#bookreview: The Invisible Hour | Alice Hoffman

The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked up The Invisible Hour because has a very interesting premise: What if books could save you literally?

It sure seems that way for Mia Jacob, whose discovery of the forbidden pleasures of reading gives her the courage and independence to leave the abusive cult she grew up in. And then, as the book blurb says, "time is more fluid than she imagines" and she "makes her way back in time".

For one who picked up the book on the basis of this really cool time-travel promise (with books at its heart!), the problem is that it takes a very long time to get there. Part One, which is about half the book iirc, is about how Mia's mom ran away to the Community, the dynamics between Ivy and Joel Davis - and Mia, Mia growing up there, and how she manages to escape through the power of books... which does make an interesting story, but I'm not really into cult stories as a general premise. I nearly wanted to give up when I finally got to Part 2, which jumps back in time to Nathaniel Hawthorn's timeline in the 1800s and how he meets this strange redhead who changes his life.

Reading other reviews, I suppose this is where the book either fails or succeeds - either you like the time travel or you hate it. I kinda liked the time travel bit, but I was annoyed it took so long to get there.

I did like how Hoffman dealt with the whole changing-the-past paradox, though. If Mia stays in the past, would Hawthorne never write the book that saves her? But Mia can't stay in the present, with Joel Davis still intent on claiming her (To keep as his own? To kill? It could go either way). Hoffman managed to handle that perfectly, closing the circle so the paradox ends.

However, why and how Mia time travels is never explained.(view spoiler)[ It just happens, she thinks it's the book, but is it?? No one knows. And if it's the book, how does Joel manage to follow her to the past? Is it actually some portal then? But then there would be multiple portals... so why hasn't anyone else stumbled across them? I'm also slightly annoyed that the ending is just a bit too ambiguous about whether she made it home to the present or not. (hide spoiler)] I've never read any Hoffman book before (at least that I recall), but she does seem to write more contemporary fiction with magical elements, veering towards magical realism. (There's a complexity/debate to what actually constitutes magical realism that I don't think I'm ready to figure out, so...idk.) So maybe that's how it's done in this kind of genre?? I suppose since it's more contemporary fic than strict SFF, the how and why doesn't matter as much - but seeing that this is the ONLY instance of time travel, it does feel rather contrived.

I suppose if you like a mash up of contemporary and historical fic with a dash of romance and time travel, you'll like this book.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from Atria Books via Edelweiss. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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#bookreviews: Girls of Paper and Fire | Natasha Ngan

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Okay, I am having trouble writing this review because I did really like it, but at the same time, it was just... okay? Not sure how to reconcile this. I'm thinking it's more of a 4? 4.5? star, because I did enjoy reading it, but I'm not at gushing levels of love.

Plot-wise... it's not anything really new. It feels like one of those old-time Chinese (or well, generally East-Asian) royal dramas where you have all the concubines in the palace, some there willingly, most there by force. There's a yearly selection of "Paper Girls", and obviously the one taken there by force stumbles into a plot against the king... Only there's no flying kungfu, except where the demons have bird forms. And since this is a harem story, obviously Angry-I-Hate-The-King protagonist falls in love with someone who is not the king.

Content warnings at this point would be: LGBT romance, sexual abuse, physical abuse. Obviously, the king does not take "no" for an answer, and there's quite a lot of raping and looting going on in the wider world of Ikhara. It's not graphic - which is why I suppose it still fits under YA - but it's not something everyone can stomach. Oh, and if you're against authors killing dogs, you might want to skip Chapter 2.

I think what I quite enjoyed throughout the book was the setting. There's layer after layer of Chinese culture embedded into every scene; no obvious cutting away to "oh, but that feels really White" or "look at me I'm so exotic!" scenes, at least for me. Added bonus: the Chinese half of Ngan's heritage is Malaysian, so I loved the little touches of Malaysiana amidst the very Chinese court setting. Ikhara itself is a land cobbled together by a conquering king, so besides the obvious difference between the castes (Paper - fully human, Moon - fully demon, Steel - humans with some demon features), there's that subtle intermingling of human cultures, with saris alongside kebayas and cheongsams.

Thinking back, this isn't really a book I would have bothered to pick up on my own; I would have found the blurb much too romance-focused, and maybe a little too generic. But Ngan was reading at SRFC in 2019, and there was a Malaysian connection, so I figured I might as well just get a copy and have it signed. heh.

So now, even though I'll likely never read it again or bother to read the sequel, it'll just sit on my shelves because it's signed to me. haha.

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Interested in the series? Get it here:

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Whoo! I'm caught up on The 2023 Booktempter's TBR reduction challenge, with August's free read.

#bookreview: The Book of Fire | Christy Lefteri

The Book of Fire by Christy Lefteri
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a story within a story, about a woman and her daughter, about her husband and his loss, about a fire that devastated their forest, their town, their lives. It is about family and love, greed for money, regret, loss, and death. And always about the fire. And the man who started it.

It is also about kindness. The faithful dog that stays by their side, the old women they accompany, the family who takes them in, the baby jackal they rescue, the lies adults tell each other so the children do not learn of terrible truths too young.

And numbness. The kind that leaves you unable to do anything until it's too late. Leaving you wondering again, what if? What if I had acted? Is this then my fault?

The Book of Fire is a quiet book with a fiery soul. Irini tells it in the aftermath of the fire, in the midst of rebuilding their lives, as her husband, Tasso, struggles with depression and the damage to his hands and her daughter, Chara, deals with an injury and tries to make sense of it all. She copes with the difficult bits by telling us the past in a fairy tale, in that once upon a Harry Lime, interweaving stories of her father and her great-grandfather, of their movements to and from this little forest in Greece that she now calls home.

Lefteri does very well in writing about loss and love, and also interweaving in the histories of the people and the places in the novel. This feels a little lighter than The Beekeeper of Aleppo, maybe because the scope feels a little smaller, the stakes a little lower. It's a beautiful read, all the same.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from Bonnier Books UK via NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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#bookreview: Songs in the Night | Laura Frances

Songs in the Night by Laura Frances
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this up because I kinda liked Slave, which is a totally different series I haven't finished. (Maybe I should finish that one.)

There is Eris, the unwanted child from the evil land, marked with a darkness she doesn't know of yet. And then there is Etan, the servant boy from the good land, who rises to be a knight. They meet once, twice. They never forget each other. Then war comes.

The story switches between both of their perspectives. Which is fine, but they don't actually meet each other again until about the 70% mark. I don't know why this irks me. Maybe it's the parallel storylines that don't quite meet. Maybe I just found Etan annoying. (Maybe I am in an irritable mood, I have been finding many characters and books annoying.) Then they have all sorts of assumptions about each other (or he does about her).

Or maybe it's the frequent use of foreshadowing lines that pull you out of the story.

Whatever it was, it was an interesting story, but it didn't quite pull me in.

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I went backwards to complete June's stretch goal from the 2023 Booktempter's TBR reduction challenge!

#bookreview: The King's Sword | CJ Brightley

The King's Sword by C.J. Brightley
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's an okay enough story - prince escapes an assassination attempt, fearsome but outcast soldier helps put him on the throne.

I like the worldbuilding - it's very colourful and complex and quite interesting.

I just didn't feel like the story itself engaged me very much, like it doesn't quite pull the reader in. The last battle was also a little anticlimactic.

Caveat: read this in several disjointed sessions while travelling so maybe I didn't have the focus to fully engage.

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This is July's stretch goal from the 2023 Booktempter's TBR reduction challenge!

#bookreview: The Princess Bride | William Goldberg

The Princess Bride by William Goldman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this more, but as it is, I enjoyed the actual abridged parts of Morgenstern's story but every time William Goldman had an aside or explanation I just kept getting very annoyed.
(Thus this really short review)
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This is July's book from the 2023 Booktempter's TBR reduction challenge! I guess I have another justification for the short review: I'm travelling and have no time to think about long reviews haha. Maybe I'll update it later. But probably not. 

Join the #MalaysianMagic launch team!

 New book, new tour!

This one's an anthology that I really loved putting together. IT'S AMAZING, PEOPLE! Even if I have to say so myself *ahem*

Anyways, join the launch fun! Cover reveal's in about 2 weeks and the launch is in November at GTLF! Again! We have rough dates of between 23 - 26 November, which are the festival dates, but don't know the exact day/time yet.

But ebooks launch 23 November anyway. 

HERE'S THE SIGN-UP FORM. COME SHARE SHARE THIS BOOOOOOOK.

#bookreview: The Neverending Story | Michael Ende

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I put this on the TBR challenge because I had the physical book and I couldn't for the life of me remember whether I'd read it before. And now Goodreads tells me that back in 2011 I was sure that I had. idk. The story was vaguely familiar; it's popular canon and referenced in many places, after all. But I'm still not entirely sure if I'd read the book before or watched the movie. Maybe both.

Anyway. Whether this is a new read or a re-read, I did enjoy it quite a lot. I liked the structure of the book, the 26 alphabetical chapters, rather like a very long A to Z novel. I liked the meta-ness of Bastian the reader becoming Bastian, a character in the story. It made sense that the story had to include Bastian's transformation, bringing it full circle until he got back to the human world.

This book was published many many years ago, when people were more patient readers, when big fat books were IT. I'm just thinking that in the publishing industry today, Ende would have been told to cut the book into two, the first one ending when Bastian enters Fantastica and saves the Childlike Empress, and the second one being his journey through Fantastica. Because, you know, why sell one thick book when you could make more money selling TWO books instead?

It reads like two separate books anyway. The first half is more exciting, more action packed. Atreyu is a noble protagonist, even if he isn't ultimately the hero. Then you hit the second half and it's a bit of a slog as Bastian steadily becomes more and more annoying. Still, it doesn't feel complete without either half, so I guess it is what it is.

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#bookreview: The Gift of Restlessness: A Spirituality for Unsettled Seasons | Casey Tygrett

The Gift of Restlessness: A Spirituality for Unsettled Seasons by Casey Tygrett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Casey Tygrett defines restlessness as a state of being unsettled or irritated by the present-tense realities of life; when you're unable to go back, yet unsure of what's ahead. Which perfectly describes where I am, where I've been for a while now. But Tygrett assures us that there's nothing wrong with being restless. Rather, restlessness is what roots you further into who you are, and if dealt with correctly (instead of being ignored or left to fester) can transform us and give us a way through unsettled seasons.

The Gift of Restlessness is a thoughtful book - one that you need to sink your teeth into slowly. Where are your unsettled spaces, Tygrett asks, where are the places that hurt? Then he offers the option to remain in it, to ask the deep questions that will settle you instead of fighting, fleeing, or flopping.

I have fought long enough, I have fled far enough. There are two options left: to give up, or to "flop" as he puts it, or to remain.

Structured around the Lord's Prayer, Tygrett reminds us that this isn't a formula that we need to pray. It's not what to pray, but rather how to pray. The words are familiar, memorised and repeated over and over through life. But what does it truly mean? What are you truly praying for? And how can it guide you through unsettled seasons?

Throughout the book, Tygrett truly plays the spiritual director, always focusing you back on God - and how that Great Belonging with God can settle you, ground you, even when things around you are changing and shaking.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from Broadleaf Books via Edelweiss. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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readings!

 

Happening this weekend solely because I was very energetic in April and set a bunch of things up and now I'm just like ok fine, follow through is a thing.

ALSO, hit 35K on the Tea Novel last night (well, slightly past midnight). Aiming for 40K by Thursday before I head down, wish me luck. 

Some #teanovel progress (plus excerpt)

Started running a late night online write-in since Saturday and I have written about 4k words!!! and figured out how to add in 2k words of a short story (of the prequel kind) into the main body of this novel. I probs need to edit more to make it kind of fit more seamlessly lol it's a bit of a flashback at this moment, but I guess that works too. 

anyways here's a stupid excerpt because lol.

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Jasmine was on to her third(ish) configuration of Attraction Potion (or Wish Fulfilment) which was quite a different wish list from her initial batch. She shook her head, wondering at how naive she’d been when she first started off. To be fair, she’d started with a list from twenty years ago, but she should have realised that it had to be updated, right from the start. 

Jasmine Teh’s Dream Man Husband

• Handsome. Looks like Hugh Grant. Or Wang Lee Hom (I mean, this is subjective, isn’t it?)
• Charming.
• Funny. (Nice, but not strictly necessary. Humour is so subjective.) Witty
• Romantic. (Debatable, but I’ll leave this in. He should at least make an effort and not be totally kayu.)
• Smart. Cannot be stupid ok!!!
• Tall. Well, taller than me. I am so short. So this should be easy. (If possible)
• Rich, if possible. But not so important as long as he is not poor. Responsible wage-earner with a full-time job. Financially stable.
• Loves me. Duh (I mean, or what’s the point? WHY WOULD YOU MARRY SOMEONE YOU HATE I DON’T GET IT)
• doesn’t talk to that annoying Kelly in 3H.
• should be able to tolerate Jason I guess. 
• bold, knows what he wants in life (Ok, the Francis situation didn’t work out too well, but he can’t be like a pushover or drifter either)
• rich, vibrant personality has an interesting personality (Do I mean outgoing? Hmmm not quite but…I think?)
• within 3-5 years of my age, preferably older (aka I’m not a cradle snatcher)
• gets along with Bryan and the gang
• not anti-magic??? *Should ask Long if this is something we can reveal to spouses if they’re not magical themselves.
• Not boring - has some sort of life outside of work/hobbies
• COMPATIBLE*** (Do I mean emotionally? Or in life goals? Or like personality? Or well… I guess in everything?!?!)

She studied the list several times, trying to figure out if there was anything else she wanted to change. The last two items were probably the best she could do to counter that disaster date with Francis. She was tempted to add “no corporate types” to the list, but Penang was so small and so full of factories and multinationals that that clause would narrow her dating pool too much. And artsy types were rarely financially stable so… that would bring her back to square one, wouldn’t it?

Maybe she should talk to a few more of the guys her magic selected before offering them the tea. Or…would it be a better idea to offer all of them the tea and then see who actually wanted to date her? Date a few of them and see who she liked more, or which date was the least terrible? 

Because the more she thought about it, the more it felt like it didn’t really make sense to just choose the one with the best fit because “best fit” on a list of criteria doesn’t mean that they’ll actually fall in love. 

Unless, now she added in “compatible”… that should really rank them by how well they’d fit, right?

Ugh, this was confusing. Maybe Bryan was right and she should just use a dating app.

a blog return? we'll see how long this lasts.

soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I deleted a bunch of emails (like 12k of them) from my old main email, which is mostly the old friends and newsletters email now (as separated from the work/primary/I actually read this stuff email), and discovered (re-discovered?) a bunch of really old emails plus a bunch of blog comments from the old tabulas.

Because obviously I never delete anything in my gmail.

Until now la, because I'm running out of space. 

ANYWAYS.

my email and blogging game was a whole different... ballgame? scene? style? thingamabob? and you know what. Maybe I shouldn't have moved so far away from that. lol

cos also, writing properly gets tiring after a while. 

i miss tabulas.

#bookreview: Old Man's War | John Scalzi

Old Man's War by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Gonna keep this review short, because this is mostly just for records. And also because I am tired and lazy.

I enjoyed it. I skipped some sciency bits, but those were actually quite few and far between. Overall an interesting premise and I would love to read the rest of the series if I find them!

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#bookreview: Tales of Polynesia: Folktales from Hawai'i, New Zealand, Tahiti and Samoa

Tales of Polynesia: Folktales from Hawai'i, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Samoa by Yiling Changues
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was a somewhat frustrating read. I went in hoping to really like it because I generally like folktales. I like reading old origin/creation myths, finding out what makes a culture gel together, what kinds of stories they tell each other, and how these make up who they are as a nation.

Most of the stories were fascinating, but they were a really hard, dry, and boring read. I mean, these are pretty much fantastic and fantastical stories, but struggling through unending sentences just made me want to give up. I feel like... pulling together a bunch of old translations into one book and giving them really fancy illustrations wasn't enough to keep my attention.

Maybe I lost out a little on the reading experience because this was an ebook ARC and the formatting really sucked (footnotes that only appeared several pages later instead of as a pop-up; illustrations that were somehow split into multiple images; Kindle only shows black & white images instead of colour; fancy drop caps don't show up; random line breaks, page numbers, headers and footers appearing haphazardly in the text) but... that really shouldn't change the experience of the stories themselves?

I just felt like the stories needed someone to edit them for a better flow, and probably to slightly more modern English, instead of just using centuries-old versions. I don't think these need a "retelling" in the way everyone is retelling folktales and making them into whole novels, but they do need a bit of a rewrite for readability's sake.

Or maybe I'm somewhat at the end of my interest in the folktale style of storytelling.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from the Chronicle Books via Edelweiss. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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#bookreview: Namesake (Morningstar: Destiny #2) | A.C. Williams

Namesake by A.C. Williams
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So following on from Nameless, things get really, really dark. I mean like super dark. So I guess content warnings for rape and suicide ideation.

After the losses in the first book, things started to look up a little, at least at the start. After all, they did manage to find what they were looking for. Their sacrifices were not in vain. And their trip to McLeod's home forces some deeper conversations and discussions about their pasts - not just Xander's, but just about everyone left on the Prodigal.

The core of this book is the discovery of who Xander really is. And whilst it was amazing and mindblowing, Williams did a good job in laying down enough clues and hints for that delicious tension of ooohh I think this is what happened! and but how would it actually work? leading up to the reveal. (I was almost right about what happened, but am obviously not science-y enough to guess how lol)

But things don't stay peaceful for long...

I mean, who expected it to? They've got syndicates on their tail after all.

But coming back to the Morningstar: Destiny Trilogy's underpinnings of faith, where Nameless explores personal convictions, Namesake goes so much deeper into holding onto faith in dark times. Xander keeps asking the questions Where are you, God? and Why me? Why is all this happening to me? as she struggles through everything that has happened to her, everything that has brought her to the Prodigal, especially all the deaths she leaves in her wake. Because of her. Because of who she is. Because of the people who are trying to get her. And it culminates in the big one: Can I still then believe?

Namesake ends on another cliffhanger, and I'm excited to head into New Name when I have the time!

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#musicmonday: Still God | Anne Wilson

bookreview: Under the Pendulum Sun | Jeannette Ng

Under the Pendulum Sun by Jeannette Ng
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Under the Pendulum Sun came very heavily recommended to me. But as all TBRs go (even physical ones), it just sits on the shelf for a while... for 4 years in this case.

Let's start off with the heavy stuff, a content warning for incest in this case. If this is something you will never touch, then this is a book you'll want to skip, even if it only develops midway through. [Spoilers at the end of this review!]

Arcadia, the magical land of the fae, is a dark, mysterious place. Nothing is as it seems, everything is a construct, seemingly made to mirror or mimic the real world - but in strangely bizarre ways. No one knows if the fae have souls and yet missionaries do what they have always done - go into the darkest reaches of the world to bring the word of God. It is a very well-constructed world, one full of fancy and also full of darkness, and Ng does a fantastic job leading us through it. She utilises many familiar elements from fairy tales: Mab the Queen of the Fae, changelings and stolen children, the fae hunt - and yet it's intertwined with extra-biblical myth: Enochian the language of angels, origins of Lilith.

Catherine Helstone plunges blindly into Arcadia in search of her missing brother, Laon. There, she wrestles with the gospel and with sin. Is salvation only for humans or does it extend to the fae? Do the fae have souls or are they soulless, like animals or constructs? If they are soulless, can they then still be saved? Is there a point in having a missions outpost in the fae worlds if salvation is not extended to them?

Yet she is not the only one wrestling with faith. Laon, the missionary brother, struggles with sin and worthiness. Is he worthy to carry the gospel if there is sin in his heart, even if he doesn't act on it? Where is the line between resisting temptation and being sinful because he cannot let go of his lustful thoughts? What compromises can he make to carry the gospel to the innermost parts of Arcadia? Or will the requirements of the Pale Queen invalidate his testimony and his good works?

Ng peppers the book with quotations from scripture, as well as excerpts of medieval-sounding texts that present missionary efforts and theological arguments in an alternate earth where the fae are real. It sounds more Christian than I would expect from a fantasy book, exploring deep questions of faith and Christian theology; yet as it is a fantasy world and a fiction book, it does not provide any semblance of answers, only more questions.

Ultimately, however, the set-up of the creation of the fae and the fantastical underpinnings of fae society as imagined by Ng presents a skewed gospel; a reminder, that you will, that this is not a biblical work. Under the Pendulum Sun leads to an almost-inevitable ending, one I wish were not her conclusion.

Still, I would put it as a sort of fantasy counterpart to Steve Rzasa's sci-fi exploration of whether aliens can be saved in For Us Humans: A Tale of Alien Occupation.

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#bookreview: UNSAID: An Asian Anthology | Anitha Devi Pillai (ed.)

UNSAID: An Asian Anthology by Anitha Devi Pillai
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

UNSAID: An Asian Anthology started off strong, but ended up a little meh towards the end. It was a really weird feeling of going "ooh I really like the stories in this anthology" to "ummmm like that only ah?", especially since the sequence of stories moved from sad, dark real-to-life stories I tend to get bored by to supernatural, legend type stories that I tend to like so I kind of expected it to be the inverse.

The first four stories in The Others category deal with dark matters - the constant othering and prejudices many Asians face, even within their own cities. Nothing is more relatable than Saras Manickam's "When We Are Young"; which non-Malay Malaysian hasn't faced this very scenario? How often do we have to talk about meritocracy and quotas for nothing to change? Cherrie Sing's "The Taste of Pickles" also elicited nods: yes, these things happen, what can you do about it? "Broken Filaments" by Paul GnanaSelvam presents a very odd premise - yet I can imagine it happening in small-town Malaysia in the 80s; we all know weird old teachers like that with strange ideas and the inability to accept a no. I resonated with the home-away-from-home in "Diwali Lights" by Adwiti Subba Haffner; that feeling of in-betweenness where you long for what was even though you know that the here and now are your true home.

Knotted Ties explores relationships, both familial and within the local community. Of the five stories here, the middle three (The Peanut Turtle, The Broken Window, Lata) stood out to me. These are the kinds of stories that I, personally, would like to read more of: that dissonance between your own and your adopted cultures, of having to match what you know with what you were supposed to have known. "The Peanut Turtle" (Dennis Yeo) was the most intriguing, probably because of the format. It switched between the protagonist's first trip to Malaysia as a child (told in the present tense), and something like a memoir (diary?) of the events written in the future that explained the historical & cultural background plus many of the gaps in the child's knowledge - which really made for a strange reading. Oddly enough, it works. Whilst I did like "The Apartment of Good Intentions" (Adriana Nordin Manan), it ended rather abruptly and felt a little incomplete to me.

That dissatisfaction of "huh, something feels missing here" carried over into the last section, The Unknown, which felt like the weakest set of the whole anthology. Maybe I was bored by the time I got to it, I don't know, or maybe I've read too many similar ghost/supernatural stories that nothing really stood out or got me excited in this batch of stories. Or maybe there was just too much revenge going on, whether in life or from beyond the grave. That said, they're interesting enough, and still worth a read.

As a whole, Unsaid is a solid collection of short stories set in Asia. (I hesitate to say "by Asians" because there are a couple of names that don't seem to be specifically Asian based on their bios.)

Note: I received a review of this book from PRH SEA. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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#bookreview: Former.ly: The Rise and Fall of a Social Network | Dane Cobain

Former.ly: The Rise and Fall of a Social Network by Dane Cobain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dan Roberts takes up a developer job at the upcoming social network Former.ly, a network that releases posts from its users upon their deaths. Plagued with bad code, financial troubles and twitchy founders, things take a turn for the worse when a journalist and an ex-staff turn up dead after a big announcement. There's some shady business going on and the longer Dan stays, the harder it is for him to leave without dire repercussions.

Cobain showcases a truly toxic start-up culture in Former.ly. John Mayers, one of the founders, tells Dan upfront that the job will kill his social life and ruin his relationships, also ending the job interview on a weirdly threatening note, saying they need full commitment, and once they're in there's no turning back. Both bosses are extremely erratic, the company runs on unpaid overtime instead of hiring enough staff, and pay is low but with the promise of payment in stocks. And yet, if you think about it, much of this has been normalised in our current capitalistic work culture, where people are encouraged to put their jobs and work commitments above their families and relationships.

What fascinated me most was the warped social fabric woven around Dan and his colleagues, one that encompasses all their lives and pulls them all into a little silo that's disconnected from the real world. And that's also another question the text grapples with: what lengths would someone take to protect their money and reputation? And if the company is all they have left, what would they do to protect it, even over others' lives?

Overall, Former.ly: The Rise and Fall of a Social Network is a really interesting read.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from the author. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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#bookreview: Prophetess of Arden | L.A. Thornhill

Prophetess of Arden by L.A. Thornhill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.5 stars rounded up to 5!

Reminiscent of CS Lewis' Narnia series, Thornhill has created a fantastic portal fantasy, where Beckah enters Renatus, a pre-flood, pre-redemption world inhabited by the descendants of Abel. There, she's tasked by Yeshua to be the Voice of Adonai, the prophet that would help restore the Kingdom and lead the Ardenians back to God.

But the one person she is supposed to help the most, the Hand of Adonai, aka the annoying(ly handsome) Prince Seth Hal-Titus, doesn't trust her. She looks too much like the enemy, and sounds like she's crazy.

If there's one thing that Thornhill excels at, it's in building the relationships between her characters. It's always nice to see how they develop and grow around each other - and also grow to like each other despite their spats *ahem*.

The world itself is fantastic, with both wonderful things like raqia and healing clay and terrible things like blood lilies and shades. Beckah's journey of discovery is one that's shared with the reader, as Seth, Hadassah, Judah and Beckah make their way across the country back to South Arden.

One of the things that annoyed me about reading the prequel (The Lost Descendants) was how obvious the Christian parallels were. But this book sets it up perfectly: (view spoiler)[Jesus in the real world (or Beckah's world) is also Yeshua, or the Maschiach/Messiah, in Renatus. And he's preaching in the mountains, like in the Gospels, gathering followers to his cause. Salvation hasn't come to Renatus yet. [I dunno if this is a spoiler, but I'm tagging it in case.] (hide spoiler)]

Prophetess of Arden works as a Christian fantasy, at times drawing from Biblical stories and yet setting up its own rules and history. This can only be done because it isn't Earth, thereby avoiding accusations of heresy should the book's faith and theology differ from common interpretations of the Bible (though the more conservative would say fantasy itself and speculation of other worlds is heresy, lol). Yet, it's also Earthlike enough that it could be some form of medieval fantasy if you squint.

The book clearly sets up for the next one in the series, which I'm totally looking forward to! If you haven't read any of this series at all, I'd actually recommend reading this one first before going back to the prequel, because the prequel actually makes so much more sense AFTER you've read this.

Note: I received a digital ARC of this book from the author. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

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