Hello Insiders! Happy first Monday post-Fall Back; may you have gotten that extra sleep. It’s going to be a Very Intense Election Week here in the US, so here is your reminder to take breaks and take care of yourself in amongst all the :waves hands:.
Our one announcement is that y’all selected “Favorite Non-Bookish Things” for the year for the last Book Riot Podcast bonus episode of 2022; excellent choice. Onto book chat!
-Jenn
What Are You Reading?
Bienvenidos a Monday, Insiders! Vanessa here on this fine November morning, getting ready to head back to Portland later this week after three and a half weeks on the road for both work and personal things. I’m playing a bit of catch-up now that my schedule is slowing down, so today I’ll be telling you about the magical reads I meant to get to in October — whoops! Reminder that whether you’re reading a ton or not at all: it’s all fine. The books will always be there.
Now let’s dive in!
First we have the utter delight that is Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson. Months ago Book Riot Contributing Editor Patricia Elzie-Tuttle posted it to her Instagram story with something to the effect of, “Read this if you want a witchy magic school read but don’t want to support a raging transphobe.” It me! The books is billed as A Discovery of Witches meets The Craft which is basically my blood type? It’s the first in an epic fantasy trilogy about five childhood friends who grew apart after a schism split up their coven, and now there’s a rull bad prophecy and a kid with frightening powers and magical battles are about. to go. down. It reads very much like a response to the afore-alluded-to transphobe, one that explores gender and the corrupting nature of power with a fun, fierce, and feminist plot. And if you audiobook, Aoife McMahon’s narration is sheer perfection.
I’m also reading The Cloisters by Katy Hays which I judged by its cover and thought, “Sinister nuns, maybe?” Yeah no! The cloisters here are the famed Met Cloisters, the gothic museum and garden at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Our main character is a young woman who comes to New York to escape the grief and tragedy of her past. Expecting to spend her summer as a curatorial associate, she’s surprised but on board when she’s instead assigned to The Cloisters to work under researchers studying the origins of divination. At first she’s just happy to have a job and goes along with even some of the more out-there theories these researchers propose, but her casual curiosity turns dark and obsessive when she finds a 15th-century deck of tarot cards that might not only legitimize the practice of divination, but hold the key to predicting the future. I’m 3/4 in and have so many questions! There’s a tension to the story that hints at uncovered secrets, I can’t wait to find out how this wraps.
Once I wrap up these two titles, I think I’ll finally go back to The Secret Society of Irregular Witches, another witchy read I meant to get to in October but got too busy to finish. This one’s a romance fantasy about a lonely British witch who gets roped into becoming a magical tutor to a bunch of unruly witch kids, which is A Choice considering she’s supposed to be keeping her identity as a witch on the low. She takes the job anyway and is almost immediately embroiled in the lives of not one the witch children, but two caretakers, an archeologist, a retired actor, and the handsome but grumpy librarian who is very protective of the withchlings. That’s all I know so far, but I know from the description that peril will soon come a-knockin’ and our MC will have to decide how much she’s willing to risk for this found family of hers. Also, the cranky-pants librarian is a love interest. Mwahaha.
That’s it for me, readers. Wishing you a lovely week in life and in reading. Reminder to tell us what you’re reading in the comments!
Stay bad & bookish,
Vanessa