Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce (2012)

Have I mentioned my newfound love for Graham Joyce? Where has he been all my life?

Some Kind of Fairy Tale is a story about Tara, a daughter and a sister who went missing twenty years ago. Then one day, she shows up looking like she hasn't aged a single day. She says she was kidnapped by the fairies--what's the real story?

Joyce has a marvelously deft hand at blending fantasy and reality. He creates wonderfully vivid characters, from Tara's brother's 13-year-old son to the semi-retired (and pretty eccentric) psychiatrist Vivian Underwood. Plus, the POV beautifully shifts among characters telling each story perfectly and with so much character that you always know who's speaking.

Also, as a longtime fairy tale devotee, I LOVED all of the epigraphs that started each chapter from such excellent sources as Bruno Bettelheim, Charles DeLint and Terri Windling. And bonus, each epigraph actually relates to the chapter's contents. (It's amazing how often they don't in fiction.) I loved all of the talk of fairy tales, and all of the common threads that connect fairy tales, and how they are still so very relevant to our lives. Just lovely and now on my list of very favorite fairy tale retellings.

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce (2010)

I loved this book so much that I was searching for books by Graham Joyce before I'd even gotten halfway through this one.

From the beginning to the ending, this is a practically perfect novel--one that I wanted to prolong reading as I was enjoying it so much.

Jake and Zoe are skiing at a resort when they are caught in an avalanche. And the description of Zoe trapped under snow is one of the scariest things I've ever read. Ever. When they finally dig out and return to the resort, everyone is gone, and they can't seem to leave the village. Not only are they trying to figure out what's happening, they're also working on some issues in their marriage.

This novel is subtle and realistic, and beautifully done to the very last page. Everyone I've recommended it to has loved it as much as I have--about six people to date. Yay!

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo (2013)

Oh my gosh, I LOVED this book. I have no idea where it came from, why I requested it but it's marvelous.

Li Lin lives in colonial Malaya with her opium-addicted father and her beloved Amah. All is satisfactory pretty much until she receives a marriage proposal from the son of an influential neighbor. However, the son is dead and the proposal is for Li Lin to be his ghost bride. When her intended haunts her in her dreams and she falls in love with the new (live) heir to the family, Li Lin embarks on a fantastical voyage among the dead. 

Choo creates a marvelously rich and detailed world of the dead, from paper funeral offerings and hell money, to the Plains of the Dead and the afterworld bureaucracy. Along the way, she meets Er Lang, a guardian spirit who is not at all what he appears to be. 

This novel is utterly original and impossible to label in a particular genre. It's historical fiction, and fantasy, and a bit of horror, and a bit of romance as well as being wonderfully suspenseful and beautifully written. Much of the mythology is based on Chinese folklore, and Choo's notes section outlines the original stories and her own creations. CRIPES, I loved this book.

The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery (1926)

As a longtime lover of the Anne of Green Gables stories, I can't believe I had never heard of this novel.  I finally read about it in the lovely booklovers' catalog Bas Bleu and immediately requested it from the library (sorry, lovely catalog--I promise to buy it soon!).

Montgomery's only novel for adults (though at my library, it's cataloged as YA), The Blue Castle is about Valancy, a 29-year-old mousy spinster living with her overbearing, unkind family and dreaming of life in her beautiful, imaginary Blue Castle.  When Valancy learns that she has a fatal illness, she decides to stand up for herself with her family and do what she wants to do--including getting a job, asking a man to marry her and finding her Blue Castle in real life.  

I utterly loved this novel, and would put it right up there with my favorite romances of the early 20th century, such as Daddy Long-Legs and I Capture the Castle.

I always love a quote about houses: 

"Would you like a house like that, Moonight?" Barney asked … "No," said Valency, who had once dreamed of a mountain castle ten times the size of the rich man's 'cottage' and now pitied the poor inhabitants of palaces.  "No.  It's too elegant.  I would have to carry it with me everywhere I went.  On my back like a snail.  It would own me -- possess me, body and soul.  I like a house I can love and cuddle and boss."

Me too!

Sad Monsters by Frank Lesser (2011)

Loved, loved, loved, loved this adorable collection of short, humorous pieces on monsters subtitled: Growling on the Outside, Crying on the Inside.  

I especially loved it because I had just skimmed John Moe's awful book: Dear Luke, We Need to Talk, which is every bit as unfunny as his work on the radio show Wits. Sad Monsters, however, is everything that book wanted to be.  

This collection is filled with short vignettes that perfectly live up to their titles and premises, such as Missed Possessions (Missed Connections for succubi), His Fangs Just Aren't That Into You, Giant Ape Class-Action Lawsuit, and The Passive-Aggressive Monster in the Closet.  

SO so so clever and funny, and presented in a charming variety of different forms, from diaries to letters to court transcriptions, accompanied by adorable illustrations by Willie Real. Oh, and I can't forget the notes from The Roommate of Dorian Gray.  Fabulous!  So many funny funny lines.  LOVE.

Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir by Wendy Burden

I picked this up in a used bookstore based on the intriguing cover and it paid off in every way possible.  This is a memoir about the descendants of a very, very wealthy family (Vanderbilt), and how things went terribly wrong.

Wendy Burden writes unsparingly and hilariously about her very wealthy and very dysfunctional family.  From visiting her grandparents' estate on an island to only occasionally seeing her flighty, hippie mother, this is a fascinating look at the 1% and how things can go terribly wrong no matter how much money you have.  

But above all, it is utterly hilarious.  I didn't write much about it when I read it, but DANG, it's good.  You should read it.  I mean, look at that awesome cover!

The Outsmarting of Criminals by Steven Rigolosi (2014)

This mystery novel, subtitled: A Mystery Introducing Miss Felicity Prim, is absolutely adorable.

Miss Prim lives in NYC, but gets mugged and decides to move to Connecticut and take up her dream job: Criminal Outsmarter. This book has so much love for mysteries and books, and great, rich characters, including the fabulous Miss Prim herself, who is practically perfect in every way (but has NO idea that she drives like a bat out of hell) and is not averse to a slight crush on an attractive policeman. So darling. And she's one of those characters who gets everyone to do what she wants--kindly and with excellent etiquette--but it gets DONE.

A few things I particularly loved:  The signs at her local bookstore:

 "New York Times Best-Sellers That Nobody Reads, The Latest Dreck from Writers Who Phone It In, Ponderous Literary Prose with No Plot and Snotty Characters, Urban Musings by Self-Involved Authors who Don't Take Showers, Ongoing Sagas/Series That Lost Their Edge 4-5 Books Ago," and my all time favorite: "Books by Ivy League Graduates That Got Glowing Reviews in Prestigious, Low-Circulation Magazines Edited by Other Ivy League Graduates." (p. 123) Hilarious and SO true.

 Also: 

"Why, Miss Prim could even see a highly talented novelist writing about her exploits. The book jacket would feature a slim, attractive woman in her rose garden. under the title, the words "A Mystery Introducing Miss Felicity Prim" would appear, thus positioning her tale as the first in a wildly successful, long-running series. But no--Miss Prim was getting carried away. All of that was fiction, and this was the real world." (p 151-2)

Nancy's Theory of Style by Grace Coopersmith (2010)

This is the thing I love about reading. You pick up a book off the shelf, it looks like a hundred other books (this one is chick lit, so even more so) that turn out to be utter crap, and all of a sudden, you're pleasantly surprised by a great book.

Nancy is a party planner, living apart from her husband in San Francisco while they work out their marriage. As she's getting her company off the ground, her errant cousin swoops in and drops off her child for Nancy to look after. Nancy also hires a fabulous British gay assistant. The characterization in this book is amazing. Quirky but well written characters abound like the elderly neighbor who calls Nancy "Girl Carrington." Even the family members we don't meet are intriguing.  Not just charming, these characters are SO well drawn. Nancy has a penchant for fun wordplay and the charm of Auntie Mame. So very good, but it could never be turned into a movie--it would never translate. It's all in the writing.  Yay books!