Now that the days are growing longer, I find myself in the mood to listen to some longer books. I’ve picked two tomes (one fourteen hours and one eighteen hours long) that have been on my shelves for a while (one for ten years and one for a mere two years) to settle my imagination into. One is a Young Adult dystopian novel and one is a mystery set in Tudor England. To round those off (and to give me a break from headphones) I’m also reading a newly released cosy mystery with a little bit of dangerous magic and a surprisingly sociopathic librarian.
The Darkest Minds’ (2012) by Alexandra Bracken
A mysterious disease has killed most of America’s children. Ruby might have survived, but she and the others have emerged with something far worse than a virus: frightening abilities they cannot control. Pressured by the government, Ruby’s parents sent her to Thurmond, a brutal state ‘rehabilitation camp’, where she has learned to fear and suppress her new power. But what if mastering it is a whole generation’s only chance for survival?
I bought this back in 2014, when the book’s reputation was just beginning to build. Since then, there have been three more books and a movie and all that time the book has lain undisturbed in my TBR pile. When I went to blow off the virtual dust today, I found that I had to get Audible to give me a credit to add a new addition to my library so that I can use the app to listen to it (the app conveniently doesn’t see any book where the rights have changed since the version I own was purchased).
I’m hoping that I can let myself sink into a rollercoaster piece of Young Adult speculative fiction that will make me hungry for the next three books.
Alexandra Bracken was born in Phoenix, Arizona. The daughter of a Star Wars collector, she grew up going to an endless string of Star Wars conventions and toy fairs, which helped spark her imagination and a deep love of reading. After graduating high school, she attended The College of William & Mary in Virginia, where she double majored in English and History. She sold her first book, Brightly Woven, as a senior in college, and later moved to New York City to work in children’s book publishing, first as an editorial assistant, then in marketing. After six years, she took the plunge and decided to write full time. She now lives in Arizona with her tiny pup, Tennyson, in a house that’s constantly overflowing with books.
Photo credit Janelle Etzel
“The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society“ (2024) by C. M. Waggoner
Librarian Sherry Pinkwhistle has a knack for solving murders – lots of them. Sometimes she’s concerned by just how many killers she’s had to track down in her quiet village, though none of her neighbours seem surprised by the rising body count…
But when someone close to Sherry ends up dead, and her cat becomes unexpectedly possessed by an ancient demon as irritating as it is infernal, Sherry decides that it’s time for action.
It will be a lesson for murderers and demons alike:
Never mess with a librarian.
I’m in the mood for something a little silly to help me beat back the encroaching dark of autumn and ‘The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society‘ seems to fit the bill. I love the idea of a small town librarian who solves a lot of murders, Jessica Fletcher style, and then begins to wonder why her small town has so many muders.
I’d hoped to read this before Halloween, but starting it on the Day Of The Dead works just as well.
I’ve started this and I’m already in love with the slightly sociopathic librarian. Here are a couple of quotes from her thoughts about herself.
“…she could watch someone crying or laughing or rocking back and forth in a corner and feel curiosity instead of either suspicion or sympathy.”
“She spent so much time pretending to be a nice old lady from a book that her actual, somewhat strange and ghoulish personality tended to take her by surprise.”
C.M. Waggoner grew up in rural upstate New York, where she spent a lot of time reading fantasy novels in a swamp. She studied creative writing at SUNY Purchase and lived in China for eight years before moving with her husband to Albany, NY. In her spare time, she volunteers, performs kitchen experiments, asks if she can pet your dog, and gardens badly.You can voice your complaints to the management (or sign up for her mailing list) at cmwaggoner.com.
‘Dark Fire’ (2014) – Matthew Shardlake #2 by C. J. Sansom
England, 1540: Matthew Shardlake, believing himself out of favour with Thomas Cromwell, is busy trying to maintain his legal practice and keep a low profile. But his involvement with a murder case, defending a girl accused of brutally murdering her young cousin, brings him once again into contact with the king’s chief minister – and a new assignment.
The secret of Greek Fire, the legendary substance with which the Byzantines destroyed the Arab navies, has been lost for centuries. Now an official of the Court of Augmentations has discovered the formula in the library of a dissolved London monastery. When Shardlake is sent to recover it, he finds the official and his alchemist brother horribly murdered – the formula has disappeared.
Now Shardlake must follow the trail of Greek Fire across Tudor London, while trying at the same time to prove his young client’s innocence. But very soon he discovers nothing is as it seems . . .
‘Dissolution’, the first book in this series, sat on my shelves for nine years before my wife and I listened to it on a long car journey back in 2022. We liked the book so much that I bought the rest of the series. My wife has listened to them all but it’s taken me two years to get around to the second one, mostly because the book is eighteen hours long, which is a big time commitment. I’ve decided it’s time to step up and immerse myself in Sansom’s version of Tudor history.
C. J. Sansom was educated at Birmingham University, where he took a BA and then a PhD in history. After working in a variety of jobs, he retrained as a solicitor and practised in Sussex, until becoming a full-time writer.
He is best known for his Matthew Shardlake series. He also wrote the spy novel Winter in Madrid and the alternate history novel Dominion.
He won the 2005 Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History in 2013 and the Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2022.
Shardlake, a television series based on Sansom’s novel Dissolution, started streaming on Disney+ less than a week after his death in 2024.
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