Several books finished this weekend, starting with Gemini Summer by Iain Lawrence, that I detailed in my earlier entry, The Strange Adventures of Rangergirl by Tim Pratt and Solstice Wood by Patricia McKillip. Rangergirl was very cool - an incredibly original concept that seemed all the more impresive to me at first because it was a debut novel but in retrospect, I imagine new authors are often the most creative as they can write without any preconceived notions. (At least that's how it seemed to me.) Rangergirl will be reviewed in my October column and I do think it's a great book for teens - there's just one unnecessary sexual reference in the beginning that pushes it to the 14 and over crowd and I'm a bit disappointed that the reference was even there. It just seemed unnecessary to the story and almost seemed like someone said "hey - there's no sex in here! add sex!" and so there you go. That's a tiny quibble though and I will gush accordingly about the story. It's really cool and scary and carries no small degree of emotional weight - the bad guy really is bad here - and I very much enjoyed it.

McKillip's Solstice Wood started slowly as many of her books do but took some sudden turns midway through that made everything much more intense. It's about Sylvia Lynn who has returned home to upstate NY for her grandfather's funeral. The family has long been involved in the fairy lure of the surrounding woods and Sylvia finds out just how much truth there is to the family stories when she is invited to the local sewing circle meeting. All sorts of secrets are revealed and challenges made but what really impressed me about this story (other than the gorgeous way in which McKillip writes anything) is the way the author took on the black/white fairy ideal. Are they good or bad? Do they steal children, eat children, lie and cheat? Will they take over the world if given half a chance? There is a lot of reconsidering of old stories here and it is all done in the context of one particular family. It's a rich novel that plays out slowly and carefully and builds to a most satisfying conclusion. Make a date for this book this fall - it's an excellent read for a fireplace and cup of hot chocolate.

A wonderful ARC showed up yesterday - D*U*C*K from Poppy Z. Brite. This chapbook is the first thing she has written since Katrina and concerns Ricky and G-Man and more goings on in her wonderful New Orleans restaurant world. The story does not occur in a post Katrina setting - the book she is working on right now will end with the hurricane, but it does reflect her new sensibility about the city and is more of some of my favorite literary characters so I'm quite pleased to have it. I'll be reviewing this along with Soul Kitchen for Voices of NOLA and Jenny D - if you would like the ARC please let me know!

I also have an ARC for Charles de Lint's latest, Widdershins - it's fantastic and the folks at Tor kindly sent me a hardcover copy for my shelf after my piece on de Lint ran at Bookslut. If anyone would like the ARC, please comment below. (First come, first serve on this one people.)

Finally, Jenny D brings up the story of Mary Shelley and the legend of her creation of Frankenstein which prompts me to point out two books about Shelley. I recently read Angelmonster, an excellent YA novel about Shelley that goes into great detail about her life with Percy Shelley and how she came to write about the monster. Quite readable, and completely compelling. Honestly, I have no idea how she remained sane. Also, Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler recently came out with Monsters, a nonfiction look at Shelley and the tragic lives suffered by everyone who was there that fateful night of ghost story telling. It is amazing that both Frankenstein and the modern Dracula myth both date to the same night and same group of people and that so many horrible events should follow that literary magic. I'm including both of these titles in a piece I'm working on for this winter about modern retellings of the classics - the others are all novels, but I could not resist Monsters. I have not had a chance to read it yet, but it is burning it's way through my TBR pile and I will certainly be writing here about it soon.