June 2023 archive

The Boy With Wings by Lenny Henry

with illustrations by Keenon Ferrell and Mark Buckingham (yes, THAT Mark Buckingham!) Tunde has always felt a little out of place in his primarily white school district. While his Black adoptive parents Ron and Ruth have been nothing but loving and kind, it’s hard being the beaky-nosed Black nerd who’s an easy butt of jokes, …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/28/the-boy-with-wings-by-lenny-henry/

Tiger Work: Poems, Stories And Essays About Climate Change by Ben Okri

Okay, if you’re a Ben Okri fan, then this is likely going to be your jam. I hadn’t read any of his award-winning work before this collection, so I absolutely jumped at the chance to read the latest publication of the first Black, and at the time youngest, winner of the Booker Prize. And it’s …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/27/tiger-work-poems-stories-and-essays-about-climate-change-by-ben-okri/

Father Under Fire by Neil Boyd

Father Under Fire by Neil Boyd

The fourth in Neil Boyd‘s Bless Me, Father series finds the irascible Father Duddleswell laid up with lumbago just as the priest with whom Duddleswell began his career settles in for an extended visit. Father Abe — most definitely not Father Abraham, with seven sons — is getting on in years, but still sly and not …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/26/father-under-fire-by-neil-boyd/

Strangers In Paradise: Vol I by Terry Moore

It’s been almost thirty years since I first saw this title and wanted to read it. I’m so glad I finally got the chance, even if it has been decades since it first came out! But mixed in with the glee of long anticipation is a note of dissonance. Even while I was reading this, …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/23/strangers-in-paradise-vol-i-by-terry-moore/

Farm Boots by Lisl H. Detlefsen & Renee Kurilla

I pretty much live in comfy, faux-fur-lined, water-resistant boots from the first really cold night of autumn till spring warms up enough that I can venture out in sneakers. So I was really excited to pick up this look at all the ways boots are worn in one of their most practical settings: on a …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/22/farm-boots-by-lisl-h-detlefsen-renee-kurilla/

The Love Report by BeKa & Maya

Secondary schoolgirls Grace and Lola are bffs, united by many things but, most recently, by an utter bafflement as to the meaning, if not outright point, of love. In an effort to figure it all out, they begin a project called The Love Report, filling out a notebook with observations of people in love at …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/20/the-love-report-by-beka-maya/

Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal

Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal

By mid-1916, British forces fighting in Europe have mastered the logistics of spiritualism well enough to gain occasional tactical advantages in the never-ending trench warfare of the Western Front. Men die; they report in to the Spirit Corps; the knowledge that they bought with their lives — a sniper’s location here, a hidden advance there, a …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/19/ghost-talkers-by-mary-robinette-kowal/

The Way Home by Peter S. Beagle

The Way Home by Peter S. Beagle

Two novellas in the world of The Last Unicorn? Yes, please. “Two Hearts,” the first, is closer in tone to Beagle’s classic novel. Sooz, who is nine when the story begins, tells of what happens when the griffin who has settled into her village’s woods stops eating sheep and goats, and starts taking away children …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/18/the-way-home-by-peter-s-beagle/

The Ten Percent Thief by Lavanya Lakshminarayan

Ten Percent Thief by Lavanya Lakshminarayan

In Apex City, known in former centuries as Bangalore, meritocracy and sound scientific management principles have produced a city that has not only survived the environmental catastrophes, it is home to thriving humanity and extraordinary individuals extending what is humanly possible in many fields of endeavor. In the Virtual society inside Apex City, seventy percent …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/17/the-ten-percent-thief-by-lavanya-lakshminarayan/

The Nightmare Brigade #3: Finding Alice by Franck Thilliez, Yomgui Dumont & Drac

I really admire how well each of the books in this engrossing urban fantasy series lead in to one another. In this volume, Esteban, Tristan and Sarah, a.k.a the intrepid explorers of the Nightmare Brigade, are finally ready to plunge into the sleeping mind of Leonard, one of the Clinic’s most difficult patients. They’re going …

Continue reading

Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/06/16/the-nightmare-brigade-3-finding-alice-by-franck-thilliez-yomgui-dumont-drac/