419

My mom read 419 a few years ago.  She really liked it and asked me to read it, too.  I had every intention of reading it, but for various reasons, I didn't get to it until now.

419 is a complicated story.  It's about Laura Curtis and her family dealing with the aftermath of her father's death.  It's about internet scams originating in Nigeria.  It's about the greed for oil in the Western world.  And it's about a pregnant woman walking away from Sharia law. 

I won't lie: I had a hard time getting into this book.  I was very intrigued by Laura Curtis and her family.  The police begin trying to determine the cause of her father's death.  Originally Laura is a suspect, but it becomes clear that her father's death was a suicide. Around that point, 419 starts looking at Winston, a 419er from Nigeria.  Winston hangs out in internet cafes, trying to find stupid oyibos who will fall for his stories.  He ends up working for a man known as Ironsi-Egobia (who is a sort of crime-lord in Lagos).  After that, the book follows a woman with no name who is walking away from her home because she is pregnant.  And then the book starts following Nnamdi, a boy from the Delta.  Nnamdi started working for the oil companies when they recruited men from his village.  When he was laid off because relations between the Nigerians and the oil companies were deteriorating, he ended up taking a job transporting oil in a transport truck.  Up until here, I had a really hard time with the book because nothing seemed connected to anything.  I got invested in some stories, but had a hard time with others.  And the book went weirdly between them: it would follow one character, then the next, adding a random chapter of Laura here and there.  My mom was the one who encouraged me to actually keep reading; she told me the whole thing manages to come together somehow.

And she was right.  It did.

Nnamdi ends up finding the nameless girl.  He brings her back to his village.  But the village is no longer safe for the two of them because it is now in the middle of a (guerrilla) war zone.  So they make their way to Lagos at Nnamdi's mother's insistence; she says he has a cousin there who will help him.

That cousin's name is Ironsi-Egobia.

And that's how everything manages to come together.  Laura makes her way to Nigeria in an attempt to get her father's money back and somewhat inadvertently draws the wrath of Ironsi-Egobia.  And now it's not just money she needs to get out of Nigeria, but herself as well.

419 is a beautifully written book, even while dealing with some rather ugly subject matter.  I though Will Ferguson had some very lovely turns of phrases.  While I had a difficult time with it until near the end, now that I'm done I feel like it was worth the read.

The Quickening Maze

The Quickening Maze by Adam Foulds is an interesting book. It tells the story of poet John Clare's incarceration in an asylum in Epping Forest. The asylum is run by Dr. Matthew Allen and populated with quite an assortment of characters including Allen's family, the poet Alfred Tennyson, the brutish staff, and Clare's fellow inmates. Clare has a hard time living in the asylum because he is a man of nature - being inside is crushing his spirit. But he is delusional, calling himself other names and yearning for his childhood sweetheart (who he believes is his second wife) and so he must remain.

Alongside Clare's narrative are two others: Dr. Allen begins his enterprise in creating a woodcarving machine, and one of his daughters, Hannah, searches for love; Hannah tries to catch the eyes of unavailable men including Tennyson and one of the inmates who is not insane (he's merely being kept at the asylum because he has inappropriate " sentimental attachments").  Both of these narratives were interesting for different reasons: while brilliant, Dr. Allen's scheme faces setback after setback; and Hannah manages to grow up, so to speak, while chasing her unattainable men.

My one issue with The Quickening Maze is that it gives you the point of view of an awful lot of characters (many more than the few I've mentioned here), which can be quite confusing at times. I'm thinking that's mainly a fault with the subject matter: this book is full of many interesting and historically accurate characters, so Foulds probably wanted to ensure the reader got a feel for them all. Despite this issue, The Quickening Maze is a beautiful book, in particular thanks to Foulds' background as a poet; his prose contains many lovely turns of phrases.

Tettrennial Drift

I've had Duncan Weller's Tettrennial Drift for a few years now.  Weller is a local artist and author; I bought it at one of his shows.  Unfortunately poetry isn't really my thing.  But my brother also bought a copy, so the two of us decided to read it together.

Tettrennial Drift is split into two sections: Tettrennial Drift and Monocular Park.  Tettrennial Drift is full of longer poems (they're all at least a page long).  Monocular Park is full of a whole bunch of shorter poems (generally 3-4 per page). 

I don't have a whole lot to say about Tettrennial Drift because, like I said, poetry isn't really my thing.  But I was struck by how honest these poems seemed to be.  They really seemed to give you a good glimpse of the author.

Fire in the Blood

I first saw Fire in the Blood at work. It looked and sounded interesting, plus it wasn't listed as part of a series on Goodreads, so I added it to my to read shelf. 

Then my mom got it for me for Christmas, so I eagerly started reading it...and realized it was book four in a series! That made me sad (it's very hard to find standalone fantasy books nowadays). I debated for a few days whether I should get a hold of the first three books or just read this one. In the end I decided to just read it. I regretted that decision for the first fifty pages or so. Most of that is back story, talking about events that happened earlier in the series. But once you get past the back story, Fire in the Blood gets quite good.

Fire in the Blood is about Farideh and Havilar, twin tiefling girls who were raised by their Dragonborn father, Mehen. Farideh is the Chosen of Asmodeus, a devil god; he grants her powers of the Hells which she doesn't want. The girls lost seven years of their lives due to a deal with a devil (I don't know all the details - I'm guessing this was an earlier book). They return to find the world has moved on without them. Havilar's noble lover, Brin, is engaged to Princess Raedra of Cormyr. Cormyr is fighting a war against Shadovar/Shade. Raedra's father, the crown prince, goes missing during the war. And Farideh sees a Shadovar agent in the princess's inner circle. Farideh ends up allied with the princess while Havilar and Brin go looking for the crown prince after everyone believes he is dead. And Havilar may be manifesting powers that mark her as a Chosen of Asmodeus, too. Mainly that she can summon imps who will do things for her - like give her a hellhound puppy so she can track the untrackable crown prince of Cormyr.

Oh yeah, and the ghost of the original Brimstone Angel is hanging around, trying to get a piece of her soul back. The only problem is that it's in either Farideh or Havilar. And she may have to kill them to get it back (once she is strong enough to do so).

There's also some stuff going on in the Hells. Lorcan, the devil who is supposed to be watching (and corrupting) Farideh, is getting embroiled in politics he doesn't want to care about. Plus his half sister may have stumbled on something the powers that be don't want getting out. I'm not going to lie: I really didn't care about this stuff. It was a lot more fun following Farideh, Havilar, and Raedra. They were dealing with kidnappers, political intrigue, war, magic, racism (Cormyr is not a friendly kingdom for tieflings!), love, heartbreak, and just so many fun and interesting things that it was so easy to be caught up in their story. They were all so relatable, that I really fell in love with them and their trials. I'm not in a hurry to read the earlier books, but I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for future books in the Brimstone Angels series!

If Wishes Were Horses

After reading Anne McCaffrey's An Exchange of Gifts back in August, I bought it and If Wishes Were Horses, which is another of her novellas. I decided to start reading If Wishes Were Horses a few days ago. It's short (only 85 half pages), but I've been pretty busy so it took me a bit longer than I thought it would.

If Wishes Were Horses is the story of the Eircelly family (a noble family made up of lots of children who are almost all twins). Their father is called away to a war, so the rest of the family is left to take care of themselves and their village without him. The war drags on much longer than planned, getting nearer and nearer to the eldest pair of twins' birthday. For Tirza, this isn't much of a problem: she may miss out on getting a traditional Ball, but she knows she's getting a crystal as per her family's tradition. But her brother, Tracell, had his heart set on getting his own horse. With the war still raging, horses are impossible to come by. How will Lady Eircelly make his birthday wish come true?

If Wishes Were Horses was a fine story. I liked that it was about the whole family getting through this hardship. I don't think it was as good as An Exchange of Gifts though, which was a bit of a shame (An Exchange of Gifts was awesome and I'd love to read more set in that world!) But even saying that, If Wishes Were Horses was still a great read. :)

Betty and Veronica's Princess Storybook

I saw this when I was checking books in at work this morning and had to read it.  It's an Archie-style retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Rapunzel, Snow White, Rumpelstiltskin, and the Little Mermaid.  Betty and Veronica play the title characters (sometimes shared, as in the Little Mermaid and Rapunzel), and other Archie characters play the supporting cast (Cheryl as the Sea Witch and also the wicked queen's mirror were both a lot of fun!)

Another fun feature of this book is that each story is introduced with some historical facts, telling you when and who first wrote it down, how popular it's been, stuff like that.  There were a few cases where I actually enjoyed this more than the story (Rapunzel and Beauty and the Beast in particular). 

All in all, Betty and Veronica's Princess Storybook was a fun and super fast read.  It was exactly what I needed after work today.  :)

The Sea Thy Mistress

Well here we are.  It's over two weeks after I finished All the Windwracked Stars, and I'm only now finishing the final book of the Edda of Burdens, The Sea Thy Mistress. 

Like All the Windwracked Stars, I had a bit of a hard time getting into The Sea Thy Mistress.  Actually, that's an understatement: I had a very hard time getting into this story.  It takes place during the 50ish years right after All the Windwracked Stars: the world is renewed thanks to Muire's sacrifice.  Selene and Cathoair, as angels, are trying to help the world and its people rebuild.  But then 34 years later, Muire's child with Cathoair (Cathmar) washes up out of the sea.  And Heythe arrives, finding the world not at all how she expected it.

From there, the book moves slowly through Cathmar's childhood and adolescence.  Cathmar is a child first and an angel second, and so he needs to learn how the world works.  And this was a bit of a slog to get through, especially when I found myself having to backtrack through the dates a bit to figure out how old Cathmar was at certain times.

But once he sort of grew up, it felt like the story really started.  Cathmar slowly got his independence and found a girl he liked.  He moved into the city with her around the time the Imogen showed up to serve his father.  But Cathoair was still grieving the loss of both Astrid (whom he accidentally killed) and Muire (although she was not truly lost, just changed); the Imogen's ability to feed on your pain becomes an addiction.  And when Heythe finds him and tells him she can send him back to save Astrid at the cost of four days spent with her, Cahey agrees to her torture, not realizing Heythe may be using him just to get to Muire. 

The Sea Thy Mistress, when it comes down to it, is an interesting read.  Unfortunately it takes a bit to get there.  It doesn't help that it deal with a pretty big time span and multiple characters (on that note, I think it gets better when the characters more or less come together later in the book).  All in all, I am glad I persevered through the beginning and finished it and the entire saga.