What Feasts At Night by T. Kingfisher: Book Review

What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If this was a fairy tale, it was the kind where everyone gets eaten as a cautionary tale about straying into the woods, not the sentimental kind that ends with a wedding and the words, “And if they have not since died, they are living there still.”

What Feasts At Night by T. Kingfisher is the second book in the Sworn Soldier series, in which Alex Easton returns to their hunting lodge to find the caretaker dead, learns about the local superstition regarding ghosts appearing in dreams, confronts their belief/ non-belief in the supernatural and chooses to do everything they can to protect their friends.

Kingfisher's terrific world-building continues in this second book, this time leaning more on the supernatural. The characters retain their deadpan humour however and their interactions are still fun to read!

The story is fast paced, showing how belief in the supernatural is viewed by different characters. The writing weaves superstition, dreams, hallucinations and internal battles brilliantly, emphasizing survival instinct and acceptance of the battle to win.

It can’t have worked, I thought. You can’t really kill someone in a dream. This isn’t just a dream, though. It’s the war.

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[One star for the premise and the whole book; Half a star for the characters; Half a star for the story; One star for the writing; 3/4 star for the world-building - 3 3/4 stars in total, rounded up to 4 stars.]

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What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher: Book Review

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I looked across the tarn to the house and sighed myself.
It was not a promising sight. It was an old gloomy manor house in the old gloomy style, a stone monstrosity that the richest man in Europe would be hard-pressed to keep up. One wing had collapsed into a pile of stone and jutting rafters. Madeline lived there with her twin brother, Roderick Usher, who was nothing like the richest man in Europe.

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher is a slightly creepy retelling of the Gothic Poe original The Fall of the House of Usher, in which we see the protagonist Alex Easton visit their friends Madeline and Roderick Usher, get introduced to mycology, identify the cause of some strange behaviour in the wildlife there and help the Ushers in dealing with it.

The retelling seems to be more or less faithful to the original story and characters, though we see Kingfisher's characterization skills in the sworn soldier Alex, their valet Angus, the very British mycologist Miss Potter and the American Doctor Denton. This retelling is supported by some terrific world-building - not at all supernatural, but still alien enough to be horrifying - in explaining the Fall, literally and figuratively.

The dead don’t walk. The dead don’t walk. If they did, then … then … I don’t know what. Something dreadful.

The tone of the writing is horror with a healthy (or unhealthy) amount of creepy. Kingfisher still manages to infuse the writing with her deadpan humor, which I enjoyed. The most deadpan character would be Alex's world-weary horse Hob, with the valet Angus being a close second, and Alex's relationship with both is a comfort.

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[Half a star for the premise and the whole book; 3/4 star for the characters; Half a star for the story arc; Half a star for the writing; 3/4 star for the world-building - 3 stars in total.]

Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson: Book Review

 

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

“Thank God we’re (crime writers) just inventing it! If one of the six of us was to die right now, you’d have five suspects who all know how to get away with murder.”

The premise of Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson is exactly that - one of the authors at a writer's festival happening on a train is murdered and everyone else on the train is a suspect, including all the other writers who've done their research on how to get away with murder. Ernest Cunningham, one of the invitees for his book Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone, tries to solve the mystery by banking on the individual expertises of all the writers, work on his next book, inject some romance into the proceedings, and also (less importantly) manages to defend his use of adverbs and learn to pronounce denouement.

If you think you don’t already know the rules to writing a murder mystery, trust me, you do. It’s all intuitive. I’m writing this in first person. First person equals survival. The rules are simple: nothing supernatural; no surprise identical twins; the killer must be introduced early on and be a major enough character to impact the plot. To prove the point, I’ll tell you that I use the killer’s name, in all its forms, exactly 106 times from here.

The plot and the character arcs fulfill the promise made by this premise and kept me hooked enough to finish the book. I particularly enjoyed Stevenson's style of writing as he emulates the Golden Age mysteries, but with his own breaking-the-fourth-wall flippant humor. Ernest's (Stevenson's) perspective in describing the setting and all the players involved initially was good, but his arc from a disinterested detective to an active player who stood to lose a lot as the stakes got higher was more satisfying!

I will point out that one inadvertent mimicry is the curious coincidence that both cases are solved by a piece of punctuation. Last year it was a full stop. This time, a comma saves the day.

I generally enjoy writers and actors breaking the fourth wall, if subtly done. There was quite a lot that worked in this book, like the little pronouncement about the comma at the beginning of the book. I will admit I kept a look out for suspicious commas and maybe even errant semi-colons.

I also see the point in making sure that the killer is a major character and has enough of an on-page presence. What I did not enjoy was keeping an active tally of the number of times each character was mentioned! Not to forget the number of writers on the train at any given time. The rules followed by the Golden Age mystery writers were to promote one purpose: To allow the reader the satisfaction of deducing the killer on their own, based on everything written that far. This constant counting of the number of times any given name appeared in the book did not promote any rational or logical thought towards figuring out the mystery and kept detracting from the reading experience.

However, we soon get to
The De-noo-moh, not Dee-now-ment (duh)
“I have to go through everyone’s motives and alibis publicly,” I said. “It’s basically a requirement of the genre.”
“Does it usually take this long?” All the crime writers in the room said simultaneously: “Yes.”

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The rating for this book is 3 1/4 stars, rounded down to 3 stars as some of the clues given by the author while breaking the fourth wall annoyed me.

[3/4 star for the premise and the whole book; Half a star for the character arcs; One star for the plot/ story arc; Half a star for the world-building and description; Half a star for the writing - 3 1/4 stars in total.]

Quiz: How many adverbs do you spot in this review? 😉

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson: Book Review

 

Everyone In My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Everyone in my family has killed someone. Some of us, the high achievers, have killed more than once.
Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.

The first book in the Ernest Cunningham series, by Benjamin Stevenson, follows through on it's title and recounts the killings as a satirical play on the mysteries from the Golden Age. There are multiple mysteries, apart from the original event from a few decades ago that sets everything in motion, and kept me guessing (some correctly!). The setting for this book is an almost snowed-in family reunion and the book follows Ernest, the expert publisher of 10 Easy Steps to Write Crime Like You Lived in the 1930s and Golden Age to Your Golden Page: How to Write a Mystery, as he tries to unravel them before the body count gets too high.

The narrative style has a flippant humour that fans of Knives Out and/or Only murders in the building might relate to. We get plenty of Ernest's comments as he earnestly tries to follow Ronald Knox's ten rules for the murder mystery club. Having recently read a lot of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, I enjoyed this particular style of narration. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series!

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The rating is 3 1/2 stars, rounded up to 4 stars for Goodreads as the series is intriguing.

[3/4 star for the premise and the whole book; One star for the writing; Half a star for the characters; 3/4 star for the story; Half a star for the world-building/ description - 3 1/2 stars in total.]

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S Beagle: Book Review

 

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons by Peter S. Beagle
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The warning came in the form of a great wind, sudden and cold, sweeping the western mountains on a perfectly bland and cloudless summer day.

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons is the story of people coming together to face this challenge, but more than that, it's the story of these teenagers realizing that they are not who their roles force them to be, and trying to figure out who they are in the face of this danger, what they need and what they want.

Peter S. Beagle's writing is straightforward, though quite descriptive and I think the book is accessible to pre-teens and early teens also. The world-building is more focused on the dragons than on their kingdoms, which I didn't mind.

It is the character development and their individual arcs which really carried the book for me, and the story is very much character driven. I enjoyed seeing Princess Cerise's arc, ostensibly interviewing princes but teaching herself to read, sword fight and even spitball in secret! Prince Reginald also turns out to be a solid character, who doesn't want to be a hero but finds himself to be quite heroic if the situation demands it. Robert's arc from an inherited job of dragon exterminator to not is particularly engaging!

The dragon's gaze held him in a grip far more powerful than that of the wizard, and once again he cried out - or thought he did, "Who am I? What do you want of me?" 

Thanks to NetGalley and Saga Press publishers for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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The rating for this book is 3 1/2 stars rounded up to 4 stars as the book and the whole delivers a good read.

[Half a star for the premise and the whole book; One star for the characters; One star for the story; Half a star for the writing; Half a star for the world-building and description - 3 1/2 stars in total].

The Witchwood Knot by Olivia Atwater: Book Review

 

The Witchwood Knot by Olivia Atwater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The hundred eyes of Witchwood Manor loomed above, grinning through torrential rain.

The Witchwood Knot by Olivia Atwater is a dark faerie tale with a Gothic ambience - wherein Winifred Hall untangles the dark menace behind Witchwood Manor, finds out information regarding the mysterious disappearance of her once-protector and rescues the kidnapped young heir to the Manor, all while conquering her inner demons and befriending the hostile faerie butler.

Winifred is a strong and clever lead character, bringing iron knives in her chateleine and lies with her governess guise to deal with whatever is tormenting Witchwood Manor. She is beset by both human and faerie menaces during the course of the fast-paced story and her character growth in dealing with them is doubly remarkable.

Though this book can be read as a standalone, the stakes grow higher as the story progresses and I'm looking forward to the next books in this series (Victorian Faerie Tales). I'm also intrigued enough by the layered world-building and several tidbits in the storyline to read the other books in this world (Regency Faerie Tales). Atwood's writing with the Gothic vibes complete the package!

Thanks to NetGalley, Starwatch Press publishers and Olivia Atwater for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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The rating for this book is 3 1/2 stars, rounded up to 4 stars for Goodreads and NetGalley as I'm interested in this series.

[Half a star for the premise and the whole book; Half a star for the story arc; One star for the characters; Half a star for the writing; Half a star for the world-building and description - 3 1/2 stars in total].

A Study In Drowning by Ava Reid: Book Review

 

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It began as all things did: a girl on the shore, terrified and desirous.

A Study In Drowning is a portrayal of a young girl's life and struggles with myth, misogyny and mental health in a combination of dark academia and dark faerie tale.

Ava Reid's lyrical prose provides a strong foundation to the novel and easily draws one into Effy's story. Though set in a time in the last century when girls were not even allowed to enroll in particular college courses, her struggles with misogyny were relatable as some of the instances and the writing just ring true.

The writing, hand in hand with the story sets the dark faerie tone of the novel and the inclusion of Angharad, the story within the story and Effy's well-used book, adds to the whole tone. Angharad provides the only functional bridge to understanding for Effy between her world and the world that she sees but everyone else dismisses.

This is overlaid with a mystery in a Gothic mansion and the world-building on the whole supports the story. Effy's character development as an unreliable narrator as the story progresses is interesting.

Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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[One star for the premise and the whole book; One star for the characters; One star for the writing; Half a star for the story; Half a star for the world-building - Four stars in total.]

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett: Book Review

Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I glared. I’m afraid I have not gotten over my resentment of him for saving me from the snow king’s court in Ljosland earlier this year, and have made a solemn vow to myself that I shall be the one to rescue him from whatever faerie trouble we next find ourselves in. Yes, I realize this is illogical, given that it requires Wendell to end up in some dire circumstance, which would ideally best be avoided, but there it is. I’m quite determined.

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands journals Emily's activities as she searches for a door back to Wendell's faerie kingdom while dodging assassins sent by his enemy, following the trail of long lost scholars, bonding with her niece and saving Wendell.

The Emily Wilde series has a lot of components I like such as women in academia, researching magic systems and mysterious faerie worlds, but overall does not work for me. The characters seem flat to me, mostly because all the character development and important revelations happen off-page - as I noted while reading Book 1 Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries too. I couldn't relate to the characters - which is surprising as I would usually understand needing to be bribed with a book to attend a work party!

The plot rambled a little, suffering from the middle book syndrome. Or maybe that was just the dazed journal entries writing style - we get neither a clear third person narration of events as they unfold nor a reasoned documentation of relevant facts and important events written with hindsight. This detracts from my reading experience and I couldn't get invested in the story. Character relationships too are mostly glazed over - I would have liked to see more of Emily mentoring Ariadne (who could have been any assistant, her being Emily's niece was too much of a coincidence) and more of Emily's growing relationship with Wendell. What we actually see is too little for any private diary and too much to be included in a scientific journal.

The world-building, is interesting, but less detailed than I could have wished. I generally prefer magic systems that follow rules and complex worlds to stories that rely on random spells and artifacts acquired coincidentally. They also keep noting interesting tidbits suggesting they still don't understand much of the faerie worlds - to be expected - but don't seem to get around to researching any of them.

Overall, I might recommend this to people who like light academia as a quick read, but I don't think I'll be re-reading this series.

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[Half a star for the premise and whole book; 1/4 star for the characters; Half a star for the story; Half a star for the writing; 1/4 star for the world-building - Two stars in total.]

Emily Wilde #1: My Review of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries