Jul 07 2025

Tantalizing Tales — July 2025 — Part One

The midpoint of the year has come and gone, and here we are, looking forward and back on a specially scheduled day to showcase what’s just come out and what we’re looking forward to next!

Top of the pile is Martha Grimes’ latest Richard Jury novel, The Red Queen. This twenty-sixth novel in a series I first read when my dad brought a (much earlier) book home from his travels finds Superintendent Richard Jury investigating yet another murder linked to an English village pub.

One quiet night in Twickenham, a businessman named Tom Treadnor is shot off his barstool at The Queen pub. Jury is called in to investigate and quickly realizes that everyone in Treadnor’s life — from his widow Alice to the staff at his manor to his business partner — had wildly differing opinions of the dead man. To complicate things further, Jury has just happened upon a photo in the newspaper, of a man in the United States who is a dead ringer for the deceased.

Meanwhile Wiggins, Jury’s partner at New Scotland Yard, becomes sidetracked by an investigation of his own. His sister, missing for years and presumed dead, has just sent a postcard to their mother. When Wiggins takes off in search of his sister, the two investigations begin to converge in unexpected ways.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/07/07/tantalizing-tales-july-2025-part-one/

Jul 03 2025

A Year of Diana Wynne Jones: The late 2000s!

This month I reached the end of Diana Wynne Jones’s life in my year of reading all the books by Diana Wynne Jones! I read The Game, House of Many Ways, and Enchanted Glass. That’s one final book in Howl’s universe and two stand alones – three extremely strong books.

The cover of The Game by Diana Wynne Jones shows a long-haired figure holding a golden apple and facing forward against a cosmic backgroundThe Game (2007)

In The Game, we meet Hayley, who lives with her repressive grandmother and uninvolved grandfather. Odd things happen around Hayley, so she gets sent to live with her sprawling extended family in a big country house where the teenagers and kids play “the game:” they explore the spirals of the mythosphere and bring back trophies. As Hayley starts realizing that she and her family have unusual abilities, she learns a lot about herself and the world of stories.

The mythosphere kind of posits that a taxonomy of folklore is traversable: you can walk along the spirals and encounter all the dragon stories or the wild women stories, for instance.  Hayley’s family harkens back to some of the worldbuilding in Dogsbody, and the way you walk along these spirals seems reminiscent of some of the multiverse travel techniques in the Magids and The Lives of Christopher Chant. I wish, though, that we had more mythosphere books! The interaction between different figures is delightful and I feel it could have sustained a whole series.

As it is, The Game is pretty short, but feels nuanced and realized. 

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/07/03/a-year-of-diana-wynne-jones-the-late-2000s/

Jul 02 2025

Arthur by Giles Kristian (EXCERPT)

Hello, dear readers! We have an excerpt from a retelling of a tale out of legend for you today, a surefire treat for fans of Ancient Briton.

As the third book of Giles Kristian’s Arthurian Tales begins, the Saxons are now the lords of Britain. Yet the bards still sing of Arthur: In our darkest time, when we need him most, shall he come again.

The ageing mercenary Beran has no love of bards’ songs nor of people, unless they’re paying him to steal or to kill. His latest paying job: to murder a boy. But this is no ordinary child. The son of King Constantine and the grandson of High King Ambrosius, this boy could be the savior of Britain… if he lives.

Betraying his companions and returning to a world he believed he’d forsaken, Beran vows to take the boy to the one place that still holds out against the invader: Camelot.

Hunted by Saxons, Queen Morgana and those he deceived, Beran will seek the help of Guivret, called the Little King, and the Saracen Palamedes who once rode beneath Arthur’s banner. They will meet the doomed lovers, Tristan and Isolde. And they will fight for their lives and for each other.

For if there’s to be any hope for Britain, Beran must deliver the boy to Camelot. And to do that, he must come to terms with his own past…

Read on for an atmospheric excerpt from the book!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/07/02/arthur-by-giles-kristian-excerpt/

Jul 01 2025

Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s Hell Screen by Mihiro

This manga adaptation of a classic Japanese horror story is shockingly nuanced, as writer and illustrator Mihiro reworks the tale for a modern audience, translated then into English by Itoh Makiko.

A bit about the original author himself before we continue. Akutagawa Ryunosuke is widely considered the father of the Japanese short story, with Japan’s foremost literary prize named after him. In 1927, at the age of thirty-five, he committed suicide. While living, one of his greatest concerns was madness, and how it could manifest in artistic obsession: the underlying theme of this adaptation of Hell Screen, which is itself an adaptation of an earlier folk tale.

The Grand Lord of Horikawa is said to be so powerful and divinely endowed that, at his birth, his mother was visited by the god Daiitoku-Myoo, who revealed to her that her child would be his reincarnation as the Destroyer of the King of Hell. Anecdotes from the Grand Lord’s life would seem to support this, as he takes credit for chasing off evil spirits and for a rather twisted sort of generosity.

While Horikawa itself is besieged by disease and disaster, the inhabitants of the Grand Lord of Horikawa’s estate live in safety and ease. This includes sweet Yuzuki, who is a lady’s maid there. Yuzuki is the daughter of the famed artist Yoshihide, whose talent is channeled into creating works of realistic depravity. While he paints predominantly religious scenes, he chooses to focus on the baser emotions of fear, cruelty and anger, especially in the commissions he makes for the Grand Lord and the local temple. He is, himself, an arrogant man who values his own artistry above everything else… except, that is, for his daughter Yuzuki.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/07/01/ryunosuke-akutagawas-hell-screen-by-mihiro/

Jun 30 2025

Lila Said No by Kiki Frayard & Aileen Bennett

Which parent hasn’t had the frustrating experience of being manipulated and possibly even outsmarted by their young children? It is, after all, to be expected as your kids get older and smarter, but being outwitted by an actual child, especially when you’re trying to get them to do things for their own good, is a special kind of bafflement.

Lila is one of these smart four year-olds. A born negotiator, she’s learned that if she just digs in her heels on doing things as basic as eating her meals, getting dressed and taking baths, her parents will bribe her with treats. This is, obviously, the parents’ fault, but you can’t really blame them as (seeming) first-time parents who have yet to learn better.

However, Lila, in the manner of all spoiled children — and again and again, I’ll say that Oompa Loompa refrain: a child can’t spoil herself, you know — keeps stubbornly resisting the smallest things in order to hold out for treats. When her parents have finally had enough, what will they do to help restore sanity to their household?

Spoiler: they do the smart thing instead of the easiest thing and, by the end, everyone is the better for it. And here’s the thing, this book is as much for parents as it is for kids. There really isn’t an all-encompassing manual for raising children, and we have to take our lessons where we get them. Lila Said No is a very helpful primer for parents dealing with obstinate offspring, as well as a useful fable for kids going through that mulish stage themselves.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/30/lila-said-no-by-kiki-frayard-aileen-bennett/

Jun 27 2025

Tantalizing Tales — June 2025 — Part Four

Wow, this has been my first month with four Tantalizing Tales columns, which should give you a good idea of all the very cool books that get pitched to me, dear readers!

Leading the pack is Mike Bockoven’s Come Knocking, a book that I desperately want to find time to fit into my bursting-at-the-seams schedule. The title play is more than just a play: it’s an entire theatrical production that’s taken over six floors of a once-abandoned building in Los Angeles. The reception for it has been overwhelmingly positive, with both critical acclaim and lines out the door for tickets.

But then the unthinkable happens, as a night of bloody chaos kills dozens and injures hundreds attending the show. A shocked nation demands answers. Investigative reporter Adam Jakes is assigned to uncover the truth behind the massacre. Through a series of gripping interviews with survivors, cast members and witnesses, Jakes pieces together the chilling reality behind what was supposed to be the ultimate theatrical experience.

As a former theater professional and perpetual fan of experimental media myself, this is absolutely something I’m panting to read, especially since the book promises to take a good hard look at the “grotesque underbelly of immersive experiences”. I’m also weirdly obsessed with that eerie cover, which gives me a delicious chill in this otherwise near-unbearable summer heat.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/27/tantalizing-tales-june-2025-part-four/

Jun 26 2025

You Are A Sacred Place by Madeleine Jubilee Saito

subtitled Visual Poems For Living In Climate Crisis.

It’s always a refreshing surprise to me whenever someone professes belief in both Christianity and climate change. Of all the major faiths, mainstream (and especially Evangelical) Christianity has always struck me as the one least interested in responsible custodianship of the planet, as it focuses more on the end times and afterlife — hilariously, often to the detriment of its own doctrine. Which isn’t to say that no one Christian cares about the environment or humanity’s physical welfare: just that the loudest voices in global Christian culture (recent popes excepted) tend to diminish the importance of taking care of the planet instead of looking after one’s personal abundance, spiritual or otherwise. The ongoing promulgation of, imo, the deeply heretical prosperity gospel has a lot to answer for indeed.

So reading Madeleine Jubilee Saito’s impassioned plea for readers to care about climate change because it’s the moral, if not Christian, thing to do was a lovely change from the dominant perspective that’s allowed abhorrent ideas like tribalism and “empathy is a sin” to take firm root in the mainstream. Not all of her words hit quite as hard as she’d likely want them to, particularly towards the end, but her art is unfailingly perfect in its message, conveying with subtlety and power the importance of caring for the planet as we care for the people we love.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/26/you-are-a-sacred-place-by-madeleine-jubilee-saito/

Jun 25 2025

In A Deep Blue Hour by Peter Stamm

Translated from the original German by Michael Hofmann.

It’s weird: this book smells to high heaven of being very firmly Literary Fiction, one of my least favored genres, yet I really enjoyed it. There were definitely parts where the narrator has a thought process so decidedly masculine that I scoffed at the idea of her being a cis woman, but on the whole, I felt that this was a keenly felt, extraordinarily subtle tale of a filmmaker who can’t extricate her life from that of an elusive subject’s.

Andrea is a documentarian who, with her filming and life partner Thomas, is working on a story about the semi-reclusive author Richard Wechsler. He is older, handsome and enigmatic, and seems almost entirely detached from the project. They’d filmed successfully enough in Paris, where he currently lives. Since moving to the Swiss village where he grew up, however, he’s become increasingly elusive.

Frustrated, Andrea decides to explore the village herself, in an effort to ferret out more regarding his past. In particular, she’s looking for the mysterious woman whom she believes inspired so much of Wechsler’s work. What she discovers will affect her life for years to come.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/25/in-a-deep-blue-hour-by-peter-stamm/

Jun 24 2025

The Confessional by Paige Hender

I’m becoming a curmudgeon as I age, but I really do wish this book had explicitly stated at the outset that it’s set in New Orleans. I no longer have time to read blurbs or back matter, so when I realized partway through that this was set in historical America and not fantasy Europe, all I could think was how unnecessarily jarring that recalibration of thought had been. I mean, if you’re going to open the book with mention of actual historical events, why not mention where and when they took place, instead of assuming that the reader automatically knows where you’re setting your story? I don’t consider myself a particularly unknowledgeable person, but I don’t see the harm in telling readers right from the get-go exactly where you’re placing the events of your historical horror graphic novel.

My grumpiness aside, The Confessional is an absorbing read, telling the tale of young Cora Velasquez and the coven of vampires to which she belongs. They all live together in a house of ill-repute down in 1920s New Orleans, with the other vampires feeding on patrons without killing them — death being bad for repeat business, after all.

Cora, however, is terrible at being a vampire. She doesn’t know how to feed without killing, and is suffering an existential crisis at the idea that being turned means that she’s lost her immortal soul. She turns to the Catholic church in her vulnerability, developing a crush on handsome Father Orville in the process. He is not immune to her charms either.

One day, she finally confesses to him what she really is while in the sanctity of the confessional. Ashamed, she flees immediately after, so is shocked when he comes looking for her. He has a request, one she’s only too willing to oblige. As their shared secrets tie them more firmly together, will their newfound partnership be their mutual salvation, or will naught but destruction come in their wake?

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/24/the-confessional-by-paige-hender/

Jun 23 2025

Threat Of The Spider by Michael P Spradlin

Oh, huh, I didn’t realize that this second book in The Web Of The Spider series would have a different protagonist than the first one, but it makes sense!

In Rise Of The Spider, our narrator was young Rolf, who watched with growing horror as the Nazi Party’s hatefulness infiltrated not only his beloved hometown of Heroldsberg, but also seduced his older brother Romer. Rolf and his equally horrified father chased after Romer when the latter ran away to attend a large Nazi rally in Nuremberg, but were unsuccessful in bringing him home.

Threat Of The Spider is told from the point of view of Rolf’s best friend, the sharp-witted and brave — almost to the point of recklessness — Ansel Becker. He’s inherited his courage and outspokenness from his father, a reporter for the Nuremberg Zeitgeist. Heinrich Becker has recently persuaded HQ to let him open up a branch office in Heroldsberg, so he can report on the growing influence and perfidy of the Nazis in their small but representative town. The entire Becker family loathes a movement that they correctly see as capitalizing on people’s desperation and unhappiness to incite violence instead of actually helping the people. The loathing is mutual, as evidenced by the brick lobbed through their front window before the book even begins.

The local police are useless, especially since Police Chief Muller has recently been promoted to head of the Heroldsberg branch of the Nazi Party. Spearheaded by Hans, one of the first Hitler Youth to darken their doorsteps, the local Nazis continue to harass the Beckers, even when the much younger Ansel and his friends routinely prove their match, if not their superior.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/23/threat-of-the-spider-by-michael-p-spradlin/