Then and Now #23 (3/21/33 - 3/27/22)

Happy Sunday! The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted @ Caffeinated Reviewer. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme. Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came in their mailbox during the last week.  It is hosted weekly over at Mailbox Monday and every Friday they do a round-up of some of their favourite, shared reads!

Last Week

It is almost April and I have been slacking on my blogging, I know! The good news is that I've made some pretty good progress on my thesis, but I don't want it to be at the cost of everything else, so I'm still attempting to find a balance here. Aside from that, the weather has been stunning here in the Netherlands, which is both really helpful in lifting my mood but also very distracting when it comes to the writing and working. I've also set up a pretty good routine, which means that hopefully the right work/life balance will quickly be found!

I have been a bit high on anxiety these past few days, with all kinds of random concerns popping up to the point where I almost have myself convinced my knee is messed up even though I don't really think it is. Why does the brain work this way? Anyway, I'm persevering through it and trying to apply the techniques my therapist taught me. I'm also reading some fascinating books at the moment, specifically The Crimson Petal and the White, as well as the audiobook-version of The Magic Mountain. Both of them are big, so it might take my some time, but they're the best distraction.

Posted this week:

• Review: Over the Falls by Rebecca Hodge
• Review: The Lying Club by Annie Ward

Recommendation

I'm back on my Florence & the Machine b*llsh*t! I absolutely adore this song, it has really helped me this past week:

Mailbox Monday

Bad Fruit: A Novel by Ella King (Astra Publishing; 8/23/22)

Just graduated from high school and waiting to start college at Oxford, Lily lives under the scrutiny of her volatile Singaporean mother, May, and is unable to find kinship with her elusive British father, Charlie. When May suspects that Charlie is having an affair, there’s only one thing that calms May down: a glass of perfectly spoiled orange juice served by Lily, who must always taste it first to make sure it's just right.
 
    As her mother becomes increasingly unhinged, Lily starts to have flashbacks that she knows aren’t her own. Over a sweltering London summer, all semblance of civility and propriety is lost, as Lily begins to unravel the harrowing history that has always cast a shadow on her mother. The horrifying secrets she uncovers will shake her family to its core, culminating in a shattering revelation that will finally set Lily free.
 
    Beautiful and shocking, Bad Fruit is as compulsive as it is thought-provoking, as nuanced as it is explosive. A masterful exploration of mothers and daughters, inherited trauma and the race to break its devastating cycle, Bad Fruit will leave readers breathlessly questioning their own notions of femininity, race and redemption.

Aaaaah complicated mother-daughter relationships... can't wait to dig into Bad Fruit. I'm so ready to be re-traumatised, although I'm not expecting it to hit Sharp Objects-heights.

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey (Macmillan-Tor/Forge; 7/19/22)

“Come home.” Vera’s mother called and Vera obeyed. In spite of their long estrangement, in spite of the memories — she's come back to the home of a serial killer. Back to face the love she had for her father and the bodies he buried there, beneath the house he'd built for his family.

Coming home is hard enough for Vera, and to make things worse, she and her mother aren’t alone. A parasitic artist has moved into the guest house out back and is slowly stripping Vera’s childhood for spare parts. He insists that he isn’t the one leaving notes around the house in her father’s handwriting… but who else could it possibly be?

There are secrets yet undiscovered in the foundations of the notorious Crowder House. Vera must face them and find out for herself just how deep the rot goes.

Not to say there is a pattern to my reading choices, but HELLO complicated mother-daughter relationship! And this one comes with difficult childhood-home issues and a father who is definitely the worst. Also, stunning cover.

The Raven Spell: A Novel by Luanne G. Smith (47North; 2/1/2022)

In Victorian England a witch and a detective are on the hunt for a serial killer in an enthralling novel of magic and murder by the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Vine Witch.

After a nearly fatal blow to the skull, traumatized private detective Ian Cameron is found dazed and confused on a muddy riverbank in Victorian London. Among his effects: a bloodstained business card bearing the name of a master wizard and a curious pocket watch that doesn’t seem to tell time. To retrieve his lost memories, Ian demands answers from Edwina and Mary Blackwood, sister witches with a murky past. But as their secret is slowly unveiled, a dangerous mystery emerges on the darkened streets of London.

To help piece together Ian’s lost time, he and Edwina embark on a journey that will take them from the river foreshore to an East End music hall, and on to a safe house for witches in need of sanctuary from angry mortals. The clues they find suggest a link between a series of gruesome murders, a missing person’s case, and a dreadful suspicion that threatens to tear apart the bonds of sisterhood. As the investigation deepens, could Ian and Edwina be the next to die?

I loveeee Luanne G. Smith's The Vine Witch-trilogy, I just love the gentleness and detail and vividness of it all. I do still need to finish the last one, I was waiting cause I didn't want it to be over, but now I can start it cause a new novel is coming!

The Fairy Tellers: A Journey Into the Secret History of Fairy Tales by Nicholas Jubber (Nicholas Brealey; 5/3/2022)

Fairy-Tales are not just fairy-tales: they are records of historical phenomena, telling us something about how Western civilisation was formed. In The Fairy Tellers, award-winning travel-writer Nick Jubber explores their secret history of fairy-tales: the people who told them, the landscapes that forged them, and the cultures that formed them.

While there are certain names inextricably entwined with the concept of a fairy-tale, such as the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, the most significant tellers are long buried under the more celebrated figures who have taken the credit for their stories - people like the Syrian storyteller Youhenna Diab and the Wild Sisters of Cassel. Without them we would never have heard of Aladdin, his Magic Lamp or the adventures of Hansel and Gretel.

Tracking these stories to their sources carries us through the steaming cities of Southern Italy and across the Mediterranean to the dust-clogged alleys of the Maghreb, under the fretting leaves of the Black Forest, deep into the tundra of Siberia and across the snowy hills of Lapland.

From North Africa and Siberia, this book illuminates the complicated relationship between Western civilization and the 'Eastern' cultures it borrowed from, and the strange lives of our long lost fairy-tellers.

I adore the cover of this book, it is beautiful. And then I love non-fiction about fairy tales. I'm always curious about learning more of what is behind the magic, what makes these stories last so long. 

So that's it from me today!

asd