Svetlana's Reads and Views

Name of Book: Negative Space Author: Gillian Linden ISBN: 978-1-324-06554-8 Publisher: W.W. Norton Type of book: daily life, post Covid period, school, teacher, decisions, Sims in a novel, New York, mundane, untold secrets  Year it was published: 2024  Summary: A gem of a debut novel about a young mother navigating the instabilities of teaching, parenting, and marriage in the wake of the pandemic. With deadpan humor and a keen eye for the strangeness of our days, Negative Space follows a week in the life of a part-time high school English teacher. At home, her two children, increasingly restless in the wake of the pandemic, ask constant questions that flit from the weirdness of television shows to casual conversations about mortality. Her husband, always on business calls with Hong Kong at odd hours, shows up for meals only occasionally. At school, her students seem increasingly disconnected, and some put worrying details of their lives into their creative writing assignm

Name of Book: Spring on the Peninsula Author: Ery Shin ISBN: 978-1-6626-0222-1 Publisher: Astra house  Type of book: South Korea, commentary, society, modern times, lost love,  grief, transition, seasons, disconnect, LGBtQI+, break up, secrets, life  Year it was published: 2024  Summary: A sexually fluid narrator mourns a failed relationship over the course of two harsh winters in this raw, unprecedented portrait of millennials living in Seoul. The time is roughly now in Seoul, and Kai, a bisexual white-collar worker, has just been abandoned by his longtime lover. Follow him through the city’s alleyways as he reels from this sudden departure. Walk with him up snowy mountains where he contemplates ending his own life. That mourning can be both a sensuous and revelatory art is epitomized in the paths that Kai crosses and the lives he alters for better or worse. Kai is not the only one feeling disoriented and aimless these days. Those in his inner circle similarly experience

Name of Book: The Good The Bad and The Aunties Author: Jesse Q. Sutanto  ISBN: 978-0-593-54622-2 Publisher: Berkley  Part of a Series:  The Aunties Type of book: Modern times, cozy mystery, the aunties, Chinese-Jakarta culture, Lunar New Years, family, relationships, travel, sleuthing, "business"  Year it was published: 2024  Summary: What should have been a family celebration of Chinese New Year descends into chaos when longtime foes crash the party in this hilariously entertaining novel by Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties. After an ultra-romantic honeymoon across Europe, Meddy Chan and her husband Nathan have landed in Jakarta to spend Chinese New Year with her entire extended family. Chinese New Year, already the biggest celebration of the Lunar calendar, gets even more festive when a former beau of Second Aunt’s shows up at the Chan residence bearing extravagant gifts—he’s determined to rekindle his romance with Second Aunt and th

Name of Book: House of Odysseus  Author: Claire North  ISBN: 978-0-316-44400-2 Publisher: Redhook Part of a Series: Songs of Penelope  Type of book: Ancient Greece/Ithaca, post Trojan war, waiting, playing up to stereotypes, cleverness and shrewdness, Aphrodite, gods and goddesses, -1700s, Penelope, Helen of Troy, Menelaus, myths, legends, mysteries, detective, retelling of Odyssey, Electra myth  Year it was published: 2023  Summary: House of Odysseus is the follow up to award-winning author Claire North's Ithaca "a powerful, fresh, and unflinching" reimagining (Jennifer Saint) that breathes life into ancient myth and gives voice to the women who stand defiant in a world ruled by ruthless men. In the palace of Odysseus, a queen lies dreaming . . . On the isle of Ithaca, queen Penelope maintains a delicate balance of power. Many years ago, her husband Odysseus sailed to war with Troy and never came home. In his absence, Penelope uses all her cunning to keep

Name of Book: A Flame in the North Author: Lilith Saintcrow ISBN: 978-0-316-44033-2 Publisher: Orbit Part of a Series: Black Land's Bane  Type of book: Elemental magic, hostage, secrets, legends, myths  Year it was published: 2024  Summary: An elemental witch and her shieldmaiden journey into a world of ancient myth and unexpected destiny in this sweeping Norse-inspired epic fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Lilith Saintcrow. The Black Land is spent myth. Centuries have passed since the Great Enemy was slain. Yet old fears linger, and on the longest night of the year, every village still lights a ritual fire to banish the dark. That is Solveig’s duty. Favored by the gods with powerful magic, Sol calls forth flame to keep her home safe. But when her brother accidentally kills a northern lord’s son, she is sent away as weregild—part hostage, part guest—for a year and a day. The further north Sol travels, the clearer it becomes the Black Land is no myth. T

Name of Book: The Unbroken Author: C.L. Clark ISBN: 978-0-316-54275-3 Publisher: Orbit  Part of a Series: Magic of the Lost Type of book: military fantasy, complex colonialism, LGBtQI+ relationship, disability, politics, coming home, belonging  Year it was published: 2021 Summary: Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought. Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet's edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne. Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren't for sale. Characters: Main characters are Touraine and

Name of Book: Help Wanted Author: Adelle Waldman ISBN: 978-1-324-02044-8 Publisher: W.W Norton  Type of book: New York, lowest rung, dying town, 2010s, relationships, microcosm, world of its own, competition, breaking out things, tact, politics  Year it was published: 2024  Summary: In Help Wanted, Adelle Waldman brings her unparalleled wit and knack for social observation to the world of work. At a big-box store in a small town in upstate New York, the members of Team Movement clock in every morning at 3:55. Under the eye of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before customers arrive. When a golden opportunity for a promotion presents itself, the diverse members of Movement―among them a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging to her “cool kid” status from high school, a college football hopeful trying to find a new path―band together and set a just-so-crazy-it-m

Name of Book: The Ivory Tomb Author: Melissa Caruso ISBN: 978-0-316-45439-1 Publisher: Orbit Part of a Series: Rooks and Ruin (THE OBSIDIAN TOWER and THE QUICKSILVER COURT are prequels; SWORDS AND FIRE trilogy are prequel trilogy)  Type of book: Friendship, ties, relationships, immortality, safeguards, heart guard, magic, demons, lore, secrets, diplomacy, determination, saving the world  Year it was published: 2022  Summary: The Ivory Tomb concludes the wildly original epic fantasy series bursting with intrigue and ambition, questioned loyalties, and broken magic that began with The Obsidian Tower. The Dark Days have returned. The Demon of Carnage mercilessly cuts through villagers and armies. The Demon of Corruption poisons/rots the land. The Serene Empire and the Witch Lords race towards war. And in the middle of it all stands Rxyander, the Warden of Gloamingard. Burdened by conflicting loyalties and guilt, Ryx searches desperately for a way to defeat the demons befor

Name of Book: Cursebreakers Author: Madeleine Nakamura  ISBN: 9781939096128 Publisher: Canis Major Books Type of book: Fantasy, mental health, magic, secrets, hidden means, crushes, relationships,  Year it was published: 2023  Summary: Adrien Desfourneaux, professor of magic, must survive his own failing mental health and a tenuous partnership with a dangerous ally in order to save the city of Astrum from a spreading curse. Adrien Desfourneaux, professor of magic and disgraced ex-physician, has discovered a conspiracy. Someone is inflicting magical comas on the inhabitants of the massive city of Astrum, and no one knows how or why. Caught between a faction of scheming magical academics and an explosive schism in the ranks of Astrum’s power-hungry military, Adrien is swallowed by the growing chaos. Alongside Gennady, an unruly, damaged young soldier, and Malise, a brilliant healer and Adrien’s best friend, Adrien searches for a way to stop the spreading curse before the ci

Title of the book: The Britannias; An Archipelagos Tale  Author: Alice Albinia  Publisher: W.W. Norton Publishing Date: 2024  ISBN: 978-0-393-60855-7 Summary: A revelatory portrait of Britain through its islands, The Britannias weaves history, myth, and travelogue to rewrite the story of this “island nation.” From Neolithic Orkney, Viking Shetland, and Druidical Anglesey to the joys and strangeness of modern Thanet, The Britannias explores the farthest reaches of Britain’s island topography, once known by the collective term “Britanniae” (the Britains). This expansive journey demonstrates how the smaller islands have wielded disproportionate influence on the mainland, becoming the fertile ground of political, cultural, and technological innovations that shaped history throughout the archipelago. In an act of feminist inquiry, personal adventure, and literary quest, Alice Albinia takes us over borders and through disparate island cultures, past and present. She uncovers the enduring and

Name of Book: Pedro and Marques Take Stock (Supridores)  Author: Jose Falero (Trans Julia Sanches)  ISBN: 978-1-6626-0123-1 Publisher: Astra House  Type of book: Brazil, selling weed, 2009-2011, intelligence, poverty, supermarket work, morality, grayness, casual drug use, guns, allies  Year it was published: 2023 (Original 2020)  Summary: City of God meets Kevin Smith’s Clerks, Os Supridores is a debut novel set in the favelas of Brazil about two supermarket stock clerks whose lives are upturned when their small-time marijuana business takes off. A modern-day Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Pedro and Marques stumble through their days in their rough and rundown favela unloading trucks, restocking shelves, and dreaming of a better life; of breaking the cycle of poverty that has afflicted their families and their community. Well-acquainted with the drug dealers in their neighborhood, and seeing an opportunity to earn a little extra cash, they decide to join the drug trade. Surprisingly, th

Name of Book: Second Best  Author: David Foenkinos (tanslated by Megan Jones)  ISBN: 978-1-913547-59-2 Publisher: Gallic  Type of book: France, England, 1999-2019, Harry Potter, J.K Rowling, movies, decisions, comedy/tragedy, surviving, trauma, travel, acting, beyond control  Year it was published: 2023 (2022 in France)  Summary: A magical imagining of the fate of a fictional boy whose life is shaped forever when he loses out on the role of Harry Potter. It's 1999. Martin Hill is ten years old, crazy about Arsenal and has a minor crush on a girl named Betty. Then he makes it to the final two in the casting for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone .  In the end, the other boy is picked for the role of a lifetime. A devastated Martin tries to move on with his life. But how can he escape his failure, especially when it's the most famous film series in the world?  Foenkinos’s smash-hit Second Best is a playful, poignant story about fate, loss and how the lives

Title of the book: Skinfolk; A Memoir  Author: Matthew Pratt Guterl  Publisher: Liveright  Publishing Date: 2023  ISBN: 978-1-324-09171-4 Summary: Could a picturesque white house with a picket fence save the world? What if it was filled with children drawn together from around the globe? And what if, within the yard, the lines of kin and skin, of family and race, were deliberately knotted and twisted? In 1970, a wild-eyed dreamer, Bob Guterl, believed it could. Bob was determined to solve, in one stroke, the problems of overpopulation and racism. The charming, larger-than-life lawyer and his brilliant wife, Sheryl, a former homecoming queen, launched a radical experiment to raise their two biological sons alongside four children adopted from Korea, Vietnam, and the South Bronx—the so-called war zones of the American century. They moved to rural New Jersey with dreams of creating what Bob described as a new Noah’s ark, filled with “two of every race.” While the venture made

 Hello Readers! I hope you have been enjoying my weekly updates, but I guess right now I will be taking a break from them and will start them back up at another date. Right now a lot of book reviews are waiting for me. My apologies. 

Name of Book: Blood of the Chosen Author: Django Wexler ISBN: 978-0-316-51962-5 Publisher: Orbit  Part of a Series: Burningblade and Silvereye  Type of book: Mix of fantasy and science fiction, politics, Order, magic, disease, the Chosen, sapphic relationships, narratives, hidden secrets, end of the world scenario (dystopia)  Year it was published: 2021  Summary: "Fantasy at its finest."--Nicholas Eames, on Ashes of the Sun  In the second book of Django Wexler's epic fantasy trilogy about two siblings divided by magic and revolution, Gyre must travel across the Splinter Kingdoms to rally the rebels to his side, while his sister Maya uncovers the secrets of a powerful artifact that could change everything.   Gyre finally sees a way to overthrow the all-powerful Twilight Order. But he'll have to gain the alliance of both the ghouls and the human rebels to the south in order to even stand have a chance. And uniting them won't be so simple. His sister

Name of Book: The Waters Author: Bonnie Jo Campbell ISBN: 978-0-393-24843-2 Publisher: W.W. Norton Type of book: 2010s century, modern times, Michigan, rural noir, nature, snakes, secrets, donkeys, survival, mathematics, traditions vs new path, island, healing, idols, stereotypes,  Year it was published: 2024  Summary: A master of rural noir returns with a fierce, mesmerizing novel about exceptional women and the soul of a small town. On an island in the Great Massasauga Swamp—an area known as “The Waters” to the residents of nearby Whiteheart, Michigan—herbalist Hermine “Herself” Zook has healed the local women of their ailments for generations. As stubborn as her tonics are powerful, Herself inspires reverence and fear in the people of Whiteheart, and even in her own three daughters. The youngest, beautiful and inscrutable Rose Thorn, has left her own daughter, eleven-year-old Dorothy “Donkey” Zook, to grow up wild. Donkey spends her days searching for truths in the lus

Name of Book: The Quicksilver Court Author: Melissa Caruso ISBN: 978-0-316-45435-3 Publisher: Orbit Part of a Series: Rooks and Ruin (The Obsidian Tower is prequel, The Ivory Tomb is sequel)  Type of book: Fantasy, light vs dark, gray lines, fight, battle, magic, powers, secrets, Versailles type court, diplomacy, war, romance, fright, demons Year it was published:  2021 Summary: The Quicksilver Court continues the wildly original epic fantasy series bursting with intrigue and ambition, questioned loyalties, and broken magic that began with The Obsidian Tower.   Ryxander, Warden of Gloamingard, has failed. Unsealed by her blood, the Door hidden within the black tower has opened. Now, for the first time since the age of the Graces, demons walk the world.   As tensions grow between nations, all eyes-and daggers are set on Morgrain, fallen under the Demon of Discord's control. In an attempt to save her home from destruction, Ryx and the Rookery set out to find a powerfu

 The Sunday Post The Sunday Post is a blog news meme hosted here @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on your blog for the week ahead. Join in weekly, bi-weekly or for a monthly wrap up. See rules here:  Sunday Post Meme # 69 Cold Week So last week was a cold week and I think we are all trying to get readjusted, at least I am. I went to a temple which I enjoyed, and I think my son also enjoyed the visit there, especially meeting up with an old friend he hadn't seen in awhile. For now it all marches on. My week has been the same, been waiting to get some books that hadn't arrived so far. Maybe next week? My son loved the snow, and we finally went to a Chinese buffet. Other than that, lets prepare for rainy days.  Last Week On The Blog This Week On The Blog New Arrivals At Svetlana's Reads And Views       It's Monday! What Are You R