More #2017DiverseReads

Posted by Pooks on March 22, 2017 in What Pooks is Reading | Comments Off on More #2017DiverseReads

It’s that time, again.

I am listening to a book–Smoke, by Dan Vyleta– that is filled with kickassery goodness. Well, not as in Chuck Norris kickassery, but as in just total alternate history, conspiracy, dark DARK dark icky gooky Smoke disease/madness/sin mixed in with a boys’ school in the 1800s and lots of nefarious characters.

This was a very polluted and smokey period in England due to manufacturing and the industrial revolution, but in Dan Vyleta’s alternate England, Smoke is sin. It is evil. Have a lurid thought about the housemaid bending over to blow on the fireplace’s embers? Smoke will drift out of your shirt collar. Have truly wicked, evil thoughts? Not only will your body emit smoke [and soil your clothes, so there is no keeping it to yourself] but you could even end up poisoned by it.

Thus being in a boys school where wicked thoughts of all sorts are the order of the day is rife with peril.

I’m just getting into it, and the tangled relationships and shocking revelations are starting to pop up. In other words, I am loving this book.

Thomas, our main character, has a particularly difficult relationship with Smoke. It not only killed his mother, but his father succumbed to its madness and murdered a man.

Thomas’s future does not look bright.

But that’s before his uncle sends him to the above-mentioned boys school.

Rich world-building, smart and subversive alternate history, and vivid writing. Highly recommended.

Readers of the Harry Potter series and Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell are sure to be mesmerized by Dan Vyleta’s thrilling blend of historical fiction and fantasy, as three young friends scratch the surface of the grown-up world to discover startling wonders—and dangerous secrets.

I’m in.

Okay, I am not sure what is next. I have three books fighting for next place but my choice will need to fulfill my March requirement for the #diversereads2017 challenge which, yes, I know, I have mentioned before. I will be mentioning it many times again.

This is the first time I’ve had to truly hunt down a book to fit. I guess my general reading hasn’t included a lot of characters with disabilities, though a few books showed up on the lists that I had already read. I narrowed it down to two.

Robin Hobb is a writer that everybody raves about, and yet I have never read her work. When one of her books showed up on a list and it’s the first in a trilogy, I nabbed it. I hope it’s not a mistake to start reading her without starting at the very beginning. I assume if it is people will tell me so? Go ahead and tell me so. It may be too late, though. Fool’s Assassin is on my iPhone and waiting to be heard/read.

“Hobb knows the complicated workings of the wayward human heart, and she takes time to depict them in her tale, to tell her story sweetly, insistently, compellingly. . . . A book meant to be inhabited rather than run through.”—The Seattle Times

Over 1,000 reviews on Amazon and a 4.5 out of 5 star average? I have high hopes for shi book.

Should I really read Assassin’s Apprentice first, and the books that follow? Tell me quick!

Because there is another book also vying for my March read–Evil Genius! by Catherine Jinks.

Cadel Piggott has a genius IQ and a fascination with systems of all kinds. At seven, he was illegally hacking into computers. Now he’s fourteen and studying for his World Domination degree, taking classes like embezzlement, forgery, and infiltration at the institute founded by criminal mastermind Dr. Phineas Darkkon.

Seriously. How can I resist that?

I’m not sure what the disabilities are in these books, but I found them on a Goodreads list about fantasy characters with disabilities. Who knows, I may go in a different direction.

If you have suggestions, let me know. Right now?

I’m off to Smoke.