Well, February has certainly shown up. There are some recognizable names on titles this week, along with some interesting topics to chew on. Let's dig in.
First up, we have Stephen Graham Jones's Don't Fear the Reaper, the second book in his Indian Lake Trilogy. On the one hand, we argue that successful horror writers don't need to cleave to the series format in order to find their audience, but on the other, we have Jones bringing Jade Daniels back to Proofrock, just in time for Dark Mill South, a convicted Indigenous serial killer, to escape during a prison transfer. He rolls into town on December 12th. A Thursday. You know what happens next.
Jones's sequel to the award-winning My Heart is a Chainsaw does all the things you'd expect from a franchise sequel—these books are love letters to the slasher genre, after all—but at the same time, he's deftly upending conventions and deconstructing the canon.
And speaking of trying to find your way back, Jojo Moyes's Someone Else's Shoes is out this week. You should take the title literally as we've got Nisha and Sam who inadvertently swap gym bags one morning. Now it's all Trading Places and The Prince and the Pauper as Sam and Nisha try to navigate their sudden twists of fate. Another winner from Moyes.
And speaking of discovering who you really are, Victory City, Salman Rushdie's new novel, is here this week as well. It's the story of an unimportant young woman who, in the wake of an unimportant battle between two long-forgotten kingdoms in the fourteenth-century, has a divine encounter. The grief-stricken young woman (who had just witnessed the death of her mother) becomes the vessel for a goddess. She, with her new-found voice and powers, will become instrumental in the rise of a new city.
It takes 250 years or so—give or take—but the young woman remains at the center of the story, which, in true Rushdie fashion, is a magnificent blend of fancy, fiction, and adventure. Recommended.
And it seems like just last week or so we were celebrating J. D. Robb hitting book number fifty in her Eve Dallas series, but either time is passing faster than we think it is or Robb is really banging out the books. Here is Encore in Death, the fifty-sixth (!) book in the series. This time around, Eve is called in to investigate the unexpected death of a Hollywood mega-star during one of his mega parties. The star's been killed with a poisoned cocktail. The tricky thing is the cocktail was meant for his partner. It's all very Glass Onion in here, and Dallas has to suss out both the true target and the killer before the media frenzy turns the investigation into a complete circus.
And speaking of tracking down killers, the true crime headliner this week is Barbara Rae-Venter's I Know Who You Are: How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever.
This is one of those books which doesn't have a twist ending, by the way. It's all there in the fifteen word subtitle. Talk about economy!
And speaking of interesting tales of the natural world, here is Miriam Darlington's The Wise Hours: A Journey into the Wild and Secret World of Owls. Now, this is a subtitle that teases nicely. What do we know about owls? Well, they have a secret world, and Darlington is going to take us there. Okay. We'll go along for that ride. She says it'll be "wild," right? Owls have been around for sixty million years or so. We're sure they've seen a thing or two in that time.
And hot rom-com author Tessa Bailey is back this week with Secretly Yours, one of those opposites attract disaster stories that sucks us in on the first page and keeps us rapt with attention until the two main characters FINALLY look into each other's eyes and kiss. Swoony face!
And speaking of making faces, Natalie Haynes is back with Stone Blind, a reimagining of the legend of Medusa and Perseus. Haynes, who deftly brought the story of Helen of Troy to life in A Thousand Ships, sets out to do the same with the story of the girl with the snakes in her hair and the somewhat daft hero who wants to chop her head off.
What? That setup screams "rom-com!"
And speaking of being so confused that you don't know where you live anymore, here is the latest addition to the cookbook shelves. It's Fake Meat! On the one hand, Isa Chandra Moskowitz isn't trying to trick us by shaping squash into adorable little butterflies or something. Nope. This is stuff that isn't meat made to look like meat and taste like meat. Mostly. But hey, maybe you can sneak it past the old-school carnivores in your house. They need vegetables too, you know.
Oh, and here's a little something for that Tolkien fan in your life who has been sitting by the window with that wistful look on their face for the last, oh, fifty years or so. In the 1930s Tolkien delivered two lectures, wherein he explored the linguistic underpinnings of his mythology. One of these lectures, originally known as "A Hobby for the Home," was edited into what became known as A Secret Vice. This new edition provides extensive annotations and critical discussion about Tolkien's fascination with and exploration of imagined languages. It's sure to bring a smile to the Tolkien aficionado in your life!
And that is where we shall leave you this week, dear readers. The sun peeked out earlier this week, which was a delightful surprise. The Sip & Stroll is this Saturday, from 4:00 - 7:00 pm. We'll be pouring wine—well, the delightful folks from Euphoriq Skin & Beauty will be pouring—and we hope to see you for this festive celebration of downtown Sumner.
