Read it or Weep

Before the New Year,
We share what we liked the best;
Mine are in haiku:

Maeve Fly by CJ Leede --
Haven't finished yet,
But the writing is so good.
Hope I don't get scared. 

All-Night Pharmacy by Ruth Madievsky --
Family addictions,
Trauma from the old country,
Trip to Moldova. 

Covenant with the Vampire by Jeanne Kalogridis -- 
Dracula's nephew
Learns uncle is a monster,
Very cool castle.

Netsuke by Rikki Ducornet -- 
Therapist sleeps with
Quite a few of his patients.
Has his own problems.

Hawksmoor by Peter Ackroyd --
Anachronistic
Layers of reality
Murder in time-loop.

Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf by David Madsen -- 
Ribald renaissance
Adventure of epic scale
Plus potty humor.

The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer -- 
"When Christ calls a man,
He bids him come and die" was 
quoted from this book.

The Red-Headed Pilgrim by Kevin Maloney -- 
He tries really hard 
To be so cool and so free,
But he just isn't.

The Seventh Mansion by Maryse Meijer --
Ecosensitive
Loner teen has an affair
With a skeleton. 

The Nuns of Sant'Ambrogio by Hubert Wolf -- 
Once there were some nuns
Who committed loads of crimes,
Truly a scandal.

• Touched by Walter Mosley : “Martin Just wakes up one morning after what feels like, and might actually be, a centuries-long sleep with two new innate piecesof knowledge: Humanity is a virus destined to destroy all existence. And he is the Cure. Martin begins slipping into an alternate consciousness, with new physical strengths, to violently defend his family–the only Black family in their neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles– against pure evil. Think Octavia Butler meets Jeff VanderMeer meets Jordan Peele.”
• The New Life: A Novel by Tom Crewe : “In the summer of 1894, John Addington and Henry Ellis begin writing a book arguing that homosexuality, which is a crime at the time, is a natural, harmless variation of human sexuality. Though they have never met, John and Henry both live in London with their wives, Catherine and Edith, and in each marriage, there is a third party: John has a lover, a working-class man named Frank, and Edith spends almost as much time with her friend Angelica as she does with Henry. John and Catherine have three grown daughters and a long, settled marriage, over the course of which Catherine has tried to accept her husband’s sexuality and her own role in life; Henry and Edith’s marriage is intended to be a revolution in itself, an intellectual partnership that dismantles the traditional understanding of what matrimony means.”
• In Defense Of Witches: The Legacy Of The Witch Hunts And Why Women Are Still On Trial by Mona Chollet : “Celebrated feminist writer Mona Chollet explores three types of women who were accused of witchcraft and persecuted: the independent woman, since widows and celibates were particularly targeted; the childless woman, since the time of the hunts marked the end of tolerance for those who claimed to control their fertility; and the elderly woman, who has always been an object of at best, pity, and at worst, horror. Examining modern society, Chollet concludes that these women continue to be harrassed and oppressed. Rather than being a brief moment in history, the persecution of witches is an example of society’s seemingly eternal misogyny, while women today are direct descendants to those who were hunted down and killed for their thoughts and actions.”
• Jesus And John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted A Faith And Fractured A Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez : “How did a libertine who lacks even the most basic knowledge of the Christian faith win 81 percent of the white evangelical vote in 2016? And why have white evangelicals become a presidential reprobate’s staunchest supporters? These are among the questions acclaimed historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez asks in Jesus and John Wayne, which delves beyond facile headlines to explain how white evangelicals have brought us to our fractured political moment.”
• Jesus And John: A Novel by Adam McOmber : “Terror and religion collide in McOmber’s atmospheric, thought-provoking, and unapologetically queer exploration of devotion in a retelling of the resurrection as a horror allegory.”
• Babel by R. F. Kuang : “1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation–also known as Babel. Babel is the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working–the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars–has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland.”
• Secret City: The Hidden History Of Gay Washington : “Utilizing thousands of pages of declassified documents, interviews with over one hundred people, and material unearthed from presidential libraries and archives around the country, Secret City is a chronicle of American politics like no other. Beginning with the tragic story of Sumner Welles, Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s brilliant diplomatic advisor and the man at the center of ‘the greatest national scandal since the existence of the United States,’ James Kirchick illuminates how homosexuality shaped each successive presidential administration through the end of the twentieth century.”
• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Story by James McBride : “In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. When the state came looking for a deaf boy to institutionalize him, it was Chona and Nate Timblin, the Black janitor at Moshe’s theater and the unofficial leader of the Black community on Chicken Hill, who worked together to keep the boy safe.”
• Lilith by Nikki Marmery : “Lilith and Adam are equal and happy in the Garden of Eden. Until Adam decides Lilith should submit to his will and lie beneath him. She refuses–and is banished forever from Paradise. Demonized and sidelined, Lilith watches in fury as God creates Eve, the woman who accepts her submission. But Lilith has a secret: she has already tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Endowed with Wisdom, she knows why Asherah–God’s wife and equal, the Queen of Heaven–is missing. Lilith has a plan: she will rescue Eve, find Asherah, restore balance to the world, and regain her rightful place in Paradise.”
• Lute by Jennifer Thorne : “On the idyllic island of Lute, every seventh summer, seven people die. No more, no less. Lute and its inhabitants are blessed, year after year, with good weather, good health, and good fortune. They live a happy, superior life, untouched by the war that rages all around them. So it’s only fair that every seven years, on the day of the tithe, the island’s gift is honored. Nina Treadway is new to The Day. A Florida girl by birth, she became a Lady through her marriage to Lord Treadway, whose family has long protected the island. Nina’s heard about The Day, of course. Heard about the horrific tragedies, the lives lost, but she doesn’t believe in it. It’s all superstitious nonsense. Stories told to keep newcomers at bay and youngsters in line. Then The Day begins. And it’s a day of nightmares, of grief, of reckoning. But it is also a day of community. Of survival and strength. Of love, at its most pure and untamed. When The Day ends, Nina–and Lute–will never be the same.”
• Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher : “There’s a princess trapped in a tower. This isn’t her story. Meet Toadling. On the day of her birth, she was stolen from her family by the fairies, but she grew up safe and loved in the warm waters of faerieland. Once an adult though, the fae ask a favor of Toadling: return to the human world and offer a blessing of protection to a newborn child. Simple, right? But nothing with fairies is ever simple. Centuries later, a knight approaches a towering wall of brambles, where the thorns are as thick as your arm and as sharp as swords. He’s heard there’s a curse here that needs breaking, but it’s a curse Toadling will do anything to uphold…”
• The Price Of Salt by Patricia Highsmith : “Based on a true story plucked from Highsmith’s own life, The Price of Salt (or Carol) tells the riveting drama of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, whose routine is forever shattered by a gorgeous epiphany–the appearance of Carol Aird, a customer who comes in to buy her daughter a Christmas toy. Therese begins to gravitate toward the alluring suburban housewife, who is trapped in a marriage as stultifying as Therese’s job. They fall in love and set out across the United States, ensnared by society’s confines and the imminent disapproval of others, yet propelled by their infatuation.”