In a Cottage In a Wood by Cass Green

Neve’s life is a mess. She recently broke up with her boyfriend, has no place to go and an unfortunate drinking habit. Perpetually hung over and disappointed in her job, friends, and family, Neve experiences a shocking event on a London bridge that changes her life forever.

Now the proud owner of a cottage in the woods, Neve can hardly believe her good fortune. But when unexplained events begin to haunt her waking hours, she begins to question whether it was luck that led her to the bridge or something else entirely.

“This really is happening quite legally, Neve,” she says in a gentle voice. “You own Petty Whin Cottage and everything in it. It’s all yours now.” pg 48, ebook

Cass Green has crafted a suspenseful mystery with an unreliable narrator that holds your attention but doesn’t necessarily deliver on the thrills. But it is enjoyable enough for what it is.

I read In a Cottage In a Wood in just a few sittings with a mug of hot chocolate in my hand while a winter storm raged outside. I think the book is a good choice to pass a few hours and I could also see it being an interesting pick for book clubs.

Green is at her best when building a growing sense of isolation and Neve’s teeth-on-edge feelings at the cottage, all while utilizing every day events that could be completely innocuous. What’s so scary about power outages, a dead bird and a dog getting outside the fence? It’s in the timing and the incremental increase in emotional tension, which Green has down perfectly.

Neve is a relatable character even while making poor choices. I found myself cheering her on, hoping she finds whatever it is she’s looking for to bring some peace to her soul. But the unreliable narrator bit has been used a great deal lately, hasn’t it?

Recommended for readers who like to use suspenseful thrillers as a brief escape from reality.

Thanks for reading!

Promethea, Vol. 2 by Alan Moore

Promethea, Volume 2 was an incredibly disappointing follow-up to a promising comic series.

The reader continues to follow the efforts of Sophie, a student who has learned to channel the spirit of a being of enlightenment named Promethea, while battling demons and other nebulous, bad guys.

We have yet to learn more about the villains of the story, except in brief asides, or Sophie’s allies, some sort of technological heroes.

This entry is bogged down with a lengthy metaphysical poem about the progression of tarot cards and an unexpected tantric sex primer.

My quibbles with the tarot card piece is it is far too simplistic but also too long. Each card can be interpreted a number of different ways, and not just applied to principles of civilization. It is also a metaphor for the soul’s journey, which Alan Moore touches on, but, I feel, never truly explains.

Also, by presenting the whole thing through rhyme, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to Dr. Seuss. I get what Moore was going for, but it didn’t work for me.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t help but wonder if the lead character in this story was a guy if we would have been subjected to the tantric stuff at all.

I believe the earthly can be spiritual and the spiritual can be earthly. I think “kundalini rising” is just the lightning flash of inspiration in reverse. But a male hero being pressured into trading his body for secret knowledge? I don’t see it happening.

I liked the first entry of Promethea. I thought it was ground-breaking in the way it depicted a strong female character on a spiritual journey.

This second book simply isn’t of the same quality. Perhaps the series will redeem itself in the next entry. One can only hope.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is a modern take on more traditional fairy tales wherein a child finds a way to another world and comes back changed.

I first read the title of this book in Catherynne Valente‘s much more adult novel, Palimpsest. I think it was mentioned as sitting on someone’s book shelf. I remember thinking how I wish I could read that book too. Imagine my surprise to discover it was actually a book in the real world. Of course, I had to pick it up.

“You seem an ill-tempered and irascible enough child,” said the Green Wind. “How would you like to come away with me and ride upon the Leopard of Little Breezes and be delivered to the great sea, which borders Fairyland?” pg 2

How could any heroine refuse an invitation like that?

The main character of this tale, a girl with the curious name of September, has read enough books to know a once-in-a-lifetime chance when she sees it. Though she doubts, at first, that she is the appropriate girl for the adventure.

“In stories, when someone appears in a poof of green clouds and asks a girl to go away on an adventure, it’s because she’s special, because she’s smart and strong and can solve riddles and fight with swords and give really good speeches, and… I don’t know that I’m any of those things.” pg 14

Part of Valente’s fairytale, like most good fairytales, is how September realizes how special she actually is — one of the conclusions heroes tend to arrive at during their various journeys.

September’s journey is a danger-filled jaunt through a land under the thumb of a smartly-hatted villain named the Marquess. September meets curious characters along the way including a trio of witches, a wyvern who claims his father is a library, and a boy from under the ocean with dark eyes and a secret.

The story contains plenty of winks and nods to anyone who loves reading: “Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble.” pg 36

And: “She sounds like someone who spends a lot of time in libraries, which are the best sorts of people.” pg 55

They are the best sorts, aren’t they.

Recommended for young adults, the young-at-heart, or anyone who enjoys quirky portal fantasy reads. I thought this book was charming.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

The Ten Thousand Doors of January is a beautiful portal fantasy novel wherein our heroine learns the world contains far more magic than she imagined and so does she.

“If we address stories as archaeological sites, and dust through their layers with meticulous care, we find at some level there is always a doorway. A dividing point between here and there, us and them, mundane and magical. It is at the moments when the doors open, when things flow between the worlds, that stories happen.” pg 2

January has never quite fit into the glittering and privileged world of her fabulously wealthy guardian, Mr. Locke. She perpetually waits for her father to return from his many voyages where he’s constantly seeking lost treasures for his demanding employer.

She has very few friends, except Samuel, the local grocer’s son, and, eventually, a feisty hound named Sinbad, “Bad” to those who know him. In her enforced solitude, January has a lot of time to herself. One day, she discovers something strange in a field.

“I almost didn’t notice the Door at all. All Doors are like that, half-shadowed and sideways until someone looks at them in just the right way.” pg 8

Once she has found the way to another world, January’s life is never quite the same.

I really enjoyed this debut novel by Alix Harrow. The writing is beautiful and most of the book acts as an homage to reading as an escape.

“It smelled of salt and age and adventure. It smelled like another world, and I want to return right this minute and walk those strange streets. Instead, I added articulately, “I liked it.” pg 13

It also asks the reader to consider the magic of thresholds. The two-headed Roman god, Janus, from which we get the name of the month, January, had an interesting place in the pantheon. Though he didn’t necessarily have a priest dedicated to only him, Janus would be invoked at the start of each religious ceremony, no matter who the ceremony was dedicated to. It was appropriate because Janus holds the authority over beginnings and endings.

He also has a mystical association with the conscious and subconscious mind. The two faces of the god coincide to the two portions of a person’s psyche. Janus can symbolize the unification of these two minds in order to become something greater.

It relates to this story as January comes of age and claims her own, very unique, abilities as well as discovering her mysterious past.

It is also somewhat of a love story: “It’s a profoundly strange feeling, to stumble across someone whose desires are shaped so closely to your own, like reaching toward your reflection in a mirror and finding warm flesh under your fingertips. If you should ever be lucky enough to find that magical, fearful symmetry, I hope you’re brave enough to grab it with both hands and not let go.” pg 91

Highly recommended for readers who enjoy fantasy. There’s plenty of magic and escape to enjoy in these pages.

Thanks for reading!

The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis

Elka grew up in a world where nuclear bombs fell from the sky and poisoned the earth, and the weather can turn deadly in a heartbeat. In this apocalyptic landscape, she found a home in the wilderness with a man she called, “Trapper,” and he was like a father to her. Turns out, there was a dark side to the person who fed and sheltered Elka. Now, Elka has to find her real parents who went north years before. And she has to hurry, because if Trapper finds her first, something terrible will happen.

“Trapper was my family even though I didn’t know a sure thing about him, but I figured quick I didn’t know much more ’bout my parents and they was kin. Trapper was the kind a’ family you choose for yourself, the kind that gets closer’n blood.” pg 21

The title of the book speaks to Elka’s disdain for taking the regular road through the wilderness — in her world, that’s where the predators find you. It’s also a metaphor for living the life you want to live, not the one that others expect for you.

“I don’t much like roads. Roads is some other man’s path that people follow no question. All my life I lived by rules of the forest and rules of myself. One a’ them rules is don’t go trusting another man’s path.” pg 85

Elka, instead, forges her own road through the trees and, as she goes, chooses a new family including a beautiful young woman with a background as mysterious as Elka’s own and a lone wolf who appears one day out of the blue. But she doesn’t trust her own choices because she made such a terrible one by relying on the monster she called Trapper.

“He bolted up, stood tall and kinglike, towering above me. Felt like I’d lost a piece of me in that moment, like that wolf had stolen something and I had to stick with him always to make sure I’d get it back.” pg 73

Written in first-person narrative style, The Wolf Road is a dystopian coming-of-age story with some elements of horror and mystery. I found the opening to be a bit slow, but was swept up in the plot as the story progressed and Elka remembered certain details she had forgotten from her unique childhood.

Recommended for readers who like the thrills and chills of dystopian worlds.

Thanks for reading!

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

The Three-Body Problem is an inventive science fiction read that suffers, in my opinion, from some translation issues. None of the characters feel quite right. Their dialogue seemed wooden and stilted. And, perhaps this was just my Western mind, I never really understood some of their motivations.

“She could no longer feel grief. She was now like a Geiger counter that had been subjected to too much radiation, no longer capable of giving any reaction, noiselessly displaying a reading of zero.” pg 22

My quibbles with the characters aside, some of the concepts in this book were utterly fascinating.

There’s a mysterious government installation, video game with a deeper, hidden meaning, unexplained deaths, numbers appearing out of thin air, and, my favorite part, an in-depth imagining of what unfolding a proton in different dimensions might look like. For fans of the genre, I can see why the The Three-Body Problem would be appealing.

“All the evidence points to a single conclusion: Physics has never existed, and will never exist. I know what I’m doing is irresponsible. But I have no choice.” pg 61

In the library copy I read, some of the major cultural issues needed to understand the text are included in footnotes. It helped, but it made me wish I could read this in its original form.

“Everything that’s happening is coordinated by someone behind the scenes with one goal: to completely ruin scientific research.” pg 135

I particularly liked Liu Cixin’s descriptions of the landscapes contained in the video game of the story. The desolate vistas and civilization-ending weather were fascinating to explore.

The idea that there was a world where the law of physics didn’t apply was also mind-bending. Cixin has created a place where suns swirl through the sky in no discernible pattern and pendulums don’t swing in the expected pattern. In a world like that, anything could happen. And it does.

“Even if God were here, it wouldn’t do any good. The entire human race has reached the point where no one is listening to their prayers.” pg 205

Recommended with reservations for fans of science fiction. There’s much to enjoy in this read, especially if you favor the “science” part of the genre.

For readers who enjoy book to screen adaptations, this novel has already been made into a film. It is also slated to become a television series.

Thanks for reading!

Promethea, Vol. 1 by Alan Moore

Promethea is a brilliant fantasy graphic novel by the legendary Alan Moore. It follows a woman who is researching a story for her thesis, only to discover that the story actually lives in the imagination and can explode into the real world in surprising and mystical ways.

“Tell me, child, what is your name?” “Promethea.”

It is a clever, gender-bent retelling of Prometheus. But, it presents the exploration and knowledge of the mystical worlds of the qabalah as Prometheus’ gift to the world, instead of the usual literal interpretation of the gift of fire to light the night.

It seems to be Promethea’s destiny to bring fire and knowledge back to the imagination of humanity in order to change the world forever for the better.

“I am Promethea, the rumored one, the mythic bough that reason strains to bend. I am that voice left, once the book is done… I am the dream that waking does not end.”

To free her conditioned mind from the limitations of this reality, the woman, now bearing the incarnation of Promethea, needs to learn from her previous incarnations. If she doesn’t quickly grasp the secrets of the four sacred weapons, the cup, sword, pentacle and wand, Promethea’s ancient enemies will rip her to pieces.

“Humans are amphibious, Sophie. That means they live in two worlds at once: matter and mind. Yet many people only notice the solid world they have been conditioned to think of as more real while all about them diamond glaciers creak and star-volcanoes thunder.”

This graphic novel is pretty far out there. I really liked the mythic and occult themes, and strong female characters.

There’s some near nudity, but nothing too ridiculous. One of the incarnations of Promethea was brought into being by an author who used words and his imagination to shape his mistress into something more. Because of this sexual-themed awakening, she only wears a sheet, but it covers all the wobbly bits. Barely.

Highly recommended for adult readers who like fantasy graphic novels. There are few authors who write such themes better than Alan Moore.

Thanks for reading!

Geek Fantasy Novel by E. Archer

This book is a meandering, young adult novel that takes the reader into weird fantasy worlds through the power of wishes and on an epic quest by an unexpected hero who strives to make everything right, when things continually go wrong.

Along the way, you experience fairies, snow queens, the undead, and plenty of teen angst.

“(Ralph’s parents) were, in fact, endlessly tolerant — except when it came to their one ironclad rule: Ralph must never, ever, make a wish. Not under any circumstances whatsoever.” pg IV

I thought I would enjoy this story more than I did. The trouble is I don’t feel like the author successfully managed to tie the different pieces of the story together. It was disjointed and strange, but not in a good way.

That might appeal to some readers, but not me.

“I think she really wants to be the characters she reads about.” “Well, I guess that’s the point of it all,” Ralph said, out of dork solidarity. pg XXIV

Some of the details of the fantasy worlds were amusing and most certainly will appeal to young adult and reluctant readers.

“These tree-homes are lovely to look at, but so intricate that fairies spend almost all of their waking hours building and maintaining and getting lost in them. Which is a shame, really, since that leaves them so much less time for gamboling about meadows, visiting wishing wells, leaving money in return for teeth, and such.” pg CVII

In the way it wandered through completely different fantasy worlds, it reminded me of The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear… until the unexpected ending.

“In a wish, when one is pursuing one’s greatest desires, one isn’t killed by microbes. One is killed by monsters. That’s what makes it so great.” pg CXXII

Recommended, with reservations, for young adult readers who are more interested in the journey than character building.

Thanks for reading!

Cairo by G. Willow Wilson

Cairo is an urban fantasy graphic novel set against the backdrop of the desert city of the same name. It has magical creatures, confused young men, drug dealers, magicians, Israeli soldiers and more.

Everyone in this story is looking for something. If it’s not a magical hookah, it is a search for love, truth, their higher self or more power. I suppose the entire story could be used as a reminder that “wherever you go, there you are”.

“I wanted to do something. Get away from self-obsessed first world crap. I felt like the monoculture was suffocating me. I didn’t want to get stuck where I was. You know that feeling?” “I know it. But I do not think you’ll find what you are looking for in Cairo.” “Why’s that?” “Because a lot of us are stuck here.”

I was drawn to this graphic novel because of the teasers that promised mythology mixed with fantasy. It does contain that, but everything felt so rushed. Readers didn’t get the context of any of it. We’re just thrust into a world that doesn’t make much sense and spend much of the story grasping at straws of understanding.

In a way, it is much like real life. However, I prefer my graphic novels to be more of an exercise in escapism than a mirror for real life.

Give me layered worlds, complex story lines, nuanced characters and deep-seated meaning. I felt Cairo reaching for those things, but not quite getting there.

We do have quite a number of main characters, which, by its nature, makes the story more complex. But, in this case, I felt that more was not better because all of the characters felt so one-note.

The exception to this classification was Shams, the jinn. We get glimpses into his millennias-long life, relationships to other storied characters, guardianship of a sacred object and spiritual leanings. Even then, I wanted more.

“Welcome to your new home, oh jinn. We’ll talk again when you are more reasonable. Take all the time you need.”

The illustrations are done in black and white, and feel rather gritty. I imagine the whole thing could have taken on a completely different character with a couple good punches of color.

My favorite part was when one of the main characters reaches for a hero’s sword in a test of faith. G. Willow Wilson, the author, uses a poem by Hafiz to put words in the hero’s mouth as he strives to touch another reality and lay claim to the magical blade.

“The place where I am right now… was circled on a map for me.”

Though the translation Wilson used varies from the version I am familiar with, which reads: “This place where you are now, God circled on a map for you.”

Still, it is a beautiful sentiment. Rather like the intention, if not execution, of this graphic novel.

Thanks for reading.

The Help Desk Book Blog

Sharing reviews and deep thoughts about life.

Tag: Fiction

In a Cottage In a Wood by Cass Green

Promethea, Vol. 2 by Alan Moore

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

The Wolf Road by Beth Lewis

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

Promethea, Vol. 1 by Alan Moore

Geek Fantasy Novel by E. Archer

Cairo by G. Willow Wilson

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