What I Read in May
Have you ever had a book stalk you?
Since it’s release, everywhere I’ve looked I’ve seen Martyr’s mustard colored cover starting back at me. I’d pass it in bookstores, or stare at it in a straphangers hand as we wound underneath Manhattan and think- why? What does this book have for me?
I’ll admit, I was judging the cover (which you’re NOT supposed to do, proverbially). I thought it was an Iranian Don Quixote. Which it isn’t, at all. Not that I’d know, my only exposure to the story of Don Quixote was the PBS Wishbone adaptation.
I digress.
Another admission, I rarely read male authors, or books with male main characters. It must come from growing up under the yoke of patriarchy, before stories of women and girls were equally presented. I’d assumed I’d gotten my fill of the male experience.
Well, then I was in the lovely Primrose Hill Books, living out my alternative life as a Richard Curtis heroine, and I came across the cover above. This was more interesting, a woman painting on the cover. I finally gave in, and did my bit supporting a local bookstore.
A dear friend, Shannon, was going on vacation with her family and didn’t have a book for the trip (quelle horreur!), so I gave her Martyr! She read it and told me she bawled the entire plane ride home reading the last few chapters.
So, I read it.
It transformed me.
I believe in the mythical power of books, a book asks you to read it when you need it most. This book has continued a theme I’ve been exploring for a while, the desire and Sisyphean task of attempting to learn about, and possible know a woman from the past. Either a historical figure or family member. We continue to hunt for these unknowable souls, knowing that it is an impossible task, while also craving the knowing, feeling that it could somehow fill something inside of us, unlock a room that holds the key to our completion and happiness.
On it’s surface Martyr! is a fairly light book, plot-wise. It’s the story of a Iranian-American Poet, Cyrus who is orphaned, sober and trying to figure out how to leave a lasting legacy. He becomes intrigued by an artist’s exhibit at The Brooklyn Museum and goes to visit her.
There.
That’s what happens.
Of course this is a truly devastatingly beautiful novel that calms you with its quotidian scenes until you are absolutely knocked breathless by all that is revealed. It is told through alternating POV chapters, bouncing around Cyrus’ lineage.
I can’t say more, although if you have read it and have thoughts, please let me know, and I will do the same for you. This is a novel that will read differently to every person, I don’t think it is possible to have a single universal experience with this work, so I’m loath to say too much and influence your experience.
Other than to say, read this book when it calls to you.
An Earl Like You: Wagers of Sin #2 by Caroline Linden
A new to me romance author is a rare and exciting thing (especially when it’s a historical romance), so when I heard Jen one of the hosts of the #1 romance podcast, Fated Mates shout it out during an episode cataloging books featuring heroine’s “on the shelf”. Which as any histrom reader knows means older than 23.
I was asked recently about microtropes that I love, and I felt at a loss to think of any, but this book brought one to the surface. It’s the moment when a heroine who’s a wallflower or on the shelf has been a victim of a scheme where the dashing hero “pretends” to fall in love with her. Obviously, at this stage the hero is a complete and utter gonner for the heroine, but when the whole scheme is revealed the heroine thinks “huh, I should have known.”
It’s that moment.
I’m sick!
SICK.
AND.
TWISTED.
Now that moment would be worth nothing if the hero wasn’t obviously about to do a completely delicious grovel, and if the heroine wasn’t about to decided that actually, she was going to be fine, and maybe even better off without him.
And no, I’ve never mentioned this to a mental health professional, why do you ask?
This book delivers on the trope, it’s book two of three, with each book running concurrently, which is something else I’m a total sucker for.
I could have done with a little more angst from our hero, Hugh, but then I graduated from the school of Kleypas and Heath, so perhaps my instruments are a little off when it comes to what a normal amount of angst is!
One of the benefits of having a bookish podcast (R.I.P.), and now a bookish substack is that you get access to a website called Netgalley, where you can request advanced reader copies (ARCs) of any book that strikes your fancy, and it will then appear on your kindle.
I’ve had this on my kindle app since 2023, but for some reason just didn’t bother to read it, I think in my mind kindle is for romance novels, and physical books are for, well, every other genre.
I don’t remember what made me decide to start reading this book about a Catholic school teacher, Cushla, falling in love with a (married-ahem) Protestant solicitor, Michael in Belfast during the troubles.
I loved this book, and walked around in a bit of a daze at it’s conclusion. It’s a very quiet novel, about unremarkable people, but that is where the heart of it lives. Cushla doesn’t have grand dreams, she wants to care for the kids in her community and her mother, and just keep moving.
In meeting Michael she has to constantly come up against her own identity as an Irish Catholic, in relation to his ability to move through and with the dominate group with ease. He gets to interact with the Irish Language and the victims of internment as he chooses, he mostly gets to move through the world unencumbered, where Cushla can’t helped but be encumbered by the expectations of the people around her, the violence inflicted on her community, and her own morality when she begins an affair with a married man.
Something this book does so well is examine the quotidian nature of long conflicts, eventually you need to just go to work, attend house parties, fight with your brother, all with the backdrop of sectarian violence.
I was so hearted to hear that Louise Kennedy published this book at age 47, and only began writing this, her first novel, at 45.
We never age past our creativity, it’s an endless well if tended to properly.
A NOTE
I’ve turned on the ability to have paid subscribers to this substack, if that happens to strike your fancy.
Let the record show, I’m doing it out of duress, as it was strongly recommended many time by three people who I love dearly and I’ve finally relented.
So if you’d like to give a little something to help my ever-expanding, ever-demanding chronic book buying habit, I’d be so grateful. But if that isn’t in the cards, or you have your own er-expanding, ever-demanding chronic book buying habit to feed, I get it.