Act Your Age, Eve Brown, Talia Hibbert

I was lucky enough to get to interview Talia Hibbert in 2021, which was lovely! She was a delight, as you’d expect, and her most recent romance novel is a confection and a treat. Act Your Age, Eve Brown is the last in a trilogy about the Brown sisters (Chloe, Dani, and Eve), and if I hadn’t already staked out a claim on Take a Hint, Dani Brown as my favorite in the series (which it is still), Eve Brown would have given it a run for its money. It’s a romance novel about the youngest Brown sister, who’s always felt like the fuck-up of the family, unable to settle down to one thing, always running out on her commitments. She takes a job managing a B&B after hitting its owner, Jacob, an extreme Order Muppet, with her car. Guess what happens to them then. Guess. Guess.

Guess.

THEY FALL IN LOVE.

It’s laugh-out-loud funny; it’s a touching exploration of how families support and hurt each other; it’s a sexy, romantic love story; I adored it.

The Space Between Worlds, Micaiah Johnson

Maybe because I’ve recommended this book to absolutely everyone this year, it feels like I read it much longer ago than January. But as I thought about it, I sort of remembered saying things in the genre of “it’s halfway through January and I’ve already found my favorite book of the year,” so I guess the story checks out. Anyway, I was right! The Space Between Worlds is my favorite book of 2021, and I am absolutely giddy with the knowledge that the author will be writing another book set in this world.

Cara has died in most of the worlds in the multiverse. This means that she is tremendously well suited to be a multiverse traveler, given that nobody can visit a world in which their counterpart in that world is still alive. Cara works for the Eldridge Institute, which plucked her out of the slums and promises her a life of ease and plenty (and citizenship) if she does her job like a good little cog in the machinery of her world’s inequality. Except that one of her counterparts dies under mysterious circumstances, and…

Well, actually, that’s all I can really say about it! The Space Between Worlds is one of those books that constantly makes its characters — and you, the reader! — question their assumptions as they learn more about the world they live in. If you’re in it for hard science fiction and lots of technical details about what makes the multiverse run, this book won’t be for you — but that isn’t Micaiah Johnson’s project. Her project is sociological SF, exploring questions of inequality and colorism, borders and criminals and family dynamics. It’s a book that takes on a lot of issues and handles them deftly, all while dancing the reader through so much plot it’s dizzying.

Fireborne and Flamefall, Rosaria Munda

I wrote about these ones! It’s hard to say a lot about a trilogy of which only two books are out, and I can’t exactly imagine how Rosaria Munda’s going to land this plane, given that the premise of the series to date is “everyone is a monster to someone, and good intentions will never be enough to protect you from that basic reality.” But I am interested to watch her try!

Fireborne is set a decade on from a revolution against the oppressive and hierarchical Dragon Lords were overthrown by a juster, merit-based system. Lee and Annie are two orphans (Annie orphaned by the old regime, Lee a son of the old regime) competing for the lead position among the dragonriders, at a time when the old regime is putting together its plans for a comeback. In this book, you generally have a sort of notion about which regime is the lesser of two evils — the Fireborne post-rebellion regime isn’t good, but they’re not like, actively setting whole towns on fire. (Usually.)

By the time Flamefall rolls around, though, Annie and Lee have become more completely folded into their governing system. The onset of war means that the cracks in the equality facade have begun to show, and Annie and Lee and their friends are, all too often, the people whose job it is to enforce their unjust systems. Where they’re able to push for change, they do it — but is that enough? It pretty clearly isn’t, yet they’re also keenly aware that the alternatives on the table are just as bad, and possibly worse.

I guess the reason I haven’t seen much buzz about this series is that not everyone gets super excited about the policy proposals of rebel groups, and I guess Winning is easy, young man; governing’s harder is a message that displeases more people than just a fiery young Alexander Hamilton. But if any of those things sound appealing to you, I really recommend this series. While it shares DNA in common with many of the stop-a-bad-regime YA novels out there, it’s miles more thoughtful than most of them, and I absolutely can’t wait to see how Rosaria Munda brings it to a close.

The Theft of Sunlight, Intisar Khanani

I ran out of time to do this, but for a while I had the idea of writing a holiday-themed post that was just a book recs list of books where family estrangement is Good and Fine, Actually. My sister got very enthusiastic about the idea and kept yelling book titles at me, and they were all good ones, but then I ran out of time. If I do ever write it (maybe for Easter! or, like, Fourth of July?), Intisar Khanani’s books will certainly feature.

The Theft of Sunlight is a companion novel to Thorn, centering on a young disabled woman called Rae who’s hired as lady’s maid to the young princess (Thorn from Thorn! I missed her!). Her secret mission is to find out all she can about the human traffickers who have been snatching children off the streets for years, while the crown denies that it’s happening at all. While this isn’t a sequel to Thorn, it does feature some of the characters we remember and love from that book, and it emphasizes again the absolute validity of Thorn’s decision to cut off contact with her family to the fullest extent she’s able to do so. Sometimes family estrangement is Good, Actually!

For her own part, Rae is a tenacious and — in true Intisar Khanani style — deeply moral heroine who’s determined to find out what’s going on in her city. On a more personal level, she’s also desperate to find her own missing sister. Along the way, she has to learn how to navigate the treacherous upper class of Menaiya, not to mention the dangers she faces as she begins to ask questions about the human traffickers that have plagued her country for years. The Theft of Sunlight is also notable for the fact that someone on the trail of a mystery actually thinks to comb through financial records — more bookkeeper allies for fantasy protagonists, please! Nothing pleases me more than a fantasy-world bookkeeper being like “hmm this is weird” while the protagonist is like WHAT WHAT.

The Chosen and the Beautiful, Nghi Vo

Gosh, okay, yeah, actually, I am suddenly unsure if The Space Between Worlds was my favorite book of this year, or if it was The Chosen and the Beautiful. It is, to be honest, a very fucking difficult call. I think I will simply decline to choose. The Chosen and the Beautiful is the queer, magical, Vietnamese American, Jordan Baker-POV retelling of The Great Gatsby that I did know I wanted but then also felt sure was going to fail to live up to my expectations for it.

LOL.

Not to overstate the case, but I suspect that any year Nghi Vo writes a book, my best-of-that-year post is going to contain a book by Nghi Vo. She has now written two novellas and one novel, this one, and her work has been so consistently, blazingly superb that it’s hard to believe The Chosen and the Beautiful is only her first novel. In some respects, it follows The Great Gatsby quite closely, except that there are lightly magical elements scattered throughout and, of course, it’s from Jordan Baker’s point of view rather than Nick Carraway’s. While I wouldn’t wish a pandemic publication year on any author, it feels particularly suitable for this book to have come out this year, at a time when so many of us are desperately wishing to have the space and freedom for some high-quality decadence; but also at the same time there is this looming, terrifying xenophobia and deep hostility towards people who are different. (Like, in this book, Jordan.)

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Upon finishing this book, I discovered within myself that it would never again be necessary for me to read The Great Gatsby. The Chosen and the Beautiful contains all of what I loved about The Great Gatsby — vibes; accidental homicide; terrific writing — while adding further layers of magic and social critique. Whew, I made myself want to reread it. I did that just now.

The Ones We’re Meant to Find, Joan He

I swear that at some point in 2021, I thought the thought “perhaps I have gone off YA” and then when I could not discover that to be true in my reading habits, I thought “perhaps I have gone off SFF YA and only love contemporary YA,” and that has been my working theory for a few months. In going back over my reading list for the year, though, I discover that a lot of my best reads this year have been YA. I cannot pinpoint any reason I might possibly have thought i was going off YA! YA is great, still! I am a silly bunny!

The Ones We’re Meant to Find is Joan He’s second YA novel, and it’s an absolute corker. It follows two girls in two different timelines. One of them, Cee, has been living alone on an island for three years, with no memories of her life before the island. All she knows is that she has a sister called Kay and she absolutely must find her. Worlds away, an isolated teenager called Kasey struggles with the disappearance of her sister Celia. Celia chafed against the restrictions placed on the residents of their eco-city, and then she took a boat out into the dangerous ocean waters and never came back. Missing her terribly and unwilling to accept that Celia is gone forever, Kasey sets herself on a path to find out the things about her sister she never knew.

As with The Space between Worlds, this is a book that doesn’t lend itself to plot summary, just because it’s constantly tossing in new wrinkles that radically alter the reader’s perception of what’s going on and what might come next. This type of book wears on its sleeve the fact that it has secrets to tell, but I was still unprepared for what the secrets would turn out to be. The Ones We’re Meant to Find is about sisters, as promised, but it also turns out to be telling a story about moral responsibility, corporate greed, and collective action. All this plus an ambiguous ending too! The dream!

The Startup Wife, Tahmina Anam

I am not 100% sure that The Startup Wife belongs on this list, in the sense that I don’t know if I’ll ever need to reread it (one of my main yardsticks when I’m determining what books to include in this sort of round-up). But I liked it so much more, and got so much more from it, than I expected, that I think it’s worth a shout-out. I am not the lady who goes around reading books about shitty rich people treating each other shittily! Just. You know. Sometimes there’s a good’un.

The protagonist of The Startup Wife, Asha, isn’t rich to start with. Instead she’s in a PhD program, part of a program that’s slated to alter the way we think about artificial intelligence. When she reconnects with her high school crush, Cyrus, her life takes a whole other turn. She teams up with Cyrus’s best friend Jules to create an app that will custom-design rituals (weddings, funerals, celebrations of new births) according to the specific interests and passions of the user. The idea is that humans have moved away from organized religion, but we still desperately need communal rituals. It’s a lovely idea. And at first, it’s an ideal partnership: Asha codes the algorithm, Cyrus is the idea man, and Jules handles the business side.

Asha starts to be sidelined a little bit, but of course that doesn’t have anything to do with malice. On the contrary! Cyrus doesn’t want to be the face of the organization. It’s just that because he has this unique, and uniquely weird, perspective on ritual, it’s his vision they’re selling with the app. Increasingly, Asha is pushed to the fringes of her own business, while Cyrus becomes more and more visible. Press coverage focuses on Cyrus and his ideas, while Asha — the power behind the algorithm that makes the app possible — is treated as a footnote.

Also, though, the app is starting to become kind of a cult. So. There’s that.

The Startup Wife reminded me why I keep trying to read books of this type. They always promise to be Saying Something about our culture and its prejudices and its hangups, but most often they just feel like a combination of praise ode and half-assed elegy to conspicuous consumption in late-stage capitalism. The Startup Wife, by contrast, truly is saying something about the need for human connection and the gifts that connection can give us and the dangers it can pose. I really really liked it, and I’m eager to see what this author does next.

And those are my top books for the year! Whether because of pandemic, because there was no new Locked Tomb book this year, or because I’m too pandemic-listless to really devote myself to books and reading, it was a slightly quiet year in books for me. But the standouts were so superb, so instantly guaranteed a permanent place on my bookshelf, that I can’t say I have anything to complain of.

What were your best reads this year? What should I make sure not to miss in 2022?

The post 2021 in Books appeared first on Reading the End.

The Theft of Sunlight is a companion novel to Thorn that doesn’t (in my opinion) require prior knowledge of Thorn in order to read it. It follows Rae, a country girl who comes to the royal court and becomes handmaiden to the new queen, Alyrra (Thorn from Thorn!). There she begins to learn how to navigate the treacherous world of the monarchy and aristocracy, all while trying to discover who or what is behind the epidemic of child-snatching that has been plaguing Menaiya. Determined to recover the lost children, or at least find answers for their families, Rae faces the dangers and intrigues the city has to offer — and the confusing, irritating charms of a thief called Bren.

Intisar Khanani’s trademark as a writer is “good girls trying their best.” I felt such affection for Rae almost immediately — she’s spent much of her life being told that she’s not good enough because of her clubfoot, and she is fiercely protective of her sister, who can do magic. (It is important that nobody finds this out, because Rae’s family doesn’t trust the Circle of Mages and doesn’t want them anywhere near Niya.) When she goes to court — initially to visit her cousin Melly, who has married up — she hopes to have the chance to push more powerful people into doing something about the child snatchers. She emphatically does not want to be the queen’s attendant. Like, at all. But she can’t pass up the opportunity to gain the ear of the queen, who (presumably) can pursue the child snatcher problem in a more organized way; so she agrees to this life that she knows will be hostile and unfamiliar to her. She is a good girl. I want the best for this good girl.

Like her past novels, The Theft of Sunlight has its fair share of darkness and moral ambiguity: not just the ever-present threat of the child-snatchers, but Rae’s own feeling that she is becoming morally compromised by staying at the court, by spending time with Bren and other members of the city’s underworld, by spending time following the queen around rather than pursuing the child snatchers. But there’s something tremendously comforting about Khanani’s writing, despite the darkness, and I think it has to do with her careful, weighty articulation of values.

“Bren. Would it have been all right if I angered you and you punched me instead?”

“No.” His voice is suddenly hard, brooking no argument.

“Then why is it fine if I punch you?”

He looks at me, and the silence spreads out between us until I feel like I’m drowning.

“You see,” I say, my voice hoarse in my throat.

“No,” he says again. “Rae, there are certainly times when a woman punching a man is an irredeemable act of violence. When she is stronger, or more vicious, and she uses her actions to abuse him. But that wasn’t what happened…. In a fight between you and me, I would always win. We both know that. So your hitting me — it’s a sign of trust, in its way, that you could lash out and know that I wouldn’t hurt you back. It wasn’t abuse.”

“You’re right. I knew you wouldn’t hurt me back.” It hadn’t even occurred to me. “That doesn’t change the fact that I wanted to hurt you.”

“And you’d do it again?”

“No.”

“Then it is not all that you are, and it doesn’t have to define you. It’s something you did, which you regret. It’s not actually you.”

I look at him, his words clicking together in my mind: that this is the difference between me and [spoiler character], for his is a practiced violence, and mine was a single act, regretted. That I am not the same as him, for all that I was willing to let my anger ride me as it does him. I am and can and will be different; I do not have to let this break me.

I’ve seen plenty of books where a female protagonist hits a guy character who’s not specifically her enemy, but rarely have I seen the characters exploring the moral implications of the act afterward. I just appreciated this conversation so much! Rae knows that hitting someone in anger isn’t in line with her values, and the book gives her the time to explore what that action does and doesn’t mean about her.

Trust and truth are major themes in The Theft of Sunlight. Along a vast number of axes, Rae doesn’t know whom she can trust: Who will reliably accommodate her disability? Who will tell her what she needs to know in order to be Alyrra’s attendant? Who can share information about the child snatchers without placing Rae or themselves in danger? Who will tell her the truth, and who will lie? And the answers are, nearly always, complicated. Coming from a background where she has been able — most of the time — to speak the truth herself and trust the truth of what others tell her, Rae struggles to adapt to her new environment, where everyone around her is keeping some secrets, and she is, too.

I would like, also, to shout out the fact that a big piece of solving the mystery is TAX RECORDS. This is going to sound like a joke, but I am genuinely so high on this fact. Like, that’s so real! Financial records genuinely and truly answer questions, and point up new avenues for exploration. The fact that Rae acquires a friend and ally in the tax office just made my heart sing.

The presence of enslavers looms large in this book, so I do want to address how that’s handled (as the presence of enslaved people in fantasy novels tends to make me nervous). Khanani notes in an endnote that what’s being depicted here is inspired by, and draws from the experiences of, modern-day human trafficking, rather than historical instances of slavery. Because this book is the first part of a duology, Rae doesn’t come out of it with all the answers, but it’s clear that the problem of child theft depends on … drumroll please… corporate greed! While I tend to get nervous about depictions of fantasy slavery, I really appreciated that the book and its protagonist never lose sight of the horror of what’s happening. Any time another (upper-class) character casts doubt on what’s happening, someone else is there to insist on the urgency of the problem.

As a small warning, The Theft of Sunlight ends on a hell of a cliffhanger! I was forewarned about this by Legal Sister, and I was glad to know in advance what to expect. It’s a wonderful book that made me feel warm inside, a classic YA adventure that will leave you wanting more.

Note: I received a review copy of The Theft of Sunlight from the publisher, for review consideration. This has not impacted my review.

The post Review: The Theft of Sunlight, Intisar Khanani appeared first on Reading the End.

Episode 128

You can find Intisar at her website, as well as on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. The book is Thorn, and you can acquire it — we hope you will! — wherever books are sold. For my part, I have preordered it from the queer SFF indie Tubby and Coo’s!

Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. If you like what we do, support us on Patreon. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).

Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour
Transcripts by: Sharon of Library Hungry

Transcript coming soon!

The post PODCAST, Ep. 128 – Interview with Intisar Khanani, Author of Thorn appeared first on Reading the End.

THE MILLIONS BOOK PREVIEW. SIREN EMOJI.

Intisar Khanani discusses her journey from self-publishing to traditional publishing. (If you haven’t read her books yet, you should do it now! I love her!)

It’s good to change your opinion! On not widening the feminist generation gap.

Why do women writers hate themselves? Maybe we’re asking the wrong question.

YA author Dhonielle Clayton (her book The Belles is coming out later in the year!) talks about what sensitivity readers do, and why they aren’t nearly enough.

Karen Attiah argues that Western media has a problem with depicting African nations as if they are shitholes — it’s not just Trump. (If you’re not following Karen Attiah, you should be!)

Jezebel gets to the heart of the thing (well one of the things) that made me uncomfortable about that Aziz Ansari thing. Here’s some additional thoughts (both about the thing itself and conversations around the thing, with lots of good links) from the Lakshmi and Asha Show.

Ijeoma Oluo has the conversation about race with her mom that she’s been dreading. You should preorder her book cause it looks like it’s going to be really good.

I hope y’all are all staying warm this week! Have a wonderful weekend with lots of reading!

The post THE MILLIONS BOOK PREVIEW IS HERE: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

With that said, I had a pretty terrific reading year in 2017. I encountered some new instant favorites, books I loved so much I shoved them at everyone I knew and immediately requested them for birthday or Christmas. I love books and I love reading and I love y’all, so thanks all the way around for being great.

Monstress, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda

Never shall I give up my fondness for monster girls. Monstress is a weird and wonderful comic about a girl with special powers who finds herself at war with the whole world. The art is unfathomably lovely.

Iron Cast, Destiny Soria

Two best friends create magical illusions at an illegal night club in Boston, just before Prohibition begins. Iron Cast features found family to the max, including a best-friendship that’s more central to the characters than their romances (which is rare as hell), and some genuinely cool magic. If you’re a reader on the hunt for more one-and-dones in YA, Iron Cast is for you.

Borderline and Phantom Pains, Mishell Baker

I haven’t read much urban fantasy, but Borderline made me want to change that. Mishell Baker’s borderline protagonist is a double amputee and survivor of a suicide attempt, recruited to work for a mysterious organization called the Arcadia Project. Creepy fairies abound (my fave), plus lots of details about the nitty-gritty of cognitive therapy for BPD.

The Woman Next Door, Yewande Omotoso

Contrary to popular belief, I do not like books solely based on their having French flaps. But French flaps help. The Woman Next Door is a lovely, quiet exploration of the aftermath of apartheid in South Africa: the story of two women whose enmity softens into something that is not quite friendship but no longer exactly hostility. It’s also a story about complicity in oppression that doesn’t insist upon redemption. I loved it.

Testosterone Rex, Cordelia Fine

I mean, obviously. Cordelia Fine remains brilliant, and she is so good at making complicated science accessible to a layperson. My big complaint with Testosterone Rex is that it doesn’t talk about non-cis people hardly at all. However, it makes many brilliant arguments about the role hormones like testosterone play in gender and gendered behavior. Read it, and read Delusions of Gender.

White Tears, Hari Kunzru

I said it when I read it, and I’ll say it again now: What the entire fuck. White Tears is a story about white appropriation of black culture, but it’s also a terrifying ghost story and a wild wild ride. It has one of the scariest endings I’ve ever encountered in a book. It’s brilliant and bananas. Get on it.

Amberlough, Lara Elena Donnolly

Amberlough is a secondary world fantasy (without any magic) about the performers in a cabaret confronting the rise of fascism in their country. If you can’t face that sort of a thing during the Trump presidency, it’s absolutely fair play. But if you are up to it, Amberlough is a strange and lovely book, a fantasy novel for lovers of the darkest bits of Cabaret.

Thorn, Intisar Khanani

One of the truly lovely things that happened this year was Intisar Khanani’s book deal with HarperTeen. Soon you’ll be able to get Thorn in a shiny new edition, and you should. It’s a retelling of the fairy tale “The Goose Girl,” a story that’s sad but hopeful, a story about good people trying their best. Intisar Khanani remains one of my favorite fantasy writers currently working.

Ninefox Gambit and Raven Stratagem, by Yoon Ha Lee

I admit that I was fearful of reading Ninefox Gambit, which I’d heard was a particularly dense bit of science fiction. But I’m so glad I pressed onward with it. Ninefox Gambit might be my actual favorite book of the year; I liked it so much that I ran straight out to the library to get Raven Stratagem. It’s about an imperfectly loyal soldier who has to share a brain with a famously brilliant, famously murderous general from the past. I loved it so much. I want you to love it, too.

Song of the Current, Sarah Tolcser

Such an excellent YA adventure novel. Caro takes to the river with a crateful of mystery cargo in the hopes that she can save her father from prison. But when the cargo turns out to be a boy — a snooty-as-hell boy, but good in a fight — she finds herself enmeshed in more plotting and violence than she’d bargained for. And look at that cover!

Starfish, Akemi Dawn Bowman

In YA as in adult fiction, I tend to gravitate more towards SFF stories. But Starfish won me over. It deals with sexual and emotional abuse in families in a way that I’ve encountered virtually never, and it’s exceptionally honest about the impact of growing up with an abusive parent. I loved Starfish, even more so because the author was able to take critique of some of the language in her book, and make a change for future editions.

Jane, Unlimited, Kristin Cashore

If you’d asked me what I expected as a follow-up to Kristin Cashore’s Graceling series, the last thing I’d have said would have been “Rebecca as a choose-your-own adventure, by way of Diana Wynne Jones.” But that’s what I got: Five separate stories in five separate genres, each most wonderfully stranger than the last.

I wish you strength in the New Year, and all the glorious books you can gobble up. What were some of your 2017 faves?

The post 2017 Reading in Review appeared first on Reading the End.

Intisar Khanani, an author I adore and cherish, has landed a two-book deal with Harper Teen. They’ll be reissuing her book Thorn, a marvelous retelling of “The Goose Girl,” and she’ll be writing a companion novel to go with it, tentatively called A Theft of Sunlight. Intisar Khanani seems like a truly lovely human person, and I am so happy for her to get this deal. I hope it leads her on from success to success, for she is marvelous.

The new Black Panther trailer is out and it looks amazing. This movie is going to make so much money. Just let me give you my money, Black Panther. But the gilding of the lily is that when Michael B. Jordan’s casting was first announced, I desperately wanted him to be a bespectacled science guy. He’s kind of the opposite of that? He’s a muscley villain? BUT MY SPECTACLES WISH WAS GRANTED:

Dear Lord, thank you for this blessing. I will strive to be worthy of it.

A stranger on my bus caught me leaving my coffee mug behind me when I got up on Wednesday, and he stopped me and made sure I had it before I got off the bus. Yay for random niceness. Will try to pay forward.

Link up your Something on Sunday posts below! I have made my Mr. Linky thing work! I am a Linky genius!

Narrator: She was not.

The post Something on Sunday: 10/22 appeared first on Reading the End.

“I don’t know what justice is,” I tell him. “But I am trying to get what I can right.”

The above paragraph is a perfect summation of why I loved Thorn, and of why I love Intisar Khanani so much as an author. In Thorn, as in all her books, she writes about characters who may be in bad situations but who are trying their best. Characters who are trying their best are balm to my frazzled soul in these difficult times, so I am pushing Intisar Khanani’s books on people like they are ebags dot com packing cubes. Consider them pushed upon you. Go get you some.¹

Thorn is a retelling of the fairy tale “The Goose Girl.” It’s a good fairy tale, full of details with that specifically fairy tale brand of weirdness. In this one, a princess is sent to marry a prince in a faraway land; on the way to her wedding, her chambermaid changes clothes with her and ultimately marries the prince in her stead. The true princess has to serve as the goose girl and comfort herself by talking to the head of her horse Falada, whom the chambermaid has had killed in fear that Falada would tell the truth about her. (Go with it; it’s a fairy tale.) Matters proceed from there.

Thorn does a typically (for Intisar Khanani) sincere and sweet retelling of this story, providing a backstory for the fairy tale weirdness that absolutely works. The maidservant, Valka, has made a deal with a wicked witch to switch bodies with the princess Alyrra, so that the witch can gain access to prince Kestrin. If Alyrra tries to tell what happened to her, the witch’s spell will choke her to death. She takes on the nickname Thorn and bides her time to see if she can save the prince from the witch’s curse.

In the hands of an author whose faith in people is less genuine, Thorn could have been a mess. Huge swathes of the plot depend on people appreciating Thorn for not being a jerk in a world where jerkiness runs rampant. If her goodness had felt forced, or their gratitude untruthful, the book would have fallen apart. But I am particularly in need of books where people are kind because they are trying to be good, even when the circumstances around them may not be conducive to goodness. In Thorn, the characters try to be good because they want to see goodness in the world, but they can only control themselves and their own actions. Which is, you know, pretty hashtag-relatable right now.

Who here still hasn’t read Intisar Khanani? How can I convince you to give her a go?

The post Review: Thorn, Intisar Khanani appeared first on Reading the End.

Our protagonist, Hitomi, is learning magic from the secretive, kindly mage Stormwind, with whom her vampire friend Val left her at the end of Sunbolt. Many of her memories of her former life are gone, and she is focused primarily on cultivating her powers and staying under the radar. All of her peace is shattered when the High Council (led by Hitomi’s old enemy Blackflame) summons Stormwind to stand trial for treason. Though Stormwind accepts her fate, Hitomi is determined to go after her and save her from unjust imprisonment and possible death.

If you are needing (as I am) some straight-ahead fantasy adventure stories, I can’t recommend Intisar Khanani’s work enough. Her worldbuilding here, as in the last book, is superb, everything from the limitations to Hitomi’s look-away charm to the differing societal norms for the desert nomads as opposed to the people of the Mekteb (the school where magicians get trained). Possibly my favorite thing about watching Hitomi travel to so many different locations is that Khanani seems to believe in the fundamental goodness of people. Wherever Hitomi goes and however slim her chances seem of rescuing Stormwind, she always meets people who are kind and good. At a time when the world feels less and less hospitable to strangers, Memories of Ash was a balm.

As with Sunbolt, this book ends in a satisfying way that nevertheless leaves the door open for many more adventures to come. Hitomi finds herself, at one point, in a land that’s been shattered by vicious magics, and she makes a promise to come back someday to try her hand at fixing it. Part of this is my current state of mind, but most of it is Khanani’s gorgeous world- and character-building: I absolutely cannot goddamn wait to see Hitomi throw her considerable energy and talent into healing the whole world.

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So all the bloggers have been on and on about the wonders of Intisar Khanani, and I finally got the chance to read one of her books (thanks, NetGalley!). Sunbolt is the novella beginning of a new series, about a street thief named Hitomi who’s part of a resistance force against the oppressive sultanate, and who secretly is the daughter of two (deceased) mages and thus a fairly powerful mage in her own right. I’d have already been in at street thief in a non-Europeanish fantasy world, but Khanani went and added secret magical heritage on top of that, and the whole thing became my exact cup of tea.

Let’s start with the (for me) weakest link, the secret magical heritage. When I say “weakest link,” I’d like you to appreciate that I really liked this novella, and “weakest link” isn’t much of an insult within that context. It’s the weakest link because it’s got striking plot similarities — as noted by The Illustrated Page — to one of my favorite books of all time, Robin McKinley’s Sunshine. And so I kept thinking, mmmm, Sunshine, that was a good book, and not focusing on the book in front of me. So actually, let’s let that go. It’s not germane.

The worldbuilding: Sometimes you don’t realize how status the quo was — and how stifling you were finding it — until you get something that shifts away from it. Hitomi lives in a decidedly non-European world. Light skin reads as foreign to the people in Hitomi’s native Karolene, the king is a sultan, and the fishing boats are dhows. There’s something refreshing and surprising about reading a fantasy book that doesn’t make you look around for Yorks and Lancasters.

(No disrespect to George RR Martin.)

(Just, not everywhere is England. Not everywhere is even Europe. It is good when books remind you of that fact.)

Meanwhile, Hitomi’s a street thief, which means she can sneak through alleys and run across roofs and pick complicated locks with the same sort of flair and insouciance you’d like to imagine you would possess as a teenage magic street kid. See how when you put those words together, “teenage magic street kid,” you automatically start to root for that person without knowing anything further about them? And on top of that, Hitomi thinks on her feet and is ferociously devoted to the resistance cause. When you leave her behind at the end of the book, you want to know where she goes from there. One novella (to steal a phrase from Ronlyn Domingue’s The Mercy of Thin Air) is not enough for the trouble of which she is capable.

Next I shall read Thorn! Everyone raves about that too, and it will be a perfect Once Upon a Time fairy tale read in case Poison doesn’t work out for me. (Facts: I have grave concerns that Poison isn’t going to work out for me.)

I am participating in Carl’s Once Upon a Time challenge, and this has been my Fantasy book for it. Still to come are mythology, fairy tale, and folk tale books. Visit the reviews site to see what other people have been reading!

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