historical fantasy

Cover of Nonesuch, by Francis Spufford. A giant hand holds up a woman with a 1940s hairstyle, coat, skirt, and heels above a city skyline. The background is a blend of orange, pink, and yellow.
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Book Review: Nonesuch, by Francis Spufford

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I really liked Francis Spufford’s last book, Cahokia Jazz, as stated in my 2024 review, so I was very happy when my library app acquired his latest novel, Nonesuch. The protagonist, Iris, is fascinating, and it’s great fun to watch her machinations and verbal fencing; the setting, London during the so-called “Phoney War” and initial stages of World War II, has long held great interest for me; the book is full of lovely, lyrical descriptions, along with dread and occasional action scenes; and not only are there magic and time travel, but also, fights against fascists, and arguments that are sadly more relevant now than I would have believed possible 10 years ago. However, there’s a giant caveat: The comp that instantly leaps into my head after finishing it is Blackout, by Connie Willis. Not just because it’s set in World War II and there’s time travel involved; oh no: Nonesuch ends with the dreaded words, To be continued. If you hated the way that Blackout concluded with a cliffhanger, I need to warn you about this. Nobody warned me that this book was the first part of a duology — or maybe a series, but I really hope not, since the second book needs to go ahead and fix what went wrong at the end of Nonesuch, if that’s even possible. Please!

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Book Review: The Everlasting by Alix Harrow

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The Everlasting is Alix Harrow’s novel weaving myth, legend, time travel, destiny, and yes, a love story.  Owen Mallory is an academic, a scholar in the country of Dominion. He has survived the last war and is now studying the national myth of his country. He is drawn, however, into doing much more than reading and writing about the myth. He winds up becoming part of that very myth cycle.¹ Una Everlasting IS that myth, the national myth of Dominion. Everyone knows her story, the Perfect Knight, who fought treachery, dragons, enemies within and without and found the Grail to heal a dying Queen.Everyone knows her story. But the ending of her story can change. Details in her story can change. Indeed the very fabric of her story can change. If someone plucks at the tapestry of her story long enough… Owen’s story, and Una’s story, is the story of Alix Harrow’s The Everlasting.

Cover of The Geomagician, by Jennifer Mandula, featuring trilobites, ammonites, a pterodactyl, a skeleton of an ichthyosaur, and various plants, with a cameo brooch of a woman.
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Book Review: The Geomagician, by Jennifer Mandula

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Mary Anning was a real-life professional fossil collector and dealer in the first half of the 19th century; given the breadth and depth of her knowledge, she was also a paleontologist, but that wasn’t officially acknowledged until after her death, since she was a woman and therefore ineligible to join the Geological Society of London. In her excellent debut novel The Geomagician (coming March 31), Jennifer Mandula reimagines Mary as a woman living in a world with magic, in which fossils are the best medium for storing magical power. Hunting for freshly exposed fossils after a landslide, she is thrilled to discover a pterodactyl skeleton — and then one of the fossilized eggs comes to life and hatches in her hands! Mary is suddenly faced with new opportunities in her life, and new challenges.

Cover of Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna van Veen
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Book Review: BLOOD ON HER TONGUE by Johanna van Veen

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Our last podcast featured Shaun and guest host Kendra interviewing Dutch author Johanna van Veen about her new novel Blood on Her Tongue. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to that conversation yet about bog people and shifting cultural perspectives on death, madness, identity, and gender, then be sure to tune in along with reading this review and checking out van Veen’s rich, gothic treat. Blood on Her Tongue ticks off most all of a reader’s expectations from the gothic literature genre: familial secrets, supernatural beings, madness, gender challenges, emotional intensity, isolation, curses, doubles, and above all that yearning for what isn’t good. With the pages of the book inked to appear like blood dripping out from within it, and the darkly decadent cover art, this title from Poisoned Pen Press simply screams Gothic.

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