Soul of the Sword, The Suffering of Strangers, Murder at the British Museum

Last year, I read Shadow of the Fox, the first in this series.  The story proceeds in Soul of the Sword as kitsune shape-shifter Yumeko and her companions continue their journey to the Steel Feather Temple.  

But--the demon Hakaimono escaped and possessed Tatsumi, the young warrior who was protecting Yumeko. This complication, which occurred at the end of The Shadow of the Fox, causes more difficulty and danger in Yumeko's quest.  (I found the added pov of Hakaimono actually slowed things down a bit.  I much preferred getting back to the sections with Yumeko and her little band because I'm much more involved with them.)

If you liked Shadow of the Fox, you will be sure to enjoy Soul of the Sword. 

itsune (狐 or きつね, Kitsune) is the Japanese word for fox. Foxes are a common subject of Japanese folklore; in English, kitsune refers to them in this context. Stories depict them as intelligent beings and as possessing magical abilities that increase with their age and wisdom. According to Yōkai folklore, all foxes have the ability to shape shift into men or women. While some folktales speak of kitsune employing this ability to trick others—as foxes in folklore often do—other stories portray them as faithful guardians, friends, lovers, and wives.
(Source)

 My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho is one of my favorite Korean dramas.  The nine-tailed fox is a gumiho in Korean (kitsune in Japanese).   

NetGalley/Harlequin Teen/Ink Yard Press
Fantasy/Mythology.  June 18, 2019.  Print length:  304 pages.
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Caro Ramsay makes few concession to readers, and it would be best to start with the first book in the series.  When I read The Sideman, I felt exactly the same way.

Ramsay has a number of well-drawn characters that are interesting
(the snarky DI Costello is the most vivid, but I like the other characters as well). 

While The Suffering of Strangers can be read as a standalone, it would be smoother sailing to begin with the first book in the series to become accustomed to Ramsay's writing style and have a better grasp of the characters.

from the description:  "When a child abduction and sexual assault case overlap, Glaswegian police team Costello and Anderson team up to crack the cases.

DI Costello faces a disturbing child abduction case; a six-week-old has been stolen and replaced with another baby. The swap took cold and meticulous planning, so Costello treads the seedy, Glaswegian back streets for answers. She’s convinced that more than one young life is at stake.

Promoted into the Cold Case Unit, Colin Anderson reviews the unsolved rape of a young mother, whose attacker is still out there. Each case pulls Anderson and Costello in the same direction and, as their paths keep crossing, they begin to suspect their separate cases are dangerously entwined."

NetGalley/Blackthorn

Police Procedural.  2018. Print length:  356 pages.
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from description: 1894. A well-respected academic is found dead in a gentlemen's convenience cubicle at the British Museum, the stall locked from the inside. Professor Lance Pickering had been due to give a talk promoting the museum's new 'Age of King Arthur' exhibition when he was stabbed repeatedly in the chest. Having forged a strong reputation working alongside the inimitable Inspector Abberline on the Jack the Ripper case, Daniel Wilson is called in to solve the mystery of the locked cubicle murder, and he brings his expertise and archaeologist Abigail Fenton with him. But it isn't long before the museum becomes the site of another fatality and the pair face mounting pressure to deliver results. With enquiries compounded by persistent journalists, local vandals and a fanatical society, Wilson and Fenton face a race against time to salvage the reputation of the museum and catch a murderer desperate for revenge. 

I haven't read any others in this series, but I have enjoyed a couple of Eldridge's DCI Paul Stark books set in the 1920's.

Murder at the British Museum kept me entertained. :)  I found the supporting characters and the plot interesting, and I like learning things while enjoying myself.

NetGalley/Alison & Busby.
Historical Mystery.  July 18, 2019.  Print length:  318 pages.  

Tom Gauld created some funny taglines for novels.

I like "Occasionally-putdownable" best. :)

Circe by Madeline Miller

Circe by Madeline Miller.  (I wrote about this on my other blog in April.  I'm just copying and pasting instead of writing another review)  

It was wonderful!  Beautiful prose and a fascinating look at myths and gods from the point of view of Circe, daughter of Helios, who drove his chariot of the sun across the sky each day.  Circe (unloved child, nymph, sorceress, witch) exiled to her island tells her version of the gods and heroes and monsters she knew.  

Circe has a depth that the other, more powerful gods lack.  She has the ability of introspection; she makes mistakes and regrets them.  She resents the power of both the Titans and the Olympians and stands against them as best she can.

Her first rebellion was a kindness to Prometheus when--as a timid child--she brought him nectar in secret.  Prometheus, the god who aided mortals, is aided by the young Circe; a theme develops. 

A few excerpts...

At one point, Circe speaks of her beautiful loom, a gift from Daedalus, innovator and craftsman:  "I have it still.  It sits near my hearth and has even found its way into the songs.  Perhaps that is no surprise, Poets like such symmetries."

  Witch Circe skilled at spinning spells and threads alike, at weaving charms and cloths:  Who am I to spoil an easy hexameter?"  

She recalls a song she has heard of her meeting with Odysseus:  "I was not surprised by the portrait of myself:  the proud witch undone before the hero's sword, kneeling and begging for mercy.  Humbling women seems to be a chief pastime of poets.  As if there can be no story unless we crawl and weep."

Later, in a conversation with Penelope, Penelope tells Circe:  "I am from Sparta.  We know about old soldiers there.  The trembling hands, the startling from sleep.  The man who spills his wine every time the trumpets blow."  I like that passage because I never thought of the Greek warriors suffering from PTSD, but of course they did.  
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Madeline Miller's Circe is one of my favorite retellings of ancient myths.  I love the way different authors interpret the stories: telling the tales from one POV or another, adhering  to the original or expanding and enhancing incidents, and sometimes, changing outcomes entirely.

There are also some other wonderful retellings available:  The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood and Weight by Jeanette Winterson are also great examples of modern mythic retellings; these are much shorter, condensed, but powerful.    Antigo Nick is a campy, amusing modern translation of Antigone by Anne Carson.

Do you have a favorite myth or modern retelling?

Read in April.  Blog post scheduled for June 26.

NetGalley/Little, Brown

Historical Fiction/Myth.  July 10, 2018.  Print length:  400 pages.

The Just City by Jo Walton

The Just City              

A puzzled Apollo is confused when Daphne turn herself into a tree.  Why would she do that? Didn't she want to mate with him?  When he asks his sister Pallas Athene, she tells him that regardless of how many women might have wanted to mate with him in the past, obviously Daphne did not.  

He tells her that it is a game.  He chases a woman, catches her, and mates with her.  That is the way it has always been, it's fun, a kind of mutual foreplay.  The women have always desired him--so what's up with Daphne hating the idea so much she would rather be a tree?

Athene tells him that although Apollo had chosen Daphne:

"... she hadn't chosen you in return.  It wasn't mutual.  You decided to pursue her.  You didn't ask, and she certainly didn't agree. It wasn't consensual.  And, as it happens she didn't want you.  So she turned into a tree,"  Athene shrugged.

Apollo considers this--the idea of volition and equal significance.  Still a bit confused about these ideas, he tells Athene that he has been considering spending some time as a mortal. He realizes there are some things he could learn.

Perfect timing.  Athene has been considering a surprising experiment.  Some people throughout time have prayed to Athene to set up Plato's Republic.  She has decided where and some ideas about how to go about it.

Apollo decides he will become a mortal and be a part of this grand scheme.  

And so begins the idea of the Just City as Plato described it (mostly).

The beginning chapters are a little slow as characters are introduced and some basics of the plan for organizing the city are put in play.  And at first, I thought the book was going to be a treatise about the place of women over time, their rights, their abilities, societies limitations, but it expands to raise questions about...well, about all the big questions people have.  What is just, what is good, what is right--almost any philosophical question people wonder about is considered.

Mortals are mortals, however, and agreement isn't always easy; even the gods are not always right in their beliefs and efforts.

I ended up reading this as if it were nonfiction, not rushing through the book eager to find out what happens, as I do with most fiction.  I'd read a chapter and stop and think-- sometimes stopping several times within a chapter to "voice" my own opinion about the topics and about how things were proceeding.

Highly recommended if you are interested in mythology and/or philosophy!

Read in Oct.; blog post scheduled for Dec. 30.

NetGalley/Macmillan-Tor/Forge

Philosophical Fiction.  Jan. 13, 2015.  print length:  368 pages.