Another short list this month, but with an excellent standout to recommend:
SAINT DEATH’S DAUGHTER, by C. S. E. Cooney
To be born into a family of royal assassins pretty much guarantees that your life is going to be… rather unusual. Especially if, like Miscellaneous “Lanie” Stones, you also have a vicious allergy to all forms of violence and bloodshed, and an uncanny affinity for bringing the dead back to life. To make matters worse, family debt looms – a debt that will have to be paid sooner rather than later if Lanie and her sister are to retain ownership of the ancestral seat, Stones Manor. Lanie finds herself courted and threatened by powerful parties who would love to use her worryingly intimate relationship with the goddess of death for their own nefarious ends. But the goddess has other plans…
This book has some of the same feel for me as Gideon the Ninth — and not just because they both feature queer necromancers (although that probably was, you know, a factor.) But more than that, this is a *messy* book. The plot meanders. Sometimes it skips years. Sometimes it’ll spend a chapter enthusing about the costumes everyone’s wearing to a party. Sometimes the characters talk in exposition. It does not care about getting from point A to point B in a straight line. So why did I like it so much? Because I was always on board for the ride. This is a book that delights in language, delights in its characters, and delights in exploring its own world, and it’s hard not to get swept right up in that delight.
Other great reads this month included BIRDS OF AMERICA by Lorrie Moore, ON THE EDGE OF GONE by Corinne Duyvis, and THE MIDNIGHT GIRLS by Alicia Jasinska.
Ry Herman 