April Mini-Reviews

April was a slower month for reading, probably due to the relentless 8-4's.

Burden of Faete

Ligia deWit (2024)

I broke my library-book trend to buy the e-book because the author is a fellow Critique Circler. This follow-up to Touch of Faete picks up with our MCs, human Ryanne and bradais Titus, still keeping secrets from each other as they hide out together from the fae and bradais who are trying to kill them. More origin story is revealed, particularly about the bradais, and Ryanne makes progress towards mending what's broken in Titus. I think this series was my introduction to "romantasy," which is all over publishing (and social media) these days.

The Secret Book of Flora Lea

Patti Callahan Henry (2023)

From the library new books shelf, this historical fiction goes between 1940ish to 1960ish in two timelines in Hazel's point of view. Evacuated from London with her sister during the Blitz, Hazel invents a magic world that the two girls play in the fields of their idyllic country lodgings. Hazel loses both her little sister (to a disappearance, assumed drowning) and her father (to the war). In 1960, she finds a newly published children's book that is suspiciously close to her childhood stories. I guessed the bones of the ending fairly early on, but a few extra twists and turns required some suspension of disbelief.

My Friends

Hisham Matar (2024, no author website, so the link is to a better review than mine)

Khaled and Mustafa met as Libyan students in Edinburgh in the 1980s. Despite his father's urging to avoid politics, Khaled follows Mustafa to a protest outside the Libyan embassy that turns deadly. With Gaddafi's regime threatening to try all protesters, Khaled must both never admit he was there and continually delay his return in case he's already on a list. In the present day, Khaled, still in the UK, reminisces on the paths his life took, different choices made by other friends, and a life made up of big and small moments of connection and disruption.

White Trash Warlock

David R. Slayton (2020 debut)

Another find from the Queries, Qualms, and Quirks podcast, this debut is the start of a trilogy feature Adam Binder, a young man with "gifts" that led his family to commit him to a psychiatric facility in his adolescence. Now living with his aunt and working as a part-time mechanic, Adam is drawn into a paranormal battle that involves reconnecting with the family who rejected him (and is homophobic to boot). Saving the life of an attractive policeman adds another layer of complication. Both the family story and the paranormal one are emotionally compelling. The next two are on my TBR.