The Storm of Echoes by Christelle Dabos

 Pages: 528

"The distrust between them has been overcome and now Ophelia and Thorn continue their journeys toward an understanding of the indecipherable code of God and the truth behind the mysterious figure of the Other, whose devastating power continues to bring down entire pieces of arks, plunging thousands of innocents into the void. Ophelia and Thorn arrive at the observatory of the Deviations, an institute shrouded in absolute secrecy and overseen by a sect of mystical scientists who secretly conduct terrifying experiments. There, Ophelia and Thorn hope to discover truths that will halt the destruction and death and bring the world back into balance. "

Final read of 2022! I have some mixed feelings about this book. I was disappointed when the fantastical aspects of this book were attempted to be explained by scientific means at the very end. A lot of information was dumped throughout the book that was only hinted at in the others and it felt a little rushed. I wish the book had stayed more in the fantasy realm instead of turning more towards sci-fi and the ending left me in pieces.

The Memory of Babel by Christelle Dabos

Pages: 508

"After two years and seven months biding her time on Anima, her home ark, it is finally time to act, to put what she has discovered in the Book of Faruk to good use. Under an assumed identity she travels to Babel, a cosmopolitan and thoroughly modern ark that is the jewel of the universe, and where automata have taken over the most humble jobs from humans. But under the surface of this pacific and orderly ark social unrest stirs, fed by the memories of a fateful purge long ago, and the inhabitants’ growing fear of being replaced altogether. Will Ophelia’s talent as a reader suffice to avoid her being lured into a deadly trap by her ever more fearful adversaries? Will she ever see Thorn, her betrothed, again?"

Finally some more answers! This third book in the series starts with another mystery for Ophelia to solve though it leads to more information about the world she lives in and why it is deteriorating. It was a little slow at first but worth the wait for the ending. And we are finally seeing Thorn and Ophelia have actual conversations, took them long enough.

The Missing of Clairdelune by Christelle Dabos

 Pages: 540

"When our heroine Ophelia is promoted to Vice-storyteller by Farouk, the ancestral Spirit of Pole, she finds herself unexpectedly thrust into the public spotlight and her special gift is revealed to all. Ophelia knows how to read the secret history of objects and there could be no greater threat to the nefarious denizens of her icy adopted home than this. Beneath the golden rafters of Pole’s capitol, Citaceleste, she discovers that the only person she may be able to trust is Thorn, her enigmatic fiancé. As one after another influential courtier disappears, Ophelia again finds herself unintentionally implicated in an investigation that will lead her to see beyond Pole’s many illusions to the heart of the formidable truth."

I feel for the main character. She gets thrust straight into the middle of the court and its intrigue and constant scheming. I am tempted to say I liked it more than the first book as we are getting more in-depth into the characters, the overall plot line and while some questions are getting answered, even more are appearing. And of course there is a cliff-hanger to get me hooked for the third book!

A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos

Pages: 468

"Plain-spoken, headstrong Ophelia cares little about appearances. Her ability to read the past of objects is unmatched in all of Anima and, what’s more, she possesses the ability to travel through mirrors, a skill passed down to her from previous generations. Her idyllic life is disrupted, however, when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, a taciturn and influential member of a distant clan. Ophelia must leave all she knows behind and follow her fiancé to Citaceleste, the capital of a cold, icy ark known as the Pole, where danger lurks around every corner and nobody can be trusted. There, in the presence of her inscrutable future husband, Ophelia slowly realizes that she is a pawn in a political game that will have far-reaching ramifications not only for her but for her entire world."

Talk about political intrigue. It is near impossible to tell a persons real motives in this book and I love it. It kept me guessing the whole time about what was going to happen. And the world being build is so interesting. There are small notes about what happened called the "Rupture" and I am hoping there are more in the next books!

A Small Charred Face by Kazuki Sakuraba

Summary: A boy name Kyo is saved from the precipice of death by Bamboo, a vampire born of the tall grasses. They start an enjoyable, yet strange shared life together, Kyo and the gentle Bamboo. But for Bamboo, communication with a human being is the greatest sin.

Kyo's story is uniquely beautiful and touching.  I found myself continually wishing I were able to read this in the original Japanese as it was occasionally obvious that something was left behind in the translation.  And while there are two additional stories in the novel, Kyo's is the best by far.   

Overall, this novel is a fresh take on 'horror' - one that is thoughtful, hopeful, and sad all at the same time.  It isn't the best book I've ever read, it's not even in the top third, but I am thankful to have read it.

3.5/5

288 pages

The Girl in the Ice; a Konrad Simonsen Thriller by Lotte and Soren Hammer

This is the second novel featuring Konrad Simonsen, a sharp but somewhat jaded Danish detective.  The novel begins with the discovery of a gruesome murder, a female victim who was strangled and buried in the ice in Greenland, who is only discovered because of melting due to global warming.  This victim's discovery leads Simonsen and his unit to reexamine some earlier cases, and a chase for a very psychotic serial killer ensues.  This is fast-paced, with good plot twists.  While set in Denmark, there is not very much feeling for the locale.  Translated, 435 pages.

The Life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo

I had heard a lot of buzz about this small book, about a different approach to 'tidying up.'  Kondo proposes that the first step in 'tidying' is to declutter by going through ALL of your possessions, from clothes and books to photos, papers, the junk drawer and your garage, and strip down to just the essentials.  There are two purposes here.  The first, it is much more pleasant and less stressful to live in an organized, 'tidy' space.  The second is that by going through this process, you will realize what is most important to you, and gain the insights needed to make big changes in the course of your life - that's the 'life-changing' part.

While this method has some unorthodox aspects, the main concept of going through the whole home within a short period of time, over 2 or 3 months, would be trans-formative and very cleansing.  Overall, I found that there was a lot of repetition in the book, which is not much more than a long journal article.  Some of the advice is a bit dangerous.  For example, she advises to discard almost all papers, from credit card statements through  appliance manuals.  That could be problematic if you are ever up for a tax audit, or need to file an insurance claim.  There are better sources to guide on what household papers need to be kept.  Good if you need inspiration for spring cleaning.  Translated from the Japanese, 204 pages

The Werewolf of Bamberg by Oliver Pötzsch

This is  the fifth book in 'The Hangman's Daughter' series. This is a mystery series; the 'detectives' are Jakob Kuisl, his daughter Magdalena and her husband Simon. Jakob is the hangman of Schongau in the 1600s. Every town in Germany has a hangman, responsible for torturing those accused of a crime until they confess - or die.

In 1668 the entire family travels to Bamberg to attend the wedding of Jakob's brother Bartholomaus. the hangman of Bamberg. On the way, their caravan is stalled by the discovery of a human arm in the river they must cross to get there. Once they arrive, they find that the town has been besieged by multiple murders; the bodies have signs of torture on them.

The town is in a panic, and decide that the murderer is a werewolf. A Witch's Commission is set up to determine who the werewolf is. The mass panic has neighbors turning against each other, and reporting suspicious behavior to the Commission.

The Kuisl family in unconvinced of the existence of werewolves, and set out to find the murderer.

 

610 pages
Translated from German by Lea  Chadeayne

The Absent One: A Department Q Novel by Jussi Adler-Olsen

The second Department Q novel finds Detective Carl Mørck working at solving a two-decade old brutal murder of a young brother and sister.  His investigation brings him into contact with a wily homeless woman and some of the most powerful captains of industry in Denmark.  How will he and his unlikely team, Assad and Rose, are pulled into an intricate puzzle of a mystery that makes the book very hard to put down.
432 pages, translated from Danish

The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz

Labeled as a 'Lisbeth Salander novel', Lagercrantz picks up the stories of the characters in the Dragon Tattoo series in what I expect will be several installments.  The plot revolves around solving a murder, the victim is involved in development of high level computer artificial intelligence, and Lisbeth had been helping him to determine who had hacked into and stolen his work, while Mikael Blomkvist was about to take his story public.  Lisbeth continues her own high level hacking, this time into the NSA files, which sets off a separate investigation. 


This new novel has an engaging plot plus some new villains and does move Lisbeth's story forward in some new directions.  It is not as complex a novel as the earlier works, but more of a fun read.  Translated from the Swedish.  400 pages

The Keeper of Lost Causes: Department Q, Book 1, By Jussi Adler-Olsen

I turned to this from a Goodreads recommendation after reading The Girl in the Spider's Web, for Jussi Adler-Olsen is a Danish author who writes intricate mysteries, just as Steig Larsson did.  This was a worthy choice.  It introduces Carl Mørck, a detective who has just survived an ambush in which one of his colleagues is killed and the other is paralyzed.  Carl hesitated a moment and did not draw his weapon, so he is wracked with guilt; the last thing he expects is a promotion, but the promotion to Department Q is really to get rid of him.  It is a department of one, save the Syrian immigrant who is assigned to clean, but there is much more to Assad than initially meets the eye.  Carl is assigned very cold cases, which no one really expects him to solve, but then they didn't really know Carl Mørck.

His first case is a female member of parliament who disappeared while on a cruise five years earlier.  It is a fine procedural detective novel with twists and turns that will keep the reader guessing until its surprising conclusion.

Translated from Danish,  416 pages

The Girl in the Spider's Web: A Lisbeth Salander novel, continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series by David Lagercrantz

For those familiar with this series, it was quite a blow for the original author, Steig Larsson to pass away after completing only three novels. It was quite a coup for David Lagercrantz to be selected to continue the series.  He is an acclaimed Swedish journalist and author and has worked as a crime reporter for Expressen; he has written several novels, including the forthcoming Fall of Man in Wilmslow. Also, he worked with international soccer star Zlatan Ibrahimović on his memoir, I Am Zlatan Ibrahimović, which was short-listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year award and was nominated for the August Prize in Sweden.
To his credit, the novel includes all of the characters and elements of the previous stories, intrigue, unpronounceable (for Americans) Swedish names and place names, technical details of computer hacking, and a cast of Russian thugs along with Bloomqvist and Salander.  While the novel does not disappoint, it also does not quite live up to Larsson's standards.  The story will hold one's attention, but, in my opinion, Bloomqvist and Salander were not up to their usual standards, and everything was resolved too neatly for my taste.  Perhaps it is better to let the series die with the original author.
416 pages, translated by George Goulding