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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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/

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/