I shall!

So last night I read Rose Under Fire, which is Elizabeth Wein's followup to Code Name Verity. And it's really good. And we get to see Maddie again! Spoiler: she married Jamie! So cute.

However the context of the novel is even more grim than CNV: the lead character, Rose Justice, is an American pilot working as an ATA pilot in England just around the time of the Normandy invasion. Through a series of circumstances, she ends up in a German woman's labor camp, Ravensbruck, for the last six months of the war.

It's brilliantly done, but god, it's brutal. And it's basically all true: Wein based the novel on the memoirs of women who survived Ravensbruck to talk (and testify) about it.

I thought it was excellent, but it's pretty hard going at points, even though it's written in the memoir style of CNV, so you get a certain amount of distance from the action because it's being conveyed after the fact by a survivor.

I do recommend it, but not on a day when you're feeling kind of dubious about humanity.

I need to get it, Consuela. When I saw the promo copy before it came out, I knew it would be heavier than Code Name. Which is saying a lot.

Gillian Flynn is going to be on Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night. Could be an interesting interview. (Hugh Jackman and Elvis and Costello are also on that night, so it's a big win all around.)

Wow, that's quite a line up!! Thanks for the heads up.

Oops. That's Elvis Costello, not Elvis and Costello.

Need more caffeine.

I'm trying to make a "Who's on First/So Lonely" joke here, but failing.

Right?

For a change of pace, I've been reading the Dhulyn & Parno novels by Violette Malan. They're pretty classic sword-and-sorcery novels, about a pair of bonded Mercenary Brothers (kind of like samurai), who get into all sorts of trouble as they wander the world. One of them is a kickass woman, but they both are kind of interesting and I love their relationship, which is way more than a romance.

Anyway, they're pretty fun and as the series goes on the world-building gets really interesting. The writing is pretty good, although Malan's got a different idea of proper POV than I do (she will switch POVs in the same paragraph, argh). But her characters are interesting, the plots not too straightforward, and the cultures kind of cool. Plus, there's the occasional gesture towards addressing issues of race and gender.

The first one is The Sleeping God, and so far there are four of them. If you liked old Conan stories, or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, you might like these as a contemporary version, where the women get to do more than be rescued from ancient evils.

I read Charm and Strange last night. That book needs a trigger warning. Something on the cover, or in the blurbs. Seriously. It's very, very good, but, as with a couple of YAs I've read, possibly a bit overwrought in telegraphing all the feels.

The stuff I've seen on Amazon hints that it gets pretty dark at the end. But you recommend it?