Writer's Grove

My best reads o’ the year

I’ve read some dang spiffy books this year. Some of them I’m still reading, like THE MIRROR EMPIRE by Kameron Hurley and THE PERIPHERAL by William Gibson. They are rich and chewy stories and are taking me longer to read (I read multiple books at a time) but I’m digging them mucho. So many rad stories out there.

But some o’ you ask on occasion about the bestest thingies I’ve read because you want to read ’em too, and so I’m happy to share with the understanding that of course your mileage may vary.  Everybody’s tastes are different and that’s cool. These three books, in no particular order, really worked for me this year.

CURSED MOON by Jaye Wells
The second book in the Prospero’s War series sees Kate Prospero grow quite a bit and continues to delight me. This series begins with DIRTY MAGIC and will continue next year—I think there’s a novella coming out too, so now’s a great time to dive in. ALCHEMY and BADASSERY and A LITTLE HOMUNCULUS IN THIS WOMAN’S CHEST DEAR GOD

MAPLECROFT by Cherie Priest
I genuinely believe this is a fucking work of genius. I’ve always loved Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for its story and epistolary structure but both I and the students I taught it to occasionally got bogged down in stretches of excessively Romantic language. Really gothic sentence structure and pages of emoting, you know? And like many people I’ve enjoyed the tentacle-faced monsters of Lovecraftian Elder Gods mythos while completely loathing both the author’s execrable bigotry and his prose. So what Cherie has done here is an astounding feat: She’s given us Lovecraftian horror the way it should have been written (that is, WELL) in an epistolary structure that retains the flavor of the Romantic era while not diving so deeply into it that modern readers drown. Uh. Forgive my excessive metaphors? I’m not a genius like Cherie! Y’all should read this and tell everybody else to do the same.

CITY OF STAIRS by Robert Jackson Bennett
Lots of books start off BAM LOOKIT ALL THIS BLOOD and then dial it back because yeah, that kind of narrative hook often works and that’s in vogue now. This book is different. Starts off pretty chill and stays there a while, and then you find yourself saying, “Holy crap!” and then a few pages later that’s not good enough so you say, “Holy shit!” and then it escalates to “Holy rivers of shit!” and then ALL CAPS WHAT THE FUCK AND THEN OH GOD I NEED A NEW PAIR OF SHORTS THAT WAS AWESOME.

Please enjoy these. Happy reading to you all!