Best of the Best 2023 Weekly Reader
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
It's that time again to review the best books of 2023. As always, I would like to thank the various authors, publishers, PR companies, Reading groups, and individuals who brought these books to my attention. You are what makes this blog great.
I also would like to promote two very important books in which I edited and proofread. Please if you get the chance, read them. They may help you with your own conflicts and change your outlook. Links are provided below.
In Search of Cognizance by Nabraj Lama-a Spiritual Travel book about going to Nepal's sacred sites and finding a spiritual connection within them.
Now on with the countdown.
This a brilliant Psychological Thriller which pits two police officers against a serial killer obsessed with a warped sense of religion and justice.
Detectives Mike Stoneman and Jason Dixon are called to investigate the murder of a mob boss. They learn that this and other previous killings correspond to the Ten Plagues from the Book of Exodus. The detectives have to solve the mystery before the Plague killings are complete.
The mystery is a nice effective one. The Righteous Assassin is the type of antagonist who gets off on trying to act smarter than the detectives. They taunt them with coded messages and uses nicknames for former and future victims. It is also fascinating to read the means that they use to modify the killings in a modern society. For example, instead of being covered with boils, one of their targets is burned to death by boiling water.
Stoneman and Dixon are also well written. As the duo investigate the murders, they work through romances with colleagues and their own biases towards each other while trying to function as a team.
Righteous Assassin is a suspenseful thriller that looks at such subjects like race, crime, religion, justice, and revenge. It is a truly righteous thriller.
The Cloud is an expansive Science Fiction that is effective in world building and how each character is a microcosm of the world around them.
In 2040 California, VR designer Blaise Pascal is an employee of The Cloud, a tech corporation that practically runs the world. He is assigned to tweak a game which contains an addictive drug that controls The Slags, the lower classes. As he ascends higher within The Cloud, he is made aware of the company's nefarious schemes while he is torn between two women: Mitsuko, his ambitious supervisor and Kristina, a member of the Resistance against the Cloud.
The book is excellent at capturing the futuristic world from the oligarchical structure to the little details like wardrobe, slang terms, and recreational activities. Rivenbark put a lot of care and effort into this world.
One of the ways that he accomplishes this is to portray each character as representations of their world. Mitsuko represents The Cloud: narcissistic, cold, artificial, and dehumanized. Kristina represents The Slags: selfless, warm, authentic, and completely human. Blaise is both, a former Slag who worked his way up to The Cloud and now is compelled to fight against it.
The Cloud presents a world that is so caught up in technology, that only a few remember a world without it. It is those people who will rebuild society when the technology is gone.
18.
Evil Alice and The Borzoi (A Cleo Cooper Mystery) by D.K. Coutant
This is a Murder Mystery that contrasts the beauty of Hawaii’s landscape and the brutal ugliness of murder.
In Hilo, Hawaii, Alice Bacunawa, a student of Cross-Cultural psychologist, Cleo Cooper, has been found murdered. Cleo must solve the murder and prove the innocence of a friend while navigating her foundering relationship with her boyfriend, Ben.
The Aloha State is presented in all of its natural beauty with lush description. The residents are also well captured including various details like their outdoor activities, colloquialisms, and family structure. Coutant’s writing allows Hilo to be explored in the Reader’s mind’s eye.
Along with Hilo’s beauty, Coutant reveals a darker nature emphasizing such problems as poverty, addiction, domestic violence, and crime. Evil Alice and the Borzoi reminds us that for every tourist photo or Instagram shot of the scenic location, there is someone who is struggling to get by.
For every wealthy hotel guest trying to check in there is an underpaid and overworked employee who waits on them. For every surfer trying to catch some waves, there is someone who is dying horribly and violently around them.
This is a deeply woven Thriller and Dark Fantasy about a young man with the abilities of lucid dreaming and remote viewing.
Asa Spencer, a Seneca Iroquois with a felonious past, has these abilities. He is arrested for a crime that he did not commit. Meanwhile, a local counselor, government agents, and a gangster with similar powers have their own interests in Asa and what he can do.
Asa is not always the most likable of protagonists. He is cynical, brash, temperamental, and has a huge chip on his shoulder, but it is understandable why he is that way. Sheppard develops the racism, poverty, and crime that surrounds Asa and how he fights against it. He tries to run from and avoid his abilities, putting them in the back of his mind. The moments when he opens his mind and heart and uses his lucid dreaming and remote viewing to help others are that much greater considering how much else is stacked against him.
Flint of Dreams is a brilliant book which illustrates the conflict of having and living with supernatural abilities that makes a person different from everyone else around them.
The Nicklesses’ book provides us with a fascinating account of a part of American history that has long been hidden or ignored but should be brought to light.
Mark and Laurie Bonner-Nickless studied the Piaza, a bluff painting of a creature that resembled a Chinese dragon and overlooked the Mississippi River near St. Louis. Using a combination of sources, The Nicklesses formed a tantalizing theory: Chinese explorers from the Ming Dynasty traveled to North America and sailed up the Mississippi River into the Missouri-Illinois area.
This book is an in depth look at the process that authors, historians, academics, and researchers take in exploring a previously unknown or unacknowledged area of history. The Nicklesses’ journey consisted of various steps such as studying the painting’s origin, visiting its former location of Elsah, Illinois, and reading local accounts as well as those of explorer Zheng He, to arrive at their conclusion. It is interesting to read not only about the research process but also learning about the history and motives of the people who lived during that time to explore the area and leave their mark with art and culture, and then later attempts from others at covering them up.
Thanks to new historical emphasis on Zheng He’s voyages and books and articles like Chasing Dragons, a previously overlooked account is finally receiving recognition. The Piaza and its creators would have long been forgotten if not for the curiosity, persistence, and research provided by historians, academics, artists, and authors, notably a determined couple from Jefferson County, Missouri who asked questions, looked up information, and peered through various sources to find answers. Truly it is a historical journey of draconian proportions.
This is a grim and suspenseful Science Fiction Thriller which is set in a world of legal and government sanctioned human trafficking.
Blake and Isa Frye have made enemies of the United States government by Isa’s documentary exposing Servitude, a legal program in which people who are in debt or convicted of minor crimes are to be trafficked into lifetime servitude. The Fryes’s drive to expose the program and the elite billionaires and government operatives who profit from it puts them and their close friends and family in great danger.
Servitude is an intense book on how people reinterpret guilt, innocence, and punishment to fit their needs. It also shows a world in which everyone is up for sale, especially when the 1 percenters are put in charge of the entire world. There are many wealthy people who will use their money to get away with the worst nefarious deeds and crimes and also have people that will defend them. In the United States, nothing speaks louder than money and in Servitude, money has the ability to control other people’s freedom. It takes honest courageous people like the Fryes to bring those crimes to light and expose them for all to see.
Servitude is one of those terrifying Science Fiction books. Terrifying because we could be standing on the edge of what could happen. It tells us to become aware of that edge so we can keep it from happening.
This is a tense Psychological Thriller which takes a hard look at hate groups and domestic terrorism.
Three seemingly unrelated murders propel Petit Rouge Parish deputy Starner Gautreaux to investigate a deeper connection to why these people were murdered. During Starner’s investigation, Readers receive a parallel narrative about an Alt-Right White Supremacist hate group that is planning a terrorist attack that will make the news and no one will ever forget.
Prejudice is a theme that is front and center in this book. The terrorists and Starner are surrounded by it. Starner returned from New Orleans to his former parish hometown and has to re-familiarize himself with the racist attitudes that surrounded him and hinder his investigation. The members of the hate group are vile and so wrapped up in their prejudices and hatred that they no longer recognize good or evil.
Since the protagonist and antagonist points of view alternate, Readers are ahead of Starner's investigation but only up to a point. That makes reading the book more suspenseful as we are given some information and purposely locked out of others.
A White Hot Plan is a suspenseful and thrilling chase that unfortunately with the rise of hate groups and toxic division could become a frightening reality.
This is an erotic, encompassing, and involving Political Thriller that combines the political world with
personal struggles between characters shaped by their world.
Zayani Ada was forced to marry dictator Changa for political reasons. As the country's First Lady, she tries to help as many people as she can until an aid worker and Resistance member asks a request of her which will turn her into an active participant.
Zayani is a memorable protagonist caught in a bad situation and does her best to help her people despite or even because of it. She is married to an abusive paranoid monster who only leads by fear and intimidation. She finds and volunteers for humanitarian projects to help her former community. She knows of and turns a blind eye to some of the active plots against her husband. She considers the rebels her family and does not want to turn them in until she is forced to in a heartbreaking moment that will clearly haunt her forever.
When Zayani learns that children are missing and Changa is responsible, she realizes that she can no longer rebel in secret. Not only is the revolution here but she ends up having to lead it.
There are certain twists that happen halfway through the book that change Zayani's perspective. She emerges more active and takes a leadership position. She does things that the Zayani of earlier chapters would never do but demonstrates a strength of character and tougher resolve so that her country and people don't fall to another dictator.
12.
My Queen My Love: A Novel of Henrietta Maria (The Henrietta of France Trilogy Book One) by Elena Maria Vidal
This Historical Fiction novel tells of the tumultuous years in English history preceding the Civil War through the eyes of Queen Henrietta Maria of France, the Catholic wife of King Charles I.
This book tells of Henrietta Maria’s early years and her marriage to Charles. It also recounts her rivalry with George Villiers, the Duke of Buckingham and the king’s best friend. The Queen and the Duke vie for the king’s attention, ear, and heart.
This book is a chess match between two formidable opponents who differ in personalities, religion, ideologies, and views.
Henrietta Maria is motivated by her history as a Medici and her Catholic faith. Her family line taught her about palace intrigue, how to play the court games, and to be wary of potential rivals for influence. Her faith not only gives her solace but gives the British Catholics much longed for representation.
Villiers also has his own motivations. He had a history of developing connections with Charles’ family. He had been the friend and lover of Charles’ father James I. He thinks of the younger king as a kid brother who needs his influence. He also is incredibly ambitious and wants to move upwards in society.
Henrietta Maria and George Villiers are equally matched opponents with Charles and the entire kingdom in the middle.
My Queen My Love is a very regal look at palace intrigue and the love and loyalties of the monarch and those around them. It begins with a rivalry between two individuals and eventually will escalate into a war that will envelop the whole country.
This is a two part mystical Contemporary Fantasy set in Barbados also known as Bimshire. It combines graphic manga illustrations, superhero comics, and Barbadian or Bajan Myths and Legends to tell a unique story with a memorable setting.
Bajan teen Kyle Harding practices a martial art which uses sugarcane as a weapon. A new friend, Damien Collins, prepares him for battles against not only human gangs called Pelt-ings, but supernatural creatures from myth and legend such as the Heart Man, a terrifying apparition that rips hearts from living people.
Kyle’s journey from regular kid to hero is intriguing particularly in the second volume, Children of the Gulf when his best friend, Collins and brother, Damien go through personal strife and conflict which may put them at odds with Kyle. He and his friends go through the usual lapses in confidence, friendly arguments that become volatile, and dates with willing young ladies during the day while fighting evil at night.
The most interesting aspect is the Bajan setting and how the series incorporates myth and legend within the superhero framework. Kyle and his friends face off against legendary monsters such as the Shaggy Bears, fierce little guys who dance to their own beat and fight anyone who comes near them.
The most terrifying antagonist in the series is the Heart Man and his controller, a witch named Mrs. Pringle who when not practicing the dark arts plays the role of a sweet old lady beyond suspicion. The Heart Man was once a human man driven by hatred and vengeance and turned into a diabolical monster by Mrs. Pringle’s magical intervention. The two make a disturbing duo that live in the fringes of nightmares.
The Offset series is a fascinating original and unique look at Bajan Myths and Legends. Those who are familiar with them will enjoy the action plot that connects with the characters. Those who are new to the stories will enjoy engaging with this new vibrant and terrifying world and the human and supernatural characters that inhabit it.
The third and best Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality book is set during the transcendent period when Science Fiction becomes Fantasy and a once technological world becomes agrarian as people turn scientific energy into magic.
Fancy Fanciful Fantasticality and Overseer of Port Sunshinescence, Calista Soleil is recruited to investigate some strange goings on where people enter a mysterious Earth forest and never return. Calista encounters characters who would be at home in an Epic Fantasy novel like Triella, a genetically engineered fairy and Caimana, a sorceress.
In her previous volumes, Calista showed a lot of courage, verve, and spunk to be a hero but at times acted very cold, judgemental, and polarizing. This is the first volume where her positive attributes outweigh her negative ones. In fact other characters exhibit her worse traits like arrogance, closed mindedness, and overwhelming curiosity. These behaviors leave Calista to take the lead with her new entourage.
Besides focusing on the transition in Calista’s behavior, the book focuses on the transition between science and magic, when Science Fiction becomes Fantasy. Characters like Triella and Caimana use scientific means to implement their energies. But the line between science and magic is deliberately blurred suggesting in a few generations, it will fade away. Genetically engineered creatures will forget that they were made by human hands. To an uneducated observer, science may seem like magic. What was once thought dormant will emerge once more.
Enchantment Now Enshrouds combines beautifully the worlds of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It shows the transition between the genres in a way that is fascinating to figure out and easy to visualize what could happen next.
Swansea’s Paraval series continues to build to an exciting climax and resolution which build on the memorable settings and its identifiable characters, particularly its protagonist Elise Clair, a 45 year old divorcee, single mother of two, dental hygienist, alchemist, and Warden of the magical small town of Black Lake Falls, Washington state.
In Midlife Incantations, Elise and her friends including boyfriend, General Theo Stallard have to hunt down their possessed friend Ronath while looking for an important spell book that could seal the gate between Black Lake Falls and Inferium, their version of Hell, forever. Midlife Shadows feature the gang taking a trip down into the depths of Inferium to close the gate and fight a final battle against the shadowy umbra and their Dark Commander.
The two books in the series expand on the characterization and world building. In Incantations, we are shown more of the delightful town of Black Lake Falls with its quirky residents, structures, traditions, rules, and regulations. We meet residents and learn about their histories and that of the town, while also seeing how they fit into their society. It is a beautiful town that becomes more beautiful with each detail. We meet witches, vampires, alchemists, minotaurs, and other creatures living and working together, occasionally lapsing into disagreements but willing to help each other out of kindness, equality, and solidarity. Black Lake Falls is a definite must experience for any Imaginary Literary Trip.
Shadows shows Black Lake Falls’ polar opposite in Inferium. It is a direct contrast to Black Lake Falls deliberately mocking the Germanic style houses and cute mom and pop shops now empty, gray, and desolate. Instead of the charming helpful locals, there are sinister creatures whose torturous howls fill the landscape and take sadistic delight out of hurting and tormenting others. Instead of a town with clear directions and landmarks, Inferium is constantly changing to leave the visitors off guard and uncertain. The contrast shows the dichotomy that Inferium is truly the Hell to Black Lake Falls’ Heaven.
The characters also develop the more we learn about them. Elise in particular is explored through her changing role and increasing powers In Incantation, her searches for Ronath and the book lead to some serious conflicts and ethical questions such as what they are going to have to do to Ronath when they catch up to him and whether they can save him or kill the once good friend to save his life. The book includes powerful spells including eliminating all vampires so is it right to use it knowing many of Black Lake Falls’ population will be destroyed no matter what they do. These are not easy questions nor are the answers easy. Instead they require courage, understanding, empathy, and sacrifice.
In Shadows, Elise has to conquer her fears and insecurities while in Inferium.. She and her friends strive to banish their worst attributes like recklessness, rage, suspicion, doubt, and mistrust to become stronger fighters. Their emotions are at an all-time high and sometimes they act against their better instincts. The challenge is to fight against those worst traits before they are strong enough to fight the Dark Commander.
Midlife Incantations and Midlife Shadows are the perfect continuation and ending to a wonderful series with a charming setting, delightful characters, and a strong lead.
The second and third installment in this series takes the Fearghus Academy students to new personal and academic challenges as well as exploring their developing maturity and romantic interests.
Crystal Shards focuses on the aftereffects of a dramatic occurrence to obtain one of the magical skulls which ended in a student being deprived of her magical abilities, Eilam’s kidnapping by his biological parents, a reunion with a long missing classmate, and Artesia’s doubts about the new world in which she has been placed. Precarious Gems involves Fearghus Academy participating in a nationwide tournament of elemental magic while the characters explore their sexual interests particularly Artesia who captures the interest of Callie Rose Boutique, the beautiful competitor from another school.
The remaining two volumes explore the Fearghus students as magical beings and developing teenagers. The main focus is on friends, Eilam and Artesia. Crystal Shards puts Eilam at his lowest emotional and physical point. He is kidnapped and abused by his parents who want to turn him and other students into science experiments. He goes through intense torture at the hands of people who gave him life and should have loved and cared for him. What results is someone who is battered, bruised, and questioning the love and loyalty of those around him, particularly that of Artesia, his best friend and Telemachus, his potential boyfriend. It is a traumatic experience with long lasting complications in the next book where Eilam experiences PTSD, shifting loyalties and affections, long term symptoms like flashbacks and intense physical pain, and conflicting emotions particularly when Telemachus confesses his love for him.
Precarious Gems brings out Artesia’s inner struggles. In the previous volume, she questions the treatment when a student was unpersonned after she lost her powers, had a frightening encounter with a sinister creature, is left in constant angst worrying about Eilam’s whereabouts, reunited with a transformed and angry Antonia, and makes an important discovery about her late parents and their connection to her new surroundings.
These experiences leave her with serious questions about loyalty, inner strength, and her own self-worth. In Precarious Gems, a wizened Artesia has to refocus and test her powers while recovering from her earlier troubles. She also weighs her own sexual and emotional feelings towards another woman which her Victorian England upbringing told her was wrong. Now away from those societal Earthling restraints, she is free to explore those emotions to their conclusion and find her own identity. She also finds greater affection from her adopted mother, Nichole, who engages in adult conversations with Artesia based on her own experiences and shows strong maternal love and self-sacrifice when she fights against the primary antagonist, Alptraum Engel. Through her experiences at Fearghus Academy, Artesia learns the real meaning of family, friendship, romantic relationships, and love.
Crystal Shards and Precarious Gems take their young magical protagonists through experiences which mature and develop them into the potentially magical, older, wiser, self-assured, authentic adults that they will one day become.
This is a brilliant and wonderful character study about a glamorous movie star and her private life and loves.
Monique Grant, a writer for Vivant Magazine, has been assigned to interview Evelyn Hugo, who was a film star from the 50’s to the 80’s but is now a recluse. During their talks, Monique learns about Evelyn's humble beginnings, illustrious film career, her stormy love life with seven husbands, and the real love of her life. Monique also learns about her personal connection to Evelyn and why she was selected for this specific interview in the first place.
It's clear that Reid knows her Old Hollywood stars and made Evelyn a composite of different actresses including Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Bette Davis, and Rita Hayworth. In particular her various marriages echo Taylor's eight, her in depth late-in-life interview is similar to ones granted by Gardner and Davis, and her decision to hide her Latina heritage and pass as a white woman is reminiscent of Hayworth's background.
Evelyn's path from poverty to stardom isn't exactly new but she is written so multifaceted that she is unique even when her story is not. Even during her youth in Hell’s Kitchen, New York she is in control of herself and her path. She uses her developing body as currency to get out of New York and marry for the first time. Then she uses her allure and charisma to go after the film roles that she wants and later to bounce back when her career takes dramatic turns. She goes from playing Jo in Little Women, to a sexy role in a French film, to starring as the title role in Anna Karenina, and winning an Oscar for playing a single mother in All of Us. Beneath the wealth and fame, Evelyn displays insecurity. Once she reaches the top, she is determined to stay there. She sacrifices her own personal happiness and lets her head rule over her heart only to regret it later. Evelyn is like many people who are good at their craft: charming, charismatic, forceful, devoted, fiercely loving, alluring, obstinate, self-absorbed, stylish, talented, exasperating, unique, and independent.
While Evelyn is the star of the book, her supporting cast of characters is excellent as well. Her seven husbands include abusive actor Don Adler, gullible singer Mick Riva, controlling director Max Girard, and supportive producer Henry Cameron. Monique has her own struggles as she covers Evelyn's story and finds resolution with her own.
By far the best supporting character is Celia St. James, Evelyn's former co-star in Little Women and the real love of her life. Celia is more emotional and passionate than Evelyn. Even though she finds success in her film career by winning three Oscars, she focuses on her personal life over her profession. She stands in wounded silence as Evelyn makes advantageous marriages and decisions that put her career over her love for Celia. The happiest moments in Evelyn and Celia’s lives are when they have an open marriage with Henry Cameron and his lover, John Braverman respectively and together the four raise a daughter, Connor.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is among the best books about Old Hollywood by revealing the real human beings behind the fabulous aloof surface. It’s like its protagonist is a real star.
Similar to Gloger Friedman’s previous book, Ashes, this book tells the story of a fictional Jewish woman emigrating to America and captures the time period with great description and detail. However it differs in terms of storytelling and characterization. Instead of seeing a specific tragic historical event through the eyes of an individual affected by the great sweeping changes, In Freedom's Light focuses on various events that capture the minutiae and reality of everyday life through several decades and how the characters struggle to challenge or conform to those circumstances.
In 1785 Spain, Anica Amelsem, her husband, Efrem, daughter, Isabel, and servant, Mariana emigrate to the United States to avoid a pogrom that arrests practicing Jews. They arrive in South Carolina to live and work for Efrem’s Uncle Phillip at his plantation. While there, they become front row witnesses to the dehumanizing institution of slavery and befriend many of the slaves at the plantation. Through their friendships and actions against the cruel practice, the Amelsems learn that America’s promise of freedom and equality is not evenly handed out to everyone so they work to change that.
The Amelsems commitment to freeing as many slaves as they can is augmented by the fact that they are new to the country and having been treated as second class citizens in their previous country, they recognize hatred, malice, and hypocrisy when they see it. Sometimes it takes a fellow newcomer and outsider to understand the problems of people around them and shine new light on them when locals are desensitized, apathetic, or actively participating in these institutions
Anica and Efrem are in a precarious situation in that they can’t do anything on a grand scale about slavery. They can’t free them because they don’t own the plantation, They can’t leave because the bad treatment will continue. They can’t make Uncle Phillip and his family see the light because they don’t care. They can however make a point of befriending the slaves, defending them from physical and sexual abuse, and buy to free as many of them as they can when they finally do leave. Some of the chapters which deal with their emotional bonds with the slaves such as Efrem defending a young boy, Anica’s sister-like relationship with Ruth, a maid, and their turning a blind eye when some escape are the highlights of the book.
Another significant point to make about this book is that it is set after the ending of the Revolutionary War and ends long before the beginning of the Civil War. Such things that triggered that war like the Fugitive Slave Act, the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and the Missouri Compromise are just on the horizon.This book provides the fertile ground that would cause those events to form and become problems for the next generation to deal with. Ignoring the important events allows Friedman to explore the daily living conditions of the characters in that time period and to see how slavery affected those who were involved owners, slaves, and family members.
Through the characters of In Freedom’s Light, we see a world that is on the brink of having words like “freedom,” “liberty,” and “equality,” questioned and how within a few decades of the book’s end, there will be explosive results between people who are unwilling to accept those terms for others and those who want to defend them. The actions of Anica, Efrem, and others show that words like "freedom" can be more than pretty words on old documents. They can be felt, meant, and understood by everyone.
While many Science Fiction books such as Richardson’s previous works, The Sun Casts No Shadow and The Hunt for the Troll, focus on world building and how the time and place affect the characters, this book is more focused on the internal mindscape of its lead protagonist.
In 2040, California Malibu Makimura, caricaturist, is both psychic and empathic, able to read thoughts and emotions. A wealthy seductive eccentric, Luciana, hires Malibu to burn down some old cottages of her choice. It’s illegal but the cops won’t do anything about it. She’ll be well paid and if she suffers from guilt, some places want to die.
The book focuses on character particularly concerning its lead protagonist. Malibu is a great lead with a rich interior life that Richardson excels at exploring. Malibu’s background with a father who experimented on and then abandoned her, a suicidal mother, and an extended time institutionalized in a psychiatric hospital helped shape Malibu to become the troubled woman that she is now. As a caricaturist, she paints how she sees her model’s souls. Because of her time in her own mind and dealing with her own intrusive thoughts, she is more interested in looking into other’s minds and souls than capturing their physical appearances.
Malibu’s safety net is her love for old movies, but even that consumes her as she has a hard time separating fantasy from reality. For example her employer, Luciana and Luciana’s servant Max are very similar to Norma Desmond and Max Von Mayerling respectively from the film, Sunset Boulevard to the point that Malibu even calls them out on the similarities. Many of the situations that she finds herself in are so close to Malibu’s favorite movies, that it remains open ended whether they are coincidences, hallucinations, delusions, or evidence that Malibu is somehow able to control and shape the world around her.
The longer that Malibu remains working for Luciana, the weaker her grip is on reality. When she burns the cottages, she hears voices that are in pain and want to die. With each cottage that gets burned, Malibu loses parts of herself becoming someone who craves danger and hurting others. Her darker impulses take over until she becomes lost in her own insanity.
Many Science Fiction novels take their Readers to the outside world and see how it affects their characters. In Malibu Burn’s case, we are taken inside a character’s mind and perception to show how she affects her world.
The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn is a haunting novel about a ghost with a dark tale, an emotional female protagonist, and has a beautiful setting which adds to the spooky and spiritual atmosphere. The tone of the book is more beautiful than scary with characters that are more haunted by their own emotions than the ghosts around them. It is set in Japan which helps give the book a certain enchanted feel because of the natural and supernatural aspects. While most Supernatural Ghost Story novels are based on Gothic Literature, this one is more reminiscent of a Studio Ghibli anime.
After the death of her mother, photographer Mari Lennox is given an assignment that takes her to her childhood home country of Japan. She is assigned to take pictures of Yanagi
Inn which is near the village where she grew up. After encountering the Inn’s eccentric staff and an abandoned garden, Mari sees a ghost girl named Suzu. Mari befriends Suzu but is consumed by curiosity about who Suzu is, how and where she died, why she seems to know Mari, and what connection that the Inn has with Mari and her family.
There is something haunting and wistful about the setting that Logan captures. Mari’s return to Japan after suffering from a personal loss fills a spiritual connection within her. It’s her home, a place that she can feel secure and gives her a respite. Japan is a place for Mari to return to when she is hurting, wounded, and needs to heal.
The best moments that explore the book’s setting occur in the garden right outside Yanagi Inn. When Mari sees the overgrown hedges and the now disorganized path, she catches an intuitive glimpse of the garden as it was through the little patches of beauty. Mari promises Suzu that she will restore the garden which gives her a sense of purpose and connects her to the spirituality of nature.
The garden is a metaphor for Mari’s grief. It is dead when she processes the death of her mother. As she restores the grounds and brings life to the landscape, she herself comes back to life. Her grief is set aside as she sees others dealing with their own loss. The garden not only heals Mari but others around her as well.
The appearance of Suzu, the ghost girl is a more abstract concept than is found in Western based books about the spirit world. Suzu doesn’t intend to scare anyone but she does get possessive and angry. There are some questions of what she actually is whether she is the ghost of someone who died, an otherworldly spirit or demon, or a manifestation of profound loss and isn’t actually present. It’s less concrete than the usual portrayals of ghosts and the book is all the better for it.
Instead of terror, Suzu carries an aura of sadness about her like she’s reaching out for something or someone. When her true nature is revealed, she inhabits the negative feelings and emotions around her. Suzu becomes a catalyst for other characters to bring that grief and guilt forward and helps them move on from them.
The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn is a healing and meditative book that beautifully uses the setting of the natural and supernatural worlds to bring healing to the characters and maybe the Reader.
Weep, Woman, Weep gives an interesting reinterpretation of the legend of La Llorona from the point of view of two Mexican-American women who are frightened of but are also drawn to the ghostly woman.
Friends, Mercy and Sherry live in a small desert town near Esperanza, New Mexico. They explore their sexuality and the challenges of puberty while trading spooky stories of La Llorona, the legend that haunts the women of their town. Instead of the usual legend where La LLorona’s victims die, the women instead become shells of themselves: docile, obedient, God-fearing, and submissive women. As the two friends grow, Sherry becomes the next woman to go through La Llorona’s transformation. Mercy does everything that she can to not be the ghost’s next victim.
As a first person narrator, Mercy is filled with a lot of anger and sadness. She is surrounded by poverty, domestic violence, addiction, and a strict patriarchal society. Both Mercy and Sherry grew up in fatherless homes and were raised by mothers who were depressed, distant, or abusive. It’s a sad existence in which the two friends just survive and share dreams about marrying wealthy men so they can get out of town and not end up like everyone else around them.
Mercy tells her story with a dry cynicism that displays a world weary. Esperanza is, she says, “a place where you want to be forgotten by the place where you came from.” She interprets La Llorona’s story as a spirit who regretted giving her power to a man, “(La Llorona) regretted being bested by him..Instead, all he brought her was more shame.” She derides the women who have been transformed after encountering La Llorona as “Jesus loving self-righteous prigs that called themselves Spanish-the closest thing to white that they can be…their hearts stopped once they were baptized and feelings were left at the bottom of the river along with their souls.”
It’s significant that in this version of the La Llorona legend, the women do not die. Mercy compares their transformation to a baptism. Instead of physical death, it’s a living death with the loss of personality and individuality. La Llorona is a metaphor for the patriarchal society in which Mercy and Sherry live. The women’s transformations cause them to be willing in the system around them. There’s a possibility that La Llorona was never real and instead was the product of Mercy’s developing mind filled with PTSD from an abused past and anxiety about burgeoning womanhood in such a restricted environment. After all, since Mercy describes the transformations as a baptism, La Llorona could be a stand-in for her feelings about religion, specifically Christianity, and the limitations towards women that are reflected in the scriptural dogma.
Mercy is left with few options, allow La Llorona to take her, succumb to depression and addiction like hers and Sherry’s mothers, or live an independent life. In rebellion against La Llorona and the Christian patriarchy that she represents, Mercy opts for independence.
She lives outside of town on a farm and makes herbal and homeopathic health and beauty aids. The price that she has to pay for fighting against that society is to live outside of it, an exile that she willingly accepts. Townspeople call her a spinster, a whore, and a witch. Mercy lives a lifetime of solitude knowing that La Llorona (or the manifestations of the patriarchy and her fears and anxieties) are waiting to catch and drown her, forcing her to conform. In trying to live her life to spite La Llorona, Mercy instead lives her life more authentically and honestly than many of the men and women around her.
Weep, Woman, Weep transforms the legend of La Llorona into a feminist novel of women who are given the option of falling into the patriarchy or turning away from it and being themselves.
Semicolon: Life Goes On From a Different Perspective: Living With Purpose is a captivating, lyrical, and spiritual book that tells a fantastic story about loneliness, depression, and friendship.
According to the Introduction, this is somewhat based on a true story, a semi autobiographical novel or a literary nonfiction, based on an incident from Aristeguieta’s life. Aristeguita’s author surrogate is Amy, a teenager who has been hospitalized. One night she sees a little boy, Tito standing by her bed and may be a friendly spirit of some sort. Amy is released and she is sent to a boarding school in Mexico. She then befriends Alberto, a talkative and intelligent teen who quickly becomes an interesting and eccentric friend of hers.
Semicolon is a book that asks as many questions as it provides answers, allowing Readers to reach their own conclusions about what they experienced. It is both thought provoking and visceral at the same time. The book’s excellence starts with its lead protagonist. Books about troubled teens are nothing new, but Aristeguieta takes great care to capture a brilliant but fractured mind on the verge of falling into existential loneliness and emotional numbness.
At first there are hints of the cause of her hospitalization but we aren’t told anything specific until after we are introduced to her. She was someone who felt invisible and lived inside her own head. She finds no comfort in her outside existence so she retreated into her own solitude but when even that failed to soothe her, she decided to take her own life.
Throughout the book Tito and Alberto act as spirit guides reflecting on Amy’s development and growing maturity. It is almost like after the hospitalization, Amy goes through childhood and adolescence again so the two boys play those rites of passage in a person's life. Tito takes Amy through astral projection and lucid dreaming to see different perspectives of the world around her. They travel through moments and memories that aren't just Amy’s but people around her. She sees friends and family worried about her or other people in the hospital opening up warmth and empathy within her. She recognizes parts of herself that she thought that she lost. Later, Tito takes her to a park to see balloons and parties resurrecting the lost innocent child that is buried beneath the cynicism. Tito represents Amy’s childhood of easy concepts, pictures, simple words, and fun delightful memories of youth.
Alberto on the other hand represents her teen years, full of questions, confused about the world and her identity, and struggling to find acceptance and understanding. Alberto helps in that respect. He is a more human presence than the ethereal Tito. He engages in intellectual and intuitive conversations with Amy in which they discuss faith, spirituality, and the existence of other worlds and dimensions. He puts Amy's visual time with Tito into words and helps her analyze what it means.
Through her dreams with Tito and conversations with Alberto, Amy goes on a metaphysical journey by means of astral projection, lucid dreaming, and traveling to parallel dimensions which show her a deeper world of love,hope, and the power of one's mind and spirit.
Whether Semicolon is literally or metaphorically true, it is a powerful account of the heart, mind, soul, and spirit.
Cryptic Spaces is a thinking person's Fantasy Adventure. It is the kind of book which stars characters with supernatural gifts but instead of citing them as magical or strictly intuitive, they are more symptoms of an intellectual deep thinking mind. It is a captivating journey of the mind and spirit.
Willoughby Von Brahmer can see numbers and patterns and recognize mathematical equations and solutions. He also can see images in what he calls “spaces between”, the empty areas between solid objects. Some of these images are threatening. That and the glowing of certain numbers like a code lead him to H.S., the enigmatic leader of a Cryptic Spaces, a secret society that studies and solves mysteries and puzzles that have eluded experts for centuries. Other members of the group include Antonio, an architectural genius, Dr. J, a doctor and expert biologist, Sydney a violinist with a gift for music and linguistics, and Hugh, a physicist and expert on string theory.
Cryptic Spaces is a book that activates the mind and imagination by fusing science and magic, reason and romance to make a perfect blend of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Adventure. Mathematical equations are explained in a way that is not only understandable but poetic. The concept of someone seeing numerical patterns and realizing how connected everything is by design and structure is genuinely beautiful. The Golden Mean is seen as golden streams that allow travelers to move through space and time.
Willoughby is shown an image of a Jurassic era sea with a plesiosaur. The plot raises some interesting theories about Nostradamus. The way that characters travel through those between spaces is like seeing a person that you can barely see out of the corner of your eye appear and disappear. Foresight is a book that captures the mind but is also a work of art and imagination.
Foresight is the first book in a series so characters are introduced, the world is explored, abilities are shown, and conflicts begin. Romances bloom and friendships are made. Betrayal and suspicion happens..The Cryptics are a fascinating bunch with diverse talents and peculiarities. It's routine for a first book but with such a fascinating concept like this and a great ensemble in The Cryptics, the formula works well.
Cryptic Spaces combines the reason of the mathematics, the imagination of Fantasy, the wonder of Science Fiction, and the thrill of Adventure.
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