My Month in Books: March 2024

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

If you love epic fantasy and strong female characters, you need to get yourself a copy of The Priory of the Orange Tree ASAP. It weaves together multiple narratives that span continents to tell the story of a world divided between those who loath and fear dragons in the West and those who worship and fight alongside them in the East. In the West, Queen Sabran Berethnet’s bloodline has ruled for a thousand years and is believed to be essential for keeping the dreaded Nameless One, the most fearsome dragon of them all, at pay. Protecting her from assassins is Ead Duryan, a lady in waiting who is much much more than she seems. Meanwhile in the East, a young orphan, Tané dreams of being a dragon rider but a chance encounter with an outsider on the eve of the most important day of her life will set in motion a chain of events that will determine the fate of the world. I shall say no more and leave you to the pleasure of unravelling these stories for yourself. Massive in scale with absolutely immaculate world building, Shannon has crafted an epic that feels like an instant classic. Can I also just say how refreshing it is that this is a standalone fantasy novel? It feels like these are an endangered species nowadays. Too often I have been put off cracking open a new fantasy book because I simply cannot afford to commit to another massive series (looking at you Wheel of Time) so thank you Samantha Shannon for making this an easy book for me to say yes too! But thank you also for writing another novel set in the same universe which I may or may not have already got loaded up on my Kindle. Here I go again…

Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

WARNING: Do not attempt to read this book without a steady supply of tissues and comfort food within reach. Zauner, who you may know from her band Japanese Breakfast, has focused her memoir on her relationship with her Korean identity, which she largely connects with via her mother and food. When her mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer, Zauner is forced to reckon with how she sees herself and embark on a journey develop her own relationship her identity through love and acceptance of herself, her mother and her mother’s family, cooking and language. This is a heartbreaking story of grief, mourning the loss of a parent as well as a sense of alienation from yourself and your wider society but it is also a gorgeous and heartfelt love letter to Zauner’s mother and all of the gifts and love that she gave to her daughter. The descriptions of food in this novel are also so mouthwatering that as you’re crying, you will definitely also have an uncontrollable urge to go and wander around your local Korean grocery store and stock up on kimchi.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

The Master and Margarita’s absurdist and surreal depiction of life in 1930s Moscow was so accurate, and therefore controversial, that it could not be published during the author’s lifetime. The story has a number of offshoots and diversions but the unifying thread is the arrival of Satan and his minions in Moscow and the havoc that they wreak on the unsuspecting citizenry. Ultimately I did enjoy this novel and found it very entertaining but I couldn’t help but feel as if there were several dozen layers of humour and subversion I was missing by not having a degree in Russian history and culture. If you do have that knowledge, definitely pick this book up because you’ll probably love it even more!

Mislaid in Parts Half-Known by Seanan McGuire

The Wayward Children series always delivers and Mislaid in Parts Half-Known is no exception. This instalment picks up right where Lost in the Moment and Found leaves off, with Antsy having just arrived at Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children, where children who have travelled to magical worlds beyond our own can learn to readapt to their old lives. Antsy however, can’t stop thinking about how the denizens of The Shop Where Lost Things Go literally stole her childhood and how they might be doing the same thing to another child as she sits alone in a classroom trying to catch up on school work. When some of her fellow students seek to take advantage of her talent for finding things, she is forced to flee the school with some of our favourite heroes in tow (Kade, Christopher, Cora and Sumi are back!) and since she’s on an unauthorised quest already, this seems like as good a time as any to revisit The Shop and take care of her unfinished business. This was a rollercoaster ride through worlds that also hit me right in the feels, as these books always do. I’m already excited for the next one and I’m hoping that the events of this book have opened a door for Kade to make a triumphant return to Prism and conquer it as the Goblin Prince he was born to be!

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

With goblins on the brain, it only made sense to crack open Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Fairies. In a world where the existence of faeries is an accepted, albeit mysterious, fact of life, it is therefore natural that an entire field of academic inquiry would spring up to study them. Enter Emily Wilde, one of the world’s foremost ‘dryadologists’, whose life’s work is the writing of a definitive encyclopaedia of faerie life. She just has one more species she needs to study in the field before her book is published and so she sets off to the icy and inhospitable Ljosland to learn more about their mysterious Hidden Folk. But while Emily is a genius in her field and a meticulous researcher, she is somewhat lacking in the social graces necessary to win over the hardscrabble locals whose co-operation will be essential to completing her fieldwork. Enter her wildly charismatic academic rival and sort of friend, Wendell Bambleby, who is all too happy to charm the villagers in exchange for borrowing some of Emily’s credibility after an academic scandal has sullied his reputation. But Bambleby has secrets to rival those of the Hidden Folk and as Emily is pulled deeper and deeper into the strange world of the local fae, she is forced to reckon with something even more complicated than magic and fairy politics combined…emotions. A thoroughly charming and light-hearted read. If you loved the tone of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell but are looking for something that’s a bit more accessible, this is perfect.