I know there is still one more day left in March but I am pretty confident I won't be finishing any new books between now and then so here's what I've read for the month! I'm pretty happy with the results from a quantity perspective because I'm still knee deep in publicity for a couple of books I'm working with and that usually whittles away at the free time I have... and those that I did read were mostly advanced review copies.
So let's see what I spent my time with this month....
The Antidote by Karen Russell
Give me more epic wild west fiction with a dash of magical realism please! This is becoming my new favorite genre, you guys.
The Antidote takes place during the 1935 dust storm known as Black Sunday and in it, we meet a prairie witch named Antonina who makes a living absorbing people's memories. A local outcast, our witch is suddenly fearful of her life. The dust storm seems to have emptied her of the memories she's taken and the residents of Uz, Nebraska will be murderously upset when they come to make a withdrawal and find she's lost the things they are desperate to collect. But Dell, a thick skinned orphan girl who has an ear for the local town gossip, has decided to become Antonina's apprentice and devises a way for her create new memories for those who come knocking.
Meanwhile, there's a dirty sheriff doing dirty sheriff things; a visiting photographer whose pawn shop camera can only take photos of what once was or may come to be; and Dell's uncle, the one farmer whose land strangely seems to be thriving after the dust storm while everyone else's is suffering for it. Not to mention the odd scarecrow that's staked out in his field that seems to be untouched by the weird weather and a pregnant tabby cat with revenge on its mind.
It also addresses topics such as the unjust treatment of Native Americans, white privilege, and how, even back then, mother earth takes her revenge when we abuse her lands.
This book! It's a chunkster, and it takes a while for all of the storylines to fully pull together so you have to be patient with some of the back story stuff but oh my gosh it's so worth it and that ending. Ugh! My heart!
It's magical, and powerful, and really uniquely done!
The Lamb by Lucy Rose
The Lamb is the newest internet darling and I'm 100% behind it. It's an extremely impressive debut and very deserving of all of the love #bookstagram has been showering it with. Lucy Rose wastes no time jumping right into it - with an opening line like "On my fourth birthday, I plucked six severed fingers from the shower drain" you know you are going to be in for one heck of a tasty, bloody ride.
One thing is for sure. The Lamb has taught me that I don't have the right goodreads bookshelves created for the kinds of books I've been reading lately. I'm going to create some now post-haste because this needs to be shelved under messed-up-mothers, and people-as-monsters, and mmm-tasty, and get-on-my-plate, and tastes-like-human.
I adored the short chapters, which helped give the impression that the story was moving along faster than it actually was because c'mon let's be honest, it was a really slow burn knowing what we know up front and waiting for it to finally all come to a head. And dang, did it serve up a messed up ending or what?
Seriously, I love the moment that cannibalism is having in literary fiction and horror right now!
Rose of Jericho by Alex Grecian
his is the sequel to Red Rabbit and it's every bit as fun and fantastic.
In Rose of Jericho, we are reunited with a few of our favorite characters: Rose, Sadie, and Rabbit, who take up residence in a haunted mansion when they travel to the town of Ascension to visit Rose's ill cousin; and Moses, who is a man on a mission after his wife is taken from him. In a moment of anger and grief, Moses does something he cannot undo and suddenly, the dead won't stay dead.
And no, not in a zombie sort of way. Just in a 'you get your brains bashed in and you lie there a minute and then you stand up and go about living your life as if it was just a little owie' sort of way.
But now Moses is dead set on righting his wrong and he knows he's going to need Sadie's help to do it. So he heads out to find his friends, and they are going to soon discover the roles they will need to play in order to restore order to the world.
The Red Rabbit witchiness we've grown to love is still in full effect, with some cool cosmic intervention stuff thrown into the mix, and even more gore and violence!
Can we make historical cosmic fantasy a thing now?!?!
The Haunting of Room 904 by Erika T Wurth
I love the way Erika's writing shifts and changes with each new book, especially these last two from her, weaving in new levels of creepy supernatural horror while also pushing the Native American voice and experience forward.
Her female characters are flawed badass toughies that I can't help but wish I knew in rl. Well, ok maybe not in the case of this particular book. You can keep Olivia and her paranormal investigative self far far away from me because ain't no way I want to get caught in the crosshairs of the vengeful spirits she's tangled up with in The Haunting of Room 904. Spirits trapped in wooden boxes and hotel mirrors, dark evil entities literally breathing down your neck, and an occult group called the Sacred 36 who attempted a ceremony that backfired... yeah, no thanks, I'll be waaaay over here in my book room flipping pages, living safely on the periphery!
It's also another great example of grief fiction. The death of Olivia's sister, and the guilt she feels over not taking her call for help seriously 5 years ago, weighs heavily on her, and this new case she's picked up might just be the one chance she has to right the wrong she's been living with.
Cover those mirrors y'all!
White Line Fever by KC Jones
I need to be up front with you guys. I accepted this review copy with some hesitation. I wasn't crazy for the cover and the description sounded a little lackluster. But... it's Tor Nightfire and I usually really dig their stuff so I figured I'd give it a shot. And omg... I'm so glad I did!
It's a bit of a slow burn to start, with Livia discovering her husband has cheated her, which is the catalyst that propels her and her childhood girlfriends towards the Devil's Driveway, a 15 mile long seasonal shortcut between highways that's known for its extremely high death toll. In an attempt to escape an aggressive tow truck driver, the girls turn down the sketchy backroad and begin to experience periods of lost time and odd dizzy spells. It's not long before they start noticing the signs of previous car crashes and then begin seeing things that aren't there, creepy ass hallucinations that start out as bugs and bats, but then quickly escalate to darker and scarier things.
KC Jones periodically disrupts the tension with some flashbacks into Livia's past, her relationship with her father, and the bonds between her and her friends, which helps shine a light on what Livia and her gal pals are suffering through as the powerful visions pull them deeper and deeper into paranoia and panic. I found myself wanting to push through the flashbacks quickly so I could get back to the main story. For those of you who grew up on cable tv, those scenes started to feel like annoying commercial breaks, popping up at the most inopportune times, right as the shit started getting really good.
All they wanted was a relaxing weekend getaway and instead, what they got was a full fledged terror filled ride down a road that wasn't going to let them go now that it had them in its sights.
Horror filled road trip anyone?
Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna Van Veen
I just finished Blood on Her Tongue yesterday and get ready, you guys. You think you know what you're getting yourselves into but it's not what you're expecting. I mean, ok, it is... in one sense. It's dark. It's atmospheric. It's bloody. But the dog knows. Ooooh man, does the dog know!
Set in the Netherlands in the late 1800's, the book opens with Sarah accompanying her husband to view a body that's been discovered in the bog on their property. She immediately becomes infatuated with it and writes to her twin sister Lucy about the strange thoughts and dreams she's been having ever since coming in contact with it. Not long after, Sarah becomes gravely ill, speaking gibberish and running a high fever. Her husband and their childhood friend Arthur fear she's going mad. Lucy rushes to her side in an attempt to save her from the asylum, but ends up coming face to face with a horror nothing could have prepared her for.
The set up and storyline will have you thinking vampires (sorry for the slight spoiler) but oh dearies, it is something much much darker and sinister... and ancient... and it is soooo fucking hungry!
Some of you may know that I typically do not do well with gothic horror, and if I'm being honest this one tried my patience a few times, especially with the whole 'men know better than women', and the marital affair (why do so many of the books I've read lately involve cheating, it's so cringe) and oh yes, I should have predicted, all the fainting or near fainting spells and female hysteria stuff that the ladies were afflicted with back then. But all those pet peeves aside, the story really kept my interest piqued.
Dripping with dread, the book delves into codependency, mental health, and the allure of the unknown all while challenging familial bonds. How far is too far when a loved one's survival is at stake?
I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger
Oh gosh you guys, this book. I forget who I first saw reading it but I took one look at the description and knew I wanted to read it, too.
It's a slow burning dystopian novel that's less focused on how fucked up the world has become and turns instead towards the aching emptiness we would do anything to fill when we lose the one we love the most. Yes, sure, the richest of the rich bitches have taken over, an elite sixteen referred to as the astronauts, and yes, there are giant medical freighters out on Lake Superior conducting test trials on volunteers and cranking out a suicide drug called Willow, and yes, food and books can be hard to come by at times, but our narrator Rainy, a gentle giant of a man, is doing his best to live life as close to normal as possible and that's mainly because he has the love of his life Lark at his side. Until one day, he doesn't.
After allowing a sketchy but kind stranger to rent out a room in their attic, Rainy suddenly finds himself haunted by grief and shock and caught up in a situation he can only control by escaping, and escape he does, towards the safest and warmest memory of his wife he has, heading out towards a remote set of islands called the Slates.
Driven by the desperate hope of his wife's ghost meeting him out there, Rainy comes face to face with nasty storms at sea, horrid toll bridge workers, a group of air rifle packing punks, and befriends a young girl attempting to escape a bad home situation, all while trying to keep the people who took his wife from him from catching up to him first.
I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. It's very reminiscent of Per Peterson's books, who is an author I absolutely adore. Rainy is one of the most likeable, most laid back characters I've read in a while. He has so much heart and an incredible knack of making the best of the worst situations. I just wanted to reach into the pages and give him a big ole bear hug most of the book, and I'm not a hugger so that should tell you something.
Bones and All by Camille DeAngelis
Ok, I'm on a bit of a literary cannibalism kick these last few months, so I gave this one a shot and all it did was confirm that I really don't like YA. Nothing against those of you who do. It's just not for me.
I have to admit those first few pages were very attention-getting, flipping through it at the store when I was making the decision on whether or not I wanted to buy it. But DeAngelis just couldn't sustain that wow-factor all the way through. The characters, their motivations, and their nom-nom, lick the plate clean, eat all the people and their bones behaviors all lived too far above the surface when I would have loved for everything to go just a little bit deeper.
It's like the Disney version of cannibalism. meh.
If you're feeling tempted like I was, you're really not missing much. It's ok. Put the book down. Spend your money on something else.
And can we please for the love of god stop with the movie cover posters?! I should knock a star off just for that!
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer (audiobook, reread)
In anticipation of picking up the 4th book in the series, I decided to do a re-listen (or is it now a thrice-listen of the audiobook.
Still just as a good as the first time. Mostly because my memory is shit and I forget a lot of the details and it's just so darn amazing.
The Cut by CJ Dotson
Oh Sadie, how you really worked my last nerve, you stinker.
In The Cut, a pregnant woman escapes an abusive relationship with her three year old daughter in tow, and ends up taking a housekeeping job in an old hotel, with free room and board.
Within Sadie's first day at the hotel, there are strange wet noises in the hallway, random damp spots on the walls and hallway rugs, and she's witness to an incident from her window, where a guest appears to be drowning in the pool, though when she rushes out there to help, no one is around, the pool is calm and serene, the only evidence of anything untoward is the quickly drying wet drag mark on the concrete.
The hotel manager seems wholly unconcerned when Sadie reports it. She tries to put the weird experience behind her until the next day when she learns a guest has failed to check out and take their stuff, and notices dried blood in a tub during one of her routine cleaning jobs. And let's not mention the slimy little tentacled things that appear on the floor of her own tub while she's taking a shower... although, when she grabs the manager again, all of the evidence is gone when he takes a look.
Is she losing her shit or is something horrible hiding just beneath the surface of the L'Arpin Hotel? And is manager and the rest of the staff behind it? And what of old lady Gertie, who offered to babysit her daughter on her work days, who always happens to show up right after the weird stuff takes place?
Dotson immediately sucks us in with all the strange shenanigans. I had so many questions, you guys. But then it just got meh and kept on meh-ing. There was so much to look forward to, yet so many annoyances kept popping up. The repetitive rehashing of the abuse she took, the constant fits and tantrums and coddling of her daughter, the whole not feeling safe but then running off to check things out and leaving her little girl alone, asleep in the hotel room, and even then when she was out there spying around, talking herself out of everything she saw, it got old quick.
So when the real shit starting hitting the fan, I was more perturbed and less hanging on every word, because I had kind of figured out what was going on before we got there and just wanted to get it over with.
A solid three star. Less if I focus on the all the ways Sadie annoyed me and the overall execution of the book, but for the creepy, cosmic weird plot it certainly deserves more.
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