#BookReview #RiverMumma by Zalika Reid-Benta #NetGalley

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NetGalley Description:
“River Mumma is a love letter to culture, home, and coming of age—and will spark important, relevant book club conversations, too.” —Marissa Stapley, New York Times bestselling author of Lucky

Issa Rae’s Insecure with a magical realist spin: River Mumma is an exhilarating contemporary fantasy novel about a young Black woman who navigates her quarter-life-crisis while embarking on a mythical quest through the streets of Toronto.

Alicia has been out of grad school for months. She has no career prospects and lives with her mom, who won’t stop texting her macabre news stories and reminders to pick up items from the grocery store.

Then, one evening, the Jamaican water deity, River Mumma, appears to Alicia, telling her that she has twenty-four hours to scour the city for her missing comb.

Alicia doesn’t understand why River Mumma would choose her. She can’t remember all the legends her relatives told her, unlike her retail co-worker Heaven, who can reel off Jamaican folklore by heart. She doesn’t know if her childhood visions have returned, or why she feels a strange connection to her other co-worker Mars. But when the trio are chased down by malevolent spirits called duppies, they realize their tenuous bonds to each other may be their only lifelines. With the clock ticking, Alicia’s quest through the city broadens into a journey through time—to find herself and what the river carries.

Energetic and invigorating, River Mumma is a vibrant exploration of diasporic community and ancestral ties, and a homage to Jamaican storytelling by one of the most invigorating voices in today’s literature.

“This quirky, fizzy, charming debut surprises and amuses. Reid-Benta writes beautifully, drawing on Caribbean mythologies to create a fast paced and entertaining tale. It’s rare to find a novel written with such humour and heart.” —T. L. Huchu, USA Today Bestselling author of The Library of the Dead

Review by Coffee & Ink

I’m not familiar with Caribbean folklore, and I loved this contemporary novel deeply steeped in the rhythm and the culture of the diaspora in Toronto. The voice and the writing really is fizzy, as the reviewer T.L. Huchu described it.

The story is about three young people (I guess I only say this because I’m old, lol) who consider themselves work friends and not much more. Alicia’s ancestor’s encounter with the uncanny leads to River Mumma finding Alicia and requiring her help and locating her golden comb. Or else.

Alicia, who is well-schooled in the folklore of Jamaica because of her mother and grandmother, knows what “or else” will mean for the world. River Mumma will make the rivers dry up if Alicia can’t find the comb.

Thus begins a quest that pulls in Alicia’s work friends, Heaven and Mars, and as all the good quests in the world’s stories, they grow closer, learn more about each other and themselves, and fight monsters all at the same time.

Highly recommended if you love #ownvoices magical realism and urban fantasy.

Thank you NetGalley and Kensington for a copy of this book to read and review.

N is for Nervion

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I can’t recall who the artist is, but it’s an homage to the wives of the fishermen who used to be away for months at a time fishing cod…

“The 30-foot-tall Maman spider sculpture crawls along the river’s edge just outside the Guggenheim. One of French-American artist Louise Bourgeois’ most ambitious works, the arachnid is cast of bronze and stainless steel, with marble eggs. Crafted as a tribute to her mother, a weaver, it was installed in 1999.” Joshua Mellin

The Guggenheim, built to look like the sails of a ship…

#BookReview #FindingMargaretFuller by Allison Pataki #NetGalley #M is for Margaret Fuller

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NetGalley Description

A “sweeping” (Entertainment Weekly) novel of America’s forgotten leading lady, the central figure of a movement that defined a nation—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Magnificent Lives of Marjorie Post

“Whether exploring Margaret’s remarkable friendships or delving into her crucial legacy as a journalist, writer, and feminist, Finding Margaret Fuller promises to transform every reader it touches.”—Marie Benedict, co-author of The Personal Librarian

Young, brazen, beautiful, and unapologetically brilliant, Margaret Fuller accepts an invitation from Ralph Waldo Emerson, the celebrated Sage of Concord, to meet his coterie of enlightened friends. There she becomes “the radiant genius and fiery heart” of the Transcendentalists, a role model to a young Louisa May Alcott, an inspiration for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne and the scandalous Scarlet Letter, a friend to Henry David Thoreau as he ventures out to Walden Pond . . . and a muse to Emerson. But Margaret craves more than poetry and interpersonal drama, and her restless soul needs new challenges and adventures.

And so she charts a singular course against a backdrop of dizzying historical drama: From Boston, where she hosts a salon for students like Elizabeth Cady Stanton; to the editorial meetings of The Dial magazine, where she hones her pen as its co-founder; to Harvard’s library, where she is the first woman permitted entry; to the gritty New York streets where she spars with Edgar Allan Poe and reports on Frederick Douglass. Margaret defies conventions time and again as an activist for women and an advocate for humanity, earning admirers and critics alike.

When the legendary editor Horace Greeley offers her an assignment in Europe, Margaret again makes history as the first female foreign news correspondent, mingling with luminaries like Frédéric Chopin, William Wordsworth, George Sand and more. But it is in Rome that she finds a world of passion, romance, and revolution, taking a Roman count as a lover—and sparking an international scandal. Evolving yet again into the roles of mother and countess, Margaret enters the fight for Italy’s unification.

With a star-studded cast and sweeping, epic historical events, this is a story of an inspiring trailblazer, a woman who loved big and lived even bigger—a fierce adventurer who transcended the rigid roles ascribed to women and changed history, all on her own terms.

Review by Coffee & Ink

This well-researched, well-written historical novel is highly recommended for lovers of overlooked women in history. The only thing I knew about Margaret Fuller is vague—she was part of the early abolitionist and suffragist movement. What a loss, though! A woman of great character and intellectual spirit, educated by her father who knew she’d never get any kind of education in the outside world. (Harvard did not admit women until 1920 and was the first college/university to do so. A separate school for women, the Annex, became known as Radcliffe, established by a woman named Elizabeth Agassiz, in 1879. It gave out certificates to women, not degrees.)

The novel follows her as she searches for a way to support her widowed mother and younger siblings. She journeys to Concord, Massachusetts where she encounters the Transcendentalists: Emerson and Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorn, Bronson Alcott, and a young Lousia May.

Throughout, she returns often to Concord, to Waldo and his wife, to recover and ground herself in a home away from home. The story is told in the first person with a sensitive, reflective tone. I really feel the author captured the spirit of Margaret Fuller, and her novel has made me even more curious to read further about the woman and her era.

Highly recommend historical fiction, worth repeating.

Thank you NetGalley for a copy of this book to read and review

K is for Knitting

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I started knitting hats for myself (see A is for Alopecia) but realized, once I watched videos over and over and my fingers and brain made the connection, that I really loved it. I donated over 80 knitted hats at the end of last year to a local shelter and the large national charitable distributor Warm Up America (https://warmupamerica.org/). Since the end of last year, I’ve got over 40 hats completed, and started crocheting blanket squares to donate. Also little soap sacks make from cotton yarn for S.A.C.K., Supporting A Community with Kindness (https://www.soapsacks.com/)

I have a hard time reading a pattern, so I usually just re-write them so I can understand them. Mostly it’s watching videos. Tunisian crochet looked interesting too, so I got some ultra long crochet hooks and some yarn on sale at Joann’s and off I went.

I’ve done nothing fancy yet, just your basic knit 1 purl 2 but I hope to soon. I have yet to accomplish a granny square–I keep giving up over the hopeless mess it becomes, but I’ll get there, lol.

J is for Jewelry-making

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I guess I don’t have enough to do, so I promised a neighbor I would make some jewelry to contribute to her charity drive for the local children’s hospital at Christmas. She doesn’t want knitted or crocheted things because apparently everyone wants to knit for her, and she can’t sell it all. I’m hoping by making such a commitment, it will force me to sit and bead with purpose and focus. In the past, I gave up too easily in frustration with crafts, but recent success with knitting and crocheting has made me believe I can take this on, too.

Some finished pieces:

Jewelry to be:

#BookReview #RedKingdom by Rachel L. Demeter

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Genre: Historical Romance (Medieval)
Series: Fairy Tale Retellings, Book Two (Standalone)
Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Royalty, Captive, Age Gap, Knights, Dark Romance, Adult Fairy Tale Retellings, Tortured Hero, Alpha Hero, Strong Heroine
Spice Factor: Open Door, Slow Burn 

Blurb:

Princess Blanchette’s world shatters when the Black Wolf tears apart her castle and everything she holds dear. All she clings to is the vow she made to her grandmother on her deathbed.

Hailed as the people’s champion, Sir Rowan Dietrich liberates the capital in a quest for vengeance. He takes Winslowe Castle with an army at his back and his wolf, Smoke, at his side.

United by a shared cause and powerful attraction, Rowan and Blanchette embark on a journey of self-discovery and redemption—a path filled with loss, transformation, and ultimately, the healing power of love.

Can Norland’s resplendent princess, with her captivating beauty and spirit, tame the fabled Black Wolf?

Red Kingdom is a passionate historical romance about the enduring quest for love and the longing for a world at harmony.

Review by Coffee&Ink

Red Kingdom is a sweeping and intoxicating novel, a twisted retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. I loved it so much I had to grab this particular banner from Amazon for the post. The writing is excellent and the medieval world building vivid and immersive. Elegantly plotted, the characters are nevertheless pulled relentlessly, step by bloody step, to their happy ending. If you love gritty enemies to lovers romance, this is your jam, as it is one of the best I’ve read in a long while. Highly recommended historical romance.

Thanks to the author for a copy of this book to read and review.

https://linktr.ee/RachelDemeter

H is for Highsmith

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I have about 20 minutes left on the new Ripley series, based on the book by Patricia Highsmith. I really don’t want it to end. I love Patricia Highsmith and all her charmingly creepy yet deadly creations, from novels to short stories. Andrew Scott is a wonderful Tom Ripley, but it’s Matt Damon who led me to reading Patricia Highsmith with his Tom in 19—, well, let’s call it back in the day. I’ve got two of her biographies, read one, and now I want to re-read the whole Ripley series again. John Malkovich played a wonderfully mature Tom in Ripley’s Game, too.

Beautiful Shadow is the biography I read, written by Andrew Wilson. But like a lot of books and authors I love, I didn’t read everything of hers yet. Some stories have stayed with me—The Cry of the Owl is one I remember well. The premise blew me away. Some of her more disturbing short stories, too. So this is a good reminder to get back to reading and re-reading Highsmith. Also, a recommendation to check her out if you love mystery and suspense. The creators of the Netflix series Ripley gave it a beautifully noir spin by filming in black and white. The streets and buildings in Italy are filled with stark contrasts, the artworks whether in stone or the hyper-reality of Caravaggio’s paintings, just brilliantly done. There are some amusing bits too, like the gorgeous witness cat in Rome, the multiple hotel desk clerks, and su, su, su. It’s the kind of story and movie I love inhabiting and hate for it to end.