BONE OF MY BONE, latest of Johanna van Veen's sapphic historical fiction/horror tales

BONE OF MY BONE
JOHANNA van VEEN
Poisoned Pen Press (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$19.99 paperback, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Bram Stoker Award–nominee and USA Today bestseller Johanna van Veen unveils a sapphic folk-horror tour de force—perfect for fans of The VVitch and The Salt Grows Heavy. A skull's grin is eternal…

The year is 1635.

Sister Ursula, a young nun fleeing the ruins of her convent, and Elsebeth, a sharp-witted peasant, escape a band of marauding soldiers and disappear into the Bavarian forest. War scorches the land, and no one survives it alone. Amid the devastation, they find something in the arms of a dying man: the gilded skull of a saint.

It is said that if you reunite the saint's skull with her body, a wish will be granted. Desperate for salvation, and each with secret desires of their own, Ursula and Elsebeth follow a ragged map across the blighted countryside. But darkness follows them. A necromancer, drawn to the relic's power. The saint herself, whispering at night. And as the lines between blessing and curse blur, the women must face a harrowing the magic they seek comes at a cost.

At the journey's end, they'll face an impossible choice—one that could tear apart everything they know… or bind them to each other forever.

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My Review: There is a period in History with no war. Statistically there must be.

This is not it. As usual, Religion...and religion...are at the heart of the Thirty Years' War that Author van Veen chose as her backdrop for the love between Elsebeth the canny formerly-Protestant peasant and Ursula the Catholic nun. Their meet-cute involves marauding soldiers and an unlikely act of salvation from the usual fate of women in a war. A bond formed then is unbreakable, and it helps that Elsebeth has already lost her religious faith. An odd sort of reward comes to the women for acting on human decency and female solidarity: the discovery of a first-class "holy relic" that both women understand the mythology behind (follow both links to see why that isn't unusual or anachronistic).

At that moment we leave the ordinary world behind. This is now a supernatural tale of pilgrims on a quest to perform an action for a reward. The background is war, violence, and its usual consequences for humanity caught up in it. That's the horror, and as I've said before, the kind of horror I can relate to; the supernatural horror so common in books is not scary to me because I don't believe in the supernatural or, maybe more accurately, in its innate power to act independently on reality. The women must protect the relic they've been charged with safekeeping from a necromancer who wants to use the thing to Perform Eville Acts.

It could as easily be a greedy bastard wanting to disassemble the adornments of the relic for onward sale and profit. Likewise the women's desire to protect the relic could as easily be motivated by their own need to survive, thus making returning the relic to its institutional owners for a presumably significant reward makes sense. Would change nothing, really, but the supernatural edge is used very well to heighten stakes that I myownself found entirely high enough. This is the origin of my half-star reduction in the rating: artificially (to my mind) inflating the stakes.

I genuinely enjoyed the women's love story more than any of the silly supernatural stuff. I got really invested in Ursula and Elsebeth reaching the understanding that their quest gave them the very best gift of all gifts in each others' love. It's a lovely process to follow no matter what other story beats an author uses around it. The love of same-sex couples will always garner my supportive interest in a story (see my reviews of Nicked and Recital of the Dark Verses for other examples). My joy at the women falling in love outweighed any reflexive eye-rolling at the notion of necromantic powers being able to create a kind of zombie-slave of poor Otto, for example.

I'm all in on recommending the read to my fellow queers. Author van Veen is a stylistic writing monadnock. Her eye for what makes a story compelling to a reader, not just a genre addict, is second to none. If you worry about gore and scariness in horror fiction, ,I'll tell you that I found all the trappings of horror less worrying than the awful limning of humanity's viciousness that's inherent in any story set in wartime.

Religion, the big public-facing institution, and its private-practice cousin, religion, come off poorly in this story. So y'all know going in. It's the genesis of the war being fought after all.

MUÑECA, sapphic gothic tale in 1960s Oakland

MUÑECA
CYNTHIA GÓMEZ
G.P. Putnam's Sons (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$14.99 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A vivid, surreal Gothic about a queer, Latine, working class witch who sets out to rescue a bespelled heiress and loses control of her powers and her heart in the process.

It is 1968 Oakland, and Natalia Fuentes has been hearing rumors about the beautiful Violeta Miramontes. The young heiress to Spanish colonial wealth has been left paralyzed by a mysterious illness. But Nati knows a thing or two about witchcraft, and she is certain that this is the work of dark magic.

Armed with a plan to break the spell and earn a handsome reward, Nati works her way into the house as Violeta’s caretaker, and immediately discovers her suspicions are true. But who cursed Violeta? And why?

As feelings between the two women bloom into romance, Nati grows more and more reckless, and is forced to face her own ghosts—ones she hoped would stay gone forever.

Riveting and richly layered, Muñeca explores how far one will go to save the person they love—even if that means damning themselves. Cynthia Gómez fills her debut novel with moments that chill your bones and warm your heart, a razor-sharp examination of deep-rooted issues that will haunt readers long after the last page is turned.

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My Review: Oakland, California, gets very little love in the literary world. From Gertrude Stein's famous "there is no there there" quip to this very day, Oakland is mostly just the place that's across the bay from San Francisco. This novella/short novel (under 200pp) is set there in 1968, a fraught time before Stonewall ignited the gay-rights movement but after the Black Panther Party was founded there. Oakland was bubbling and seething with the energy of change that so spectacularly fizzled out in the malaise of the 1970s.

Nati is the perfect PoV for a supernatural suspense novel set in 1968 Oakland: she's a closeted lesbian with a hidden extraordinary ability, heir to a line of women who work outside the norms of their society...their white society, the Overculture whose very definition creates or at least delineates repressive, controlling, often authoritarian conformity. Nati does not live within the Overculture's rules though she largely disappears into its strictures by hiding in plain sight. She takes her revenge on those who keep her down because she's a brown-skinned woman by nibbling at the edges, by not accepting what she must obey, by taking a bit here and there. Her chance to exact serious revenge on her late mother's former employers is her cue to grab more for herself.

Only that more proves to be the love and the essence of the family, Violeta. A trapped woman subject to a greedy man's whims, an heiress and a pawn, Violeta is the path for Nati's revenge to manifest itself in the world. Gothic hero stuff ensues as Violeta is the gothic heroine all helpless and needing rescue from a lingering death. Nati does everything she can to break Violeta out of her helplessness, using her not-ordinary familial talents and learning in a 1968 that dismisses suchlike goins-on.

The novellaness of the story shows to disadvantage here. In the rush to resolve Violeta's disability, Nati is kept very busy indeed. She's actively working her magic, she's taking responsibilities in Violeta's life, she's even willing to do the dark work of self-healing. It means I felt knackered by the end of the read, there was so much happening in a tight window of time.

It's a four-star read because I was too tired to press the button for a fifth star. I was delighted by Nati, by her craft and her craftiness. I really wanted to spend more time with her, maybe just hang out while learning about her childhood in and around the Miramontes clan when her mama worked for them, learning about her earlier life with the class divide rigidly in place.

Still and finally a solidly fun sapphic gothic tale of revenge and vengeance and avenging wrongs all happening at once.

THE CASE OF THE MISSING MAID first in the Harriet Morrow Investigates lesbian-led series

THE CASE OF THE MISSING MAID (Harriet Morrow Investigates #1)
ROB OSLER
Kensington Publishing (non-affiliate Bookshop.org link)
$22.95 ebook, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: The acclaimed author of the Anthony, Agatha, Macavity, and Lefty Award-nominated Devil’s Chew Toy delights with the first in a new historical mystery series set in turn-of-the-20th-century Chicago, as America is entering its Progressive Era and Harriet Morrow, a bike-riding, trousers-wearing lesbian, has just begun her new job as the first female detective at the Windy City's Prescott Agency...

Chicago, 1898. Rough-around-the-edges Harriet Morrow has long been drawn to the idea of whizzing around the city on her bicycle as a professional detective, solving crimes for a living without having to take a husband. Just twenty-one with a younger brother to support, she seizes the chance when the prestigious Prescott Agency hires her as its first woman operative. The move sparks controversy—with skeptical male colleagues, a high-strung office secretary, and her boss, Mr. Theodore Prescott, all waiting for her to unravel under the pressure . . .

Only an hour into the job, Harriet has an assignment: Discover the whereabouts of a missing maid from one of the most extravagant mansions on Prairie Avenue. Owner Pearl Bartlett has a reputation for sending operatives on wild goose chases around her grand estate, but Harriet believes the stunningly beautiful Agnes Wozniak has indeed vanished under mysterious circumstances—possibly a victim of kidnapping, possibly a victim of something worse . . .

With Mr. Prescott pushing a hard deadline, Harriet’s burgeoning career depends on working through a labyrinth of eccentric characters and murky motives in a race to discover who made Agnes disappear. When her search leads to Chicago’s Polish community and a new friendship in Agnes’s charming older sister, Barbara, clues scattered across the city slowly reveal just how much depends on Harriet’s inexperienced investigation for answers . . . and the deep danger that awaits once she learns the truth.

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My Review: In her very first appearance in this (hopefully) ongoing series, Harriet Morrow receives her new name, "Harry," from her first client. The slightly dotty Mrs. Bartlett insist Agnes, her maid, has disappeared without so much as a by-your-leave. Highly unusual behavior for a servant, still less for Agnes, a most responsible girl according to Mrs. Bartlett.

As mentioned, her dottiness leads Mr. Prescott to assign this tyro woman to the likely useless search for a missing maid and to assign her a "mentor" who "investigated" earlier disappearances of stuff in that house, but they turned out to be an old woman's forgetfulness misplacing the items.

This setup pays off right away in the mentor/mentee relationship setting the tone for misogyny in her new world. She does find an ally in McCabe, another very junior agent, at least in part because she's so roughly dismissed by the senior agents...and the secretaries. While Harry looks into Agnes's disappearance with the diligence one hopes to find in an investigator, she also comes across a world she did not know existed in a gay bar that Barbara (Agnes's sister) introduces her to. Not only is she doing the job for dotty Mrs. Bartlett and proving her right about Agnes, she's discovering why "Harry" felt so fight and fitting as a name for herself.

The mystery itself isn't stunningly complex or stupid-easy. I think if you like Maisie Dobbs, you'll like the mystery and its tone. It's a solidly grounded setting, one that Author Osler is at pains to show you he's researched. It's a slightly over-explained setting for my taste but it's not a huge drag on the pace of the read. The stakes are set early and tension mounts as Harry finds this simple case is the tip of a much more worrying set of crimes. You already know Harry resolves the disappearance because this is a series mystery and ma'at must be upheld.

Choosing to revolve a series opener around a lesbian awakening for your sleuth is bold for a male author. I'm not a lesbian so I don't know what Author Osler might have got wrong. Nothing stood out to me, so at least it's sure he made no catastrophic mistakes. (I hope.) I always prefer to read genre fiction that centers my QUILTBAG siblings. I'll be looking for the next entry in the series with pleasure and anticipation.

DAUGHTERS OF THE NILE, extraordinary sapphic family saga

DAUGHTERS OF THE NILE
ZAHARA BARRI
Unbound (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$6.15 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: A bold multi-generational debut novel exploring themes of queerness, revolution and Islamic sisterhood.

Paris, 1940. The course of Fatiha Bin-Khalid’s life is changed forever when she befriends the Muslim feminist Doria Shafik. But after returning to Egypt and dedicating years to the fight for women’s rights, she struggles to reconcile her political ideals with the realities of motherhood.

Cairo, 1966. After being publicly shamed when her relationship with a bisexual boyfriend is revealed, Fatiha’s daughter is faced with an impossible decision. Should Yasminah accept a life she didn’t choose, or will she leave her home and country in pursuit of independence?

Bristol, 2011. British-born Nadia is battling with an identity crisis and a severe case of herpes. Feeling unfulfilled (and after a particularly disastrous one-night stand), she moves in with her old-fashioned Aunt Yasminah and realises that she must discover her purpose in the modern world before it’s too late.

Following the lives of three women from the Bin-Khalid family, Daughters of the Nile is an original and darkly funny novel that examines the enduring strength of female bonds. These women are no strangers to adversity, but they must learn from the past and relearn shame and shamelessness to radically change their futures.

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My Review: A powerfully imagined story of how very lucky we are to be alive at this moment in world history, when even sixty lousy years ago...within my lifetime!...options for women, for gay men, and for overall independence from patriarchy were as unimaginable as escape from the divine right of kings were three hundred years ago. While this story of a family's women moving from tradition to liberation is a carefully thought-out demonstration of hurdles failed, hurdles overcome, and hurdles only now hoving into view, it has a structural weakness. Most multiple-timeline stories have this same weakness: As we move from timeframe to timeframe, focusing a different woman in each, we lose forward momentum. It takes reading time to recover the investment made within each timeframe. Yasminah is indeed a constant, though not always foregrounded, presence; this helps with, but doesn't overcome my issue.

It mattered to me because the locations should have felt different in really evocative ways...Paris, Cairo, Bristol might as well be on different planets!...but I had to refocus my emotional temperature to a new main character. I'm not trying to be unkind or dissuasive; I really enjoyed this journey through the world's astonishingly rapid growth, and equally disheartening failure to learn lessons from past failures.

It's a very inexpensive Kindlebook. I'd tell any of my women readers, especially the sapphic ones, to get this all loaded up for solidarity's sake. Your family "Togetherness" will be that much easier to bear if you read about an earlier generation's struggles. We all need to know we're not alone, and part of that is knowing we're not the first either.

It is a fine piece of writing, and of story-telling; it *just* fails at greatness for this old man reader.