back to the present time

Hickory Dickory Dock, Agatha Christie (1955)
Third Girl, Agatha Christie (1966)
The Rowan, Anne McCaffrey (re-read)
After hours at Dooryard Books, Cat Sebastian
The face in the frost, John Bellairs
Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke
The unworthy, Agustina Bazterrica
Trial run, Dick Francis
Nine Goblins, T Kingfisher
The tournament, Matthew Reilly
Game Changer, Rachel Reid (re-read)
How to manage your home without losing your mind, Dana K White

Hickory Dickory Dock & Third Girl, Agatha Christie. Tidying up some Agathas. Hickory and Third Girl are definitely in Christie’s “modern times are rather poor stuff and the young people all wear terrible clothes” era, and while it is interesting to read her take on student hostels (Hickory) and flat sharing (Third Girl), Hickory has a lot of unexamined racial stereotypes and actual racism, and Third Girl (which I think was new to me) had a rather unbelievable denouement and a plot line in which a doctor marries his patient, which I never like.

After hours at Dooryard Books, Cat Sebastian. Patrick sells books in 1968 New York, sleeps with most of the gay male population of Greenwich Village in his spare time, and on his philanthropic landlady’s prompting offers a job at the bookshop and shelter there to Nathaniel, alone and obviously traumatised but reluctant to share his past, just before Nathaniel’s sister-in-law, a famous folk singer, shows up with a week-old baby and a “your husband just died in Vietnam” telegram. I thought I was going to like this more than any other Sebastian I’ve tried so far, and I probably do, but it runs on vibes and having all its sympathetic characters be terribly politically sound, and about two-thirds of the way through it was like someone pulled out the bath plug and all the remaining tension drained out of it. But I liked it and I’d probably re-read it once, although I’d set my expectations lower.

The Rowan,Anne McCaffrey (re-read). Why am I re-reading this when I never liked this series much in the first place and if I were going to re-read any of hers it should be Dragonflight? Weakness for psychic powers and a touch of contrariness, plus I still want to find my original paperbacks rather than use the library ebook. This has good bits (the psychic powers, the training, the way in which one trainer passes on their biases and unnecessarily traps all those training under her) and a lot of terrible, terrible romance and gender opinions, and from what I dimly remember this only amplifies in subsequent books. Maybe I should try and find my McGill Feighan books if I really want to read psychics working as shipping agents to the stars.

Yesteryear, Caro Claire Burke. Tradwife influencer Natalie takes us, the readers/audience through a day on her idyllic farm in a way that highlights her hypocrisy (the unacknowledged/unfilmed staff, the financial backing by her right-wing in-laws, the uselessness of her husband at any farm chores means they constantly have to replace the cows, who all have the same names, etc, etc). The next day she wakes up, prepared to do it all over again - but there’s no power, no staff, no technology at all beyond the 1800s, and even her children are similar but not the same. It’s a great set-up and Natalie herself is a great, awful, character and, obviously, the true villain is the patriarchy. However I was only about 2/3rds convinced by the twist and I did think the ending moves the focus away from society to one individual’s choices in a way that lets society off a bit.

The face in the frost, John Bellairs. I’ve been meaning to read this for ages and while I enjoyed it (Bellairs is so great at making even the most mundane thing superlatively creepy in only a few sentences), I might have missed the window for loving it. I like both Prospero and Roger Bacon, I love the magic and the world-building and the horror, but I found the denouement a bit too ex machina and the characters not as compelling as the leads in his children’s books.

The unworthy, Agustina Bazterrica (trans. Sarah Moses). The nameless narrator is a nun in a convent of horrors that is nevertheless a sanctuary against the catastrophes that have devastated the outside world. She writes her memoirs in blood and dirt, documenting the daily torments inflicted on the nuns in the name of enlightenment, retelling her past, and, possibly, finding hope and love. I thought this overdid the tortures and horrors, but possibly I am just a hard sell on evil religious cults in post-collapse dystopias. I would probably read another by the same author but it looks like the other one currently out is industrial cannibalism, which is not really my thing.

Trial run, Dick Francis. One I have not previously read! Possibly there are others out there but I don’t really want to check in case there aren’t. Ex-steeplechaser Randall Drew (unable to compete now that he needs glasses) reluctantly travels to Moscow on behalf of the royal family, who want to ensure that one of the equestrian team about to compete in the Moscow Olympics will not be tainted by a rumoured scandal. The good bits in this are all the bits about Moscow - I can see Dick and Mary on their tour there with a bunch of notebooks and their cameras - but unfortunately the spy/conspiracy plot does creak rather and there is a surprising lack of horses, although there are classic Francis bits with a fall into a freezing Moscow river and a limited and insufficient supply of antidote to a fatal poison (and also the most doomed proposal sequence ever, even for Francis).

Nine Goblins, T Kingfisher. Reprint of previously self-published fantasy, with a goblin troop catapulted by magic out of a war and into a distant forest with an elf who is basically James Herriot and a mysteriously abandoned village. This is more Pratchetty than others of hers (as well as Herriotish) and it’s a fun read with a bit more going on underneath. The villain didn’t quite work for me but the magical creature vet problems are good.

The tournament, Matthew Reilly. Young Elizabeth I travels to Constantinople with her tutor, Roger Ascham, to watch a chess tournament between the representatives of the great and powerful; they are then caught up in investigating a murder. This is not Reilly’s natural territory (no clockwork building-sized traps with nifty diagrams) and although he flings himself into the research with enthusiasm, it’s not really his natural element. As with The Detective, Reilly also has a particular issue that he wants the reader to understand is Evil, and while with The Detective it was racism, here it’s pedophilia; there is an evil ring of Catholic priests exploiting children, yoked uneasily to a plot line in which Elizabeth’s companion, Elsie, describes her consensual sexual escapades in the pursuit of the local prince in a luridly detailed fashion to Elizabeth, only to have the prince dump Elsie in a brothel chained to a bed once he sleeps with her, thus making the young Elizabeth swear off sex forever. The detective bits are all right.

Game Changer, Rachel Reid (re-read). I was on a roll. The TV episode is more compelling than the book but I still find both fundamentally bland; possibly I am just too traumatised by fannish coffee shop AUs to ever enjoy sassy smoothie maker/customer convinced smoothie is game-winning good luck charm.

How to manage your home without losing your mind, Dana K White. Home organisation book that does not assume you want to be an inherently tidy and organised person; surprisingly useful. Focuses on making small changes and having you explicitly acknowledge the positive impact of these, thus creating virtual circles, rather than shaming you for failing to match up to their expectations.