Hello, reader…
*Note to first time readers: the following is a summary of a discussion by friends who gather monthly in a virtual space called Second Life. Reading notes are lightly edited reflections shared in real time via text chat.
Everflame Series – by Penn Cole
Jamie just started book 3 of this romance/fantasy series. Book 4 gets released this summer. She said that it’s book good so far. Mortals vs Descends, magic system. She also said that it isn’t too spicy (wink, wink!).
The Which Way Tree by Elizabeth Crook
Authored by a Texan, this book is set after the American Civil War in the Hill Country of Texas. FireWoman said that she’s never read a book like it, the way it was delivered. The story is told by the young teenaged boy beginning with his testimony in court about what happened. The rest of the book are written letters to the circuit judge, thereby the story unfolds.
The Which Way Tree was Texas’ choice for the National Center for the Book last year. FireWoman said that the whole story is incredible and based on the author’s own son’s brush with a man-killing mountain lion in the Texas Hill country. The author’s grandfather was Howard E. Butts: the founder of HEB Supermarkets in Texas. The author’s notes in the back of the book are a good read in themselves. Warmth and humor are throughout the book. Also, there will be a sequel!
Charley Davidson Series by Darynda Jones
XSU 80-9275 recommends this paranormal mystery. The main character is the grim reaper but doesn’t quite get it. Xsu commented that there are a lot of funny scenes! Witty but still coherent and a lot of great world building – so you feel like you’re there, with the character. Xsu read this as a audiobook and said that the narrator is great too.
This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Sierra read this kind of spy-vs-spy story between two agents in a temporal war. The agents are known only as ‘Red’ and ‘Blue’. They represent two ideologically different sides in this conflict. They start exchanging notes with each other and that alone gets interestingly complex too. But that’s how their relationship develops. Since this is a time war, there is an aspect that might drive some readers nuts – a bit like the movie ‘Tenet’ by Christopher Nolan. Sierra said it was a fun read.
The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers
Violet loves Lovecraftian horror and said that this book genuinely impressed her. The way he writes, like, style and vocabulary were very enjoyable… the language maybe resembled something 19th century, maybe closer to Edgar Poe than Lovecraft, but she found the stories really interesting. It very much read like a Lovecraftian horror, written before Lovecraft…and, in her opinion, in a more interesting style. Violet’s friend told her that Chambers was one of the first writers to use the unreliable narrator trope in fiction.
The Bacchae by Euripides
Violet also recently read this and said that what she finds interesting is that they do not really read that old. Like if it was published today, Euripides would be considered too woke and political probably. She also said that it is best read together with the footnotes – and that the reader will need to read the context really carefully.
Lazarus by Richard Price
A Harlem tenement collapses, killing some residents and displacing the rest. It’s based on a tenement collapse in 2014, near the author’s home in Harlem. The author writes good conversations which makes the reading go fast. The main characters are a policewoman looking for missing people, an amateur film maker, a funeral director, and the Lazarus Man, who was buried under the rubble for three days.
Our next gathering is on May 18 at 1pm SLT. Regulars, please note that this is the 3rd Sunday of the month.
SLurl to The Reading Room: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Gundeulbawe/41/164/45
The Reading Room 