Problematic Summer Romance - Ali Hazelwood

It's coming up for the second anniversary since I lost a very dear friend to cancer, she's a constant gap in my life and since she's gone I've found it hard to read anything particularly challenging or that would provoke any kind of complex emotions. Having spent quite a long time picking up and putting down 'Problematic Summer Romance' I feel that phase might be at an end.

Or it might just be that I'm not a fan of where Ali Hazelwood seems to be going with her writing, or it could be both things. I still think most of Hazelwood's books are a solid choice if you're looking for a fairly fun romance, but I didn't finish 'Deep End' - the kink element wasn't for me, it went to a charity shop, and Bride wasn't my think either (werewolves really not my thing either it turns out).

'Problematic Summer Romance' has a 23 year old main female character very much in love with the 38 year old best friend and super wealthy business partner of her older brother. The main problem seems to be the age difference between them and potential power imbalance that imples. The reason it's taken me a couple of weeks to actually finish this is that it never at any point felt like a massive problem, partly because the older brother and entire friendship group are all extremely supportive.

Plenty of romance writers keep on churning out essentially the same thing so kudos to Hazelwood for trying different things, but this book feels overworked to me - too much thought has gone into making things just problematic enough, but not so much as the reader might really take issue with any of it. Perhaps unfortunately Maya is a convincing 23 year old and a little bit annoying with it. The academic setting which bought the earlier books to life is missing as well, along with the close female friendships - and altogether it fell a little flat for me.

It's still a solid book - a definite three and a half stars, easy summer reading for lazy afternoons kind of thing. There are engaging characters, characters from earlier books that it's fun to catch up with, and the descriptions of Sicily are lush but whatever I pick up next is going to be very different. 

A Sorceress Comes to Call - T Kingfisher

The current phase of moving things around and making space is coming to an end - there will be another big push later this summer, but right now it's hot and I'm bothered by the heat so all the hard work of shifting things can pause for a bit. When it does start again, the main job will be to make some sense of the books that haven't gone into storage. Right now, they've been shoved into gaps as they've become available, and there's no sense to it all (but having floor space again is nice, so...).

There's also a certain amount of pressure to read some of the books that are hanging around and pass them on. When I started blogging a very long time ago books were an escape from work, or the lack of work, depending on circumstances. Now my work is books, it's very much not that and consequently a harder to motivate myself to sometimes. I also find that for work purposes, it's enough to read a bit of a lot of books that I wouldn't normally pick up to get a general sense of them - enough, at least, to know what people want when they're asking for more of the same. 

For someone who's never really had much love for contemporary fiction this is an odd place to be in, but sometimes a book surprises me, and so it was with A Sorceress Comes to Call. T Kingfisher's (a pen name for Ursual Vernon) back catalogue is popping up all over the place now in the UK, she's been on my radar for a while as a horror/fantasy writer that I'd heard good things about, I've even managed to collect a few of the more specifically fantasy titles - but this is the first one I've read.

I loved it, and those other books have moved right up the pile to be read. A Sorceress Comes To Call is inspired by the Brothers Grimm Goose Girl tale, the main protaganists are Cordelia, a 14 year old girl, and Hester, a woman in her early 50s with a bad knee. Cordelia's mother is the thoroughly wicked sorceress who sets out to marry a rich man so that she can trap an even richer man for her daughter. Hester as the rich man's sister is set on foiling her plans and rescuing the child. 

The genius of the book is that it manages to be simultaneously dark with a sense of real danger and a creeping bit of horror, and also really funny. Hester and Cordelia are perfectly flawed, human heroines, frightened and unsure as well as determined and capable of showing incredible fortitude and bravery. The Sorceresses powers fully underscore the banility of evil. All the characters are well drawn and convincing, but most of all I really appreciated the middle aged nature of so many of them. 

It was also thoroughly refreshing to read a fantasy that doesn't place romance at its centre. I'm not knocking romantasy, but it feels so ubiquitous right now that not encountering it here was something of a relief. T Kingfisher is not particularly like Terry Pratchett, but there's a comparison to be had in in the way they both lace together humour and an anger at injustice and abuse. The vibe is different, but I think if you were a Pratchett fan you would find much to enjoy here. 

A Forgery of Fate - Elizabeth Lim

After nearly three years of marriage, my husband is finally moving in with me. We've sold his house and are trying to breathe in enough to fit our lives into my 1-bedroom flat. A lot of my books have moved into my mothers garage. Packing them up has been both easy - the sheer quantity of them had become overwhelming, it's a relief to not have teetering piles of books everywhere (although more have to go) and really not easy. What should stay, what do I refer to regularly, what am I likely to want to read or re-read in the next couple of years, and what can go to the charity shop?

Answers to all those questions and more are slowly resolving themselves. The next steps are exciting ones, but oh, is the process ever hard on the back? And where do all the tiny cuts and bruises come from at the end of each day?

Meanwhile, I really need to round up on the proofs I've been reading and dispose of some of the work related books I'm unlikely to revisit. A Forgery of Fate is just such a book, although I absolutely will be revisiting Elizabeth Lim.

She's one of a growing number of authors who straddles the young adult and fantasy boundary. At work her hardbacks tend to be classified as Young Adult, which I think they are, but when they come out in paperback they get reclassified as SFF. I find this annoying. I'd like to live in an ideal world where the boundaries were more distinct. 

In this world I'd say A Forgery of Fate is definitely YA, but good writing is good writing and it cuts itself off from a sizable chunk of potential readers if you market purely as teen. Billed as Beauty and the Beast meets the Little Mermaid, and delivering on its promise, I really enjoyed this one. 

Truyan Saigas has a reasonably happy childhood until her father disappears on a sea voyage, her mother falls apart, and she and her sisters are forced to grow up fast. Truyan has a particular gift though, she is an artist, a gifted forger, and it's just possible that she can paint the future. Her gift bring her to the attention of the mysterious Lord Elang, who may be a demon or may be a dragon and that's when it gets really complicated for Tru.

The magic and mythology here is compelling, and the world building is truly fabulous. Tru negotiates helping her family, making new friends and enemies, overcoming her past, falling in love, and making some very hard decisions with grace. The peril, especially at the outset feels real, the resolution is deeply satisfying, and I never found her an annoying heroine to read - which I often do when young girls are chosen to save the world. 

In short, a satisfying and enjoyable book for anyone from 14 upwards (age classifications are hard, but there'a an emotional depth to this book that makes me think very young readers would miss a bit too much nuance). 

Julia Roseingrave - Marjorie Bowen writing as Robert Paye

I've been on holiday for a week and struggled to read much while I was away. That turned out to be partly because the prescription for my new glasses isn't very good - three times they've had to be sent back for re-adjustment, and they're still blurring things around the edges. It's headache inducing, and annoying because each set of adjustments seems to have made the issue worse and now I think I just need to go to another optician.

It's been a few weeks then since I read Julia Roseingrave - a deeply silly book that was tremendous fun. I think it's set some time in the reign of Charles II - or thereabouts but it doesn't matter very much. One moonlit night a traveler who appears to be the devil arrives at Holcot Grange claiming he is it's owner. The Grange is meant to have some sort of curse on it so the owners have been absent for some long time. The house keeper reluctantly admits the stranger and then seeks the advice of the nearest thing to an educated neighbour she has. 

Julia Roseingrave is a youngish woman (late 20s) very beautiful, who lives with her paralised mother and a sister with learning difficulties. She's a distant relative of the master of the Grange and agrees to come and see what's going on. She determines that the devil guise is nothing but fancy dress and hatches a plan to escape her life of rural seclusion by marrying the young man.

He's easily enthralled and makes even easier promises - but can he keep them? No, he can't, because he's already married, his wife turns up and Julia gets desperate. And this is where it gets interesting. She's been consorting with a  local wise woman and has plans to dispose of unwanted wives so we go from Julia being ambitious but sympathetic, to full on villainous mode, and then there's a final twist and nothing was clear anymore. 

I'd say this, and its accompanying short stories are more curiosity than anything else - the style is somewhat overblown, but both Julia Roseingrave as the main story and the other sorts included are worth the time to read and think about. there's some interesting messages there from the 1930s and if it's all a bit much at times, it's also always fun. 

The Crimson Road - A. G. Slatter

I seem to be in a fantasy sort of mood at the moment, maybe because I've had a run of pretty decent luck with fantasy novels that have been engaging to read and suitably distracting from real life. This is the first Slatter I've read but I'm quite tempted to try more.

The Crimson Road is a vampire novel with shades of Buffy about it. Violet Zennor has been trained to be fighter since childhood when her mother died giving birth to a still born son, her immensely rich father preparing her for something. 

The book opens with his death and Violet's hope that she can be free of the control he has exerted over her life to date. Unfortunately not. Hedrek Zennor made a particularly ill-judged bargain on the night his wife died and after a number of assassins come after her,, and her loved ones, Violet realises that she doesn't really have a choice when it comes to fixing the mess he made. 

If it wasn't for some fairly graphic violence and descriptions of abuse that Hedrek inflicted on Violet this could be a young adult novel - 20 year old girl sets out to save the world picking up found family on her quest. As it is, it's got genuinely dark moments that verge on horror and a convincingly gothic atmosphere to compliment the world building. 

If there's a fault it's that the timeline doesn't always make complete sense when it comes to the Vampires (called Leech lords here). There is a prophecy, and a lot seems to happen in a relatively short decade compared to the many hundreds of years that some of the Leech lords have been around for. This book takes place in the same world as Slatter's earlier novels - it works fine as a standalone, but possibly if I'd read them all my timeline niggles would be settled.

Overall I really enjoyed this, there were intriguing ideas in the lore building and Violet is a complex heroine who succeeds because of the help she finds along the way, mostly from other women. She stays alive because her enemies underestimate her and how much help she can muster, but it does feel that there's real jepordy along the way. I've been disappointed by books from bigger names (Alice Christina Henry and V E Schwab - but I've only tried one of each and might well be missing out on the really good stuff) working in the same sort of area - this book had whatever it was that I felt was missing for me in those. For good gothic times you could do a lot worse than The Crimson Road.

The Wycherleys - Annaliese Avery

 I've not given up on this little bit of the internet, but life does seem to have other plans for my time right now. Bear with.

I read The Wycherleys as it's the first teen/young adult book of the month work has showcased and I was curious to see what was going to set the tone. I'm mostly impressed with what I found. Billed as Bridgerton with witches - but honestly, better than that sounds. I'm not sure if it's strictly accurate to say it's aimed at the younger end of the age range, but it's absolutely fair to say it's age appropriate from 12 up, and younger if your reader doesn't mind a little bit of kissing. 

On the plus side, you get a sweet romance, likeable main characters, excellent friendships, nice sibling relationships, an intriguing set up for a continuing series, and an excellent adventure that feels complete enough in itself despite the plans for a series. 

On the downside, there's a lot of repetition, which I absolutely do not understand. You could cut 50 pages worth of the same couple of points being made over and over to end up with a standout introduction to historical fantasy, a genre that would work as well for an adult looking for some cosy fantasy as it would for a younger reader looking for romantic fantasy. The  plot is not particularly original (okay, it's very predictable) but it's handled more than well enough for that not to matter. 

The setting is a sort of alternative regency period, there are a couple of historical references, and a Princess regent Georgianna who is aware of the magical world - the state harnesses it, but not entirely approving of it. The action mostly takes place in magical areas of London where different customs and manners prevail - it nicely avoids the need to get bogged down in detail and makes potential anachronisms irrelevant. Fun details include the witching world being a matriarchy where children take their mothers names - and an interesting arrangement whereby witches need to be tethered to another witch, but that tether doesn't have to involve a romantic element, and it's frequently same sex.

This means lots of blended families, and an implicit acceptance of queer relationships even if they're not specifically explored. It's the kind of ambiguity I'd have liked to see more of in books when I was a teen, and like now - a space full of possibilities rather than certainties. 

Overall there's a lot to like here - and maybe the best thing I can say about it is that after reading Tik Tok phenomenon Fourth Wing in a similar spirit, I find I want to see what happens next to the Wycherleys, I have not read any more Rebecca Yarros.  

Why Shoot a Butler - Georgette Heyer

I know it;s been a while, the last month seems to have been a blur of working, sleeping, and appointments. Or hospital phone appointments not happening and the hours it takes to try and get through to the right department in an attempt to find out what happened. I don't know how the switchboard turned gynecology at the general to radiology at the royal but they did. The answer phone I landed with didn't state department, but I can testify to a very diligent radiologist who has followed up my message several times.

That wasn't the only wrong hospital or department I've been put through to, just the most helpful and possibly best staffed. It's all added to a feeling of despondency to match the fatigue which is probably related to the medical issue I'm trying to get an answer for and on it goes in an increasingly exhausting circle. 

I have at least managed a bit of reading even if it hasn't been in a very organised sort of way, but at the moment something feels better than nothing so... 

"Why Shoot a Butler" was a choice for an online Georgette Heyer reading group where we spend an hour or so on Sunday evening discussing 3 chapters of the chosen book a week via Signal. The group originated on twitter back in lock down, and whilst it's only a small core of what we once were the closed nature of the group and a now long standing acquaintance means we can be very open with opinions. 

I wanted to do a crime novel and hosted this readalong, "Why Shoot a Butler" was a popular choice of title, and it had been long enough since I read it for me to have forgotten it entirely. I read through once, quickly, to check for anything very old-fashioned and thought ot stood up well enough. 

Then we read slowly together, and the flaws really stood out. I'd never really accepted that Heyer's detective fiction just isn't as good as her romances, but this one just isn't as good. There are flashes of the things we all love about her, but the plotting and pacing is uneven, the characters often unconvincing, and in the case of the hero downright annoying most of the time. It's not a terrible book, and compares reasonably well enough with plenty of contemporary efforts, but it lacks whatever spark make her romances sparkle. 

Thank goodness then for a group who were kind enough to stick with it and share criticisms in a constructive way - if I didn't love the book I did at least love laughing about it with like minded readers. There's also a definite value to be had out of looking at a favourite author trying to do something different and only partially succeeding at it. For anyone who loves vintage crime this is enjoyable enough read at a gallop, which is presumably how it was intended to be consumed, but definitely not the best Heyer around. 

Pagans - James Alistair Henry

I haven't done as much reading as I mean to on holiday - I never do, but I have finished Pagans, which I really loved. It's a mash-up of alternative history, urban fantasy, and police procedural, so not my usual kind of book choice, though not entirely unusual either and it delivered on all levels. 

Britain is a global back water - I guess on a par with one of the less fortunate Balkan countries now, maybe a little bit more depressed. Christianity never got a strong hold on the west and the Norman conquest didn't happen. The global super power is a pan African alliance, much of Southern Europe is a caliphate, America was never colonised... Britain itself is still 3 countries - Scotland is an independent Nordic country, the east of England is ruled by the dominant and more wealthy Saxons, the west is tribal Celtic.

On the eve of another summit to unify the three nations, a Celtic diplomat is found nailed to a tree—crucified. Detective Inspector Drustan is sent from the west to work with Captain Aedith Mercia, a Saxon princess as well as policewoman (or reeve). Two cops. One Killer. Hundreds of Gods, as the strapline would have it. 

It's a brutal kind of world, though not precisely a dystopia (depending on your view of London, which might be considered dystopian at the best of times). The whodunnit element is decent if not spectacular, the relationships between the various characters are more interesting, with plenty of scope for more a series, the alternative history is really good fun. 

Henry has an excellent pedigree as a comedy writer, he uses it well here both in his world building and in the way relationship he forges between Aedith and Drustan who bounce off each other nicely. There are political parallels and points that can be drawn from this reimagined history if you want to, but expertly balanced against the comedic possibilities of the world building so I never felt it was heavy handed with the morals. 

There is quite a bit of violence or mention of violence, though it's seldom graphic in the details. If that doesn't bother you I highly recommend this. It's intriguing, provocative, and overall really good fun. 

The Shetland Way - Marianne Brown

March has been a month of recuperation and minor disaster - my purse was either lost or stolen, but either way, cards were used fraudulently and it;a been a massive pain to sort out, though god bless my bank who both alerted me to the issue and made it as easy as possible to fix. 

Meanwhile I haven't managed to finish many books, although I've started quantities of them. I'm struggling to stay awake in the evening and concentrate beyond work at all in the aftermath of whatever infection made the end of February so miserable. Things are starting to come together again though, and today I finished The Shetland Way which I have been reading for weeks. 

I enjoyed The Shetland Way but I also think it's a bit of a mess of a book, one that can't quite decide what it wants to be. Marianne Brown is the daughter of the late potter Bill Brown (I have one of his herring gull jugs and wish I'd bought a few more pieces whilst I could). Her parents split whilst she was quite young, and her relationship with her father was obviously not a straight forward one. In 2019 he became ill, his funeral was in Shetland not long before lockdown started, Marianne, her husband and young child ended up staying for 8 months rather than the few weeks they had planned. home is normally in Devon. 

During that period of grieving and lockdown Marianne is re-evaluating her father, reconnecting with family in Shetland and starts to learn more about the Viking Energy wind farm, a divisive project that continues to be a contentious issue in Shetland and is conveniently not much talked about elsewhere. Marrianne is an environmental journalist, pre publication at least this book was billed as being more about the effect the windfarm has had on the islands; in fact it's much more of a biography framed against the development of the islands, and this is where I think it falls down. It's trying very hard to do two different things, and the one that feels important - the discussion about how we produce energy in the future comes off second best. 

Marianne tries hard to be neutral and she's broadly sympathetic to the people who see the windfarm as a negative but it's also clear that she's broadly in favour. What could, and possibly should have been the central question of the book - if not here than where? is raised but not addressed. One of the final chapters touches on racism in the islands, my impression reading it was that it's a justification for change, but the experience of 1 person isn't enough to make a point. 

There is a growing body of evidence for the negative impacts that wind farms have on health, and this really is an issue in Shetland where inevitably given the long narrow nature of the islands the windfarm gets closer to houses than guidelines suggest. We need green energy, but if we're to change how we live we really need to live with the means of production and not ship it off somewhere out of sight and out of mind for the majority. Change won't happen whilst ot feels like business as usual.  

Bees & Honey - Steve Minshall and Rachel de Thample

Thank god for antibiotics - after almost 4 weeks of feeling like crap I'm sort of human again. I vaguely remember a time when cold and flu type bugs didn't floor me, and that however snotty I was, I could at least still read a book. I can't do that anymore. I sleep, and when I can stay awake long enough, I go back to work, come home, and sleep again, hence the lengthy absence from posting.

I saw this book at work yesterday and pounced on it with an enthusiasm and energy that definitely heralded a return to full health though. It's been a long wait for a new River Cottage handbook, the last one came out in 2020 (there has been the not quite a handbook guide to Christmas in between), and I'm wondering if Bees & Honey has had a considerable rewrite at some stage in the intervening years.

It differs from the previous books in that it does not assume you want to keep bees or even to eat honey if you're vegan (the chicken book definitely assumes you want chickens), and it strongly suggests that keeping bees might not be the best thing you can do to help them. What we can all do, even if a window box is the only option, is plant better and understand more. It might make sense to create bee friendly habitats for wild species that you wouldn't take honey from and instead buy good quality local honey, use less of it, and appreciate it more.

The recipe element of the book takes a less is more approach on how to use honey and honey products, which I like. Honey is a strong flavour that needs to be treated with respect and a light hand, and I will admit I'm particularly curious about the not quite a recipe that's a spoon of honey with black coffee. There could be a lot of fun to be had finding the perfect bean and blossom matches. 

Overall, it's the combination of information about bees, bee related products, and what's good to eat or should be left alone (pollen, bees need it more than we do) and how to make a better world for bees which makes this book so good. And if it's bee-keeping you really want there's all the information you could need to start down that road too. 

I have loved this series from the outset, Handbook number 2 (Preserves, Pam Corbin 2008) came in the first flush of my enthusiasm for making my own jam and Marmalade, Handbook number 3 (Bread by Daniel Stevens 2009) taught me how to make all sorts of breads and is still my go to guide. They are consistently useful and inspiring - I hope there will be more to come, or at least one more to round out the numbers at 20 volumes. I have a lot of cookbooks, but nothing else comes close to this series in looking at food holistically.