Lightning Reviews: Fantasy, Lovecraft, & Jane Eyre

It’s time for more Lightning Reviews! This time, we have a collection of short stories inspired by the first line of Jane Eyre and a historical fantasy novel with a gorgeous cover. Plus, horror starring a former homicide detective and a descendent of H.P. Lovecraft.

Bohemian Gospel

author: Dana Chamblee Carpenter

First of all, Bohemian Gospel needs to come with a trigger warning for EVERYTHING: rape and attempted rape, domestic violence, scenes of torture, and violence to animals and children. The last one was especially hard for me and I had to skim some scenes. A lot of historical fiction can get pretty gritty (history is not pretty, ya’ll), but this book was just goddamned depressing.

Bohemian Gospel takes place in 13th century Bohemia (obvs) and follows Mouse, a young woman who was brought to an abbey as an infant. Mouse has no real name, no idea who her parents were, and some kickass supernatural abilities. She’s an adept healer and heals quickly herself. She can see people’s souls (kind of like an aura) but is troubled that she cannot see her own. She has the ability to command others into doing exactly what she wants, to the extent that when she demands a dead, half eviscerated squirrel live, it starts coming back to life. She hides these powers though as they frighten others and herself.

One day Ottakar, the future Gold and Iron King of Bohemia, shows up at the abbey injured and Mouse heals him. She’s taken with him back to court which leads to a series of events in which Mouse influences history. There’s a forbidden love between Ottakar and Mouse as well.

So this book pissed me off because Mouse is incredibly powerful. When we get the big reveal as to why, it’s a Big Reveal. This book could easily have been Mouse coming into her power, wrecking shit, and finding her agency.

It wasn’t.

Mouse largely refuses to use her power because clearly this kind of power is evil and she wants to be good and for God to love her. The theme of God abandoning Mouse and her powers being bad came up over and over and over again. I’m so sick of the trope of Woman Has Incredible Power But Must Suppress It Because Powerful Women = Evil.

Fuck. That.

I wanted Mouse to reach her breaking point at some point and just destroy stuff and be powerful and magical and awesome. Instead she remains a victim up to the last page. I’m not sure if she was supposed to be a tragic character but it was so exhausting. There’s a scene where  a man rapes Mouse and she lets him because using her power would be evil. I would have vastly preferred she turn him inside out.

The reason this book didn’t get a F was that I did find the time period and history of 13th century Bohemia interesting and something that I hadn’t read much about, but that didn’t make up for all the awful in the story.

Elyse

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Carter & Lovecraft

author: Jonathan Howard

I am huge, rabid fan of the Joannes Cabal series by Jonathan L Howard. I might be a little in love with Joannes Cabal, which is super, super fucked up. Regardless, when I saw that Howard was writing a new series with the word “Lovecraft” in it, I went “Ooooooh.”

Carter and Lovecraft acts largely as a start to the series and a platform for world building, and as such I’m inclined to cut it a little more slack than I usually do. First books in series are usually my least favorite books. At times Carter and Lovecraft suffers from slow pacing and too much exposition, but when I got about two-thirds of the way in, things ramped up considerably.

This book is part ode of Lovecraft and part noir detective fiction. Former homicide detective Daniel Carter quit his job after some Weird Shit happened. He’s working as a PI when he finds out that he inherited a small Providence, RI bookstore. He checks it out to find that the bookstore is run by all-around-badass and descendant of HP Lovecraft, Emily. The fact that Lovecraft’s direct and only descendant is a woman of color is so fucking awesome, I can’t even.

Carter and Lovecraft are drawn more deeply into a nefarious plot related to the aforementioned Weird Shit and it all ties into the works of HP Lovecraft.

One thing I loved is that Carter and Lovecraft make an excellent team. He’s all grimdark noir detective, and Emily Lovecraft is the new heroine of my heart. She keeps a sawed off shotgun under the counter of the bookstore in case she gets robbed and puts the political autobiographies in front of it because, look, if a book is gonna shot in the crossfire, it’s gonna be the political autobiographies, okay?

One thing that Carter and Lovecraft does better than a lot of other homages to Lovecraft’s writing is really capture the terror HP created. It’s not about tentacle monsters; it’s about finding out how small you are on the cosmic scale, about being rendered totally insignificant to alien and awful things. It’s about a mind-rending sense of otherness and smallness. A lot of authors just go the monster route, and I was glad to see Howard didn’t.

Like I said, this book lagged at times, but it more than made up for it at the end. Also the end was…wow. I cannot, CANNOT wait for the next book because the reveal was huge and I really think this series is going to be amazing.

Elyse

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Reader, I Married Him

author: Tracy Chevalier

Reader, I Married Him: Stories Inspired by Jane Eyre consists of twenty-one short stories. As per the title, they were inspired by Jane Eyre, but in many cases, the link is so tenuous that you would never know that the story was inspired by Jane Eyre if it weren’t placed in this anthology. There are several about interrupted weddings and unsatisfying marriages. Some stories are re-tellings of Jane Eyre from other points of view. Edward Rochester muses on life after marriage to Jane in “Reader, She Married Me” by Salley Vickers, and Grace Poole has a great deal to say about Jane in “Grace Poole Her Testimony” by Helen Dunmore. Some stories are surreal or futuristic, like “The Mirror” by Francine Prose, and “The Orphan Exchange” by Audrey Niffenegger.

While many of the stories have a bleak tone, others will gladden the heart of any romance reader. “Dangerous Dog” by Kirsty Gunn, in which a jogger uses her wits and Jane Eyre to talk a group of teenage boys out of teasing a pit bull puppy, is my new favorite story in the history of ever. I’ve chosen to review this book purely on the basis of how incredibly thrilled I am by that short story. “Robinson Crusoe at the Waterpark” by Elizabeth McCracken, and “Self-Seeding Sycamore” by Lionel Shriver are stories that have endings that surprise and delight, and “The Orphan Exchange” made my heart grow three sizes.

In all probability, you can get this book from your library and if you choose only to read the happy stories – hey, I’ll never tell. All the stories are well written, and they are inclusive in terms of the age, class, race, and sexual orientations of the characters. If you like short stories, it’s worth trying out for sure.

Carrie S

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Comments are Closed

  1. Another Kate says:

    OK – I need Reader I Married Him on my bookshelf now! Or maybe it will skip my bookshelf and go straight to my bedside table. My semester (second last of my 3-year Masters degree!) starts on Tuesday so I won’t have much time for fun reading, but short stories at bedtime would be perfect; plus Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favourite books.

  2. LML says:

    Thank you, ladies. I greatly enjoy your lightning reviews.

  3. Ang says:

    I need Carter & Lovecraft in my life. The premise is reminding me a bit of “Cast a Deadly Spell”.

  4. Teev says:

    My library just came through with my holds on Carter & Lovecraft and Lovecraft Country at the same time so it’s tentacles all the way down! I’m going to check out the Jane Eyre book (loved Jane Steele thanks for the rec!) and I’m going to remove that Bohemian Gospel book from my for later shelf because yuck. I don’t remember how it got recommended to me but I appreciate that even your lightning review gave much more info than any thing else I read about it. Definitely not my cup of tea.

  5. hng23 says:

    Bohemian Gospel was really disappointing, especially after The Big Reveal. I found the romance pretty meh too. Carter & Lovecraft is on my reserve list at the library; this is not the first time I’ve heard good things about it. Looking forward to the Austen as well, because short stories are good for travel & wait times.

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