fiction Archives

Queen’s Musician, The

Forbidden Love and a King's Schemes Author: Martha Jean Johnson Anne Boleyn stole the scene at court – until she lost her head. All these hundreds of years later, she still captivates us; her story – a grand rise and a horrible, bloody fall – fill both our history books and our lurid imaginations. What’s not to love? A forbidden romance. A thwarted, egotistical king wanting an heir. An ambitious, beautiful young woman wanting to rise in the world and willing to do anything – absolutely anything – to make it happen. A kingdom divided between them. Man and church warring [...]

Frances Carden2025-04-14T19:03:26-07:00April 14th, 2025|Tags: book review, fiction, historical fiction, read, reading|

Quiet Life, A

“We live so much of our lives without telling anyone.” Author: Ethan Joella Three lives, going on separately, are each occluded by the unrelenting pressure of grief. One winter, as the ice shines on the road and the cold seeps into the bones, three strangers find each other through the twists of fate. Together, they start to discover the next steps in a life that will not end, no matter how much they wish that it had. It’s weird to say that Ethan Joella’s A Quiet Life is cozy when the themes – death, pain, grief, separation, betrayal – are so [...]

Frances Carden2025-04-12T09:24:00-07:00April 12th, 2025|Tags: book review, botm, fiction, grief, read, reading|

Hera

A New Look at an Old Villian Author: Jennifer Saint Hera – the raging goddess of marriage – is a much-hated figure from Greek mythology. While it is her husband, the mighty Zeus, who tricks and rapes his way through both mortals and goddesses, it is Hera that catches our ire. Shouldn’t she, we reason, be gentler, know better, and stop perpetuating a vicious culture of victim-blaming? Shouldn’t her vengeance, her impotent rage, be directed towards the one who really deserves it (her philandering husband) instead of in fits of jealousy towards his often-unwilling paramours? Well . . . author Jennifer [...]

Frances Carden2025-03-23T08:40:21-07:00March 23rd, 2025|Tags: book review, botm, fantasy, fiction, Greek mythology, mythology, read, reading, retelling|