Happy New Year! ( a little late) and new Phil Rickman mystery rocks

Happy New Year, everyone!!! 

Yes, I'm late.  We were sick with some stomach virus over New Year's again.  We had a wonderful game of Dr Who monopoly, and brought in the new year quietly at home.  It was the first time we'd been at home for several years, as we usually go to my friends' who hold an annual New Year's get-together for our group.  I'm hoping this won't be the shape of our entire year.....but so far my eldest son had a raging fever for most of this week, and yes, it's Friday, and I'm home with a sore throat and generally achy all over.  So let's hope this is it for January. 

                                              

I've already read a book that I love.  This is a good way to begin the year!!!  The Magus of Hay, by Phil Rickman.  The latest - book 12 - in the Merrily Watkins series.  In this book we end up in that loveliest of book towns, Hay-on-Wye, which everyone knows has the largest number of bookstores in any city in the world. Except in this novel, the number of bookstores has been falling due to the recent recession and the rise of Amazon and online bookstores.  A couple, Robin and Betty Thorogood, who are returning characters from an earlier book in the series, have decided to buy an empty shop that once used to be a bookstore, and turn it back into a bookstore, in Hay.  Only the shop has a very bad history, and Betty, who is a witch, gets a very bad feeling upon entering the store before buying it.  At the same time, a body is found in a pool in a river.  When DI Frannie Bliss, back from his terrible beating in the previous novel, goes to investigate what should be a routine drowning, what is discovered at the dead man's house persuades him that Merrily should be called in to provide him some advise.  Then the young constable who notified Bliss of the body, goes missing.  Who took her?  Why?  Who was helping the old man shortly before his death?  And what is the link to the shop that Betty and Robin have bought and are setting up to open?

I really enjoyed this mystery.  I especially enjoyed the moments of eerie atmosphere,  creepy sense of dabbling in the dark arts, and the return of Betty and Robin and Gwyn Arthur Jones, the detective superintendent from the same book - The Crown of Lights - who is now retired and strangely enough, has opened a bookstore in Hay. 

Lol and Jane and Gomer are off-page for much of this novel. The few times Lol phones Merrily - he is off on a tour, his first one, to promote his new material - I am reminded of how much I like his character, and like him with Merrily.  It was good to see Merrily on her own for once, too, and how difficult she finds it, with Jane gone with Eiron on a dig in Wales.  Huw Owen is back, and he is such a fun character also!  I really like him!

As always, there is a rational explanation for much of what happens, and always the sense that there is an undercurrent of the uncanny, the unseen, and malevolent forces that exist side by side in the world with the rational.  There is the beginnings of a new story thread too, with Merrily and the new reverend who comes in to 'replace' her temporarily as she is supposed to be on vacation, which I expect will be part of the next book or two.  It will be interesting, because Merrily might be forced out of the diocese and her job if she is not careful, and meanwhile something that is not holy and right, is trying to get in through her church and the replacement reverend.......

Excellent series, fabulous and well-drawn characters, and lovely creepy sometimes scary atmosphere of hauntings, eerie happenings, and ghostly manifestations.  Highly recommended.

I hope you have had a healthy start to your 2014, and have been reading some good books too. I have to catch up with all of your new blog posts.  Oh, and do my final books of the year post.  I haven't forgotten.

Next up:  The Abominable by Dan Simmons finally came into the library for me.  Last night, before I began feeling really ill, I managed to get there to pick it up. This weekend, in between napping, I will be reading this much-anticipated adventure to Mount Everest, just before our dreadfully cold weather (and this means -24c at night) returns mid-next week.  Who will be colder, me or the characters in the book? Brr. I hope to be deliciously scared too, as I was when I read The Terror by him, which I loved.

Fables: Rose Red

                                                           
I have fallen in love with the Fables series of graphic novels.  How could anyone not love the fairy tale twisted subversive dark delightful funny stories that Fables tells?  Imagine all your favourite fairy tale characters together, along with mythic creatures, witches, ogres, gods and goddesses, and then imagine worlds upon worlds of fairy tale tellings to plunder.  There is something so marvellous about this series, it's got so much going on in it, and it's fun and scary and funny.  Beauty is married to Bigby, otherwise known as the Beast.  Rose Red and Snow White, Prince Charming, King Cole, Pinocchio.....and these are adult fairy tales, mind.  So naked fairies abound, plus dark sorcery, spells and enchantments.  And the funniest look at politics and trying to hold a city, a haven and a farm together.  I love the mix of the stories, of all these characters together. 

Rose Red is about - Rose Red.  Remember the fairy tale Rose Red and Snow White?  Well, Snow is happily married to her Prince, but Rose Red is lying in misery on her bed, sulking because she has never forgiven Snow White for disappearing and marrying the Big Bad Wolf (Bigby).  We get the full story of Rose Red and Snow White growing up in their cottage, of the bear who comes to stay in winter nights, of the dwarf who Snow White saves three times, only to discover that he is a thief and is stealing magical items.  To evade his curse she is sent away, and so we get to see the real story of the 7 dwarves, and how Rose Red copes with her sister's death, and then discovery it was faked.  Rose Red is about Rose discovering the full truth at long last, because Fable Town is in danger from Death.  See?  I told you it was dark and magical and good.

I had borrowed this copy from the library, and last month I had borrowed a copy of Witches, the book in the series preceeding Rose Red. My original review is here.
                                         

Witches is the story of how Death was once captured, as the great mythic powers are wreaking havoc on many different worlds, slaying and laying waste to people in such great numbers (just because they can), that a group of monks decide to devote their lives to capturing them.  Witches features Buffkin the talking monkey, who along with a group of fairies, saves the day.  They stop Baba Yaga, the witch of the title, who complete with her walking house, has a plan to get out of the central land she is in, and make her way through all the worlds. The other great power causing havoc is Death. He is creepy and scary, very reminiscent of the gentleman from Buffy the Vampire episode from Season 4.  He makes people turn into zombies just by being near him.  He is a creature of nightmare.  And so powerful that even in the box he was captured in, his power leaked out and tainted whoever came near him.  Witches ends with the end of Baba Yaga, and Death moving into New York City.

The artwork in these graphic novels is stunning.  I'd like to frame so many of the pages!  The dialogue is uncanny, in that each character is captured in speech rhythms and use of words.  The characters are true to their original sources,even if the stories they find themselves in are adult now.  It's like a continuation of their original stories, told for grown-ups.  I can't rate this series highly enough.  If you haven't tried Fables yet, try one.

I think of all the ones I've read so far, Rose Red might be my favourite.  It could be that it features the bear in the woods, the dwarf with the stolen treasure - I loved seeing that fairy tale again here;  it could be that we see what realistically happens between Rose Red and Snow White, and how they finally come together again as sisters, or just that we see Rose Red finally get out of her bed and reclaim her place as mayor of  the Farm.  I think it might be all of those, and the love story that is in the background too.  Oh, and Beauty and the Beast's baby - you have go to see what happens!!

I read Rose Red for Carl's Once Upon a Time Challenge.  I think I will be looking for a copy for myself, for my upcoming birthday.  I like it that much.

Sunday musings

I have come across two challenges today, that are mini-challenges specifically for March:


March Mystery Madness, hosted by Christina at  Reading Thru the Night, is about reading mysteries and posting a link to her blog.  That's all.  I neglected my mystery reading badly in February and have a huge pile to get to.  I like the idea of March Mystery Madness, too!  I'm mad for mysteries.....

The other challenge is for next week: The Irish Short Story Week Year Two, and is for the one week:  Mel at The Reading Life is hosting this one. It is on from March 12-22.  I can read a short story or three!  I mean, ghost stories from Sheridan LeFanu count, as well as convincing myself I can read Ulysses by reading one of James Joyce's short stories, counts. As I am part Irish, we always celebrate St Patrick's Day in my house, so this fits right in with the Irish Stew and the cabbage and the tea we have :-)  plus the wearing of the green.  You only have to read one story for the week, though Mel has drawn up a list of reading he wants to do every day.  Anyone in the mood for some Oscar Wilde?  Anne Enright? I wish poetry counted too - I will read some Yeats anyway, just because he is Irish, and in general to celebrate Irishness next week. Maybe I can find a short mystery story by an Irish writer and do both challenges at once!

Currently reading

I am currently reading Fables: Witches, and loving it.  I think it might be the darkness - I mean, they box up Death in the beginning, and he reminds me of the creepy Gentlemen from the Buffy episode I watched a few months ago (season 4). The nightmare creatures were captured, but there was an unbinding spell performed (in the book before, I believe, since Witches is dealing with the aftereffects) and now all the nightmares are released again - due to Death, of course.

 Baba Yaga is in the section I am reading now, and she has horrible spiders around her, as well as her chicken legs house.....I love this series.  Fairy tales twisted.  I know I should wait for Once Upon a Time in a few weeks, but I have these out from the library (I have Rose Red out also), and I don't know if I can renew them (since they are so wildly popular), so I'm reading them while I have them.  I think I might break down and by this one, it's so good.  I'll review more when I finish it.  ***It turns out I never reviewed Hush, as it was at the time that my husband and I were separating.  I did watch "Hush", and it is still as terrifying as ever.  The whole episode is magical and frightening.  Losing your voice, everyone losing their voices, and those gentlemen moving soundlessly, floating just above the ground. 

I've also begun the short stories of Connie Willis, in The Winds of Marble Arch.  I read the titular story last night. It almost made me cry at the ending. It's the story of a married couple who return to England for a visit, and of how the main character experiences a cold wind that smells of death, while in the London Underground.  He spends the next few days exploring where he feels them (even as they are awful and hair-raising, he wants to know more), and in the end, it becomes a musing on the arch we all go through.  It ends unexpectedly beautifully, and that's what made me want to cry.  I find this often in Willis's short stories, that what the story is about ends up - even if it's science fiction based - to do with emotions, and being a person.  Subterranean Press insists they put out a trade softcover version, though if they did they sold out so quickly that I never saw it.  This book is now on my most-wanted list.

So what are you reading on this Sunday in early March?  Do you have any plans for this month?  And yes, I've noticed none of these are mysteries!