Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman – 25.12.22

Sometimes you just have to cleanse your palate with an old favourite, and this lovely book by the great Neil Gaiman is just that.

Gaiman wrote the screenplay of the BBC series first (in the 1990s), and then the novel is an adaptation/companion to that. I love the series and re-watch it every couple of years and the same for the book.

Set in London below and with clever word plays (or real meanings) of many of the familiar London place names (whitefriars are actual monks, Knightsbridge is a scary bridge through the night, the angel Islington is an angel etc. ) a man from London Above (Richard Mayhew) is drawn into an adventure below when he stops and helps Door, a young woman on the run from two gloriously and humorously wicked thugs, Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar.

One of the first and best urban fantasies, this book fills me with warm, fuzzy, nostalgic, book love.

The Name of the Wind: The Kingkiller Chronicle, Book 1 – Patrick Rothfuss (Audiobook) – 09.12.22

I remember that I bought this book (and its sequel) from Audible because I read an article about the greatest fantasy books of all time, and all the other books on the list were among my favourite ever reads. This book certainly has many great reviews on Amazon, but man, I really didn’t enjoy it.

The audiobook is loooong. 28 hours. And the time did the opposite of flying by.

I just went and looked again at the Amazon ratings, and apart from a few nay-sayers (with whom I totally agree) the fast majority of people rave about how gripping and amazing it is. I’m at a loss. I found the main character annoying. He was instantly good at everything in a totally un realistic way, and for the most part I found the writing boring and the story unengaging. Occasionally I found myself a bit interested, but mostly it just dragged on and on.

I’m slightly conflicted, because I’ve bought the second book, but I really can’t see me wanting to waste any more hours of my life listening to it.

Unraveller – Frances Hardinge – 15.12.22

I don’t read much pure fantasy these days, generally preferring Urban Fantasy or Magical realism books (or just literary fiction) but I do like Frances Hardinge books even though I would class them as pure classical fantasy.

In the world of this book, strange magical spider like creatures have ‘gifted’ humans with the ability to curse other humans if they have strong negative feelings towards them. These curses have devastating effects often physically changing the cursed person into an animal or even an inanimate object.

The book follows Kellen who has the rare gift of unravelling these curses and restoring the person to their human form, and Nettle one of the first people he restored from the bird form that she had been cursed in to.

Like other books by Frances Hardinge, the plot is complex and wide ranging exploring the politics and power structures of the world, but also very approachable with real and interesting characters who the reader can learn to love and root for.

A Frances Hardinge book is always a treat.

A Madness of Angels (Matthew Swift Book 1) – Kate Griffin – 05.12.22

This is a fun introduction to a new (to me) series in the Urban Fantasy genre. It is quite action packed, which would often put me off, but I still very much enjoyed reading this book. Set in a London where various factions of people with different magical abilities co-exist not necessarily peacefully, the book begins with a character having to fight for his/their life/lives (they confusingly sometimes refer to themselves in the singular and sometimes in the plural – the reason for this is eventually explained) without any memory initially of who they are and why they are in this situation.

I enjoyed it, and bought the second book in the series.

What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror (John Dies at the End, Book 3) – David Wong – AUDIOBOOK – Narrator – Stephen R. Thorne – 01.12.22

At Christmas, I persuaded my son and husband to watch the movie adaptation of John Dies at The End with me (I hadn’t seen it before), and I told them that I was reading this book series and loving it (my son was familiar with the author from his podcasts). Well, I have to say that I was a bit embarrassed, because the film (like the books, if I’m honest) is full of schoolboy potty humour and swearing. And yet. And yet… I do love these books. There is just something about them. If you see past the crass jokes and genitalia references, the characters are lovely and flawed and relatable but trying to be good and the plots are clever and inventive and the endings are satisfying. Honest.

Due to John and Dave having taken some weird drug called ‘the sauce’ in book one, they can see all kinds of paranormal things that most people can’t. In this book it a parasitical creature that is turning corpses into zombies.

Lot’s of humour (see above) and horror but also lots of heart and actually really interesting and thoughtful storytelling.

Sweet Harmony – Claire North – 23.11.22

I have such a writer crush on Claire North – (I ❤ her!) and I have yet to read anything by her that I didn’t at least like and usually love. Like all her novels, Sweet Harmony takes a ‘what if’ idea as the central concept and then builds a world around it.

In this case, the what if is ‘what if nanobots were real and everybody who could afford them made their bodies perfect’ . All the knock on effects and follow up questions you might think of on the subject are explored in the experience of the central character.

If you could eat ice-cream and chocolate cake all day and stay slim and healthy, would you? Would you exercise if you didn’t need to to be healthy? Would you make your face/skin/teeth/hair/figure etc ‘perfect’? Would we still need hospitals and health care workers if nanobots could cure everything? How much would they cost? Who could afford it? What would happen if you stopped being able to pay the monthly subscriptions?

Therein lies the tale, and it’s a cracking good one at that!

The Ghost Woods – C.J. Cooke – 21.11.11

I quite liked this book. It is a period piece, about girls sent to a mother and baby home with some unpleasant and eerie secrets. At the beginning of the book, the main character has no memory of how she came to be pregnant and the book slowly unravels her repressed memories along with the secrets of the house. There are some supernatural and magical realism elements, and it is quite spooky, but I didn’t love it as I found myself getting a bit bored of it all in the middle and I was glad when it was finally over.

Small Things Like These – Claire Keegan – 08.11.22

Set in Wexford in Ireland in 1985 this beautiful novella follows Bill, a loving husband and father who works hard selling coal and timber and making deliveries around the town. When he delivers coal to the Magdalen laundry (an institute run by the Catholic Church in Ireland and now famous for the horrible abuse to girls who fell pregnant out of ‘wedlock’ and were sent there) he struggles with his reaction – should he help the girls and risk alienation and persecution in the town very much under the thumb of the church?

I read this short book in one setting, and was enraptured by the fabulous writing and the evocative story.

Once There Were Wolves – Charlotte McConaghy – (BOOKGROUP) – 07.11.22

This was my book group read for November, and as you will see if you look at the My Book Group Reads page of my website, the group had a great discussion based on this (in my opinion at least) fabulous book.

Here’s part of what I wrote about it on my book group reads page:

The story follows Inte, who suffers from mirror image synesthesia and is one of two identical twins while she is in Scotland heading a team re-introducing wild wolves to the ecosystem.

The books seems to span several genres, it’s a murder mystery, a family thriller, a book about nature and ecology and a study on relationships and human behaviour. We talked about all these things, including how our actions and feelings are molded both by our genetics and our experiences, we talked about the shocking prevalence of domestic abuse and child abuse in the world and if this makes us more or less like wild animals.

I loved the book, and the other members in my book group all at least liked it, although so of them found it a bit too strange.

This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It

Book 2 of 4: John Dies at the End   – David Wong – 05.11.22

Book three in this series was in the audible £3 sale, and I had read and enjoyed book one, and owned book two on kindle so I bought book three and read this one to get caught up.

I think David Wong’s writing is genius! The books are goofy in places, and almost a parody of sci fi/horror writing, but never at the expense of great plotting and characterisation.

David, his friend, John, and his girlfriend, Amy, have to fight off evil spider like monsters that no one else can see but that turn their hosts into murderous zombies. They have the help of the amazing Molly the dog who is loyal, intelligent and adorable.

I’m excited to listen to book three now.