Welcome book dragons to the first fall post of 2023! I've been away for too long, mainly because real life crisis and caretaking have eaten up all my time, when I wasn't dealing with my own health issues. But I did managed to read more than a few books these past 12 days, so I'll let you get on with it. Enjoy the tidbits and reviews!
This looks fascinating, especially in light of the Barbie movie, which has broken a bunch of box office records this summer.
TV:
You Don't Own Me
CBS Studios has acquired for series
development You Don't Own Me
https://www.shelfawareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQGNxugI6ahvIR11Gw~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nGX8egpoMLg-gVdw:
How Mattel V. MGA Entertainment Exposed Barbie's Dark Side, a book by
Orly Lobel that follows the parallel journeys of Barbie creator Ruth
Handler and Carter Bryant, the creator of Bratz, a "billion-dollar,
anti-establishment rival," Deadline reported. In the current
blockbuster movie Barbie, Handler is played by Rhea Pearlman.
You Don't Own Me "explores the
dark side of the doll wars set against the cultural revolution that Barbie
spawned, the subsequent backlash, and the cut-throat, high-stakes world
of toys," Deadline wrote. "It follows Handler and Bryant, the
brilliant, tortured creators of Barbie and Bratz--two quintessential outsiders
who create dolls that literallychange the world but nearly destroy
themselves in the process."
I've said it many times here, Island Books was my favorite indie bookstore for nearly 1o years when I worked on Mercer Island. It's still an amazing place for book lovers of all kinds.
Sales
Floor Display: Island Books
"Armchair time travel; no flight
delays
https://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/x/pjJscQGPke0I6ahvJRxzSA~k1yJoKXv-hs8x6nGXZClpoMLg-gVdw."
That's the chalkboard message on a new sales floor display at Island
Books, Mercer Island, Wash., which noted:
"Want to go on a time-bending
trip, but don't want to leave the comfort of your favorite chair? Do we have a
section for you. Bookseller Cindy put together a great display full of
time travel books from all genres."
I love that Amanda Gorman, a truly talented poet, has become a bookstore ambassador! She will do an excellent job, I'm certain.
ABA Names Amanda Gorman Indie Bookstore
Ambassador
Poet Amanda Gorman has been named Indie
Bookstore Ambassador for the American Booksellers Association for
2023-2024. She will be "a champion for independent bookstores" year
round, including for Banned Books Week (October 1-7), Indies First on Small
Business Saturday (November 25), and Independent Bookstore Day (April
27, 2024).
Gorman said she was "incredibly
honored.... Independent bookstores are vital parts of our communities and
bastions of literature. We must work together to support local booksellers
everywhere so that they can continue to thrive and champion books
on a local level with the personal touch and human connection that we all
need, now more than ever."
The youngest presidential inaugural
poet in U.S. history--she spoke at President Biden's inauguration in
2021--Gorman is the author of The Hill We Climb, Call Us What We Carry, the
children's picture book Change Sings, illustrated by Loren Long, as
well as the upcoming picture book Something, Someday, illustrated by
Christian Robinson. She also read from Change Sings in the poetry theater
interludes during the ABA's 2021 virtual Winter Institute.
The ABA called Gorman "a committed
advocate for the environment, racial equality, and gender justice." And
it noted that Gorman's words in May after The Hill We Climb was
banned at a Florida school--"Together, this is a hill we won't
just climb, but a hill we will conquer"--are "inspiring and speak to the importance of finding our
voices and ourselves on bookstore shelves, and the importance of working
as a community--a goal indie bookstores also share."
In Charm's Way by Lana Harper is a YA-style magical romance novel that turns some fantasy tropes on it's head. I found the LGBTQ characters to be delightful and the tone of the book was much more serious than I expected, when the book is described as a "rom com." Here's the blurb:
A
witch struggling to regain what she has lost casts a forbidden
spell—only to discover much more than she expected, in this enchanting
new rom-com.
Six months after having been hit by a power surge that nearly
obliterated her memory, Delilah Harlow is still picking up the pieces.
Her once diamond-sharp mind has become shaky and unreliable, and
bristly, self-sufficient Delilah is forced to rely on friends, family,
and her raven familiar for help. In an effort to reclaim her wits and
former independence, she casts a dangerous blood spell meant to harness
power with healing capacities.
While the spell does restore
clarity, it also unexpectedly turns Delilah into an irresistible beacon
for the kind of malevolent supernatural creatures that have never before
ventured into Thistle Grove. One night—just as things are about to go
terribly sideways with a rogue succubus—a mysterious stranger appears in
the nick of time to save Delilah’s soul.
Gorgeous, sultry,
and as dangerous as the knives she carries, Catriona Quinn is a hunter
of monsters—and half-human, half-fae herself, she is the kind of sly and
morally gray creature Delilah would normally find horrifying. Though
Delilah balks at the idea of a partnership, she has no choice but to
roll the dice on their collaboration. As the two delve deeper into the
power that underlies Thistle Grove, they uncover not only the town’s
hidden history but also a risky attraction that could upend Delilah’s
entire life.
I appreciated the bouncy, bright as a gem prose, because it really kept the mystery-esque plot moving along at a metered pace. Though the protagonist was grumpy and anti-social, her inner desires are met when she and Cat get together to help her out of the curse that has plagued her for a long time. The HEA ending, along with it's singing sunflowers, is perfect because it doesn't force readers to read about the protagonists intimacies in the bedroom, which is unusual in this day and age. I feel like I've read the same sex scene over and over in every book claiming to even have a hint of romance in it's plot (and if there's a female protagonist, there is a 98 percent chance that she will lose all sense and have at least one wild and detailed sexual encounter before the book comes to a close) and I'm tired of female protagonists who apparently have never experienced oral sex suddenly becoming wildly erotic and nearly insatiable because they finally find a lover who is willing to go down on them. At any rate, I'd give this book a B, and recommend it to anyone 16 and older who enjoys modern day witch stories.
A Secret Princess by Melissa de la Cruz and Margaret Stohl is a delicious YA retelling of the Secret Garden and A Little Princess with some added bits of the Wizard of Oz and other classic children's stories thrown in for good measure. Here's the blurb: A surprising and romantic YA retelling-mashup of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden by bestselling authors Margaret Stohl and Melissa de la Cruz.
Best
friends Mary Lennox, Sara Crewe, and Cedric Erroll are best friends.
And thank goodness, since their boarding school is basically
insufferable. When one of the friends suffers a personal tragedy, a
plan—and a secret—change everything for the trio . . . for good.
Filled with charm and romance, and inspired by some of classic literature's most beloved characters, The Secret Princess is the perfect blend of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden—and the perfect companion to Jo & Laurie.
So SPOILER, but Cedric is a disabled Lord and heir to a title/fortune from a family who cares little for him and who live in a huge, crumbling castle/mansion. Both Mary and Sara are orphans who have learned, through horrible experience, that life is bleak and cruel and merciless to those who are poor and without adults to care for them and help them mature appropriately. The authors are obviously big fans of these classic children's lit characters, so they take off from the solid ground of the originals and add great imaginary evil antagonists and escapades that are thrilling and fascinating enough to keep readers turning pages into the wee hours to see what develops. I'd give the book an A, and recommend it to anyone who loved the Secret Garden and A Little Princess and wonders what happens next. It Happened One Fight by Maureen Lenker is a 'screwball comedy' style rom-com set in a bygone era of Hollywood glitz and glamor in the 1930s. While I love a good witty rom com, this book had the male and female stars at odds banter down pat, enough so that I had a hard time believing that Joan and Dash weren't actual movie stars who turned their impoverished childhoods in the Midwest into a gleaming new persona and life in California. Here's the blurb: From Entertainment Weekly writer Maureen Lee Lenker comes a swoony romantic comedy set in the world of 1930s film.
Joan
Davis is a movie star, and a damned good actor, too. Unfortunately,
Hollywood only seems to care when she stars alongside Dash Howard,
Tinseltown's favorite leading man and a perpetual thorn in Joan's side.
She's sick of his hotshot attitude, his never-ending attempts to get a
rise out of her—especially after the night he sold her out to the press
on a studio-arranged date. She'll turn her career around without him.
She's engaged to Hollywood's next rising star, after all, and preparing
to make the film that could finally get her taken seriously. Then, a
bombshell drops: thanks to one of his on-set pranks gone wrong, Dash and
Joan are legally married.
Reputation on the line,
Joan agrees to star alongside Dash one last time and move production to
Reno, where divorce is legal after a six-week residency. But between
on-set shenanigans, fishing competitions at Lake Tahoe, and intimate
moments leaked to the press, Joan begins to see another side to the man
she thought she had all figured out, and it becomes harder and harder to
convince the public—and herself—that her marriage to Dash is the joke
it started out as.
In true rom-com style, it all comes down to a misunderstanding, with lack of honesty and communication keeping the two stars apart when they're obviously in love, but still nursing past wounds and fearful of their reputations being sullied by a vicious gossip columnist who dines on the misfortunes of others. I enjoyed Joan's feisty wit and refusal to back down, but I also liked Dash's realization that he would have to change and be honest with himself and Joan if they were going to have a shot at love. Lenker's prose is clean and snappy, and her plot is like a bullet train that never makes a stop on the way to the finale. I'd give this book a B+, and recommend it to anyone who likes the 1930s era of Hollywood glamor, and wants a peek behind the curtain. Steeped in Secrets by Lauren Elliott is a fantasy/mystery with romance woven through the plot. Here's the blurb: From the USA Today bestselling
author of the Beyond the Page Bookstore Mysteries comes the first in a
new series featuring an intuitive gemologist and owner of a New Age tea
and crystals shop in beautiful coastal California’s Monterey Peninsula.
Flat broke and divorced, intuitive gemologist Shay Myers has changed
since leaving her artsy hometown of coastal Bray Harbor sixteen years
ago. But when she moves back under strange circumstances, old instincts
may be the only key to spilling the tea on a deadly mystery.
Even with her life in ruins in New Mexico, Shay feels uneasy about
settling into the small seaside town where she grew up on California’s
Monterey Peninsula and taking over an estate bequeathed to her by
Bridget Early, a woman she had barely known. Her heightened senses—an
empathic gift she’s had since childhood—go into overdrive upon touring
Crystals & CuriosiTEAS, Bridget’s eclectic tea and psychic shop
brimming with Irish lore and Celtic symbols. They reach a boiling point
when Shay looks up to discover a stranger’s body sprawled across the
shop’s greenhouse roof .
With her new business a crime scene
and questions brewing over Bridget’s so-called accidental death, Shay
fears she’s also inherited the attention of a killer. The terrifying
realization sets her on an impractical investigation for answers aided
by her sister, an elusive pure-white German Shepherd, a strikingly
handsome pub owner who speaks in a gentle brogue, and a misunderstood
young woman with perceptive talents of her own. As Shay struggles to
figure out her true purpose in Bray Harbor and the powerful connection
she has with the tea shop, she must trust her judgment above all else to
identify a ruthless murderer and save herself from becoming victim
number three.
I love reading about mystical tea shops and those who just love a good cuppa, as I come from a long line of tea-drinkers and women who hold sacred the rituals of afternoon tea, though none of my family are English (my ancestors hail from Germany, Switzerland and Ireland). I also love a good "group of misfits" crime-solving team, and this book provides all that and more in spades. Though the mystery is easily solved before the final chapter, I didn't rush through the book to find out whodunnit because I was enjoying the company of the characters so much. I'd give this fun and magical mystery a B, and recommend it to anyone who likes a good "Scooby gang" mystery steeped in tea and its lore. Mystic Tea by Rea Nolan Martin is what is known as "visionary" mystic fiction or inspirational fiction, which is basically fantasy with a religious bent (Christianity, not other religions). I'm not a fan of inspirational or religious fiction as a rule, because I find it to be too preachy and self righteous, and often not inclusive of POC or any kind of diversity. That said, the convent in which this story takes place is run by a cruel woman and many of the inmates/initiates are clearly not sane, suffering from multiple personality disorder and a host of eating disorders, to name a few. They're also all handicapped in some way, which is unusual for VF. Here's the blurb: A community of quirky, mismatched, and endearing women struggle to
find meaning and purpose on a ramshackle monastery in upstate New York.
Having spent their lives in service to a church that seems to no longer
serve them, they are confused about their own futures and the future of
the entire monastery. Led by Mike, the practical no-nonsense prioress,
and Augusta, the grand ancient mystic hermit, they are joined by Gemma, a
self-punishing novice, and Arielle, a firebrand jailhouse conversion
who was sent there out of rehab by a “sort of angel.” The personalities,
commitments, philosophies and beliefs of these and all the characters
conflict and converge in ways at once perilous and enlightening.
Throughout the tempestuous journey, Augusta's magical sacred teas draw
the inevitable closer and closer.
Mystic Tea is a contemporary
love story between young and old, franchised and disenfranchised,
pedestrian and mystic. Most of all, it is a story of female empowerment
as the women find the courage to confront epic challenges, creating a
surprising future from the oppressive ashes of the past. It will make
you smile as much as it will make you think.
I didn't quite understand how these seemingly bizarre women managed to keep the convent going when most of them weren't actually interested in religion, but were instead looking for a place where they can belong and be themselves. And the mother superior being some kind of saint didn't make a lot of sense, either. The prose, though confusing at times, is simple and manages to hold on to the twists and turns of the runaway plot until the "Happy for now" ending. I would give this weird fever-dream of a novel a B-, mainly because toward the end it finally starts to make sense. I'd recommend it to those who don't like traditional A-Z novels and normal characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment