Creatures of Want and Ruin – Molly Tanzer

4 stars

Creatures of Want and Ruin is a sex-positive historical magical realism novel set in the roaring twenties. Creatures of Want & Ruin is apparently a sequel to Creatures of Will and Temper but stands alone perfectly. (I have not read Creatures of Will and Temper and never felt like I had missed anything.)

Amityville baywoman Ellie West fishes by day and bootlegs moonshine by night. It’s dangerous work under Prohibition–independent operators like her are despised by federal agents and mobsters alike–but Ellie’s brother was accepted to college and Ellie’s desperate to see him go. So desperate that when wealthy strangers ask her to procure libations for an extravagant party Ellie sells them everything she has, including some booze she acquired under unusual circumstances.

What Ellie doesn’t know is that this booze is special. Distilled from foul mushrooms by a cult of diabolists, those who drink it see terrible things–like the destruction of Long Island in fire and flood. The cult is masquerading as a church promising salvation through temperance and a return to “the good old days,” so it’s hard for Ellie to take a stand against them, especially when her father joins, but Ellie loves Long Island, and she loves her family, and she’ll do whatever it takes to ensure neither is torn apart.

Creatures of Want and Ruin is a book about watching people change around you. That bewildering feeling where you turn around and suddenly people you thought you knew are almost strangers and the dawning horror that when you give it some thought, you can see the slow evolution of how they came to be this way, but there wasn’t anything you could do to stop it.

Ellie is a strong woman, working hard to put her brother through medical school. She fishes and crabs and runs liquor on the side. Her father surprises her one day by spouting terrible things about how women should be in the home not working and her shock is palpable – after all, he taught her everything she knows.

Fin is the rich wife of a new money man who quits his law job to be a party boy. Her friends are perfectly happy to while away the hours having a grand old time and Fin can’t seem to go along with it all. She misses philanthropy and making a difference. Over the course of the story, she has to confront both her own privilege and her own happiness.

Creatures of Want and Ruin may be set in the roaring twenties, but it felt like it was mirroring political feelings today. One day you know someone and then suddenly they start spouting things that feel uncharacteristic and suddenly you question if you ever really knew them at all or if they have been possessed.

Creatures of Want and Ruin is on shelves now!

Thank you to John Joseph Adams/Mariner Books for providing me with an eARC in exchange for my honest review. 

The Wicked Deep – Shea Ernshaw

4 Stars

The Wicked Deep is one of the most polished debut novels I’ve read in a long time. Shea Ernshaw has written a witchy YA novel that flirts with tired tropes and breathes fresh new life into them.

Cover from Goodreads

Welcome to the cursed town of Sparrow…

Where, two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town.

Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under.

Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters’ return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into.

Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. The townspeople turn against one another. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters.

But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself.

In The Wicked Deep we get a fresh new take on small, tourist-town life. It reads a lot like a contemporary novel with some fantasy elements woven in. A little tooo much to be Magical Realism, but I wouldn’t argue too hard if someone wanted to classify it that way. Ernshaw’s thoughtful novel is tightly plotted and carefully crafted. I’ve been reading for a long time and this felt fresh and new. She even managed to surprise me with a couple of twists at the end – I was delighted! (There were even a couple of emotional gut-punches!)

The characters had depth and felt multidimensional, and the quick romance that buds is sweet without being eye-rollingly saccharine or completely tropey. The threat of revenge from the drowned sisters was believable, though not fully explained.

I read the book in a night because I simply didn’t want to put it down. The Wicked Deep is also, delightfully, a standalone. In an age where more and more YA novels are parts of series (especially in fantasy), it’s a singular delight when I find a standalone that feels complete. I don’t need more of The Wicked Deep because everything I needed in the story is right there, between the pages.

The Wicked Deep is on sale March 6, 2018. If you’re a fan of YA fantasy or contemporary YA, The Wicked Deep will be a fun, satisfying read.

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance – Ruth Emmie Lang

5 Stars

I have really struggled to put into words just how much I loved this book. I am reduced to flailing in the direction of my phone, wildly gesticulating.

 

Cover from Goodreads

 

Let me start by saying I don’t read a ton of Magical Realism. I tend to want to go all-in with fantasy, to be immersed in a world that I either don’t recognize at all or only lightly recognize (such as in Urban Fantasy). But the magical realism of Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance drew me in so completely.

Here’s the synopsis from Goodreads.

Orphaned, raised by wolves, and the proud owner of a horned pig named Merlin, Weylyn Grey knew he wasn’t like other people. But when he single-handedly stopped that tornado on a stormy Christmas day in Oklahoma, he realized just how different he actually was.

That tornado was the first of many strange events that seem to follow Weylyn from town to town, although he doesn’t like to take credit. As amazing as these powers may appear, they tend to manifest themselves at inopportune times and places. From freak storms to trees that appear to grow over night, Weylyn’s unique abilities are a curiosity at best and at worst, a danger to himself and the woman he loves. But Mary doesn’t care. Since Weylyn saved her from an angry wolf on her eleventh birthday, she’s known that a relationship with him isn’t without its risks, but as anyone who’s met Weylyn will tell you, once he wanders into your life, you’ll wish he’d never leave.

Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance tells the story of Weylyn Grey’s life from the perspectives of the people who knew him, loved him, and even a few who thought he was just plain weird. Although he doesn’t stay in any of their lives for long, he leaves each of them with a story to tell. Stories about a boy who lives with wolves, great storms that evaporate into thin air, fireflies that make phosphorescent honey, and a house filled with spider webs and the strange man who inhabits it.

The story unfolds in sections, from different parts of  Weylyn’s life. Through the perspectives of others, we get to see different interpretations of Weylyn and some of the situations he finds happening around him. These different points of view sections tell the poignant and heartbreaking stories of not only Weylyn, but the person telling us the story. They remind us that everyone is the protagonist of their own story, living with their own challenges, heartbreak, and victories. Weylyn is the central thread tying all of these other, richly developed characters together.

My only gripe with the book was that Weylyn is a serial abuser of the “leaving for others own good without talking to them first” trope. So much heartbreak and lost time could have been avoided if he’d just TALKED to Mary. But, that might not have made for such great reading. And great reading it was.

I listened to the audiobook, lent to me by a friend and I highly recommend it. The recording is done by four different narrators, and they all knock it out of the park. If you’re an audiobook listener, definitely make an effort to listen to Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance.

Ruth Emmie Lang’s debut novel is poignant, moving and full of beautifully wrought sentences crafted with care and full of metaphor. I will absolutely be watching for what she puts out next.