Review: Don't Sleep with the Dead, by Nghi Vo

 

Nick Carraway―paper soldier and novelist―has found a life and a living watching the mad magical spectacle of New York high society in the late thirties. He's good at watching, and he's even better at pretending: pretending to be straight, pretending to be human, pretending he's forgotten the events of that summer in 1922.
On the eve of the second World War, however, Nick learns that someone's been watching him pretend and that memory goes both ways. When he sees a familiar face at a club one night, it quickly becomes clear that dead or not, damned or not, Jay Gatsby isn't done with him. In all paper there is memory, and Nick's ghost has come home.

"A heart of paper or a heart made from hungry gears." 

Nghi Vo's Don't Sleep with the Dead  is a companion and sequel to the author's 2021 Great Gatsby retelling The Chosen and the Beautiful. As such, it doesn't really work on its own, but needs knowledge of the retelling, more than of the original novel, in order to make some sense. It's a very atmospheric piece of writing, a kind of horror story with a magical realism feel.

Nick Carraway, who spent the first book pining for Gatsby, still can't stop thinking about him twenty years after his death. The novella deals beautifully with queer longing and abusive relationships while exploring more of Nick's past and present. Drawing from the happenings of real history, this story creates a multifaceted narrative that works well enough.

The novella brims with a kind of restless energy, following Nick as he tries to track down Gatsby's dead essence, dealing with cruel devils and the homophobia of the time. The ending stuns with its casual cruelty and the culmination of queer desire.

Don't Sleep with the Dead is a quiet companion work.

✨ 3.5 stars

 

Review: Fate's Bane, by C.L. Clark

 

The clans of the fens enjoy a tenuous peace, and it is all thanks to Agnir, ward and hostage. For as long as she can remember she has lived among the enemy, learning their ways, growing strong alongside their children. When a burgeoning love for the chieftain’s daughter lures them both to a hidden spring, a magic awakens in them that could bind the clans under one banner at last—or destroy any hope of peace. By working their intentions into leather, they can weave misfortune for their enemies… just like the Fate’s Bane that haunts the legends of the clans.
Ambitions grow in their fathers’ hearts, grudges threaten a return to violence, and greedy enemies wait outside the borders, seeking a foothold to claim the fens for themselves. And though their Makings may save their families, the legend that gave them this power always exacts its price.

"Symbol as I was, I was powerless." 

C.L. Clark's Fate's Bane  is a complex tragedy woven with a lyrical, stunning prose. This compact novella details the tragic love between a hostage and the daughter of her captor, as the years go by and their clans keep warring. With evocative turns of phrase, feeling like a folk tale, this heartbreaking sapphic tale explores the cycle of violence and the cycle of stories, exploring queer longing and the insanity of war.

Told entirely from the perspective of the hostage, this novella breezes through years and years of development, but nothing feels rushed; every word is precise and evocative, especially when it describes the eerie spring that might have doomed or blessed them. Their love starts slow, and burns bright, and it might be the only thing that can save them. But nothing is certain, and in that nebulous unclarity lies the real beauty of this story.

This short masterpiece is perhaps not for everyone, with its soft edges of a story narrated around a campfire, a clan story, a tragedy in the making; but its beauty compels and hurts. Its magic is not the loud magic of high fantasy, but a quieter, uncanny thing, like something straight out of Faerie.

Fate's Bane is a stunning novella.

✨ 5 stars

 

Review: To Clutch a Razor, by Veronica Roth

 

A funeral. A heist. A desperate mission. When Dymitr is called back to the old country for the empty night, a funeral rite intended to keep evil at bay, it's the perfect opportunity for him to get his hands on his family's most guarded relic—a book of curses that could satisfy the debt he owes legendary witch Baba Jaga. But first he'll have to survive a night with his dangerous, monster-hunting kin.
As the sun sets, the line between enemies and allies becomes razor-thin, and Dymitr’s new loyalties are pushed to their breaking point. Family gatherings can be brutal. Dymitr’s might just be fatal.

"I know they're monsters. But a man can love a monster." 

Veronica Roth's To Clurch a Razor is the extraordinary sequel to last year's When Among Crows (HERE you can find my review). A perfectly self-sustained novella, this powerful work deals with teams of grief and abuse. Every word is expertly woven, carefully calculated. We drown once more into Polish folklore as the main characters embark into a borderline suicidal mission in Europe, old wounds are split open, and a new understanding shines through the pain.

This is a compact, painful book, and the author doesn't hold anyone's hand as we bear stunned witness to horror. But there's hope in the luminous relationship between the trio, in the friendship between human and 'monster', in the love between owl and man. Niko and Dymitr are doomed, but only they can save each other; Dymitr can only find repentance in protecting Ala. It's a heartbreaking gem of a book.

The prose is exquisite, simple and cutting. The worldbuilding stuns, too, with its cruel simplicity, drawing from myths and old tales. Baba Yaga is cruel and gentle in equal measure. The ending wraps up everything perfectly, but like the first book, it leaves the door open; and I do hope the author will keep writing this stunning series.

To Clutch a Razor is a small masterpiece.

✨ 5 stars

 

Review: House of Dusk, by Deva Fagan

Ten years ago, Sephre left behind her life as a war hero and took holy vows to seek redemption for her crimes, wielding the flames of the Phoenix to purify the dead. But as corpses rise, a long-dead god stirs, and shadowy serpents creep from the underworld to hunt her, she has no choice but to draw on the very past she's been trying so hard to forget.
Orphaned by the same war Sephre helped win, Yeneris has trained half her life to be the perfect spy, a blade slipped deep into the palace of her enemies. Undercover as bodyguard to Sinoe, a princess whose tears unleash prophecy, Yeneris strives to complete her true mission to recover the stolen bones of a saint. Sinoe's prophecies may hold answers, but allying with the fiercely compassionate princess is perilous. Yeneris must find a way to balance her growing attraction for Sinoe with her duty to her people as they conduct a dangerous search for the source of the king's power.

"We have to choose one path, and give up another."

Deva Fagan's House of Dusk is a compact standalone fantasy, packed full of worldbuilding and wonder. Dealing with complex themes of grief and identity, it follows the journey to self-acceptance of a tortured veteran and a young guard, as they and those around them grapple with the return of an ancient evil and with a long-lost past that is not as it seems.

Sephre, fire-wielding nun with a terrible past that she still mourns and needs to accept, is a great main character, complex and capable. Her relationship with those who welcomed her is heartwarming, and the conflict coming from lies and misunderstandings is handled deftly. The other PoV features a young sapphic guard tasked with an Oracle/Princess's wellbeing, and she's just as complex, torn by different loyalties as she comes face to face with hard truths. The two PoVs run parallel for most of the book, and they come together organically in an explosive ending that ties up all loose ends but leaves the door open for a possible sequel.

The worldbuilding isn't especially complex, but it's rich and vividly detailed, a world where god-beasts control certain facets of living and each ordained an order of humans bestowed with certain powers. The hidden truth of this war-torn realm shows the power of stories and perspective, surprising and delighting the reader.

House of Dusk is a solid standalone.

✨ 4 stars

 

Snippet: The Dragon Keeper, by Robin Hobb

 

Too much time has passed since the powerful dragon Tintaglia helped the people of the Trader cities stave off an invasion of their enemies. The Traders have forgotten their promises, weary of the labor and expense of tending earthbound dragons who were hatched weak and deformed by a river turned toxic. If neglected, the creatures will rampage--or die--so it is decreed that they must move farther upriver toward Kelsingra, the mythical homeland whose location is locked deep within the dragons' uncertain ancestral memories.
Thymara, an unschooled forest girl, and Alise, wife of an unloving and wealthy Trader, are among the disparate group entrusted with escorting the dragons to their new home. And on an extraordinary odyssey with no promise of return, many lessons will be learned--as dragons and tenders alike experience hardships, betrayals . . . and joys beyond their wildest imaginings.

“Reality is often unkind to legends.”

Robin Hobb's The Dragon Keeper is the first book in a quadrilogy from a mistress of fantasy novels and certainly not the best entry point to her renowned Elderlings series, but The Rain Wild Chronicles quadrilogy is the one where she writes a happy gay couple and does it well. Now, if you want pain and heartbreak in your achillean couple, and you don't mind a tragic ending, I can't recommend her Farseer trilogy, the following Tawny Man trilogy, and the final Fitz and the Fool trilogy enough, but this one is definitely safer. This multi-PoV quadrilogy follows some characters - amongst which is Sedric, a pampered secretary who is trapped in a violent relationship with his employer - as they are chosen to bond with and guide weak newborn dragons in a world where dragons were thought to be exctinct. It's not strictly necessary to have read the rest of the Elderlings series to enjoy this quadrilogy.

✨ 4 stars

Review: The Last Soul Among Wolves, by Melissa Caruso

 

All Kembral Thorne wants is to finish her maternity leave in peace. But when her best friend asks for help, she can’t say no, even if it means a visit to a run-down mansion on an isolated island for a will reading. She arrives to find an unexpected reunion of her childhood friends—plus her once-rival, now-girlfriend Rika Nonesuch, there on a mysterious job. Then the will is read, and everything goes sideways.
Eight potential heirs, half of them Kem’s oldest friends. Three cursed relics. The rules: one by one, the heirs will die. The prize for the lone survivor: A wish. And wishes are always bad business. To save their friends, Kem and Rika must race against the clock and descend into other realities once more. But the mansion is full of old secrets and new schemes, and soon the game becomes far more dangerous—and more personal—than they could have imagined.

"It's my human life that has shaped me."

Melissa Caruso's The Last Soul Among Wolves does suffer from the middle book syndrome, taking the excellent premise and characters and concocting a fun adventure that doesn't develop much of either. The sole narrator, Kembral, is settling into her relationship with Rika when a new problem arises and it's another race to a solution over the course of a few days. The formula is the same, but while the first book had a fresh new take on timeloops, this magical whoddunit with a taste of Agatha Christie is a bit all over the place.

The actual case is appropriately eerie, especially when we once again get to explore the levels and its rules and to see the Empyreans in action. One in particular is delightfully creepy, and her actions and goals make sense given the inner rules. In this, the worldbuilding doesn't disappoint.

The character work however loses some of its brilliance. The huge supporting cast was well-balanced in the first book, but here the game is given away way too early. The main problem however is the main couple. Rika and Kembral have a sweet relationship, still learning how to balance their work and being together, but a huge moment of broken trust is treated like a plot beat and, in my opinion, not really resolved or rather a bit thrown under the carpet.

The Last Soul Among Wolves is an entertaining book.

✨ 3.5 stars

Review: Costumes for Time Travelers, by A.R. Capetta

 

Anyone who has hiked through time knows the town of Pocket. It’s the place travelers first reach after they stumble away from their hometime, passing through on their way to any other when. To Calisto, Pocket is home. They love their grandmother’s shop, which is filled with clothes from every era that are used to make costumes for time travelers. Calisto has no intention of traveling—it’s too dangerous. For Fawkes, traveling is life. He put on time boots when he was young and has been stumbling through eras ever since. When he floats into Pocket, Calisto meets him for the first time, though Fawkes has seen Calisto—in glimpses of what hasn’t happened yet. He’s also seen the villains chasing them both. Now Calisto and Fawkes must rush—from Shakespeare’s London to ancient Crete to California on the eve of a millennium—to save Pocket, and travelers, from being erased. From the Lambda Literary Award–winning author of The Heartbreak Bakery comes a fairy-tale romance that weaves in and out of time, from kiss to kiss and costume to costume.

"Destiny is a temporal disorder."

A.R. Capetta's Costumes for Time Travelers is a delightfully cozy time travel adventure. It pays homage to a few staples of the genre while giving its own spin, with a fun focus on tailoring not only as an art but also as a kind of time travel. The nonbinary main character Calisto is a young and enthusiastic tailor apprentice who has never time traveled, and the contrast with time savant Fawkes makes for a fun dynamic.

Theirs is a love story out of order, sweet and gentle. In fact, given the premises I expected far more angst than what I got, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The book ambles gently, setting up a threat to reality, but it never feels like the stakes are too high. Perhaps the narration lacks some urgency in that regard.

The points of view are also all over the place, with an open third person narration that jumps too suddenly from one perspective to the next. It's a lovely book, but it may have benefitted from some rewriting.

Costumes for Time Travelers is a sweet summer read.

✨ 3.5 stars

 

📚🥾 So you want to read about out-of-order time-travelers?

Here's my review of Ian McDonald's Time Was  

 

Review: Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame, by Neon Yang

 

The fiercely independent nation of Quanbao is isolated, reclusive, and something of a mystery to the rest of the world. It is rumored that there, dragons are not feared as is right and proper but instead loved and worshiped. Yeva is perhaps a strange emissary to these people. Not only because their face has never been seen in public, but because they are a hero born to a birthright that makes them suited for their task—hunting dragons.
And so the dragon hunter must woo Quanbao's queen—the Lady Sookhee—to understand what secrets she is hiding. A woman reasonably suspicious of Yeva's intentions, and the imperial might of the throne she represents, Sookhee bears the burden of the safety of her entire people. How can she trust this stranger newly arrived to her court, a weapon forged in blood and fire, to understand what her people need and how best to safeguard their future?

"It feels like part of her has cracked, but in the way frost cracks in the spring."

Neon Yang's Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame is a sapphic novella about dragons and about what it means to hide all you are in order to fit in. The worldbuilding is easily the best part, painted with a few deft strokes that enchant the reader, also thanks to the beautiful prose.

The story might fall a little short in the timing, as it condenses a long amount of time in short passages, for instance recounting with stunning speed the main character's formative years, or glossing over her stay in the palace of the girl-king, so that the sapphic development and even the resolution feel a bit unearned.

It's still a stunning novella with gorgeous prose, with the distinct feel of a tale from long ago, almost forgotten.

Brighter than Scale, Swifter than Flame is ideal for a cozy evening read.

✨ 4 stars

 

🐲👸🏻 So you want to read about dragons and sapphic knights?

Here's my review of Charlotte Bond's The Fireborne Blade 

Review: The Sun Blessed Prince, by Lindsey Byrd

 

Prince Elician is a Giver – a closely-guarded secret. He can heal any wound and bring the dead back to life. He also can’t be killed, so is cursed to watch his country wage an endless war. Reapers can kill with a single touch. And when one attacks Prince Elician near a hotly contested battlefield, the Reaper expects a terrible punishment. Instead, Elician offers him a new life on enemy territory.
Cat, as Elician calls him, hadn’t realized he could ever find someone who would make life worth living. Yet Elician’s enemies plan to turn his kindness against him. As the pieces of a deadly plot come together, tensions escalate at court and on the battlefield. The fires of conflict burst into new flame – but can those who wield the powers of life and death find peace?

"To heal a wound, you need to start small."

Lindsey Byrd's The Sun Blessed Prince is an excellent epic fantasy with a slow-burn achillean romance subplot. First in a duology, this book sets the stage for what promises to be an explosive conclusion by introducing a varied cast of characters, two realms at constant war, and two very different sets of beliefs based on the gods of Life and Death. Blessed by their respective gods, Cat and Elician are going to do their best to change things for the people in their realms.

Their relationship develops slowly. It's not too much of a spoiler to say that they're separated for most of the book, but their brief time together made an impression on both, and when they reunite they pick up from where they've left, changed forever by what occurred in the meantime. The final chapter is a very moving piece of writing, and almost brought me to tears.

Romance is decidedly not the focus. This is a great political fantasy with lots of moving pieces, twists (I spoiled myself on a big one by looking for the second book while still reading, but there's still so much more going on), and social commentary on slavery especially. There's a great focus on science, unexpected but fairly contained, and it worked well within the narrative. It's a big book with big themes and a list of trigger warnings one may want to check out before reading.

The trio of POVs is completed by Elician's young sister, a girl who’s grappling with her powers and with her place in the world. Her narration might feel out of place, but it provides much context, and her journey is one to pay attention too. The rest of the cast has its moments to shine, starting from Elician's devoted best friend.

My only gripe with this book and the only reason why I'm not giving it five stars is that the passage of a time in a certain portion of the book was unclear, and the same portion would have benefitted from a few more chapters with Elician's POV.

The Sun Blessed Prince is an incredible debut.

✨ 4.5 stars

 

🤴🏻☀ So you want to read about duty-bound princes?

Here's my review of Laura R. Samotin's The Sins on their Bones 

 

Snippet: The Gilda Stories, by Jewelle Gomez

 

This remarkable novel charts the unending life of Gilda, a young woman who - after escaping slavery in Louisiana in 1850 - is made into a vampire. After being initiated into eternal life as one who 'shares the blood', Gilda spends the next two hundred years searching for a way to exist in the world.

“Pledge yourself to pursue only life, never bitterness or cruelty.”

Jewelle Gomez' The Gilda Stories is a lesbian classic and an extraordinary exploration of the horror of slavery and racism, combined with all the trappings of a vampire novel. This literary classic doesn't have a plot per se, but it's more of a sequence of moments over the course of two hundred years, and the reader follows happily along as Gilda meets people and makes fundamental changes. At its core, it's a novel about being Black and queer in America, and about giving back what you're given. It's a healing experience, a beautiful read.

✨ 4 stars