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Recent reading
Oct. 9th, 2021 10:34 pmWitness for the Dead by Katherine Addison (2021)
I quite liked this, for its portrayal of a decent and sympathetic person who's doing his best in a stressful and often thankless job. He's pretty isolated, but there's still a warmth in the storytelling that I enjoyed. Which of course it has in common with The Goblin Emperor, but this one is about ordinary people instead of the court. It's a murder mystery, sort of, which is usually not my genre, but I tend to like them better when there are fantastic or SF elements. I do hope the main character gets to have a little more happiness in future books--which looks like it might possibly be the case, from the description of the coming sequel?
Briarley by Aster Glenn Gray (2018)
This is an m/m Beauty and the Beast-retelling set in WWII Britain where the father who picks the rose refuses to give up his daughter and stays himself instead. I like the out-of-left-field attempts to break the curse (try getting a puppy!) and the main character is charming and sympathetic. I also like the sense of place and time--upon seeing the well-raked gravel drive of the enchanted mansion, the main character thinks disapprovingly that this is a place that hasn't given up its manservants to the war effort.
I quite liked this, for its portrayal of a decent and sympathetic person who's doing his best in a stressful and often thankless job. He's pretty isolated, but there's still a warmth in the storytelling that I enjoyed. Which of course it has in common with The Goblin Emperor, but this one is about ordinary people instead of the court. It's a murder mystery, sort of, which is usually not my genre, but I tend to like them better when there are fantastic or SF elements. I do hope the main character gets to have a little more happiness in future books--which looks like it might possibly be the case, from the description of the coming sequel?
Briarley by Aster Glenn Gray (2018)
This is an m/m Beauty and the Beast-retelling set in WWII Britain where the father who picks the rose refuses to give up his daughter and stays himself instead. I like the out-of-left-field attempts to break the curse (try getting a puppy!) and the main character is charming and sympathetic. I also like the sense of place and time--upon seeing the well-raked gravel drive of the enchanted mansion, the main character thinks disapprovingly that this is a place that hasn't given up its manservants to the war effort.
