Upon a Frosted Star by M A Kuzniar

Once a year, as the snow begins to fall on London, invitations arrive to a fabulous party held in a remote manor house. Attending for the first time, Forster is amazed and bewitched, by the opulence and magic of the evening, not least by the ethereal, enigmatic ballet dancer who steals his heart. Determined to find out who she is, he returns at a later date but finds nothing but an abandoned house and a lake on which a solitary swan is swimming. He must wait till the next winter before he can see his beautiful dancer again.

Through his love for Odetta, Forster finds inspiration for, and success in, his art, but they cannot be together until he can unravel the spell that ballet impresario Rothbard has cast over her

A mix of fantasy and historical fiction, Upon A Frosted Star is a beautiful, heartbreaking re-telling of Swan Lake, with a sprinkle of Gatsby-inspired parties thrown in. The story is simple in some ways - we know who the good guys are, we want them to live happily ever after, and we know that Rothbard is undoubtedly evil despite the magical ballets that he produces - but the telling is captivating.

The only negative I could find was that at times things move along a little too slowly. Part of this is due to Forster and Odetta being only able to meet in winter, but I also thought there was a little too much unnecessary (in my opinion at least) detour into the relationship between Forster and his friends, Marvin and Daisy. I wanted the story to stay with Forster and Odetta, and their attempts to be free from Rothbart's evil designs 

Charming by Jade Linwood

We all know those fairy stories of young maidens and princesses locked up in towers, poisoned by a piece of apple, or sleeping for a hundred years, and how, just in the nick of time, a handsome prince comes riding by to save them and sweep them away to live happily ever after. But what if Prince Charming wasn't quite as honorable? What if he was actually more interested in the kingdoms' riches than any fair maiden? And if when he'd raided their treasuries he disappeared leaving a trail of broken hearts and impoverished kingdoms behind him? Yes, this Prince Charming is definitely more of a cad.

When three of his victims (you'll know them as Snow White, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty) accidentally meet and begin to swap stories, they soon realise how many young women have been conned by Charming, and how many treasuries drained by his exploits. The only thing to do is take matters into their own hands, and seek revenge.

I loved this book. It's a fun fantasy romp (none of your The Witcher style gore and bloodshed here) bringing a new slant to old fairy tales, and with three resilient heroines determined to prove they're the equal of any man, no matter how 'charming', and bring him to justice. 

The story-telling moves from atmospheric and enchanting to funny to tense, the action moves along quickly, and (something that I really liked) the characters grow and change as the tale unwinds. It ends in a way that leaves the possibility of a sequel, and I for one would certainly read it.

The Book of Gothel by Mary McMyne

Under a trapdoor in the cellar beneath an old German house, a manuscript has been discovered. It tells the tale of  Haelewise, a girl  skilled as a midwife and able to sense the barrier between life and death, but distrusted by her neighbours who label her a 'witch' because of her black eyes and strange fainting spells. When her mother dies, and the boy she loves is forced into a loveless marriage, Haelewise decides it's best to leave the town she grew up in and seek refuge in the forest. There she finds an unexpected haven in the ancient Tower of Gothel, home to a wise woman, who keeps the old traditions of herbal lore alive.

The blurb to this book promised a new take on the old fairy tale about Rapunzel, which I thought would be an interesting read (I'm always up for a reinterpretation of old tales), but it fell a little short of my expectations. 

Haelewise's manuscript felt too long-winded and rambling; the story of a life with all its ins and outs, rather than just the core story-arc. It may be of course that you like a novel to develop in this way, but I felt it was too matter-of-fact, too realistic, and with not enough magical or fantasy elements. Maybe too much 'tell', not enough 'show', but as fantasy it left me wanting something more.

I think in many ways it would have stood better as straight-forward historical fiction, a story of women versed in pagan ways fighting to survive against 'modern' Christianity.
 

The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

 

There was a time, and a life, before, but Angrboda can't remember it. For her, the story starts when Odin attempts to kill her for not revealing visions of the future to him. Three times he has her burned, then tears out her heart. But still Angrboda survives.  Wanting to have nothing further to do with the gods of Asgard she retreats to the far-distant Iron Wood to heal and start over. She's soon followed though by Loki, the trickster, bringing back her heart but winning it through love. Together they raise three strange children; a daughter, Hel, born with withered legs, and two sons - Fenrir, a wolf, and Jormungand a small wriggling worm who rapidly grows into an enormous serpent. Despite their oddness, all three are greatly loved by their parents, but as Angrboda recovers her powers of prophecy she realises that her children have an important part to play in the end of the world - and that there's nothing she can do to avert it.  

I loved this book - a spell-binding, feminist re-imagining of Norse myths in which a minor character - a woman dismissed to the margins of the old tales now takes centre stage. Angrboda is the sort of woman rejected by society, often labelled 'witch', whose knowledge is both in demand and feared, and at the same time a mother, full of love for her unique children, her often-absent husband, Loki, and her one close friend, the huntress Goddess Skadi. It's love in general, and that maternal love specifically which makes her courageous enough to take on destiny. 

Within their close-knit, isolated home, the children are just seen as unusual; being different doesn't make them unlovable or 'less' than others. It's only when outsiders disrupt this environment that Angrboda's children see themselves as monsters.

The story reads like a fairytale or myth, but turns our usual understanding of the Norse gods and Ragnarok, the ending of their days, on its head. This isn't about superheroes saving the world as in the Marvel comics and films, or even the old traditional myths, but of the power of a mother's love that can sometimes change fate, if only a little.

It's an absolutely stunning fantasy debut, and I look forward to reading more by Genevieve Gornichec.

The Forgotten and the Fantastical 4 - edited by Teika Bellamy

illustrated by Emma Howitt

review by Maryom

"Modern fables and ancient tales" is how this book, comprising fourteen weird and wonderful stories, describes itself, and, as with the previous volumes of The Forgotten and The Fantastical, this fourth collection takes fairy tales away from the nursery, and puts them back in their original place on the adult bookshelf. I don't know what it is about fairy tales - maybe that their themes seem universal, as fitting today as ever, maybe that in an increasingly urban, digital world we're seeking a connection with nature, or a simpler time when the world divided into good and evil - but something about them always appeals, and this latest anthology is no exception.




I've found there's often a strong feminist/earth mother streak in the work published by Mother's Milk, exploring the strength of female characters, their bonds with nature, and although this isn't a particularly 'themed' collection many revolve around a central female character, rather than the more traditional hero of folk tales. Several, in fact explore a similar concept - that of women breaking free from the demands and expectations of men, rejecting the 'safe' world created for them, often no more than a gilded cage, to find fulfillment and explore the world themselves.
In Belle/Bete by Renee Anderson, a badly burned woman is encouraged by her lover to shun the world, in order to avoid the taunts she might suffer there, but effectively locking her away from life.
Katy Jones' retelling of 'Snow White and Rose Red', A Beast of the Forest, follows the girls and the 'bear' beyond the traditional happy ending with the heroine choosing to embrace the natural world rather than the fake sophistication of the Court. In Lisa Fransson's The Moss Child a smith tries to keep his daughter 'protected' from the natural world of forest and birds which form her birthright, while Lynden Wade's Sins of the Fathers again features a smith, a man who seeks to avoid the mistakes made by his father and grandfather, and create himself a wife of iron. Rosemary Collins reinterprets Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen into a fable about the perils of global warming, as Cold-Brained Kay (female in this version) goes on a quest to find cold and ice, and bring back winter. Elizabeth Hopkinson's Juanita draws on the life of a seventeenth century Mexican nun/scholar/poet who challenged the authority of bishops and philosophers (all male).

Some of the stories are set in traditional 'once upon a time' never-never land; Rachel Rivett's Wild Man, Holly James' Faraway Woman. Some set in recognisable historical times - A Story in Two Parts by Leslie Muzingo which centres on the lives of those 'creators' of fairy tales - Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm. Others bring magic and fairytale characters into contemporary settings - Ruth Asch's The Microwave is a modern equivalent of the magic never-empty purse, The Godmother's Fairy Tale Ending by Donna M Day takes place in a care home for the elderly, and Matthew Keeley's Winging In in a therapist's consulting room.

Susie Hennessey's Lowden House appears to be set in some bleak dystopian future (though in reality it's a place much closer to home), while in the world envisaged by Victoria Haslam in Strange Traits genetic modifications can turn you into almost any creature you'd like to be.

An eclectic, enjoyable collection for anyone who feels fairy stories are not only for the young and innocent.



Maryom's review - 5 stars 
Publisher - Mother's Milk Books
Genre - adult folk/fairy tales

The Forgotten and the Fantastical 3 - edited by Teika Bellamy

review by Maryom

Having seen editor Teika Bellamy on social media first asking for submissions, then talking about her difficulties in choosing which would make the cut, I've been eagerly waiting to read this, the third collection of re-imagined fairy tales from Mother's Milk Books. Most of us start our reading with fairy stories and for me that love of magic and mystery has stayed, but reading with an adult's view the children's versions have all the "otherness" and magic washed out of them. Here, in these seventeen stories, that returns.

As you'd imagine there are many of the familiar 'faces' included - animals are turned into men, and vice versa, mermaids sing their siren songs, children go missing lured away by by an enchantment, a woman is made of flowers, a child made of salt.
Some are set in the familiar never-never-land of fairy stories with dark, forbidden forests where people mustn't stray from their village or a lady from her tower. Others in more contemporary surroundings - an orphaned child with strange eyes is found on a bomb site, the Little Match Girl is transported to present day London, and that fairy tale regular, the old crone, sits on a park bench and admires the youth and fitness of a triathlete. They even transport well to the future - the dangers of a forest are replaced by an airless planet and fairy folk by 'aliens', and our obsession with social media becomes a cautionary tale for the children of our descendants.
The stories vary in length from a couple of pages to a dozen or so, some are funny, some magical, but all are enjoyable, and look beyond the obvious day to day world. I'm not going to go into details about every story but here are three of my favourites -

Dan Micklethwaite's Midnight Riders in which the story of Cinderella's coachman is played out in London's Underground
Sarah Armstrong's The Truth About Tea in which a mother decides to check out the young woman her son intends to marry (in this modern day, you can't really try the pea-under-the-mattress test)
Clair Wright's Spawned, a 'sequel' to the tale of the Frog Prince which underlines that love is really all you need.

Authors; Poppy O'Neil, Dan Micklethwaite, Lynden Ware, Angi Holden, Ronne Randall, Sophie Sellars, Elizabeth Hopkinson, Claire Stephenson, NJ Ramsden, Moira Garland, Ness Owen, Clair Wright, Carys Crossen, Marie Gethins, Rachel Rivett, Sarah Armstrong, Sarah Hindmarsh

Maryom's review - 5 stars 
Publisher - Mother's Milk Books
Genre - adult folk/fairy tales

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

"In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the snow falls many months of the year, an elderly servant tells stories of sorcery, folklore and the Winter King to the children of the family, tales of old magic frowned upon by the church.

But for the young, wild Vasya these are far more than just stories. She alone can see the house spirits that guard her home, and sense the growing forces of dark magic in the woods... "


review by Maryom




Vasya is the daughter of a rich lord allied through marriage to the princes of Moscow, but, although expected to spend her days by the fire perfecting her domestic skills such as sewing or cooking, she'd rather be outside, roaming the forests that surround their home, or spending her time in the stables with the horses. She's also possessed of an unusual gift, inherited from her 'witchwoman' grandmother - the ability to see and talk to the small gods and spirits of hearth, stable, rivers and woods. Some of these are mischievous, leading travellers astray or snatching the young and unwary, but others are helpful, performing chores for their human hosts and guarding against the darker forces that lurk in the forest. But this is a time when the older ways, and belief in these gods, are dying, being replaced by Christianity which would ideally rid the world of such 'demons', and while the smaller domestic spirits are in decline, leaving homesteads unprotected, something evil is growing in strength.


The Bear and the Nightingale is a fabulous, atmospheric blend of history, folk tale, and fantasy, with a real feel for the snowy depths of a Northern Russian winter. It's set in the 12th century, in the area that will become Russia, but which for now is ruled by Rus' princes paying tribute to the Khan of the Golden Horde. It's a time and place of which most readers (like me) will have little knowledge, and the author brings it wonderfully to life. Even for a wealthy family such as Vasya's much of life revolves around farming (at harvest-time everyone has to join in, including her father and the village's priest) and preparing for the long winter; in fact I think winter is as much a character in the book as the humans or spirits. I loved the authors's depiction of a family huddled round their enormous oven, listening to folk tales, sleeping beside and even on top of it, desperately trying to keep warm as temperatures plummet, and, in sharp contrast to that domesticity, the wilds of the forests stretching seemingly for ever in all directions.
The story starts fairly quietly, with emphasis on Vasya's childhood and family, then in the second half the fantasy element becomes stronger, leading to a showdown between the forces of good and evil which threatens the way of life of Vasya and her family.

US cover

I picked this book up through Netgalley after seeing the publisher/publicist talk about it on Twitter.I was intrigued by the title, and chose it from the 'blurb' which appealed to me, so I hadn't seen the cover till I came to write this review - somehow to me it isn't a cover which shouts out 'read me', but if you feel the same way, ignore that feeling and read it anyway!

Following the comment form Charlie (The Worm Hole) below, I looked for the US cover. It's much nicer I think, conjuring up the dark, wintry mysteriousness of the story, and the contrast between warm, safe house and untamed surrounding forest.


Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Del Rey (Penguin Random House)
Genre - adult fantasy

The Other World, It Whispers by Stephanie Victoire

review by Maryom

These nine short stories make a deliciously spine-tingling collection that treads that fine line between the real world and the ghostly, faery one. 

A boy lets a silent girl into his house from the snow, hoping she will rescue him from his domineering mother; another is uncomfortable in his body and longs to change it, with the help of a little magic; a life-sized wooden sculpture of a man comes to life to commit a crime; in an 'alternative' version of Red Riding Hood, a young girl armed with an axe takes revenge on the predator stalking young girls in the forest; beautiful flowers hide a deadly secret; spirits journey on a train in the resting period before they're sent back to be born again and life another human life. Deals are made with gods, the fey queen, a witch and an old man who may actually be the devil - but you can't use magic to further your ends and ambitions without some sort of pay-back, and when revealed, will the cost be too high?


When it comes to scary reads, I'm always a fan of the subtly disquieting rather than over-stated horror, and of stories that, although they involve magic, still speak of very human feelings and failures - of love, revenge, fear or desire. These stories do just that. Some are downright creepy, others more like fairy-tales with a twist, but they all echo real emotions and situations. I loved them. 

The writing too is wonderfully atmospheric, whether describing the gloom of forests, the lure of the sea or the sparkle and glitz of a masked ball the author makes the scene appear before the readers eyes.


Unfortunately, this collection isn't published till mid-November. Otherwise it would make an ideal read for Halloween when the veil between worlds is weak.

Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Salt Publishing
Genre - Adult fiction,short stories, ghosts, fairy tales, fantasy

The Forgotten and The Fantastical 2 - edited by Teika Bellamy

review  by Maryom

In The Forgotten and The Fantastical 2, editor Teika Bellamy has once again put together a wonderful collection of re-worked folk and fairy tales, half-familiar from childhood but given a modern twist


The first story, a not-quite-familiar tale of a little man who can spin things into gold, begins, as all good fairy tales should, with those immortal words Once upon a time... and leads the reader on a journey with fairy folk, spirit animals, selkies, magical manipulative mirrors and, or course, wicked step-mothers, through faraway lands, the frozen North, steaming jungle, modern cities, and the deepest, darkest forest of all, the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

These aren't stories to read at bedtime to small children but ones which seek out the darker themes hidden within the cosy, comfortable framework of the folk tale, often giving it a contemporary, feminist slant. There are tales of abduction - seal-women taken from the sea and forced to live as human, or a twist on Hansel and Gretel which asks just HOW could anyone live happily-ever-after after the trauma of being abandoned and imprisoned. There are stories in which animals help heal a grieving heart, and others which explore the deep bond between mother and child, or the manipulation of women - either by men (whether father figure or the stranger offering to turn 'straw' into gold) or by their own obsession with appearance and image.

There are seventeen stories in all ( a larger collection than the original volume); some are short, only a few pages, others longer; some close to the original (The Worm), others totally new work but within the fairy tale framework. I'm not going to go into great detail about all of them - suffice it to say, I enjoyed all.
BUT, of course, I had favourites.
For the retelling of an old myth - Solstice by Deborah Osborne, about the death of the old year, and the birth of the new.
For re-working classic tales - Rumpelstiltskin by Rebecca Ann Smith, and Reve/Revival, Elizabeth Hopkinson's 'green' version of Sleeping Beauty.
For creating a new fairy story out of fact (if I had to choose just one, it would be this) - Icarus by NJ Ramsden which takes the true war-time story of an attempted escape from Colditz castle and re-imagines it as, well, a fairy tale.  Each segment of the story starts with the sentence 'Once there was a man who wanted to fly' (a classic folk tale device of repetition) and tells the tale of  a man who wanted to be free but is forced first to become a paratrooper, then confined in a seemingly impregnable and inescapable fortress by the Germans but never gives up on his dreams. Maybe it's how myths and legends are made ....






Authors - Rebecca Ann Smith, Lindsey Watkins, Ana Salote, Julie Pemberton, Anuradha Gupta, Laura Kayne, Rachel Rivett, NJ Ramsden, Ronne Randall, Sarah Hindmarsh, Finola Scott, Hannah Malhotra, Jane Wright, Deborah Osborne, Elizabeth Hopkinson, Marija Smits

Maryom's review - 5 stars 
Publisher - Mother's Milk Books
Genre - adult folk/fairy tales

The Finding of Martha Lost by Caroline Wallace

review by Maryom

Martha Lost was found on Liverpool's Lime Street station as a baby and has lived there, in the flat above the lost property office, ever since; in fact despite being sixteen years old she's never even left the station, her adoptive mother having convinced her that the building will collapse if she ever leaves, even for just five minutes! Now though, Martha is discovering that not everything "Mother" told her is entirely true, and, that if she is to stay in her home, she needs to discover who she really is....  She may have a special 'gift' which brings to life the stories of the lost property store items, and helps her re-unite them with their owners, but it can't help her find her real mother.

The Finding of Martha Lost is a truly delightful, whimsical story, almost fairy-tale like in some qualities; it's light and breezy, and reading it with Easter sunshine streaming through the windows felt just right. It's odd then that the setting is a bustling railway station smelling of "grime and soot and cigarettes" or "diesel and vinegar and vomit', but somehow it casts a magical spell and the charm of the characters make up for the drab every-day surroundings. 
Martha's station is peopled not with commuters dashing along to their daily grind but a cast of characters as eccentric as she is - George, a Roman soldier in full armour, William who lives in the tunnels beneath the station, and, most importantly, coffee shop owner, Elisabeth, who regularly pops in to the lost property office like a cake-bearing fairy godmother. 
But into Martha's delightful world, like a true fairy-tale villain, comes Max Cole, an Australian with a lucky find; a suitcase which once belonged to The Beatles' roadie Mal Evans, filled with items relating to the band, and with it Max believes he can make a fortune - with just a little (or a lot) of help from Martha.  

A charming, sparkling read for adults, or teens, really anyone who believes fairy tales can come true, even in a Liverpool railway station!

Maryom's review - 5 stars

Publisher - Doubleday

Genre - adult, fairy tale (sort of)

The Man I Became by Peter Verhelst

translated from the Dutch by David Colmar

review by Maryom


A family of gorillas are snatched from their jungle home, transported across the sea, trained to become 'human' and used as part of the attractions of a theme park. One of them, the Narrator, learns well, is quickly promoted and receives the badge to prove he's now 'human'. But he soon finds himself torn between what he's been taught and what he instinctively feels, and when he discovers the theme park turns out to be hiding a clandestine trade he's driven to take action...

Now, this is a strange book and if I said 'It's about a gorilla who becomes human' I'm not sure all of you would be flocking to read it, but if I said "it's like a modern version of Animal Farm" or even somewhat like this clip from Not The Nine O'Clock News, where the animal becomes more human than his teacher, you might be tempted. Yes, it contains a certain level of ambiguity; should you consider it's events literally? is it, perhaps, set in some future world where animals actually can be changed into humans?  or is it a fable or fairy tale in which an animal acquires human attributes? or even a serious scientific experiment as seen in?  Probably best to not get hung up too much about these dilemmas, just read it.

The publisher, Meike Ziervogel, says it "leaves behind images that play in your mind long after you have closed the book", and she's absolutely right. I've read a couple of books, after The Man I Became, and found ideas from it creeping in to what I'm reading now.

Fables with animals as the main characters have always been used to shine a spotlight on our failings and teach us about human behaviour, both good and bad, and this story certainly does. I think it's a book that different readers will find different themes hidden in. For me, it spoke about slavery, immigration, man's destruction of habitat and the environment, and the way 'civilised' society is often heartless and cruel in ways that the 'natural' world isn't. Give it a try, and see what it says to you!

 Maryom's review - 5 stars 
Publisher - Peirene Press 
Genre - Adult Literary Fiction, translated fiction

Tinder by Sally Gardner

 illustrated by David Roberts
review by Maryom

Otto Hundebiss is tired of war, has seen too much of "man's inhumane heart" but still refuses the hand that Death offers him. Instead he wakes up in a forest, where a half-beast, half-man creature gives him boots to walk in and a set of dice that will tell him which path to follow...and so he sets out on an adventure. He falls in love with the beautiful Safire, is imprisoned by the sinister Lady of the Nail, and although he wins his freedom, can Otto save Safire from an arranged marriage?

Using the phrase "illustrated folk tale" to describe this will conjure up images of a brightly-coloured fairy tale for children - don't be mistaken, for Tinder is nothing like that! Folk tales were once much scarier and darker than the sanitised versions put out for children today and Sally Gardner has taken Hans Christian Andersen's The Tinder Box story back to those darker origins. Otto and Safire represent the pure-of-heart innocents struggling against the powers of hate, revenge, and jealousy, personified by truly terrifying characters, not the Pantomime-style villains of younger children's fiction; the Lady of the Nail and the scheming Mistress Jabber will send shivers up and down your spine, and the werewolves just plain horrify you! The writing is compelling and atmospheric, and doesn't pull punches;  werewolves are hungry, blood-thirsty beasts, and war isn't glorious but filled with violence, rape and death.  Through Otto's dreams we see flashbacks to the past that haunts him, the horrific things that happened to his family, and the guilt he still carries.  As I said, it's not a pleasant children's bedtime story.

  The mood throughout is menacing and chilling, and David Roberts' excellent illustrations  - in black and white with vivid splashes of blood red - echo and even increase this mood.

What age group would I say it was for? Teens and onwards, with no upper limit. Although it's published as a 'children's book', I found it enthralling enough to consider it readable by adults with a taste for the fantastical and bizarre.

Maryom's Review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Indigo/Hachette
Genre - folk tale, teen +

The Forgotten and the Fantastical - edited by Teika Bellamy

review by Maryom

In The Forgotten and The Fantastical Teika Bellamy has brought together eleven writers to explore old myths, fables and fairy tales and re-cast them in a new light. There are some you will recognise; Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella are given a modern twist in Footfalls of the Hunter and Screaming Sue, Lady Seaweed re-tells the legend of The Mermaid of Zennor from the mermaid's point of view, and The Cave offers an alternative interpretation of the entombment of Merlin. Others strike out into new areas - The Sparrows and The Beefworms is a fable about the pressure 'experts' put on us to conform to their way,  Geppetto's Child an exploration of what it is to be 'human'. Some like The Boy and the Bird, The Mother Tree and the Paper House, feel like old folk tales, although I've not encountered these before. And one, The Wanderer's Dream based loosely on a Japanese story, The Dream of Akinosuke, reminded me of Star Trek's Capt Picard's dream-adventure in the episode The Inner Light (geeky I know, but there's nothing new about the morphology of the folk tale and where it can end up)
Now, I know this kind of tale doesn't appeal to everyone but I was enthralled by fairy tales as a child and, from Neil Gaiman to Seren's New Stories from the Mabinogion series and Allen and Unwin's Tales from the Tower, I love these re-tellings with a more grown-up adult twist, and really enjoyed this collection. As ever they contain that mix of morality tale and the fantastical that has kept them popular throughout the years.
It's a fairly slim volume with the stories themselves adding up to about 100 pages with notes on the authors and background to their adaptations included at the end of the book, in case you're interested.
Published by a small independent press, it doesn't have the glossy high-impact cover of something from a big publisher, but, as they say, don't judge a book by its cover - the stories inside are as intriguing and memorable as any I've read elsewhere.

Authors - Rebecca Burland, Becky Cherriman, Tomas Cynric, Barbara Higham, CM Little, NJ Ramsden, Lisa Shipman, Marija Smits, Lindsey Watkins

 Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Mother's Milk Books
Genre - adult folk/fairy tales

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

review by Maryom

In St Malo, in August 1944, people wait for the Allied bombardment to begin. Townsfolk are warned to leave, but not everybody can, and there's certainly no escape for the German troops stationed there.
 Blind since the age of six, Marie-Laure and her father moved from their Paris home to her great-uncle's home in St Malo as the German advance rolled across France. Alone now in the house, she can't read the leaflets that warn of the impending bombing but the sound of approaching aircraft is unmistakable, so she seeks shelters in the cellar under her great-uncle's house and waits for the bombing to end. In her hand she  clutches a tiny model of the house, and hidden within it a tear-drop shaped stone, the size of a pigeon egg.
In a different part of town, eighteen year old German radio-operator Werner is also hiding in a cellar - underneath the Hotel of Bees, which has been his 'home' for the past few weeks as he helps track down a Resistance group sending messages to the Allies. Raised in a mining town orphanage, while still a schoolboy, Werner discovered his special 'knack' for radios. Enthralled by the things they enabled him to hear, and fascinated by how they work, Werner finds his knowledge and intuitive understanding opening up opportunities for him as part of Germany's war effort - opportunities which have eventually led him to St Malo and a basement bomb shelter.
While the bombers fly overhead, the story moves back in time to their childhoods, discovers a connection that neither of them is aware of, and a treasure that, while it protects the life of its owner, carries a curse.


A story about a boy, a girl, and a precious jewel sounds a bit like a fairy tale - and, despite its setting in Second World War Europe, in many ways it is. This wonderful, lyrical story works well at several levels; a story of two young people making a connection despite the barriers of nationality and war; an exploration of the ways in which we experience our world - not always merely through sight but using the other senses as well; and as a fable about a fabulous jewel and the search for the one person strong enough to resist it. Add in a father's love for his child, Werner's struggle to do what he feels is right when everyone and everything is pushing him in a different direction, Marie-Laure's desire to overcome her handicap and share fully in the world, someone determined to find the jewel and use it for their own benefit and the little old ladies of St Malo who decide that even they can help to defeat the Germans, and it all makes for a very special book. The various threads weave in and around each other, seemingly easily, though I imagine it didn't feel like that for the author at the planning and plotting stage!

I loved it, every bit of it; the way the story evolved, the style of the story telling, the human-interest angle, the facts about shells, snails and wireless, the mix of real factual world and ever-so-slightly fantastical.

I've tagged it as adult/ literary/ historical but don't feel constrained by these labels - it could as easily appeal to an inquisitive teenager or someone who'd normally avoid war stories, and different readers will find different things to love in it.


Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Fourth Estate
Genre - adult literary historical fiction, WW2,

Other reviews; For Winter Nights

Fountainville by Tishani Doshi

review by Maryom

 "Fountainville is a strange, lonely town on the edge of everywhere, with its own healing secrets, as revealed by Luna, assistant to Begum, the Lady of the Fountain, in this retelling of celtic Mabinogion myth by poet and novelist Tishani Doshi. Under their care the town flourishes, but when the mysterious Mr Knight arrives at their house of 24 women everything begins to change. Aided by Rafi, the giant of the woods and the all-action Leo, events begin to unravel fast for Luna and Begum."

Fountainville is part of Seren's series New Stories from the Mabinogion, in which a variety of authors re-tell the ancient folk-tales in new and surprising settings. In it, Tishani Doshi takes The Lady of the Fountain and transports it from Medieval Wales to modern day Asia, from a world of castles and knights to one of rent-a-womb pregnancies and drug lords.
I wasn't familiar with the original, which is one of those slightly rambling stories of knights fighting other knights for no apparent reason other than that's what they do, beautiful ladies living in castles waiting for the victor to claim them, strange exotic beasts roaming the countryside etc etc. Despite being called The Lady of the Fountain, the lady herself seems a rather peripheral figure and it feels that the focus of the story may have been lost over centuries of re-telling. As you would expect from a modern story, Fountainville has more form and structure to it - a proper beginning, middle and end. The emphasis of the story has changed too, moving from the knight Owain to the women - from passive figures decorating the background, they, and their health-giving fountain, now take centre stage. I felt a little that the connection to the old story was less strong than in some of Seren's series but this may be down to my only reading the original afterwards.

The author's afterword sheds light on the creative process that changed The Lady of the Fountain into Fountainville - the coincidence of catching a documentary on the surrogacy business, the development of the new story and it's changed emphasis. She also mentions two alternative paths the re-telling could have taken - a lion escaped from a circus or a war-time story about a French wish-giving well. I'd really love to read both!


Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, folk tales

Reviews for some of the other stories from this series, and an interview with one of the authors can be found elsewhere on the blog 
 

Buy Fountainville (New Stories from the Mabinogion) from Amazon

The Wilful Eye (Tales from the Tower Vol 1)

 review by Maryom

Edited by Isobelle Carmody and Nan McNab The Wilful Eye is the first of two volumes of re-told fairy tales from Allen and Unwin.
This collection takes six stories familiar to most of us -  The Tinderbox, Rumplestiltskin, the Snow Queen, Beauty and the Beast, Babes in the Wood and the Steadfast Tin Soldier - and  lets six authors  - Margo Lanagan, Isobelle Carmody, Rosie Borella, Richard Harland, Margaret Mahy and Martine Murray - loose on them to reinterpret as they feel fit.
Margo Lanagan is the only one with which I'm familiar, through her novel The Tender Morsels which re-works the story of Snow White and Rose Red in a sometimes rather disturbing and distressing manner. While not quite as dark in tone, this collection is NOT for younger readers. The stories have been taken away from the cosy nursery setting and back to their darker folk tale roots via sex, drugs and violence.
Some are set in the traditional 'once upon a time' vague past, others in the more-or-less present. I liked most those, such as Wolf Night by Margaret Mahy, that took the basic tale and removed it to a modern setting, emphasizing the timeless quality at the heart of these tales.
There's an introduction by Isobelle Carmody about the inspiration behind the whole collection and notes from the authors explaining what influenced their choice of tale and what shaped their reinterpretation.

Recommended by the publisher as a 'young adult' read, suitable from ages 16 to 18 but I think many older adults (if that's the correct term) will love it too; I certainly did.

Maryom's review -  5 stars

Publisher - Allen and Unwin

Genre - YA fantasy, fairy tales
 

Buy The Wilful Eye (Tales from the Tower) from Amazon

The Drowning of Arthur Braxton by Caroline Smailes

review by Maryom

Strange things are happening in the old public baths now renamed The Oracle. Tapping into the power from a sacred spring beneath the pools three water-healers have been curing people of physical and emotional ills but when 14 yr old Laurel goes to work there part-time, she finds one of the healers taking a much more personal interest in her.
Arthur Braxton has been set up by the most attractive girl at school and finds himself being made a laughing stock all over Facebook. Trying to run away from his life, he finds himself attracted to the dilapidated Baths by the strange singing coming from inside. Venturing past the rubble and builders' skips he finds another world - at the heart of the splendid old building lies a pool and in it is a naked girl swimming and twirling as if the water is her natural element. In this dream-like place Arthur finds peace and quiet away from his unravelling life - and, as in all fairy tales, a maiden to love.This idyll is threatened though - by the bullies who make Arthur's days a misery and by the money-crunching suits who want to demolish the old building and replace it by a modern spa.

The Drowning of Arthur Braxton is a difficult story to pin down and label. Caroline Smailes takes the figures of Greek myths, mixes them a little with The Water Babies and transposes them into a derelict swimming pool - is it fantasy or a modern fairy tale? maybe an urban legend? However you label it, it's an intriguing, enjoyable read.

The Oracle is a haven in the midst of crowded run-down streets. The Pool itself, despite the changing cubicles and other everyday swimming pool paraphernalia,  is a magical, enchanted place, a water portal from one world to another. Outside the rain falls in torrents; inside is calm. Stepping through its doors, people can be transformed - the awkward, crude, victimised Arthur changes under the influence of the Oracle into a more caring, sympathetic, responsible person. When the two worlds clash though, there's bound to be trouble.

The telling of the story jumps from one viewpoint to another, from first person narrative to play-script, but the strands all weave together to make one wonderful whole.

I've intended reading Caroline Smailes' earlier novels for some time - I have one in hard copy and another downloaded to Kindle waiting for me - this has given me that extra push to actually get round to it!
A must read for anyone who loves the quirky and unusual - and one to read a second or third time as I suspect more nuances will emerge.

Maryom's review -  5 stars
Publisher - originally published by The Friday Project but now re-launched by  Fourth Estate
Genre - Adult fiction, fantasy, myths

The Tiny Wife by Andrew Kaufman

review  by Maryom

One day a man walks into a bank and holds up the staff and customers at gun point. He isn't interested in taking their money or jewellery but demands that they each hand over an item of sentimental value - "the most significant, memory-laden, gushingly sentimental object in your possession." The items offered are various - an old watch, an envelope, photographs...the narrator's wife Stacey hands over a calculator that she's used to make all the important decisions in her life.  With them he claims to be taking 51% of the victims souls - and if they don't grow them back, they will die.
Following the robbery strange things begin to happen to the victims -all related in some way to the items they handed over: a tattoo comes to life; a man is buried when his family home collapses; and the narrator's wife Stacey begins to shrink - at first it's hardly noticeable

I'm coming to Andrew Kaufman's work in reverse order - having started by reading his latest novel Born Weird. I'd read reviews and discussions about The Tiny Wife on the web with some readers adoring it while others found it too strange, and had it on my 'track down and read list' so was delighted to be offered a review copy. I'm definitely in the 'adored it' camp as it appealed to my love of the short, quirky and thought-provoking.

It's rather difficult to discuss the Tiny Wife without giving away too much. I think the best way to describe it is as a modern fable or even fairy tale. In fairy tales, it's a wicked witch or goblin that steals away souls and the victims must travel to the ends of the earth to regain them; here souls are stolen in a very modern way - a bank robbery - and the victims find the answers to their plight within themselves. It isn't a cosy, comforting story but rather dark in the way some older fairy tales can be; the sort that makes the reader question what they would do in such a situation; what's your most treasured possession? and what does that say about you? There are probably as many interpretations of this book as there are readers!

It's a short book - 88 pages - so quick to read but providing food for thought long after it's finished. As with the Tiny Wife herself, size isn't everything!

Maryom's review -  5 stars
Publisher - The Friday Project
Genre - Adult fiction, Folk tales

Buy The Tiny Wife from Amazon

See How They Run by Lloyd Jones

 review by Maryom

 Llwyd McNamara is a  not-very-succesful academic, just given the chance of a lifetime  - access to the research and notes compiled by deceased rival Dermot Feeney on the life and career of Big M, Dylan Manawyddan Jones, a Welsh rugby star whose sporting career came to a dramatic and untimely end with the death of his brother Ben. After that Big M's life has been a chequered one - running a hotel on the wild coast of Wales, then a pub, setting up a shoe shop and various other enterprises, always moving on to somewhere new after falling foul of the locals. As he scrolls through, and then deletes, the information on Feeney's memory sticks, Llwyd begins to discover links between his life and Big M's.

Seren's series of New Tales from the Mabinogion aims to take the old Welsh folk tales of heroes and kings and re-imagine them in a modern setting, so who better to take the place of a god-like hero than a Welsh rugby star?

See How They Run is a re-telling of the Third Branch of the Mabinogion: Manawyddan son of Llyr, and is actually one of the tales with which I was at least vaguely familiar - I've even read a previous re-working in Not For All The Gold In Ireland by John James - so I could see where the plot was going, how and where it fitted around the old one. What I didn't grasp while reading was why the story was told at second or even third hand as Llwyd read the story through Feeney's notes. Having finished, I read the afterword which helped slot things into place - so maybe just this once I should have read that first.

Maryom's review - 3.5 stars
Publisher - Seren Books
Genre - adult literary fiction, folk tales

Buy See How They Run (New Stories from the Mabinogion) from Amazon

East of the Sun, West of the Moon by Jackie Morris

 review by Maryom

Most of us have heard this story of the prince, changed by a troll into a bear and only able to be released, under certain strict conditions, by a young girl who loves him. When the conditions aren't met, he is imprisoned and the girl must search for the castle, east of the sun and west of the moon, to free him. Here Jackie Morris brings us a new twist on this old folk tale.

I've long been a fan of Jackie Morris's delightfully illustrated children's books but this is bit of a departure for her - aimed at an older readership, this time the emphasis is on words not pictures and proves that the author can conjure up images with both! I can't sum up the tale better than Jackie Morris herself, as quoted on the fly-leaf ; "It is a coming of age story, a love story, a leaving home and going out into the world story. It is a journey, an adventure, a love story that in the writing took unexpected turns".

East of the Sun, West of the Moon is a gorgeous little gem of a book, just over 160 pages long, 6 by 7 inches, stitched together in the old-fashioned way, which had me enthralled and enchanted. The achingly beautiful story of finding love and freedom moves from the dirty city back-streets of the 'real' world to 'fairy tale' landscapes of desert or woods or ice, interspersed with beautiful full page and smaller illustrations.

A rare book that is as lovely to look at and hold as it is to read.


Maryom's review - 5 stars
Publisher - Frances Lincoln
Genre - folk tale, 11+, adult
The publishers suggest a target age of 11 to 14 but this is a book that will very much appeal to adult lovers of folk stories too.