Review: ASUNDER by Kerstin Hall

Jul 262024
 

Reactor: I had no idea what to expect when I opened to the first page of Asunder. Kerstin Hall has cemented herself as a brilliantly unpredictable writer. Her surrealist concepts are unlike any other, and she’s unafraid to go to the darkest, weirdest places. Asunder shines as a uniquely ambitious accomplishment among her stellar catalog, and I need you to know that the description I’m about to give pales in comparison to the vibrancy of the actual text. In a world of many gods and demons, we meet Karys, a death speaker, an ability which allows her to peer beyond the veil and recall the whispers of those that have passed. She uses this in a sort of freelance detective capacity, and is on a gig when the Constructs—translucent monsters that eat humans whole—find her. While running from the Constructs she collides with Ferain Taliade, a dying man who has managed to stay just slightly out of reach of the monsters and desperately needs her help. She agrees to magically bind him to her so he’ll stay alive, but he’s sort of living inside her now, which is inconvenient in a lot of ways. Especially considering she’s secretly the vassal for a very powerful eldritch being, not to mention the type of person who keeps getting pulled into dangerous situations. This is a complex, emotional rollercoaster from Hall that grabs you from the first page and never lets go. Oh and also, in this one they use big dogs like taxis.

Review: HEIRESS TAKES ALL by Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka

Jul 242024
 

Shelf Awareness: Heiress Takes All is an exciting heist novel filled with “ruthlessness, danger, and indulgence” that has sky-high stakes and captivating family dynamics.

Olivia, whose multimillionaire father cheated on her mom and cut them both off financially, plans a heist to steal from her dad “the way the past few years have [been] stolen from her.” The green-eyed, no-longer-spray-tanned 17-year-old “ex-heiress” meticulously assembles a ragtag crew and crafts “The Plan”: attend her father’s “highest-of-high-society” third wedding, steal the passcode to his offshore accounts, and unload millions into her and her associates’ bank accounts. What Olivia doesn’t plan for is a cheating ex-boyfriend trying to prove he’s trustworthy, a “lapdog-like” guest who wants to be “part of stuff,” and a cunning second wife out for revenge. As Olivia’s house-of-cards plan teeters on the edge of collapse, she must be resourceful to overcome the obstacles and enact her retribution.

This rousing high-stakes revenge plot from Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka (If I’m Being Honest) goes beyond the typical heist story to incorporate complex parent-child relationships and discussions of wealth and poverty. Included in this novel are unexpected twists, betrayals, and distractions, but what gives depth to the story is Olivia wrestling with her “daughterly loyalty” to her father. The authors deftly show Olivia’s conflicting feelings about her privilege and how her relationship with her father has affected her relationship with others and herself. This rousing vengeful story about seeking justice will delight and entice.

Starred Review: THE LAST BOYFRIENDS RULES FOR REVENGE by Matthew Hubbard

Jul 172024
 

School Library Journal: Hubbard’s debut is a clever, funny, coming-of-age romance where teens who are being silenced for who they are learn to fight for what they believe in, and in the process revolutionize a whole freedom movement. Ezra and his best friends Finley and Lucas are out for revenge against their ex-boyfriends for the way they were humiliated during their relationships. Their plans for revenge are full of the antics reminiscent of 1990s teen comedies. But these antics are set in today’s Alabama where a school district is enforcing their campaign of “Watch What You Say” to silence LGBTQIA+ students and maintain the old “family traditions.” As each boy enacts his revenge, they learn more about themselves and the idea of forgiveness, but they get the notice of the school board who want them silenced. When Ezra decides to run for Winter Formal King against his ex-boyfriend things begin to get serious as some adults take to harassing him to stop. Witty dialogue abounds; Hubbard’s ability to add humor amidst serious moments is truly a wonderful gift. The friendship between the boys is written so well, readers will want to hang out with them. And Ezra’s dad couldn’t be a more perfect single dad. VERDICT This book is already getting social media buzz, so students are going to gravitate to it. The messages within this lovely, powerful novel will give courage to teens to believe in themselves no matter what path in life they follow.–Maria Ramusevic

Review: REMEMBER YOU WILL DIE by Eden Robins

Jul 082024
 

Shelf Awareness: Eden Robins (When Franny Stands Up) has written a smashingly good second novel, an utterly imaginative, genre-defying masterpiece: Remember You Will Die. Her blunt title is an accurate barometer that the end is nigh. In fact, the dead populate most of these pages. Their stories are revealed predominantly through obituaries that range from deeply soulful to delightfully guffaw-inducing. In between are occasional newspaper articles, lists, notes, word etymologies, and other ephemera that highlight death. Loosely, cleverly bound together, the narrative that emerges spotlights a singular mother/daughter relationship that will require 300 years of background to understand… (full review)

Review: Countess by Suzan Palumbo

Jul 032024
 

Publishers Weekly: This swashbuckling, planet-hopping riff on The Count of Monte Cristo from Palumbo (Skin Thief) follows Virika Sameroo, who, having emigrated as a child from the Exterran Antilles to Invicta, the capital planet of the Æerbot Empire, is determined to break through the poverty and prejudice that centuries of colonization have inflicted on her people. She becomes the first Exterran Antillean commissioned to an Æerbot spaceship, the Oestra—but as a woman and an Exterran, Virika is not trusted by her crew, and one officer in particular, Lieutenant Lyric, despises her for refusing his sexual advances. When Oestra’s captain falls ill and puts Virika in command, she brings the ship home to visit her mother and her lover. Their reunion is cut short when the captain dies—and Virika is arrested for his murder. Wrongfully sentenced to life in prison, she plots revenge against the empire. After escaping, briefly joining a band of pirates, and taking on the sobriquet the Countess, she leads the Antilleans into a rebellion against Invicta. Palumbo’s post-colonial space opera take on Dumas’s novel moves at a whiplash-inducing pace. Evocative descriptions, especially of food, add texture, though a late twist disappoints. It’s not perfect, but fans of speculative revamps of classics will find plenty to enjoy.

Review: Sheine Lende by Darcie Little Badger

Jun 202024
 
Locus: Like Elatsoe, Sheine Lende is much more chill than your typical YA fantasy or YA mystery. The stakes are high, but it never feels stressful. There is little on-the-page violence, and even when things get heavy or dangerous, the reader always feels safe. Little Badger guides the reader through a fascinating world. The pace is gradual without being too slow, and is light on action. Things take the time they take. Little Badger doesn’t skip the reader ahead or speed things up for the sake of drama.
You don’t need to have read Darcie Little Badger’s Elatsoe to enjoy Sheine Lende, although it helps. This is a great novel to give to tweens and teens who like mysteries and fantasy but either aren’t ready for or aren’t interested in plots with romance or more mature action sequences. It reminds me a lot of Cynthia Letitch Smith’s Harvest House, another great YA mystery about Indigenous teens dealing with a disappearance and colonial violence. Darcie Little Badger is so good at what she does, and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.

Review: LOKA by S.B. Divya

Jun 192024
 

Publishers Weekly: The warmhearted and immersive second sci-fi adventure in Divya’s Alloy Era series (after Meru) follows teen best friends as they circumnavigate a post–climate change Earth. Akshaya grew up in deep-space exile after her parents gave up their place on Earth to be together. Genetically engineered to thrive on Meru, the planet home her parents have fought so hard for, Akshaya dreams instead of adventures back on Earth. She and her mother strike a deal: if Akshaya and her friend Somya can complete the Anthro Challenge, a journey around the globe using only human-era technology, Jayanthi must give her the choice to stay on Earth. As she and Somya make new friends and battle mounting obstacles, including Akshaya’s own precarious health, Akshaya begins to question everything she thought she wanted. Informed by the author’s experiences working in science and engineering, and struggles with long-Covid-induced chronic fatigue syndrome, the narrative explores questions of belonging and friendship with a clear-eyed precision, bringing to mind the heartfelt emotion of Becky Chambers’s Wayfarers series and the worldbuilding and deep ethical questions of The Terraformers by Analee Newitz. Teen and adult readers alike will easily fall in love with Akshaya and Somya. Agent: Cameron McClure, Donald Maass Agency. (Aug.)

Review: Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera

Jun 172024
 
Locus: To quote Tom Clancy (or was it Jeff Bezos?), it takes ten years to become an overnight success. I suspect Vajra Chandrasekera can relate. He spent a decade working on his craft, with short fiction published in various genre magazines and anthologies. Then, last year, Chandrasekera published his first novel, The Saint of Bright Doors, which immediately caught fire, drawing plaudits and praise from critics and fans. Fast-forward to the present day, and the novel has been nominated for multiple prizes (the Hugo, the Nebula, the Lammy) and recently took home the Crawford award. I featured The Saint of Bright Doors on my Locus ‘‘Year in Review’’ essay and spoke ecstatically about the novel on The Writer and the Critic podcast. What makes it such an astonishingly good debut is Chandraesekera’s boldness – the imaginative, radical manner in which he fuses science fiction and fantasy, social realism, and surrealism. But if The Saint of Bright Doors is an experimental novel in (mostly) conventional storytelling clothing, Rakesfall bares it all, a full-frontal deconstruction of narrative and genre.
The patchwork, ‘‘fix-up’’ quality of Rakesfall means it never settles into a narrative groove. The setting, the voice, and the structure regularly change, forcing the reader to pause, to re-evaluate what’s happening. But while I might have been bewildered, I never felt lost. If anything, my mind was all abuzz, striving to keep hold of the threads, the intricate web, that ties these lives, these realities together.
What propels the narrative isn’t so much the dramatic set pieces (though the novel isn’t short on those; several of the chapters set in the far future are genuinely jaw-dropping) but the constant flood of ideas and new ways of thinking and perceiving the world. Chandrasekera reconceptualises Hindu and Buddhist beliefs such as akasha or the Akashic Record. He reframes Sri Lanka’s history of European colonialism as a play with a distinctively postmodern vibe. He brilliantly breaks the narrative to tell us a fable about Heroes, Wasps, and Kings and deliberately leaves out the moral (because ‘‘this is history rather than a story’’). He depicts a far future where tech lords and multinationals have devastated the Earth and have now colonised digital space, including the singularity. And undergirding this flurry of invention is a voice that is sometimes plain, sometimes wry and knowing, but more often than not overwhelmed with grief and anger. And even here, when the story is at its most vibrant, there’s an awareness, a recognition that a novel this playful, erudite, and caustic has its limits when recalling the histories, the stories, and the beliefs of those who died for the sake of Empire, progress and profit. Rakesfall may not seem as polished as The Saint of Bright Doors, but in my mind, it cements Chandraesekera as one of the genre’s most important, most vital voices.

Starred Review: ASUNDER by Kerstin Hall

Jun 142024
 

Publishers Weekly: In this dazzling and eclectic fantasy from Hall (Star Eater), a scrappy, foul-mouthed medium wrangles with an impressively imagined cohort of skin thieves, smugglers, and shape-shifters—as well as her own inner demons. At 17, Karys Eska ran away from an abusive father and sold her soul to the god Sabaster to become a deathspeaker, one able to communicate with the deceased. When, years later, a job gone wildly wrong leaves her stranded in a sea cave, a stranger saves her life. Feraine Taliade turns out to be a diplomat from a neighboring country who survived an assassination attempt that left him badly wounded. Karys tries to use her powers to save him—and by fluke instead attaches him to her as her shadow. At first merely awkward, the situation quickly proves perilous; the assassins now pursue Karys as she sets out in search of a magic that can separate her from Feraine. Along the way, the pair become emotionally attached, but the odds that both of them will survive a powder-and-potion-induced separation are slim. Adding to the danger, Sabaster grows increasingly persistent in summoning Karys to his underworld, where he aims to make her his bride. Though extraordinarily complex, the plot never loses focus or pace. With elements of gut-turning horror, adventure, and romance, this is a powerhouse.

Review: THE EVER KING audiobook by LJ Andrews

Jun 122024
 

AudioFile: Lucy Rivers and Will Thorne energize each other as dual narrators of this steamy fantasy-romance blending pirates, fae, and Vikings. Erik rules Ever Kingdom, but that rule is compromised by the man who murdered his father and trapped Erik in the underwater world called the Ever Realm. When Livia, the daughter of the man responsible for trapping Erik, accidentally breaks the Ever Realm open, Erik rages out to avenge his father’s death–but not if Livia can capture his heart first. Rivers provides a captivating portrayal of headstrong, passionate Livia. The sensual encounters crackle with erotic tension as Livia’s voice catches and becomes increasingly breathy. This engaging dark fantasy-romance is best listened to with headphones. J.M.M. © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2024]

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