Recent reading
Oct. 9th, 2021 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luzulaWitness 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.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-10-09 09:58 pm (UTC)Adding a puppy is always a good thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-10-10 09:08 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-10-10 12:52 am (UTC)What have you read of the sequel? I hoped for one when I read the book earlier this year, but didn't know it was a done deal. (I love the narrator.)
(no subject)
Date: 2021-10-10 09:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-10-10 06:45 pm (UTC)Thank you! I would have wondered from the title if the haunting of the Hill of Werewolves was part of the story, but it sounds not. I appreciated that Thara in The Witness for the Dead at least noticed that Pel-Thenhior took him home to meet his mother.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-10-11 05:31 am (UTC)