Book Review

Review by Jessie - Cursed Bread by Sophie Mackintosh

“If you eat the bread, you’ll die, he said, and it sounded more like a caress than a threat.”

Based on a real-life mass poisoning in a rural French village, this is a hypnotic and often absurd fever dream of a novel that I read quickly, as though in a trance. 

In the aftermath of World War II, Elodie, the baker’s wife, lives a staid and frustrated existence. When a new ambassador arrives in town, his glamorous wife Violet quickly captures Elodie’s attention and soon, an obsession is formed. What starts as seemingly innocent fascinations soon turns into more sinister events. A boy jumps into a fire, horses are found dead in a field and the townspeople start acting in strange ways, all culminating in the final, frenzied day.

Told through flashbacks, as Elodie writes letters to Violet, the novel plays with subtle manipulations of power, through the characters’ desires and delusions and is constantly shifting the reader’s perception of what is real and who can be trusted. Sophie Mackintosh’s writing is silky smooth and incredibly effective at lulling you into a dream state, from which she then yanks you unceremoniously, leaving you dazed and confused, as though untimely woken from a nap. It felt like such a different reading experience and I absolutely loved being transported in this way. A perfect winter book, best enjoyed by candlelight, safely cosseted in blankets.

Chloe's Christmas Challenge

Sometime in August, I challenged myself to read a book a week up to Christmas. Why? So that I can be confident in my recommendations — and because the sheer number of new books I’m excited for this year far exceeds previous years.

So far, I have not been disappointed.

What I have Read So Far:

A Taste of Iron and Gold

by Alexandra Rowland

For anyone who loves A Taste of Iron and Gold I would also recommend A Strange and Stubborn Endurance and vice versa. If you’re looking for some fun, something light with some high emotional stakes but ultimate good-feels, then this is for you. The characters are complex and lovable and the world is easy to slip into — think medieval fantasy with modern sentiments.

A Strange and Stubborn Endurance

by Foz Meadows

Foz Meadows is an Australian author to watch. A Strange and Stubborn Endurance was a delight to read, and again is for those wanting something fun and frivolous to escape reality. The political intrigue and action will have you turning the pages faster than you want to, and keeping you awake until the godforsaken hours of the morning to finish it.

Wolfsong

by TJ Klune

Alright so apparently I was in the mood for romance? Wolfsong is a re-release from TJ Klune who shot to fame with his House on the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door. Think … the werewolves from Twilight but better.

Of course, Wolfsong isn’t JUST romance. It wouldn’t be a TJ Klune without some wholesome found-family and character growth — a plot driven by character as well as by plot. Don’t be put off by the size. This won’t take you long to devour.

Star Eater

by Kerstin Hall

Star Eater is perfect for anyone 16+. I took a break from romance for a second with this one; this is a world unlike any I’ve read in fantasy before. There’s a little of the ‘chosen one’ trope with a heavy dose of reluctant heroism. Think witches and sisterhoods, strong women and feisty men. There’s magic and politics and adventure, with a few twists and turns along the way.

moon sugar

by Angela Meyer

Angela Meyer is a genius. I read A Superior Spectre when it was first released and could not wait to get my hands on Moon Sugar.

Moon Sugar is for those who prefer a little magical realism with their literary fiction; there’s a mystery that our main characters are trying to solve, two people who are an unlikely pairing but who compliment each other in ways they hadn’t expected.

Read our interview with Angela Meyer here.

A Dowry of Blood

by S.T. Gibson

A Dowry of Blood is Dracula, written from the point of view of one of his wives. It does not touch upon Dracula’s story as we know it, but instead what came before and what came after. Short, quick, very easy to read. A little bit sexy — but this is no romance, not really. It’s about loss of agency and the slow journey to reclamation. It’s a love story to female independence, to breaking free from emotionally abusive relationships.

THE ATLAS PARADOX

by Olivie Blake

This is the anticipated follow on from The Atlas Six — dark academia with some time travel and plenty of intrigue. I think what I like most about these books are the rapport between the characters, of which there are many. The Atlas Paradox explores these relationships in greater depth while also developing character arcs so that the reader cares more for the characters than they did before.

THE BRANDED

by Jo Riccioni

The Branded has a Mad Max feel to it, but with less graphic violence, more greenery, and a bit of Celtic-sque magic thrown in for good measure. A perfect morsel for fantasy fans who love adventure and plot over romance; there’s a hint of romance, sure, but it doesn’t commandeer or control the plot. This was one of my favourites this year. Plus, the cover is so pretty!

What I’m Currently Reading:

To Finish Before Christmas:

Staff Review - The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding by Holly Ringland

by Jessie Kinivan

It has been a year since Esther Wilding’s sister Aura was last seen, walking towards the sea. In an attempt to make sense of her sister’s life, Esther travels from lutruwita, Tasmania to Copenhagen and then the Faroe Islands, following a trail of stories Aura left behind; seven stories of swans and seals, loss, violence and the strength of women, told through cryptic verses Aura had tattooed on her body.

 

Rich in fairy tales and folklore, the stories of the women in this book will certainly get under your skin. Holly manages to weave magic into her descriptions of nature, with gorgeously lush imagery of the sea, and of the Tasmanian and Faroese landscapes. Esther holds grief, joy and discovery within her at all times and you know you are in safe hands with Holly when it comes to leaning into the fullness of emotion. It is about finding the courage to heal as well as to live with the wounds that stay with us forever.

 

Fans of The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert or The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams will love this novel about sisterly bonds, fairy tales and forgiveness.

 

I have the most colourful soundtrack running through my head after reading this and immediately started planning an ‘80s party (you’re all invited!). 

Staff Review - Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls

by Jessie Kinivan

A new mother escapes into a dream world; two young girls steal a baby; friends reunite years after a terrible event; a camping trip goes horribly wrong…

The stories in Anne Casey-Hardy’s debut are all about girls and women behaving badly – a theme I relish! This is a forceful collection, filled with characters who act on base instincts and push societal boundaries. They share a sense of mischief, irreverent humour and a longing for freedom that is undercut by an ever-present sense of danger.

I particularly enjoyed the stories with teen narrators, as Casey-Hardy captures the reckless energy of the young so well. Often though, the transient borders of childhood, adolescence and womanhood blur, such as in ‘My Beautiful Dollhouse’, in which a woman’s childhood toys have taken hold in her adult life, or ‘Being the Mother’ where two girls crave the experience of motherhood. Many of the stories read like fractured fairy tales with a lulling and, at times, sinister effect. In each of them though, there is an urgency that is very much rooted in the modern world.

Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls thrums with life, energy and desire and I sped through the eighteen stories despite (admittedly half-hearted) attempts to savour them and will eagerly await anything Anne Casey-Hardy does next. 

Staff Review - The Stardust Thief

by Chloe Townson

There are a few points of view scattered throughout The Stardust Thief but the most prominent voices are Loulie Al-Nazari – The Midnight Merchant – and Prince Mazen. The former is a scavenger, of sorts, who travels the desert in search of magical relics. The latter is a younger Prince who is kept cooped up in the royal household but who wants only to be free to wander the market and listen to stories – and who is a magnificent storyteller himself. The paths of the Merchant and the Prince are entangled through no choice of their own – the Merchant swept up into the King’s plots and the Prince sent with her by a brother who cares for naught but his own intrigues.

The Jinn and their relics are the crux of the story, however; the Merchant travels with Qadir, a Jinn who controls fire and can shift into a lizard. The Prince travels with Aisha, who is sworn to the band of forty thieves and their mission to eradicate Jinn from he face of the Earth. The four are an unlikely travelling troupe, though they learn to trust each other through the trials and tribulations of their quest across the desert – they are forced to question their own beliefs and the stories that led them to those beliefs.

The Stardust Thief is a refreshing Middle Eastern fantasy inspired by One Thousand and One Nights. The art of storytelling is revered in the pages of this book, the chapters interspersed by the stories of myth and legend. Though there’s potential for romance between the characters, it’s not something that takes precedence; what takes precedence are the relationships between travelling companions, the dips and highs of familial relationships that are affected by secrets and things left unsaid. The character arcs are dictated by the things that happen to them rather than by the people they fall in love with. There’s nothing wrong with fantasy romances; they’re like the fast food of the fantasy genre, easy to read and tasty to boot. The Stardust Thief is more like a home cooked meal; wholesome and warm, and when asked if you want another serving you say ‘yes, please’ even if you’re already full.

Staff Review - Cult Classic

by Jessie Kinivan

On a night out with friends, Lola, an embittered, embattled New Yorker runs into an ex-boyfriend. The next night she sees another, and another and another… As these meetings start to pile up, Lola begins to suspect a greater force may be at play, and when her former boss admits to using her as a test subject for a mind control experiment (a pesky habit of his) she is given the option to willingly participate in this bizarre form of past regression therapy.

From long-term loves to brief dalliances, Lola is thrown back into her romantic past to question and attempt to make sense of her habits and flaws. If she can, will it allow her to move forward and finally settle into the kind of life she has been resisting for so long? 

Witty, weird and often confusing, Cult Classic dips gently into speculative fiction while maintaining immense relatability, thanks to Lola’s perceptive and authentic voice. Her snarky take on life is pure enjoyment to read and with each awkward, painful or unexpected encounter I grew fonder of this darkly comic heroine.

It asks questions about what we take from a relationship and what we leave behind. How does each person change us and we them? Maybe sometimes it’s the ill-defined, seemingly insignificant liaisons that leave the biggest mark of all.

If you enjoy smart, unconventional romances with humour and heart, Cult Classic is for you! 

Staff Review - Babel by RF Kuang

Babel - Or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

RF KUANG

review by Chloe Townson

Robin Swift – an unassuming name for an unassuming character, lifted out of poverty and plague and transplanted in a new world where he is given all that he needs and afforded every opportunity. Robin Swift, who soon does not remember the name he was born with, only the anglicised name that he chose to fit in – a requirement, he is told, to make it easier for Englishmen to pronounce.

Taught to read, write, and breathe in Latin, Greek, English, and Chinese, Robin’s ultimate destination is Oxford and the Babel Institute of Translation. Set in an alternate London where silver is used as a conductor for magic via language and translation, Robin’s education and purpose is to be able to create and wield these magical silver bars, usable only by those who can not only speak two or more languages but who understand those languages right down to their etymological roots.

Babel is a book for language nerds; it’s a book for those who are in love with words and language and the ebbs and flows of borrowed meaning and meaning lost. It does not fit squarely into any specific genre – some will call it fantasy, some will call it dark academia, others will call it historical fiction. Like language, it borrows from all the above, pieces that fit together to create an alluring whole.

At Oxford, Robin finds his people; others who have been uprooted from their Motherlands and used by the British Empire to further imperial gain. This is not a book about friendship and scholarly adventures, not really. It’s a book about colonialism, about otherness and the internal struggle between taking the path that is easy or taking the path that is right, because the two don’t always converge. As the main protagonist, Robin’s struggles are wholly believable. He is not the ‘reluctant’ hero who suddenly finds courage and valour. It takes time – as it should.

At first, Babel meanders. It’s a quiet novel that slowly gathers momentum until it lays an invisible wire in the reader’s path, tripping them into a chaotic bramble of murder, tragic betrayal, and emotional upheaval. Babel is not just a new fantasy that sits prettily amongst the others. No, Babel is an important novel – one that I will push into the hands of others not only because it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year, but because I think it’s a book that needs to be read.

Babel is due for release on September 7th. Click the link below to pre-order your copy.

Staff Review - Fight Night

by Jessie Kinivan

“He looked happy and sad at the same time. That’s a popular adult look because adults are busy and have to do everything at once, even feel things.”

Fight Night follows three generations of women; our narrator Swiv, who is ‘around a hundred months old’, her mother, and her grandmother Elvira. The stubborn and anxious Swiv has been suspended from school for enacting Elvira’s lessons in fighting back, and so spends her time with her grandmother, shopping, watching basketball games and attending weekly ‘editorial meetings’. 

As her heavily pregnant mother, an actress with a flair for the dramatic (as well as visible PTSD) waits to give birth, Swiv is assigned the task of documenting their lives for her absent father, noting down the domestic routines that tell a far bigger story, in a way that only a child can. When Elvira books a spontaneous trip to California, it is up to Swiv to keep her boisterous grandmother safe, and as the two navigate travel from Canada together, their blend of stern naivete and jovial wisdom make for a delightfully odd duo – one you would always want to be seated next to on a flight. 

Swiv’s blunt observations and honest empathy bring to mind Scout Finch, and the love she has for the women in her life, all so different, yet bonded by the same grit and heart, determined to fight for the right to live life on their own terms, is spectacular.

Full of brilliant lines that are both riotously funny and deeply moving (I stopped highlighting sentences early in when the book started to resemble a colouring book) it is a paean to mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers. All three women are irrepressible, staunchly loyal and filled with charm and empathy. They guard themselves, and each other, with a fighting spirit that cuts through the novel’s darker edges and leaves the reader emboldened and hopeful. 

Fight Night will break your heart (in all the right ways) and then immediately seek to heal you with its warmth and humour. I can’t recommend it enough. 

Staff Review - Ordinary Monsters by JM Miro

by Chloe Townson

Ages 18+ | $32.99

At over six-hundred pages long, you might try to convince yourself that Ordinary Monsters is far too long and you’d rather not. I’m here to convince that little voice in your head that it’s wrong — it’s just a number, and it’s only intimidating if you allow it to be. You can do this!

But really, you can. Ordinary Monsters is set in London and Scotland in the late 1800s. Think muck and grime and orphans in a dog-eat-dog world, except that world is inspired by great gothic classics like Dracula and Frankenstein.

There’s a school run by an old eccentric — Dr Berghast — who sends his trusty detectives out into the world to bring back ‘talents’ — children with extraordinary abilities who always, for reasons unknown, end up orphaned. The means by which Berghast finds said orphans is also the the gate through which unimaginable evil can be unleashed. One of our young main characters, Marlowe, is the key.

The cast of characters include many strong, independent women who need no man to save them when times are tough and a crew of self-sufficient young charges who do not hesitate to take matters into their own hands — hands that can wield dust as a weapon, that can create giant flesh monsters, that can turn invisible, and that can heal instantly. And then there are the villains, of course, and they’re the best kind. The kind that aren’t black and white. The kind that are complex, and you almost want to root for them. That Jacob Marber — it’s said many times — has very nice hands.

What I’m trying to say, in the end, is that despite it’s length, Ordinary Monsters is so readable you’ll feel as if you’ve immersed yourself into a season of Netflix’s Stranger Things only it’s set two-hundred years earlier. Six-hundred pages feels like two-hundred. If I can do it, you can do it, and I promise you’ll have no regrets.

Staff Review - The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley

by Chloe Townson

Ages 15-150 | LGBTQ+ rep | $32.99

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley by Sean Lusk sets the scene in mid 1700s England and Constantinople. The first half of the novel follows Abel Cloudesley — a slightly eccentric clock maker who, through unfortunate circumstances, becomes a single father to a son, Zachary. Young Zachary is surrounded by a quirky cast of part-time caretakers including his wet nurse Grace Morley, his aunt Frances (who is arguably far more eccentric than his own father), his butler Mr Samuels, and his father’s apprentice-with-a-secret, Tom.

When he’s six years old, Young Zachary is victim to an accident in his father’s workshop which costs him half his sight. Convinced that he is not fit to be a father, Abel sends Zachary to live with his Aunt Frances. Before he is able to change his mind, Abel is sent to Constantinople to act as spy — he never comes home.

The second half of the novel follows a sixteen-year-old, diabolically clever Zachary who has a peculiar second sight. Zachary is able to see into the hearts of others, to prophesise things past or things yet to come. Upon finding out that his father is still alive, Zachary sets off on an adventure to find him and bring him home.

The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley is akin to a warm hot chocolate on a Winter night, but with a touch of spice. The cast of characters are rightly described as Dickensian in nature — they are quirky and larger-than-life, caricaturistic but not to the point of ridicule (though they are ridiculously lovable). Historically accurate, the events described in the book are thoroughly researched and richly detailed so you’ll feel as if you’re stepping into the past.

Zachary’s second sight is unobtrusively threaded through the novel; it’s that twist of magical realism that, even in the story itself, is constantly questioned and disbelieved. The Second Sight of Zachary Cloudesley is ultimately about what it means to be a parent, and the love shared between family. It’s about found family and finding family, and is an inclusive coming-of-age adventure written in a way that hearkens back to the classics.

Five out of five.