A COURT OF THORNS AND ROSES – Sarah J. Maas

Many cultures have the “marriage to a beast” type tales – intended as warnings and preparations for arranged marriages for children and as a bit dirtier stories for adults.  “La Belle et la Bête” (Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, 1740) is perhaps the heart of the most commonly known tale, but it was influenced by earlier stories like ”Cupid and Pysche” (2nd century AD) and “The Pig King” (1550). 

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Sarah J. Maas pulls from the more familiar “Beauty and the Beast” as well as “Little Broomstick”, “The Summer and Winter Garden”, “The White Wolf” and other folklore and fairytales in creating her A Court of Thorns and Roses.  Those who grew up with Disney quickly recognize the “tale as old as time” backdrop to this grown-up fantastical fantasy retelling of a childhood classic.  But Feyre is no Belle – she is an illiterate huntress.  Her inability to read is a crucial part of this retelling, and it would have been cleverly done but for the timing – Feyre was 11 when her life changed and 14 when they ran out of money.  Her diction marks her as high class to the fairies.  She shouldn’t have been illiterate based on those circumstances, but she needed to be to accomplish what Maas was seeking to accomplish.


Feyre made a vow to her dying mother that she would take care of her two older sisters (one sweet, and one more wicked as seen in the variations).  After her father loses their money, she has to hunt for their survival.  She kills a wolf and a beastly figure demands she pay for her crimes.  As punishment, Feyre is whisked away to the fairylands where she learns the hideous beast who’d taken her as payment for the life of his friend is a fairy, and a High Fae at that.  With him, she learns that things are not always as they seem and chaos rumbles, ready to explode.


Will a human help a fae?  Will a fae admits he needs her?  Can they save both of their worlds before everything is ripped to shreds? And how far will Rhys’s redemption arc take him?


It’s a satisfying read, and I intend to finish the trilogy.  Knowing the ancient variations, I imagine her sisters, especially Nesta, will show back up in a time of conflict.

  

MEN AND DOGS – Katie Crouch

Katie Crouch’s Men and Dogs (2010) drew my attention because of the title and the cover. While the cover meets the aesthetic of Crouch’s first novel, Girls in Trucks, (which I have not read) neither it nor the title suit this novel and I’ve been trying to reconcile the disconnect since reading the first chapter.

 When Hannah Legare is eleven, her father disappears after taking the small boat and the dog out on the Charleston harbor. The boat and the dog are recovered, Buzz Legare is not. Hannah does not believe he died that day, and as she ages, she looks for her father – clinging to the men who have even the slightest resemblance to that man she was so sure would come back home. Textbook abandonment and daddy issues, and Hannah is fully aware. She is an alcoholic and self-destructive.

Hannah’s older brother Palmer was just discovering his sexuality and exploring it with his best friend when his father didn’t come home that April night. While he has accepted that his father is dead, he believes his father killed himself. His guilt is the face in the gym window watching horrified as Palmer kisses a boy. Palmer becomes a veterinarian because of Tucker, the dog that had waited terrified and alone on that boat, for Buzz to come back. He never allows himself to love a dog more than he’d loved Tucker. He never allows himself to love anything or anyone at all. He is self-absorbed and self-destructive.

A drunken mistake, a dangerous fall caused by a terrier, and an estranged husband at his wit’s end result in Hannah being sent to Charleston to dry out – it was either rehab or the undesired homecoming. Once in the South, Hannah begins again to chase her father’s ghost. She pours over a box of photographs that she believes belonged to her father. Her high-school sweetheart’s mother appears in nearly all of them. Did her father love Virginia? Were they having an affair? And what about her mother’s new husband – the one who quickly stepped in after her dad went missing. Was he involved? Her mother swears they never met before the funeral, but she finds a picture of her parents and he’s lingering in the background. Hannah, supposedly home to heal and sober up, continues her unhealthy journey down a rabbit hole lined with secrets and the disjointed memories of an eleven-year-old.

The title derives from a brief conversation between Palmer and Hannah wherein she proclaims that “men are such fucking dogs.” Palmer tells her it’s a bad idiom as there is “nothing more faithful than a dog.” He uses Rumpus, his nervous terrier with damaged vocal cords, as an example. There was a missed opportunity to use canines as foils of the siblings. Crouch gets halfway there with Palmer, but she doesn’t follow through with Hannah – and this is primarily Hannah’s redemption arc.

 Men and Dogs is a quick and easy read, and, on its face, the plot had great potential. But the characters are rather unlikeable, the three dogs that actually do appear don’t get the respect they deserve, and the ending stumbles.

THESE GHOSTS ARE FAMILY – Maisy Card

Maisy Card’s debut novel, These Ghosts Are Family ( Simon & Schuster – 3/3/2020), is quite possibly my most favorite read of this crazy year; I don’t typically give stars, but I’m giving this novel an entire galaxy.

 The novel is told in a fragmented way that brings to mind the oral tradition of story-telling – a rambling stroll through history and time, families and legends, with the listener hanging on every word spilling forth from the story-teller’s mouth. And Maisy Card can most certainly spin a tale.

 The novel opens in Harlem in 2005, with Stanford Solomon preparing to admit that he is actually Abel Paisley – and that he had faked his death and assumed Stan’s identity years ago.

 When Abel left Jamaica to work in England, he left behind a demanding and promiscuous wife, Vera, and two small children. Irene has little memory of her father beyond the picture of him beneath a mango tree – a tree she’d run to whenever her mother would abuse her. She spends her entire life wondering how things would have been different, would have been better, had her father not died in that unfortunate accident. She flees her mother and Jamaica only to find herself standing before the wheelchair-bound man, the father she’s mourned for decades, who needs to confess his sins before he dies.

 The story splinters out, showing how Abel’s decision to steal Stanford’s identity impacted his entire family. And while this novel is very much about the sins of the father being visited on the sons (and daughters), Abel’s sin is not the focus – these sins go far back to the Warm Manor plantation where people barter and trade in flesh, where lighter skin is praised and more costly, and men own the children they put in the bellies of their slaves. These are the skeletons of a family tree.

 Jamaica, the true ghost of the family, breathes. From England to Harlem, she breathes – heavy on the backs of those who sought to escape her. And no story about familial ghosts of Jamaica would be complete without an Ol’ Hige or three. The blood-suck hag who sheds her skin has her place in the family tree – this is her home, too.

 And there is the heart of this novel – home. Dust your ghosts off and set them on a shelf. Carry them with you where you go. They are your home – good, bad, and ugly. And when you’re done – read this book.

WHITE ELEPHANT DEAD – Carolyn Hart

Cozy mysteries aren’t something that oft find themselves in my TBR.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy them, it’s just that they’re not typically something I pick up.  As luck would have it, I did pick up several in last year’s library sale at the fairgrounds, and Carolyn Hart’s White Elephant Dead (1999) is the second cozy read I’ve read this month! 

White Elephant Dead is a Death on Demand novel featuring the amateur sleuthing styles of mystery bookstore owner Annie Darling and her attorney (though not barred in South Carolina) and PI (though not licensed in South Carolina) wealthy husband, Max.  The novel opens with seemingly unrelated snippets into the lives of several residents of Broward’s Rock, but the reader quickly gets a clue – Kathryn Girard, member of the Women’s Club, is not who she says she is.  By the end of the first chapter, Annie has found her dead body and her friend, Henny, is missing.

The young buck of a new police chief, who isn’t that good at his job (as is part of the formula for these sorts of books) is quick to finger Henny as the main suspect.  Even after she’s found by the boy scouts with a head injury and no memory of the events, Chief Garrett is still prepared to charge her for the murder of Kathryn Girard, or whoever she really was.

Luckily for Henny, Annie’s on the case.  Armed with the list of addresses Kathryn was supposed to be visiting to pick up items for the upcoming Women’s Club white elephant sale, Annie and Max set about clearing Henny’s name and finding the real murderer.  Renowned mystery writer of the Marigold Rembrandt stories and local celebrity, Emma Clyde, joins them.

The book is a treasure trove for lovers of the genre.  Since our protagonist owns a mystery bookstore, she is pretty much the expert on mysteries; the pages are just littered with references to other works as she uses her literary knowledge to piece together the clues.  And much like Annie Darling, Carolyn Hart knows and loves her genre. From Agatha Christie to Lilian Jackson Braun, Hart shows her love for the craft – there should be a reading challenge for all the references in this novel alone!

If you love the genre, you’ve probably already encountered Hart. If you’re like me and just tipping your toe in for a quick little fun read, White Elephant Dead won’t disappoint.

CONJURE WOMEN – Afia Atakora

One of my more recent goals has been to read more “new” releases, particularly from debut authors and authors of color.  I ordered Conjure Women because it ticked off several of my boxes.  It is a debut novel by an author of color, but more importantly, it’s the type of book my shelves crave: magical realism, historical fiction, strong female leads, stunning cover.
                Afia Atakora’s mesmerizing debut novel, published in April of 2020, has been brushed with magic but the magic rests just on the fringe of the story.  Personally, I would have liked to have seen more of it, but that storyline was May Belle’s, the magic was May Belle’s, never Rue’s.

                “Miss May Belle had used to turn coin on hoodooing.  As a slave woman she’d made her name and her money by crafting curses.  More profit to be made in curses than in her work mixing healing tinctures.  More praise to be found in revenge than in birthing babies.”
                Rue believed in the magic; her mother just never taught her.  As such the magic rides the edges of the story, like the runaway slave Miss May Belle turned into a bird so she could escape North or Rue’s daddy, turned into a tree when he was hanged for the false words of a white woman, or the joinder through a topsy turvy doll, crafted lovingly by Miss May Belle, of Rue and the Master’s daughter, Varina.  It kisses the pages, just enough to remind you it sits, just under the surface of everything, like secrets tossed in the water.
                Therein lies Rue’s power; she’s the keeper of secrets and stories.  As a child, her mother had used her to glean information from throughout the plantation.  This information was used in both the “hoodoo-ing” and the healing.  While her mama didn’t teach how to conjure, her mother did teach her healing.  After the war, with a red-headed secret held fast in the church, Rue took care of her people.  She birthed the babies and cared for the sick.  Forever tied to Varina due to the conjure, she could not leave.
                When she births a mysterious child, buried with a caul, with strange eyes, she knows one of her secrets has floated to the top of that river where she had buried him – a different type of magic emerges.  Superstition has long addressed the caul in childbirth, and Rue quickly tells Sarah it means the child will have the gift of second sight.  Of interesting note, seamen believe it will protect one against drowning as long as it is kept.  This very British superstition grabs hold of this very African superstition and the two link – much like the bloodlines that created the baby in question, a baby Rue names Bean because of his little black eyes.  The caul is burned and Bean is terrified of water.  (There is so much that can be said about Bean, the caul, and the water.)
                Midwifery, conjuring, and healing are oft thought to be “women’s work” and the novel gets its heart from Rue, May Belle, Ma Doe, and Varina.  But a smooth-talking preacher man, light enough he could pass as white if he so wanted, threatens to unravel the fabric of their lives.
                Bruh Abel comes to town every year on his way down south.  He thumps his Bible, winks at the women, and baptizes as many as he can – with his hands finding themselves in questionable places.   But it’s different this time.

“She’d known him for what he was then.  His was a clear-water cure sweetened with nothing more than clever words, a con man’s type of conjure.”
Rue is forced to fight for herself, to hold fast to her mother’s healing and her mother’s words, as Bruh Abel encourages her people to toss aside the past and find their faith in religion while he collects their coins. Suddenly an outcast and deemed a witch, Rue does what she has to protect herself, her secrets, her people, and Bean – just as she’s done her whole life.  

Despite many differences, Conjure Women called to mind Sarah Gertrude Millin’s God’s Stepchildren, which was published in 1924.  They are very different novels that were published in very different times and set in very different locations, but the interracial aspects (one through slavery and one through “faith”) the treatment of color, and the use of God had the two swirling in my mind and had me wishing I still did things like present papers.  I haven’t thought of Millin’s novel in a long time – I may need to reread it.
As far as Afia Atakora’s debut goes, Conjure Women is a roaring success.  It is beautifully written, cleverly told, magical, and heartbreaking in its reality.  There are some hiccups, particularly as we reach the close where the story could have been a bit tighter as the conjure came undone, but I strongly recommend it.  It’s an excellent example of magical realism removed from Latin America, and that’s an important aspect in understanding the fluidity of the genre. Conjure Women is a brilliant novel to break down and look at the tools the author is using to create something quite literary. I know many of you don’t care so much about the building blocks and dissection of a work – you are just looking for a good read – and Conjure Women would also fit that need.

ALL THE LITTLE LIARS – Charlaine Harris

It’s been a hot minute since I’ve read anything by Charlaine Harris, but she is candy for this book-dragon heart and just like a Bit-O-Honey, I still enjoy her characters.  Admittedly, I’ve only read the Sookie Stackhouse books, and not even all of those.  (I loved the books so much more than the TV show.)  I have been introduced to Manfred and all those “not so normal” folks seeking refuge in Midnight through the Midnight, Texas TV series, which I did enjoy, and that trilogy is on my “one day” list even though not yet in the TBR pile.  And thanks to the Hallmark Channel, I know who Aurora Teagarden is.  Harris is incredibly talented in the worlds she creates.  She’s not going to win any awards for “literary fiction” but the woman can spin a tale that will hold your attention until it reaches its usually satisfying close.  CANDY.
(Also, she’s a very nice woman who actually responded and responded promptly to a message I’d sent several years ago.)
When I saw an Aurora Teagarden mystery at the huge library sale in my county last year, I added it to my box.  (I am really missing that sale this year.  $5 a box.  Any sized box.)  And I have no regrets.  It’s a quick and delightful little mystery.
Published in 2016, over a decade after Poppy Done to Death, All the Little Liars marked the return of the beloved mystery-solving librarian.  Interest in the series undoubtedly increased after Hallmark and Candace Cameron Bure started making the Aurora movies, and Harris has published another one since All the Little Liars.

All the Little Liars revolves around Roe’s missing half-brother, who had moved in with her and Robin after walking in on his dad cheating on his mon.  Phillip has adjusted well and seems to be a typical teenage kid.  Better still, he’s made friends with twins Josh and Joss.  He seems happy, or as happy as a kid with such dysfunctional parents can be. 

Then he turns up missing.  Along with Josh and Joss.  And Liza, the 11-year-old daughter of the preacher.  And the notorious town bad boy, Clayton.  Rumors began to circulate, and Roe is hellbent to get to the bottom of it and find her brother.
A body is found, and Roe is called out to ensure it’s not Phillip.  The fact Roe is called to the scene, before the body is even flipped over, is not realistic.  Nor is it realistic to think they’d call her to see if the body was her brother when the body is clearly female.  But the scene is important and considering the POV of the story, Roe had to be there for us to be there. 

The body belongs to another teen, Tammy.  Why her disappearance hadn’t been acknowledged, I don’t know, but she’s found in an alleyway, having been struck by a car.  Turns out, she is Joss’s girlfriend.  Or was.  There is a very brief but touching moment where Joss’s mother learns she’s a lesbian and Tammy was her girlfriend.  Joss is still missing, and her mother goes to Tammy’s funeral in her place. 

Clayton’s parents have claimed he has been kidnapped and they’ve received ransom information.  They beg Roe not to tell the police or the kidnappers will hurt their son. Roe and Robin conduct a little stakeout to find the drop-off.  There’s certainly something rotten here – none of the other parents have received any contact from the kidnappers.
Josh’s car is found.  There is blood inside.  It belongs to Joss.  A bloody shirt is found further out.  The shirt and the blood are Josh’s.  Roe gets a call from an unknown caller.  It’s Phillip and he says someone has a gun on her and that Josh is hurt.  Is the “Liza” or “Joss”?  Who has the gun?  Where are they?
Roe learns that Liza had been bullied, severely bullied, by three girls at school.  One of the girls is Clayton’s sister.  “Little bitches” they’re called by everyone.  Even Roe – and she is not one prone to potty mouth.  Clayton’s sister threatens to tell everyone that Phillip was having sex with Liza – a blatant lie, but she is a vicious child.  Much like her brother.
Roe learns that Clayton’s girlfriend, Connie, is never far from his side.  She’s surprised that Connie isn’t missing as all witness accounts place her with Clayton the day of the kidnapping.  She tries to speak with Connie, but Connie’s mother won’t let her.  She encourages law enforcement to question the teenage girl further.  Connie ultimately commits suicide.
As per the formula, Roe is able to put the pieces together faster than local police and the FBI.  And, as also per the formula, she takes some risks and makes some enemies along the way.
I’m not going to spoil the fun by giving away the ending, but if you want a quick, little mystery – you can’t go wrong with Aurora Teagarden.

OUTLANDER – Diana Gabaldon

Unpopular opinion – I’ve tried watching Outlander since Netflix picked it up, but it just doesn’t hold my attention.  Maybe I’ll try again.  I don’t know.
But my attempts to watch it did result in me snagging a used copy of Outlander, the first in the series, during the times I could venture into a used bookstore worry free.  It jumped to the head of my TBR pile because its bright blue cover grabbed my attention when I was looking for my next selection.  I’ve never read anything by Diana Gabaldon.  Truth be told, I was too young for this book when it was published in 1991.  While I do think it is something my grandmother would have enjoyed and she is who often slipped me books that were perhaps a little too sexy for my age (Flowers in the Attic ring any bells?!?), I was wholly unaware of this series until Starz picked it up in 2014.  Even then, it wasn’t something that grabbed ahold of me.  Probably because I didn’t (and still don’t) get those fancy cable channels.  Flash forward a few years to when Netflix starts streaming the first few seasons and the unpopular opinion I opened this post with – I’m not that keen on the TV series.

My thoughts on the book are likely also going to fall along unpopular lines. 

  • I do not like Claire.  In particular, I do not like how Claire treats Frank at the beginning of the book – before Jamie even enters the scene.
  • I adored Frank.
  •  I understand that Claire loving sex is a big part of who Claire is – that was spelled out quite clearly in Mrs. Graham’s kitchen on page 23 – but the absolute worst parts of this novel are whenever Jamie and Claire are clawing at each other in the throes of passion.  There are many missed opportunities in their developing relationship, in their connection to each other, that were cheated by being cut short only to have the pages filled with sex.   It was a pity that sex became such a crutch as this is a pretty solid plot.  (Don’t get me wrong – I love Claire’s sexual awareness.)
  • Half-way through the novel, I decided I wouldn’t continue reading the rest of the series.  I wasn’t invested.
  •  Geillis Duncan, the “witch” from 1968, deserved more pages.  It’s my understanding she eventually gets them – just not in the first book.
  • Jamie’s continued and repeated abuse at the hands of the man that looks like Frank and is of Frank’s blood seemed more devastating to me, the reader, than to Claire.  We get a line here or there about seeing Frank’s smile on Randall’s face and how she almost willingly opened herself up to him when he was attempting to rape her, but these are flashes of the trauma she must have been going through.  Quite a missed opportunity for a well-developed internal struggle.  Pity.
  • Her “struggle” about returning to Frank was never a struggle and it annoyed me.  She never *really* wanted to go back.  And her half-assed attempted was really just a plot device to get her back to Randall to be rescued by Jamie so they could have hot sex.  Again.
  • My favorite parts of the novel are when Claire and Jamie visit Jenny and Ian, when Jamie is imprisoned and Claire is seeking to rescue him, and at the monastery.   (The wolf scene is what made me like her a little.)  The best writing shows up in those sections and it was only because of them that I decided I might need to read Dragonfly in Amber.
  • For someone who repeatedly said she was super disinterested in whatever her husband had to say and his passions, Claire sure enough remembered enough of what Frank told her to benefit herself in the world she found herself in.
  •  The descriptions of the Jamie’s rape are horrific.  What Claire does to him to “break him” out of death spiral is even more difficult to read.
  
I      In short, I never would have been allowed to read this in 1991.  In 2020, I find myself more interested in the meat of the matter, not the meat of the character; I may have waited too late in life to fully enjoy this historical romance with a splash of sci-fi.

UNDER THE RAINBOW – Celia Laskey

In 1915, Edgar Lee Masters published Spoon River Anthology, a collection of short free verse poems that served as epitaphs for the residents of the fictional Spoon River. Masters gave a voice to the dead – and splayed the ghosts in their closets, their shattered dreams, their angry fists, their vices and virtues, their hopes and dreams, their innocence wide open for the world to peer upon and judge. The book was banned in his hometown where people realized the fictional inhabitants weren’t that far removed from the real inhabitants, but the rest of the country loved it.

I read it in the late 90s and absolutely adored it. The town of Spoon River remains a main character I cannot forget, and snippets of small town America will often call it to mind. As such, it’s not surprising that the town of Big Burr from Celia Laskey’s Under the Rainbow (2020) had me thinking of Spoon River.

Laskey’s collection is one of short stories, not epitaphs. While her characters get the chance at redemption and forgiveness and love, the stories still pack a punch as they reveal a human condition very reminiscent of Masters’s work.

 The premises of the collection is that Acceptance Across America (AAA), an LGBTQ nonprofit, has sent a task force to the most homophobic town in America, Big Burr, Kansas. (Big Burr is fictional, but it really could be any small town.) The task force intends to live in this town of hate for two years as part of an experiment to see if they can change the hearts and minds of the residents. The stories are told from members of the task force as well as the townsfolks, and Laskey comes out swinging.

The first story is “Avery” – the very straight daughter of the very gay face of AAA. She doesn’t want to be in Big Burr, and she certainly doesn’t want anyone at school to know who her mom is. She goes to a party and watches one of her classmates pretend her mother, as appearing on the TV screen, is giving him a blow job. She makes some decisions that quickly show this experiment isn’t going to be all rainbows and unicorns.

Avery’s story stings, but not nearly as much as Zach’s – a classmate who becomes her friend and who is very much in the closet. (Big Burr didn’t become the most homophobic town in America for nothing.) He is abused in every sense of the word by his classmates and teachers – his pain and the darkness that he feels depicted in such a matter of fact and hopeless way that I had to take a pause after finishing it. There are so many current accounts that mirror his. Far too many.

The two stories that spoke the strongest to me, however, were Linda’s story and Elsie’s story. Linda’s son dies just as AAA descends upon the town, so she’s had her mind on things other than the “lesbian billboard” that has her neighbor all fired up. She is mourning – her grief leaking from the pages – and she’s so tired of the sympathetic sighs of her neighbors. Without realizing it, she becomes an ally. The task force embraces her, just letting her be her. They respect her grief, and she finds belonging and meaning with these strangers who become friends. Her chapter is beautifully crafted.

Elsie is also a resident of Big Burr. She’s stuck in a nursing home. Her children don’t come see her and only call her as a chore, but Harley comes like clockwork. Harley (they/them) is part of the task force and non-binary. Harley becomes more family than her own children, and Elsie loves them perhaps even more because their relationship isn’t about obligation.

After two years, the task force leaves. Laskey doesn’t leave us empty-handed though. She flashes forward ten years to take us to the wedding of one of Big Burr’s recently divorced, recently out of the closet, hunters.

So was the experiment a success? There was a lot of hurt and hate and darkness, but there was also hope and light and forgiveness. And in the end, love wins. For me, that’s a success.

Read it. Just read it.

REMEMBRANCE – Rita Woods

“I will not always be here like this for you and your sister. But when the world is black, when you think you are alone, the spirits, my spirit, will be with you, living in your heart. When you don’t know the answers, just listen. Quiet. And the answers will pour into your soul…They might not be the answers you want, but the spirits always answer.” – Remembrance, Rita Woods

The are some books that just stick with you, tight to your bones, like they’ve always been a part of you.  For me, those books tend to have a hint of magical realism and typically, but not always, a post-colonial framework. Two such books, Christina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban and Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea, flitted about my heart while I read Dr. Rita Woods’s stunning debut, Remembrance.
Remembrance is the story of four powerful and resilient women, all touched by the spirits, who always keep putting one foot in the other.
Gaelle, a refugee from Haiti, fled to our country after an earthquake ripped her’s apart.  She works at Stillwater, a nursing home in Cleveland. There is an old woman in Stillwater.  No one knows her age or her name.  Gaelle is inexplicably drawn to her.  The novel starts and ends with Gaelle.  She is our present.
Margot is a young slave in Louisiana at Far Water in the years leading up to the Civil War.  Her grandmother, Grandmere, talks to the spirits.  She can see the things to come.  (Like the Yellow Fever.) Her gift is why Master Hannigan has agreed to give Margot and her sister their freedom when they turn 18 – to show their appreciation to (and fear of) Grandmere.  They don’t know that Margot also has a gift.  But a death and bad debts result in her and her beloved sister being sold, being ripped from Grandmere, and sent to Kentucky where Margot soon begins her journey to freedom, to Remembrance.
“Master Hannigan is spit in the ocean, Margot,” said Grandmere finally. “In fifty years, a hundred, who will know his name?  But the ancient ones, they will still rule the ways of the world.”

Abigail began as a slave in Haiti at the original Far Water.  That’s not true.  Abigail began as Kianga, but she was stolen from the lands that knew her by that name and taken to Haiti.  She was in Haiti in 1791, at the start of the Revolution.   She belonged to the grandmother of the woman who claimed Margot. Her husband had joined the maroons and had been captured by his master.  She watched them burn him for his crimes.  Her master then sent her to Louisiana with the mistress and young child, forcing her to leave her two boys behind and promising her he would keep them safe.   She is a slave and has no choice, no say.  She never sees her boys again.  In a moment of despair, on the verge of giving up, Abigail becomes Yon Nwa, a much-feared voodoo priestess.  She is Babalawa.  And she is Mother Abigail to those who find Remembrance.
Winter is the child of a runaway slave, found protected by the body of her dead mother just outside the edge of Remembrance.  She has also been touched by the spirits, but she doesn’t know how to control the power.  Mother Abigail has taken her under her wing.  She is the future of Remembrance.
Remembrance is just as much a character as these four women.  She is a town along the Underground Railroad, created in the folds of the earth, that no man can enter unless Mother Abigail brings down the edge and lets them in.  No white man is allowed.  But Mother Abigail is growing old and the Edge is growing weak with her.  Her spell is faltering.
And then there’s Josiah.  A man I believe to be Papa Legba.  One can’t have the spirit world without him.
The novel is beautiful.  It’s weighty and magnificent.  The dialogue gave me remnants of Christophine, and I could hear the voices, the French and the Creole, the musicality and beauty of the speech in my head.  Being able to hear Gaelle, Margot, and Abigail so distinctly, the sparks of that language carrying through in text, is not an easy feat. 
The way the novel glides in a non-linear fashion, moving effortlessly between characters, places, and times, triggered thoughts of Garcia’s novel.  Dreaming in Cuban is one of my most favorite novels and not a comparison I make lightly – many authors are not able to successfully traverse their story in such non-linear methods – not like Garcia.  And not like Dr. Rita Woods.

This has joined the list of books that stick close to my bones.  Read it.  Read it now.



CHILDREN OF VIRTUE AND VENGEANCE – Tomi Adeyemi

In 2018, debut author Tomi Adeyemi spun onto the literary scene with her magi and brilliant sparks of magic. The book deal was phenomenal.  Movie rights have been acquired.  Disney is at the helm.  It’s a big flipping deal.

I  devoured Children of Blood and Bone and encouraged my readers to join in the “magi uprising.”  I did, however, find flaw with the love story, and my April 1, 2018 review reads as follows:

The love story, half-assed and out of place, was an insult. This was not, nor should it have been, a struggle of the heart. This novel would have been stronger without that pesky Romeo & Juliet story line. Trust me. Inan’s conflict should never have been with Zelie. It was always with himself, sweet Amari, and his father. Always. That story is written on their skin, in their blood.

Flash forward to 2019.  The second book of the trilogy was pushed out twice, I believe, before finally hitting the shelves in December.  Having now read Children of Virtue and Vengeance, I have some opinions as to why it was delayed.

In book deals, where there are deadlines, many authors falter.  Tomi Adeyemi likely spent YEARS building what became Children of Blood and Bone.  And then she sold it as part of book deal, which means she had to deliver book two on their schedule.  I think that may be why it is rushed, jarring, incomplete; the magic is simply gone as the half-assed “love” story eats at the plot.

When I posted that Inan’s conflict was with his family, I didn’t realize how accurate a statement that was.  And that conflict had the potential to be absolutely brilliant in this novel.  But it wasn’t realized.  It wasn’t developed.  Instead, hollow characters made hollow decisions with cheap literary tricks revolving around emotions like love, lust, and anger.

All the beautiful world building was lost.  The momentum behind the magi uprising fell flat.  Forced words.  Forced plots.  Empty characters.  And it hurts me to say that, because I loved this world so much.  I’m hoping this book was just a rocky path to get us to book three, which will light up with that magic again.

Despite my less than glowing comments, the novel isn’t all bad – the last quarter of the book gives me glimpses of what I loved so much in Children of Blood and Bone and the ending has me excited for what can be done in book three.  I just wish there had been better character development and building in this one – the characters deserved it.  I will still read the conclusion, currently slated to be published next year, and I hope they get the flesh on their bones I was seeking in this book.

I’ll end this with Mama Agba’s words: “You are the children of the gods. You shall never be alone.”