Cozy Horror: Gross But Also Sweet!

Yes, Cozy Horror is a THING! Even horror can combine elements of the gory and horrific with the sweet and reassuring. Don’t believe me? Here’s two to try:

Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell

This surprisingly delightful debut was fun, sweet, AND gross–frequently all at once!

Who gets to call something or someone a monster? This question animates this book, narrated by a “wyrm” named Shesheshen who devours humans and uses their assorted parts for both sustenance and for shapeshifting fodder. Three monster slayers arrive at her door during her hibernation on a quest to vanquish her. But they were not prepared for her humor, her cunning, or her gelatinous strength.

Shesheshen enters the world of humans with bemusement and fear. When her cover is blown, she falls into a ravine where she is cared for by a Homily, a woman whose kindness and attentiveness confuses her. Could those funny feelings in her stomach be hunger or love?

At heart this is a story of queer love, connection, and acceptance that asks us to take another look at who and what we deem monstrous.

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

A landlocked mermaid and a non-binary plague doctor begin a journey together across a bleak landscape and wind up ensnared in a mystery as well. But along the way they develop a friendship and growing affection for one another. Who knew that horror could include so much swoony pining?

This novella showcases Khaw’s visceral prose style which offers profane poetry in which the horrific is gut-turning yet gorgeous. I have no idea how they do it, but Khaw has a way with words and descriptions that is their unholy own.

Khaw’s use of language creates a creeping sense of unease, and temporarily masks the horrific acts it describes while rending your brain’s ability to unsee the flaying of flesh.

The ending is quite something, too.

~posted by Misha S.

 

Dear Reader, Try a Historical Romance

With the latest season of Bridgerton premiering on May 16, I’m all-in on historical romance, including the Regency era that Julia Quinn and Shonda Rhimes brought to the screen. For historical romances that flip the script on race, gender, sexuality, or feminism in the vein of Bridgerton, check out these options, sure to be the talk of the ton!

J.J. McAvoy’s Aphrodite and the Duke is clearly inspired by the Bridgerton world. Set in an alternate Regency England where racism doesn’t exist and color doesn’t determine class, this second-chance romance features the titular Aphrodite, a Black woman clearly embodying the goddess of beauty for which she is named, jilted by the Duke years ago in her first season in society. Reunited after years apart, the two must decide if they can move through past hurt to find greater love.

Publishers Weekly describes Cat Sebastian’s Unmasked by the Marquess as “a bisexual marquess and a genderqueer con artist fall in love,” and if you need to hear anything more than that to place a hold, then we are different kind of readers! The exploration of gender and attraction is characteristic of Sebastian’s romances, and if you enjoy this one, you’ll have a whole catalog of books to continue with.

Set a bit later than the Regency era, in the 1890s, The Duke Who Didn’t by Courtney Milan offers an exciting backdrop for those who love the racially integrated ton of the Bridgerton TV series. Milan has created the town of Wedgeford, which is primarily inhabited by Chinese British folks and other descendants of Asian countries under British imperial rule. It’s a sweet mix of second chance and friends-to-lovers, as Chloe Fong is reunited with Posh Jim, her friend and crush who used to visit every year and who just so happens to be a secret Duke.

For a sweet and tender Victorian sapphic romance, look no further than Don’t Want You Like a Best Friend by Emma Alban. Beth and Gwen are both eligible on the marriage market but find more sparks with each other than any of the young bachelors they meet. And what to do with their widowed parents, who clearly have a past…will they have a future?

Also try The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen, and A Lady for a Duke.

~posted by Jane S.

New Fiction Roundup, May 2024

Start planning your summer reading with this varied and compelling slate of new fiction titles coming in May! And don’t forget to check out our May Peak Picks offerings.

5/7: América del Norte by Nicolás Medina Mora
Sebastián grew up wealthy and privileged in Mexico before coming to the US to attend an elite school and MFA program. Now he must grapple with the Trump administration’s stance towards immigrants; the discrepancy between his status at home and in the United States; and his mother’s illness. (general fiction)

5/7: Cinema Love by Jiaming Tang
After living in New York City’s Chinatown for 30 years, Old Second and Bao Mei reminisce about their past in China, and their shared time at the Workers’ Cinema – a movie theatre frequented by Old Second and other gay men, where Bao Mei was a ticket-seller who kept patrons’ secrets.

5/7: The Daughters of Shandong by Eve J. Chung
In 1948 China, a mother and four daughters, previously part of a wealthy landowning family, find themselves abandoned and destitute as the Communist army nears their town. Escaping, they embark on a journey across a country they no longer know. (historical fiction)

5/7: The Lady Waiting by Magdalena Zyzak
Young Polish immigrant Viva, new to Los Angeles, is taken on as personal assistant to gallerist Bobby and his husband Sebastian, where she revels in their luxe lifestyle – until she realizes she’s being implicated in a ramshackle art theft, and must use her wiles to come out on top. (general fiction/humorous)

5/7: Long Island by Colm Tóibín
Tóibín returns to the characters of Brooklyn, picking up 20 years later as Eilis Lacey, now married with two children and living in Long Island, must reckon with a bombshell secret that will again change the path of her life. (general fiction)

5/7: The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean
On the coast of Washington State, Ellie Black – missing for two years – reappears in the forest. Detective Chelsey Calhoun, whose sister went missing when they were teens, investigates Ellie’s case. (thriller)

5/7: Shanghailanders by Juli Min
Beginning in 2040 and unwinding to 2014, these linked stories follow the fates of a Shanghai family backwards in time. (general fiction)

5/14: Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru
Jay, formerly a promising artist, is now living in New York and doing grocery delivery during Covid lockdowns. Out on a delivery, he encounters an ex-girlfriend and the friend she left him for, snug in a wealthy enclave. As the three reconnect, a reckoning awaits. (general fiction)

5/14: Oye by Melissa Mogollón
Luciana, the baby of her Colombian American family, finds herself caretaker to her grandmother and to her grandmother’s secrets, even as a hurricane barrels down on Miami. Told as a series of one-sided phone calls from Luciana to her sister Mari. (general fiction)

5/14: This Strange Eventful History by Claire Messud
In this family saga inspired by Messud’s own family history, three generations search for a homeland and a sense of belonging over the course of 70 years of personal and global turmoil. (general fiction)

5/14: Very Bad Company by Emma Rosenblum
This is Caitlin Levy’s first year attending her company Aurora’s swanky corporate retreat. When an executive goes missing, the team must maintain the ever-frantic charade of the retreat. (thriller/satire)

5/21: Exhibit by R.O. Kwon
Two artists, a photographer and a ballerina, meet one night at a party. The photographer confides a family curse, one she’s meant to keep secret. Soon, their relationship grows ferocious as they inspire one another to ever greater heights even as the curse looms. (general fiction)

5/21: The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton
The last community on earth – three scientists and 122 villagers – live on a small Greek island where they fish and farm, and follow a nightly curfew, with deadly fog held at bay off-shore. When one of the scientists is murdered, the deadly fog starts to roll in, and only solving the murder will keep them all alive. (mystery)

5/21: Lies and Weddings by Kevin Kwan
Rufus, future Earl of Greshambury, is inheriting a title but no wealth. Now he’s on his way to a lush wedding in Hawaii, where his mother will attempt to find him an advantageous match. Or maybe he’ll choose the modest girl he loves. Or maybe a volcanic eruption will interrupt it all! (romance)

5/21: When We Were Silent by Fiona McPhillips
Louise Manson enrolled at Dublin’s exclusive private high school Highfield Manor bent on revenge; her stint there ended with a dead body at her feet. 30 years later and “The Highfield Affair” is back in the news and in Louise’s life. (thriller)

5/21: You Like It Darker by Stephen King
The king of horror and suspense returns with a new collection of short stories. (horror)

~ posted by Andrea G.

Dig Into These Books for Spring

Read the latest column by Reader Services librarian Misha Stone on the Seattle Times website or below, where it’s republished with permission.

The Seattle Public Library loves to promote books and reading. This column, submitted by the library, will be a space to promote reading and book trends from a librarian’s perspective. You can find these titles at the library by visiting spl.org and searching the catalog.

Earth Day may not always conjure thoughts of reading. But when you are taking a break from your garden or hikes, consider settling in with one of these intriguing titles in science, memoir and science fiction to help you connect with nature and consider our collective future.

Mushrooms are a hot topic in the Pacific Northwest, and few scholars write with as much enthusiasm about fascinating fungi in all of its forms as Merlin Sheldrake. Sheldrake’s “Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, & Shape Our Futures” pays homage to the wild and scientifically baffling behaviors of mycelium, from their multifaceted network communications to their psychedelic and even zombie properties.

A central question the author explores is how mycelium communicate without a brain. Sheldrake unfolds multiple stories of mushrooms and lichen with astonishment and curiosity, including mycelial networks and fungi that live in the bodies of insects.

Mushrooms will alter your perspective, and so will this book. As Sheldrake writes, “If I think about mycelial growth for more than a minute my mind starts to stretch.”

Seattle Reads: Read Deeper

Whether the 2024 Seattle Reads selection of Parable of the Sower was your introduction to the work of Octavia Butler or you’re a long time fan of the author, I hope you’re enjoying diving into Butler’s world of speculative fiction. Her creative and sometimes terrifying visions of the future, centering of Black experience, dreams of anti-hierarchical structures, embracing of change, and so much more have influenced countless writers in the years since she began writing. For works that inspired or were inspired by Butler’s books, check out these titles to dive deeper.

adrienne maree brown is one of Octavia Butler’s most vocal disciples. She co-edited and contributed to Octavia’s Brood and used the Earthseed teachings from Parable to ground her theories of change and strategic organizing in Emergent Strategy. Butler’s influence is obvious, too, in brown’s first novel, Grievers, which follows a young woman, Dune, living in Detroit as a strange epidemic hits the city. Dune’s mother is one of the first victims of Syndrome H-8, which puts otherwise healthy people into unending comas. As the virus spreads throughout Detroit, mass migration out of the city begins, reminiscent of the migration Lauren Olamina and others undergo in Parable of the Sower. Publishers Weekly praised this short novel for “its deep, moving exploration of loss, family, community, gentrification, and rapidly changing urban landscapes.”