RIP Susan Sizemore, Elatsoe Book Review, Rodham Comes to TV, Savage Legion by Matt Wallace, The Beast is An Animal by Peternelle Van Arsdale, and What You Wish For by Katherine Center

Both myself and my husband were huge fans of the TV series Forever Knight.

Obituary Note: Susan Sizemore

Susan Sizemore, author of many romance and science fiction titles, died on Monday, July 20. She was 69. In 1991, when she turned 40, Sizemore won the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award, presented to a previously unpublished author. Three days later, she sold her debut novel, a time-travel romance called Wings of the Storm. Later, she was asked to write a tie-in novel based on the TV series Forever Knight, which resulted in Forever Knight: A Stirring of Dust, which was the first time she wrote about vampires. She then began her vampire romance series Laws of the Blood and the Primes series, for which she was best known.

 

I really want to read this book, it sounds fascinating. I find myself, during this interminable COVID quarantine, reading a lot of YA fiction because it tends to be upbeat and the authors aren't disposed to wasting prose on trying to sound literary and pretentious. They just get right to the characters and the story arc. I love that, as I don't have patience for fluff and nonsense.

YA Book Review: Elatsoe

Darcie Little Badger's YA debut, Elatsoe, is a supernatural murder mystery that takes place in a United States that has Fairy Ring Transportation Centers, endless fields of scarecrows with human eyes, ghost mammoths and a rich history of Lipan Apache ghost whisperers. Creative and meticulously plotted, Elatsoe begins with the protagonist and readers knowing whodunnit--it's the why that is the question.

When Elatsoe's ghost dog, Kirby, throws a fit, she knows something is very wrong. The last time Kirby acted like this, Ellie's grandfather was having a heart attack. Scared something has happened to her parents, Ellie races into town to find them at the movie theater. When they emerge unscathed, she breathes a sigh of relief--until both parents discover several missed calls from her mother's brother. Ellie's cousin, Trevor, was in a fatal car accident.

That night Ellie, whose "family secret" is the knowledge of how to bring back the dead, dreams of Trevor. "A person's last breath carrie[s] them to the underworld. Perhaps, with that breath, they could speak a last message." Trevor does exactly that: "A man named Abe Allerton murdered me," he tells Ellie. "Don't let Abe hurt my family," he pleads. Ellie's mother and father believe that Ellie is as powerful as her Six-Great-Grandmother who traveled Lipan Apache territory saving her people from undead evils, dangerous creatures and deadly settlers.

Knowing the strength of his daughter's gift, Ellie's father agrees to help her investigate. With the assistance of her parents and her good friend and Lord Oberon descendant, Jay, Ellie takes a trip across Texas to find Abe Allerton and bring him to justice.

Little Badger excellently balances humor and horror in this inventive YA mystery/alternate history/fantasy. Ellie is a very likable protagonist who reads like an authentic teen: she is witty but not unrealistically so; she is powerful but not always aware of the devastation she could accidentally cause, and her asexuality is simply part of who she is rather than a plot point. Additionally, her Lipan heritage and ethnicity is not just twined with the story, it is the story: her gift comes from Six-Great-Grandmother; she's vocal about the contemporary racism toward and mistreatment of Indigenous people; she is always prepared to deal with what her brown skin might mean in any situation; and she has a pretty ingenious way of dispelling vampires. Each chapter begins with the graceful, almost ethereal black-and-white illustrations of And the Ocean Was Our Sky http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz44946349 artist Rovina Cai, adding to the evanescent vibe of the book, a Lipan Apache Sookie Stackhouse for the teen set. One hopes Ellie--and the wonderfully developed world in which she lives--will appear in many more books to come. --Siacircn Gaetano

 This is a book that I've also been longing to read, though it has had some mixed reviews. Now it's coming to streaming service Hulu, so I may just wait for that.

TV: Rodham

Hulu has optioned the rights to Curtis Sittenfeld's book Rodham http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz45069151, Variety reported, adding that "the series is described as telling the story of an ambitious young woman, developing her extraordinary mind in the latter part of the 20th century, moving from idealism to cynicism and all the way back again." Sarah Treem will write the project and exec produce with Warren Littlefield (via the Littlefield Company) and Sittenfeld. Fox 21 Television Studios is producing. Treem was previously the co-creator and showrunner on Showtime's The Affair. Her other credits include In Treatment, House of Cards and How to Make It in America.

Savage Legion by Matt Wallace is the first book in a gory but well written series by the author of the Sin Du Jour fantasy novella series, which I read and LOVED. Savage Legion was recommended to me by Kevin Hearne, author of the wonderfully funny Iron Druid series of fantasy novels, in his quarterly email newsletter. But really, all it took was for me to see the name "Matt Wallace" and I was IN. Though I don't like political science fiction/fantasy, and I usually hate horror genre fiction, Savage Legion was one of those books that rose above genre labels and provided such a beautifully told tale that it was irresistible. I read it on a Kindle (which was my only choice, as it's not out in physical paper form yet) and though it took me most of the day, due to recharging issues, I still HAD to read it straight through, it was that engrossing. Here's the blurb: An epic fantasy by Hugo Award–winning author Matt Wallace about a utopian city with a dark secret…and the underdogs who will expose it, or die trying.

They call them Savages. Brutal. Efficient. Expendable.

The empire relies on them. The Savages are the greatest weapon they ever developed. Culled from the streets of their cities, they take the ones no one will miss and throw them, by the thousands, at the empire’s enemies. If they live, they fight again. If they die, there are always more to take their place.
Evie is not a Savage. She’s a warrior with a mission: to find the man she once loved, the man who holds the key to exposing the secret of the Savage Legion and ending the mass conscription of the empire’s poor and wretched.

But to find him, she must become one of them, to be marked in her blood, to fight in their wars, and to find her purpose. Evie will die a Savage if she has to, but not before showing the world who she really is and what the Savage Legion can really do.

The prose was diamond brilliant, and the plot of this novel set off at a gallop and never stopped running until the final page. I loved Evie and I adored the non binary/transgender security guard who watched out over the wife of the guy that Evie's trying to save (he turns out to be something of a disappointment, once she actually saves him, and I found it hard to believe two women could be so in love with this douchebag that they'd lay down their lives for him, but love never made sense). I also found it interesting that the characters make note of how the communist system of government is no less vulnerable to corruption and power-hungry egomaniacs than capitalism or any other form of governance. Though I'm not a fan of ebooks, I still loved this wild ride of a novel, and I'd give it an A, and recommend it to anyone who likes more fluff-filled epic fantasies like Game of Thrones. This is the lean and mean version, and it makes a lot more sense, trust me.

The Beast is An Animal by Peternelle Van Arsdale is a fairy-tale/folk tale rewrite, and I could swear that I've read it before, but I can't seem to find it here on my book blog, so I went ahead and reread it anyway. Here's the blurb: A girl with a secret talent must save her village from the encroaching darkness in this “achingly poetic” (Kirkus Reviews) and deeply satisfying tale.

Alys was seven the first time she saw the soul eaters.
These soul eaters are twin sisters who were abandoned by their father and slowly grew into something not quite human. And they feed off of human souls. When her village was attacked, Alys was spared and sent to live in a neighboring village. There the devout people created a strict world where fear of the soul eaters—and of the Beast they believe guides them—rule village life. But the Beast is not what they think he is. And neither is Alys.

Inside, Alys feels connected to the soul eaters, and maybe even to the Beast itself. As she grows from a child to a teenager, she longs for the freedom of the forest. And she has a gift she can tell no one, for fear they will call her a witch. When disaster strikes, Alys finds herself on a journey to heal herself and her world. A journey that will take her through the darkest parts of the forest, where danger threatens her from the outside—and from within her own heart and soul.

I don't think it is too much of a spoiler to say that the moral of this story is, as it is with many fairy tales, that love conquers all. What is sad is that, meanwhile, prejudice and racism make so many lives miserable and cause too many deaths, so that its hard to find true love for those who are different. The prose of this novel is, as Kirkus Reviews says, poetic and unflinching. The plot moves along at a measured pace. I enjoyed the book for its gothic overtones, but its not something that I normally would have returned to, because the world it takes place in is so grim. I'd give it a B, and recommend it to those who like reworked folk or fairy tales.

What You Wish For by Katherine Center is a contemporary fiction novel that, at first blush, appears to be right up my alley, with a feisty and funny librarian protagonist, Samantha (Sam) Casey. Unfortunately, the book takes over 100 pages to really get going, so you're almost halfway through it before you see the point of the work. Sam, who recognizes Duncan (the new principal at her school) as her former crush from another state, doesn't seem to have the courage to jog his memory or even ask why he doesn't appear to remember her at all for 100 pages, during which readers are subjected to weak and wimpy whining by Sam, as she agonizes over every detail of their shared past. BOOORRRRING. The fact that Duncan is now a complete douchebag doesn't seem to really hit Sam until many pages later. Duncan has, indeed, remembered her, but he also has no balls and can't seem to tell her. Lots of psychology of trauma ensues, and lots of rescues of each other mentally and physically happen on repeat. Here's the blurb: 

Samantha Casey is a school librarian who loves her job, the kids, and her school family with passion and joy for living.
But she wasn’t always that way.
Duncan Carpenter is the new school principal who lives by rules and regulations, guided by the knowledge that bad things can happen.
But he wasn’t always that way.

And Sam knows it. Because she knew him before―at another school, in a different life. Back then, she loved him―but she was invisible. To him. To everyone. Even to herself. She escaped to a new school, a new job, a new chance at living. But when Duncan, of all people, gets hired as the new principal there, it feels like the best thing that could possibly happen to the school―and the worst thing that could possibly happen to Sam. Until the opposite turns out to be true. The lovable Duncan she’d known is now a suit-and-tie wearing, rule-enforcing tough guy so hell-bent on protecting the school that he’s willing to destroy it.

As the school community spirals into chaos, and danger from all corners looms large, Sam and Duncan must find their way to who they really are, what it means to be brave, and how to take a chance on love―which is the riskiest move of all.

With Katherine Center’s sparkling dialogue, unforgettable characters, heart, hope, and humanity, What You Wish For is the author at her most compelling best.

I desperately wanted to love this novel as much as I loved "The Things You Save in a Fire" which I read a couple of months ago. Alas, I have to disagree with the blurb in that this wasn't nearly as compelling a book as "Fire" was, and it was basically a romance novel gussied up to look like contemporary literature. the prose was clean and the plot only stalled twice, but I just couldn't get past how stupid the female and male protagonists were, and their whole "love and therapy conquer all" theme seemed ridiculous after awhile. Sam's dick of a father, who abandoned his family because his daughter had epilepsy wasn't worth the title of father, and Sam's weak and worthless mother let her daughter feel that she was the cause of the end of her parents marriage, and that her disability made her ugly and worthless and unlovable, which was criminal behavior, in my book. No child is perfect, whether or not they have an overt disability or are different on the inside. Parents who expect children to be perfect really need therapy themselves, because they're nuts, and soulless to boot. Every childs unique imperfections should be celebrated, because that is what makes them who they are, and no disability makes you unlovable. There was a lot of shameful abusive behavior toward children and adults in this book, and I felt that love and therapy wasn't enough to remedy the situation. So I'd give this novel a B-, and recommend it to anyone who is looking for a rather frustrating contemporary romance.