March Reading List - Late Again because that's just who I am.

 Actually, it's not really my fault. March has been interesting, to say the least. We had a gas leak (like literally there was some serious concern of a giant fireball erupting underneath our yard.) at the beginning of the month and then my grandmother passed away, and then my, my father's, mine, and my brother's birthdays are on the 8th, 9th, and the 10th respectively (btw if you feel like buying me something here is my Thriftbooks Wishlist) so I've been busy. 

And I'm happy to announce that I actually read half of last month's TBR list!! This month I'm really concentrating on getting some of my older books on my GoodReads TBR list finished. So without further ado my TBR for March: 

This is one of my favorite series, I started reading this one way back in November but one of my children lost my page when I was about halfway through the book and I was soo annoyed that I just shelved it. Gotta get it done though!

Basically for the same reason as above. 

I'm currently about 80% through this eArc so expect a review of this fantastic (so far) book shortly! 

Full disclosure: Not sure if I will get this finished this month, I kinda sort of misplaced it somewhere in my room. 

I'm about halfway done with this one already. I love the story of Monkey but I've never actually read it, all of my knowledge comes from watching shows or movies about it so I am enjoying actually reading it. Apparently, this volume is missing some stories though so I'm going to have to go hunt them down. 

This is the omnibus edition so I picked up all four from the series, I finished the first The Black Tides of Heaven this weekend and I really enjoyed it, so far I can totally understand the hype that surrounds this series. 

#MurderInWestminster by Vanessa Riley - An amazingly unique idea...If the kinks can be worked out

 

I'm on the fence as to whether this is a three or four star book. When it was good it was really good but when it was not it was also really not. 

Lady Abigail Worthing has a lot going on in her life after marrying her husband James Monroe, Lord Worthing her sister disappears and her father essentially disowns her. Her new husband leaves almost immediately for the high seas to boot and to top it all off the Abolition movement (something near and dear to her heart) has lost momentum after the death of its leader. Abigail can't really do much about the first two things but she has documents that within the hands of the right people may be the jump-start the movement needs, she just has to get them to them and she's got a plan for that. Having her maids take their place at a play Lady Worthing and her cousin Flo slip off to a secret meeting with the current leader of the movement only to be called away before they could even meet, but Abigail can't pass this up, her sister wants to reconcile. Rushing home Abigail is disappointed to find her sister not there and her dog has run off again, to the annoyance of her neighbor Mr. Henderson. As Abbi and Mr. Henderson rush after the dog, they stumble across the gruesome murder of his estranged wife. Now Abbi must team up with her hated neighbor to find out who killed his wife before both of them end up hanging for it. 

That's a lot, isn't it? That's because there's a lot going on in this book. I didn't even mention the fact that Lady Worthing has "visions". Yup, wasn't even gonna go there. There is so much other stuff going on in this book that it all overshadows the most important thing: The Dead Woman. I wish the author had found a lane and stayed in it. It honestly felt like all this extra was fluff because she simply couldn't find a way to move the main plot along. And to be honest with the Abolition Movement that's a perfect secondary plotline but that one is kinda muddled too. 

I did *not* like Abigail at all. She was wishy-washy. A wishy-washy character is good to show character development but Abigail really didn't develop at all. Henderson was a better character but not by a lot. He at least wasn't wishy-washy. (If you've read my reviews before wishy-washy characters who can't make up their minds and flip flop constantly are the bane of my existence.) There's a bunch of other side characters as well. Her cousin Flo is into math so there are a lot of really bad math jokes, Flo's uncle and Abigail's godfather is some sort of high ranking official, and Abigail's solicitor who got a thing for widows. Flo is sssooo positive and supportive it's almost fake. Her Godfather is essentially the same I think he is supposed to come across as wise and sophisticated, and her solicitor I'm not even sure why he was there other than to have access to financial records. 

Overall I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and say that it's rough to write the first book of a series. I really believe it has a lot of potential; a mixed-race woman hunting down criminals while fighting to end slavery is an amazingly unique plotline in period mystery books so I'll definitely check out the next book.

I want to thank Edelweiss Books and the people over at Kensington Books for the eArc!

#TheFairyUniverse by Olivier Ledroit - An absolutely gorgeous and humorous look at the lives of Fairies

 

Artbooks are some of my favorites, the problem is finding places on my shelves to display them and after reading this one I'll have to make room for it! 

The Fairy Universe is a unique and humorous look at the different fairies of the world. From Oberon to Elfezer (my personal favorite was Elfezer) each of the fairies in this book is presented to us with a beautiful drawing and a funny little tidbit of who they are and what their role is. 

I really cannot get past the art in this book though, it is absolutely phenomenal, I would say on par with Yoshitaka Amano which is probably the highest compliment I can possibly give an artist. Some of the pages I spent at least five minutes just trying to find each little creature hiding in the background. 

I want to thank Netgalley and the people at Diamond Book Distributors for allowing me to read this wonderful eArc.

#TheLegendoftheFiveRings The Flower Path by Josh Reynolds - A Unique Locked Room Mystery

 

I honestly didn't expect to like this. It started incredibly slow, there were easily twenty "important" characters, and I really didn't like Shin at first. By the end I loved all the relationships happening and that each character was truly their own, and yup I even like Shin!

It's opening night for Daidoji Shin's newest investment a kabuki theater and everything has to go off without a hitch because he's invested not just money but his reputation on this venture. He believes his and the Three Flower Troupe success is almost guaranteed as he has retained Noma Etsuko, the greatest actress of her generation for the lead role, what he doesn't realize is Etsuko is as arrogant and rude as she is talented and beautiful. No one in the troupe likes her and she isn't even trying to get them to. As the curtain rises it becomes clear that something is wrong with Etsuko and when she collapses on stage Shin knows it's more than just a fainting spell, he rushed backstage to watch her breathe her last. Even with his lead actress dead Shin knows the show must go on and he only has a few hours to find her killer in a packed theater of suspects from her fellow actors to the courtiers gathered in the wings, Etsuko pushed one person just a little too far. 

I've already touched a bit on the downside of this, it is very slow to start, even when you take into consideration Reynolds had a very large stage to set with how many people wouldn't mind seeing the victim dead it still took forever to get to the actual death scene. After that it starts to get a bit better, the momentum picks up and we find a complicated tale of blackmail involving almost everyone Etsuko touched. 

The best part of this book has to be the characters though. I found each and every one of them thoroughly enjoyable and I loved how unique each one was. If I had to pick a favorite though it would be Arban, yes he's a side character but he really was hilarious. 

I'd never even heard of this series until I picked up this eArc so I started it pretty late in the series, I'm definitely going to be going back and reading the rest of them though! Shin seems to be a really interesting character and I'd like to know why he's the outcast in his clan.

I want to say thank you to the wonderful people over at NetGalley and Aconyte Books for this 

fantastic eArc!

The Inugami Curse by Yokomizu Seishi and translated by Yamakazi Yumiko or The Most Dysfunctional Family ever.

 

This was deeply disturbing on multiple levels. The actual killer was evil, pure evil, I think Kindaichi calls them demonic in the book and that is a very good description. But here's the thing almost every suspect was completely unlikable and a shade of evil. To be honest I think this is the first time in my life where I've actually wanted just all of the suspects to be guilty because they all deserved to be in jail for one reason or another. 

As an orphan and on the verge of death Seihi Inugami is taken in by the Head Priest of a Shrine and his wife. This one act of kindness will change Inugami's life and he goes on to become one of the leaders of Japan's silk industry. He knows he owes the people who saved his life everything and even though he has three daughters of his own from his mistresses when the Priests granddaughter Tamayo finds herself orphaned he takes her in too. Inugami's daughters expect that even though he was never a loving father in life they will be remembered in death and when Inugami finally passes away they believe they will inherit his fortune and his company or at least their sons will. But Inugami's love for his saviors family continues even in death and he leaves everything to Tamayo, creating a complicated will that becomes the catalyst for murder. 

I think I covered the whole this book was disturbing but oh man was this book disturbing. Just when you believe that the Inugami Clan can't get any more dysfunctional it does. And while the murders themselves are pretty straightforward cold, calculated acts of greed it's really a series of coincidences that makes this case so complex and difficult to solve. 

Overall this was easily one of the best murder mysteries I've read, ever. I can see why this book spawned not one but two movies in Japan. And really why he was such a beloved author period. From what I can find it looks like only three books from this series have been translated so far so I'm looking forward to reading the next one and hoping that they'll translate the entire series, especially since while in the translated series this stands as book two but in the original Japanese this is book six. I'd really like the four in between!

The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman - A surprisingly accurate title.

 This book was exactly what I expected it to be except when it wasn't. I was incredibly surprised that this book published originally in the '60s or '70s was so candid about Mrs. Pollifax's feelings of uselessness and suicide. I mean let's be honest even today we don't talk about whether or not Grandma or Grandpa are feeling mentally awful. So let this be a reminder to check on the elderly humans in your life.

 Mrs. Pollifax is at her doctor's office when he asks her something she's always wanted to do. She says "Be a Spy." He laughs of course reminding her that it was silly ambition when she was young so it's even sillier now that she's old. Except Mrs. Pollifax isn't your standard widowed housewife, the more she thinks on it the more she thinks it wouldn't hurt to at least ask to become a spy. So the very next day she sets off to Washington D.C. to become a spy setting off a harrowing adventure that starts in Mexico and ends in Albania. 

Like I said this is exactly what you'd think it is. Mrs. Pollifax is delightful and delights everyone, including her captors. She's incredibly funny because she is so blunt, and she is, of course, one badass elderly woman. I think that kinda comes with the whole spy territory, she had to be just a little badass before she even started out on her journey. Needless to say, she and her fellow captives kick commie ass (there is no way this was not going to involve communists) all while somehow completing Mrs. Pollifax's original mission. Mostly because the one guy who does end up dead was pretty smart but somehow Mrs. Pollifax gets the credit for it, which was the only annoying portion of this book.

Overall this was just a fun little adventure book and I'll definitely be continuing the series.

Dragon Sword and Wind Child by Ogiwara Noriko and translated by Cathy Hirano - When myth and fairy tales collide!

 Updated folklore/mythology is one of my favorite niche genres. The big thing for me to make these good though is you have to be able to recognize the original story. If the author has deviated so far from the original path that you really are only taking their word for it that they were truly inspired by a well-known folktale or myth then that's not really a retelling and in some cases, it really just feels like a cheap marketing ploy (there are unfortunately several extremely popular YA novels that feel like this). So I was incredibly happy when Dragon Sword and Wind Child was immediately recognizable as the Japanese Creation Myth and that her changes took it from a myth to a fairy tale. 

Saya is found wandering a forest near death as a young child, she is then taken in and adopted by an older couple. Over the years she finds her place in her new village but is plagued by nightmares of fire and a shrine priestess who terrifies her. On the night of the Hagai, a festival, Saya discovers that she is the Water Priestess of the People of Darkness a group who revere the Goddess of Death and one viewed with scorn and meets Prince Tsukishiro the demigod son of The God of Light hell-bent on the destruction of the Goddess of Death. Saya has a choice to make she can embrace her lineage and save her people or continue down the path of Light that she started those many years ago when she was found in the forest. Her decision will change the fate of the world. 

This was beautifully told. I feel like this could have become unnecessarily complicated and long-winded but Ogiwara keeps the complications to just what needs to be added to keep the tension going. And she does an exceptional job of creating and maintaining just the right amount of tension through Saya's indecisiveness, the pacing in this was really excellent, it never felt rushed or too slow. I found that the simplicity of the story was the best part though. The play of light against darkness, or in this case, immortality vs death and rebirth is something that is a complicated subject but Ogiwara keeps it simple using the impact on nature to explain it. This topic alone could have become a really long drawn-out philosophical debate between the opposing forces but she avoids that which makes this book perfect for its demographic. 

In terms of the characters I absolutely hated Saya at the beginning, but through really exceptional character progression she goes from kind of whiny, indecisive, and a little bit of an entitled brat to a strong and courageous young woman at the end. However, I have to say that Chihaya was my favorite character. We don't get a lot of dialogue from him but from what we do we can gradually see the change that he is undergoing from a God of Light to a human with emotions. 

The ending of this totally had a Ponyo vibe though. Seriously, if you've watched Ponyo's Mom nicely but firmly tells Ponyo's dad to stop being an ass and she's already made a decision so he might as well accept it and the conversation between The Goddess of Death and the God of Light at the end pretty much goes the same exact way. Outside of the Ponyo vibe though the way this is wrapped up was very well done. Earlier in the book Chihaya is told that either he will have to kill his father (the God of Light) or his father will kill him, what that actually looks like in the end is not what I expected at all but is the perfect fairy tale ending. 

Overall I enjoyed this immensely and I'm looking forward to reading the next couple of books in the series.