Category: World Literature

Mystery, World Literature

Pentimento Mori by Valeria Corciolani

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

Renowned art historian Dr. Edna Silvera is not your typical detective. In fact, she’s not a detective at all. But when she stumbles across an apparently impossible medieval painting in the suddenly-deceased Nando Folli’s junk shop, her curiosity lands her in trouble with the police and on the trail of a shadowy world no one wants to admit exists.

Valeria Corciolani, author of Pentimento Mori, is an Italian publishing phenomenon. Her books have over 62,000 reviews on Amazon.it and have been made into award winning films. Pentimento Mori (originally published as Con l’arte e con l’inganno) is the first of her works to be translated into English. Combining scrupulously correct art history with international intrigue, murder, and a solid dose of humor, this is Corciolani’s most ambitious work yet.

My Thoughts

If ever a translated work has made me want to learn the language of origin, it’s this one! I’ve been in a weird sort of reading slump since I retired from the library. I’m trying to catch up on my old Goodreads “Want To Read” list and trying to finish a few reviews, including this one. I’ve been a little off mysteries lately, finding them formulaic and not terribly inventive, but then I got to Pentimento Mori.

What an absolute TREAT to read a literate, clever, and humorous mystery featuring a “detective” I would really like to share a coffee with and hear about Hieronymos Bosch.

This is storytelling at its best. Colorful and unexpected characters, witty dialog, and beautifully descriptive narrative that transports you to Italy – all of this whirls together in a story that you will remember for a long time.

I am hopeful that more of this author’s work will be translated. If it’s not, I really will need to learn to read Italian.

Recommended.

Publication Date: July 16, 2024
Published By: Kazabo Publishing
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy

Fantasy, Folktales, Ghosties, Horror, Magical, Mythology, Short Stories, Victorian, World Literature

Christmas Ghost Stories

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

I’ve had a lot going on lately so my reading time has been limited. However, given the season, I thought I’d share a bit about one of my favorite things: Christmas Ghost Stories!

I’ve loved ghost stories since I was a child, and delved into the weird and wonderful Victorian tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmastime during an English class in college. Before the advent of radio and television, storytelling was a true art which thrived in wintertime when people gathered closely around the hearth for warmth during the darkest days. Tales of ghostly apparitions provided rich fodder for talented storytellers who entranced their listeners then scared the pants off them with a well-timed BOO! You can learn more about the tradition from History.com – https://www.history.com/news/christmas-tradition-ghost-stories

Some of my favorites are shown below…

My Favorite

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens – the quintessential Christmas ghost story chronicling the redemption of Ebenezer Scrooge after a night of facing three ghosts. Storytelling at its best!

For Young Readers

Ghosts of Greenglass House by Kate Milford – Spend Christmas in a mysterious house high up on a cliff overlooking the equally mysterious Nagspeake with a colorful cast of characters including the “raw nights” performers.

Fotinoula and the Christmas Goblins by R.G. Fraser-Green – Follow Fotinoula as she works feverishly to save her little sister from the fiendish Kallikantzaroi, the Christmas Goblins.

The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper – Young Will finds himself hunted by the mysterious and threatening horseman who threatens to bring chaos into the world. This classic is a must-read for fantasy fans.

Super-Scary Collections

The Mistletoe Bride by Kate Mosse – Mosse is one of the best writers out there today and here she turns her attention to traditional ghost stories from England and France, including the eponymous “Mistletoe Bride,” truly a gruesome and sad tale.

Christmas and Other Horrors: a Winter Solstice Anthology – The long nights in the darkest time of the year call for scary stories from Garth Nix, Alma Katsu, Tananarive Due, and others.

The Scary Book of Christmas Lore: 50 Terrifying Yuletide Tales From Around the World – Bone-chilling global tales of monsters such as the anti-Santa Krampus, the bloodthirsty ogre Gryla, and the Mari Lwyd (touched on in Greenglass House).

The Haunting Season – a shiver-inducing collection of tales from the English countryside.

Winter Spirits : Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights – original ghost stories from current horror writers Catriona Ward, Stuart Turton, Jess Kidd and more.

If you’re looking for something weird and a little twisted, check out these and other holiday ghost collections.

Merry Christmas!
Family, Food & Drink, Magical, New Releases, World Literature

Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

We all hold lost recipes in our hearts. A very special restaurant in Kyoto helps find them . . .

Tucked away down a Kyoto backstreet lies the extraordinary Kamogawa Diner, run by Chef Nagare and his daughter, Koishi. The father-daughter duo have reinvented themselves as “food detectives,” offering a service that goes beyond cooking mouth-watering meals. Through their culinary sleuthing, they revive lost recipes and rekindle forgotten memories.

From the Olympic swimmer who misses his estranged father’s bento lunchbox to the one-hit-wonder pop star who remembers the tempura she ate to celebrate her only successful record, each customer leaves the diner forever changed—though not always in the ways they expect . . .

The Kamogawa Diner doesn’t just serve meals—it’s a door to the past through the miracle of delicious food. A beloved bestseller in Japan, The Restaurant of Lost Recipes is a tender and healing novel for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

My Thoughts

What an absolute gem of a book! The concept is fascinating – a restaurant and chef that recreate recipes from your past. We all have some dish that evokes special and strong memories – maybe a memorable meal you had with a loved one, or, like the first dish in this story, a simple (or not-so-simple) lunch made for you by your parent every day for years.

The power of food and taste is explored in delicate and colorful prose, offering up poignant and heart-warming vignettes for the people who are lucky enough to find the Kamagawa Diner. This would make a wonderful TV series. I hope Netflix picks it up.

What is YOUR “lost recipe?”

Publication Date: October 8, 2024
Published By: Penguin Group Putnam
Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy

Family, Historical, Mystery, Suspense, World Literature

The Heron Legacy by Leona Francombe

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

Charles Fontaine returns to Europe to sell his family’s ancestral domain and finds that a twelfth-century legend still haunts the property. Clues lead him to a parchment relating the curious tale of a village seeress, whose music enchanted a nobleman with shadowy ties to the present-day Fontaine family. With the help of a famous medievalist and enigmatic woman from his youth, Charles draws ever closer to the truth of this tale and its stunning historical revelation…and to his own buried past. “”The Heron Legacy”” is a novel of modern suspense in which history roams freely, its breath still warm.

My Thoughts

This lovely, gentle book contains a deceptively gripping plot and a wonderful set of characters who will stay with me for a long time. The concept of chivalry runs strong and true through the narrative as the reader follows Charles de la Fontaine (or Charles d’Outre-mer) as he grows from a thoughtful boy obsessed with history to a man grown in the image of his father (or is he?)

The chapters describing Charles’ relationship with his beloved Uncle Theo are some of the most interesting and touching in the story and truly drive the narrative forward. Charles’ fascination with the chivalrous knights of the Crusades and the cognitive dissonance of their actions (killing for God) help create an exciting and deeply moving story.

The author is exceptionally skilled at storytelling – keeping a consistent pace, introducing new characters and bombshell information at just the right time, and crafting an ending that wraps up all the loose ends. I’ll be recommending this for sure.

Publication Date: June 25, 2024
Published By: BooksGoSocial
Thanks to Book Sirens for the review copy

Food & Drink, Historical, Magical, Women, World Literature

The Book of Perilous Dishes by Doina Rusti

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

1798: A magical, dark adventure. Fourteen-year-old Pâtca, initiated in the occult arts, comes to Bucharest, to her uncle, Cuviosu Zăval, to retrieve the Book of Perilous Dishes. The recipes in this magical book can bring about damaging sincerity, forgetfulness, the gift of prediction, or hysterical laughter. She finds her uncle murdered and the book missing. All that Zăval has left her is a strange map she must decipher. Travelling from Romania to France and on to Germany to do so, Patca’s family’s true past and powers are revealed, as is her connection to the famous and sublime chef, Silica.

My Thoughts

Over the last few years, I’ve deliberately tried to widen my reading to include more translations and fiction from other parts of the world. What a treat it’s been to discover authors and stories new to me, very much like The Book of Perilous Dishes.

The translation here is extremely well-done, but it’s the story that shines with a beautiful use of language, a fascinating plot, and characters who are by turns terrible, silly, and enchanting people. Patca and Caterina are especially wonderful, although Cuviosu and Maxima piqued my curiosity as well.

To be sure there are some odd things that are not explained outright – what is it about Patca’s teeth and who, indeed, is Cat O’Friday?! – but keep reading and it all becomes clear. I understand this author is well known and loved in her native country and it’s easy to see why. I hope there is more of the author’s work to be translated!

Publication Date: February 2017; May 21, 2024
Published By: Neem Tree Press
Thanks to Book Sirens for the book

Fantasy, Folktales, Magical, Magical Realism, Mystery, Mythology, Women, World Literature

The Fox Wife by Yangsze Choo

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, or life force, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . .

Manchuria, 1908.

A young woman is found frozen in the snow. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes involved, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and men. Bao, a detective with a reputation for sniffing out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman’s identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they’ve remained tantalizingly out of reach. Until, perhaps, now.

Meanwhile, a family that owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments, but not the curse that afflicts them—their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. Now the only grandson of the family is twenty-three. When a mysterious woman enters their household, their luck seems to change. Or does it? Is their new servant a simple young woman from the north or a fox spirit bent on her own revenge?

New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. The Fox Wife is a stunning novel about a winter full of mysterious deaths, a mother seeking revenge, and old folktales that may very well be true.

My Thoughts

This is my first 5-star review in awhile. This book gets ALL the descriptors: mysterious, lovely, heartbreaking, satisfying, lyrical, deadly, and so many more.

Ah San (or Snow) and Tagtaa are characters I will remember for a very long time. Both driven by love for family and loyalty to friends and lovers, they drive this story forward as one seeks revenge and one seeks to protect. The complicated relationships that connect the two women and Bao are intricately plotted and beautifully rendered.

The writing here is some of the best I’ve read in a long time and the story grips you from the first page forward. I feel like this would be amazing in audiobook form and will look for that in the future.

I will be purchasing a print copy of this for my own shelves (which rarely happens!). Highly, highly recommended.

“Beware: once you start, you may not be able to put it down!”
—Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of Independence and The Last Queen

Publication Date: February 13, 2024
Published By: Henry Holt & Co.
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy.

British, Folktales, Magical, Makes You Think, Mythology, World Literature

Treacle Walker by Alan Garner

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

An introspective young boy, Joseph Coppock is trying to make sense of the world. Living alone in an old house, he spends his time reading comic books, collecting birds’ eggs, and playing with marbles. When one day a rag-and-bone man called Treacle Walker appears on a horse and cart, offering a cure-all medicine, a mysterious friendship develops and the young boy is introduced to a world beyond his wildest imagination.

Luminous, evocative, and sparely told, Treacle Walker is a stunning fusion of myth, folklore, and the stories we tell ourselves.

My Thoughts

I picked this book and put it down twice before I decided to really dig in. It’s a short book – 152 pages – it should be a quick read, right?

Nope.

Treacle Walker is a captivating blend of myth & folklore, and a thought-provoking treatment of sight (and all it means), healing, and age. But this is not an easy book to read. For starters, it’s written in dialect which took me some time to understand. (I was reminded of the first time I read A Parcel of Patterns by Jill Paton Walsh.) And this is not a superficial book. It is layer upon layer of story and observation, which takes some concentrated reading.

I’m finishing a year of mostly soft reading where I’ve read stories with linear plots that end with positive resolutions. It’s been that kind of year where reading was an escape. This one is anything but soft.

The thing that pulled me in and kept me reading was when I realized the catalyst to the action was derived from one of my favorite childhood folktales involving ointment that when applied to human eyes allows you to see the faerie world all around you.

The concept of a person seeing things that “aren’t there” is something I’ve struggled with especially in my professional life over the last few years as we’ve seen more and more library visitors experiencing mental health crises. People seeing the world in different ways is a real thing and Garner beautifully communicates all the emotions Joseph experiences as this happens to him – his fear, frustration, confusion, and curiosity drive the story.

This is especially poignant as we reach the end, where Joseph becomes the one to make the world a’right again. He says tearfully “I’m only little. I’m only little.” But he has done a thing that is really big. He’s changed and grown despite the challenges.

There’s so much to unpack in this book. I haven’t even talked about Treacle Walker himself, who is certainly an allegory for time and aging. This would make a fabulous book discussion selection for a group really willing to bite into the text and chew on it.

Publication Date: 2021
Published By: 4th Estate London

Historical, Makes You Think, Women, World Literature

River Sing Me Home by Eleanor Shearer

Patricia McDonald Uttaro

Description

The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs.

Away from Providence, she begins a desperate search to find her children—the five who survived birth and were sold. Are any of them still alive? Rachel has to know. The grueling, dangerous journey takes her from Barbados then, by river, deep into the forest of British Guiana and finally across the sea to Trinidad. She is driven on by the certainty that a mother cannot be truly free without knowing what has become of her children, even if the answer is more than she can bear. These are the stories of Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy. But above all this is the story of Rachel and the extraordinary lengths to which a mother will go to find her children…and her freedom.

My Thoughts

This stunning novel will take you on an emotional journey that you will not soon forget. The experiences of mothers, fathers, children, and siblings born into slavery and ripped away from each other are just too horrific to fully understand, and Shearer skillfully conveys the raw emotions – rage, heartbreak, despair but also hope, love, and resilience – experienced by Rachel, her children, and her allies. Rachels’ story drives home the capacity for humans to torture each other physically and mentally, and that makes this a difficult book to read. However, it is also ultimately a story of redemption and reunification driven by the incandescent love of a mother for her children. This is a book that will change you.

A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • This beautiful, page-turning and redemptive story of a mother’s gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children in the aftermath of slavery is a “celebration of motherhood and female resilience” (The Observer).

“A powerful novel that explores how freedom and family are truly defined”—Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Real Simple, Goodreads, AARP, Boston.com, BookBub and BookRiot

Her search begins with an ending.…

Publication Date: January 31, 2023
Published By: Berkley Publishing Group
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy