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 writin...

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 s...

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 Seco...

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 cunni...

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 ...

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...