Can this be? A third adult fiction compilation post in 2022?
If you know me, this is unusual, but it’s thanks to my local library that I’ve
stepped out and read more adult fiction novels than I normally do in a year.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had enough novels to create two posts. One of the
novels is a library checkout; I purchased the other two.
The Mask Falling (Jan. 26, 2021) by Samantha Shannon.
*This is the fourth novel
in a series.*
*Warning: Potential
spoilers included for those unfamiliar with the series.*
The Pale Dreamer is dead. That is what the Republic of Scion wants
everyone to believe. But dreamwalker Paige Mahoney isn’t dead, having eluded
death yet again. She’s been snatched from captivity and consigned to a safe
house in the Scion Citadel of Paris with assistance from the mysterious Domino
Program (a network of free-world spies). They have plans for her, but she has
plans of her own. That’s to be expected from the voyant (clairvoyant)
who defeated Jaxon, her previous mime-lord, to become the Underqueen of London’s
voyant community. This community is one-turned-rebellion, and she’s re-made
herself as the Black Moth. She’s accompanied by Warden (Arcturus
Mesarthim), a Rephaim who’s her former enemy-turned-bodyguard. Paige is not
accustomed to taking orders, which may contribute to the bold moves she makes
as Black Moth (vs. as an agent of the Domino Program). Bold sometimes equates
to foolish, and, like any human, she can also jump to conclusions that may have
devastating outcomes. Scion is really a puppet of the Rephaim under Nashira
Sargas, who plans to force the voyant community to unwillingly serve the
Rephaim. Paige and her allies want to undercut Scion, and their adventures will
lead them into the catacombs of Paris and the glittering corridors of
Versailles. But it isn’t all plans, plotting and undermining, as Paige
simultaneously works through the trauma of torture at the hands of the Rephaim
and her feelings for Arcturus. Paige may be a dreamwalker, but this world under
Scion is a nightmare.
With traumatic
memories, fresh betrayals and a weighted sense of duty, plotting, near-death
escapes and gut-clenching action, this fourth in the Bone Season series
is a fantasy-slash-dystopian novel that’s also a paranormal-slash-political
thriller. It’s a novel with a deeply emotional arc through Paige and contains
excellent world-building. It is as epic as its predecessors, and there’s no
question that Shannon is an incredible storyteller with a sharp, stunning
imagination, but this volume does suffer from middle-book syndrome, in
which it doesn’t quite live up to the WOW! factor of the first novel. I also
struggled with the length between publication dates. When I finally got around
to reading it, I felt like I needed a refresh session of the previous novel,
though this feeling went away the further I delved into the story and
remembered other bits and pieces. New readers will definitely want to start
with Book One. Overall, the inventiveness of the series will be forward
momentum to await the next installment. It’s gripping and unnerving, intricate
and intrepid.
Book One: The
Bone Season (not reviewed)
Book
Two: The Mime Order (not reviewed)
Book Three: The Song Rising
(not reviewed)
A Mirror Mended (June 14, 2022) by Alix E.
Harrow.
*This is the second novella
in a series.*
Worry not, Sleeping Beauty, Zinnia Gray is coming to rescue
you again. And again. And again. She’s still Dying Girl, that Generalized
Roseville Malady (GRM) will snuff her out eventually, but she’ll be the
dimension-hopping, damsel-saving warrior that she can be for as long as she
can. Still, if some of those princesses would start solving their own
narratives without her help, more power to them and less headache for her. She’s
at yet another “happily ever after” wedding when she looks into the mirror and
someone else is looking back. Eyes brimming with desperate hunger, her lips
moving in a plea, Zinnia reaches out to her, is pulled right into another
dimension and stares at a face of evil. Truly. She’s staring at Snow White’s Evil
Queen (who has no real name until Zinnia starts calling her Eva). It’s the
first inter-dimensional travel that hasn’t deposited her into another Sleeping
Beauty story. But it turns out that sort of strangeness is occurring with more
frequency: a golden egg in the belly of a goose, a talking wolf in the woods,
Zinnia’s copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales with its grape juice stain and
tatty ribbon that should be at her home in her own dimension, but clearly isn’t.
The Evil Queen knows how her story ends and doesn’t want to be resigned to such
a fate (understandably so). But can a character plotted for a villainous
role become the protagonist of one’s own story? With the curiouser and
curiouser things occurring where they shouldn’t, is that a result of Zinnia’s
travels messing with the fairy tale multiverse?
The next
installment in the Fractured Fables series continues its
female-centric theme: of female empowerment, autonomy, strength and
friendship. Of having one’s own agency. For those who’ve read the first
novella, Zinnia oftentimes remains her crass, self-involved, crude self. Her
fly-by-her-own-whims, thoughtless nature is ruining her friendship with her
best friend, and with story-hopping consequences showing up, she needs to find
her way home, probably for good. This novella traverses worlds with darkness
and danger, and Harrow isn’t afraid to point out the unattractive. The author
clearly knows her fairy tales and, like the first tale, this one contains a
plethora of pop culture references, but readers do see growth in Zinnia. The
novella presents queer relationships as relationships, and Harrow’s academic
background (“I’m sure Charm would explain about the psychic weight of repeated
motifs and the narrative resonance between worlds if I asked…”) shines through
in her smart writing. She efficiently packs a lot into the slim volume, limited
word count be darned, and creates a story that’s lively, yet can be read
in a single sitting. It’s a story where a villain has the potential to be the
protagonist and where the one the villain saves may save her in return.
But I’ll be honest, I didn’t love the tale. I checked it out from the
library because it’s short, and I trusted that I could finish the story despite
the busyness of the Christmas season.
The Wish (Sept. 28, 2021) by Nicholas Sparks.
*This is a standalone novel.*
It is 2019, and Margaret (Maggie) Dawes is a renowned travel
photographer. She leads a busy life, traveling the world photographing remote
locations, running a successful gallery in NYC and maintaining her social media
accounts. As the year is closing, she finds herself grounded over the Christmas
holiday, having to come to terms with a sobering medical diagnosis that
predicts she only has a few months left. Her own family notwithstanding, she’s
got a found family in her assistant, Luanne Sommers, Trinity, a famous
sculpture artist who showcases pieces in Maggie’s gallery, and Mark Price, her
more-recently-hired young assistant (he’s 23). Mark’s been a model
assistant; he doesn’t pry into her personal life and hasn’t even watched
any of her YouTube videos since he was hired on. But as Mark runs the gallery
while Trinity and Luanne are away on their respective vacations, Maggie tells
him the story of another time. She reminisces back to 1995, when she made a
choice and wound up pregnant. Sent away to an older aunt/former nun in
Ocracoke, a remote village on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Maggie is 16
in 1996 when she gives birth to a baby she immediately puts up for adoption.
While there, battling loneliness and depression, she grows close to Aunt Linda
(her father’s much older sister), whom she didn’t know well, and Bryce
Trickett, a rare teenager on the island during the winter season. Bryce is her
tutor, the one who introduces her to photography and the boy she ends up
loving. But in 2019, Maggie is a 39-year-old woman who’s never married.
Has Maggie been that dedicated to her passion all these years, married to her
work? Or was there a course change in the intervening years that couldn’t
have been predicted?
I’ll admit
that I’ve struggled to read through some of Sparks’ more recent novels, because
they either haven’t been engaging to me or I didn’t like one or both lead
characters, but the tide turned favorable for this novel. “The Wish” is a tale
you know isn’t going to have a happy ending, but the mental toughness and
physical vulnerability of a body shutting down gave it so much weight and
depth. It’s an emotional novel. Just because it’s a fictional one doesn’t
lessen the impact of first love or demean the choices that pave the way or make
someone wonder what if? It’s bittersweet, but can also be enchanting,
though the winter backdrop and Christmas decorations certainly help with that
picture. This is a story of love and loss and being found. It may also be a
story that makes readers pause to think of their own mortality and their
humanity, too.
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