Zen Cho: Sorcerer to the Crown
I knew early on that if it hadn’t been for Halloween Bingo I’d have DNF’d this book, and I was tempted to do just that right until the very end. When I began composing this post, I didn’t think I was going to write much more than “infantile drivel” in my summary of Cho’s book, […]
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Priscilla Royal: Wine of Violence
The first book of Priscilla Royal’s longstanding medieval mystery series focusing on Eleanor, Prioress of (fictional) Tyndall Priory in Norfolk. This is a series I’ve long wanted to start and that I had penciled in as a “definite” for this year’s bingo. In fact, by the time I began reading this book, I had already […]
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Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (eds.); Various Authors: A Wolf at the Door and Other Retold Fairy Tales
Considering that according to the preface the authors of this collection are supposed to be exploring “the dark side” of fairy tales, most of the stories here come across as unexpectedly light and fluffy. Maybe this is due to the fact that I actually grew up with the real thing — the Grimm Brothers’, Hans […]
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Nina Blazon: Siebengeschichten
A collection of short stories featuring ghosts and other supernatural elements, set in places ranging from Ireland, England and the U.S. to Sweden, Iceland, France and Japan. (Perhaps a minor point, but why not also in the author’s own Germany and Slovenia? Indeed, in some — though not all — of the stories the choice […]
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Halloween Bingo 2019: The First Week
So, on the plus side, despite serious RL interventions progress on my card is well under way, with four squares (including the centre / free / raven square) marked “called and read”; three of these in a row — plus reading for the remaining two squares of that row also in progress — and several […]
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James Hilton: Was it Murder?
My 2019 pre-bingo read and actually a fairly decent start into the game. And yes, this is “the” James Hilton of Goodbye Mr. Chips and Lost Horizon — actually, in a number of ways this book was probably Hilton’s dry run for Goodbye Mr. Chips. Hilton’s protagonist jokingly describes writing a novel a young […]
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Agatha Christie: The Regatta Mystery and Other Stories
I decided I needed a palate cleanser towards the end of the week, and there’s nothing better than a book by Agatha Christie to serve that purpose. (Since she is also one of my quintessential “go to” bingo authors, it seemed only fitting to use this collection for the center / raven square.) I know […]
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Silvia Moreno-Garcia: Gods of Jade and Shadow
A (largely) modernized retelling of the Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the Mayas, set in 1920s Mexico. The beginning easily draws the reader in, Casiopeia is a likeable enough (and well-drawn enough) heroine, and the book has an — albeit somewhat sketchy — recognizable 1920s atmosphere with an initial rural Yucatán setting that likewise […]
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