Two Sentence Book Reviews

I’m at least 50% back on my shit. Which means after a long period of sleeping a lot and trying to manage my chronic health issues, I’m reading and writing again. Unfortunately, while I was off both of those, I was still adding books to my to-read list. I’m Sisyphus on Everest at this point.

All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter: 3.5. Bound to the sea, the heroine’s family has seen their once-promised wealth dwindle, and she’s not willing to be the bargaining chip they exchange to regain their status. It’s a predictable but okay variation on the gothic horror trope; the world-building, however, was exceedingly good.

The Haunting of Maddy Clair by Simone St. James***: 3. A ghost with a very poor history with men throws shit around and possesses people until they promise to find out what really happened to her. This was one of the first things I read from St. James, and it’s really just okay— there are some problematic elements— in comparison to the later stuff.

Yerba Buena by Nina Lacour**: 3.5. Named after the “good herb” one character uses in her bartending, this is a story of two women struggling with the fall out of addiction, including the mysterious childhood death of the bartender’s best friend, while also falling in love with each other. Despite the emphasis on trauma, this really is a sweet love story that feels a little dreamy.

Sirens and Muses by Antonia Angress**: 3.5  Four artists, each of them struggling with what the meaning of art is in a world of commercialism, fall in and out of each other’s orbits. The ending was just a bit… I felt like I wanted more or less, so it was very Goldilocks with no perfect solution.

House of Hunger by Alexis Henderson: 3. In a society where the rich use the literal blood of their peasants to feed and bathe themselves, mystery and a sapphic love affair blooms between the drinkee— a bloodmaid— and her rich mistress. It’s a queer take on Bathory mythology, and I gave bonus points for that despite now it seems the plot never gels.

**There was a meme going around that listed a series of Lesbian/Queer novels for every mood. I read every one of them, except for Salt Fish Girl as I had to order a hard copy. I replaced it with a novel, The Tiger Flu, from the same author which was also focused on queer relationships.

***From what I’ve read of Simone St. James, she blends the beats of crime mystery with a supernatural force in every book. Best of both worlds if you’re a true crime lover who just wants a ghost to pop up and testify now and then.