Jun 20 2025

Tantalizing Tales — June 2025 — Part Three

I feel like every one of these columns recently starts with me marveling over how fast time is passing but for real, readers, how is it almost the end of June already?

On the plus side, we have several great books publishing soon, to close out our featured titles this month before turning to July (July! Already!) First off, we have Christina Dodd’s delightfully genre-crossing mystery Thus With A Kiss I Die. Narrated by the vivacious Rosie Montagu, daughter of the infamous star-crossed lovers of Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet (rumors of their deaths were, apparently, greatly premature,) this second book in her series continues her madcap adventures in life, love and amateur detecting.

Despite having fallen head over heels for Lysander in the prior novel, A Daughter Of Fair Verona, Rosie finds herself trapped in an engagement with Escalus, the Prince of Verona himself. So when his father, the deceased Prince Escalus the Elder, appears, asking her to solve his murder in exchange for helping to reunite her with her one true love, she barely hesitates. Sure, it’s weird that Elder is a ghost, but she did just unmask and stop the city’s first serial killer. How hard could this task be, especially with such a valuable prize waiting for her at the end?

Ms Dodd continues her forward-thinking, feminist romp through Shakespeare’s greatest hits by adapting Hamlet to her charming mash-up of mystery and history, through the lens of the irresistible, self-aware Rosie.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/20/tantalizing-tales-june-2025-part-three/

Jun 18 2025

In The Bone-Cracking Cold by M Bartley Seigel

Wow, reading this poetry collection really brought up a lot of issues I have with media and identity, none of which are meant to cast aspersions on this book at all, but which definitely distracted from my enjoyment of it.

So let’s table that discussion for at least the end of this review, and discuss the actual book instead. This collection of over sixty poems is mostly centered on the author’s experience living in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula: fitting given that he’s a former poet laureate of the area. There are a lot of poems that feel very specific to the region, a sort of inside baseball that I’m not a fan of given my belief that the best poetry makes it a point to relate, to embrace the universal or at least to paint a picture vivid enough that people who have no experience with the subject matter can still go “Ah! I see!”

But there are also a lot of poems here that succeed at making at least this reader feel what it’s like to experience life in the UP. The title piece, for example, is a gorgeous love poem nestled in the local environment: I didn’t know before looking them up what a sugarbush or a sundog are, but the rest of the poem gives it all enough context to make lyrical sense. Lake Superior is another beautiful work that masterfully draws past, present and concerns for the future into one affecting piece. Land Acknowledgment, 1842 Ceded Territory does the same, and is easily one of my favorite pieces in the book. These poems all work that delicate balance of “here are some specific things about this place that I think you should know, related to universal themes that you will already recognize, in carefully calibrated language.”

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/18/in-the-bone-cracking-cold-by-m-bartley-seigel/

Jun 17 2025

Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle comes out in August!

The cover of Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle features colorful and violent playing card art. Chuck Tingle’s third horror novel, Lucky Day, will be published by Tor on August 12th, and you can preorder it now! I think it’s his best yet.

(Content warning: this spoiler-free review discusses bisexual erasure as it occurs in Lucky Day.)

In Lucky Day, we meet Vera, a young, Type-A Statistics professor. Her hair is so smooth, and her skirt is so smooth! And her book is coming out in a couple days, and her hot girlfriend loves her, and she is about to come out to her mother! Everything’s coming up Vera.

And then, right in the middle of a fraught discussion while her mother is telling her that bi people don’t exist, it begins to rain fish in Chicago. Vera’s mom dies a gory death, one of Vera’s friends is bashed to death by a crazed chimpanzee wielding a typewriter and dressed as Hamlet, and all around the world, nearly eight million people suffer similarly unlikely and grisly deaths on the same day. It becomes known as the Low-Probability Event (LPE).

Something like that changes the world. The story of Lucky Day picks up four years later, and Vera has retreated into feral ceiling-staring and ramen-eating; her relationship, her career, and her trust in any kind of predictability of the world shattered. Agent Layne of the Low-Probability Event Commission invades her solitude with a proposition: he wants Vera to help him investigate a company that seems somehow connected to the event that shook the world, the very company that Vera set out to expose as con artists in her book four years ago.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/17/lucky-day-by-chuck-tingle-comes-out-in-august/

Jun 16 2025

Free Bird by Christine Mott & Ofra Layla Isler

subtitled Flaco The Owl’s Dreams Take Flight.

I cannot be the only person who keeps confusing Flaco the owl with the red tailed hawks who also famously made New York City their home. Fortunately, this picture book helps clear up any misunderstanding caused by the unwittingly cognate names!

Told in the first person, this anthropomorphized tale leads us from Flaco’s early life in the Central Park Zoo, where he stares at the walls of his enclosure and dreams of living a life wild and free. One day, a sparrow points out the hole in Flaco’s cage and invites him to come join the other birds (lol) in the outdoors. Flaco is hesitant since he’s never lived out of captivity. But he has a dream and he’s determined to pursue it, even if he doesn’t really know how to fly or hunt or survive on his own.

With the encouragement of other animals (lol. Look, I’m sorry, as someone who knows full well what owls actually eat, it’s impossible not to laugh at the idea that the small animals depicted in the book would cheer him on instead of immediately running for cover at the sight of him,) Flaco learns how to make his way in the outdoors. Tho his concerned minders from the zoo set out traps to try to recapture him, he manages to evade them all and take full advantage of the sights of New York City, living out his dream of freedom and inspiring others to realize their ambitions as well.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/16/free-bird-by-christine-mott-ofra-layla-isler/

Jun 13 2025

Tantalizing Tales — June 2025 — Part Two

Hello, dear readers! Has your June been as busy as mine has? It’s probably because my kids are finishing the last years of their respective schools before they launch into their new ones, but I’ve been run ragged keeping up with all their activities (and let’s not even get started on MY activities.) Fortunately, there are some delightful books to help fill the few quiet times I have available, beginning with Eliza Knight’s recently published historical novel Confessions Of A Grammar Queen.

There are no female publishing CEOs in 1960s New York. Savvy, ambitious Bernadette Swift is going to change that, with the help of a pair of pink pantyhose.

As a junior copyeditor, Bernadette is in the habit of pushing her personal life aside for the intentionally unmanageable workload her boss piles on her desk. Part of this is because she’s determined to become the first female CEO in the publishing industry. First, however, she’ll need to take the next step up the corporate ladder, with a promotion that her boorish and sexist boss very much wants to thwart.

Seeking a base of support, Bernadette accepts the unusual offer of a bold pair of pantyhose and joins a feminist women’s book club at the New York Public Library. Soon, she’s inspiring her fellow members to ask for more, to challenge the male gatekeepers and decades of ingrained sexism in their workplaces, and to pursue their personal and professional dreams. Their movement starts small but grows: demanding and receiving more scandalous books for the club; more time for their personal lives (and, in Bernadette’s case, for a certain charming male colleague); more women’s equity marches, and more women’s voices in publishing. Will a bad boss and a jealous colleague be able to stop her rise? Not if Bernadette and her friends have anything to say about it!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/13/tantalizing-tales-june-2025-part-two/

Jun 12 2025

Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business by Arvind Ethan David, Ilias Kyriazis & Cris Peter

Quick aside before we get to the meat of the book itself: being one of the few Malaysian American book critics in the industry sometimes makes it extra hilarious when I read claims like Arvind Ethan David’s in his opening dedication, where he says that elc International School is Malaysia’s “preeminent private school”. Insert me and my Malaysian-private-school-educated siblings all going “who?” a la Korath the Pursuer from the Guardians Of The Galaxy movie. That said, elc certainly managed to instill the loyalty part of their name in at least one alumnus, so good for them!

School joshing aside, this graphic novel is a remarkable adaptation of the classic noir tale. Full disclosure: I hadn’t read the original, and genuinely couldn’t remember if I’d ever read any Chandler, prior to this graphic novel. As such, I’ve had to do a little digging around on the Internet to see exactly how closely the creative team hewed to the original story and how much was extrapolated in the creation of this comic.

The answer, as far as I can tell, is quite a bit. Some would argue that this dilutes the effect of Chandler’s style, but given how disparaging that same style could be of people he disdained for purely cosmetic reasons, I think the changes only improve on the original. Tho speaking of, I cannot be the only person convinced that Anna and Gladys are lesbian lovers. Alas that Gladys has been omitted altogether from this adaptation. Fortunately, there’s plenty of other representation to be had here, as Chandler’s most iconic hero — the tough, alcoholic gumshoe Philip Marlowe — is hired for a dirty job.

The client, Jeeter, is a very wealthy man, and his stepson Gerald will be too, when Gerald comes into the trust left to him by his mother on his twenty-eighth birthday. Unfortunately, Gerald has recently become enamored of a young woman named Harriet Huntress. The beautiful redhead works as a shill for casino owner Marty Estes, which was how she and Gerald presumably met. Old Man Jeeter wants Marlowe to get Harriet to drop Gerald, whether by threatening her with old dirt or with new consequences.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/12/raymond-chandlers-trouble-is-my-business-by-arvind-ethan-david-ilias-kyriazis-cris-peter/

Jun 11 2025

Friends In Nature by Marina Ruiz

subtitled Discover Earth’s Amazing Ecosystems.

And oh what a lovely and surprisingly topical look this is at not only the ways that plants and animals form mutually beneficial ecosystems in nature, but also how integral they all are to human life! A lot of science books talk about humans almost as if we’re separate from the rest of the planet, but that simply isn’t true. Friends In Nature integrates humanity into the tapestry of biodiversity worldwide, underscoring both how important ecology is to our continued existence and how that makes it our responsibility to be thoughtful custodians of the planet.

All of this is done in a very gentle manner, however, as at no time does Marina Ruiz come across as preachy. And she doesn’t have to be! Her selections, in both text and in her charming art, are wisely chosen to convey not only a wide array of ecosystems but also to hook in both young and advancing readers through curiosity, utility or sheer cuteness. Whether talking about different kinds of seeds to (teehee) poop to elephants to otters to salmon, and then back to trees (with plenty of pitstops along the way,) her global journey is fascinating and lyrical, with a style meant to convey the cyclical, circular nature of it all.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/11/friends-in-nature-by-marina-ruiz/

Jun 10 2025

An Interview with Wendy Gee, Author of Fleet Landing

Hello, dear readers! It’s been a while since we’ve published an interview with an author, so I’m super pleased to share with you a brief Q&A conducted with debut novelist Wendy Gee!

As a volunteer at the Charleston Fire Department, Ms Gee had a front row seat to the hustle and intrigue common in firefighters’ line of work. She turned her stories from the station into Fleet Landing, the first in the gripping Carolina Crossfire mystery series.

ATF Special Agent Cooper “Coop” Bellamy has been doing his best to repair his strained relationship with his 11-year old daughter. But when Charleston’s fire chief calls him in to investigate a series of nuisance fires that swiftly turns deadly, he finds himself torn between his family and his duty to protect society.

Tenacious TV reporter Sydney Quinn is determined to find justice for a man wrongly imprisoned for arson. Uncovering a decades-old conspiracy sets her on a collision course with a sinister figure known only as the Falcon. Despite receiving a chilling warning to back off, she refuses to let the truth stay buried.

Coop and Quinn will have to join forces, setting the differences in their personalities aside in order to better navigate a labyrinth of lies and corruption together. Will they be able to catch the (real) arsonist without anyone getting hurt in the process?

Read on for an illuminating interview with the author about her background, inspirations and plans for future novels!

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/10/an-interview-with-wendy-gee-author-of-fleet-landing/

Jun 09 2025

Redcoat, Volume 1: Einstein & The Immortal by Geoff Johns & Bryan Hitch

With a tagline like “Immortal. Mercenary. Kind of a tool” this is the kind of book that is usually pure catnip to me. Tho I have to admit that by the fourth or fifth issue opener of “My name is Simon. Simon Pure. Though I’m anything BUT”, I was ready to cheerfully strangle someone, character, creator or otherwise.

And, y’know, if I’d read this title in issue form, there’s a very good chance I would have bounced right off it somewhere around Chapter 4. But I’m glad I persevered with the trade paperback, because it was ultimately the kind of warmhearted, thoughtful work I generally associate with Geoff Johns and Bryan Hitch, even if I did feel that the beginning was edgelordier than I prefer. I don’t think that the me of twenty years ago would even have noticed or cared, but the premise of the Founding Fathers of the USA being a cabal of immortals with supernatural powers — and then the protagonist of this book being a Redcoat who shot Washington, crashed an immortality ceremony, and over a century later has to team up with young Einstein to save America… ugggghhhffff. Can’t we just let people be human? Do we really need to mythologize historical figures who have already accomplished great things with the powers of their heads and hands and hearts alone? George fucking Washington isn’t heroic enough for leading the ragtag Continental Army to victory almost entirely through sheer force of will: he has to have superpowers, too?!

And yes, yes, I know old George wasn’t perfect, but that’s exactly my point! My main beef with this (admittedly very human) desire to turn men — and have you noticed, it’s almost always men? — into gods is that it absolves “regular” people of trying to do good, too. But, and very crucially, Chapter 7 of Redcoat Vol 1 neatly turns that desire inside out, in an issue that absolutely made the rest of the book worth reading for me. I presume this was Mr Johns’ sneaky way of delivering his warmhearted, thoughtful message to people who really need to hear it, after dabbling in a bunch of ridiculous theories beloved by dumb people who think that they’re smarter than everyone else in order to suck them into the book in the first place.

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2025/06/09/redcoat-volume-1-einstein-the-immortal-by-geoff-johns-bryan-hitch/

Jun 06 2025

Tantalizing Tales — June 2025 — Part One

Hello, dear readers! I hope you’re having a Happy Pride Month, even as we in America watch our politicians regress in a myriad of appalling ways.

Luckily, there is plenty of good reading to keep us company and comforted — if not outright inspired — starting with Elena Malisova & Katerina Silvanova’s swoony, star-crossed gay romance Pioneer Summer. This TikTok sensation underscores how important representation continues to be, and how much it frightens bigots and tyrants, even as they find our stories impossible to suppress. The publication of this novel actually catalyzed one of Russia’s largest-ever crackdowns on LGBTQ+ representation, culminating recently in the arrest of staff from its Russian publisher for distributing “LGBT propaganda”. With Anne O Fisher’s English-language translation, however, this story now has an even wider audience than before.

The story itself is set in 1986, as Yurka Konev, aged sixteen, has been sent off for yet another summer at Pioneer Camp. Impulsive, forthright and unfairly branded as a troublemaker, he anticipates the weeks ahead of him with boredom and dread. But when he’s pushed into working on the camp’s theater production, he meets serious, thoughtful troop leader Volodya, and finds himself drawn to the slightly older boy. Surprisingly, Volodya seems to like him too. Despite their mutual fear of the consequences of their illegal attraction, its gravity pulls them together. Twenty years later, Yury returns to the abandoned camp to reminisce on the relationship that changed his life forever — and discovers that not all history is destined to remain in the past.

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