Review - The Warm Hands of Ghosts by Katherine Arden

 

It is 1918. The Great War is dragging on in mud and filth and blood.

In Halifax, Canada, nurse Laura is struggling with tragedies of her own. She had been a nurse in Belgium but was sent home after her hospital was bombed. She then lost her mother when a ship in the harbour exploded.

Her brother Freddie - a solider - is lost somewhere overseas, presumed dead.

However, Freddie isn't dead. Trapped in a pillbox with a German soldier that Freddie only knows as Winter, they fight their way out and across No Man's Land against extraordinary odds.

However, they can't survive alone, and there's a very bad man with a violin who is looking for stories ...

The Warm Hands of Ghosts is a lot of things - it's a family saga in a way, as Laura and Freddie fight to find each other. It's a war story in the most intimate and tragic sense of the word, and it's a love story, with as many layers to that description as you can think of.

It's also a ghost story, and blindingly beautiful and tragic.

Katherine Arden wrote The Winternight Trilogy, which I did greatly enjoy.

But The Warm Hands of Ghosts is on another level of elevation, and I loved it.

Review - A Long Petal of The Sea

 

I like reading historical fiction - especially a book that teaches me something.

I was - of course - aware of the Spanish Civil War, but only in a vague sort of way. What I didn't know is that the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda commissioned ships to take Spanish refugees to re-settle and start new lives in Chile.

A Long Petal of the Sea starts with a family, who take in a musically talented girl, Roser to live with them. Roser grows up with them and falls in love with one of the sons, Guillem. The other son, Victor, is training to be a doctor.

When war breaks out, the brothers are called to different occupations - Guillem a soldier, and Victor a doctor.

However, when Guillem dies in the Spanish Civil War, Roser, Victor and Victor's mother Carme, begin a perilous journey to France to try and escape Franco's brutal regine.

Carme vanishes, and Roser and Victor end up in a concentration camp. Roser has Guillem's baby, and Victor is called away to work as a doctor once more. 

He finds out about Neruda's plan, marries Roser in order to secure them a place on one of the ships, and all three sail away to a new life in Chile. 

I have to admit - I wanted to like this one more than I actually did. The history is fascinating, and heart-breaking at times, as Roser and Victor find themselves subject to yet another fascist regime under Pinochet in Chile, but there's a remove with the story, almost.

Roser and Victor are the centre of the book, and every other character feels almost ... shadowy. Even their son Marcel in a way, and I wonder if that's why A Long Petal of the Sea didn't quite work for m. 

Still. An interesting read about some truly momentous - and horrific - periods in our history.

Review - Legends & Lattes

 

Gosh, I loved this. I loved this so much I almost started it again as soon as I had finished it, but it was due back at the library.

It's a cosy fantasy about a former mercenary Orc called Viv who hangs up her sword and opens a coffee shop.

That's it. That's the whole book. And it sounds like an incredibly slight premise, but you're with Viv the whole way - from buying the premise  to finding people to work on it/in  it - people who become Viv's second found family and it's just. 

It's a delight, honestly.

I know that what I usually expect from fantasy novels is high stakes - you know - world-ending, questy-type stuff and I do love that as well.

But. BUT. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a book that just goes "let's build a coffee house together" and it feels like a hot cup of tea on a cold day. 

It's comforting. And yes, the stakes are - in general - low, but I like that. I like that a lot. 

Review - The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison

 

The Grief of Stones is a sequel to The Witness for the Dead, and the third book set in the same universe as The Goblin Emperor.

I don't think you need to read The Goblin Emperor to understand The Witness for the Dead (but you should read it anyway) as it largely stands alone.

Thara Celehar - who was a minor character in The Goblin Emperor - takes centre stage in these novels.

He's a Witness for the Dead in the city of  Amalo, which means basically people come to him when someone has recently died to try and solve particular mysteries.

In some cases, it's how they died, or if they were murdered. In others, it's to find out things like where the money is hidden - or the scone recipe. Celehar takes all the cases on their merits, and gives them the same care and consideration.

When a Marquise is found to have been poisoned, Celehar finds himself entangled with a school for orphaned girls - and a terrible, terrible cover-up. 

In Witness for the Dead, Celehar is largely insular and guarded, having come through the horrific trauma of watching the man he loved be executed for murder. While that still haunts him in The Grief of Stones, he also finds his circle widening with friends, colleagues - and possibly even a new romance. 

The series is called The Cemeteries of Amalo, and somehow they blend fantasy, a little bit of steampunk and mystery in a very compelling and readable way.

Also, there are cats, so I'm naturally biased.

Reviews - The Seven Ancient Wonders; I Like Me Better

 

The Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly is the first novel in the Jack West series. West is an Australian ex-military super-hero - er, soldier.

He's formed a team of elite specialists (including, as always in these teams, one Toke Woman) to locate the Capstone from the Great Pyramid in order to complete a ritual and avoid the end of the world.

Something, something .... stuff blows up.

I did enjoy reading The Seven Ancient Wonders. It has action! Found family! Lots of unnecessary exclamation points! Did I say action! 

I mean  - I was entertained. It's one of those books that you can read 100 pages without blinking because it's easier to just - keep reading.

I Like Me Better by Robby Weber is super-cute. It's an M/M YA and it's basically a romcom. 

Soccer is Zack Martin's life. He's lining up to become captain now that the previous captain is off to college after the summer. However, when Zack takes the fall for a REALLY stupid prank by the previous captain, his whole summer is thrown into a tailspin.

He ends up doing Community Service at the Marine centre, where he meets Chip, who is not only extremely cute, but also the previous captain's cousin. 

Many, many shenanigans ensue.

I Like Me Better was extremely enjoyable. Warm-hearted, fun and pure escapism.

Two reviews

 

Reading P G Wodehouse - for me - is like having the best kind of afternoon tea. 

China teapots and tiny fancy fluffy cakes on a tiered cake stand. All style, no substance, and pure escapism.

At the start of this one, Bertie Wooster has grown a moustache, much to the chagrin of his gentleman's personal gentleman, Jeeves. 

However, the moustache soon takes a back seat as Bertie's Aunt Dahlia (not to be confused with Aunt Agatha) puts out an SOS, and Bertie and Jeeves decamp to the countryside for shenanigans.

Throw in an ex-fiancee of Bertie's who thinks he's still in love with her, a pearl necklace that may or may not be real and the gastronomical delights of Aunt Dahlia's personal chef, and Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit is a classic entry in the Jeeves and Wooster series of novels.

If your brain needs a holiday, this is absolutely perfect. You can send your brain to go fishing, or something.

Lucy Muchelney is battling heartbreak, and an uncertain future. The woman she loves has just married a man, and Lucy's brother is talking about selling their father's telescope now that he's passed on.

Lucy is an amateur astronomer, who spent years assisting her father and doing mathematical calculations herself as his health failed. The last thing she wants for herself is to be stifled in a loveless marriage, so she decides to take matters into her own hands.

She travels from her home in Lyme to London, where she meets Catherine - Lady Moth. Catherine is the widow of an explorer, and a great supporter of science and scientists. She backs Lucy to translate the work of a great French astronomer into English, and also takes Lucy under her wing.

It's not long before the bond between the two women develops into something deeper, even as they battle against 19th century mores and sexism.

Helping Lucy forge her path makes Catherine realise that maybe there's more to life for her than just being a supporting player.

I enjoyed this very much of a lot, but one of the things I enjoyed most was the centring of Catherine's embroidery. Traditionally in books, embroidery is used as a short-cut for female characters who are Not Like Other Girls. And when that DOESN'T happen - when it's treated as a genuine interest/hobby/skill/talent - it's truly great to see.

The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva - review

 

When a Rembrandt painting is stolen and the restorer murdered, former Israeli secret agent Gabriel Allon is called in to try and figure out why the painting was stolen and the restorer left dead.

Allon soon finds himself mired in a world of secrets, Nazi treasure thieves, conspiracy and murder.

This is the second Gabriel Allon novel I've read, and honestly I find them very entertaining.

I have specific requirements for reading thriller/action/crime-type novels which are:

No romance between two "leads"

No "oi guv" - in other words, no butting heads with The System to Get the Job Done.

I read the first page of a book recently in which the main character had a fight with her husband and griped that she had to deal with a rookie. I stopped immediately.

But the Gabriel Allon novels - so far - fit into my criteria. He's already married for one thing, and the cases are highly readable and entertaining.

Review: Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes

 

Again, Rachel by Marian Keyes is the sequel to Ms Keyes' earlier novel, Rachel's Holiday.

Rachel's Holiday is one of the Walsh sister series of novels, and deals with Rachel's drug addiction and rehabilitation.

Again, Rachel is set around 2019 I think? Pre-pandemic, anyway.

She's split from Luke and has a new man. She's also the head addiction counsellor at the Cloisters, where she spent her own recovery.

Things are - as far as Rachel is concerned - good.

Then Luke Costello comes home to Ireland for his mother's funeral and all hell breaks loose.

And. See. Here's the thing. I love Marian Keyes. And I LOVED Rachel's Holiday.

But Again, Rachel ... just didn't really work all that well for me? It's written well, and some of it is good, but some of it I really struggled with. 

All of the Walsh sisters are in and out of the book at various times as Mammy Walsh's 80th  birthday party - a surprise party that Mammy Walsh is, of course, planning herself, is happening, and it just feels like too many Walsh sisters in one place. Also, these grown women - all in their 40s and early 50s - are acting like teenagers. 

I'm all for maintaining a youthful spirit and not aging gracefully, but the way these women act is just plain annoying. 

To be fair to Rachel - she does have a deep-seated grief from her marriage to Luke (they lose a much-loved baby at almost full-term) and there are a LOT of issues she plain has not dealt with. But. She's also in a lot of ways the same Rachel as the previous book - deeply in denial and therefore causing damage to those around her. 

I don't know. I did what I always do - look up the Goodreads reviews to see if people agreed with me, and there were a lot of 5-star reviews. So maybe it IS me?

Or maybe it's time to move on from the Walsh sisters. 

(One of them tries swinging, with her husband. Tell me that's not the book equivalent of jumping the shark.)

Review - I'll be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

True crime is one of those genres that I don't indulge in very often, but when I do, I tend to go on a mini-jag.

This time, I picked up I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara, about the man who came to be known as the Golden State Killer.

Michelle - who died suddenly in 2016 before finishing the book - writes about her obsession with this one man; an elusive predator who terrorised couples for years in the 1970s and 80s.

At the time Michelle was compiling her research for what would become this book; the killer still had not been caught; although there has been an arrest since publication.

What makes I'll Be Gone in the Dark so compelling is Michelle's very distinctive voice throughout. Even as she's tracking down the crimes of the Golden State Killer, she acknowledges her own obsession with the case.

The book itself was finished by Michelle's research assistant and a journalist friend, and there is an unfinished quality to the narrative. However, that doesn't take away from Michelle's very deft touch and her obvious attention to detail.

Unfinished - and in some cases unpolished - the book stands as a testament to one woman's determination to find answers to some heinous unsolved crimes, and is well worth reading.

Review - The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

A friend of mine actually recommended this to me. She recommended it because she needs me to read the sequel so I can tell her if the horses are okay. She has issues reading about animal deaths in books.

However, she also knew that The Bear and the Nightingale would be right up my reading street, and indeed, it was.

Based on Russian history and fairytales, The Bear and the Nightingale focuses on Vasya - the child of a Russian peasant lord and his wife, who dies giving birth to Vasya.

The people in the village adhere to the old ways - giving offerings to the household spirits to keep them happy and to stave off hunger and cold.

However, when a new priest arrives, everything changes, and it's up to Vasya to realise her destiny and try and save everyone.

The Bear and the Nightingale has been compared to Stardust by Neil Gaiman, and Uprooted by Naomi Novik. For me, it has more in common with Uprooted, and the story itself is just as enjoyable.

Vasya is a spirited and feisty heroine, and the sense of family within the novel is also very strong.

There's a compelling villain, and also Morozko - the lord of winter, who is trying to help Vasya while maintaining his own secrets.

A really, really absorbing read.

Review - The Ritual

Five friends who have little in common now that they're all middle-aged are planning their annual lads' trip. They can't decide where to go, and the pub meeting dissolves with no solution.

Tragedy unexpectedly hits the group when one of them is murdered in a liquor store robbery, which was witnessed by another member of the group of friends.

So, in honour of their murdered friend, the group decides to go on a camping trip in Northern Sweden.

Things start to go a bit wrong when they decide to take a shortcut through the woods. After they shelter for the night at a seemingly abandoned hut, things start to go very wrong - in the "We're being chased by a very large animal that we can't see and what the fuck is that - IS THAT AN ELK GUTTED AND HANGING FROM A TREE" kind of way.

The Ritual as a horror movie works on a lot of levels. The landscape is bleak and isolated and the group have underlying tensions that lead to them making mistakes. They all suffer from nightmares, and something happens in the first hut to scare them out of their wits.

As they try to escape the woods, however, the menace grows.

What I didn't like was - the monster is shown, and explained. You know that 70s Spielberg film, Duel? Where that couple in the car are just stalked by some guy in a truck for no apparent reason, and that's where all the menace comes from? That's what I wanted from The Ritual.

And I got SOME of what I wanted, but then it kind of bottled it and went "well, we'd better have a bloody good REASON for gutting animals/people" and honestly - it's scarier when there's nothing concrete to root the notion of the fear in.

Having said that - between the landscape and the overwhelming sense of menace, The Ritual is a pretty decent horror movie, all things considered.

Review - The Break by Marian Keyes

Amy is shocked when her husband Hugh suddenly announces that he's leaving.

Except - he's not planning on leaving forever, just for six months - a break, if you will.

Amy is devastated, confused, and angry. Hugh has had a tough time lately, she understands, with the death of his father and his best friend, but this seems a bit ... extreme.

With three daughters in the mix - two teenagers and one very angry early-20s in the mix - how will Amy pick up and keep the day-to-day going while Hugh's off riding around Thailand?

Add in an extended and chaotic Irish family, an ill-advised flirtation and Amy struggling to keep everything together, she feels like she's constantly on the edge of disaster.

I love Marian Keyes, I really do. Her early novels are some of my absolute favourites, but I feel really ambiguous about The Break, and I'm not sure why.

Maybe I've been conditioned by the string of novels I read in the 90s where women were ditched by their husbands and then started catering companies.

I was expecting ... something. Some kind of revelation, or emotional payoff, but it felt like that never came. Amy is - rightfully - roaringly angry at Hugh, and her feelings rollercoaster so much that parts of the book are genuinely exhausting.

I'm just. I'm not sure. I'm still thinking about it a few days later, so maybe that's a sign that there's more to it than I thought.

Review - Star Trek: Beyond

Star Trek: Beyond is the third Star Trek film in the reboot series.

This
one starts with the Enterprise in the midst of its five-year mission, seeking out new life, etc. And everyone's a little bit restless.

Kirk is considering a promotion, and Spock is thinking about leaving the Enterprise altogether.

The ship touches down at Yorktown, a starbase, for some repairs and some R&R. When an escape pod drifts in from a nearby nebula, the crew of the Enterprise are tasked with helping its occupant, Kalara.

As the Enterprise exits an asteroid field near the nebula, the ship is overtaken by Krall and his massive swarm of small ships.

Kalara is revealed to be Krall's spy, the Enterprise crew are split up, and everything sort of goes to hell in a handbasket for a bit.

I have to admit, I enjoyed this one more than Into Darkness. For one thing, Kirk is more than just an arrogant dickhead, and you know - character development is always nice. The story hangs together better, and it's more about working together, and figuring out what to do next for the crew.

It definitely kept me interested.

Review - Avengers Infinity War

Spoilers ahead, probably, though I'll do my best to avoid them.

Infinity War pulls in The Avengers, Spider-Man, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Black Panther, Dr Steven Strange, a  partridge in a pear tree, some beans, eleven ducks, and also the kitchen sink.

Thanos, who's been a baddie in previous Guardians films has decided he absolutely needs all of the Infinity Stones, each of which is imbued with a different power - space, time, life, something, something, something, something, and if he gets all of the stones, he'll be unstoppable.

The film itself picks up from the end of Thor: Ragnarok, with Thor, Loki and remaining Asgardians under threat by the Children of Thanos.

That goes... about as well as you'd expect, and then everything plummets from there.

I have very, very mixed feelings about Infinity War. Parts of it were absolutely heartbreaking, but it felt like there wasn't ENOUGH emotional payoff for what was happening, if that even makes sense.

Basically, the movie is a 2.5 hour long fight with Thanos. It's a superhero action movie that's eaten too many lollies too late at night and it just sort of RUSHESABOUTEVERYWHERELIKETHISANDOHNO*SPOILER*BUTTHENFIGHTAGAINANDOHNO ... and it's just. It's kind of exhausting.

Everyone's also kind of scattered about on earth, on Titan and Knowhere, and I kept waiting for that come-to-Jesus moment where everyone's in the same place and it's time to kick ass.

Given that the WHOLE MOVIE is one long ass-kicking, and there's NO payoff for that at ALL, I really don't know how I feel about it as a whole.

Well. I know how I feel about SOME things.

Mostly? Mostly exhausted.

Review - The Dark Tower

I'm still sort-of picking my way through the book series, although I've come slightly adrift halfway through book four, and so I finally decided to sit down and watch the movie.

Now - I love Idris Elba. He's my pretend husband, my hall pass. He's everything. And as the Gunslinger, he's GREAT.

However - that's where the greatness ends.

Stephen King has an exceptional narrative touch when he's truly on his game, and that's exhibited clearly - for me - in the first three books (again, so far the only books I've finished)  - and that deftness is just ... missing. It's almost like whoever adapted the screenplay missed the point.

I can understand leaving out Eddie and Suzanne - from a strictly narrative point of view movie-wise that makes sense. But I couldn't understand why they altered Jake's storyline so drastically. Not only that, but they ignored his most compelling line: "Go, then. There are other worlds than these", which packs a real emotional wallop in context.

Matthew McConaughey is fine as the Man in Black, but the movie as a whole left me feeling cold.

1. As long and as epic and weird as The Dark Tower book series is, it still has an emotional core, which, unfortunately, is missing from the movie.

Review - Dragon Age Knight Errant

Knight Errant is a five-comic book series set in the Dragon Age universe. Set after the events of the final DLC Trespasser and the previous comic series Magekiller, Knight Errant follows the adventures of Vaea, city-elf and squire to a wandering knight who now makes a living telling stories of his past glory.

Knight and squire arrive in Kirkwall for the appointment of Varric Tethras as Viscount. However, what Ser Knight doesn't know about his squire is that she's also a talented thief. She takes a job in Kirkwall which goes badly, and finds herself taking on a job for the Inquisition.

Knight Errant is a fun addition to the Dragon Age canon, and it's always fun revisiting characters from the game and also from Magekiller.

Vaea is a fully-realised character, and her knight is also equally well-realised.

As fans of the series wait for definitive news of a date for Dragon Age 4, Knight Errant fills a little bit of that void.

Review - Rivers of London by Ben Aarnovitch

I have a feeling someone recommended this to me, but I don't remember who it was.

Anyway, if they did, they were right. This was GREAT.

I tend to be really picky with urban fantasy - if it's got a scantily-clad girl on the cover and there's some kind of forbidden romance brewing then I'll give it a hard pass usually (though I did enjoy the first book in the October Daye series), because ... ugh. It's just not my genre.

Rivers of London, however, is exactly the kind of urban fantasy that I want.

Peter Grant is a constable in London, about to be assigned to whatever department his supervisor deems him fit for. Peter seems destined for the Case Progression Unit (paperwork mostly), until he sees a ghost in Covent Garden one night.

This brings Peter to the attention to the only magical Police Inspector in London, and Peter finds himself apprenticed and one of two police officers specifically assigned to investigate the inexplicable.

When ordinary people suddenly start committing murders seemingly out of nowhere, Nightingale and Peter are on the case.

Rivers of London was the perfect blend of crime procedural and urban fantasy, and it's the first in a series. I'm a very happy reader today.

Review - Wrath of the Titans

Since I watched Clash of the Titans last week, I thought I'd take the sequel out for a spin today.

Zeus's son Perseus, after defeating the Kraken in Clash, now lives a quiet life in a small fishing village with his son, Helios. Perseus's wife, Io, dies before the start of Wrath, but it's not said how she died.

Anyway. Hades and young Ares have a plan to wake up and release Cronus from the prison Tartarus, because mankind have stopped praying to the gods. No prayers = no powers and Hades and Ares are a bit upset about that.

They convince Zeus and Poseidon to come to the Underworld to discuss what to do and - it may just be me, but I'm pretty sure there's more than four gods in the Greek mythological pantheon.

Anyway. Zeus and Poseidon don't want to release Cronus, because that's Very Bad, and Zeus goes and asks Perseus for help to stop it from happening.

Poseidon dies, Zeus is tortured, Perseus tracks down another demi-god who's the son of Poseidon and for some reason Queen Andromeda of the Greeks, although I suspect she's mostly in it because otherwise Wrath of the Titans is a real sausage fest. Sausages everywhere. And that's fine, but all Andromeda seems to do is wave a sword around and shout a lot.

I need to pick better movies.

Review - The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

There are two go-tos for fiction that are my absolute kryptonite. Character-driven stories, and found families.

Honestly, give me a good found family story in pretty much any genre and I will be happy for days. Possibly weeks.

Which leads on to The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, by Becky Chambers.

In terms of found family stories, this is The Goods.

There's also great and memorable characters, actually ALIEN-sounding aliens, (I know that sounds weird, but I know what I mean), and at the heart of it all the crew of a patched-together spaceship.

Rosemary joins the crew of the Wayfarer as a kind of admin assistant to the captain, Ashby. Rosemary is running from A Dark Past (not her own), and does not expect to become close to the Wayfarer crew, or to face down life-and-death situations, but here they all are.

The Wayfarer brings the makeshift crew together for, well, SPAAAAAAAAAAACE. And, uh, there's a bit of a plot thingy, with the Wayfarer contracted to tunnel wormholes to distant planets that, of course, can only go horribly wrong.

I loved this. I loved this SO MUCH. All of the characters were great, the aliens were REALLY REALLY ALIEN AND COOL, and all I loved about it was everything.

Review - Clash of the Titans

Perseus is the son of Zeus, but is not aware of this little fact. He's raised by a humble fisherman and his wife until they're lost in a storm and Perseus finds himself at the centre of a crisis in the kingdom of Argos.

The king and queen of Argos basically start shit-talking Zeus and co (never a good idea), and Voldemo- I mean Hades - comes buzzing down in a black cloud and says if they don't sacrifice their daughter Andromeda by the time of the eclipse, he will release the kraken.

Perseus, who washed up in Argos after losing his family, finds out he's actually a demi-god and has half a shot at stopping Hades. So he rounds up a crew including Hannib- um, I mean, Draco, and they all head off to find the Stygian witches, and then also the head of Medusa so that the kraken can be stopped.

Perseus is a moody bastard, which, fair enough, but it's annoying after a while, and everyone else is just sort of .... there.

I need to stop talking myself into watching bad/meh movies on Netflix, I really do.