Ry Herman's Blog

Two incredible books rocketed to the top of my list this month.

ALMOST LIFE by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

Erica and Laure meet on the steps of the Sacré-Coeur in Paris, 1978. Erica is a student, relishing her first summer abroad before beginning university at home in England. Laure is studying for her PhD at the Sorbonne, drinking and smoking far too much, and sleeping with a married woman. The moment the two women meet, the spark is undeniable, but their encounter turns into far more than a summer of love.

This is a book that is both beautifully written and sharply characterized. One that isn’t afraid to let its characters be young and middle-aged and — sometimes — awful. I loved it.

RADIANT STAR by Ann Leckie

The Temporal Location of the Radiant Star has always been a source of both conflict and hope for the people of Ooioiaa. However, the imperial Radch see it only as an inconvenience, an antiquated religious site soon to be absorbed into their own, superior culture. But local politics is complicated, and the Radch have made one last concession: One final man will be allowed to join the mummified bodies in the temporal location to become a “living saint”.

Wonderful. A tale of greed, piety, disaster and unrest, and connection, narrated in a brilliant Jane Austen-esque third person semi-omniscient style. I l adored it. This may be the best book Leckie’s written since The Raven Tower, and that’s a very high bar.

This was a great month in general for books. Others that were high on my list included WOLF WORM by T. Kingfisher, THE ORIGINAL by Nell Stevens, SLEEPER BEACH by Nick Harkaway, THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND FACES by Sunyi Dean, THE BRIDES by Charlotte Cross, KAIROS by Gwyneth Jones, SEASONS OF GLASS AND IRON by Amal el-Mohtar, THE ICARUS GIRL by Helen Oyeyemi, BLOOD OVER BRIGHT HAVEN by M. L. Wang, GLYPH by Ali Smith, HUMAN RITES by Juno Dawson, and THE SOMEWHAT WICKED WITCH OF BRIGANDALE by C. M. Waggoner.

Cover reveal for my upcoming book This Knight Topples Empires!

In a raucous, tongue-in-cheek spin on the Romanian fairytale “The Girl Who Became A Boy,” a knight attempts to thwart an invasion, save the most beautiful woman in the world, and finally get away from their sisters.

ARCs are available by request on NetGalley.

Two books I read this month were absolutely amazing:

WE DO NOT PART by Han Kang

One winter morning in Seoul, Kyungha receives an urgent message from her friend Inseon to visit her at the hospital. Inseon has injured herself in an accident, and she begs Kyungha to return to Jeju Island, where she lives, to save her beloved pet—a white bird called Ama. A snowstorm hits the island when Kyungha arrives. She must reach Inseon’s house at all costs, but the icy wind and squalls slow her down as night begins to fall.

While I very much liked the previous works of Han Kang that I’ve read, this one was incredible. So much is packed into a narrative that only spreads across two days. But in that time it manages to examine — with descriptions as vivid as poetry — the isolation of despair, the persistence of mourning, the brutality of power, and the resilience of those who survive. All while gradually turning into a ghost story where you don’t know which character is the ghost.

UNDER FALSE COLORS by Sheila Jenné

The Martian people must secure their rights once and for all—at the risk of destroying everything they have built over centuries. Lucy runs from her feelings to Earth, where she tries to gather new allies for the Martian people. Shattered but stubborn, Moira navigates the criminal underworld of Halfpoint Station. But to unearth a plot that threatens the nascent revolution, they will have to swallow their pride and reach out to one another.

The third book of the Imperial Mars trilogy is arguably the best of the three. It takes a close look at the politics of revolution, and the difficulties of love across an entrenched class divide, in a science fiction setting where the science really matters to the story. I have no idea why this series isn’t better known than it is. If you haven’t read it, do!

Other books I loved were SISTERS IN YELLOW by Mieko Kawakami, ORDINARY SAINTS by Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin, THE FAITH OF BEASTS by James S. A. Corey, IS THIS A CRY FOR HELP by Emily Austin, and IF ALL THE WORLD AND LOVE WERE YOUNG by Stephen Sexton.

Sighting of the Book of the Month club edition of This Princess Kills Monsters in the wild – this one from Pittsburgh!

The standout book for me in March was:

CHILDREN OF STRIFE, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

An interspecies starship rediscovers a forgotten human colony. Then human crewmate Alis wakes to discover that she, her captain and the ship’s intelligence are the only ones left on their ship. What happened to everyone else?

What would it look like if a world were made in the image of the worst people on earth? Pretty horrible, as it turns out. It makes for a good book, though. I wouldn’t, however, think as highly as I do about this book for that alone. It’s a story about limitations. About what would people would do, as individuals, as a society, if they were given ultimate power, whether real or in simulation. What could stop them? Only the limits of their conscience and their imagination. And the second, the book argues, and argues well, is a hard, hard limit, a fact that has had and will continue to have terrible consequences in the real world.

Some other great books from March: SILENCED by Ann Claycomb, THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY by Edith Wharton, ARKHANGELSK by Elizabeth Bonesteel, THE EMILY WILDE TRILOGY by Heather Fawcett, THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS by Arundhati Roy, COME CLOSER by Sarah Gran, and THE ONES WHO COME BACK HUNGRY by Amelinda Bérubé.

I think the audiobook of This Princess Kills Monsters is on sale right now. It certainly seems to be on sale on Apple Books, but I guess maybe also on Amazon.

What tipped me off:

The French language edition of This Princess Kills Monsters comes out today!

Once again, there are no books I specifically want to highlight, but a whole lot of books I very much enjoyed this past month:

THE POET EMPRESS by Shen Tao, GREEK LESSONS by Kang Han, TAPPING THE DREAM TREE by Charles de Lint, THE HUNGRY GODS by Adrian Tchaikovsky, BRIGANDS & BREADKNIVES by Travis Baldree, YOU WEREN’T MEANT TO BE HUMAN by Andrew Joseph White, TRESS OF THE EMERALD SEA by Brandon Sanderson, and THIEF OF NIGHT by Holly Black

Thanks to the works of Sigrid Undset and Xenophon, I now have every single letter of the alphabet represented by the author names on my bookshelf. This makes me obscurely happy.

The cover for the French language edition of This Princess Kills Monsters!