Massive Bella Books Paperback Sale -- This weekend only!

My publisher, Bella Books, is doing one of their periodic inventory-reduction sales on paperbacks.

You can get a copy of Daughter of Mystery in print for only $2.99 from now up through Monday May 9 (9am EDT). Buy one for yourself! Buy one for a friend! Buy one because it's my birthday next week! Buy one because review and rating data are only relevant when the book in question is actually getting circulated and read!

Take a low-risk chance on the first volume of the Alpennia series, featuring a whole cast of fascinating women, intricate historical plots, magical peril, and more philosophical debates than you can shake a stick at. Buy now, and that gives you plenty of time to get addicted to Alpennia and ready The Mystic Marriage before November when book 3 (Mother of Souls) comes out.

(Plus: lots of other books are on sale as well. Check out some great deals.)

Book Review: The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher

I wonder what I would have thought if I'd encountered a book like this in early adolescence. Not that The Raven and the Reindeer is a "children's book" -- T. Kingfisher is the pen name Ursula Vernon uses when writing books for adults. But given the fairy tale retelling premise and the fantasy trappings, it's definitely among the sort of books I was devouring at the point when I stopped worrying about which library shelf things were sitting on. And that happened before the end of grade school. But I digress.

I wonder what I would have thought if I'd encountered an exquisitely written retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen where the fierce and outrageous Little Robber Girl kisses the plucky heroine Gerta, and Gerta thinks "Nobody ever mentioned that you didn't let girls kiss you. It had never even occurred to her that this was an option." If I'd read that, would it have occurred to me that this was an option? But I digress.

This isn't really a review. I don't have enough emotional detachment to write a review. I love this book with the blazing passion of a thousand suns. I'm sitting here almost crying at the thought that I had to wait until I was fifty-seven (almost fifty-eight!) years old before having a chance to read this book.

T. Kingfisher writes sensible ordinary heroines who get their hands dirty and put their heads down, determined to bull their way through, not necessarily from bravery but simply from the sureness that it's the right thing to do. They may be a bit thick in terms of social signals on occasion, but they have heart and nerve and -- like all good folk-tale protagonists -- they succeed because they treated everyone they encountered on their path with respect and kindness.

As Kingfisher notes in the afterward, Andersen is...strange. The moral lessons underlying his stories are out of kilter with what makes a satisfying story today. And so it's not surprising that those who tackle retellings of his work feel free to use it as inspiration rather than a strict pattern. Gerta sees her childhood sweetheart (or so she thinks him) Kay stolen away by the Snow Queen and takes it as her quest to travel to the Snow Queen's palace to rescue him, with much adventuring along the way. Gerta is mistaken about Kay--we're given to understand that by the narrative voice--but it takes Gerta pretty much all the book to work that out for herself.

Many of Andersen's characters appear in this story, but converted and filtered into a form that makes more sense, once removed from Andersen's peculiar moral rules. The story retains the strongly nordic flavor, with its mix of cultures and its harsh and unforgiving environment. But new characters are added as well (assuming my memory doesn't fail me), such as the titular animals, who provide assistance each in their own way and nature.

I'm a sucker for animal characters in fantasy who are true to their animal natures, rather than being people in fur or feathers. The raven is very much a raven, with ravenly thoughts and concerns. The reindeer...well, find that out for yourself. The robber girl is turned into a solid co-protagonist. And there's kissing. And if you're the sort of reader whose ears prick up at the thought of Gerta and the robber girl kissing, you will not be disappointed in this book at all.

As I said, I love this book too much for this to be a review. It got all my bonus star-points: queer women, and a plot that kept me reading on the elliptical long past my workout target until I reached the last page.