Forget Dry January
Why would you want to read without a drink in hand?
January is supposed to be the time for fresh starts, hitting the reset button on our lives, and recommitting ourselves to becoming the good people we believe deep down we are capable of being. How we define “good” is obviously subjective: if your definition means not killing people, you really set a low bar for yourself, but ok. It just means you’ll have an easier time exceeding your own expectations. But if “good” is just anything better than 2020, then you’re probably already a winner.
I woke up on January 1 (thankfully without the standard NYE hangover) thinking about resolutions for 2021. Just because the calendar changed it doesn’t mean the pandemic is suddenly over and we can all collectively wake up from the nightmare that was 2020 (for reference, see the January 6 attack on the Capitol). So, really, what I would normally call “resolutions” are more like a set of guidelines for how I would like to ride out the next 12 months of the reality we’re currently in, rather than the things I would want for myself in a perfect world.
While I have certain things that I’d be thrilled to accomplish, the biggest one is to continue keeping a list of the books I read throughout the year. If I can top 103, which was my final number in 2020, then I’ll be happy. If, somewhere along the way, that magically leads to me having Michelle Obama arms, then I’ll just count that as an extra blessing.
But back to books, since I know you don’t actually care about my New Years resolutions. As I mentioned last time, I’m still getting the hang of this platform, which means that in order to give myself the chance to learn more, I’m going to be pulling some old reviews to go along with new ones - I’ve freshened them up a bit for you, though, dinna fash. Eventually each new issue will contain only new book reviews, but for now, you’ll have to be ok with seeing a few some of you may have already read. So, with that being said, let’s get into it.
pairing: The Sassenach (to really get you into the spirit of this series)
I’ve spent the last few years pushing this series on literally every single person I know, and that’s not an exaggeration. I’m fully aware that I came to it late, given that the first book was published in 1991, but with the STARZ television series bringing these characters into mainstream pop culture in the past few years, I think I can be forgiven for not jumping on the bandwagon 30 years ago. Plus, as with other sweeping sagas like A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones), being able to put faces to names makes reading the books a little bit easier after having seen the show first, even though 99.9% of the time I prefer to read the book before seeing an adaptation.
And if you just read the words “sweeping saga” and thought, “This isn’t for me,” then I want to know what else you have going on right now, in the middle of winter, during a pandemic, that is too time consuming for this? We’re all house-bound and the COVID-19 vaccine isn’t going to be widely available for a while, so don’t tell me your calendar is too full. But if you can truly say that action, adventure, and romance are genres that aren’t of interest to you, then fine, go on your merry way.
Or, you could admit that you’re actually intrigued and keep reading before picking up your own copy of the story of Claire Randall, a former WWII combat nurse on a second honeymoon in Scotland with her husband, Frank, a historian. It starts out as a rather idyllic vacation until she visits some ancient standing stones, hears a horrifying scream emanating from the rock, and just as she reaches out towards the stone to steady herself she’s catapulted backwards through time and space to… the exact same spot, just in 1743, not 1945. (At this point if you’re thinking, “WTF, I did not sign up for a time travel fantasy!” Just you wait, friend. Shit is about to get historical.)
Now, stuck in the past and struggling to return to her own time, not to mention her husband, Claire must find a way to assimilate and survive. Enter Jamie Fraser: the aristocratic but down-to-earth (and super hunky) Highland warrior who comes to her rescue, even though the Redcoats have put a price on his head. To avoid being turned over to the British herself, Claire marries Jamie for his protection, and unexpectedly finds herself torn between two times and two very different men. But being stuck in the past also means having knowledge of the future, and Claire knows that war is coming for the Scots – and that they won’t all make it out alive. So does she risk her life and Jamie’s to try to change the outcome, or is history doomed to repeat itself?
I’m not sure how you could read a synopsis like that not want to buy a copy of the book for yourself - or at the very least start binge watching on Netflix immediately. Claire and Jamie have a love that literally transcends time, there’s plenty of action between the Redcoats and the Scots, and who doesn’t love a bit of a history lesson? It’s truly the perfect combination for your next favorite read.
Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth
pairing: Yellow Jacket
I’m about to say three words that might make you want to immediately say, “Thanks but no thanks,” and I’ll ask that you just hear me out before making a decision:
Sapphic. Horror. Story.
I can already see the confusion clouding your eyes. Lesbian horror is definitely a unique sub-genre, to be sure, but this book deserves all of the mainstream attention of a Jack Reacher or Harry Hole novel (I almost said Harry Potter, but then I remembered we cancelled JK Rowling last year). Trust me on this.
In 1902, The Brookhants School for Girls is the scene of the grisly deaths of Flo and Clara, the founders of the Plain Bad Heroine Society, a fan club of sorts, devoted to a scandalous memoir published by a young woman named Mary MacLane. Their deaths are the precursor to several more instances of, well, let’s call it “bad luck” before the school is forced to shut down. More than 100 years later, Brookhants is recast as the set of a film adaptation of a recent bestseller about the fateful events at the beginning of the 20th century. At the center of everything is Merritt Emmons, the wunderkind author, Harper Harper, the it-girl lead actress, and Audrey Wells, B-list former-child star in a supporting role. The more time these heroines spend on Brookhants property and the deeper into production the film tries to get, the further they get pulled into the darkness that consumed so many other women who came before them.
This book is equal parts darkly funny and sleep-with-the-lights-on scary with a touch of social commentary thrown in for good measure. I couldn’t wait to start reading it and I already can’t wait to reread it, it’s just that good. If you’re a fan of Marisha Pessl’s Night Film or Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, then this needs to be at the top of your Must Read list.
This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger
pairing: gin gimlet
Oh, this book… I just loved every moment I spent with this one. Odie O’Banion tells his story, which is part Huckleberry Finn and part Grapes of Wrath, with the kind of wonder only a 12 year-old boy can possess.
During the summer of 1932, Odie, his older brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a young orphan named Emmy run away from the Lincoln School in Minnesota where hundreds of Native American children have been sent after being forcibly removed from their families. The foursome canoe down the Mississippi river over the course of one summer, crossing paths with men and women both dangerous and alluring.
Underlying all of this, though, is the specter of the hundreds of children separated from their families, a harsh reality that Odie and his companions are all too familiar with. Though it’s glossed over in the history books, if it’s even mentioned at all, this was a dark moment in American history, and sadly all too familiar given what we were seeing on the news just last year. To say this story is both timely and timeless is unfortunate but true.
If you loved Where the Crawdads Sing, this book will be perfect for you. If you didn’t like Crawdads then I’m not sure what’s wrong with you because that book was sheer perfection bound up between 2 covers. But so is this one. Kreuger does an amazing job of making the Minnesota landscape feel like another character, finding beauty in a place that has been devastated by the Depression and natural disasters. And Odie is the underdog hero we all root for, hanging on until the very last page to see if he’ll get a happy ending like he deserves after experiencing so much loss at such a young age. If I were you, this would be something to bring to your book club (if you’re in one, of course), because there will be so much to discuss, and everyone will walk away having learned something new.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
pairing: The Shaman
If you could blend the dark moodiness of Rebecca with the creeping horror of something like Dracula, and set it in the remote hills of Mexico in the 1950s, you’ll get a sense of what awaits you in Mexican Gothic.
I wasn’t quite sure at first if I was even interested in picking this up, but when a former colleague of mine listed it as one of her favorite books of 2020, I decided to at least give it a try. I am so glad I did, because this sucked me in immediately and I was up all night reading, completely unwilling to put it down.
When Noemi’s father receives an alarming letter from his recently-married niece, he sends his daughter to High Place, the remote manor home in a distant mining town where his niece now lives with her husband and his family. Upon her arrival, Noemi is disturbed to see that her cousin is no longer the vibrant social butterfly she once was, and her English husband and his reclusive family are… different. High Place is a house with a dark history and even darker secrets, which Noemi begins to piece together the longer she remains there. But the more involved she becomes with the family, the harder it becomes for her to leave, and if she doesn’t get out soon, she may never be able to return home to Mexico City.
Y’all, this book was dark and creepy and weird but I loved every single word of it! It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, which, you know, is fine, but at least give yourself a chance to let this book consume you. I can promise you won’t regret it.
The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow
pairing: a jammy, fruit-forward red wine such as The Barry Bros
When a debut novel is described as being “unbearably beautiful” by another author, let alone a Hugo Award-winning one, you don’t ask questions, and you buy the damn book. You silence the part of you that says, “Fantasy? I don’t know about that…” and you buy the damn book (and then you remind yourself that, yes, you do actually like fantasy books – just take a look at some of the titles on your shelves at home). You ignore the little part of your brain that’s telling you this isn’t what your book club picked for the next meeting and you buy the damn book.
You just buy the damn book!
This was one of those books that I didn’t want to put down, even for a second, and when it was done I wanted to flip back to the beginning and immediately read it all over again. January Scaller is such a compelling narrator and protagonist that you can’t help but adore her from page 1. She’s a strange girl raised in a strange house filled with strange objects collected by her mostly absent father as he combs the world for unique treasures for their benefactor, Mr. Locke. When she finds a mysterious book that seems to tell the story of her own history, January discovers incredible gifts she never could have imagined along with answers to questions she had long stopped asking aloud. Together with her best friend, Jane, and Samuel, the boy she’s loved since childhood, January sets off on a life changing adventure in lands she never could have imagined existed.
It sucks that we can’t travel the way we’d all like to right now due to the coronavirus. I’d love to book a ticket to a tropical island to escape the drab grayness of East Coast winters but it’s just not possible. Instead we have books, so why not let January’s story open doors to new worlds for you? I promise the adventure will be just as exciting as anything you could plan through a travel website.
Well, that’s all for now, my lovelies. A quick note before you go: if any of these titles appealed to you, please be sure to purchase them through your local independent bookstore. All of the titles listed today are linked to my preferred bookseller, Main Point Books. You can also order through sites such as Bookshop.org or Indiebound.org.
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Until next time: happy reading,
Sam