Canon
by Paige Lewis
There’s nothing I love more than discovering a new voice that surprises me at every turn. Lewis, a poet, blew me away with their debut novel, CANON (Viking, 464 pp., $32): a wild, heretical epic about two heroes on divine quests.
Yara, a nonbinary embroidery artist with O.C.D., is minding their own business when God appears in Birkenstocks and a Vatican-branded tracksuit to tell them they’ve been chosen to slay the leader of the Bad Guys, an infamous general named Dominic. Yara is as reluctant to take on this mission as Adrena, the daughter of a famous prophet, is eager. Jealous of God’s new protégé and hoping to ascend in her mother’s footsteps, Adrena decides to take down Dominic herself.
What sets this novel apart is the cheeky narrative voice, which shatters the fourth wall into a million sparkly smithereens. The book gallops by, its nearly 500 pages brimming with brutal violence and mordant satire — particularly about the machinery of war, which can promise only “an honorable and stupid death” for its most dedicated practitioners. But the story is also filled with moments of breathtaking sweetness: a hungry newt, a joke-gathering general, a talking whale who displays more tenderness than any human character I’ve encountered this year.
“Canon” is decidedly strange, and won’t be everyone’s cup of tea — but for those who are inclined, it’s an absolute hoot.
The Children
by Melissa Albert
It’s a common misconception that children’s books are all full of sunshine, rainbows and cozy things happening to kind people. As Albert points out in her enchantingly sinister adult debut, many books for young people are “crueler, stranger, more haunted by longing and loss” than grown-ups recall. In THE CHILDREN (Morrow, 398 pp., $32), the making of those books is a dark endeavor too.
Guin grew up in a Vermont farmhouse, raised (a term I use generously here) by an actor and a staggeringly successful children’s book author whose fantasy series starred ficionalized versions of Guin and her older brother, Ennis. When Guin was 11, the house burned down, killing her parents and every other adult inside. She and Ennis were the only survivors; he has not spoken to her — or about their family — since.
As an adult, Guin writes a rose-tinted memoir promoting her mother’s legacy. But when Ennis, an artist, seems to break his silence with a new exhibit (“Mother”), Guin is forced to confront long-buried secrets from their past.
“The Children” is billed as a Gothic fantasy; I would call it more of a Gothic thriller, with a frisson of magic, that flits between the siblings’ childhood and the run-up to Ennis’s show. While the chapters in the present start to drag the closer they edge to “Mother,” the scenes from Guin’s past are bewitching, the Farmhouse pulling everyone under its spell as hauntingly as any dwelling Shirley Jackson ever dreamed up. The book will leave you questioning what you would give to create something truly wondrous.
Honey in Her Veins
by Ruth McKell
Also in the Gothic camp is McKell’s debut novel, HONEY IN HER VEINS (Little, Brown, 419 pp., paperback, $19.99), which blends folk horror and romance to create a spellbinding Appalachian fantasy.
For as long as he can remember, Arthur Connoway has been possessed by a monster who sucks the life from anything he touches. Eva Moreau has a magical green thumb that works wonders in her greenhouse, but can also unleash terrifying new life. And her older sister, Isobel, is desperately holding their family together. Arthur first meets the sisters when his itinerant mother ditches him at the Moreaus’ family farm. He and Eva, both 17, forge a connection — but after a terrible accident leaves Eva’s father with a tree growing out of his chest, Arthur flees, breaking Eva’s heart.
Eight years later, Arthur returns to the farm to scatter his mother’s ashes. When Eva’s father takes a turn for the worse, Arthur and Eva are thrown back together in a quest for a cure.
Switching among the main trio’s perspectives, McKell weaves the past and present together in a deft exploration of found family and trauma. It’s a richly imagined tale — full of gripping, at times gruesome action and two moving love stories — that illustrates how beautiful things can bloom from broken ones.
The Tapestry of Fate
by Shannon Chakraborty
“The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi” is one of my favorite fantasy novels, so I was thrilled to see the pirate queen of the Indian Ocean return for more swashbuckling fun.
When we last left Amina, she was reluctantly married to a chaos spirit, newly possessed of supernatural powers and indebted to an immortal council for whom she must retrieve five objects. THE TAPESTRY OF FATE (Harper Voyager, 487 pp., $32) picks right back up, opening with a Spielbergian set piece involving an abandoned ancient city, violent automatons and a sacred artifact. But that’s just the amuse-bouche before the main course: an impossible quest to an inescapable island stalked by griffins and ruled by a powerful sorceress, who entangles Amina and her shipmate Dalila in her web.
The book has many of the hallmarks I’ve come to expect from Chakraborty: a deep historical foundation, lush sensory detail, mysterious twists and turns. Sadly, the masterful pacing of the first book has not quite carried over to this one, which gets bogged down with incremental world building for long stretches. But the saga’s emotional core remains powerful as Amina struggles with the violent price of her profession, her duties to her crew and her guilt over the beloved young daughter she keeps leaving behind.
When the action does pick up, it’s a relief, driving this meditation on vengeance — the ways it warps and poisons you — to an explosive conclusion that sets up fascinating stakes for Amina’s next adventure. I will be first in line to sail with her again.
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