Going to Liverpool!, or Neo-Victorian Cultures: The Victorians Today

Hello, sad, neglected blog.  Today I have a revivifying post full of good news.

I found out a few days ago that I'll be giving a conference paper at the Neo-Victorian Culture: The Victorians Today conference running from 24-26 July at Liverpool John Moores University.  This is exciting because 1) I've never been to Liverpool and 2) I'll get to talk all about Alison Croggon's novel Black Spring, Wuthering Heights, adaptation, fantasy, and feminism!

I reviewed Black Spring here - well worth a read for Bronte fans and fantasy lovers.

In the draft programme, I see I've been placed on a panel called "Fantasizing the Victorians"; one of the other panelists is going to be talking about Terry Pratchett's Discworld.  Clearly this is going to be a great experience.

In other news, I had a really productive Hilary Term after a de-motivated and quite stressful Michaelmas and I think I'll write about some of the strategies I used that I found helpful in the next bit.  Now that the vacation has hit, I'm struggling to get some of my research and writerly get-up-and-go back, but I hope to blog soon on academic matters.  (PS - I also decided to completely restructure my thesis last term - very exciting!)

And in other, other news, Tim and I are heading off to France for a bit over a week in April.  I'm deep in the midst of booking places to stay and figuring out transport, but we're hoping to stay in Paris, Amboise (in the Loire Valley), and Avignon.

Review: DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT, by Laini Taylor

This is a review of the second book in Laini Taylor's fabulous Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy, with thoughts on the first book (HERE BE SPOILERS!) and the construction of the trilogy as a whole, because I think Taylor is doing some really interesting series-crafting.

I loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone when I read it last autumn and included it on my list of favourite books read in 2011 (here).  I didn't review it at the time, however, because I felt I needed to think about it a bit more.  The novel is a fantastic take on what I suppose would be considered the paranormal romance genre - as the main character, Karou, is apparently human, and enters into a passionate romance with an angel.  Except that the novel also explodes that genre, leavening everything with a good deal of quirky humour and, ultimately, a tragedy of apocalyptic proportions, stretching across two lifetimes and two worlds.

In the first installment, Karou discovers that she is, in fact, not human but a chimaera and that her life as a blue-haired art student in Prague, running errands for Brimstone - a collector of teeth, seller of wishes - is really a second chance.  This is what Karou discovers when she and Akiva, the angel mentioned above, break the wishbone Brimstone always wore and Karou was never allowed to touch.

And this is where my one quibble came in.

Taylor makes a very bold move when that wishbone is broken.  A large chunk of the novel's third act is an extended flashback, in which Karou re-experiences her former life as a chimaera in the world of Eretz, when she fell in love with Akiva for the first time, even though the seraphim and chimerae are sworn enemies and have been at war for centuries.  It follows Madrigal (Karou's previous identity) through her capture and execution by the Warlord's son and then her salvation by Brimstone, who trades in teeth because he uses them to resurrect the dead.

When I first read the novel, I raced through this section as quickly as possible, trying to put together the clues to Karou's old life and figure out her relationship with Akiva.  It's very risky to introduce a flashback of this magnitude with new characters and, in this case, a brand new world.  It can backfire, as most would argue backstory section in Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, does.  In that case, it bogs down the properly interesting detective story with much less interesting narrative of Mormons in Utah.  Here, I think it works.  I especially think it works because it allows the second novel in the series to get off to a proper start, since Taylor has already laid the groundwork for the characters and conflicts Karou must deal with in Eretz.

But I felt and still feel that in both the backstory in Book One and the narrative proper in Book Two, Eretz is not drawn in as detailed a fashion as I might like it to be.  I'm not the kind of fantasy reader who demands incredibly intricate world-building, but I do feel like I would like more.  Eretz doesn't feel as real to me as Karou's life in Prague did or as the kasbah in Days does.

31/10/2013 Note: I recently reread Daughter of Smoke and Bone and enjoyed it possibly even more the second time.  The writing is beautiful, the characters are magnificent, the fated nature of Karou and Akiva's love is hinted at in ways that I totally missed the first time.  Also, I think I may have done a disservice in my little criticism of the world-building of Eretz - there is a fair bit of detail there, which I think I missed on my first read because the plot compelled me to read so quickly.

Now that my quibble is out of the way, I want to lavish some praise on Taylor's structuring of the trilogy.  Once Karou's previous life has been revealed, Akiva then makes the astonishing revelation that, in revenge for the chimaerae's killing of Madrigal, he has just been responsible for their genocide and Brimstone, the only father Karou ever knew, is dead.  Karou leaves Akiva and passes through a portal in the sky to Eretz, creating as jaw-dropping a cliffhanger as Lord Asriel walking into the sky at the end of The Golden Compass.

The ending of Book One blows everything wide open.  The mystery of the disappearing portals to Elsewhere that was such a big part of Daughter is nothing in relation to the much higher stakes of Book Two.  Where Daughter was in large part a romance, Days sees Karou/Madrigal and Akiva perhaps forever sundered because of Akiva's destruction of Karou's people.  As she puts it, it's as if Juliet had woken to find Romeo still alive - but learns that he has destroyed her family and city.  How can they possibly be together after a breakage like that?

Days follows Karou and Akiva as they separately deal with the politics within their own peoples and try desperately to find a way to end the neverending war between the angels and chimaerae, a war in which both sides are culpable and both sides have suffered greatly.  Characters on both sides are revealed in all shades of grey; politics and stratagem are delineated with the subtlety of Megan Whalen Turner's Thief books; the prose is propulsive, while also being striking and often hilariously funny.

An important sub-plot is the romance between Karou's Prague friends Zuzana (who resembles a "rabid fairy") and Mik, which gives the otherwise quite dark book a necessary shot of humour and humanity.

The book has two separate and very big climaxes, one of which is especially brutal and visceral and had me tense with dread.  Book Three, due out in 2014, looks set to play out a war in heaven that could have grave impact on the human world.  I'm hoping that against all the odds, Karou and Akiva will somehow find their way back to each other.

Review: BLACK SPRING, by Alison Croggon

 Alison Croggon is an author whose books I must own right after release, even though that usually means expensive shipping from Australia.  But it's always worth it.

I fondly remember the day I discovered Alison Croggon's first fantasy novel The Naming in the young adult section at McNally Robinson's Saskatoon store, one day in May or June 2005.  I will always remember reading it while listening to the Within Temptation album Mother Earth.  Strange how those associations stick with you.  If you have a chance to read the Books of Pellinor (The Naming/The Gift, The Riddle, The Crow, and The Singing) and you are a high fantasy fan, do it!  They're wonderful and work in some ways as a feminist, post-colonial corrective to Tolkien.

So, when Croggon posted on her blog a few years back that her next novel was a gothic fantasy take on Wuthering Heights, I was sold.  Wuthering Heights is, quite possibly, my favourite novel of all time and I figured that if anyone could do it justice, Alison Croggon could, especially since she, like Emily Bronte, is both a poet and novelist.

However, because this book has a complex relationship with Bronte's, it's a bit difficult for me to write about - because I love the source text so much, because I also have literary critical opinions about the novel and how its works, and because Croggon's take probably fits into the Neo-Victorian genre (think A.S. Byatt's Possession), a genre which often creates complex intertextual links with Victorian novels and which I have researched and written on in the past year.

That said, there are two important things you can take away from this review.

1)  This is a fantastic book.
2)  In my opinion, it is also a respectful, critical, fascinating reworking of Wuthering Heights.  If you like Bronte's novel, I suspect you will enjoy Croggon's too.


(As a sidenote, I would be curious to see how people who are decidedly not lovers of Wuthering Heights feel about Black Spring, as it is quite faithful to the source text and reproduces the love story that isn't really a love story, as well as the unsympathetic characters and violence and capital "R" Romanticism of the original.)

Alison Croggon’s Black Spring follows the layered narrative structure and overall plot of the original novel very closely, so that any deviation is significant.   The novel begins with an urbane, self-absorbed Lockwood figure readying to leave the city for a spell in the wild, brutal plain society to the north.  There, he stays over in the house of his landlord, Damek (Heathcliff) and sees a vision of a beautiful, desperate woman in a mirror (Cathy Earnshaw).  From Anna (Nelly), he learns the mysterious history of Lina, born a witch in a society where women cannot practice magic, her foster brother Damek and their love, and the unforgiving laws of vendetta that structure their world.

I could go on and on about the really interesting changes and tweaks Croggon makes to Bronte's novel, the ways in which vendetta externalises the very personal revenge carried out by Bronte's Heathcliff, how making Lina a witch allows her very real power in a patriarchal society and allows her agency Cathy cannot have, the way Anna and Lina's relationship as women and "milk sisters" shifts the core of the story away from Heathcliff/Damek or the "romance" that readers sometimes mistakenly see as central to Wuthering Heights.  Also, because I knew the plot of Wuthering Heights, I was expecting certain events going in (especially a particular death) and was pleasantly surprised when they did not occur.  Neo-Victorian novels sometimes play on this familiarity with the source text and defamiliarize the story by twisting the "knowledgeable" reader's expectations, thus making the narrative new.  Croggon's novel does just that.  But I'll leave it there.  The book is a brilliant gothic fantasy all on its own but it gains in complexity and depth through its relationship to its source text.

I eagerly await Croggon's next novel, a prequel to the Pellinor series about Cadvan's earlier life.

Review: THE DIVINERS, by Libba Bray

North American edition

 I've been a fan of Libba Bray's since discovering and devouring her Victorian boarding school/secret society/alternate world Gemma Trilogy during my undergraduate degree.  Since then, she's written two standalones, Printz award-winning Going Bovine and Beauty Queens, neither of which I have read yet (though I may need to rectify this soon).

I was really pleased when I found out Libba Bray was returning to the realm of historical fantasy and doubly pleased that she was setting her new trilogy in the 1920s.  The Roaring Twenties seem to be making quite a comeback, what with Boardwalk Empire and the upcoming Baz Luhrman adaption of The Great Gatsby.  In an interview with the UK group Booktrust, Bray explains the sometimes disturbing parallels between the America of today and the 1920s:

"xenophobia, anti-immigration fervor coupled with a nasty nativist streak, fears of terrorism/anarchism, a backlash against labor, a rise in evangelicalism, the creation and worship of a youth culture, and the lionizing of American business and businessmen as sort of the standard bearers of ‘Americanism.’ And, of course, there’s the run up to financial collapse."

Also gorgeous Australian edition.

 So, there are many reasons to write about the 1920s today.  Plus, all the fun stuff: flappers, speakeasies, Art Deco stylings, etc.  (The era also makes for lovely book cover design, I must say).

The novel begins with flapper Evie, stuck in the back of beyond in Ohio, who is sent to stay with her uncle in New York City after she causes a scandal after doing an object-reading, a talent she must keep hidden.  Her uncle is the curator of the The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, which seems dull, until Evie, Uncle Will, and friends attempt to solve a series of occult-based killings by a mysterious figure named Naughty John.

British edition (which I own)

The novel sets up a great cast of characters: Evie (whom I didn't especially like for a chunk of the book, as she seeks the limelight and rushes from one excitement to the next, never thinking much about other people, but she developed wonderfully), her much more staid friend Mabel, daughter of Socialist campaigners, Jericho, who has a secret and is Uncle Will's ward, Theta and Henry, who live in the same building as Uncle Will and are part of the Ziegfield follies, Sam, a pickpocket searching for his mother, and finally, Memphis, a Harlem numbers runner and poet, who once had healing powers. 

Most of these teenaged characters have visions of a storm gathering over empty fields and a man in a stovepipe hat.  The are Diviners, people with special abilities who are making a comeback.  Not all of them are centrally concerned with the Naughty John killings, a plot which is wrapped up in this first installment, but I'm sure they will come into their own in future volumes.

The Diviners is intricately plotted and historically detailed, with some quite scary horror sequences, great characters, and a real sense of American history, especially in terms of religion and superstition.  I am very much looking forward to the next two books.

The Next Big Thing

Right, so I'm a bit slow to join this meme.  The lovely Sally Poyton (who is responsible for my joining SCBWI) tagged me for The Next Big Thing ages ago and I, being slightly suspicious of internet memes, foolishly declined.  Having read a bunch of other writers' excellent posts on what they're writing (and learned more about some great upcoming titles), I decided to hop on the bandwagon and tell you a bit about my work-in-progress.

1.  What is the working title of your book?

The working title is Belladonna, referencing a poisonous flower in the nightshade family, the translation from the Italian: beautiful lady, and (extremely tangentially) Stevie Nicks's 1981 solo album Bella Donna.

2.  Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was riding the bus home from university on my 20th birthday and I thought of a witch and of a spoiled girl who had to be the witch's servant.  I knew that I wanted it to have fairytale elements; I knew that the spoiled girl (Hazel) and a boy had broken the witch's window in the woods (Hansel and Gretel-style) and that it was set in the nineteenth-century and that my heroine wore white.  It all came to me quite quickly on that bus ride home.  I knew the ending by the time I got off the bus and I think I also knew that the heroine's father was an important part of the story.

So, the answer is sort of "out of the ether".  But it also relates back to the fact that a teenage boy on the bus behind me was chatting away very courteously and kindly with an elderly woman.  And I thought to myself how awkward and shy I would be in the same situation, because I was quite shy with strangers then (I think I'm better now).  Hazel and the witch build their relationship through conversation, some of which is very awkward, and some which of allows for growth on both sides.

3.  What genre does your book fall under?

Young adult fantasy.  More specifically, young adult historical fantasy with fairytale elements.

4.  Which actors would you choose to play your characters for a movie rendition?

Gah!  This is the hardest question ever.  I have visuals of the characters in my head but I've never tried to match them to anyone before, with one exception.  Also, because the novel is narrated in the first-person, I spend an awful lot of time in Hazel's head but haven't bothered to try to picture her facial features, for instance.

The exception to the rule is Melicent, one of the fairies in the novel, who I picture as a young Christina Ricci or Catherine Zeta Jones.

There's a Puritan preacher Tim and I have decided could be played by Benedict Cumberbatch, becasue I describe him as having a really powerful, distinctive voice.

Other than that, I'm drawing a blank.  Maybe someone who's read the book could help me out with suggestions?  

5.  What is the one-sentence synopsis for your book?

 One day late in Queen Victoria’s reign, spoiled Hazel Linwood escapes from her governess, raids an apple orchard, kisses the stable boy, and breaks a witch's window; for her thoughtlessness, the witch curses Hazel: she must be the witch’s servant and cannot return home until she speaks the witch’s one True Name.

6.  Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I hope to be represented by a literary agent.  Not sure I would attempt self-publication at this point.

7.  How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

About ten months.  I had the idea for the novel in March and collected bits and pieces of ideas for a few months.  I started writing the first draft on 17 August 2006 (after being inspired while reading Wuthering Heights one afternoon) and finished the draft in late June of the next year.  I've been revising on and (quite a lot) off ever since.

8.  What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

Books that feel similar to me include Chime by Franny Billingsly, Keturah and Lord Death by Martine Leavitt, I, Coriander by Sally Gardener, The Merrybegot by Julie Hearn, and A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce.  They are all YA fantasies in historical settings and draw on fairytale and/or folklore.  I think they all have quite strong narrative voices as well.

9.  Who or what inspired you to write this book?

See above.  Also, see the books I've just listed.  I read most of those either before or during the composition of my novel and I'm sure they've left creative imprints on my work in one form or another.  Also, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince had a big impact on me in the months leading up to writing this book.

10.  What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?

Let's see.  Witch hunts.  Incredibly dangerous fairies.  Love.  Revenge.  Victorians.  A flawed heroine.  A dreamy (but also considerate and sweet) stable boy.

I'm not tagging anyone (as I'm afraid many of my writerly friends seem to have been tagged already), but please check out these other Next Big Things for upcoming books that look great!

Elizabeth Wein on the companion book to Code Name Verity, happily due for release next fall!

Erin Bow on her second novel, Sorrow's Knot.

An Accidental Pilgrimage

Today, as the sun was shining and it was a few degrees above zero and looking very springy , Tim and I decided to bite the bullet and trek up to the giant Sainsbury at Kidlington.  It's takes about forty minutes to walk and we'd heard it was mecca for hard-to-find ingredients and bulk goods (this is all related to the state of food shopping in our area, which I should write about in more detail).

Just a little way into our walk, we happened upon the Wolvercote Cemetery, which has a small stone church in the middle and then stretches away in every direction, divided up based on religion.  It is still in use and many gravesites had fresh flowers laid over them.

Something twigged in my mind.  I asked Tim, "Isn't this where Tolkien is buried?"

So it was.  I had known Tolkien was buried in a cemetery north of the city, but hadn't taken the trouble to track it down.  One of Tolkien's Oxford houses - where he wrote The Hobbit and a lot of The Lord of the Rings - is about a fifteen minute walk from us and we had gone by there over the Christmas break.  In we went, setting out in search of the Roman Cathoic section of the cemetery.  Helpfully, the path to the grave was well-signed.

There it was, just a ways off the track.  Edith Tolkien listed a Luthien and John Ronald Reuel himself listed as her Beren, after the elf and human lovers in Tolkien's greatest love story in The Silmarillion.  People had left flowers, medals, and one small thank you note on a torn square of notebook paper.  Of course, I didn't have my camera; I'll have to take a picture another day - the site is really very close to our house.  It's lovely and peaceful, with watchful trees and benches.  It would make a lovely place to read on a summer's day.

And that's how I made my unintentional pilgrimage to the Master's grave.

Review: THE BRIDES OF ROLLROCK ISLAND, by Margo Lanagan

I first learned of Margo Lanagan's existence when her previous novel Tender Morsels won the World Fantasy Award in 2009.  I picked up the book from the library, started it, and eventually put it down again.  The beginning of the book is horrifying and bleak, as many a review commented at the time, and I wasn't in quite the mood for it then.  Having read Lanagan's newest book The Brides of Rollrock Island (just released at the beginning of the month), I'm definitely going to have to try Tender Morsels again and track down Lanagan's earlier fantasy short story collections.

The Brides of Rollrock Island, originally published in novella form as Sea Hearts, contains a version of the Celtic selkie myth - women who rise out of the bodies of seals to marry men on land, but who, if they put their seal coats back on will return to the sea once more - and it's a heartbreakingly beautiful novel about persecution and revenge, love, betrayal, and sacrifice.  The conflict - the bringing of the sea wives to Rollrock Island by the witch Misskaella - plays out over three generations or so, which reminded my Bronte-saturated mind of Wuthering Heights.

Structurally, this book is interesting because it makes use of so many viewpoints.  The sea witch Misskaella, who would technically be cast in the role of the villain, narrates for an extended period of time, and as a reader, I sympathized with her and was saddened to discover what becomes of her later in the book.  I was happy to follow each new voice and curious to figure out how they fit into the story, as each new section creates a not unpleasant shift and jar in the narrative - the reader needs to keep their wits about them.  The reader never has direct access to the sea wives' minds, but their sons and husbands tease out their love for their families on land and their grief for the loss of their seal-selves, their seal-children, and their home beneath the waves.

The novel ends with loss and sacrifice and also catharsis, all of which made me highly teary-eyed.  As a richly poetic and atmospheric novel, this book is perhaps not your traditional page-turner, but the story and the characters held me so tightly that I had to stay up until 3 in the morning to finish, to find out what happened to the sea wives, their husbands, their children, and the witch who had set everything in motion.  Highly, highly recommended.

Review: Liar's Moon by Elizabeth C. Bunce

I wrote about how much I was looking forward to this book back in October.  Liar's Moon is the second book in Bunce's Thief Errant trilogy, following StarCrossed.  Bunce very deftly avoids falling into the dreaded "middle book syndrome" because she makes use of a new setting, new characters, and new situation.  In the first book, our protagonist, the thief Digger/Celyn escapes a job gone wrong and hides out with a noble family in the north.  She is slowly drawn into the civil war being fomented by magic users (who are persecuted under the current rulers and, especially, the religious authority of the Celystra).

Liar's Moon, on the other hand, is set in Gerse, Digger's home and the capital of Llyvraneth.  The noose is being drawn more tightly around Gerse every day, as the civil war, led by the Sarists and Prince Wierolf (whom we met in the previous book) comes closer and closer to the city.  Meanwhile, a curfew is in effect and the Greenmen, soldiers of the Inquisition, are rooting out and killing magic users throughout the city.  Digger finds herself in prison (not too surprising) and meets an old friend, Durrell, who has been accused of murdering his wife.

The novel begins as a murder mystery, as Digger endeavours to clear her friend's name, but Digger and Durrell uncover secrets that go right to the heart of the war and discrimination against magic users.  Many of the characters who featured in the first book are off-stage, fighting in the war - I do hope we'll see them again in the next book.  The plot builds slowly at first, then the threads begins to come together, and then its off in a rollicking race to the end of the book.  I myself had to gulp down the last 140 pages last night, all in one go.

I found myself a bit concerned toward the end of the book, because many narrative threads are tied up in the second book.  What would be left for the final book in the trilogy?  And then, wham!, what an ending!  Bunce sets up several exciting possibilities for the direction of the last book in the series, which I really hope comes out soon.

This is a refreshing second book for this series, as it breaks new narrative ground, while still featuring the deft plotting and the fabulous protagonist that made the first book so delectable.

Review: Chime, by Franny Billingsley

Because Franny's Billingsley's National Book Award short-listed novel Chime is so much about it's narrator's voice and psychology, it's probably best to begin at the beginning:

I've confessed to everything and I'd like to be hanged.

Now, if you please.

Most people on trial for their lives don't generally plead for justice to be done. But Briony Larkin is not your run-of-the-mill heroine.

The novel opens in the aftermath of the death of Briony's beloved Stepmother, under mysterious circumstances. Everyone thinks she committed suicide, but Briony thinks she knows better. Briony lives to take care of her mentally unstable twin sister Rose. She believes herself a witch (a hanging offence in the Swampsea) and so keeps herself away from the swamp and the Old Ones who live there, in order to keep her powers and her anger and jealousy under control.

As I said in beginning, a lot of this novel is based on Briony's psychology: her guilt for her sister's condition, her lack of love for those around her, her early admitted and deep-seated belief that she is truly wicked, only barely holding her dangerous powers in check.

The story really begins when Eldric, a college-aged fellow from London comes to the Swampsea.  His father has come to the village to drain the swamp in order to develop the land; the railroad is finally coming to town (the setting is early twentieth century, with references to switch on lights and motor cars).  I was worried at first by descriptions of "golden, electric Eldric", afraid he would turn out to be yet another too-good-to-be-true hero, but Eldric, and his relationship with Briony, is much, much more interesting than that.  Eldric has his faults: a certain lack of direction, a rebellious nature, but he's just what Briony needs.  He makes it possible for her to begin looking at the world and herself somewhat differently.

This is a novel of twists and turns, discoveries about one's self and others and stories and the fickleness of memory and the ways in which all these things work together to create some notion of a self.  And I don't know that I want to say too much more about the plot, because one of the distinct joys of this novel is watching Briony's narrative unfold, as she unpicks the tapestry of her life.

I really have only good things to say about this novel.  The voice, characterization, and plotting are strong and sure.  As a reader, I always felt I was in good hands, no matter what might happen next.  The novel goes to some very dark places, but I was happy to follow Briony and Billingsley anywhere.

I will also note that the prose is delectable, rich, rhythmic, and original, especially in its evocations of the swamp.

Other notes:

I mentioned earlier that this novel was short-listed for the 2011 National Book Award in the Young People's Literature category.  There was an unfortunate bit of controversy at the beginning, as Lauren Myracle's Shine was inadvertently named as a short-listed title.  The judges apparently meant to nominate this book instead.  Altogether, it was a mess.  But that was how I first came across this book.

I find the National Book awards are a good go-to for finding good books to read.  Previous years' nominees included Laini Taylor's Lips Touch: Three Times, which I have raved about elsewhere, and Canadian Martine Leavitt's Keturah and Lord Death, which is also fantastical and fantastic.

Book design: I must say I think the novel is not well-served by its cover (the UK edition forgoes the choker but plays up the sparkles).  The novel is both older and more sophisticated than the cover might have you believe.  I see the UK paperback edition is going for a rather different look.

Waiting on Wednesday: Liar's Moon by Elizabeth C. Bunce

Liar's Moon by Elizabeth C. Bunce is being released on November 1st (not that far away anymore!) and is the second book in Bunce's Thief Errant trilogy.  What this means is that you should run out and read the first book in the series, StarCrossed before November 1st.

In StarCrossed, the reader is introduced to a sneak thief named Digger, who takes up with a group of nobles to escape capture for theft by the secret police when a job goes awry and her lover is killed.  Little does she know that this particular group of nobles, hidden away in their wintry fortress, where Digger is posing as a lady's maid, are involved in an incipient religious civil war.  All this is related to magic, which Digger can see but not practice.  Digger is a fascinating narrator, used to hiding in the shadows, witty, but also damaged.

Digger is back in her natural habitat of backstreets and thievery in Liar's Moon and meets up with one of the noblemen from the previous book, who has been put in prison for murder.  Digger vows to clear his name and is drawn into "fantasy noir" adventures in order to do so.  If this book is anything like the first in the series, I'm sure it will be splendid.

Also, both books are set in a high fantasy setting that reads like the Renaissance in terms of clothing, book-making, etc.  Bunce is working within a world she's been building since she was a teenager, so the religious systems and history are well thought out, without threatening the integrity of the story.

Elizabeth C. Bunce's first novel, A Curse Dark as Gold, which won the Morris Award for best first YA novel, is also worth reading, though quite different in tone and subject matter.  It is a retelling of "Rumpelstiltskin", set during the beginnings of the industrial revolution in a British mill town.  Instead of turning corn into gold, the protagonist must turn thread into gold.  She must also make increasingly fraught sacrifices to stay in the Rumpelstiltskin figure's good graces, while managing the mill her dead father has left behind.  This novel is really well-written, with great characterization, and dark, folkloric atmosphere.

In short, I highly recommend reading Elizabeth C. Bunce's novels and I anxiously look forward to another volume of the Thief Errant series and anything else she may choose to publish.

Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Reviewing Policy:

Because I’ve never reviewed a book on here before (or elsewhere, for that matter), I thought I’d put up a little modus operandi with this review to explain how I plan on going about it.  I’ll be reviewing primarily what I regularly read for fun, namely YA fantasy, a smattering of adult fantasy, and contemporary literary fiction, usually historical.  I will of course comment on the classics in all genres that I happen to be reading, as well.

I likely won’t be posting negative reviews on this blog, because I don’t know if I want my antipathy towards Book X to be public knowledge.  However, I also don’t want to limit myself, so we’ll see how this plays out.

Also, I’ll only be reviewing books as I have the time and inclination.  I also have two other small commitments at the moment: a doctoral dissertation and a novel.  :)

UK Edition

In this transatlantic tale, two late-Victorian magicians pledge to set their students, Celia and Marco, against each other in a magical competition testing skill, invention, and sheer endurance.  A black and white circus, only open at  night, becomes the staging ground for a contest that takes almost twenty years to play out.  Marco and Celia of course fall in love, complicating their duel, whose stakes they don’t yet fully understand, and endangering Le Cirque des Rêves, which becomes more important than either the competitors or the competition that created it.

Morgenstern’s rich, sensory prose creates a magical atmosphere from the first words of the novel.  The author also does an excellent job of illustrating her mysterious, monochrome circus.  We see many characters – magicians, performers, patrons – experiencing the delights of the Night Circus: its sudden appearance and disappearance, acrobats who perform without a safety net, an ice garden.  Interspersed throughout the novel are second-person vignettes, which allow the reader to experience the circus for him or herself.

North American Edition

Morgenstern also makes excellent use of shifts in time, sometimes showing, consecutively, several characters’ experiences of a crucial event, sometimes jumping back and forth in time to illustrate the consequences of an incident or to dramatize an effect’s cause.  These time shifts are especially effective in the lead-up to the novel’s close.  This element reminded me, favourably, of Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, also featuring dueling Victorian magicians.

Celia and Marco’s characters are complicated and well-drawn, especially as they come to discover that they are pawns in a larger contest.   The reader sees their sporting courtship through their contributions to the circus for years before they meet each other.  When they finally do meet, they fall in love hard and fast, but this is believable and has human and magical consequences, which Morgenstern follows through to their inevitable conclusion.  Supporting characters, such as the Murray twins (born on opening night), Bailey, a patron, and Herr Thiessen, the circus’s clock-maker, are also endearing.

Now, gripes, of which there are happily few.  First, though the prose is generally spot on, concise, and image-rich, it sometimes falters, slipping into repetition or weakened by unnecessary modifiers.  This is a shame, because the writing is otherwise so strong.  Second, there are elements which struck me as just too precious, such as the Murray twin’s circus act: acrobatic kittens.  Now, I love cats, but I just can’t see a cat being willing to tumble through the air purely for its master’s satisfaction, magic circus or no.  This felt a bit too cute for my sensibility, though perhaps it tickles everyone else’s.

When I picked this book up, I wanted it to be a virtuoso performance of a first novel, like Susanna Clarke’s 2004 novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (incidentally, also about 19th-century dueling magicians), solid, without a word out of place.  It wasn’t quite that.  Perhaps my expectations were unfortunately high, having taken in some of the pre-publication hype.  All else aside, this is a great book, whose perfectly-pitched ending made me choke up.  The Night Circus is a well-written, well-constructed novel about the power of dreams, imagination, community, and love that will appeal to readers of YA and literary fantasy.

Two addenda:

Book design: The UK edition is a joy to behold.  It has a lovely black and white cover with just a splash of red (the significance of which is explained inside).  Under the dust-jacket is a lovely red hardcover with a gold clock on the front.  The end papers feature black, white, and red top hats and bowlers (again, also significant).  There’s also a helpful ribbon to mark one’s place.  This was very helpful, as I have not yet acquired any bookmarks here.

YA crossover appeal:  This title could definitely succeed as a YA and could have been published as such, I believe.  Adult and young adult characters share the stage throughout the novel.  The Night Circus contains no more sexuality than one would might find in a YA directed toward older teens.

Waiting on Wednesday: Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor

North American cover

Again, it isn't Wednesday.  Also, there won't be much of a wait involved, because I've been a bit slow off the mark to blog about this particular release.  It comes out in North America and the UK on September 27th, which is this coming Tuesday.

Here is a book I've been looking forward to since, er, probably last summer, when the author, Laini Taylor, announced on her blog that her next book had been sold at auction and had an American publisher.  The reason I was so excited was that I had read her previous, National Book Award-winning collection of two short stories and one novella, Lips Touch: Three Times.  The first story is a modern retelling of Christina Rosett's "Goblin Market", the second is set in British Raj India and involves bargaining over souls with demons and a voice that can kill, and the third is a novella involving dual identity, strange demon-like creatues, and a long-running love affair.  The prose is rich and the imagery fantastic.  I gobbled that book up in about two nights, even though I'm sure I should have been working on my Master's thesis.  So, please go read Lips Touch if you like YA fantasy.  I'm sure you won't regret it.

UK cover

There are two other reasons I'm really looking forward to this novel.  First, it centres around a myterious teenaged girl named Karou, with naturally (kind of) blue hair and tattoos who is an art student in Prague.  Her only family are a group of chimerae and she is sent on missions to collect teeth, which are then traded for wishes.  This books also has the wonderful prefatory line: "Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love.  It did not end well..."  How much better could this be?

The second reason I'm looking forward to this book is that the publisher has offered up the first few chapters as a free preview online (you can find the first five chapters in the widget on the author's blog).  Great dialogue, fun characters, mystery.  The first 50 pages have totally hooked me.

You can read a glowing review of the novel in the Los Angeles Times here.