Once upon a time, I entered a bookshop and was immediately bowled over by how white-centric it was: white, heterosexual authors writing about white, heterosexual people stuffed every single shelf, no matter the genre. I glared, rolled up my sleeves, and dug through the stacks until I found & purchased the treasure that is DESSA ROSE by Sherley Anne Williams.

DESSA ROSE follows the journey of the title character as she fights against slavery, racism, and her own prejudices to win her freedom and a fulfilling, happy life. Though set in the 1830s and before slavery was made illegal, this book was very reminiscent of THE COLOR PURPLE and THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD, which are two of my favorite books ever. Like Walker and Hurston, Williams preserved the accent and dialect of black communities whenever the POV was a black person. Men were supporting characters, and the story focused on femininity and womanhood. The structure of the novel mirrored Dessa's growth into a free individual, free of society's (literal) shackles.

Though the works are similar, Williams adds a dimension that Hurston and Walker chose not too: the white perspective. While Dessa's journey is obviously central, chunks of the book are told from the perspective of Nemi, a white man writing a book on rebellious slaves, and Ruth Elizabeth, a white plantation owner who harbors runaway slaves. Their sections seemed like an intentional call back and reversal of Glenn Ligon's PRISONER OF LOVE #1 (SECOND VERSION): "We are the ink that gives the white page meaning." Both characters illuminate the toxicity of slavery and play out various typical Southern white reactions to it. It was nice that I, as a white person, could cheer on Ruth's dismantling of her own prejudices.

I don't want to give too much else away because it's a novel to discover on your own, but rest assured that my English major/writer brain was left in a tizzy of delight analyzing this work. While the content is intense enough that I understand why people are hesitant to teach it, this book packs a whole lot of punch for 240 pages, and should be taught in every mature classroom. I'm shocked I haven't seen it on more "Must Read" lists, that I only came upon this masterwork by chance. I recommend this book to all human beings.

I picked up NO REST FOR THE WITCHES as a light Halloween read and that's exactly what it is. Nevermind that I read it in January (Oops).

Inside are 4 novellas, each featuring a witch or witches. Each have their own charm, and each are hilarious romps of romance that had me in tears of laughter. MaryJanice Davidson's "The Majicka" in particular had me screaming because it's exactly the sort of thing I want to write: giant team-ups of magical creatures going on silly adventures and fighting the establishment. "Voodoo Moon" was darker, and a lot of "Is it really going to do this? Omg it did it" happened in my head, and I wanted to give it a star. The amount of fun Cheyenne McCray had in writing "Breath of Magic" was apparent, to the point I wondered if it was legal to have that much fun. The main character of Randy in Christine Warren's "Any Witch Way She Can" is someone I want to 100% befriend in real life. She's such a riot!

Though I did have fun, the stories succumb to flaws that prevent me from giving a 5 star rating. Some of these quibbles might be just between me and the romance genre in general. I'm demisexual, so I had trouble suspending disbelief that characters could go from meeting to boinking (and once, proposing marriage) in the space of 24 hours. Also...there is a lot of boinking in the mud, which does not sound pleasant. They couldn't wait for a bed? The plots also had a level of predictability that was probably meant to be comforting, but wasn't for me. While the characters being more in their 30s was heartening, I was waiting for a non-white protagonist or maybe a woman who loves women, but was disappointed on both fronts, I think.

In any case, pick NO REST FOR THE WITCHES up if you're in the mood for a good time, but not a terribly inventive one. If you ever meet a real life Randy or Ireland, let me know so we can be BFFs forever.

My girlfriend and I had a dose of nostalgia, and we decided to read some Nancy Drew novels. While I read a modest 5 Nancy Drew books as a child, my partner read as many as she could get her hands on, so this reading project has been interesting for the both of us. I come to the page with virgin eyes while she re-visits the tales that carried her through childhood with the seasoned lens of adulthood. In other words, a lot of "wtf really?" has been going on.

As far as THE MYSTERY OF THE TOLLING BELL's plot, Mrs. Chantrey, formerly a woman of beachside leisure, pours a sizeable chunk of her savings into a very bad investment, forcing her to open a tea-and-sandwhich shop in order to get by. She contacts Nancy's father, Mr. Drew, to see if she has any legal options to get her money back. Mr. Drew recruits our detective Nancy, her prim friend Bess, and her tomboy friend George to help cheer Mrs. Chantrey up, enticing them into a vacation by the seaside rife with a mysterious cave, ghost, and bell-ringing.

Reading this novel, I can see why children like Nancy Drew. The language is fairy tale simple and matter of fact. Lots of telling rather than showing, as writers say. The cast of characters is wide enough that everyone has someone to identify with, though Nancy is the true, fleshed out star. As promised, the mystery is a good one, taking lots of twists and turns. The perpetrators are obvious, so the book spends most of its time expanding on their dastardly scheme. There's lots of White People Get Upset That They Bought A Stupid Thing, which is fine stakes for a children's book.

While a child me would have swallowed this tale hook, line, and sinker, adult me was puzzled on several fronts. While Nancy Drew basically exists outside of time, I was given to understand that these books had been updated to modern sensibilities of treating all people like human beings. It could have been worse, I suppose, but the narrator did their job of narrating with a huge helping of xenophobia (lots of mistrust of foreigners), racism (the entire cast is WASP; the criminals use brownface to appear "exotic"), and misogyny (apparently only sex workers wear make up in the Drew universe). There was also some extremely tone deaf "ah, yes, let's go off to a remote location with a strange old man," AND THEN "he left us stranded in the remote location but we'll forgive him and keep acting like he's a good guy." Which is No. That would not happen in any decade.

I also wanted the narrator to dwell more on certain points. Ned Nickerson acts as the Muscle, which had me giggling and tender-hearted. Over the course of the story, a few dances happened, but all together they perhaps lasted 5 sentences. I realize, like, kids read this, but no hand holding? No looking into each other's eyes? No fuzzy, happy feelings in their hearts? Is Ned only there to be the Muscle and convince everyone that Nancy is straight? Conversely, there are points where Nancy is "deeply frightened" and yet acts not at all like a frightened person, what with all her limbs still working and her brain being still full of common sense.

What kept the book at 3 stars was the good mystery, the avoidance of YA cliche, and the tiny bits of queer subtext I picked up. Mrs. Chantrey, a widow, lives with fellow widow June Barber. The narrator embraces George with her tomboyish ways, letting her wear masculine clothes, punch criminals, and do some hard thinking without condemnation. As a parent, Mr. Drew is an asset to the investigation and respectful of his daughter instead of totally oblivious and useless. Nancy is the epitome of level-headed self-sufficiency, but doesn't shy away from calling on friends to help. She is allowed to be weak and strong, a full human being. These elements saved the novel and encouraged me to pick up one or two more of the series. Buckle up, folks.

This book. THIS BOOK. I read A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC because my cousin said I had to, and he was right. I liked the first book, but I LOVED the sequel.

Picking up four months after SHADES OF MAGIC, this sequel is all about growth. Kell and Rhy struggle with the overgrowth of life between them, the consequence of Kell bloodying his hands with necromancy. A white and black mirror, Holland is forced to trade his freedom for a overzealous fungus of a magic king. Grey London enthusiast Ned sprouts a surprise of his own. Red London tailor Calla coaxes new fabric creations. And then there is Lila Bard, the star of the book, who blossoms into her own, as one-of-a-kind and unique as only a fully fleshed out character can be. These changing characters are thrust into the crucible of the Element Games, a tournament to see who among the 3 Empires is the strongest magician.

And the result is a little bit beautiful. (By which I mean very beautiful)

Schwab's mastery of wordcraft never shines brighter than here. She creates tension out of every little thing, just GOES THERE with her plots. It's marvelous to witness as a writer, to see how she crafted scenes like a glassblower does a stained glass rose window. Though the stakes were admittedly lower in this book than the last (the world being devoured by magic vs. will Lila beat the snot out of everybody in this tourney), I could not stop devouring it.

If I was cornered and forced to have a quibble, I would say that Queen Emira and King Maxim suffered what a lot of book parents do: they were a bunch of hardasses. They were constant thorns in the other characters' sides, laying down unreasonable rules and generally getting in the way. For me, they stopped being characters: they were more two dimensional, bull-headed hurdles to be leapt over. Kell and Rhy blow off their parents' behavior as that of people still reeling from their sons' brush with death, but that didn't ring true for me. We never hear from Maxim or Emira themselves what is going on in their inconvenient heads, and the book suffers a glancing blow for it.

A say "glancing blow" because everything else is so delightful. The casual diversity in sexual orientation and race are carried over from the first book. The writing style, as I said, is just my glass of champagne. I recommend the SHADES OF MAGIC series to literally any New Adult speculative fiction fan. Trust me, there's something for everyone here. You're going to like it.