Clubbing, title #3 in the new Minx line, is a lot of fun and should be a hit with teenage girls. The heroine this go-round is a goth party girl who gets banished to the English countryside after a slight run-in with the law. She thinks it will be all predictably boring (with a grandmother cut right out of the film Calendar Girls - before the calendar it should be) and then things start to get a bit odd (a dead body does put a damper on the village bake sales you know...) Fun protagonist, fun plot, lots of snark and British slang (with a glossary in the back) and a wild ending. The best part is where Charlotte ("Lottie") is the one to do the butt kicking and saving of the cute boy. So far, even with what I saw as a slight misstep with title #2's artwork, I think this series is really off to a good start.

Nicola Griffith really surprised me with Always and I hope this book comes through as the LBC's next pick. (See why Gwenda nominated it here.) It seems like a mystery (someone is doing some real estate shenanigans) but even after there is a bit of violence, the mystery is still not the thing that keeps the plot moving. This is, at its heart, a book about strength and weakness and just what those two words mean in human relationships. Do we have to be physically strong to be the stronger person? What do you need from a person in order to have an equal relationship (be it romance or friendship of family)? And how much should strength play into your relationships? The story unfolds as the protagonist, Aud, finds someone she could fall hard for, while trying to come to terms with her mother and also trying not to screw-up and lose a good friend. On top of all that, the parallel storyline addresses a women's defense course that Aud taught in the recent past to a group of women with varying needs and concerns. What one of them does - and how she does it - blew me away and dovetailed nicely with everything else that was going on in Aud's head. There is more than one layer to this book; more than one person and emotion to consider. I'll have a full review up at Bookslut next month but I encourage anyone looking for a thoughtful read that packs a lot of punch to check this good book out.

I've been meaning to review the Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling edited fantasy anthology Salon Fantastique for a couple of months. First I was going to make it a "Cool Read" at Bookslut in my column, then I was building a feature on anthologies, then I thought maybe I'd do a column on anthologies and now...now I'm just going to review the damn book for next month! (So I should have reviews of Always, Parrotfish and Salon Fantastique in July's issue...how cool is that?!) Anyway, there is a lot to enjoy in this book for fantasy fans. I would point out first, Delia Sherman's story "La Fee Verte", which seems to be historical fiction about French prostitutes in the mid-19th century but then becomes a romance and then...then some fantastical elements start to creep in. It's a hard one to classify but just gorgeous. Richard Bowes has a very creepy tale on where critics find their talent (sort of) in "Dust Devil on Quiet Street" and Christopher Barzak has written something so Seussical and yet environmentally important with "The Guardian of the Egg" that I'm not quite sure how the hell to classify it. (Where did the man come up with this one???) There are many others I'll discuss in the review (Gavin Grant's "Yours, Etc." - so slightly creepy that you don't realize you should be freaking out), but overall I have to say that it's one of those anthologies that simply lends itself more to the general idea of short story rather than fantasies or spec fic or SF or whatever. It's a lovely title to pick up as summer days go by; dip in and read some and then return to it as the lemonade glass empties and gets refreshed.

I am still reading Nina Hoffman's Stir of Bones and I'm falling for it. I try sometimes to place myself in the head of certain prospective readers when I read a YA novel and with this one I can see readers who are frustrated by their parents, by a lack of control in their lives, who will be thrilled with Susan's story. I'll have to see if that carries through to the end.

Do any of you know of books other than Pamela Dean's Tam Lin or Hoffman's Spirits That Walk in Shadow that bring fantasy elements onto college campuses? I'm reminded of Season 4 of Buffy and all those changes brought by moving out and starting a new life (or reinventing an old one). There just seems to be something inherently right about fantasy and college (isn't so much of freshman year about crafting fantasies?) and I'd like to know if there are more novels out there in this sort of vein. I see a column or feature or something in here...just wondering what I might have missed. (Charles de Lint's Memory and Dream also maybe?)