Date Read: July 18
Author: Jeannette Ng
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 3/5
Catherin Helstone’s older brother, Reverend Laon Helstone, is a missionary in the land of the fae. When months go by without any correspondence from him, she goes after him to make sure that he is okay, but she finds more than she was looking for.
Do not shame me for knowledge that has been denied me. Do not patronize me over the position to which I have been born.
– Under the Pendulum Sun
Date Read: July 17
Author: Carrie Vaughn
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4/5
Two decades after defeating the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin of Locksley and his wife, Marian, have three children. Life isn’t perfect, but it’s happy. When the children are stolen away by unknown strangers, Robin and Marian must rescue their children before it’s too late.
She didn’t fit into her own skin, mostly because she wasn’t sure what that skin was meant to do.
– The Ghosts of Sherwood
Date Read: July 17
Author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4/5
In 1988, Meche was best friends with a boy named Sebastian. They discovered the secrets of music and magic together until their friendship was torn apart. In 2009, Meche returns for her father’s funeral, and might get one last chance to see Sebastian again.
And that was that. You don’t get to rewind your life like a tape and splice it back together, pretending it never knotted and tore, when it did and you know it did.
– Signal to Noise
Date Read: July 16
Author: Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: 5/5
In Norway, on Christmas Eve, 1617, all the men of Vardø drown in a sudden storm. The women who are left behind try to make a new life for themselves, only to be interrupted by the arrival of Absalom Cornet from Scotland, a man who has been sent to find witches. Based on the 1620 Norwegian witch trials.
Many of them seem past caring what is true or not, only desperate for some reason, some order to the rearrangement of their lives, even if it is brought about by a lie.
– The Mercies
Date Read: July 14
Author: Stephen Graham Jones
Genre: Horror
Rating: 5/5
Four American Indian men find themselves struggling for their lives after a hunting incident years earlier, in their youth. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough: it is creepy, well-written, and kept me up for a long time after I finished reading it. It’s by the same author as Mongrels, which was the book of the month for February.
Wouldn’t that be the best revenge? Death is too easy. Better to make every moment of the rest of a person’s life agony.
– The Only Good Indians
Date Read: July 14
Author: Jim Ottaviani
Illustrator: Leland Purvis
Genre: Comic
Rating: 3/5
I didn’t realize that this was a comic when I checked it out digitally from the library. I’m sure that it’s an excellent comic and a good telling of Alan Turing’s story, but it was difficult to read on a kindle.
Date Read: July 13
Author: A. J. Hackwith
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4/5
In Hell, the Unwritten Wing is a neutral area which houses all of the stories unwrittten and unfinished by authors both living and dead. Claire is the Head Librarian. It is her job to keep the stories from escaping or materializing as characters. When she chases a materialized Hero up onto Earth, she finds herself involved in a power struggle between Heaven and Hell.
Forgiven doesn’t mean no regret. We’ll always regret the wrongs we’ve done. It just means you aren’t punishing yourself for it.
– The Library of the Unwritten
Date Read: July 12
Author: Deborah Feldman
Genre: Autobiography
Rating: 5/5
Born into the strictly religious sect of Hasidic Judaism, Deborah Feldman grew up surrounded by rules and customs from what she could wear to whom she was allowed to speak to. After marrying and giving birth to a son as a teenager, Deborah decides that she must escape with her son.
I can’t bear the thought of living an entire lifetime on this planet and not getting to do all the things I dream of doing, simply because they aren’t allowed. I don’t think it will ever be enough, this version of freedom, until it is all-inclusive. I don’t think I can be happy unless I’m truly independent.
– Unorthodox
Date Read: July 11
Author: Melanie Raabe
Genre: Thriller
Original Language: German
Rating: 2/5
I was really excited by the premise of this book: an author who witnessed her sister’s murder writes a book to trap the murderer. Once I started reading, I discovered the actual book’s writing to be clunky, and the interjections of the book the main character were distracting and even worse. I’m not sure if it was a translation problem, as the book was originally written in German, or if the book was just poorly written, but I couldn’t enjoy it.
Stars only have one means of telling us that they no longer exist: they stop shining.
– The Trap
Date Read: July 10
Author: Sarah Gailey
Genre: Fantasy / Historical Fiction
Rating: 4/5
In the early 20th century, the United States government briefly discussed a plan to import hippopotamuses into Louisiana as an alternative source of meat. The plan was turned down, but… what if it had succeeded? In River of Teeth, Sarah Gailey explores a United States full of feral hippopotamuses in the Mississippi, and the mercenary hippo wranglers hired to get them under control.
I regret nothing; it was worth it for the hats alone.
– River of Teeth
Zoey's Year in Books 2020