2025/105: Breaking the Dark — Lisa Jewell

Her whole life has been a slow-motion multiple pileup. She lives on the edges of everything, at the sharp pointy corner of existence between normality and extraordinariness where she is neither one thing nor, truly, the other. She can do extraordinary things, but she doesn’t like doing them. But she can’t be normal either, she’s too broken, too other. [loc. 1217]

I'm not familiar with Jewell's thrillers, but I am a fan of Marvel's Jessica Jones, and had listened to an audiobook of another story featuring her, Playing with Fire. So, for the challenge involving two books in the same shared universe...

In Breaking the Dark, Jessica is recruited by a wealthy socialite who believes that something weird has happened to her children, Lark and Fox, while they stayed with their father in Barton Wallop, a small village in Essex (the UK version). They used to be normal (if privileged) teenagers, but now they just keep talking about everything being 'perfect': they're polished, glossy and uninterested in their old friends and hobbies, and they're obsessed with the Lloyd Cole song 'Perfect Skin'.

Jessica's broke and in a rut: she needs the money, so agrees to investigate. In England, she discovers a self-professed 'AI witch' who also talks about being (or at least looking) perfect, as well as a run-down farmhouse where a girl named Belle seems to be living in the thrall of an older woman named Debra.

In a parallel plot thread, a woman named Polly targets a young man named Arthur -- and his parents Ophelia and John, who have (a) an elderly cat and (b) a big secret. Polly wants to be a big-name beauty influencer, and has created a product line called Beauty X. But there's been some outcry about her ingredients, and she jumps at Arthur's suggestion of using quantum physics to achieve similar effects. Jessica (with the help of teenaged sidekick Malcolm, and longterm friend-with-benefits Luke Cage) uncovers Polly's dastardly plot, and the secret of that farmhouse: she also undergoes a change of her own.

This was a fun read, well-paced and suspenseful: Jewell's Jessica is very much the character I recall from the Marvel TV show, and I found her changing perspective on life very credible. Happy endings for the deserving few (though I felt very sorry for Mr Smith) and no lasting damage. And by the end of the novel Jessica's life is transformed: not perfect, but good.

...my husband said that this is the hardest he’s ever seen me working in all the twenty-five years I’ve been at this job! [Author's Afterword]

2025/104: Oracle — Thomas Olde Heuvelt

In both timelines there was a chain of events triggered by a smaller event on the North Sea. At Doggerland, it was the annual sacrifice they pushed off in a canoe. In the eighteenth century, it was the five sick hands they threw overboard to drown. ‘It’s been awakened,’ Grim uttered. ‘That thing from below. Its hunger was aroused, and now it’s demanding more . . .’ [p. 280]

I've enjoyed Heuvelt's previous novels (HEX and Echo: supernatural horror in the modern world, with layered narrative and unreliable narrators. Oracle -- in which an eighteenth-century plague ship suddenly appears in a tulip field -- ties together Doggerland, oil rigs, smallpox epidemics and oppressive regimes. The protagonists are Luca Wolf, aged thirteen, who watches his best friend Emma vanish into the ship (they're the first to see it) and, later, his father; Robert Grim, who appeared in HEX; Eleanor Delveaux, who heads a shadowy government department tasked with investigating weird phenomena; and Vincent Becker, a damage assessment inspector investigating a disaster at a North Sea oil rig called Mammoth III. This is not the only mammoth we will encounter.

Luca is a delight, as is his practical and open-minded girlfriend Safiya. Grim is rather two-dimensional (I don't really remember him from HEX). So is Eleanor, who was not endeared to me by the explanation '[she] knew she was hated and she didn’t care. In the male-dominated world of power, you had to be hard as nails to stand your ground. If that meant that she was perpetuating the stereotype of the unscrupulous battle axe, then tough'. 

The secondary characters, to be honest, are more interesting than most of the protagonists: a tulip-farmer haunted by the sound of a bell, a rig mechanic talking about discovering a gargantuan skull, a Guardian correspondent abducted in broad daylight... Where the novel excels is not in character depth but in visions of ancient rituals and curses, the living memory of catastrophic floods, the terrors of storms at sea: in Elder Gods, half-glimpsed horrors and human bodies metamorphosed into something dreadful. The climax is thoroughly cinematic, though the true resolution of the ancient conflict between humanity and the natural world is described only in the Epilogue.

This was a well-paced read with some evocative locations, nicely interwoven past-and-present, and the occasional echo of Lost. And there are hints that we'll see more of Grim in Heuvelt's future novels.

2025/103: Hemlock and Silver — T Kingfisher

I had just taken poison when the king arrived to inform me that he had murdered his wife. [opening line]

A new T Kingfisher novel is always a delight, and Hemlock and Silver -- a dark and occasionally horrific riff on 'Snow White' -- has brought me great joy, right from that opening line.

Healer Anja is thirty-five years old, unmarried, an expert in poisons and their antidotes. The king, having informed her that he'd murdered his wife, wants her to cure his adolescent daughter, Snow, whom he believes is being poisoned. The money is good and the offer difficult to refuse. In short order, Anja is on her way to Witherleaf, an opulent palace in the desert. She meets the young princess, who is clearly hiding something; she runs tests, the results of which are inconclusive; and she encounters an excellent cat.

I loved the worldbuilding: the beasts of heaven rose up and slew the cruel, pitiless gods, and are worshipped as saints. (There is no Saint Cat.) Anja refuses to believe in magic, and approaches her work with scientific rigour. She's a likeable narrator with a pragmatic approach and a burning urge to understand the world around her.

There are elements of horror that reminded me of some of Kingfisher's darker works, such as The Twisted Ones and The Hollow Places: there's also romance, friendship and the aforementioned excellent cat ("His Gloriousness, God-King of the Deserts, Lord of Rooftops, King of Mirrors, Heir to the Mantle of Harar, He Who Treads the Serpent's Tail, Whose Claws Have Scarred the Bark of the Great Tree") who is key to the resolution of the mystery.

UK publication date is 19th August 2025: thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for my advance review copy!

2025/102: When Women Were Dragons — Kelly Barnhill

[Author's Note] I thought I was writing a story about rage. I wasn’t. There is certainly rage in this novel, but it is about more than that. In its heart, this is a story about memory, and trauma. It’s about the damage we do to ourselves and our community when we refuse to talk about the past. It’s about the memories that we don’t understand, and can’t put into context, until we learn more about the world. [p. 366]

Reread for Lockdown bookclub: original review here. I liked it even more the second time around, though I found myself focussing more on the silences, absences and unspoken truths of Alex's childhood than on the natural history of dragons. Interestingly, it felt a lot more hopeful when I read it in 2022 than now, nearly three years later.

Discussed with book club. Reactions were mixed. We wanted more about knots, and whether they were actually magic.

2025/101: The Silence of the Girls — Pat Barker

I was no longer the outward and visible sign of Agamemnon’s power and Achilles’ humiliation. No, I’d become something altogether more sinister: I was the girl who’d caused the quarrel. Oh, yes, I’d caused it – in much the same way, I suppose, as a bone is responsible for a dogfight. [loc. 1596]

This is the story of Briseis, a princess of Lyrnessus who was captured when the Achaeans sacked the city. Her husband and brothers were slaughtered, and she was given to Achilles as a prize. Later, Agamemnon's prize Chryseis was returned to her father, a priest of Apollo: plague had broken out and Apollo, the god of plague, needed to be appeased. Agamemnon complained about the loss of his property: Briseis was taken from Achilles and given to Agamemnon to replace Chryseis, and Achilles then sulked in his tent and refused to fight.

Of course the story is quite different from Briseis' point of view. She's witnessed the slaughter of her people, slithered 'along alleys cobbled with our brothers', been a victim of and witness to rape (at least as a noblewoman she isn't given to the common soldiers), and she has prayed for Apollo's vengeance. Patroclus is kind to her ('I know what it’s like to lose everything and be handed to Achilles as a toy'), and she becomes friendly with other women in the Greek camp as they nurse the wounded. But these are small comforts: she has become liminal, belonging neither with the living nor the dead. And she refuses to forget her former life.

Towards the end of the novel there are some scenes from Achilles' point of view: the arrival of Priam, the loss of Patroclus, the desecration of Hector's corpse. These scenes are an interesting counterpoint to Briseis' quiet despair and loathing: they show us Achilles' resignation in the face of his fate, and his desperate loneliness after the death of his only friend, and they illuminate some aspects of the warrior life. I don't think they were necessary, though: I'd rather have stuck with Briseis.

The Silence of the Girls ends with Briseis reflecting on how people hearing of Achilles' brief and glorious life won't want to know about the rape camps and the enslavement and the slaughter. Pregnant by Achilles and married to one of Achilles' captains, she's still, effectively, enslaved. The final words -- 'now, my own story can begin' -- feel trite.

Horrific brutality, colloquial speech, glimpses of the divine and supernatural (Briseis sits with her back to a bronze mirror and feels the rage of Achilles' ghost: earlier, his mother -- the goddess Thetis -- emerges from the sea), and a determination to survive, no matter what.

We’re going to survive – our songs, our stories. They’ll never be able to forget us. Decades after the last man who fought at Troy is dead, their sons will remember the songs their Trojan mothers sang to them. We’ll be in their dreams – and in their worst nightmares too. [loc. 3595]

2025/100: Monsters — Emerald Fennell

The best thing about there being a murder in Fowey is that it means there is a murderer in Fowey. It could be anyone. [loc. 464]

The nameless narrator of Monsters is a twelve-year-old girl, orphaned in a boating accident ('Don’t worry – I’m not that sad about it') and living with her grandmother. Every summer she's packed off to an aunt and uncle who run a guest house in the quaint Cornish town of Fowey. There, she meets Miles, also twelve, and they bond over a murder -- a local woman found tangled in fishing nets. Miles and our narrator are fascinated by the notion of a murderer... but as their investigations proceed and more bodies are found, some uncomfortable truths are revealed. (I say 'revealed': some of the nastiest truths are merely hinted at.)

Most of the reviews seem to revel in the monstrosity of Miles and the narrator, and it's true that they are amoral little monsters. But I felt desperately sorry for her: I think that line on the first page, 'I'm not that sad about it', is ... not quite a lie, but a glib response to a horrendous situation. She has nobody: her grandmother is emotionally distant, her aunt is terrified, her uncle is horrific. No wonder she's so desperate for Miles to like her: no wonder she's not always in control of her own actions. She's as much a victim as the drowned eyeless girls who wash up with sea urchin fossils in their mouths.

I liked most of the novel, especially the vignettes of local characters: superstitious townsfolk, feeble Aunt Maria, poisonous Jean. The ending, though, seemed at once hasty and inconclusive. Yes, it resolved and explained most of the murders, but it felt out of tune with the rest of the story.

2025/099: The Story of a Heart — Rachel Clarke

Depending on your point of view, the transplantation of a human heart is a miracle, a violation, a leap of faith, an act of sacrilege. It’s a dream come true, a death postponed, a biomedical triumph, a day job. [loc. 199]

Keira, aged nine, is fatally injured in a traffic accident: her heart keeps beating but she is brain-dead. Max, also aged nine, has been in hospital for almost a year because his heart is failing. This is the story of how Keira (and, more actively, her family) saved Max, and of the people involved in the heart transplant - doctors, nurses, couriers, porters... It's a compassionate and engaging work of narrative non-fiction, this is the story of a heart transplant, and of how the death of one child and the saving of another led to a significant change in UK law.

While I was reading The Story of a Heart, it was announced as the winner of the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction: I hope this will prompt more people to read it. Clarke, trained as a doctor, is an excellent communicator of medical science: she's also adept at highlighting the little details. (Keira's young sisters, both convinced that she would have wanted to donate her organs, paint her fingernails orange while she's lying in intensive care.) 

I found this a moving, fascinating and sometimes sobering book: I think it's what I was expecting when I read Mend the Living (a novel that I thought at first was non-fiction) some years ago. They're both very good books.

interview with Rachel Clarke

2025/098: Maurice — E M Forster

He had gone outside his class, and it served him right. [loc. 2758]

A classic of LGBT+ literature, read for a 'published posthumously' challenge -- I managed to find an affordable Kindle edition. Splendid prose, intriguingly detached/omniscient narration, and appalling social tension. I felt a deep dislike for most of the characters, especially Maurice, and suspect it would have been reciprocated. ('Both were misogynists... In the grip of their temperaments, they had not developed the imagination to do duty instead, and during their love women had become as remote as horses or cats; all that the creatures did seemed silly.' [loc. 1301]. Miaow.)

Maurice forms a close friendship with Durham at university, but is repulsed when Durham declares his love. He then reads some Greek literature and decides that though homosexuality may be 'the worst crime in the calendar' he reciprocates Durham's love. There is a period of happiness, after which Durham declares that he has suddenly caught heterosexuality and is planning to marry. Maurice does not take this well. He has a liaison with a working-class man (Durham's gamekeeper Scudder) and -- after some disastrous miscommunications -- turns his back on his old life to be with Scudder.

Maurice is a sobering insight into the public (and private) attitude towards homosexuality in the Edwardian era. The Dean's translation class omits 'a reference to the unspeakable vice of the Greeks'; Maurice rejects Durham with the words 'a rotten notion really'; a doctor refuses to discuss 'nonsense'. It's a subject 'absolutely beyond the limit'. And Forster, of course, did not publish this novel in his lifetime.

I did like Maurice's notion of life beyond conventions: 'Perhaps among those who took to the greenwood in old time there had been two men like himself—two. At times he entertained the dream. Two men can defy the world.' [loc. 1779]. And apparently, in Forster's unpublished epilogues, that's what became of Maurice and Scudder. (source)

Forster completed the first draft of this novel in 1913-14. What would have become of Maurice and Alec in the war?

2025/097: Endling — Maria Reva

"Wasn't your novel originally going to be about a marriage agency in Ukraine?"
"Null and void... I was writing about a so-called invasion of bachelors to Ukraine, and then an actual invasion happened. Even in peacetime I felt queasy writing right into not one but two Ukrainian tropes, 'mail-order brides' and topless protesters. To continue now seems unforgiveable." [loc. 1457]

The first half of Endling is the story of Yeva, a malacologist ('despite its inclusion of mollusks without backbones') who's determined to save endangered snail species. It hasn't gone well: she is down to one living specimen, Lefty, whose shell coils the opposite way to others of his species. (Yeva, similarly, coils the other way: she's asexual, though she has a passionate friendship with a conservationist.) Lefty is an endling, the last of his variant. Perhaps Yeva is too.

To finance her mobile lab, Yeva works for Romeo Meets Yulia, an agency that does 'romance tours' for Western men.You meet the most interesting people at these events. Yeva is approached by two sisters, Nastia and Sol, who also work for the agency. Inspired by their infamous mother, a flamboyant activist, they've decided to kidnap one hundred bachelors as a publicity stunt, and they'd like to use Yeva's van. It's a lab, Yeva points out, and twelve is the absolute limit.

So off they set, three women and a dozen bewildered Westerners (well, eleven: Pasha lives in Vancouver, but was born in Ukraine), on a road trip to nowhere. And suddenly there are loud noises outside...

The quotation at the top of this review comes from the middle of the book, where everything falls apart: reality intrudes, in the form of the Russian invasion of February 2022. The author also intrudes: that's her talking to her agent, trying to place this novel, to sell articles about Ukrainian humour. And the book seems to end, with Acknowledgements ('I would also like to thank Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for including my name on their personal sanctions list of Canadians who are now forbidden from entering their country. One of the biggest honours of my literary career' [loc. 1620]) and A Note on the Type.

But we're not even halfway through, and for the rest of the novel Reva's own voice enters the novel, worrying about her grandfather in Kherson, wondering whether one can write fiction about tragedy and war. Not that Yeva and her companions vanish. Instead, Yeva's conservationist friend tells her he's spotted another left-coiling snail, a female, in the background of a teenager's video about not wanting to leave his city. The city is Kherson...

I loved the playfulness of this novel, even in the midst of horror: I warmed to Yeva and to Reva and to the activist sisters trying to lure their absent mother into view with a high-profile stunt. And somehow even the snails were interesting -- not words I thought I would ever type.

UK publication is 3rd July 2025: Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy!

2025/096: Stateless — Elizabeth Wein

...turning your back on your family, I knew, wasn’t nearly as terrifying as turning your back on an entire nation. [loc. 3643]

Stella North is the only female contestant in Europe's first ever youth air race. It's 1937, and the European powers are desperately trying to avert war: 'No one who fought here twenty years ago and survived wanted to see their sons come of age and go straight out to fight another war'. Meanwhile, the young men who are Stella's (male) competitors seem to be obsessed with the war records of their instructors and chaperones. She's especially vexed by the French pilot, Tony Roberts, who strongly resembles the German pilot, Sebastian Rainer. Tony flew in Spain, during the Civil War: Sebastian has never heard of Guernica.

On the first leg of the race, a pilot is forced out of the sky by another plane. Stella is the only witness, and she's terrified that she will be the next target. Instead, she's under suspicion ...

This is a murder mystery, but it's also about the joy of flying, and about being 'stateless' (Stella's a refugee whose parents were murdered during the Russian revolution), and there is friendship and perhaps romance. Ignore the 'young adult' labelling: this is a well-researched and immensely readable novel, with credible characters and a complex plot. Wein handles the looming war -- which the characters dread, but don't know is going to happen -- with sensitivity, and the young aviators have a variety of perspectives and opinions ... many of which have changed by the end of the novel.

Wein's afterword, 'written in a terrifying present and addressed to an unknown future', mentions some of her sources and inspirations: she also writes that 'It was impossible... to ignore that the 1937 setting was on the brink of events that would alter civilization forever. During the two years that I worked on the novel, between May 2020 and March 2022, it felt rather as if I were writing a book set in the autumn of 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.' (loc. 4791). Writing this review on the day that America has bombed Iran, I also feel that sense of being on the brink: but I've felt like this for so long now...

2025/095: Night and Day in Misery — Catriona Ward

...she understands, now, that she has not been alone these eight years, not really. She carries all that she is, and has been, within her. Stella gasps with the mercy and the cruelty of it all. [loc. 405]

Short story, part of Amazon's 'Shivers' collection: read because Catriona Ward is a favourite author and it's too long since her last novel.

Stella is visiting the motel where her husband Frank and son Sam stayed eight years ago, the night before they died when Frank's car crashed off a suspension bridge and into a river. Sam would be ten now. Stella's life has frozen: she's estranged from her mother (who advised her to leave Frank) and finds it hard to connect with her sister Dina. She blames herself for Frank and Sam's death, and just wants to be with Sam again. She writes a farewell letter and falls asleep: but dreams...

Too short, but very atmospheric: I listened to the audiobook, which was read slightly too dramatically for my taste, but still good. The prose is lovely and the story, though simple, feels organic and rounded.

2025/094: Return of the Thief — Megan Whalen Turner

Nahuseresh tells me I am not king. We’ll see if he really prefers the Thief. [loc. 3700]

Series finale, and it really delivers. The narrator, for the most part, is Pheris Mostrus Erondites, a vulnerable child who has been taught that his only safety lies in pretending to be a 'drooling idiot'. He's non-verbal, and has other traits indicative of something like cerebral palsy: his cousins have nicknamed him Monster. Eugenides (now annux, high king, of the Peninsula) has 'invited' Pheris to be raised in the palace, away from his family -- his grandfather is Baron Erondites, Gen's greatest opponent in court -- and quickly realises that Pheris' mind is as sharp as his own.

And Pheris observes a great deal. He sees that Gen is often ill; that he keeps returning to the temple of Hephestia, trying to get a straight answer from the gods; that he wants to reject his violent impulses, but also wants to go to war with the Medes. He sees, too, that Gen is willing to laugh at himself: one of the most delightful (and cheerful) scenes is a satirical play about a king named Emipopolitus, who's wasting the country's money on mad ideas. Gen clearly knows the playwright...

This is a novel about war and vengeance, treachery and death. It's presented as Pheris' 'chronicle of the high king' -- his Exordium reminded me of Thucydides* -- and though Pheris literally turns away from the most distressing scenes, there's a lot of violence. But there are also moments of joy, and several instances of divine intervention. And, unexpectedly, a happy ending for most (though not all) of the characters.

Pheris is a fascinating narrator, and a very credible character in his own right: damaged by his family more profoundly than Gen by his frequently-deplored cousins, non-verbal but fascinated by mathematics and keen to become literate under the tuition of Relius, ex-spymaster, possessed of stubborn courage and immense loyalty. I liked him a lot, and I liked the ways in which Turner showed us that his physical problems don't make him in any way lesser. 

Gen fascinated (and occasionally appalled) me all over again. He is, after all, on first-name terms with the gods -- and Pheris, fortunately for the chronicle, can see and hear them too.

And I love that the end of the series is full of hope and new life and possibility: that foreseen disasters are still in the future: that this is not a tragedy.

* Pheris: "I will include in my account what I did not see and hear myself only if I learned of the events as they occurred and from those who were present." [loc. 56]
Thucydides: "Of the events of the war I have not ventured to speak from any chance information, nor according to any notion of my own; I have described nothing but what I either saw myself, or learned from others of whom I made the most careful and particular enquiry." source: 1.22.

2025/093: Thick as Thieves — Megan Whalen Turner

There is freedom in this life and there is power, and I was ambitious for the latter. [p. 15]

Kamet is a slave, albeit an expensive and efficient one: he is secretary to Nahuseresh, the erstwhile Medean ambassador to Attolia. Disgraced by the failure of the mission to Attolia the year before, Nahuseresh has returned to court in Ianna-Ir, hoping for a new post. Unfortunately his latest request has not been granted -- and the court is a dangerous place for a man out of favour. Fearing that he'll be blamed for Nahuseresh's death by poison, Kamet accepts the help of an Attolian soldier who's promised him his freedom. Together, they flee across the desert, the Attolian constantly lauding his king, Kamet feeling effortlessly superior. But the two are becoming friends, despite the secret Kamet can't admit.

This is very much a road-trip story. It's told as Kamet's first-person narrative, and there is a great deal he does not know. (I am unclear, though, why he refers to his companion as 'the Attolian' despite knowing his name from early on.) He's convinced of his own value, and of the barbarity of Attolia. To entertain his presumed-illiterate companion, he recites his own verse translations of the old myths of Immakuk and Ennikar, who are reminiscent of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. And he finds himself thinking differently about loyalty, freedom, power and friendship.

Not my favourite of the series, not least because the protagonists of the main arc don't appear until late in the novel: but Kamet's growth as a person, and the echoes of myth in his friendship with the Attolian, are engaging, and the various secrets -- some hidden in plain sight, others only evident in the final chapters -- are cleverly hidden and revealed. (Kamet's poor eyesight, from years of reading in bad light, is a plot point.) And it's nice to see Medes other than the oily Nahuseresh, who's been portrayed as a dyed-in-the-wool villain (the novel opens with Kamet having suffered a beating for 'overreaching') but had, it seems, some redeeming qualities.

2025/092: A Conspiracy of Kings — Megan Whalen Turner

All my life they had made choices for me, and I had resented it. Now the choice was mine, and once it was made, I would have no right to blame anyone else for the consequences. Loss of that privilege, to blame others, unexpectedly stung. [p. 79]

Sophos, the heir to the kingdom of Sounis, was one of Eugenides' companions in The Thief. He doesn't especially want to be king, though he'd quite like to marry the Queen of Eddis. But suddenly catastrophe strikes, Sophos loses everything, and Sounis is under threat. In order to save his country from civil war, he has first to save himself.

I didn't enjoy this as much as the previous three books in the series: this is partly because Eugenides is a peripheral rather than a central character, and partly because there is much more large-scale conflict. But Eugenides is there (scheming and manipulating, obviously): and Sophos, growing up over the course of the novel -- growing from Sophos to Sounis -- is a fascinating character. His resolution of the impasse between factions was stark and shocking: it would have been unthinkable to the young man at the beginning of the novel, but it is the act of a king.

Another interesting set of narrative choices, too. The first half of the novel is Sophos' first-person narration, but it becomes clear that he's telling his story to somebody. The rest of the novel alternates between third-person and Sophos' continued account.

A Conspiracy of Kings felt like a pivot to the wider world, to the pieces being placed for war. Yet the interpersonal relationships, and the character growth, are just as important as before. I'm glad I didn't read it first: I doubt I'd have appreciated just how intrinsic to the story are Eugenides and Attolia.

2025/091: The King of Attolia — Megan Whalen Turner

... what he had taken for the roughness of sleep was the king’s accent. While half asleep, he had spoken with an Eddisian accent, which was only to be expected, but Costis had never heard it before, nor had anyone he knew. Awake, the king sounded like an Attolian. It made Costis wonder what else the king could hide so well that no one even thought to look for it.[p. 219]

Eugenides has become King of Attolia, but is not well-received by the courtiers and soldiers of the city. They believe he's a barbarian who forced the Queen to marry him, and who has not consummated the marriage. (There is a rude song about this.) They put snakes in his bed and sand in his food: they regard him as helpless and inept.

But this is not his story -- or, rather, not his narrative. It's the story of Costis Ormentiedes, a young soldier in the King's Guard, who we first see trying to compose a letter to his father after having punched the King in the face.

I continue to marvel at Turner's storytelling skill. Though the focus (and, usually, the viewpoint) is firmly with Costis -- Ornon, the Eddisian ambassador, gets some scenes too, as does the Queen -- the core of the novel is Eugenides' reluctance to become King in truth as well as in name, and in the gods' determination that he will fulfil the role they've crafted for him. Keeping Eugenides at one remove from the narrative distances us from his thoughts and feelings, but there are (as ever with Turner) lots of telling details. The click of a latch, the toss of a coin, the roughness of an accent...

Costis is a likeable narrator, and his gradual realisation that Eugenides isn't what he appears feels authentic and natural. Even the minor characters have agency and agendas: even the villains have redeeming features. And there's a strong sense of the presence, the reality, of the gods: numinosity? A splendid and superbly-crafted novel.

2025/090: The Queen of Attolia — Megan Whalen Turner

“You made a mistake,” Attolia agreed. “You trusted your gods. That was your mistake." [p. 267]

Another reread: my review from 2010 is here. I remembered the shockingly violent act at the beginning of the novel, and the state of affairs at the end, but not much in between. And, unable to acquire any of the following novels -- well, back then I thought it was a trilogy! -- the characters faded away.

Eugenides is taken captive by the Queen of Attolia, more beautiful but less kind than his own Queen (Eddis, who's also his cousin). She exacts a brutal penalty for his trespasses, and sends him home. Tensions between the three countries of the peninsula (Sounis, Attolia, and Eddis) are high, and soon there is war. The Queen of Attolia is becoming increasingly vexed by her Medean ambassador, Nahuseresh. When Eugenides, tasked to 'steal peace', encounters her again, she weighs her options and proves amenable to the solution he suggests.

This is a carefully-crafted and emotionally devastating novel. The viewpoint is third person omniscient, with the focus on Gen and Attolia, though other viewpoints occur throughout the book. But the author doesn't tell us everything that's going on, every thought or plan or nightmare. As with The Thief, I found myself rereading to see how the emotional denouement was signalled: the seeds of the revelation that keeps Attolia's glaziers in business. It is beautifully done.

I also very much appreciate the two Queens, who have power and agency, and I note that the pantheon of gods is ruled by the Great Goddess Hephestia. And Eugenides, despite his imposed disability, is still competent and witty, though more vulnerable (and thus seeming younger) than in The Thief.

I must have been so frustrated back in 2010 when I couldn't read more of Eugenides' story. Luckily, that is no longer the case.

2025/089: The Thief — Megan Whalen Turner

It was a relief to explain everything to her... what I’d thought of the magus in the beginning and what I thought of him in the end. What it meant to be the focus of the gods’ attention, to be their instrument, used to change the shape of the world. And it was nice to brag a little, too. [p. 218]

A reread: my previous read (review) was in 2009, back when I was still reading print books, and acquiring them from BookMooch, which was able to provide copies of the first and second book in the series -- but not the third, or the fourth that had only just been published. They weren't available in UK editions until a few years ago. Now there are six books; I have purchased two as Kindle deals over the last few years; and all six are available via Kindle Unlimited. Sparked by a setting similar to Ancient Greece (though with definite Byzantine overtones, and more technology: watches, glass windows, rifles) I immersed myself, and have read all six in the space of a week. It has been blissful, and I'm sure I've noticed aspects and elements which would have eluded me if I'd read each volume as it became available.

At the start of the book, a young thief named Gen is languishing in the King's prison, having boasted that he can steal anything. He's still working on stealing himself out of prison when the king's magus turns up, wanting a 'proficient but anonymous thief' to help him acquire a mysterious treasure. Together with two useless young noblemen and a professional soldier, Gen and the magus set out. By the end of the book, the treasure has been retrieved, the secret agendas of the party have been revealed, the gods have made their existence known, and Gen has turned out to be the epitome of the unreliable narrator.

I didn't recall much of the book from my first reading, so I went back to the start and admired Turner's deftness with subtle clues. Nothing's explained, but everything's laid out for us to see. Gen is an immensely likeable narrator: I enjoyed his competence and self-reliance nearly as much as his deceptions. (I was reminded of Lymond, though apparently Turner didn't read Dorothy Dunnett's novels until well after The Thief was published. Rosemary Sutcliff, on the other hand, was a major influence.)

Originally a standalone novel, and marketed as YA: nevertheless, there is violence and unpleasantness, and a likeable character dies. I'd have enjoyed it tremendously as an adolescent, but I didn't find it simplistic in style or content. And, having finished it, I immediately acquired the rest of the series.

2025/088: The Walled Orchard — Tom Holt

...how Athens came to have the most pure and perfect democracy the world has ever seen, in which every man had a right to be heard, the law was open to all, and nobody need go hungry if he was not too proud to play his part in the oppression of his fellow Greeks and the judicial murder of inconvenient statesmen. [p. 46]

I owned a paperback copy of this novel -- actually two novels in one volume, Goatsong and The Walled Orchard -- for many years but did not read it. Suddenly, recently, the time was right and I was very much in Ancient Greek mode: and I am now much more familiar with the glories of Classical Greece, and the horrors of the Sicilian Expedition, than I was before. (See, for instance, Glorious Exploits.)

The narrator of the duology is Eupolis of Pallene, a gentleman farmer and writer of comedies, from his childhood survival of the plague, which left him scarred and ugly, to his old age. Entwined with the Peloponnesian War and the Sicilian Expedition are the triumphs and disasters of Eupolis' career as a dramatist and his ongoing feud with rival playwright Aristophanes, and his unhappy marriage to Phaedra, a young woman whom he rescues from Aristophanes and his bevy of drunken yobs. 

Eupolis loves and hates Phaedra, who is evil-tempered and keen to make her husband look ridiculous: he loves and hates Athens, her shining ideal of democracy and the idiotic voters who perpetuate it. But Aristophanes is the true villain of the piece, even (especially?) when he and Eupolis are fleeing for their lives through hostile Sicily, forced to compose cod-Euripides on the fly to entertain their hosts. 

Eupolis' fate is tied to Aristophanes', perhaps by the will of Dionysus. His innate cynicism and stubborn determination -- not to mention his true gift for rhetoric and for comedy -- help him endure the horrors of war, the PTSD afterwards, the sabotage of his final play, and the overthrow of democracy.

I found the Sicilian scenes harrowing and brutal, but extraordinarily vivid because of Eupolis' narrative voice. The minutae of everyday life in classical Greece are recounted with dark humour (though there are also moments of deep joy) and never feel laboured or over-explained. And the greater arcs of the story -- of the decline of Athens, of the horrors of war, of the flaws and failures of democracy -- feel as immediate as today's news.

Democracy is a cannibals’ harvest festival, where everyone does their best to feed the hand that bites them. [p. 519]

2025/087: How to Survive in Ancient Greece — Robert Garland

Greek religion does not promote morality. Piety towards the gods and the dead, not good behaviour, is its central aim. [loc. 350]

Read in fits and starts between other books, mostly for the fascinating factoids and descriptions of legal process in classical Greece. Presented as a handbook for time-travellers, How to Survive in Ancient Greece is good at highlighting some key differences: the improbability of growing old, the more equitable distribution of wealth (1% really wealthy, 1% really poor, 'the majority of Athenians are very poor by our standards'), the less equitable treatment of women. Entertaining, engaging, informative.

2025/086: Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: Extraordinary Journeys into the Human Brain — Allan H. Ropper, Brian Burrell

Sadly, when it comes to ... such borderline theories, I have no spiel to offer, and sometimes revert to being a jerk. In this case, I suggested that they both might be magnetized. As an experiment, I said, he and his wife should float on their backs in their swimming pool to see if they both pointed north. I was guessing that they had a pool. I was right. They never came back. [p. 102]

There are some fascinating case studies here (ovarian teratoma, motor neurone disease, Parkinson's) and Ropper stresses the importance of listening to the patient's account of their problem, as well as observing the physical signs of it. Unfortunately Ropper presents as rather arrogant, very much the leader of any team he's in. (He does make one mistaken diagnosis: the patient dies: he doesn't tell the patient's family about his mistake.) 

He's also dismissive of 'conversion disorders' -- the modern term for hysteria and psychosomatic issues -- and rather too fond of describing his patients' physical appearance. The chapter on brain death was especially interesting, but also horrific because it read as though one patient's reputation affected how he (well, his body) was treated by hospital staff.

Interesting and well-written but I prefer the humility and compassion of authors such as Oliver Sacks. That said, I did laugh at the episode I've quoted at the top of this review... despite knowing that those people were experiencing what they perceived as a medical issue, and that they were paying for medical care.