All recommendations, of whatsoever nature, are tagged thus.
In the last week of October, I probably read more books than in the past 3 months. So I’m really hoping that my reading/ blogging blues are finally over. There’s a lot to record and catch-up with, all those blogposts that I missed — still need to get up to speed there! In the meantime, here’s a bunch a mini-reviews / reading wrap-up for October 2021.
I once read that the cuckoo leaves its eggs in other birds’ nests to avoid the effort of raising its own young. Imagine the duped bird’s shock to find that the egg hatched into some other species!
And so in Cuckoo Song, young Triss wonders if she is a cuckoo among the crows. She’s just had an accident that no one wants to talk about, but she knows she’s changed. For one thing, her memories are hazy and detached. For another, she is so hungry all the time…
Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every Tuesday, you pick ten books on that week’s topic. This week, we have a Halloween Freebie. Well, it’s a freebie, so I’ve put together some random (mostly) book-related videos and articles that I really liked recently. Hope you’ll enjoy these too!
About The Forgotten Garden
Published: 2008
Book Tropes: Foundlings, Time Hops, Family Secrets, Mysterious Houses, Australia
Recommended for fans of: Susanna Kearsley, Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen, Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman, Possession by A. S. Byatt, The Thirteenth Tale by by Diane Setterfield
Forgotten Garden was the first book that I decided to read from my Fall 2021 Reading List — since that was the book most people recommended! It turned out to be a very engrossing read, and managed to get me out of my reader’s block.
Lewis Carroll’s gets a makeover in this old Czech film from 1988. And what a makeover it is!
The movie starts off on an eerie note, when little Alice, troubled and lonely, begins to tell you about her dream. It’s told like a child’s story, even a nursery rhyme, but the movie is clearly intended for older audience.
Cat and Mouse by Christianna Brand
Published: 1950
Book Tropes: Unreliable characters, mysterious letters, remote houses
Recommended for fans of: Agatha Christie // Hitchcock movies // Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier // Gothic literature // Wales
Katinka Jones works with a women’s magazine and starts a correspondence with the lonely Mrs. Amista Carlyon. Amista lives in a very remote village in Wales. Tinka develops a fondness for her and decides to visit her. But surprise, surprise. There’s nobody called Amista living in that old house. So who was writing those letters? And who is this mysterious Mr. Carlyon who seems to hide a desperate secret of his own?
“And in Katinka Jones, the Welsh blood of her father’s family rose up and painted for her mind’s eye, a scene she loved: the grey valley where the brave green struggled through the earth’s scarred surface under the soft Welsh rain: an old house, clinging to its hard-won foothold on the stony breast of the mountain; the river lying like a silver sword between a young girl and the companionship of men — of all men but Carlyon. ”
Mahit is deputed as ambassador from the tiny Lsel Station to the mighty Teixcalaanli Empire when her predecessor, Yskandr, dies in mysterious circumstances. More curious still is the fact that Lsel Station possesses a secret and unique technology: the imago machine. Imago is essentially a bio-chip that carries the endocrine memory of a person, and can be embedded and integrated into the brain of another person. (Phew, hope I got the description right!)
The trouble just keeps on piling up from there. Mahit finds that Yskandr’s imago in her brain has been sabotaged! Also, it seems imago technology isn’t so hush-hush after all — and several people are fighting over it… And the city where Mahit has been posted is an AI hive-mind which is malfunctioning… Oh, and there are new monstrous aliens at the gate…
Thanks to the wonderful Wyrd and Wonder challenge for reminding that May 22 is Maritime Day. So, let’s make it watery with all kinds of seaborne fantasy books: mermaid tales, sirens, ladies in the lake, pirates and other nautical adventurers. Get in the sea!
The Darkangel Trilogy by Meredith Ann Pierce
Books: The Darkangel, A Gathering of Gargoyles, The Pearl of the Soul of the World
Published: 1998-1999
Recommended if you like: The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin / The Chronicles of Narnia / The Ancient Mariner / Gothic mysteries in general
Rating: 8.5 / 10 – Recommended!
The Ancient Ones created the world, and disappeared. The wicked White Witch took advantage of their disappearance, and enslaved and bewitched the Wardens of the kingdoms. Her evil magic has caused the planet to become a barren, perilous desert.
The Witch’s vampyric sons, the Icari, also trap the souls of human women in order to become immortal. One of them, Irralyth, kidnaps a human bride and the bride’s slave girl, Aeriel.
