms – a bathroom on EVERY FLOOR! (Our bedroom is currently in the basement, and we have to go up to the main floor to use the bathroom.) The master bedroom is on the main floor, so less stairs if I’m having a bad knee day. The washer and dryer are on the second floor, which is unfortunate, but I’ll deal with it.

And it’s on almost half an acre! We need to put in a garage, a deck, and a hot tub. There’s even room to put in a pool eventually.

So the husband and I have been freaking out because holy crap, we’re buying a house! This is huge.

I’ll try to get some posts scheduled out ahead of time so the blog is still active while we move, but if I miss a few days in late February/early March, it’s because we’re moving! I haven’t quite figured out where I’m putting a reading nook in the new place, but there are some options.

I know I’m rambling a bit. But AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH BUYING A HOUSE.

Book Review: A Spark of White Fire

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spark of white fireA Spark of White Fire
by Sangu Mandanna
Science Fiction/Fantasy/Mythological Retelling
311 pages
Published September 2018

This book ripped my heart out and stomped on it. I started crying during one of the last scenes, and thought that was bad enough – then the next chapter just DESTROYED ME. It is the first book in a trilogy inspired by the Mahabharata (which I totally want to read now!) – the second book, A House of Rage and Sorrow, isn’t due out until September. September! What am I supposed to do until then?!

So. Wow. This is the first book I’ve read by Mandanna, though The Lost Girl sounds interesting. Given how good this one was, that one has moved higher on my list.

In A Spark of White Fire, we follow Esmae, a girl who was sent away at birth because her mother was told she’d destroy her family. Trying to subvert those kinds of curses never works out well. She’s grown up an orphan in a different kingdom, albeit one educated by royal tutors with the local princes, as requested by a goddess. (When the goddess of war asks you to educate an orphan girl with your sons, you do it.) All Esmae really wants is to return to her family; she believes the only way to do that, to claim her place with them, is to help her brother regain his throne. And she thinks she can best do that by winning this contest, earning the unbeatable space ship, and pretending to go join her uncle’s family so she has an inside channel to her brother’s enemies. It’s a little convoluted, but it is something that her brother desperately needs, so it kind of makes sense.

Things unfortunately don’t go as planned, and every attempt to escape fate only winds the net tighter.

I loved every character in this book, from the sentient warship Titania (who I wish we’d spent more time with!) to Esmae, her best friend Rama, her cousin Max, her brothers, even her uncle, the usurper king. And the gods. Everyone has such personality. They just leap off the page. Granted, some of them are trying to stab arrows into your heart, but they come to life regardless!

The family dynamics are really what the book is about – no one’s truly in the wrong, here, and no one really wants to kill each other, but pride, miscommunication, and bad advice rips them apart. Esmae and Max are doing their best to reconcile the two halves of the family, but the family resists them at every turn.

I actually picked this book for the Year of the Asian Reading Challenge January prompt, which is “Family.” I moved it up several spots in my To-Read list to make it a January book! I’m glad I did, though, it was absolutely amazing. I can’t wait for the next book!

From the cover of A Spark of White Fire:

When Esmae wins a contest of skill, she sets off events that trigger an inevitable and  unwinnable war that pits her against the family she’d give anything to return to.

In a universe of capricious gods, dark moons, and kingdoms built on the backs of spaceships, a cursed queen sends her infant daughter away, a jealous uncle steals the throne of Kali from his nephew, and an exiled prince vows to take his crown back.

Raised alone and far away from her home on Kali, Esmae longs to return to her family. When the King of Wychstar offers to gift the unbeatable, sentient warship Titania to a warrior that can win his competition, she sees her way home: she’ll enter the competition, reveal her true identity to the world, and help her famous brother win back the crown of Kali.

It’s a great plan. Until it falls apart.

Inspired by the Mahabharata and other ancient Indian stories, A Spark of White Fire is a lush, sweeping space opera about family, curses, and the endless battle between jealousy and love.

Friday 56 – A Spark of White Fire

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spark of white fireThe Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice. The rules are simple – turn to page 56 in your current read (or 56% in your e-reader) and post a few non-spoilery sentences.

This week’s quote is from A Spark of White Fire, a space opera retelling of the Mahabharata.

Rickard’s face flashes in and out of my mind, with that sudden smile that would transform him. I’m surprised by how much it hurts to think of him. By how much I still miss him.

The very last memory I have of him is the way he stepped onto the wing of his ship and then looked back one more time. I was trying not to cry – he could see that, and his face softened. You will always have a place in my heart. Those were the very last words he ever spoke to me. They’re the words I try to remember, the ones I cling to, because the ones that came before fill me with shame and despair every time I think of them.

Book Review: Blanca & Roja

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blanca rojaBlanca & Roja
by Anna-Marie McLemore
Young Adult/Fantasy/Magical Realism
375 pages
Published October 2018

This is another enchanting tale from the author of The Weight of Feathers. She’s a little different from my normal fairy-tale retellings, as these are inspired by fairy tales, and have the atmosphere of fairy tales, but aren’t recognizably any particular tale, and definitely don’t follow the normal plot of an particular tale. We know the story of Snow White and Rose Red. This isn’t it. We know the story of the Swan Princess or Swan Prince. This isn’t it. It has elements of both stories. But it is something entirely new and absolutely enthralling.

The story also has minority representation; both girls are Latina, and we have a nonbinary love interest for one of the girls, who is a fascinating character in her own right. (She expresses preference for she/her pronouns in the book.) The other love interest is seeing-impaired. He’s not blind, but he has a lot of issues with depth perception, so he’s constantly running into things and misjudging where things are.

Blanca & Roja grow up in a family where there are always two daughters, and as soon as the youngest turns fifteen, a bevy of swans shows up and picks one of the sisters to become a swan and join them. When past sisters have resisted, the swans have taken both. Blanca & Roja love each other so much, though, that they can’t imagine living without the other. So they try to become as indistinguishable from each other as possible, in the hopes that the swans won’t be able to decide between them and leave them both alone. Blanca drinks bitter things and feeds Roja sweets, eats red rose petals and feeds Roja white ones, each doing the opposite of their personality to bring them closer together. That, of course, doesn’t work.

But when the swans finally do come, it’s after a local boy and his best friend have gone missing in the woods, and the two teens have gotten their lives entwined with Blanca & Roja’s. The magic surrounding them collides with the magic surrounding the sisters, and the story you expect is not the one you get.

At this point, I will read anything McLemore publishes, because she is outstanding. Her novels are magical, lyrical, and atmospheric, melding fairy tales into shiny new stories. I can’t rave about this author enough!

From the cover of Blanca & Roja:

THE BIGGEST LIE OF ALL IS THE STORY YOU THINK YOU ALREADY KNOW.

The del Cisne girls have never just been sisters – they’re also rivals and opposites, Blanca as obedient and graceful as Roja is vicious and manipulative. They know that, because of a generations-old spell, their family is bound to a bevy of swans deep in the woods. They know that, one day, the swans will pull them into a dangerous game that will leave one of them a girl and trap the other in the body of a swan.

But when two local boys become drawn into the game, the swans’ spell intertwines with the strange and unpredictable magic lacing the woods, and all four of their fates depend on facing truths that could either save or destroy them.

Blanca & Roja is the captivating story of sisters, friendship, love, hatred, and the price we pay to protect our hearts.