I’m currently reading three of the five Spirit of Christmas books I identified last month:the latest Meg Langslow Christmas novel, ‘Let It Crow! Let It Crow! Let It Crow!‘, a gender inverting, Steampunk retelling of Dickens’ ‘Christmas Carol‘ called ‘Hauntings and Humbug‘ and a collection of short stories called ‘Christmas And Other Horrors’
Still, I can’t live completely off a diet of Christmas books, so this week I’ve picked out two shorter novels from my TBR to give me some variety. One is about a witch in contemporary upstate New York and one is about the impact on a small town in Pensilvania of a well-known local man being reported missing.
‘Woods Of The Raven’ by Mary Calmes (2023)
‘Woods Of The Raven‘ is a little different from my normal reading because it’s a paranormal romance and I don’t normally get on well with books that are intent on delivering a happy ending.
‘Woods Of The Raven‘ made it into my TBR pile because I like the setting, the forests of up-State New York and because the story is focused on a modern-day male witch.
I’m already nearly a third of the way through this one and I’m finding the tone refreshing and the content engaging. To me, it reads like the Fantasy/paranormal equivalent of a cosy mystery. The main character is gentle and kind but has the steel defend himself and the people around him when he needs to. The threat is dark but the tone is hopeful. The rainbow flag is flying high and proud and I’m hoping it will take the day.
Mary Calmes is a bestselling author of paranormal and gay romance fiction from Lexington Kentucky.
She has published sixty-nine novels since 2009, including thirteen series and eighteen standalone novels.
On her website she that she “…believes in romance, happily ever afters, and the faith it takes for her characters to get there. “
‘Fallen Mountains’ by Kimi Cunningham Grant (2019)
Kimi Cunningham Grant’s ‘These Silent Woods‘ was one of my favourite books of 2022 so I added to ‘Fallen Mountains‘ to my TBR pile so I could read more of her work while I wait for her next novel, ‘The Nature Of Disappearing‘ to be published next year.
I’m not expecting any happy endings with this book. It uses the investigation of a disappearance in a small town in rural Pennsylvania to explore the pressures of poverty and the impact of one bad decision on by a Sheriff on the lives of the people around him.
I’m hoping for some beautiful writing, some believable people and little bit of light in all the darkness.
Kimi Cunningham Grant is the author of These Silent Woods, Fallen Mountains, and Silver Like Dust.
She is a two-time winner of a Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Memorial Prize in Poetry and a recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowship in creative nonfiction. She lives with her family in Pennsylvania.
Her new novel, The Nature of Disappearing, will hit shelves on June 18, 2024.
Mike Finn's Fiction 
Nice post ✉️
LikeLike