All about the books we love

Spell-Bound by Mike Ghere

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Jamie, a young drifter, finds himself in rural Stiversville WV with a broken down motorcycle and a local cop being a giant bully until Gina intervenes. She runs the local diner which is steps away from being bought up by the cop's uncle, the richest guy in town.

Gina and he jump into bed fairly instantly and she takes him home to her aunt Eleanor, a witch. She discovers Jamie's mother had magically bound him up and no one knows why, least of all Jamie who has lost many of his childhood memories.

It becomes a battle between Rich Uncle and Gina and Eleanor with Jamie stuck in the middle. And if it was just about their magical battle and whatever it is that haunts the mine that claimed Gina's little sister years ago, this would have been a better read.

But a choice was made and that choice was to link magic with sex and therefore Jamie needs to sleep with just about every woman 'for the magic'. Which I could live with if Gina didn't constantly blow hot and cold about it and have tantrums over it. She ended up annoying me entirely. Or the whole I'm in Love in under 48 hours thing (Sorry, I'm not an insta-love person) and at the end of day, this just read like male sexual fantasy and mucked up what could have been a good gothic horror.



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What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is not just an amazing retelling of Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, it creates a lush Ruritanian country of both Gallacia (where our narrator, Alex Easton, is from) and Ruravia where Roderick and Madeline Usher live. Gallacia especially has its culture developed in the sworn soldier thing with their gender neutral pronouns and all that (there is also a hint of sapphic interest in Madeline), in how their language is, their military etc. A lot of thought when into this.

Ruravia is more or less British and there are real world settings and events as well as Ruritanian. The Usher's doctor, Denton, is American and one of the first characters we meet, Miss Potter, is British and from meeting this frustrated would-be mycologist (science of the 1890s has no room for women, much of this feels very true based on my own research), I knew exactly where this story was going to go. I still loved the journey obviously (points to star rating) and I have an advantage (I'm a doctor and I teach about fungus and parasites and medicine with an interest in the history so this book was tailor made for me)

Easton is shocked to find their friends in a) such a god awful place b) in such god awful shape. Kingfisher does an amazing job of describing how rotted, how wrong this whole area is. You can feel the creeping dread. Madeline looks near death. Roderick is barely better. Both seem half mad and neither will leave their crumbling, rotting, ancestral home even though neither actually like it.

Denton is also well drawn and he's baffled by Madeline's illness, though as he says he was drafted as a cut-bone field surgeon in America's Civil War, and isn't well trained. The Ushers won't go to Paris (one of the bastions of medicine at the time).

Easton with their valet, Angus, along with the delightful Miss Potter trying to work out with Denton what is going on in this cursed land and try to save the Ushers. The hares, the oh so strange hares in this are super creepy and such a good way of introducing later ideas.

Even in a retelling, you might imagine, we won't move too far from the source material and we don't. The ending, however, is really well thought out and incredibly creepy. Loved Easton and this whole story. Well worth reading this novella.



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A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The art in this was wonderful and really fulfilled the promise of the story. Abby is David's second wife. He and his daughter, Crystal, have traveled a great distance across Canada to live in this lake house and reestablish his dental practice after the death of his first wife. Abby doesn't think much of it since it made sense to her to get a fresh start away from Sheila's memories after her cancer death and then the house fire.

Abby is 'quiet' as she calls herself (with a vivid imagination) where most would call her boring. She's average, a bit over weight, unadventurous and she knows this is why David picked her after his more beautiful, daring first wife. She's 'safe' a good option to take care of his house and child (and I've seen this in RL so it makes it all the more creepy/sad). Abby is small town, small ambitions, etc with a safe job as a grocery store cashier, nothing daring or challenging about her.

The tension slowly rachets up as Crystal keeps drawing her mother under the water and always wanting to be in the lake. And then Abby thinks she's seen Sheila's ghost in the house. Soon they're talking and between the ghost and some of David's friends Abby is having doubts about Sheila's death.

Honestly I didn't get a strong feeling that Abby was as the blurb said 'desperately in love' with Sheila. Obsessed yes but in love? Maybe if I squint. I'm not sure it would have crossed my mind if not for the blurb (then again I'm pretty aromantic so...) and some of the final panels.

I have mixed feelings about the ending. I liked the twist though, a lot. I would like to see more from Emily Carroll for sure.



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Poison Ivy: Thorns by Kody Keplinger

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Really it's about a 3.5 read, might have made four if not for how rushed it felt, storyline wise. It does pull from existing DC history for Poison Ivy, updates it some and definitely tries to make a feminist point about who gets to choose what happens to a woman's body (hint, it's us but so often that is not the case).

In this Pamela is a depressed high school girl who really has no safe place left to her outside of maybe the school green house, a gift to the school from her mother, a botany whiz that Pamela is styling herself after. Pamela is also an eco warrior and that's where the story opens, she's furious a rich family has bought the only park in town and plans to destroy to build something. She tries to make a point, ends up gassing a lot of innocent residents, irritating her father who has to keep reminding her about the big family secret (which most readers will already guess if they have a passing familiarity with Poison Ivy). So her mother is gone and her dad is unbearable leaving her no safe haven at home either.

Enter into this gothic manse of the Isleys comes Alice, a goth girl in Pamela's class and her staunch defender especially when Pamela's date to the prom is pressuring her for sex and trashes her in every way imaginable when she doesn't give in. Alice will be living with Pamela for a little while thanks to Pamela's actions at the park (and gives Dad endless opportunities to remind her about the big family secret she must not let Alice know about, three guesses how that works out).

On one hand it's a solid entry into a villain's origin story. On the other the rushing weakens the story. As a result the lesbianism in it feels tacked on without any hint of surprise that Pamela likes kissing Alice, not a single question in her mind about this (or why Alice isn't more put off by the things Pamela has done), nor any depth of feeling. The same could be said for how fast she goes from eco warrior, not wanting/meaning to hurt people to straight up let's kill this dude. Both events are emotionally flat.

So yes, I liked it but I admit it: it has problems.



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Cells at Work!, Vol. 3 by Akane Shimizu

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This remains a fun and accurate (for the most part) way to learn about the cells in the body. In this one red blood cell has only a minor role, the trials of learning the route around the body.

White Blood Cell is there throughout but even he takes a back seat to the story of how Killer t and Helper T grew up and how they followed very different paths. The other memorable one is a freaking out memory cell who is having terrible visions.

It's truly hard to sum up this oddball manga. Just know the art is great and the storylines make biology fun



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