Lovely prose – Page 2

‘Ghost Fish’ a Slim Novel with a Punch

The cover of Ghost Fish, featuring the title above and the author below an image of an orange-ish fish diving into teal-and-orange waters.

Opening up this slim novel gives the feeling of unknowingly sinking into cool, deep water; closing brings you back to the surface, gasping for air.

‘Alchemy’ Is As Sweet As Its Flowers

The cover of The Alchemy of Flowers, featuring a large keyhole containing the title and author name, which is surrounded by dark florals.

Resau’s descriptions are lush, making the scent of jasmine or lavender, the feel of a refreshing stream, or the taste of a character’s cooking almost come off the page (or the phone screen).

Moreno-Garcia’s Latest a ‘Bewitching’ Tale

The cover of The Bewitching, featuring black filigree in the fore of a dark green background. A pale hand tinted green reaches up for a gold bird surrounded by sewing pins. The cover is between hand and bird, also in gold.

The Bewitching expertly weaves the supernatural and the pedestrian together across generations into something rich and haunting in all the best ways.

‘Fortune’ Pits Truth Against Reputation in Murder Mystery

The cover of Tricks of Fortune features a bright red background with indistinct black tarot-style cards and gold four-sided stars in indistinct constellations. The title is in white and black text, and the author's name, Lina Chern, is in black text.

Rather than being simply a vehicle for plot, Chern’s writing sings with artful composition and delightful turns of phrase that not only make reading easy but pleasant, too.

‘Bat Eater’ Brings New Fears to Pandemic Lockdown

A realistic-looking bat with flowers on its back and its wings outstretched flies diagonally across a black backdrop. The title, Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, is in large white font in front of the image. Smaller and at the bottom in green text is the author, Kylie Lee Baker.

Bat Eater is a marvelous friendship bracelet of plot threads that sometimes take turns and sometimes work in tandem but are always engrossing, and all feel like facets of a terrifying and claustrophobic world.

‘Antidote’ Offers Dreamlike Path to Cure for Hard Times

A rainbow gradient cascades over a black-and-white photograph of an old farmhouse with a weather vane and farming equipment. The image is fuzzy, as though in the middle of a dust storm. The title and author (The Antidote, Karen Russell) are superimposed upon it.

As The Antidote reminds us, there’s no understanding a place, or its people, if there is no reconciliation with the most difficult parts of that person or place.

‘Grief’ a Multifaceted Examination of Sorrow

Upon a light orange background, the title and author are in underlined purple all-caps text that looks as though it has crumbled all to one corner.

Crosley’s writing brings the events, and her emotions, to life, and helps make her every action and reaction reasonable, even, and especially, when she knows they’re not. It is that prose-level finesse, not the subject matter, that helps keep this slim volume feeling relevant even when it occasionally strays into self-indulgence.

‘Beijing’ May Sprawl, but the Stakes are Personal

The cover of Beijing Sprawl, featuring an olive-green background and a series of about 17 bold-type "Beijing" stacked down like a deck of cards. "Sprawl" sits below the stack.

The stories within Beijing Sprawl aren’t cozy or happy, necessarily, but they feel like they capture a moment of life that will become nostalgic, and that growing nostalgia bleeds through the page.

Despite Unevenness, ‘Deer Woman’ a Compelling Read

The disjointed nature between the flowing river of words and characterizations afforded Starr and those she comes into contact with versus the gravel pit given to the villains makes Deer Woman feel at times as though it had been written by two authors taking turns, or composed of two different manuscripts shuffled together.

‘Serpents’ a Solid Sequel in a Compelling World

Kate Pearsall’s debut, Bittersweet in the Hollow, was a solid and satisfying novel. With Lies on the Serpent’s Tongue, Pearsall delivers a strong second installment in what I hope will be at least a quartet of enchanting stories.