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 ...

2023/019: The Survivors — Jane Harper

The Survivors were gone. Where they should have been standing solid and secure with their heads always rising above the water, there was only angry ocean and a grey-black horizon. They were fully submerged, swallowed whole by the swell. [p. 92]

Kieran Elliott left the small Tasmanian town of Evelyn Bay twelve years ago, after the worst storm in eighty years killed his brother Finn and Finn's friend Toby. Kieran's been blaming himself ever since: the two wouldn't have been out in their boat if he hadn't been stranded on the cliffs, looking out over the ocean to where the Survivors -- three life-sized iron figures, a memorial to a century-old shipwreck -- were fully submerged. Now Kieran, with his partner Mia and their baby daughter, has returned to Evelyn Bay to help his mother pack up the house: his dad has dementia and needs residential care. Mia's also a native, and her best friend Gabby disappeared without trace on the day of that storm. Is it coincidence that the day after they meet up with their old friends -- Sean, Ash, Olivia -- a young female artist is found dead on the beach?

There are many layers to this novel, and the slow reveal of the events during the storm is not the most interesting. There's a story about friendship, especially between young men ('they can be dickheads sometimes, but I’m not like them,’ says Kieran: Olivia frowns, and tells him yes he is); a story about a writer trying to piece together a set of facts; a story about a bereaved mother trying to prove that her daughter's rucksack couldn't have washed up on a particular stretch of beach; a story about a father no longer able to distinguish his dead son from his living son. And, fortunately, a story about the resolution of an old and painful mystery. But to me, the most interesting aspect was the small-town society and the ways in which everyone knows, and retells, the same stories: the ways you can't really leave, and can't really return.

I have several of Jane Harper's novels, but this is the first I've read. I liked the measured pace and the atmosphere, and the descriptions of sea and shore. I'll get around to the others some time soon!

Fulfils the ‘Set in Australia’ rubric of the 52 books in 2023 challenge.

2023/018: Clytemnestra — Costanza Casati

... vengeance works best when it's aided by patience. And patience is like a child: it must be nursed so it can grow day after day, feeding on sorrow, until it's as angry as a bull and as lethal as a poisoned fang. [loc. 2492]

A retelling of the story of Clytemnestra, the wife who murdered Agamemnon on his return from the Trojan war. Casati bases her novel on Euripides' Iphigenia at Aulis as well as the better-known Oresteia by Aeschylus: I wasn't familiar with the story of Clytemnestra's first husband, Tantalus, or his murder (together with their infant daughter) by Agamemnon, but this tragedy adds weight to Clytemnestra's implacable hatred, and her desire for revenge.

There are no gods or goddesses here: only men and women raised in a Bronze Age society, with different city-states having different cultures. In Sparta, the girls as well as the boys are trained to be warriors, to fight and to withstand pain and to have agency. Matters in Mycenae are differently arranged: when Agamemnon and his brother Menelaus encounter Clytemnestra and her siblings, there's an element of culture shock on both sides.

After the slow start of Clytemnestra's youth and her relationships with her parents, with her siblings, with her friend Penelope and Penelope's suitor Odysseus, the pace picks up. Clytemnestra is more or less traded to Agamemnon by her father: she makes no secret of her hatred for her husband, especially after he tricks her into bringing their daughter Iphigenia to be sacrificed. When Agamemnon sails for Troy, Clytemnestra is left in Mycenae to rule, to rue, to take lovers and to contemplate her vengeance.

Initially the third-person, present-tense narrative voice didn't engage me, but I found Clytemnestra's love for her siblings (especially Helen) intriguing, and her rage and grief were vividly written. The only real issue I had was with the ending, which seemed improbably hopeful. Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are alive; Agamemnon is dead; Orestes and Elektra seem to have handled their father's murder with remarkable poise ... Yet from the myths we know that very soon her darling son and daughter will commit matricide. And from Western culture we know that Clytemnestra will be hated for millennia. But as Clytemnestra tells us, queens are "either hated or forgotten. She already knows which option suits her best ..."

Fulfils the ‘Published in 2023’ 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 02 MAR 2023.

2023/017: The Girl Who Drank the Moon — Kelly Barnhill

The feathers landed on the floor right in front of her. She stared at them—the quill, the shaft, each filament of down. Then she could see the smaller structures—dust and barb and cell. Smaller and smaller went the details of her vision, until she could see each particle, spinning around itself like a tiny galaxy. She was as mad as they come, after all. She shifted the particles across the yawning emptiness between them, this way and that, until a new whole emerged. The feathers were no longer feathers. They were paper. [chapter 26]

Every year the Elders take the youngest baby, the most recently born, into the forest, and leave the child for the Witch to find. They don't actually believe in the Witch, but they do believe that a population living in fear is a population who'll keep the Elders in the style to which they have become accustomed. Occasionally a parent rebels against the sacrifice of their child, and is taken off to the Tower. And on the Day of Sacrifice which opens The Girl Who Drank the Moon, a young acolyte begins to question why the Witch would want a baby -- and whether there even is a Witch.

Of course there's a Witch. Her name is Xan, she's more than five hundred years old, and she lives in the swamp with Fyrian (a Perfectly Tiny Dragon) and Glerk (a Monster, who is also a poet and may be a god). Xan rescues the children abandoned by the Elders, feeds them starlight, and takes them to the Free Cities to be adopted by loving families. Unfortunately, Xan lets this latest child drink moonlight, thus enmagicking her: she raises the girl, Luna, herself, and binds her magic until her thirteenth birthday.

The events leading up to that birthday, and the oversetting of the status quo, are told in this charming and witty tale that deals with some heavy real-world themes: oppression, indoctrination, misogyny, murder. The Elders pathologise the misery of the mother who's had her child taken, and the Sisters in the Tower make her doubt that she ever had a daughter. The magic in this novel is complex and nuanced, with effects that are not always positive. The characters are (mostly) delightful, and the climax of the novel -- when Luna, her mother, Xan, the doubting acolyte, and villainous Sister Ignatia all converge on disparate quests -- is splendid. Justice, love, a volcano and an ancient betrayal; happy endings for those who deserve them; a thoroughly satisfactory novel, and one that doesn't talk down to its target audience ('older children').

Fulfils the ‘Newbery Medal winner’ rubric of the 52 books in 2023 challenge. I chose this novel because (a) my local library had an e-copy and (b) I'd read and very much enjoyed Kelly Barnhill's novel for adults, When Women Were Dragons. I think The Girl Who Drank the Moon shares something of the same sensibility.