2023/026: The Winter Knight — Jes Battis

Knights were always being retold. You spent your life remembering parts of that story, taking what you needed, forgiving yourself for the rest. Holding your past stories and realising that they did their best, that you were doing your best now. [loc. 3694]

The knights and monsters of Arthurian legend are 'myths stuck on repeat... stories that kept being told in different times and bodies'. In The Winter Knight, the old stories are playing out, with variations, in modern Vancouver. Wayne is an autistic college student; his best friend Kai is trans; Morgan Arcand is the Dean, and Wayne meets her assistant, Bert, at a party where Mo (short for Mordred) Penley, the university provost, is murdered. Hildie, a plus-size, asexual Valkyrie, is assigned to investigate the case, but her mother Grace isn't sure that Hildie can handle it. Especially when there's a second murder ...

This was a fun, high-octane, mostly fast-paced thriller -- some slightly repetitive world-building in the first few chapters -- with a cast skewed towards the queer, the neurodiverse, the outsiders. (Just because they're embodiments of myth doesn't stop them being all-too-human disasters.) It begins as a murder mystery with a decidedly YA ambience, but develops into a story about myths: about making and remaking stories, about breaking away from one's fate, about rejecting the role that society, or culture, or story imposes. Wayne, in particular, doesn't see himself as a knight: Bert (who has an axe under the couch) can't help seeing himself as a monster. The evolution of their relationship is one of the highlights of the novel.

There are a lot of cultural references, almost none of which I recognised (adding to my sense that this novel was aimed at a younger audience). I don't think understanding those references was important to the plot, but I'm sure it would have added to the ambience. (Nitpick: a character enjoys wine, especially 'East Anglian reds'. So.... not our world, then?) I felt the story was unevenly paced, and I'd have liked to see more of the older generation: Vera, Lance, Arthur, Vivian. And what about the wider world? Do knights recur only in Vancouver, or is it a global phenomenon? Overall, though, The Winter Knight was an entertaining read, with an original angle on the Arthurian myths, and especially the story of Gawain and the Green Knight.

Fulfils the ‘Featuring mythology’ rubric of the 52 books in 2023 challenge.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the advance review copy, in exchange for this full honest review. UK publication date is 04 APR 2023.

2023/025: Plum Duff — Victoria Goddard

I was coming to have some understanding of why I might be afflicted by everything always happening to me. Part of it was surely my longstanding friendship with Mr Dart, whose magic would be seeking ways out into the world.
And part of it was apparently because I'd been cursed by a fairy whom my mother had for whatever reason not invited to my christening. [loc. 676]

Winterturn in notoriously dull Ragnor Bella: snow is falling, greenery is gathered, and solstice traditions that keep the dark at bay are, perhaps, rather less metaphorical than usual. Plum Duff feels more ... epic, perhaps, than earlier novels in the Greenwing and Dart series. There is a lost god; there are several saints; the Hunter in the Green appears (and this one is definitely a divinity, not a cosplayer); there are visions of the legendary past, and a siege by the powers of darkness. Also, Jemis is literally a fairytale princess.

I did enjoy this, but not quite as much as the cosier, more mannerist novels earlier in the series. Jemis is still solving puzzles, of course (I especially liked the scene where he diffidently mentions to Mrs Etaris that he's guessed her secret identity) and Mr Dart is finally opening up about his magic and the events of the summer. The Gentry, or the Good Neighbours, or whatever you want to call them, are seldom seen but very much present in this novel: in stories about Jemis' christening, in Mr Dart's two-tailed fox friend, in the gifts of live birds left for Jemis, and in the siege of the Lady's chapel on the longest night. There is an increasingly important religious aspect to these novels. Plum Duff explores faith, spiritual experience, and the simplicity of grace: again, I'm reminded of Bujold's Five Gods, and Penric's personal relationship with his god.

And now, woe! I have run out of Greenwing and Dart... the seventh novel is due soon, though. Meanwhile, I have a little list of as-yet-unresolved plot threads, and am noticing that several relate to middle-aged women not being where they're supposed to be. Ingrid, Flora, Magistra Bellamy ...

2023/024: Love-in-a-Mist — Victoria Goddard

Mr Dart smiled guilelessly at them. "Do I surprise you? You know, I trust, that there is no need to fear magic any longer."
"It -- it is hardly in fashion," Madam Veitch managed, in a shaky voice.
"It will be," Mr Dart replied...[loc. 365]

Following their improbable escape from Orio Prison -- the best practical exercise in literary criticism I've encountered in fiction -- Jemis, Mr Dart and Hal find themselves guests in a remote manor house, snowed in and without transportation. Naturally, a murder mystery ensues: but this is fantasy, so there is also an unexpected unicorn, a possibly-invisible butler, some peculiarly inappropriate dishes at dinner, a couple more friends from university (there is always another Morrowlea graduate), the mysterious Ironwood heiress, a complete run of the New Salon (with its potentially libellous articles about Jemis Greenwing, his father, et cetera), and the sudden arrival of the Hunter in Green, whose identity is at last revealed.

Also, only one bed. And Mr Dart finally emerging from behind his good manners and mushroom-picking to become his best self.

An absolute delight. Jemis is greatly changed by his experiences in the previous novel (it's as though somebody told him 'talk less, smile more') and I suspect that Mr Dart's transformation also owes something to those events, and the ensuant messages. The atmosphere is suitably, traditionally claustrophobic, with recalcitrant servants (the phrase "I'm sure I couldn't say" crops up repeatedly), a hall crammed with potentially-valuable 'collectibles', a mysteriously unsociable host who declines to join his guests for dinner, and snow up to the first-floor windows. There's also a growing sense that Jemis' adventures aren't solely affecting Jemis and his friends: the world (or at least Rondé, the country in which those adventures take place) is changing, and matters both political and religious are coming to the boil.

Two ways in which these are not typical fantasy novels: our protagonists have not ridden anywhere on horseback -- they walk (or, if Jemis, run) or ride in carriages -- and there is no map of Rondé. I would really like a map ...

2023/023: Blackcurrant Fool — Victoria Goddard

I've been under curses and enchantments since I was fifteen. I don't know who I am if you strip all that away. I don't know if I want to know. I think it will be a great disappointment to everyone. [loc. 940]

In which Jemis Greenwing and Mr Dart go to Olio City, trusting that Jemis' evil ex will remain ignorant of their presence, to buy books, retrieve relatives, and -- as it turns out -- test the validity of the arguments in Jemis' final paper at university, in which he argued that an obscure poem was not only 'an allegory of [the poet's] emotional and spiritual state [but] a full blueprint of the physical layout of the prison'. Ah, literary criticism! There are also kittens, and the dubiously divine Hunter in (the) Green, and the ever-delightful Hal.

This novel goes to some fairly dark places (I don't just mean Olio City, which is exceedingly grim and Dickensian) and finds light in them. I'm increasingly reminded of Bujold's 'Five Gods' works, which describe religion as a simple and beautiful aspect of ordinary life. Jemis undergoes radical changes; Mr Dart seems increasingly brittle, and almost -- almost! -- on the verge of talking about his emotions; Violet's mysterious past is, in part, revealed. Yes, there is perhaps a surfeit of architectural poetry and riddle-solving: but it's good to see Jemis so competent, albeit in frightful circumstances.

As soon as I'd finished this one, I had to read the next ...

2023/022: A Gentleman in Moscow — Amor Towles

“As both a student of history and a man devoted to living in the present, I admit that I do not spend a lot of time imagining how things might otherwise have been. But I do like to think there is a difference between being resigned to a situation and reconciled to it.” [loc. 3423]

In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is summoned before the Emergency Committee of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. As an aristocrat, he expects to be executed: but a revolutionary poem he once wrote is his salvation, and instead he is designated a Former Person and sentenced to life imprisonment in his current residence, the Hotel Metropol. Instead of the suite that's been his home for years, he is exiled to an attic room, without the majority of his possessions: but the Count is a resourceful fellow, and a remarkably cheerful one. (Also, he has concealed a fortune in gold pieces in the hollow legs of his desk.) He's been raised on the maxim that 'if a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them', and he applies his wit, charm and sociability to the task of making his imprisonment a civilised, refined and enjoyable experience.

This was a charming read, somewhat reminiscent of Wes Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel (and also The French Despatch, for the idiosyncrasies of the characters). The Count is a likeable protagonist, genial and urbane, determined to maintain his standards despite the horrors of life outside the hotel. (Towles confines most of the unpleasantness to footnotes, recounting the fate of one incidental character or another, or simply 'Let us concede that the early thirties in Russia were unkind'.) He is befriended by nine-year-old Nina: many years later, he becomes a kind of father to Nina's daughter Sofia. His other friends include a glamorous film star, a seamstress, the waiters at the hotel's restaurants (indeed, he becomes a waiter himself), an intellectual revolutionary, a Party official with whom he watches Casablanca, and an American diplomat. The denouement is a delight worthy of Le Carre: and the Count's (and the author's) affection for the lost world of the Russian aristocracy is appealingly sugar-coated, rose-tinted, affectionate nostalgia.

Fulfils the ‘A city or country in the title’ rubric of the 52 books in 2023 challenge.

2023/021: Whiskeyjack — Victoria Goddard

I made a tally of said sensational acts attributed to me. All right, I had rescued a mermaid from a burning building, and I had slain a dragon, and the two of my university friends who had so far shown up had been a beautiful cross-dressing Indrilline spy and an Imperial Duke, and I had broken a curse on the bees of the Woods Noirell, and I had been involved in the strange matter of the disastrous Late Bastard Decadent dinner party given by Dame Talgarth, but that was incognito, as was the small matter of the cult to the Dark Kings sacrificing cows at the Ellery Stone, which Mr. Dart and I had witnessed. The rest of the rumours were totally wrong. [p. 34]

What can I say? I'm hooked, and I like the characters, and I like Goddard's prose in these books: light and cheerful, witty and mannered, treating events of great significance with no more or less gravity than a borrowed fountain pen or an early-morning run. The tone is utterly different to that of The Hands of the Emperor and other works featuring Cliopher Mdang; it's less riotously headlong than The Return of Fitzroy Angursell; I admire Goddard greatly for the versatility of her voice.

Whiskey Jack opens with Jemis Greenwing in prison for 'murdering Fitzroy Angursell in the form of a dragon'; he can't recall anything between his morning run and his imprisonment, but he is shortly joined by two villainous-looking vagabonds, with whom he escapes to the greenwood, where the three encounter a merry band and another of Jemis' friends from university. Onward -- via an honestly terrifying river, an unexpectedly innocent relative, a suspiciously competent Honourable, a number of mysterious letters, an examination of the card game Poacher and its prognostic uses, and a lingering curse -- to the Winter Assizes, and a cheerful and optimistic finale.

Luckily there are another three novels ... watch this space!

Fulfils the ‘Featuring an Inheritance’ rubric of the 52 books in 2023 challenge.

2023/020: Bee Sting Cake — Victoria Goddard

I swore then and there that for the bees and the fireflies and the Tillarny limes I would be the Viscount St-Noire, crazy grandmother, unpleasant castle, mysterious curses, dragons, riddles, high Gothic melodrama, and all. [loc. 3155]

Sometimes you want a thousand pages of world-building, slow-burn relationships, and a protagonist quietly changing the world: sometimes you just want a cozy, witty, mannerist novel, part of a series featuring recurring characters and a charming narrator who is as much in the dark about events as is the reader. Having enjoyed Stargazy Pie I found myself wanting to fill in more of the gaps between that novel and the characters' appearances in Goddard's more recent novels.

Bee Sting Cake begins less than a week after the events of Stargazy Pie. Jemis' life is enlivened by the arrival of Hal, his friend from university, who also happens to be the Imperial Duke of Fillering Pool, and is thus prevented from following his true vocation, botany. More is revealed about, and by, Jemis, who feels that his unsuspected wireweed addiction made him a better and more likeable person. Despite his self-doubt and occasional sulkiness, Jemis manages to inherit a title, spike a gambling ring and break a curse, as well as confronting a dragon (and his grandmother) and very nearly winning, with Hal, the cake competition at the Dartington Harvest Fair.

I really like Hal; I'm finding Mr Dart much more intriguing than in the first novel; I like their care for Jemis, and Jemis' determination to do the right thing. And there are some fascinating allusions to the effects of the Fall in Ragnor Bella. Hoping for more from Mrs Etaris in future novels ...