Strange Angels by Lili St Crow, Ash and Quill by Rachel Caine, A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas, Automatic Woman by Nathan Yocum and Option B by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

Due to some medical issues that I've had this month, I've not been able to update this blog as faithfully as I usually do, so now I've got 5 books awaiting review and only one post to review them. Hence, without further ado, or tidbits, here's what I've been reading in the past couple of weeks.

  

Strange Angels by Lili St Crow is a YA title by Lillith Saintcrow, whose urban fantasy novel series Jill Kismet and Dante Valentine I've read in omnibus editions. I've also read her Bannon and Clare steampunk series and Cormorant Run, an SF title, is on my TBR pile. I was curious about what Saintcrow would do with a young adult female protagonist, considering how great her protagonists in urban fantasy, Jill and Dante, are, and how thoroughly they kick butt on the regular.

And in terms of sheer kick-arse, Dru Anderson did not disappoint. Unfortunately, though, the first zombie she has to kill is her father, her last remaining relative. Now an orphan, Dru and a strange boy named Graves that she becomes enamored of (for no real reason I can tell other than he helps her find food and a place to stay a couple of times, provides a shoulder to cry on and barely believes her when she tells him she is a hunter of supernatural beasties and monsters) have to find out who zombied her dad, and why she is being targeted by killer werewulves and vampires. Here's the blurb: Dru Anderson's life has always been less than normal. Her normal life has consisted of moving from town to town with her father as he hunts poltergeists, ghosts, and other characters from horror films. Her father insists Dru get an education, but Dru scoffs at the triviality of school, which is far from what she sees as the real world—the world of paranormal activity. Tough, sarcastic, able to sense anything from the real world, and an expert at tai chi, Dru lands in trouble barely two weeks after moving to a new town. She finds herself without a father and running from something unknown and truly terrifying. In the space of several days, Dru fights zombies, werewolves, burning dogs, and vampires in her quest to discover what is after her and why. A regular kid, named Graves, involves himself when he offers a spot for her to stay the night. Dru, struggling to know whether to trust a group called the Order, forms an unlikely friendship with Graves. The ending points to subsequent books and leaves a number of questions unanswered. Although filled with plenty of action and excitement, readers should be warned that the book contains a significant amount of bad language.

Children's Literature - Amalia Selle

Although I enjoyed Saintcrow's zippy prose and her precision plot, I found much of the story to be familiar and formulaic, with the strong teenage girl in an inevitable love triangle with the weaker-but-compassionate regular guy (Graves) and the hottie supernatural guy, (with the inevitable European-sounding name) Christophe, both of whom want to love and protect her, though she really doesn't need either of them, as she has been trained to protect herself. If any of this sounds like the Hunger Games or Divergent or every other YA series that's popular, I wouldn't say that was an accident. And while St Crow's spin on YA tropes is interesting, (and I plan on reading the next two books in the series), I am slightly disappointed that she felt the need to go down this well tread path. Saintcrow seems to me to be an author with a surfeit of imagination who can invent whole worlds out of nothing and populate them with characters that are unique and fascinating. That's why I'm giving this book a B, and recommending it to those who are fond of the Hunger Games and its ilk.  

Ash and Quill by Rachel Caine is the third book in the Great Library series. I've been reading this series since I got an ARC of the first book years ago, in exchange for an unbiased review. This series is founded on the idea that the Great Library of Alexandria never burned, but instead became a huge political force that disseminates all forms of knowledge as it sees fit, and controls society with rigid guidelines that make owning actual paper copies of books a crime. This leads to a healthy blackmarket in smuggled books, and our protagonist, Jess Brightwell, is the scion of a wealthy and well connected smuggling family who care little for him other than for his usefulness in obtaining illegal volumes. In this installment, Jess and his fellow scholars are plunged into the world of the "burners," in America, a fanatical group who illegally burn books and believe that all knowledge should be free. Here's the blurb: Hoarding all the knowledge of the world, the Great Library jealously guards its secrets. But now a group of rebels poses a dangerous threat to its tyranny....
 Jess Brightwell and his band of exiles have fled London, only to find themselves imprisoned in Philadelphia, a city led by those who would rather burn books than submit. But Jess and his friends have a bargaining chip: the knowledge to build a machine that will break the Library’s rule. School Library Journal: Out of the frying pan and into the fire, Jess Brightwell and his friends are forced to flee to Philadelphia, where they're imprisoned by the fanatical Burners. The ace up their sleeve is the same one they would have used with Jess's father if they hadn't been captured. Thomas's printing press would destroy the library's hold over the populace, and the Burners' leader seems ready to negotiate for ownership of this illegal technology. But Jess knows he and his friends' lives will be forfeit once the press has been built. The seven friends formulate a plan of escape to coincide with the press's completion, unaware that the Archivist Magister has discovered their location. An attack is launched on the Burners' stronghold just before Jess and company can run off. Help comes from unlikely sources, and Jess is inconveniently indebted to his family and their black market contacts even as he realizes that he and his companions are still dispensable pawns in someone else's game. Amid the luxurious trappings of his father's castle, Jess is once again negotiating a fatal bargain and plotting escape. Caine skillfully demonstrates that right and wrong are always shrouded in shades of gray. This volume maintains the series's signature high-level intensity with characters who continue to grow and evolve along with the narrative.

I found the dystopian version of America fascinating, though sad, and I was just as horrified as the main characters when the entire town of Philadelphia is bombed back to the stone age. What really bothered me, however, was that Jess ends up having to "sell out" his friends in order for them to have a chance at destroying the evil Archivist from within the library itself. I was sincerely hoping that Jess would figure out another way to change his world. Still, the action in this novel never lets up, and the prose is sterling. A well deserved A, with a recommendation for anyone who has read the first two books and a caveat that the ending of Ash and Quill will break your heart.

A Conspiracy in Belgravia by Sherry Thomas is the second book in the "Lady Sherlock" series, which, although it is not steampunk, has a Victorian setting that smells steampunkish enough to draw in that audience. Here's the blurb from Publisher's Weekly: The first in Thomas’s Lady Sherlock series, A Study in Scarlet Women (2016), offered a clever a premise: that Sherlock Holmes is a fabrication created by Miss Charlotte Holmes and her coterie of accomplices, including Mrs. Watson, in order to allow her to practice her skills as a detective in the male-centric world of Victorian England. Potential clients are told they must consult Sherlock through his “sister” because of his ill health. In this entertaining sequel, Lady Ingram, the wife of Charlotte’s friend and benefactor, Lord Ingram, needs help with a delicate matter that she wishes to keep secret from her husband. Lady Ingram’s true love, whom she declined to marry because he wasn’t rich enough, has failed to show up for their annual rendezvous at London’s Albert Memorial. Charlotte takes on the case, but what seems like a straightforward search for a missing person soon spirals into something altogether more complicated and sinister. Could Professor Moriarty be involved? Thomas writes with brio and creates appealing characters. Sherlockians may get a kick out of Charlotte’s sister, Livia, an aspiring writer, who wishes to write a story based on Charlotte’s exploits—a story that sounds a lot like Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet.

I enjoyed this installment more than the first book, mainly because Charlotte seems to have gotten more certain of herself and less fearful of the people around her discovering her secret (that she is Sherlock Holmes) and of her family trying to abduct her and shut her away forever as an embarrassment (that she's a "fallen" woman who remains unmarried). Usually, in mystery novels, I am able to tell "whodunnit" within the first few chapters, sometimes within the first 75 pages. Thomas thwarted me until I was 2/3 of the way through the book this time, though I had my suspicions of the Ingrams from the first book. Thomas' prose is delicate and yet sturdy and her plot unflagging and rich with surprise twists and turns. I'd give it an A-, and recommend it to anyone who likes Sherlock Holmes mysteries with a female protagonist, and also has a long plane or train trip scheduled, so they can become engrossed and finish this book, as I did, in one fell swoop.

Automatic Woman by Nathan L Yocum was a surprise to me, in that I was unaware that it was self published. It had been recommended to me by a website that normally only recommends traditionally published works. Still, under the tagline "Steampunk done right" I was unable to resist purchasing a copy. This is the story of a fat man named Jolly Fellows who is a "thief catcher" for a PI firm in London in the late 19th century. He finds a case, or rather, a case finds him when a fanatical mechanical genius builds an entire dance troupe of automatons and somehow manages to instill independent thought and/or a "soul" into the lead ballerina of the troupe, who immediately turns on her creator and crushes him to death before Jolly breaks her apart and is caught over the mechanical engineer's lifeless body. What follows is a mad ride through the underbelly of London as Jolly tries to figure out who the players are, what they want, and how he can extricate himself from his predicament. Here's the blurb:

There are no simple cases. Jacob "Jolly" Fellows knows this.

The London of 1888, the London of steam engines, Victorian intrigue, and horseless carriages is not a safe place nor simple place...but it's his place. Jolly is a thief catcher, a door-crashing thug for the prestigious Bow Street Firm, assigned to track down a life sized automatic ballerina. But when theft turns to murder and murder turns to conspiracy, can Jolly keep his head above water? Can a thief catcher catch a killer?
Automatic Woman is the second novel from award winning screenwriter Nathan L. Yocum. A volatile mix of steampunk, noir, historical fiction, and two-fisted action, Automatic Woman takes us to a place that never was yet we all know so well... the London of Jules Verne, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jack the Ripper and Bram Stoker with a pneumatic twist.

I found the appearance of well known Victorians like Charles Darwin and Bram Stoker (author of Dracula) fascinating, and the idea that Darwin was pitting himself against other genius minds to gain control of the secret of creating a clockwork being with a soul was also quite a thrill. Would Darwin have, in reality, been so manipulative and cruel? Probably not, but speculating about a fictional Darwin is all in good fun. Yocum's prose is muscular and his plot straightforward. There's even an HEA, or a HFN at the last, which was pretty satisfying. I'd give this book a B+, and recommend it to any steampunk fan who likes a good mystery.

Option B, Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. I only read this book as part of an online book group spearheaded by my wonderful friend Jenny Zappala, who kindly purchased a copy for me when it became apparent that there were too many holds on the book at the library, and I wouldn't get a copy in enough time to participate in the group discussion via messenger on Facebook. BTW, Sandberg is the COO of Facebook, as she makes clear within the first few pages of this so-called advice book. I think that the title should have been "A White One Percenter's Guide to Becoming a Successful, High Profile Widow." There's a nasty veneer of hubris that makes itself apparent on every page. She constantly "name-drops" all the famous people she knows, particularly Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook and his wife, who literally have to hold her up after she dramatically collapses at her husband's funeral, in a scene worthy of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind. Sandberg goes on to make it clear in every chapter that no one has ever loved so deeply or grieved so hard as she has, and the fact that she can send her children to watch a rocket launch with Elon Musk or send them to an expensive grief camp shouldn't detract from the fact that her precious heart is broken, and we plebes can only imagine how hard it is for her, with infinite paid leave, to deal with her day to day affairs in the face of such a tragic loss! She insists that her coworkers learn to grieve along with her, and she sets herself up as a kind of tyrant, once she returns to the office, demanding that others emotionally kowtow to her. Sandberg doesn't even allow her coauthor Grant to speak for himself. She actually paraphrases his ideas in more than one chapter. Here's the blurb:

After the sudden death of her husband, Sheryl Sandberg felt certain that she and her children would never feel pure joy again. “I was in ‘the void,’” she writes, “a vast emptiness that fills your heart and lungs and restricts your ability to think or even breathe.” Her friend Adam Grant, a psychologist at Wharton, told her there are concrete steps people can take to recover and rebound from life-shattering experiences. We are not born with a fixed amount of resilience. It is a muscle that everyone can build.
Option B combines Sheryl’s personal insights with Adam’s eye-opening research on finding strength in the face of adversity. Beginning with the gut-wrenching moment when she finds her husband, Dave Goldberg, collapsed on a gym floor, Sheryl opens up her heart—and her journal—to describe the acute grief and isolation she felt in the wake of his death. But Option B goes beyond Sheryl’s loss to explore how a broad range of people have overcome hardships including illness, job loss, sexual assault, natural disasters, and the violence of war. Their stories reveal the capacity of the human spirit to persevere . . . and to rediscover joy.
Resilience comes from deep within us and from support outside us. Even after the most devastating events, it is possible to grow by finding deeper meaning and gaining greater appreciation in our lives. Option B illuminates how to help others in crisis, develop compassion for ourselves, raise strong children, and create resilient families, communities, and workplaces. Many of these lessons can be applied to everyday struggles, allowing us to brave whatever lies ahead. Two weeks after losing her husband, Sheryl was preparing for a father-child activity. “I want Dave,” she cried. Her friend replied, “Option A is not available,” and then promised to help her make the most of Option B.
We all live some form of Option B. This book will help us all make the most of it.

I kept hearing the song "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" from the musical Camelot while I was reading this book, because, despite the above blurb that claims she can "help us all make the most of (Option B)," unless you are wealthy and high up enough in a company that you get grief leave (Something I would bet 98 percent of us don't have), I don't believe there's anything in this book that can help you, mainly because Sandberg is so far removed from 'regular' people in her ivory tower life.

I also found Sandberg to be domineering, a snob who condescends to share her pearls of wisdom with the little people, and what wisdom she does share that isn't usable for the average person, is often cliche'd common sense ideas, like 'giving yourself time to grieve', or 'finding gratitude' for what is good in your life, or 'leaning in to the suck' which basically means facing the pain of your loss head on. Relying on friends and family for support and talking out your feelings of anger and pain were all staples of the Oprah Winfrey show from years ago, where she talked about dealing with tragedy in a much more simplistic and common sense fashion. That Sandberg rehashes these ideas as if they were something new was, frankly, laughable. I also found her constant blathering about her perfect husband, their marriage, reprinting their wedding vows and his eulogy, to be ridiculous. None of that served the book's supposed mission of giving advice to help other grieving widows and children. Therefore I'd give this tedious tome a C-, and only recommend it to those who are Sandberg fans from her book "Lean In," and who don't mind being treated as minions by her royal widowed majesty.