Devil’s Call, by J. Danielle Dorn

Devil’s Call

Even though Li Lian was warned that three bad men were on their way to her De Soto, Nebraska home, she was not prepared for what would happen—not that night and not during the long months she would spend tracking down the man who killed her husband. Devil’s Call, by J. Danielle Dorn is a tale in the tradition of Western revenge, but with the added bonus of witchcraft and devilry. You see, Li Lian is a witch from a long line of witches and the man she’s hunting is no ordinary man.

Devil’s Call is told to us directly by Li Lian, though she is narrating what happened to her unborn child. She grew up without knowing the father who gave her Asian eyes and an Asian name. She didn’t want her own child to not know the kindness of her murdered husband. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Li Lian wants her child to understand the choices she made and who she was before she took up her quest for vengeance.

Li Lian tracks back and forth through her life and family history, revealing the witchy history of her female forbearers. While she tells us why the women in her family had to flee their ancestral Scotland, she also traces her too-brief courtship and life with her husband before launching into the steps she took to trace the very bad man who suddenly arrived to destroy her life. Each iteration of these parts of the story takes us deeper into a secret war between witches and the men (or creatures) that have hunted them over the centuries.

Devil’s Call also gets darker and darker as Li Lian learns more about George Dalton, the man (sort of) she is hunting. Dalton is not a hard man to follow, as the line goes, because he leaves dead people everywhere he goes. We know Li Lian will find him. What we don’t know is who will come out on top in the end. This is a tense, gripping read with an ending that turned everything I had learned on its head. Devil’s Call is short, but it packs a hell of a punch.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 18 July 2017.

The Witches of New York, by Ami McKay

The Witches of New York

There is a feeling throughout Ami McKay’s entertaining novel, The Witches of New York, of a gathering storm. A war is brewing in New York between witches and their traditional enemies—people who take Exodus 22:18 very seriously—backed by some very scary demons. As the novel picks up speed, that feeling of dread builds, right up to the nail-bitingly tense ending. I hope that this book has sequels, because I enjoyed my walk on the wild side of a magical fin de siècle New York.

In September of 1880, Beatrice Dunn makes a wish: that she will become the shop assistant at Tea and Sympathy in New York. Because she makes the wish using a witch’s ladder charm, events line up to take her straight there and land the job. Her employers, Eleanor and Adelaide, are real witches and the perfect guides to help Beatrice explore the supernatural. Things aren’t that simple, though Beatrice doesn’t learn this until quite a bit later. Chapters narrated by other characters, accompanied by newspaper clippings and excerpts from a pamphlet by Cotton Mather on how to break a bewitching let us know that Beatrice, Eleanor, and Adelaide face serious danger from the deranged reverend at a nearby church, his equally disturbed organist, and their mysterious patron.

I was less interested in Beatrice (who serves mostly as plot catalyst and character-who-has-things-explained-to-them) than in her employers. Both Eleanor and Adelaide have fascinating and detailed backstories. Through them, we learn about the secret history of witchcraft (Eleanor) and the more scammy side (Adelaide) of fortune-telling and cold reading. Eleanor is cautious, devoted to her craft, and provides some much needed wisdom for Beatrice. Adelaide helps the girl develop confidence, by showing her how to put on a performance. (If this book had been more lighthearted, Adelaide would be a master of headology.)

There is a strong feminist streak in The Witches of New York. The witches, for all their faults, are sympathetically portrayed. Their opposites are very much not. The reverend and the organist, Mrs. Piddock, have the worst traits of un-Christian Christians: judgmental, unforgiving, fundamentalist, Puritanical. Mrs. Piddock is devoted to her faith. She believes she’s doing the right thing by stalking and harassing the witches, trying to keep people away from them. The reverend is a serial killer in the trappings of a witch hunter and man of God. Neither of them has a redeeming feature and there’s no doubt who we’re supposed to root for. I’m all for feminism, but it’s less interesting to me when our nuanced heroes take on unambiguously evil villains.

Much of The Witches of New York has the feel of a first novel in a series. So many characters are introduced (though a few meet a brutal end at the reverend’s hands) that it feels like McKay is setting up a chess board. There’s also a lot more attention paid to world-building than letting the plot race—which explains why this book is nearly 600 pages long. There’s enough episodic action to keep the exposition from slowing the pace too much, but I felt like the book is setting us up for an even longer story. The Witches of New York has a satisfying conclusion, but it leaves unfinished business.

I received a free copy of this book from Edelweiss for review consideration. It will be released 11 July 2017.

The Scribe of Siena, by Melodie Winawer

The Scribe of Siena

When I was younger and just getting into history, I used to think a lot about which time and place I might travel to if I ever got the chance. (Before I got older and realized that I would be burnt as a witch in most times and places.) One of the last times and places I ever wanted to go was 1348 in Europe. Unfortunately for the protagonist of Melodie Winawer’s The Scribe of Siena, that’s exactly where she ends up when she suddenly slips through time.

Dr. Beatrice Trovato has just left a career as a neurosurgeon to take care of her recently deceased brother’s affairs in Siena when, one fine day, she finds herself in 1347. All she knows is that an artist’s journal and one of his surviving frescos has somehow pulled her through the past. Otherwise, Beatrice manages to cope fairly well in the medieval city (barring a few mishaps with sumptuary laws). She lands a job as a scribe—being one of the few people the brothers and sisters at the Ospedale (hospital and pilgrim hostel) who can read and write—after a nun takes pity on her. Beatrice desperately wants to go home. She knows that in only a few months the Black Death will arrive and hit Siena hard.

When she meets the artist who painted the fresco (which has a figure with her face in it), everything changes. Gabriele is a kindred spirit for Beatrice, and it isn’t long before they fall in love. At this point, anyone who’s read Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander is going to start making comparisons. Both female protagonists are doctors who fall through time. Their lovers are curiously understanding men from the past. Beatrice is different from Claire Fraser in that she seems to have a mystical sort of empathy (which ends up being a deus ex machina more than once). Beatrice is also different from Claire in that she seems to travel through time more easily, so The Scribe of Siena has a bit more back and forth with the present than Outlander.

Winawer clearly did a lot of research, but has a light touch with the information. This book is rich with detail. So much that I felt like I was traveling with Beatrice and enjoying the food of pre-tomato Italy. The Scribe of Siena is also jam-packed with plot. Once it gets going, this book races along and Beatrice and her Gabriele have to contend with Yersina pestis and Medici schemes. In spite of its similarities to Outlander and loosey-goosey approach to time travel, I enjoyed The Scribe of Siena.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 16 May 2017.

Winter Tide, by Ruthanna Emrys

Winter Tide

Though I haven’t read any of his stories myself, I can understand why Lovecraft‘s Cthulu mythos appeals to other writers. It’s so sprawling that one writer, even if they lived to ripe old age, wouldn’t have enough time to tell all of the stories. It’s also got problems with inclusivity, enough that writers like Victor LaValle and Matt Haig have staked a claim on the mythos for African Americans. In Winter Tide, Ruthanna Emrys has done something similar for women and LGBTQ people.

In 1928, Aphra Marsh was taken, along with all of the inhabitants of Innsmouth, into the American desert in the mistaken belief that they were unnatural monsters. In truth, Aphra and her family are just another kind of human. By the time we meet her, Aphra has managed to rebuild her life on the west coast and is trying to put the past behind her as much as possible. Unfortunately, her knowledge of her family’s lore and magic make her the perfect agent to investigate FBI agent Ron Spector’s latest case. Even more unfortunately for Aphra, the case will take her back to Massachusetts and old wounds.

Winter Tide is a meandering tale, which is fitting considering that the main character is tied to water by nature. The beginning of the book makes one feel a bit of urgency, but the plot takes its time. The case offers a bit of structure while Aphra takes on more magical students, reconnects with family, thwarts and is thwarted by various plots, tangles with creatures beyond space and time, and more. This is very much a book to sink into rather than be carried away by—unless you’re a geek like me who really digs reading about the strange books of Miskatonic University. To enjoy this book, one has to go with the flow.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 4 April 2017.

An Almond for a Parrot, by Wray Delaney

An Almond for a Parrot

Wray Delaney has concocted a delightfully scandalous historical fantasy in An Almond for a Parrot. In this wild tale, Tully Truegood tells us about her strange life—from her less than auspicious beginnings on London’s Milk Street as the daughter of a drunkard to the reason she is sitting in prison about to face trial for murder. Along the way there are chases, kidnappings, salacious details about life in a brothel, true love, ghosts, and magic.

I had no idea what I was in for when I started reading An Almond for a Parrot. The beginning of the book introduces us to Tully, who is pregnant and accused of murder, before taking us back to her tough life on Milk Street. Tully—who introduces many chapters with recipes—was mostly brought up by her drunken father’s cook before he noticed her when she turned 12. Being noticed by her father was not a good thing. Before she knew it, she was married off to a boy scarcely older than she was in a half-cocked plan to net her father some money. Tully’s next turning point is when she meets her father’s second wife (another half-cocked plan) and later learns that the woman is a madam.

As if all this weren’t enough for one life, Tully also sees ghosts and can make them appear to other people. Her growing abilities are a constant sub-plot running through the book. After she makes her escape from her father’s house, Tully is taken in by her ersatz step-mother and her conjuring partner—which leads to a dual career as prostitute and magician (though she and the conjurer never use that title for themselves). Tully is often a terrible prostitute. Not because she hates the work. (She is rather fond of the act.) The problem is that Tully keeps falling in love with her clients. Before the plot gets more sinister, the first half of the book is wryly funny.

I would have thought combining an already exciting plot with a weirder one would have overstuffed this novel, but it doesn’t, for some reason. It just added spice to the novel. If nothing else, the magical elements made for a thrilling (if slightly too-convenient) ending. After a couple of rough reads, An Almond for a Parrot was a very enjoyable read. Though it delves into some dark topics, it was original, daring, and quite fun. I look forward to whatever Wray Delaney comes up with next.

I received a free copy of this book from Edelweiss for review consideration. It will be released 28 February 2017.

The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden

The Bear and the Nightingale

In The Bear and the Nightingale, by Katherine Arden, creatures and characters from Russian folklore barge into ordinary life and wreak havoc for Vasilisa Petrovna. Fittingly, the novel opens with a story about Morozko, the winter-king, who rewards the brave with riches but allows the cowardly and selfish to freeze. Russian folklore pulls no punches.

After the story about Morozko that sets the tone for the rest of The Bear and the Nightingale, the narrative takes us back a set to learn about the hardscrabble life of a boyar family in the wilderness north of Moscow sometime during the reign of the Golden Horde. Vasilisa Petrovna has always been a bit odd—talking to people no one else can see, an uncanny ability to work with horses, general uppityness that drives her father nuts—but her strangeness starts to cause real trouble after her father remarries a deeply religious, but deeply fearful woman. Anna Ivanova can also see the domovoi, bannik, and the rest and it is starting to drive her mad. She uses religion to keep it away as much as possible, though she has a tough fight ahead of her since the rest of the household and village are still mostly pagan.

Events really come to a head when a new priest comes from Moscow to replace the older, more tolerant priest. Konstantin Nikonovich begins a crusade against the old ways, unwittingly destabilizing an ancient magic spell that is keeping everyone safe from a creature that wants to devour them all. In Konstantin’s first few weeks in the village, he’s a nuisance to Vasilisa Petrovna. But in the best fanatical fashion, Konstantin Nikonovich begins to put the fear into the villagers. Before long, it’s starting to look a lot like Salem in this place at the end of the great Russian forest.

The Bear and the Nightingale is a novel of many layers. At the top, we get a gripping story of a girl getting into adventures. Another layer is feminist, as Vasilisa Petrovna finds the will to defy the men in her life who would boss her around. Another layer addresses the conflict of beliefs: old animism versus new Christianity. The top layer of adventure keeps things interesting, while the others leave plenty to think about after the last page.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 10 January 2017.

The Cold Eye, by Laura Anne Gilman

The Cold Eye

I have been eagerly awaiting the released of The Cold Eye, by Laura Anne Gilman, since I read the book that opened the series. This novel opens soon after the end of Silver on the Road, with Isobel and Gabriel traveling north across the Territory to find new wrongs to put right. Isobel is still learning the limits of her powers and jurisdiction as the Devil’s Left Hand and The Cold Eye very much focuses on the ruthlessness of frontier justice.

The Cold Eye takes some time to gain traction. To be honest, there were some repetitive passages that I skipped. I know that series are tricky, especially if they’re set in something other than our reality, because readers may have forgotten details from earlier entries. The first half of The Cold Eye is full of reiterations of Isobel’s original oath and titles that were unnecessary. These bogged down the plot while Isobel and Gabriel investigate a curious absence of magic in the northern Territory that seems to be causing earthquakes and depopulation.

Once Isobel and Gabriel figure out what’s going on—dangerous, hubristic magical doings that may be the opening salvo in a land grab by the neighboring United States—The Cold Eye finally starts to pick up. New characters step on to the page and we start to learn more about this strange reality in which the middle part of the North American continent is claimed by the Devil and where people who want to be left to their own devices call home.

What I found most interesting in this novel came in the second half of the book, when Isobel is forced to work in the space between established justice and magical justice. What happens in this book is beyond what anyone has ever had to deal with. There’s a chance that guilty people will escape to cause further harm to the Territory. Because there is no law against what they did, should they be allowed to go free? Can Isobel become an executioner in addition to her usual job of putting the land right? Answering these questions is a vital part of Isobel’s journey; it’s a pity that it took so long to get to them.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley for review consideration. It will be released 10 January 2017.

Babayaga, by Toby Barlow

Babayaga

Will van Wyck is an ordinary advertising man, working in France around 1960. On the side, he provides reports on various companies to a man who works for the CIA. This is about as much excitement as he can safely handle. When he gets involved with the mysterious Zoya, a woman who will hex you as soon as look at you, and with the chatty, Oliver, who drags Will much farther into the world of espionage than he really wanted. Toby Barlow’s imaginative Babayaga begins with separate plot threads narrated by Will, Zoya, and several other characters, slowly pulling them all together in a climactic and heart-wrenching ending.

The first chapters of Babayaga clue readers into the fact that this is no ordinary tale of the Cold War. Within pages, we learn that Zoya is much older than she appears to be and that she is planning to kill her lover in a particularly gruesome way. He’s not a bad man; it’s just that this is the end of one story and time for Zoya to move on. In comparison, Will’s narrative is dull and takes much longer to kick into gear. Will’s trouble with the law begins when Oliver and his associates blackmail him into sharing his company’s research with them. They never say who they’re working for, but Will almost drops dead of shock when one of his reports turns up at the Soviet Embassy.

Some readers may be frustrated with how long it takes for Zoya and Will’s plots to come together. We have to trust that what Barlow wrote into the book will eventually reveal its purpose. So, it’s a bit of a wait while the detective trying to track Zoya is turned into a flea by the witch’s nemesis, an even older sorceress, various affairs are revealed, and Will trails around after Oliver on one unexplained errand after another. Weirdly, this book felt longer than its almost 400 pages.

Perhaps this is because nostalgia is a prominent theme in this book. Many of the characters—except for Will, who is a youngster compared to everyone else in this book—reflect on life during World War II, between the wars, the Russian Revolution, and earlier. Apart from Will, they’ve lost their innocence and their ability to trust others. There is a lot of history packed into this book, wrapped up in a lot of world-weariness.

All that said, I’m glad I stuck with Babayaga. My quick summary doesn’t do justice to how interesting all the characters in this book are. In each chapter, there are flashbacks or clues that explain backstories and motivations. And, given, Zoya and her nemesis’s powers and all the spies running around, this version of Paris felt deliciously dangerous. Plus, there’s the ending where everything comes together. It’s beautiful how all the loose ends get tied up.

I was also fascinated to see what Barlow was up to with gender in this novel. Power flips constantly between the men and women in Babayaga, so that the upper hand keeps changing from one to the other. For most of the book, I had no idea who would win. There are occasional zings in the text as a character of a different gender will have a thought similar to another but with an important reversal. For example, one male character believes that women have cold hands because their biology routes blood to their ovaries and uteruses. Later, a female character thinks that women have cold hands because the blood is need for their brains. Ultimately, the women in this book kick some serious ass and I whole-heartedly approve of books in which women kick patriarchal ass. Even if they are witches who kill people.

The Devourers, by Indra Das

The Devourers

Alok shouldn’t trust the stranger he meets at a baul (a musical performance by Bengali mystics). The stranger tells him this more than once as he pulls Alok into the story of his past. Even though Alok is a history professor, he has to know more about the stranger’s story of werewolves, rakshasas, and a Mughal woman who was unfortunate enough to draw the attention of a monster. The Devourers, by Indra Das, is a strange history of creatures from folklore who are uncomfortable in all of their skins.

Though the novel is framed by Alok’s acquaintance with the stranger, who asks him to transcribe what he claims are ancient documents, the bulk of the novel tells the story of a werewolf who has learned to feel guilty for his killings and long for the love of a human. The stranger claims to be a half werewolf and his story is hypnotic to Alok. As Alok gets deeper and deeper into the stranger’s stories, he gradually shakes off his postmodern skepticism and take most of what the stranger claims at face value. More than anything else, he has to know what happens next.

In current contemporary fantasy, werewolves run a close second to vampires as objects of forbidden desire. In The Devourers, the werewolves (drawn from various folklores) really are forbidden. Their own laws prohibit them from having any contact with humans other than to hunt and eat them. And yet, Fenrir (who named himself after the wolf of Norse mythology) is fascinated by these short-lived beings. Unlike werewolves, humans can create. In India, during the construction of the Taj Mahal, Fenrir sees a woman who isn’t automatically terrified of his wild-looking, smelly self. The first document Alok transcribes is Fenrir’s tale of how he came to “love” the woman, Cyrah, and his desire to make a child with a human.

The second document contains Cyrah’s story. After Fenrir’s rape, she makes a deal with the werewolf’s former pack mate to track him down. She plans to make Fenrir suffer some kind of retribution, though she’d be the first to admit that she doesn’t know what that punishment will be or how she will mete it out. But as we’ve learned from Alok and the stranger, two people can’t stay in close contact and share their stories without learning to find what they have in common. Cyrah and Gévaudan (named for the region he came from in France, which would later suffer attacks from the Beast of Gévaudan) are enemies at first, then partners, then something like friends.

Most of The Devourers is violent and full of gore. (I lost count of the number of people who got eaten.) By the end of the novel, however, powerful themes about identity emerge. Though the werewolves have their own culture, some of them can’t forget that they were once human. They regret what they’ve lost. Once that happens, they can’t quite go back to being rapacious werewolves. (Well, they kind of can, but they feel guilty about it.) The Devourers is very much a story of beings stuck between cultures and worlds.

The Devourers is also about story and folklore. It’s possible to trace some folk tales to actual history. The stranger’s story is just like one of those tales. The real story is awful (in both senses of the word) and messy and full of mistakes. Over time, the rough edges get smoothed away and details get reshaped into a mythology of demons and protector goddesses and great, heroic drama.

I’ve heard raves about The Devourers since it started appearing in pre-publication alerts. Now that I’ve read it, I completely understand. This book is a blending of so many things I enjoy in fiction—history behind folklore, monsters being monsters, a setting that I’ve never been to in a novel before—that, even though it is very violent, I would recommend it in a heartbeat to adventurous readers.

The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey

The Snow Child

It was pure whimsy that led Mabel out into the snow to start a snowfight with her husband, Jack, and build a snow-girl with him. Until that point, they had been having a rough time on their Alaskan homestead. The couple were running low on money and supplies. The winter of 1920 might be their last in the wilderness before they had to pack it in and go back east. The morning after Mabel and Jack made the snow-girl, they found it destroyed and started to see a small girl running in the woods nearby. From this point on, it’s hard to tell if The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey, is historical fiction or fantasy because we can never really know if Faina is the Snow Maiden from the Russian folktale or the orphaned daughter of a Russian trapper.

Long before we get to know Faina, we learn about what made Mabel ask her husband to set up a homestead in Alaska. They used to live in Pennsylvania on a prosperous farm, surrounded by Jack’s family. But Mabel never really fit in. After their only child was stillborn, Mabel convinced Jack that they should move to Alaska, to a life much harder than she ever realized. Much of The Snow Child is a survival story, in which Mabel and Jack weather various disasters and calamities that ruin or kill them.

After Faina appears, the novel revolves around winters. Faina only shows up after the first snow and disappears before the spring breakup. Though she is very young, she resists all efforts to stay in civilization. Fortunately, she has learned to take care of herself. She is hardy and canny—more than Jack and Mabel are. Curiously, Mabel is more accepting of Faina’s absences when she believes that the girl might actually be the Snow Maiden from folklore.

The frontier, at least in fiction, is a strange place where reality is simultaneously more and less real. On the one hand, a mistake or an accident can kill. Settlers have to plan ahead and take care to survive. On the other hand, without others to argue and contradict, a settler might become convinced that they are fostering a girl who walked out of a Russian story book and that this is entirely logical. Perhaps it’s a product of being alone too much, but it certainly makes like more interesting. The Snow Child is a wonderful examination of this strange dichotomy.