Time to post the last batch, since I'll finish a few more on the way to and from Readercon. Planes and lunch breaks at work are the only places I finish novels anymore.
3.
Bitter Seeds - Ian Tregillis
After waiting years for this book, I am very pleased. Beautiful and terrible, funny and unsettling. It will come as no surprise to anyone that I adore Gretel.
4.
The Stepsister Scheme - Jim Hines
This is a book that I thought wouldn't be my sort of thing, but I was quite pleasantly surprised. Fast and fun, fluffy but with just enough crunch. I hope to read
The Mermaid's Madness on a plane in the near future.
5.
Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer
I so rarely read nonfiction, but this was lovely. Also brutal. It makes me want to climb mountains.
6.
Sins & Shadows - Lyn Benedict
Sylvie Lightner is a brittle, mouth, confrontational bitch. Exactly what I loathe in an UF heroine. Only I like Sylvie instead--possibly because she has a modicum of self-awareness, and has friendships with women. Also, furies! Sphynges! Cute gods! Tiny apocalypses! These are a few of my favorite things.
7.
City in the River, City in the Forest - Melanie Westerberg
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joie_de_poulpe is my climbing buddy. She is also an amazing writer.
The first time Héctor took Mary to the city, he showed her the bridge where the army had shot five printmakers. There had been no standoff: a group of soldiers drew their guns after passing them on the bridge, then the bodies fell into the river below. Hundreds of envelopes fanned out after them and paved the water.The cover copy says:
In a country she chose for ‘its landscapes and lax visa-extension policies’, Mary is a tour guide at a remote lodge in the Amazon. There she meets Héctor, who sneaks into her hammock late at night and leaves tiny gifts at her door, tempting her to stay longer than she’d planned. But then she begins to see fires on uninhabited land, hear gunshots, cross suspicious strangers in the dead of night. She doesn’t know if it’s the start of another undeclared civil war or simply retribution on the lodge owner, whose husband had fought with the rebels before disappearing for a decade. When he reappears, Mary is forced to confront the reality of her situation and decide where her loyalties lie.The book is also heavy with mythology, veined with stories of
encantados--shapeshifting dolphins who seduce humans and eventually abandon them to return to their underwater city. I won't go so far as to call this magical realism, but there is a nagging thread of
what if? that makes this a second cousin to spec fic.
Right now
City is only available from
Hag's Head Press in Ireland, and I encourage you to buy a copy.
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timeasmymeasure
