The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock by Imogen Hermes Gowar Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

This voyage is special. It will change everything…
One September evening in 1785, the merchant Jonah Hancock hears urgent knocking on his front door. One of his captains is waiting eagerly on the step. He has sold Jonah’s ship for what appears to be a mermaid.

As gossip spreads through the docks, coffee shops, parlours and brothels, everyone wants to see Mr Hancock’s marvel. Its arrival spins him out of his ordinary existence and through the doors of high society. At an opulent party, he makes the acquaintance of Angelica Neal, the most desirable woman he has ever laid eyes on… and a courtesan of great accomplishment. This chance meeting will steer both their lives onto a dangerous new course, a journey on which they will learn that priceless things come at the greatest cost…

What will be the cost of their ambitions? And will they be able to escape the destructive power mermaids are said to possess?

In this spell-binding story of curiosity and obsession, Imogen Hermes Gowar has created an unforgettable jewel of a novel, filled to the brim with intelligence, heart and wit. 

I put off reading this behemoth of a novel because of how long it was, and the fact that the reviews weren't as good as I expected them to be. Finishing it, I can say, yeah, the reviews are right.

Ignoring the Georgian time frame (the main appealing factor) and the shipping company, this is a regency romance novel without the moors. I do not like regency romance novels. Not to mention, the two main characters had so little driving each other that getting through the book got impossibly hard at some points, where I was just flicking through pages wishing it was over. It wasn't that I didn't like them, it was that I found very little compelling about them and didn't really find their story arcs all that fascinating. And it wasn't just them, it was all the main characters. Jonah's niece was your typical historical fiction heroine, one with little interest in romance and lots of interest in reading and running a business, which is a boring played out trope, and everyone felt very wooden like they knew and understood that they were nothing more than characters in a book.

I also didn't really get much of a feel for late 18th century Great Britain. The characters were curiously free of the biases and opinions that would have been period-appropriate, and the dresses and descriptions made me thing more of both the 1810s and the 1600s, confusingly. It felt like a sanitized view of the late 1700s, and at times I wondered if the book was written for the sole purpose of being made into a BBC miniseries. Honestly though, if it was a BBC costume drama I probably would have liked it a lot more, and I'm not one for television serials. 

This is a short review for a too long, forgettable novel. This is my least favorite new release of the year, and while I didn't outright hate it, there's not much about it to really like unless you like romance novels.

4 out of 10

Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“The first madness was that we were born, that they stuffed a god into a bag of skin.”- Freshwater, Akwaeke Emezi

An extraordinary debut novel, Freshwater explores the surreal experience of having a fractured self. It centers around a young Nigerian woman, Ada, who develops separate selves within her as a result of being born "with one foot on the other side." Unsettling, heartwrenching, dark, and powerful, Freshwater is a sharp evocation of a rare way of experiencing the world, one that illuminates how we all construct our identities.

Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves--now protective, now hedonistic--move into control, Ada's life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.

Narrated by the various selves within Ada and based in the author's realities, Freshwater dazzles with ferocious energy and serpentine grace, heralding the arrival of a fierce new literary voice.

I'm not a terribly diverse reader. In fact, just the other day I was looking at my bookshelf and I realized just how overwhelmingly white (and hella gay, but that's neither here nor there) my bookshelf is. I pick the books I read based on their summaries, and right now I've been super into Brideshead Revisited-y novels about gay Britons. Writers who are not white do not usually write such novels. But it's Black History Month. I don't usually pay attention to arbitrarily named months like Black History Month or Women's History Month or Pride Month because that's just me, but this is a new release that I really wanted to read before it came out and the fact that it was released in February is really just a bonus. However, if you really care about such things, this is my Black History Month read. 

First of all, wow, Emezi is a wonderful writer. Believe the hype. She has an amazingly lyrical and just altogether beautiful style that I was completely blown away by and couldn't believe it was a debut. Because of the beautiful style, I just flew through this novel, and actually didn't put it down once I picked it up. Even though the book is like 250 pages, I finished it in under an hour, a new record for me I think. In fact, I wonder where those extra 150 pages went!

And I was intrigued by the Nigerian legends that Emezi based her novel off of. The idea of the many gods living in Ada's head, making her portrayal of multiple personality disorder wonderfully original. While I still don't know if I believe in the existence of multiple personality disorder personally, Emezi makes an interesting case for it. I do, however, wish that psychiatric treatment got a better rap in the novel. I am an advocate for formal psychiatric diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, and wish that more literature focused on the positives of being treated by medication or psychotherapy. But that's just me.

That being said, I found it hard to relate to Ada. She wasn't a protagonist, she was the vehicle in which the story was told which isn't necessarily a bad thing but it means that I wasn't as sympathetic towards her situation as I could have been because she didn't feel real. Which is probably why this novel didn't do anything in the way of convincing me that MPD was a real thing and not something separate from, say, schizophrenia. I was also disappointed with the poor portrayal of men. Every man in this book is either abusive or fatally flawed in some way. 

Overall, I really liked Freshwater. I'd definitely recommend picking it up for an interesting portrayal of mental illness and a quick read with beautiful writing. It'd be interesting to see what Akwaeke Emezi does next.

8 out of 10

The Sealwoman's Gift by Sally Magnusson Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

In 1627 Barbary pirates raided the coast of Iceland and abducted some 400 of its people, including 250 from a tiny island off the mainland. Among the captives sold into slavery in Algiers were the island pastor, his wife and their three children. Although the raid itself is well documented, little is known about what happened to the women and children afterwards. It was a time when women everywhere were largely silent.

In this brilliant reimagining, Sally Magnusson gives a voice to Ásta, the pastor's wife. Enslaved in an alien Arab culture Ásta meets the loss of both her freedom and her children with the one thing she has brought from home: the stories in her head. Steeped in the sagas and folk tales of her northern homeland, she finds herself experiencing not just the separations and agonies of captivity, but the reassessments that come in any age when intelligent eyes are opened to other lives, other cultures and other kinds of loving.

The Sealwoman's Gift is about the eternal power of storytelling to help us survive. The novel is full of stories - Icelandic ones told to fend off a slave-owner's advances, Arabian ones to help an old man die. And there are others, too: the stories we tell ourselves to protect our minds from what cannot otherwise be borne, the stories we need to make us happy.

This novel is about a little known time in Icelandic history, and I love little known times in history so I was excited to pick it up, and I admit, I am not disappointed by it at all.

That being said, The Sealwoman's Gift is very hard to read at times, dealing as it does with things like mothers being separated from their children, or being forced to watch them grow up with values they did not ever want their children to espouse. I read it all in one sitting, and even though I'm not a mother nor have any desire to be a mother, I still couldn't get through some parts like the fate of the eldest son. It reminded me of Hassan's son from The Kite Runner.

The writing in The Sealwoman's Gift is very good, but not unique. It's very much your typical Hannah Kent atmospheric historical mystery style that you'd expect from an atmospheric historical fiction novel. It's easy to read, almost too easy in fact.

It's a very easy book to get slipped into and leave loving, almost to a fault. Because there are flaws about the novel, and there is one trope that I really cannot stand in it, but the characters and scenes and, again, writing are all so well done. This is an expertly crafted novel, with no technical flaws to it. In fact, this is probably the technically best new release I've encountered thus far.

However, I wasn't crazy about the characters themselves. They are very well done and three dimensional, but I didn't like Asta at all, nor any of the characters really. I pitied their situation, but had a hard time emphasizing with them.

And of course, the presence of my least favorite trope did not endear Asta to me. I despise the trope of a slave master and his slave falling in love, and this has one. I'm not talking about Stockholm Syndrome, which I think can work really well in the right situation, I'm talking about actual romantic love between the two. While this type of romance clearly does it for someone given the amount of slave master romance novels I've encountered over the years and it probably did happen in real life, I still don't like it personally.

And, while I found this novel to be extremely well-researched, I found the gender inequality in the Ottoman Empire to be very downplayed, as well as the Christian oppression understated. 

So thumbs up on The Sealwoman's Gift as a whole, especially if you want something that's interesting and very well done technically. I still found it an enlightening read despite my problems with it. Definitely worth checking out when it comes to America in October.

8-8.5 out of 10

Next Year in Havana by Chanel Cleeton Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“Havana is like a woman who was grand once and has fallen on hard times, and yet hints of her former brilliance remain, traces of an era since passed, a photograph faded by time and circumstance, its edges crumbling to dust.”- Next Year in Havana, Chanel Cleeton

After the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity--and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution...

Havana, 1958. The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest--until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary...

Miami, 2017. Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa's last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth. 

Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba's tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate. When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she'll need the lessons of her grandmother's past to help her understand the true meaning of courage.

I wanted to read Next Year in Havana because it was about something I know very little about- the political history of Cuba. I mean, sure, I'm familiar with the story of Cuban refugees in America, but most of what I know about Cuba begins in the 50s, as a glamorous movie star location (and Ricky Ricardo), and ends in the 60s, with the missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs, although my American history classes have touched upon the Spanish American War. I also always liked the stories of people who flee their home country and have to make do in a foreign place. 

I was, however, less enthused by the fact that it was a dual perspective, with one taking place in the past and the other in the present. I was also not crazy about a romance with a revolutionary involved. But sometimes, you just gotta gamble. 

And I am happy I took that gamble. Because Chanel Cleeton's writing style is just lovely. If she doesn't have a pedigree in travel writing, I will be surprised. The way she describes the food and the Havana setting is just divine. I felt like I was there. Especially the food. God, the next time I'm in the City I should find a Cuban place instead of the usual Irish pubs I frequent. Really, you can't go wrong with any type of Latin cuisine. 

I think Cleeton was smart with Next Year in Havana, and chose a story that would play to her strengths as a writer. This isn't really a serious story, it's definitely a fluffy women's historical fiction with some edge. The travel and historical bits are great- I especially liked the descriptions of the pretty dresses- and I suppose the romance parts were fine too and probably did it for someone. I dislike romance fairly intensely, and I hate revolutionary type characters. Moody, judgmental, tortured rebels... why do writers like these types so much? They're my least favorite type of love interest.

I mean, the story was on the predictable side, with me guessing everything that happened before it actually happened in the book. I personally didn't have a problem with it, because it was fluffy, and it was fun to read and I wasn't looking for fine literature so that helped.

I recommend Next Year in Havana for a good women's historical fiction novel, especially if you like a bit of fluff. In fact, I wonder what her publisher was thinking by giving her a February publication date, since this is a beach read if there ever was one.

8 out of 10

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“If we were judged by the things we most regret, no human being would be worthy to sweep the floor.”- Thunderhead, Neal Shusterman 

Rowan and Citra take opposite stances on the morality of the Scythedom, putting them at odds, in the second novel of the chilling New York Times bestselling series from Neal Shusterman, author of the Unwind dystology.

Rowan has gone rogue, and has taken it upon himself to put the Scythedom through a trial by fire. Literally. In the year since Winter Conclave, he has gone off-grid, and has been striking out against corrupt scythes—not only in MidMerica, but across the entire continent. He is a dark folk hero now—“Scythe Lucifer”—a vigilante taking down corrupt scythes in flames.

Citra, now a junior scythe under Scythe Curie, sees the corruption and wants to help change it from the inside out, but is thwarted at every turn, and threatened by the “new order” scythes. Realizing she cannot do this alone—or even with the help of Scythe Curie and Faraday, she does the unthinkable, and risks being “deadish” so she can communicate with the Thunderhead—the only being on earth wise enough to solve the dire problems of a perfect world. But will it help solve those problems, or simply watch as perfection goes into decline?

Everyone has their blind-spot writer. You know, the guy (or gal) that you just can't not read or not like no matter what he (or she) puts out? This is usually because one thing that author wrote has had such a huge impact on your life that he is all but untouchable. 

And for me, that man is Neal Shusterman. Because he wrote the Unwind series.

For those who don't know, the Unwind series was my Harry Potter/Mortal Instruments/whatever book series that consumed your life for years at a time. It is the only series I have ever hardcore fangirled over, hardcore shipped, wrote fanfics and drew fanart of. I consider myself to be, for the most part, an impartial bookworm, but because Neal Shusterman's Unwind world had such a big impact on my life, this is not going to be the most impartial review in the world. 

And yet, I had a hard time with the first Scythe. I still really liked it and it did make my 2016 best books of the year list, but we've already established I am not the best judge when it comes to Shusterman's work. But at the same time, I went in with too high expectations and found it difficult to connect with any of the characters and lacking a certain... warmth or humor to it that Shusterman works usually have. Thunderhead is not any different from its predecessor in that aspect. Expect that it's managed to be even more dark and gritty and humorless. 

Now, I don't demand my books to be funny, and especially not dark and violent books. But it's just not typical of a Shusterman work to be so devoid of laughs. Challenger Deep, his serious National Book Award winner got more laughs out of me than this, and that's a deep contemporary about a teenage boy's struggles with schizophrenia. That's not to say Shusterman can't do serious well, he can, he's created some of the most bone-chilling "I have no mouth and I must scream" moments in YA literature, and quite a few are in this book. And yet, that hasn't kept him from putting in comic relief before. I guess what I'm saying is, I want Hayden back.

But Shusterman's characters are still good, which is one of his best assets as a writers. Citra and Rowan are a great couple, and if I was still in the shipping phase of my life you know I'd go for them hard. There's a new character that debuted in this novel, Greyson, whom I also liked. In fact, the three- Citra, Rowan, and Greyson- are forming a very Connor-Risa-Lev team which I liked because, again, I love those characters and seeing another iteration of them makes me smile. Of those, I think Greyson being Lev is the most obvious line one can draw, since the two had similar arcs and a similar theme of a life-changing event causing religious abandonment (metaphorically in Greyson's case) and rebellion only to come back around to it in the end. The difference between them is that Greyson is a consistently tolerable character while Lev had a tendency to get stuck between my teeth. But other than that, Citra and Rowan are consistently good, and my only complaint character-wise is that I had a hard time connecting to anyone that wasn't Citra or Rowan or Greyson.

Which brings me to Shusterman's other biggest asset as a writer- he is a damn good plot-maker. He has a wonderful imagination- with a lot of wonderfully fucked up ideas- and the chops to bring those ideas to life. With the Arc of a Scythe books, he is at the top of his world-building game and it is a joy to read. While it is true that Shusterman's idea of a utopia is, for me, more along the same lines as a dystopia, his worlds are still a lot of fun for me to let my mind wander in. His main talent lies in creating absolutely messed up violent scenes that engross me completely. I also admire his courage in killing off any and all characters at any point in his books, no matter how major or minor they may be, and I think Shusterman's great at inserting subtle musings on human nature and culture, though in this book I admit he's not on his best game. My only complaint plot-wise is the addition of election commentary that was a bit too heavy-handed for my tastes, though I may be hyper-sensitive about shit like that thanks to post-election burnout. Yes, even almost two years after the election I still get flashbacks about the Hillary vs Trump nightmare of 2015-2016.

I mean, Thunderhead didn't completely hold my attention all the way through, but it was still a good book from a guy who basically owns my soul at this point. The Arc of a Scythe isn't a new favorite series of mine, not in the way Unwind was, but it's a solid science-fiction/dystopian series that feels refreshingly new, something that few YA speculative fiction novels can claim. This isn't Neal Shusterman's best series, in my eyes, but it's one that I look forward to seeing the conclusion of and I hope to God it blows me away. I want so badly to love these books more than I do.

8-8.5 out of 10

If you liked this book, then you may also like:

The Unwind series, because of course. If the Arc of a Scythe is Neal Shusterman at his most optimistic, wait 'till you see him at his most pessimistic...

Beautiful Star & Other Stories by Andrew Swanston Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

History is brought alive by the people it affects, rather than those who created it.

This is a moving and affecting journey through time, bringing a new perspective to the defence of Corfe Castle, the battle of Waterloo, the siege of Toulon and, in the title story, the devastating dangers of the life of the sea in 1875.

January has become the month of short stories for me, and Beautiful Star is one of them. This is another January 2018 want to read novel, and one of the ones I knew very little about prior to reading. 

I admit, I was a tad disappointed when I started reading because I still had The Maze at Windermere stuck in my head. This is more, shall we say simplistically written than the above work. That is not say that this is a poorly written novel, but that the writing style is not what I expected and it took some time to get used to. 

One of the best things about Beautiful Star is that each short story is based on a true, under-known historical event and it's apparent through his writing that Swanston wants to do them justice. Even The Flying Monk is treated with a certain respect as opposed to someone who might in today's society be considered a laughingstock.

My favorite short stories in this collection were Beautiful Star- the titular story-, The Tree, and The Castle. The other stories, like HMS Association and The Button Seller and the Drummer Boy, were good technically but couldn't hold my interest, and A Witch and a Bitch could have been better than it actually was, though it did hold my attention. I also found The Flying Monk to be interesting but not as memorable as my favorites.

Something I noticed about two of my favorite short stories, The Tree and The Castle, is that both of them take place during a time I personally have little interest in and, judging by the lack of historical fiction novels or even historical nonfiction works about it, it would appear that I'm not alone in that opinion. That time period is the English Civil War, which took up most of the 1600s. But I really liked the little boy character in The Tree, and the dame in The Castle is one of history's forgotten bad asses. 

So Beautiful Star & Other Stories is solid collection of historical fiction short stories, one I would definitely recommend to any history lover. My only reservation about recommending it out is that I don't think it would appeal as much to an average reader just looking for a quick read.

8 out of 10

The Maze at Windermere by Gregory Blake Smith Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

A richly layered novel of love, ambition, and duplicity, set against the storied seascape of Newport, Rhode Island

A reckless wager between a tennis pro with a fading career and a drunken party guest--the stakes are an antique motorcycle and an heiress's diamond necklace--launches a narrative odyssey that braids together three centuries of aspiration and adversity. A witty and urbane bachelor of the Gilded Age embarks on a high-risk scheme to marry into a fortune; a young writer soon to make his mark turns himself to his craft with harrowing social consequences; an aristocratic British officer during the American Revolution carries on a courtship that leads to murder; and, in Newport's earliest days, a tragically orphaned Quaker girl imagines a way forward for herself and the slave girl she has inherited.

In The Maze at Windermere Gregory Blake Smith weaves these intersecting worlds into a brilliant tapestry, charting a voyage across the ages into the maze of the human heart.

It was a year ago yesterday that I posted my first review. Huh.

There's nothing more satisfying than having your expectations met (except having them exceeded) and this is one of those times. If you'll recall, last year the majority of the books I actually planned on reading were not good, to say the least, with two even making my worst list. So the fact that the first of my most anticipated 2018 releases was actually very, very good is a huge relief and, closing The Maze at Windermere, I had a really good feeling about this year.

That is not to say The Maze at Windermere is perfect, or that it lived entirely up to my sky-high expectations. I mean, I went into this novel expecting a collection of short stories, and ended up getting a legitimate full length story with 5 separate narratives running at once. Of narratives, I liked 3 of them- 2011, 1869, and 1692- which is better than most stories with as many separate story arcs as this one. The two I didn't like- 1863 and 1778- didn't offend me in any way, I just found them on the boring side. Henry James is one of those Victorian authors I probably should read but I don't, and the one from 1778 just could not hold my interest at all. 

But of the ones that I liked, 2011 had the best story-line. It was interesting, had characters that were fun to follow, and had a lot of diversity, as well as fascinating insight into the world of the obscenely wealthy. 1896 was also good in that respect, and Drexel was an interesting character to follow around. His parts were the most under-baked though, which was sad since the Gilded Age is one of my favorite settings for stories. My liking of 1692 surprised me, since normally I wouldn't go for Puritan-era stories but I just liked Prudence as a character, not to mention that she stood out as the only girl MC. Also, she had the only narrative with an actual end, so I gave her points for that.

But even if I hadn't liked this novel as much as I did, I would still have to give Smith serious props for how talented he is at mimicking writing styles from different times, and each story was different from the other and, to the right person, each had interesting story lines that could hold their own, though I liked how Smith combined them all in the end.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what Smith writes next. Both the writing and story building in this novel are distinct and feel unique, and The Maze at Windermere was overall, a fun novel to read for any history lover. It's not perfect, but I highly recommend it.

8.5 out of 10