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Ashley here unlike usual where Nikki takes over the request for you to join us for Virtual Book Club. I figure I should speak from my experience and tell you that yes, even Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is a surprising, weird, and twisted hero’s tale. (It’s a re-read for me! But, I’ve forgotten the plot points – it’s been over 10 years! – so it’s gonna be a new adventure, too.) So, join us, at Virtual Book Club on Friday, May 7 at 7:30 p.m. Central Time and let us know by registering here! 

Oh readers, I feel like this is a week of reconsiderations.  We didn’t do this on purpose, but what better idea to follow Knox McCoy’s All Things Reconsidered, than a hero’s journey that requires a lot of reconsidering to return home.  Among the Beasts and Briars by Ashley Poston is the tale of that journey.  I’ve read and raved about her Once Upon a Con romance series, so when her new, stand alone fantasy novel came out, I was ready!  

Among the Beasts and Briars opens with Cerys, the royal gardner’s daughter, getting ready for the coronation.  The king has passed away and now his daughter, Cerys’s best friend, is about to be crowned queen of Aloriya.  She’s preparing in the flower shop, playing with her somewhat domesticated fox, and looking forward to a brighter future, even though she’s just seen a shadow in the cursed woods.  As we follow Cerys throughout her day, we start to get glimpses of the tragedies of the past, and what the curse means for life in the Village-in-the-Valley.  Like you do in a hero’s journey, bad things happen, and Cerys must go on an adventure in an attempt to save the day.  I don’t want to tell you more about the plot, but I do want to say, I adored the ending, and even the epilogue, which dear readers, was enough!  

Poston writes a gorgeous, fantastical tale in Among the Beasts and Briars, but her passion for people, empathy, and the opportunity for growth shine through her characters.  Near the end she writes “There were no perfect kingdoms without cost, and there were no stories that were completely true-or completely false.”  I adore how this title includes a sort of prologue of the creation story of Aloriya, explaining the legend all its people know from their younger days, and, more importantly, the follow up line “It is a lie.”  Much like the history of our own nation, there are truths to it, but they aren’t complete.  Many of those stories conveniently forget the lives sacrificed (at best) to bring about this nation we want to think of as great.  And honestly, it is great, but in the midst of living in our experimental country, we forget that it is still just that, an experiment, because it is still too young to be considered anything else, even at almost 250 years old.  And we still have much to learn from the truths of our past, because first we need to acknowledge them, as a group, before we truly learn from them.  

I know we keep saying to read the acknowledgements, with good reason.  Near the end of the acknowledgements for Among the Beasts and Briars, Poston thanks two individuals “both for telling me this story is worthy and for never giving up on me when I felt like giving up on myself.  Get yourself friends who will look your depression in the eye and tell it, ‘Not today.’ ”  Oh readers, your stories are worthy, and even on the days you feel as though you’re woodcursed and it shows, you can’t give up.  I was acting like it some earlier, overthinking (yes still) several things, and I just had to stop talking because what was coming out was not good.  I powered through, I knocked a few easy wins off my to do list to build momentum, and now I’m feeling much better.  It doesn’t hurt that a chocolate milkshake is soon to be mine.  Don’t let the hard days win.  

~Nikki

Ashley Poston is the author of six books, and from what I can tell, a plethora of fanfiction – some of which, she admits, can be found on the internet. Nikki has repeatedly suggested that I read Poston’s Once Upon a Con YA Romance series. After finishing Among the Beasts and Briars – a solid 4 star read for me, those three titles, Geekerella, The Princess and the Fangirl, and Bookish and the Beast, along with her Heart of Iron and Soul of Stars YA sci-fi duology, will be jumping up the TBR as soon as I can find some time. Perhaps this summer, if once fully vaccinated I get to take an actual vacation-like trip and turn the world and its expectations off for a while. Which, it seems, is what Poston is doing in her writing career this year. On 2 December 2020 she posted this blog article that states she’s taking 2021 off from public bookish life to breathe and prep to jump into 2022 with new projects and renewed vigor. Her six books in four years have appeared on best of lists in Teen Vogue, Seventeen, Buzzfeed, and our perennial favorite, the Good Reads Choice Awards, among others. Most notably, Heart of Iron was named on 2019’s Rainbow List. Poston lives in South Carolina with her cat and plays D&D when not writing, or reading fanfic. We’ll be ready for her next project, for sure.

Among the Beasts and Briars was just what I needed in my reading life when I read it last week. I have been reading some work-heavy non-fiction books in addition to our blog titles this month. The few days it took me to read the story of Cerys, the daughter of Aloriya’s royal gardener and her journey through the cursed wildwood to save her friends and her kingdom, was the escape I needed to be refreshed in my mental space. Sometimes I don’t think I discuss enough about what the fiction I read allows me to do, which is give my brain the ability to shut off from the constant change of the real estate market and the needs of clients, and life in general to reconnect with imagination. Even if it’s the author’s imagination and not my own. It’s the breathing space to just allow myself to be. That’s what we do in this bookish life, readers, we find ourselves in the books we read, even if it’s a classically told fairy tale. I could sense some of the ‘revealing’ plot points from the very beginning of the story, but I was not turned off from the story or the characters, and there were still several surprises that were not what I had anticipated.

This is a tale of self-worth. Of not only finding it within oneself but of having people around you that see you as worthy or even more worthy than you see yourself, too. As is said of Cerys near the end of the story: “She doesn’t need a hero…she needs people who believe that she can be the hero.” Sometimes we can not see our own capabilities because we’re bogged down in our own inner muck. We need friends and family who can pull you up and out of a hole then push you higher. I have Nikki, like I said on Monday, and you should get you one of thems. (But preferably not mine, because between the males and girl that live in her house PLUS me, she’s busy All.The.Time. Sorry not sorry.)

~Ashley

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