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| Roald Dahl |
Magical realism is such an unexplored genre (as compared to, say, crime and mystery) and I really love how it brings the fantastical into real life and stretches your imagination to accept the strange and the wondrous things that happen every day. That's probably why I wrote Until Morning - and now No Room in Neverland - because I wanted so badly to read something set in the real world that contained romance and magic.
Speaking of Until Morning, I've decided to go the crowd-source route and post it up on Swoon Reads (which published a lovely contemporary romance novel A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall). You can read it (and rate and share if you enjoyed it!) here. And if you need an idea of what it's about, here's a teaser:
Lexi Keen has found her soul-mate, although she has never met Night, the elusive street artist who leaves his paintings around the city.
Still, that doesn’t stop her from penning letters to him – until she finds herself living in his paintings after a car accident lands her in a coma. In her mind she is wandering through Night’s paintings. Her only companion: a boy who doesn’t understand why he is trapped there with her and wants to leave.
Sam Young is trying to make sense of the dreams he has been having of late, dreams in which he meets the irreverent, free-spirited Lexi. When his father’s latest development project involves taking over the inn that Lexi’s father owns, Sam has to choose between his loyalties to his father and staying with Lexi in the dream, safe from reality.
So anyway, I'm really looking forward to this month's haul. Yay for magical realism and contemporary fiction! That's not to say fantasy is a dying genre, but I think readers as a whole are now looking to take a break from all that supernatural good-versus-evil stuff for a while and go back to something closer to the heart. Even agents I've queried have told me they're not representing fantasy because the market's too saturated and people are veering away from the genre at the moment.
To Read:
1. Magonia, by Maria Dahvana Headley
2. Girl At Midnight, by Melissa Grey
3. Above Us Only Sky, by Michele Young-Stone
4. Bone Gap, by Laura Ruby
5. The Cost of All Things, by Maggie Lehrman
6. Love Letters to the Dead, by Ava Dellaira
7. Love Fortunes and Other Disasters, by Kimberly Karalius
I can't stop fangirling over these books. I mean, HAVE YOU READ THEIR BLURBS? ARE YOU NOT PROPERLY EXCITED ABOUT THEM ALREADY? Ships in the sky, memory erasure (coincidentally, I've been working on a short story about memory erasure too), Lithuanian bird-women, pickpockets in black markets and missing people. This is while I love reading and creating stories. There are so many exhilarating possibilities that set your mind on fire, so many stories that fill you with ideas and life.
And of course, there's LANGUAGE itself. Prose. The stringing of words to form beautiful, heart-breaking sentences with rhythm and music.
From Magonia:
"I'm dark matter. The universe inside of me is full of something, and science can't even shine a light on it. I feel like I'm mostly made of mysteries."
"I know everyone has dreams of flying, but this isn’t a dream of flying. It’s a dream of floating, and the ocean is not water but wind.
I call it a dream, but it feels realer than my life."
Breathe, Joyce, breathe.
Currently Reading:
1. Red Queen, by Victoria Aveyard
SO GOOD. The execution, the plot (and plot twists), the prose - all skillfully done. If I HAD to nitpick, I'd say that my connection with the characters isn't as strong as the one with Alina and Mal from the Grisha trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. Those two (plus Nikolai Lantsov) got me swooning and dancing and grinning and spazzing. Red Queen, while nicely done, doesn't send me reeling. But this is probably subjective and different for every reader. This book is still HIGHLY recommended!
2. Before My Eyes, by Caroline Bock
Two words: mental illness. I'm a sucker for any story that deals with issues like this, especially anything creepy or disturbing or psychologically messed up and sheds some light on people dealing with the demons in their heads. Plus, it's told in alternative POV and it reminds me a lot of Charm and Strange by Stephanie Kuehn and *ahem* Lambs for Dinner by me.
Queued:
1. Saint Anything, by Sarah Dessen
2. Friday Brown, by Vikki Wakefield
What's on YOUR reading list this month? Recommendations always welcome! :0)
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