A little heat in the iron radiator, / the dog breathing at the foot of the bed, / and the windows shut tight, / encrusted with hexagons of frost. ~ Billy Collins, “Winter”
The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt by Chelsea Iversen
from the publisher: Harriet Hunt doesn’t often venture beyond her front gate, instead relishing the feel of dirt under her fingernails and of soft moss beneath her feet. Consequently, she’s been deemed a little too peculiar for popular Victorian society. Harriet’s garden is special and caring for this place, and keeping it from running rampant through the streets of her London suburb, is Harriet’s purpose. Soon, a sinister plot involving her father’s disappearance begins to take shape, with Harriet herself at its center. To save herself, Harriet will have to unearth her past, discover the secrets of her garden, and finally embrace the wild magic inside of her.
No shrinking violet here. This was an interesting mashup of fairytale and Victorian heroine fiction. It kept a good balance of realistic integrity with the more fantastical elements.
Read via NetGalley.
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark (December 3, 2024)
Language: English
Paperback: 320 pages
ISBN-10: 1728275814
The Hitchcock Hotel by Stephanie Wrobel
from the publisher: Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner, and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. To celebrate the hotel’s first anniversary, he invites his former best friends from his college Film Club for a reunion. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in sixteen years, not after what happened. But who better than them to appreciate Alfred’s creation? And to help him finish it. After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a body.
I am as much of a Hitchcock fan as any classic film enthusiast. The idea of this novel is intriguing and it sounds like a fun layer to add to a typical thriller. However, this book was a mess. It sets up several partial story lines that don’t go anywhere. These are not red herrings — just loose ends. It meant the overall enjoyment was lessened because I was distracted by what felt like mistakes. And the Hitchcock references were largely transparent and unexciting. It felt like your little brother poking you, “Get it? Get it?” Yes. I get it.
Read via NetGalley.
Publisher: Berkley (September 24, 2024)
Language: English
Hardcover: 352 pages
ISBN-10: 059354711X
Women and Other Monsters: Building a New Mythology by Jess Zimmerman
from the publisher: Often, women try to avoid the feeling of monstrousness, of being grotesquely alien, by tamping down those qualities that we’re told fall outside the bounds of natural femininity. But monsters also get to do what other female characters—damsels, love interests, and even most heroines—do not. Monsters get to be complete, unrestrained, and larger than life. But maybe, the traits we’ve been told make us dangerous and undesirable are actually our greatest strengths.
I don’t normally read sociological essays but this one was brilliant. Zimmerman goes back to the earliest written stories about monsters, witches, creatures — and women — and how they are described. Then she traces how those characterizations evolve over time, reflecting eras, cultures, and societal changes. It was very eye-opening.
Read via Libby app from my library.
Publisher: Beacon Press; First Edition (March 9, 2021)
Language: English
Hardcover: 224 pages
ISBN-10: 0807054933
Misery Hates Company by Elizabeth Hobbs
from the publisher: Miss Marigold Manners may be steeped in the etiquette of her old-money, Boston family, but she is also an accomplished, modern woman and an avid student of archaeology who can handle any situation with poise. When the death of her parents leaves her too destitute to pursue her academic career and she receives a letter from a distant relative on Great Misery Island, Marigold decides she must do what any person of superior sense and greater-than-average curiosity she mounts her trusty bicycle and heads up the craggy, fog-shrouded coast of New England for a date with fate.
This book was a mess, and it’s too bad. The protagonist had some similarities to Anne Shirley, which was very welcome, but the book was all over the place. The tone shifts confusingly. The middle bit reads like a Victorian “Emma”, with dances and matchmaking and dresses and balls. The mystery isn’t much of one, and it is hardly Gothic. It was too many things smashed into one novel and none of them were able to shine.
Read my own purchased copy.
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (November 5, 2024)
Language: English
Hardcover: 320 pages
ISBN-10: 1639109730
Eden Undone by Abbott Kahler
from the publisher: At the height of the Great Depression, Los Angeles oil mogul George Allan Hancock and his crew of Smithsonian scientists came upon a gruesome scene: two bodies, mummified by the searing heat, on the shore of a remote Galápagos island. As Hancock and his fellow American explorers would witness, paradise had turned into chaos. The three sets of exiles—a Berlin doctor and his lover, a traumatized World War I veteran and his young family, and an Austrian baroness with two adoring paramours—were riven by conflict. Using never-before-published archives, Abbott Kahler weaves a chilling, stranger-than-fiction tale worthy of Agatha Christie.
An excellent example of truth being stranger than fiction, Abbott Kahler has collected all the details in the weird history of Floreana and its inhabitants. What began as a (possibly misguided) attempt at a self-sufficient utopia, ends as a proof that Hell is indeed other people. The story is made even stranger by the characters who populate it — for no one who decides to live in a hut on a volcanic island can be entirely normal.
Read my own purchased copy.
Publisher: Crown (September 24, 2024)
Language: English
Hardcover: 352 pages
ISBN-10: 0451498658