All Kinds of Love
Three books about…love, in some way, shape or form.
Review: Someone You Can Build A Nest In by John Wiswell
This is a monsterf*ing story. Except it’s an ace monsterf*ing story so there’s no actual, you know.
And it’s told from the perspective of the monster…and this isn’t some sexy vampire or cute werewolf who wants you to run your hands through her fur and maybe go get that brush.
Shesheshen is utterly monstrous, a member of a species that lays their eggs in mammals, has no moral qualms about eating sentients, and absorbs organs from corpses to build her body. This is a truly gross monster who’s idea of romance is to…well…lay her eggs in you and have them eat their way out. Shudder.
Well, but she also has a pet bear, just saying. A pet dire bear.
Homily is a member of a monstrous family, and while her “mother” is nothing of the sort, her siblings are all monstrous…one of them in much the way Joffrey is monstrous.
Hunting monsters is a thing, but there’s an even darker reason why the Baroness wants Shesheshen…although…
Yeah. They’re monsters, and Wiswell doesn’t shy away from the fact, but rather uses it to build an interesting story, one that is definitely a romance (but with a body count), but not your typical body count.
I really can’t say more about this book…in part because of spoilers and in part because so many other people have, but anyone who can make me relate to a pile of goo…
Recommended
I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.
Review: The Book of Love by Kelly Link
I really wanted to love this book. It’s a rock and roll book, and I have a soft spot in my heart for those. It’s also fabulism, which I’m not unfond of.
Unfortunately, it fell flat, and it’s not all the book’s fault. First of all, for some reason, it reminded me of my dim, and likely inaccurate, memories of DNF’ing Clive Barker’s Weaveworld when I was 14. I was not ready for that book and I haven’t been able to pick up a Barker since.
Then there’s the sheer length of this tome. Fortunately, I have it in ebook, or I might not have been able to lift all 640 pages. It’s not even that it didn’t need 640 pages to tell its story, it’s…
Sorry, book, I think it’s me, not you.
Is this book fantasy or horror? It’s marketed as fantasy, but has its horrific moments. Including eye gouging, which I can always do without. Definitely me, not the book.
People being turned into statues is pretty horrific too. It’s marketed as a romance, but didn’t satisfy me as a romance.
This book has its fans and friends, but I’m not one of them. It’s a beautiful, terrible, sprawling thing that deserves its place, but I am reacting to it in a similar way to how I reacted to The Saint of Lost Doors last year.
I can tell this book is good.
I just don’t like it.
I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.
Review: A Sorceress Comes To Call by T. Kingfisher
I have Jane Austen trauma. When I was a teenager, my English teacher kept trying to get my parents to throw out all of my science fiction books and replace them with Jane Austen because, in her opinion, only stupid people read science fiction.
I wish I could introduce her to Catherine Asaro.
Two books have partially mitigated it. One was C.L. Polk’s wonderful The Midnight Bargain and now I have A Sorceress Comes To Call.
T. Kingfisher apparently has horse trauma. I wish I could put her up on a nice, quiet, well-behaved horse that’s incapable of going much faster than a slow jog. I know some.
But this is mostly a story about somebody trying to seduce a rich man into marriage for his money. With magic. And demon horses.
The protagonist is the woman’s daughter, Cordelia, and I note the courage of having a wicked mother rather than stepmother. Because this is also a story about profound, deep abuse
The question is even asked – would Evangeline still be evil if she didn’t have magic? The answer is, of course, yes.
Magic here is a tool used to abuse and control, but it doesn’t have to be…and I’d sort of like to read a sequel that demonstrates that.
Like a lot of Kingfisher’s work, this book also reads like a fairy tale.
Recommended if you like regencies…and consider it even if you don’t.
I received a copy of this book for award consideration purposes.