Book Review | Come Tumbling Down by Seanan McGuire

Come Tumbling Down is the fifth book in Seanan McGuire's Wayward Children series.

The fifth installment in Seanan McGuire's award-winning, bestselling Wayward Children series, Come Tumbling Down picks up the threads left dangling by Every Heart a Doorway and Down Among the Sticks and Bones

When Jack left Eleanor West's School for Wayward Children she was carrying the body of her deliciously deranged sister--whom she had recently murdered in a fit of righteous justice--back to their home on the Moors.

But death in their adopted world isn't always as permanent as it is here, and when Jack is herself carried back into the school, it becomes clear that something has happened to her. Something terrible. Something of which only the maddest of scientists could conceive. Something only her friends are equipped to help her overcome.

Eleanor West's "No Quests" rule is about to be broken.

Again.

It's not that I didn't like Come Tumbling Down, I just didn't particularly care for it, either.

Come Tumbling Down can't stand on its own the way the other books in the series can, yet half of the book is spent explaining the characters and the worlds.

I still wholeheartedly recommend this series and I'm anxiously awaiting the next installment... I just don't feel like Come Tumbling Down really added anything new.

⭐⭐⭐★★

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Recent Updates and Currently Reading | January 12

This week was my first week back to work since before the holidays, and it was also birthday week for my oldest. He turned 13 this week! I officially have a teenager in the house. It was a super busy week for me. I'm hoping to take it easy and do some much needed blog hopping today.

Posted Last Week

On Monday I posted all of the January 2020 Book Releases in Fantasy, Horror, and Thrillers I'm most excited about.

On Tuesday I posted my ⭐⭐⭐★★ review of Middlegame by Seanan McGuire.

Wednesday I shared a few books that have recently made it onto my wishlist.

And then Friday I posted my ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review of A Lush and Seething Hell by John Hornor Jacobs.

Finished Reading

Walking to Aldebaran by Adrian Tchaikovsky ⭐⭐⭐⭐★ - This book had the perfect balance of world building and humor.

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire ⭐⭐⭐★★ - I've already posted my review of this one.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ - So good. Stay tuned for a review!

Currently Reading

Yay! The new Wayward Children book released this week! I started reading it this weekend because I just couldn't wait any longer.

Recent Acquisitions

Tor.com kindly granted me ecopies of The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo and Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings. I am highly anticipating both of these reads.

I gave into temptation and also grabbed copies of The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones and The Hidden Girl and Other Stories by Ken Liu since these are highly anticipated reads as well.

Many thanks to Gallery Books for sending me copies of Truth Be Told by Kathleen Barber and The Tenant by Katrine Engberg.

I bought a copy of The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher for the January group read in the Ladies of Horror Fiction goodreads group.

I also bought a couple of fantasy back titles that I'm in the mood to read this year: The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons and You Die When You Die by Angus Watson.

So what about you? Let me know what you're reading this week or leave me some links!

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This post is being shared as part of Book Date's It's Monday! What Are You Reading? and Caffeinated Book Reviewer's The Sunday Post.

Book Review | A Lush and Seething Hell by John Hornor Jacobs

A Lush and Seething Hell combines two tales of cosmic horror by John Hornor Jacobs.

The award-winning and critically-acclaimed master of horror returns with a pair of chilling tales—both never-before-published in print—that examine the violence and depravity of the human condition.

Bringing together his acclaimed novella The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky and an all-new short novel My Heart Struck Sorrow, John Hornor Jacobs turns his fertile imagination to the evil that breeds within the human soul.

A brilliant mix of the psychological and supernatural, blending the acute insight of Roberto Bolaño and the eerie imagination of H. P. Lovecraft, The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky examines life in a South American dictatorship. Centered on the journal of a poet-in-exile and his failed attempts at translating a maddening text, it is told by a young woman trying to come to grips with a country that nearly devoured itself.

In My Heart Struck Sorrow, a librarian discovers a recording from the Deep South—which may be the musical stylings of the Devil himself.

Breathtaking and haunting, A Lush and Seething Hell is a terrifying and exhilarating journey into the darkness, an odyssey into the deepest reaches of ourselves that compels us to confront secrets best left hidden.

I just love John Hornor Jacobs' cosmic horror. The two novellas in A Lush and Seething Hell are set in the same world as Southern Gods {my review}, and I really can't get enough of it. You definitely don't need to read Southern Gods before reading A Lush and Seething Hell, but I do recommend you read Southern Gods at some point just because I loved it so.

I read the two novellas in A Lush and Seething Hell separately (a month apart), and even though I really enjoyed The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky, I think I missed something. I was probably my own worst enemy with all of my preconceived Lovecraftian notions and expectations. I want to read this one again.

The second novella - My Heart Struck Sorrow - was my favorite of the two stories. Not only was I in Jacobs' world of cosmic horror, but it turned out to be music horror which is something I always love. My Heart Struck Sorrow was dark and unsettling, and I love when reading a book becomes an experience. I will probably want to reread this novella, too, just because I liked it so much.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

*according to the book description, My Heart Struck Sorrow is actually a short novel and not a novella.

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On My Wishlist {25}

On My Wishlist is where I share a few books that have recently made it onto my wishlist. These are the books that have recently caught my eye:

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
Expected publication: March 24th 2020 by Tor.com

With the heart of an Atwood tale and the visuals of a classic Asian period drama The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a tightly and lushly written narrative about empire, storytelling, and the anger of women.

A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage. Alone and sometimes reviled, she has only her servants on her side. This evocative debut chronicles her rise to power through the eyes of her handmaiden, at once feminist high fantasy and a thrilling indictment of monarchy.

This upcoming Tor.com novella was highly recommended to me by Toni at Misadventures of a Reader. I can't wait to read this one.

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The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix
Expected publication: April 7th 2020 by Quirk Books

Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.

I plan to read everything Grady Hendrix writes. That is all.

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The Book of Koli (Rampart Trilogy #1) by M.R. Carey
Expected publication: April 14th 2020 by Orbit

The first in a gripping new trilogy, The Book of Koli charts the journey of one unforgettable young boy struggling to find his place in a chilling post-apocalyptic world. Perfect for readers of Station Eleven and Annihilation.

Beyond the walls of the small village of Mythen Rood lies an unrecognizable world. A world where overgrown forests are filled with choker trees and deadly vines and seeds that will kill you where you stand. And if they don't get you, one of the dangerous shunned men will.

Koli has lived in Mythen Rood his entire life. He knows the first rule of survival is that you don't venture beyond the walls.

What he doesn't know is -- what happens when you aren't given a choice?

This new trilogy sounds like something I would love to get hooked on.

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Are you planning to read any of these upcoming releases? What books have recently made it onto your wishlist?

Book Review | Middlegame by Seanan McGuire

Middlegame is a fantasy novel by Seanan McGuire.

Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story.

Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math.

Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet.

Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own.

Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained.

I am such a fan of Seanan McGuire. Her imagination and her characters are amazing. Middlegame is no exception to this. The first time I picked up Middlegame (at the beginning of last year), I was spoiled by early reviews and I decided to put it away until those reviews would not affect my reading experience. Now that I've gone back and reread/finished Middlegame, I see why there were so many spoilers. This book is really hard to discuss otherwise, so I'll skip any actual plot points.

My favorite scenes are in the beginning of Middlegame when we are getting to know the characters of Roger and Dodger and the connection between them. Seanan McGuire's stories are so brilliant and so fun. I'm here for her story ideas for life.

There are a lot of time jumps in Middlegame, though. It's necessary to the story, but as a reader I rarely enjoy jumps in time. They pull me out of the story and away from the characters, and there's just no way my preference could overcome the amount of shifts in Middlegame. The story got progressively slower as the book went on, and as much as I loved the premise and the characters and the writing, it still managed to be difficult to get through.

⭐⭐⭐★★

Review copy provided by publisher

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