Heart Wants Books

The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

March 17, 2022

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Are you wondering what to read when there are two whole months between Virtual Book Club Meetings? Well, may we suggest considering some of our favorite titles perhaps from 2021, 2020, or 2019? You could also deep dive the upcoming (or previous) author. That’s what I’ve been trying to do – dive into another Alyssa Cole book, but the rest of my reading life hasn’t worked out to give me space around blog titles (and Ashley might say that’s my penance for avoiding a book by our last book club author – correction – she said comeuppance). Whether you need more titles or not (and slide on into our DMs if you do), we hope you’ll join us on Friday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m. CST when those who sign up here will be discussing Alyssa Cole’s When No One is Watching. If you do take our advice and read a past favorite, or another by a Virtual Book Club author, we’ll take a few minutes to discuss those too, so take note!

Genevieve Gornichec from GenevieveGornichec.com

Darling Readers, this week we’re channeling a little bit of that October vibe in our choice to read The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec. It would have made an excellent choice as a witchy month title, but it makes an even better selection for Mythology in March. The Witch’s Heart is Gornichec’s 2021 debut novel, though Goodreads has her listed as an author in several anthologies, including Beneath Yggdrasil’s Shadow: Forgotten Goddesses of Norse Mythology. Gornichec earned her degree in history from The Ohio State University and “got as close to majoring in Vikings as she possibly could.” Her extensive knowledge of the Norse sagas is apparent in every sentence of Angrboda’s story. So is Gornichec’s love for her characters and the mythological places they inhabit. The Witch’s Heart won a American Library Association Alex Award this year, which is given to adult books that have special appeal to young adults aged 12-18.

In full transparency, the knowledge that I have about Norse mythology is garnered second hand. I haven’t ever read the sagas in translation or a retelling of the stories in any form, not a novel or even a collection of tales about the lives of the gods, goddesses, monsters, and other inhabitants of the Nine Worlds. (Not even the middle grade Magnus Chase series by Rick Riordan that I OWN… I know I’m slacking.) American Gods is the closest I have for background going into reading The Witch’s Heart. Well, and Marvel movies, but they don’t explain the Nine Worlds in a way that can directly relate to an historical Norse tale.

I’m going to share with you the first paragraph of the marketing copy from Goodreads because if it doesn’t grab your attention then you’re not into books about witches enough and you need to focus hard this coming October for us to change your mind:

“Angrboda’s story begins where most witches’ tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love.”

Deep in the Ironwood of Jotenheim, Loki returns Angrboda’s pierced heart to her. And every time he visits her in her hidden, protected cave, over many lifetimes of humans, her feelings and appreciation for him grows. This is a long, slow process, and there was a little struggle on my part as the reader to understand that this ‘getting to know you phase’ would be very important for all of the action that happens in the latter half of the book. If you take a good look at the cover, you’ll notice in the artist’s knotwork that there are three figures: a woman, a wolf, and a snake. These are Angrboda and Loki’s children together; what I figure is that they are the physical representations of the three times that Angrboda was burned in punishment by Odin, a gift of love given in return by Fate. The thing I love most about Angrboda is that she’s the end result of a whole lot of inner work that has been done. She loves her friends, her husband, and her children exactly as they are and as they present themselves to the world. She does not pass judgment on their choices because she knows she can not control them, as much as she tries to protect each of them from the gods that burned her thrice. She is the perfect Stoic, accepting what happens, accepting the choices that her people make, while also creating herself into who she wants to be in the world given her circumstances.

I’m going to give Gornichec’s debut The Witch’s Heart a 3.5 rounded up to 4 star rating. I loved Angrboda. I loved how she loved her people and her ‘give no cares but take no crap’ way of life. Once I got into the cadence of the writing and the storytelling, I read through the book in just a few sittings, not feeling the need to take breaks or getting bored with reading (as I had been a bit during our recent YA binge).

What recent fictional character made you want to be more like them?

~Ashley

TL;DR Summary: Once more with feeling, and a bit of a reading rut on the side.

We joke around a lot about books and claiming characters we’d like to hang out with IRL, and Angrboda is another to add to the list (and there are more in The Witch’s Heart, but Loki isn’t on my list). Ashley summarized the plot beautifully and also the character that makes this book shine so brightly – “she’s the end result of a whole lot of inner work that has been done.” Like other female perspectives on ancient mythology, this book is so much more than that. It’s about relationships, both blood and chosen, and acceptance of self and others, and the power of words. It’s also about living your truth and supporting others as they live theirs. Angrboda doesn’t expect anything from anyone except their truth, and at the same time, she’ll defend her children with everything in her, and anything she can grasp at too, and that is just gorgeous to read, even if a bit boring at first.

Yes darling readers, I’m using the b-word to describe a book I will be recommending and I appreciate Ashley commenting on struggling with the “getting to know you phase.” I’m going to share my truth with you. I’ve been in a bit of a reading rut. With some extra busyness in the past few weeks, I’ve just been slower than usual, and than I’d prefer, and we didn’t break up our YA reading enough, and I’ve just been more distractable than usual, so it’s been a struggle. To be more specific, I usually read two books a week. On the page, I’ve finished one book, ONE, in the last month that wasn’t for a blog review. (If I’m counting all books, it’s two, the second was on audio. Still, this is half of my usual…ugh.)

Now, I want to caveat my b-word usage. The first half of the book is slow because it is setting up a convoluted situation with a complex backstory. It’s a lot, AND, it’s necessary even if my reading rut self found it adding to my struggle. Here’s the important part: THE SECOND HALF MAKES UP FOR IT in such a glorious way! I read the second half of the book in two days (while cuddling with my she-wolf in fact), which is about my usual pace, and I’ve been on pace since finishing! Yes darling readers, the first half is a ton of set up and it feels so quiet, but you need it to be able to hang with the wondrous second half! I’m giving The Witch’s Heart 3.5 stars, and I’m rounding up because it’s a debut that’s really well done and it got me out of my reading rut. I’m not likely to reread, but I am likely to put anything else Genevieve Gornichec cares to write for us on my TBR list (and on hold) quite quickly!

What’s a book that’s surprised you?

~Nikki

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Book Review•Mythology

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

March 10, 2022

I do adore when issues of real life show up on the page. I didn’t realize gentrification was a part of Alyssa Cole’s When No One is Watching when it was selected for Virtual Book Club’s discussion on Friday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m. CST for those who sign up here, but I’m even more excited now. As my community is discussing how to develop land that was farmed for generations but now being sold off (mostly to developers), the for sale signs and condos popping up along with a walking tour seems also very real. Will this book help me be able to verbalize my feelings about these issues? We’ll see, but it’ll be a fun ride regardless, and we do so hope you’ll join us!

It’s confession time darling readers! I started this book remembering nothing about our titular character beyond her facilitating Thesus’s escape (that part I had down), and him being a jerk after (with no details). Perhaps it’s a wonder I remembered that much from middle school, or perhaps I should have asked my dear friend Google before I started. I’m sure Ashley will have feelings and let me know. Regardless, I’m not sad I just dove into this stunning debut with only a partial memory of the original myth.

Ariadne is one of many recent books looking at the ancient myths from the perspectives of someone other than the (male) hero. Madeline Miller has two amazing examples of that and we covered more last year in our Mythology month as well. What I find particularly compelling about Ariadne is that she knows from the start the patriarchy is out to use her, and so are the gods. Both men and gods are all about how women can serve their ends without any consideration of their personage. And in both cases, women are at the mercy of others for their well-being, and their freedom. Ariadne and her little sister, Phaedra, both tell their stories in this book, from the birth of the Minotaur through the end. These two women experience so much that feels so familiar to me and women I love and it’s heartbreaking to see how the only noticeable progress has been in the last century or so. And yet, I’m so delighted to have been reading this title on International Women’s Day.

According to Jennifer Saint, Ariadne is a novel “with sisterhood at its core” and while I agree, I think it’s broader than indicated. I think it’s the sisterhood of all women who are treated as only pawns in the games of men and gods. While Ariadne and Phaedra are without a doubt the central figures, who are so similar and yet so different, there are also their mother Pasiphae, the maenads of Dionysus, and other women of mythology whose stories Ariadne uses to make her point of the plight of women and her desire to simply be treated as a full person.

I don’t know that I’ll reread Ariadne because, well written as it is, I need stories of women making someone else pay the price, which isn’t easily found in the ancient myths of Greece and Rome, even when they’re told from the woman’s perspective. I will be looking out for more from Jennifer Saint, just as I will be looking out for more retellings that take a new perspective on these familiar tales. I’m giving Ariadne 3.5 stars and rounding up to 4. The story is so well done, but there were a couple of places where I wanted more on the page. If you’re interested in mythology, retellings, or tales of strong women fighting the good fight, Ariadne earns her place on your TBR list.

What’s a book whose theme spoke to you across time and space?

~Nikki

Y’all know that the real and true reason we have a themed month for Mythology is because I’m obsessed and this is a way to knock out a goodly portion of my TBR. To let my demons run free, so to speak, and into the wild to be shared with the world. I feel like those are the same reasons why Jennifer Saint wrote Ariadne, her debut novel. And, it’s probably the same reason why Elektra is scheduled for release in early May of this year. I say ‘feel’ and ‘probably’ when I am 95% sure that’s the reason because her biography says she was obsessed with Greek mythology as a child. She spent 13 years as a high school English teacher but is now a full time writer who lives in Yorkshire, England with her husband and two children.

There’s this thing about Mythology, especially that of the ancient Greek and Roman variety, that the stories were first told orally so that now all we have left are some dead white dude’s interpretations of the tales. Dead white dude authors work for the Classics, obviously, and we try to bring you a spectrum of mythologies but that’s not what we’re talking about today. There are eleven dead white men who mention Ariadne, and each of them gives differing and sometimes conflicting details about her life. Most often she is a princess, daughter of King Minos of Crete. Sometimes just the wife of Dionysus, sometimes the means by which Theseus defeats the Minotaur, and sometimes THEN becomes the wife of Dionysus. It’s truly no surprise that Nikki doesn’t remember anything except Minotaur, Labyrinth, and Theseus being a d… typical male of his time…. But, Saint takes all these details and then some to tell a cohesive tale using multiple ancient sources. Truly, it is something I had wanted to do since college, and moved a Classical library’s worth of translated sources around so that one day I could tell the tales of the women barely mentioned in the myths but so pivotal to the plots. I digress, but it’s important to note I do not have those books any longer because I decided if I needed them in the future I can get them from my library (or open source on the internet).

It’s hard to ‘avoid spoilers’ in a story that has been around for literally thousands of years, but I also realize that the majority of people reading this blog have not been mythology obsessed since high school so I’m going to avoid discussing plot. But, wikipedia is also linked above and gives a pretty good synopsis of what’s gonna happen. Saint just puts us into the minds and hearts of Ariadne and Phaedra – both sister’s stories are told in first person narration. Their experiences from their family of origin, how those traumas (hello their demigoddess mother rutted with a holy bull to conceive their half-brother the Minotaur) formed their view of the world and the desires for their lives. Each sister achieves the life she voices dreaming of as a child, but neither of their lives’ outcomes are as they had expected. And, isn’t that what happens to many women? That we are given or create these narrative stories of wanting our lives to be a certain way, find a way to create it, then years down the line realize there are missed expectations and things we never realized could happen or things that have changed even though the relationship seems to check all the boxes we had desired from the beginning. I got a little heavy there but it doesn’t mean it’s not true of us and it was certainly true of Ariadne.

I, like Nikki, was reading this 4 star reviewed book on International Women’s Day (March 8th every year!). I’m glad that I was reintroduced to Ariadne’s and Phaedra’s characters and involvement in Greek mythology, and can’t wait to dig into Saint’s tale of Elektra, daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon when it arrives on my holds list later this spring.

Do you ever realize that you once had a dream or goal that someone else has come to birth into the world and you love that they did it, like they had done it just for you?

~Ashley

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First Monday•Mythology

Mythology in March

March 7, 2022

Do you get stuck in a reading rut sometimes? We do, as we spent most of January and February accidentally reading mostly YA. March will be different, as you’ll see below, and April, well, there will be at least one thriller, among other fun titles, and as we adore Alyssa Cole, When No One is Watching felt like the way to go for our Virtual Book Club on Friday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m. CST for those who sign up here. You are all formally invited to join us on this informal adventure!

Surprise, darling readers, but this month’s intro is brought to you by the mythology obsessed half of our little blog. That’s right, y’all, Ashley here with a Mythology in March change up from Mythology in May with a little Women’s History Month theme mixed in for flavor. None of this should come as a surprise, but as we were placing mythology themed books on deck for March, covering a different mythological culture for each book, it just so happened that all our titles were written by women featuring female main characters. It was, truly, a happy little accident, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to bring you our opinions on these books.

We started the month visiting a fantastical version of ancient Persia with Girl, Serpent, Thorn, and in the upcoming weeks we’ll be metaphorically traveling to ancient Greece, the ancient Norselands, the Indian subcontinent, and ancient China. As you know we find it very important to bring you books written by and about persons of differing cultures than our own. We also love a good theme (OK, I love a good theme) and to be honest we were struggling to find a book about a diverse mythology that is written by a man. WE know that we gravitate towards female authors and so make a point of trying to include books by male authors each month. Even though it was a struggle this month (as it is most months, to be honest), we got over ourselves a little bit because March is Women’s History month. We brought you a heavy Women’s History Month theme last year so we’re switching it up with something we hope is less intense on the feels and heavier on the escapism. [Nikki here: This feels…overly ambitious as myths are typically intense, but we’ll see.] So far, I feel like we’ve delivered! I am also proud of us for bringing you titles that have been published in the past five years, because reading through our TBRs is hard. Additionally, there’s only one author whose works we have read and reviewed before and this feels like another big win for diversity on the blog.

Without further ado, here are the five titles you can expect this month:

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust (post here)

Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec

Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan

~Ashley & Nikki

PS: We would like to remind you that we can send you an email whenever a new blog post is published! So enter your email in the box to the right and we promise that we’ll keep your email address private to us for blog posts and virtual book club shenanigans only! Ok, and maybe an impressive book sale too, but private to us for sure!

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Book Review

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust

March 4, 2022

If you’re wanting to read outside of your bookish comfort zones, let us help you! Virtual Book Club is one way we can do that. If you love thrillers or don’t know them well (or even if you hate them), you’re invited to join us in reading When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole. We’re staying in our “Alyssa Cole” comfort zone, but into the “thriller” zone, which is not so comfy for us. Come along on this reading journey with us and sign up here to see how it all shakes out on Friday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m. CST!

“There was and there was not” a theme in mind, a set of books on hold, and an interesting way of arriving at the selection of today’s book to be shared with you. Let’s journey through and see when you pick up on the theme since these months are not leading with Mondays recently so we’re a bit discombobulated, sort of like Soraya. In Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust, Soraya cannot be touched, lest she kill any living being who touches her. She’s been this way since she was a baby, and she’s grown now, twin sister to the Shah, but hidden away because she can’t move through the court, or through life, as her brother does, as everyone else does. The book is her story, and as in most amazing books they take me back to psychology 101 and a favorite phrase of my professor – “Things are complex.” This story is complex, and layered, which is one of my most favorite things.

I want to say more about Girl, Serpent, Thorn, but I also don’t. The marketing copy says a smidge more, if you want to go that route, but as usual, I find the author’s notes have the real gems. The story is inspired by the Shahnameh, the legendary Persian epic that tells the history of the Persian Empire and was completed in the early eleventh century. Two thirds of the Shahnameh is rooted in myth and legend, rather than actual history, like the last third. Bashardoust used the first section as the inspiration for the world of this novel, and it’s rich in descriptions that remind me very much of my beloved Winternight Trilogy in feeling, even if not in tone. As in that text, we have a young woman who is living in a restricted environment, and through the story she finds herself, and not who they told her she was, or who she longed to be, but her true self, and her place in her complex world of demons, court, and lies. This isn’t just Soraya’s story though, it’s also the story of her mother as a girl, then a young mother, and eventually the woman Soraya knows. Just as in The Red Tent, this story of a woman needs to start with the story of her mother. What a happy little accident that this story rooted in the complexity of these women and other females is the title leading us into Women’s History Month. While that wasn’t a factor in selecting our books for this month, I suspect we may find several titles are a great fit.

I’m giving Girl, Serpent, Thorn 3.5 stars and rounding up to 4. Bashardoust paints a gorgeous picture of a complex world and tells a fantastic story. She exposed me to new ideas and myths both through the story and the author’s notes, which are a treasure trove of explanations about where the pieces of her world come from in Persian myths. Bashardoust also gets some of the biggest life goals, which is to be at peace, and to be loved, thorns and all. I’m not likely to reread this, but I’m very interested in Bashardoust’s writing now, backlist and anything else that comes after.

~Nikki

Melissa Bashardoust by Teresa Marie Photography from MelissaBashardoust.com

It’s a little strange to admit that Nikki and I read an author’s sophomore novel before the debut. Mostly because we read a lot of series and duologies and obviously those need to be read in order, but we usually hear about a debut novel first. I will also admit that I’m surprised that I didn’t hear about Melissa Bashardoust’s debut novel, 2017’s Girls Made of Snow and Glass, until researching this blog post. I enjoyed Girl, Serpent, Thorn, Bashardoust’s 2020 release, so very much that Girls Made of Snow and Glass is officially on the TBR. I’m excited to add a feminist retelling of Snow White to the always growing list, even if it is a YA title. Bashardoust lives in Southern California “with a cat named Alice and more copies of Jane Eyre than she probably needs.”

Back to that whole adding YA to my TBR list, remember how I was a little burned out by YA these past few weeks. I don’t know what it was about Girl, Serpent, Thorn but even having read it during what feels like Heart.Wants.Books YA Extravaganza 2022, I was sucked in and kept wanting more for and about Soraya. It might have been the exotic locale of ancient Persia, the constant battles with the Divs – demons sent by the Destroyer to terrorize humans, or according to Soraya herself (and many times because of the simple decisions she makes and the complex siutations she places herself in), she is the monster in her own tale. I loved being privy to her inner monologue and decision making even though the book is written in the third person. It’s the genius of an excellent author who can make you feel like you’re reading first person point of view, even when you’re not!

Nikki mentions above about how a woman’s story always begins with her mother, and since I discussed generational trauma over dinner with a dear friend from childhood this evening, I would feel remiss if I didn’t discuss Soraya’s trauma and how it began with her mother. I think the greatest problem for Soraya and Tahmineh was how Tahmineh communicated with her daughter in fables rather than in memories. I don’t want to say too much and spoil the book, because it is glorious and a 4 star review from me, but these two women need some therapy for sure.

We know Nikki appreciates a good trainwreck…So, what book did you just have to keep reading because of the relationship drama, particularly between family members, not lovers?

~Ashley

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