This is #2 of Edwards’ Tarot Sequence. The only thing I didn’t like about this book was the fact that it came to an end and I was still on the waitlist for #3. (Not a cliffhanger ending, just one that raised more questions.) This series is addictive, mixing deadly politics, crazy magic, psychopathic villains, and a really sweet found family, whose members consciously try to bring out the best in one another. The mutual loyalty between Rune and Brant, Addam’s love bound up with respect, the way the introduction of the children brings the characters towards a more responsible version of themselves, the snappy repartee and one-liners that make you whisper them again to yourself as if you were also that cool… it’s all super enjoyable. If I were a teen, I would probably have reread these books until the covers fell off.
Tag: genre-lgbt
The Fallen, by Ada Hoffman
Sequel to The Outside, this novel deals with the reality-warping fallout from Yasira’s actions at the end of the previous book. In her effort to fight off the powerful AI gods and their cybernetic angels, Yasira contaminates an entire world with the chaotic randomness of “the Outside,” changing both the landscape and inhabitants in various ways. Nevertheless the gods and angels still maintain an iron grip on the planet, reducing Yasira, Tiv, and their few friends to a tiny resistance movement. Compared to the first novel, this one has a lot less action and a lot more character study, but I think it’s actually stronger for it; the characters become much more fully-fleshed both as individuals and as a unit. I love the treatment of neurodiversity in this series, and how the various characters consciously adjust their methods of communication to whatever will work best for the listener. The conflicts are by no means resolved at the end of the book, but it’s still a very satisfying read.
The Last Sun, by K.D. Edwards
I thought from the title this might be some sort of dystopian SF ecological planetary disaster, but instead it’s a trippy urban fantasy in which each Arcana of the Tarot is personified as a supernaturally powerful mobster. The Arcana reside in the gritty, violent city of New Atlantis, existing in an unsteady power balance, each answerable only to the others. Rune Saint John, last surviving scion of the fallen Sun court, fights for survival and sanity in a world determined to make it difficult for him, picking up friends and enemies along the way. I loved the portrayal of the interpersonal relationships in this book, as well as the characterizations of the powerful Arcana. Good wrap-up at the end with plenty of threads left hanging for the sequel.
A Taste of Gold and Iron, by Alexandra Rowland
This is a super cute prince-and-warrior queer romance fantasy that feels like it was also written by an economics nerd. Prince Kadou, extremely insecure and given to panic attacks, gets into hot water and his sister the queen must exile him from court. Evemer, one of the royal family’s scholar-bodyguards, reluctantly accepts the duty of guarding the flighty prince, and they find themselves investigating a mystery involving political scheming and counterfeit currency. The currency bit is particularly relevant because Kadou, like certain others in the kingdom, has the ability to tell the purity of a metal by touch, a fact integral to guaranteeing the trustworthiness of his country’s currency (and which makes the issue of counterfeits particularly fraught). I liked the romance, but I loved the worldbuilding.
The Death of Vivek Oji, by Akwaeke Emezi
Emezi’s previous novel Freshwater was such an emotional slog that I put off reading this one for a while. Turns out it’s the opposite: a focused, sharp stab of a story that knows exactly where it’s going and what it wants to say. It spirals towards the central fact of Vivek’s death by flipping back and forth between accounts, tales told by various friends, family, or acquaintances. The stories, told both in present or past tense, slowly contribute to the bigger narrative until the reader is finally granted a complete picture of Vivek, the people and the emotions around him, and how everything led inexorably to his fate. Vivek belonged to a community of children born to the Nigerwives, non-Nigerian women who married Nigerian men, and it is their attitudes that help set up some of the culture clash around the concepts of gender, sexuality, and identity, and the danger of trying to live one’s truth in a community where riots and violence seem always just a breath away.
A Conspiracy of Truths, by Alexandra Rowland, read by James Langton
This book had one of the best beginnings I’ve ever read, followed by one of the slowest and most boring middles, before it ramped slowly upwards towards a pretty decent ending. This is another Thousand and One Nights type nested-stories book, except the storyteller is a crochety old man, unjustly imprisoned in a foreign country, whose only friend is his extremely sweet and naive apprentice, and whose only weapon is the vast library of stories in his brain. From his prison cell, he grasps at any bits of news of the outside world that he can get, slowly weaving them into an almost unbelievable escape plan. This book has a lot to say about stories, about the stories that we tell ourselves both individually and collectively, and how we use them to shape our lives and our fates. It’s a truly interesting framing device, but personally I got tired of the narrator pretty quickly; he’s extremely unlikeable and makes very questionable decisions, and you never get to leave his head. I did love the cast, which included a lot of extremely strong female characters (though not many of them were likeable either). There was a lot of politics and it was a bit difficult to keep track of all the players; also, some of the stories were clearly meant to convey an underlying point but that point was often lost on me. I eventually made it through (as does the storyteller, who obviously lives to tell the tale) but, like the storyteller, I also feel like I suffered unduly in the process. I recommend the audiobook; Langton does a very good grumpy old man and it’s probably thanks to his narration that I got through the boring bits of the book at all (I would likely have abandoned a print copy partway through). The oral storytelling format also works really well with the first-person narration.
Hungry Hearts: 13 Tales of Food and Love, ed. Elsie Chapman and Caroline Tung Richmond
The connection between these short stories is that they all take place on Hungry Hearts Row, a neighborhood of restaurants featuring very different cuisines and very different stories. There’s some interplay between characters but only enough to unify the scene. Only a couple of the stories take the prompt literally and use food to bring characters together romantically; others were about relating to estranged family through food, or using food as a way to make peace with one’s past. I particularly liked the ones that were more out of left field, like the one where the Chinese restaurant was actually an integral part of a gang war, or the one where the Muslim superhero literally fell out of the sky in front of a food cart. Some duds, but a strong collection overall; I appreciated the wide variety of ethnicities and cultures represented in both the foods and the stories.
The Blade Between, by Sam J. Miller
This is a dark ghost story about the gentrification of a small town, the lives of those negatively affected by it, and how the spirits of the town start fighting back. Ronan Szepessy finds himself returning to Hudson despite the terrible experience of growing up gay and artistic in the small, closed-minded town; when he sees his old neighbors evicted from their homes and developers closing in like sharks, the depth of his hate allows the ghosts of the town to sink their hooks into the citizens, spreading horror and violence. It’s a tough book to read; Ronan is bitter and angry, as are all his fellow citizens both corporeal and not, and there’s not really any light moment to ease the tension. I think this book had urgent things to say about gentrification and how it can kill the spirit of a small town, but it gets drowned in all the violence and weirdness.
Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion, by Bushra Rehman
A vivid portrait of growing up queer and Muslim in Corona, Queens. There’s not a lot of plot to tie everything together; it reads more like a series of reminisces of Razia’s childhood as she watches the people around her. Her schoolmates play pranks; her immigrant parents find their community; there are so many details of growing up in the 80’s that at times I wondered if the book were autobiography rather than fiction. Razia’s best friend is torn from her by a rift between their families; she later transfers to another school and forms a relationship with Angela, who is accepting but has trouble understanding the depth to which Razia’s background and culture shapes her actions. I enjoyed this read but once Razia starts going to school outside her neighborhood, the writing felt much less compelling; as a consequence her relationship with Angela, as well as the resultant tension with her family, felt much less gripping. The ending also seemed a bit rushed. Good read overall though.
We Unleash the Merciless Storm, by Tehlor Kay Mejia
Sequel to We Set the Dark on Fire, this one is from the viewpoint of Carmen, Daniela’s rival-turned-lover-turned-?????. When Carmen returns to the rebellion, she finds that the balance of power has shifted against her, and has to choose between her orders and her heart. Carmen’s fire and drive move the story well, but the narrative spends a lot of time on her internal angst over her relationship with Dani, and her internal wibbling contrasts a bit too sharply with her steely warrior persona.