Luckenbooth by Jenni Fagan was a truly one-of-a-kind book. Fagan drags us through time and into the minds of an incredibly varied cast of characters, but we stay firmly in the same location – an apartment building in Edinburgh. This novel may have been sewn with the threads of magic and one powerful curse, but Fagan also keeps the sins and fears of her characters rooted in the real world. The final words of the novel may come from the daughter of the devil who spends most of the book as a ghost, but Fagan makes sure the main thought when you close the book for the last time is on the cruelties and reality of our world. 

Dissolution by C.J. Sansom is another trip to King Henry VIII’s England – only this time it’s also a murder mystery. You’d think at some point readers (myself included) would tire of the era, but it seems it hasn’t happened yet. (Side note – this novel is from 2003 but the series continues. The most recent was published in 2018). Sansom’s descriptions are detailed and engaging and although it can sometimes be frustrating to have a slow pace in a murder mystery, in this case, I appreciated the historical reality to it. At one point, our main investigator, Matthew Shardlake, has to leave the scene of the crime to investigate some clues in London and the time it takes to go to London, investigate, and return actually adds to the tension and risk of the novel instead of being an annoying narrative obstacle. Shardlake is a good main character – he’s solid but not perfect and gives us an outsider’s perspective because of his hunchback even as he is also a man of power and influence thanks to his role in Thomas Cromwell’s office. I’m looking forward to the rest of the series.

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty was a book club pick – and that’s the only reason I finished it. It was too long and too frustrating. The idea that someone with such a big family could have a serious head injury and not be pushed to go to the doctor was absurd and only compounded by the fact her family left her in charge of three small children. I also struggled to connect with characters whose only purpose in life involves their children. Clearly this one wasn’t for me.

Into Every Generation a Slayer Is Born: How Buffy the Vampire Slayer Staked Our Hearts by Evan Ross Katz was a gift from a friend to distract me from a tough week and boy did it work. Looking back on the things we loved when we were young can be hard (especially when new information comes forward – looking at you Joss Whedon) but Evan is a trustworthy guide. First of all, he makes it clear that he loves the show just as much as he expects his readers do, so it’s a safe space. But loving something doesn’t have to mean ignoring its faults and Evan looks at all of Buffy and its legacy without skipping over the rough spots. I also liked the structure of the book – it’s more like a series of essays so I was able to skip around a bit depending on what I wanted to read about (which season or theme). The only side effect is you might start listening to the musical episode soundtrack again (guilty).

Mrs. March by Virginia Feito’s blurb describes it as Hitchcockian and I can’t top that description. It has the dizzying nature of Vertigo, the mistrust of a male partner of Suspicion, and shocking scenes caught though the curtains like Rear Window. But unlike Hitchcock, Feito’s focus is on the life an upper middle-class housewife – both the insanity of real life and something else going on in our main character’s mind. It is deeply eerie, fast-paced, detailed, and with an ending you will both see coming and find shocking. Like any good novel with an unreliable narrator the doubt creeps in slowly but surely with every chapter. I finished it in two sittings but hesitated to turn the lights off after the last page…

The Confidence Men by Margalit Fox is a non-fiction story that is the definition of life being stranger than fiction. Two British officers use an incredibly detailed and complicated con involving a Ouija board, seances, hidden cameras, and eventually faked mental illness to escape a Turkish POW camp. Fox not only outlines the men’s actions in detail but provides the context of the cultural and scientific thought of the era to explain why the con worked – and why it would only have worked at the moment in history. She also delves into the psychological history of con men and why we fall for their scams and she does it all in a short, fast paced text. The last 100 pages flew by once their months of planning were put into action and I honestly don’t know how this hasn’t been turned into a film yet.

Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold is a fantastic collection of modernized folk tales by all female writers. The preface by Professor Carolyne Larrington lays out why these British folktales disappeared compared to folk and fairy tales from the continent and why the project sought to revive them. There is also a podcast version of the stories to keep the oral tradition alive and the final section of the book includes the original versions to show you just what each writer did with each story. A fantastic combination of history and fiction.

The final read of the month was the short and thoughtful Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au about a mother and daughter vacationing around Japan. It’s a subtle narrative about life and travel and a good reminder of the shared joy and small trials of family relationships.   

My audiobook of the month was an excellent version of Persuasion read by Greta Scacchi. Her pacing and voices were very good and it was a nice, new experience with an old, familiar text. Anne and Wentworth will always be one of my favorite love stories.

I had two more books this month that I didn’t finish after an honest effort. First up was The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl. After forty pages I hadn’t connected with either the main character or the mystery so I let it go. (It was also an edition with miniscule typeset and small margins which only made it more difficult).

The second was The Inconstant Husband by Susan Barrett. I enjoyed the first forty pages of this romance and social satire but by page one hundred was frustrated with the main character and utterly uncharmed by the supposedly charming rake and skimmed to the end. As much as I enjoyed the idea of the story and even the ending, it was a bit too cynical for me to enjoy as romantic escapism.