#Seanan Maguire

[thejuniperjinx]

Good Evening, and welcome to my nonsense blog where I don't know what to talk about! Today, I am once again reviewing the book I just finished!!

This is book 5 for the year, if we aren't counting novel length fanfics, and was not part of a reading challenge.

Lost in the Moment and Found is the eighth book in Seanan Maguire's Wayward Children series, and all of them have been phenomenal thus far. Well, most of her books are Amazing, lol.

This is another lovely installment about a child searching to fulfill a need. Antsy runs from a scary situation into an adventure, that turns out not to be as fun as it could be. In this story, you find a diverse cast, interesting settings, a distinctly wondrous feel to the world that the author has created. It's definitely a hard look at society making girls grow up too soon, as well as a plea to use what time we are given wisely. While not as plot drenched as some of the earlier installments in the series, it adds a flair and more backstory to the world of The Wayward Children.

[halflingkima]

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[grayintogreen]

Hey, random question but I saw a Seanan Maguire book in a bookshop yesterday (I think it’s a new one?), and I know that’s your thing, so out of interest would you have any recommendations for starting with her stuff?

OH BOY TRAP CARD ACTIVATED.

I think it mostly depends on what you’re into? Like, she has a HUGE bibliography and every story is different.

Her series are all very worldbuilding heavy, especially the longer ones, so if you want to start with something meaty and like detective novels and fey, the October Daye series is my favorite. Her other long series is InCryptid, which is about a family of Cryptozoologists. (I’ve only read the first two books of this one but I know I love it. I just suck at reading sometimes.)

Her Alchemical Journeys series is releasing its third book this summer, and it’s a weird little series are people who are the personifications of abstract concepts (the first book is about a pair of twins who are the personification of words and numbers; the second is about a couple racing to become the personification of Winter and Summer before the other candidates kill them). The first book (Middlegame) is bar-none my favorite book of hers.

Her Wayward Children series is a good stepping stone for getting into her, as they’re short, easy reads. They deal with the consequences of what comes after a portal fiction story and go into very real, very visceral childhood traumas. They’re both dark and yet very happy at times and honestly probably had the biggest influence on LitMoR.

She also writes sci-fi under the name Mira Grant and my god every science fiction she writes IS HEAVY on the science. Her zombie (Feed) series shows its work on epidemiology and my personal favorite Into the Drowning Deep is HEAVY with oceanography worldbuilding.

I also highly recommend her short fiction. If you have an ebook reader, you can get Laughter at the Academy, which collects a lot of her best works. (Also Final Girls and Invincible are amazing novellas bir are ebook-only.)

Hopefully that helps?? She’s a very eclectic writer and she has a HUGE collection of stories and puts out 3-5 new ones every year.

[averagegirlie]

I don't think you're black.....I think that you're Seanan Maguire or Saladin Ahmed using digital blackface and sockpuppet accts to attack Ghostflower shippers....DO BETTER

You sound fucking stupid 🤣🤣🤣 y’all really think y’all know something 😭 and ion gotta prove shit to y’all milk menaces’.

NEXT CALLER ‼️‼️‼️

[sprnklersplashes]

god i absolutely agree about your take on asexual characters. it is a rare enough occurrence but even when we get asexual characters they never get treated with such appreciation as the characters they get to ship with someone. people are just so obsessed with sex, they never can see the connection there can be with platonic or even romantic relationships without any other intentions. it is so annoying, i just want to read something relatable but there's so little well written ace characters :(

no for real! and ace characters are held to a much higher standard than non-ace characters (ie. "this character didn't explicitly say they were ace/aro so it's not completely canon"/"this character being ace would be bad bc they're too young/gay coded/autistic coded/whatever"). i feel like ace/aro people are constantly fighting to protect what little representation they have because some people view canon ace/aro characters as an attack on their shipping liberties or something.

like idk being aroace in fandom can be so tiring sometimes.

on another note, if you're looking for good ace representation, I'll always recommend solitaire and loveless by alice oseman (the main character in solitaire isn't explicitly ace in the book but she's coded and alice has confirmed it), and every heart a doorway by seanan maguire. also radio silence by alice oseman has demisexual representation!!

[ijustkindalikebooks]

Am I writing this on New Year's Day at 1am? Yes.

It's been a wild year, 2023 truly the best of times, the worst of times, Dickens was on to something there.

I had three five star reads in my final month of the year and I hope you can check them out and enjoy them as much as I did.

(Also please keep in mind what's going on in Gaza and if you can donate to MSF or The Red Cross, please do and PLEASE keep calling for a ceasefire, there are plenty of templates online right now to contact your rep/MP to ensure your voice is heard).

Lost In The Moment And Found by Seanan Maguire - I don't think this author has ever failed me when it comes to five star books. Lost In The Moment And Found is the most recent installment of The Wayward Children series. We see Antsy runaway from home and end up in a shop where all the things are lost end up, seeing her grow up and see through a new portal. There's something about Maguire that enables her to drop you into a scene and create tension, create joy and create drama like no other author, and in so few pages. An incredible addition to the series.

The Theory Of Everything Else by Dan Schreiber - A book packed with ridiculous beliefs and 'facts' to people from speaking Dolphinese to people who believe the Titanic sank because too many time travellers arriving to watch sank it, this book made me laugh out loud reading it and left me astounded at what this author describes 'batshit' theories. It's a fantastic book, and one that I'm not shocked a QI Elf wrote at all. I highly recommend it, so glad I got it for Christmas and started on it as soon as possible.

Dear Dolly by Dolly Alderton - A compilation of columns from her Telegraph Style column, Dear Dolly leaves you thinking about something or at least gives you something that can help a friend in need and sometimes, like myself both. I saw it in the same vein as Cheryl Strayed's Fragile Beautiful Things but with a little more for me connection (I'm a millenial, I can't help it). Incredible insights told with humour and warmth, it's a great quick read that I highly recommend an audiobook (though the audio is slow, so if you hate that speed it up).

What did you read in December? Feel Free to message and if you need a recommendation or a question answered, feel free to inbox me.

Happy new year, my friends.

Vee xo.

[rubyvroom]

Books I read in 2022

I cannot possibly remember every book, so I'm missing some, but looking at my bookshelves this is what I was able to come up with.

This year: almost no non-fiction, almost all new books. During the early phase of the pandemic I got super into manga, which cut into my prose reading time, so there are fewer books here than in previous years.

The best ones

Circe - I got it for Christmas last year and I read it in about 2 days because I could not put it down. Beautiful writing, excellent restaging of The Odyssey, everything I ever wanted 10/10

The Song of Achilles - After finishing Circe I bought this at Shakespeare and Company when I was in Paris and it actually distracted me from my trip a little bit because again, could not put it down. Madeline Miller owns my soul. Circe was better though.

The Locked Tomb - maybe the only time I have ever gone back and re-read the entire series before a book came out instead of just telling myself I would re-read the entire series before the new one came out and then forgetting to and being too impatient to not read the new book straight away. It was really a blast reading all The Locked Tomb back-to-back and I had a great time with Nona The Ninth as a result. All in all probably my best reading experience this year, actually.

I'm Glad My Mom Died - I read the Jeanette McCurdy book mostly on the plane to go spend Christmas with my family, which was a choice. It is not at first what you expect from the title. It's smarter than that. This book is really exceedingly cleverly written in such a way to suck you in and get you having a good time despite how daaaaaaaaark it is in there. Re the abusive mom and child actor tell-all: as bad as you think this will be, it's actually worse. But the pov is so well done and in such a way that you really grok that this girl does not understand how fucked up things are, while making absolutely sure that you as the reader understand exactly how fucked up things are. That is not an easy balance to do well and she makes it look easy. I hope this girl's life is uneventful ever after and that she writes more books, I think she could be a fabulous writer.

Everything else

(Everything I list here I enjoyed at least enough to finish. If I'm not enjoying something I won't get very far into it, and I'm not counting those here. I'm also about partway into 6-8 more books, but those will count for 2023)

The Circle - Dave Eggers Where the Drowned Girls Go - Seanan Maguire Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro Finna - Nino Cipri Hallucinations - Oliver Sacks Miyazakiworld - Susan Napier Remote Control - Nnedi Okorator Cloud Cuckooland - Anthony Doerr Last Exit to Brooklyn - Hubert Selby Jr Seasonal Fears - Seanan Maguire What Makes This Book So Great - Jo Walton The Past is Red - Catherynne M. Valente A Prayer for the Crown-Shy -- Becky Chambers Fugitive Telemetry (A Murderbot Book) - Martha Wells Revenant Gun - Yoon Ha Lee The Ten Thousand Doors of January - Alix Harrow Black Sun - Rebecca Roanhorse It Came From the Closet - Various (queer horror analysis anthology) Empire of Gold - S.A. Chakraborty

Graphic novels and manga are another post bye

[goodbyenorthernlights]

Books Read in 2022

To Sir Philip, With Love by Julia Quinn (Reread)

History and Human Survival by Robert Jay Lifton*

10 Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn (Reread)

Stardust by Neil Gaiman (Reread)

Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: The Don Rosa Library Vol. 1 (GN)

Albert Einstein: A Graphic History of the Father of Modern Physics by Ned Hartley (GN)

Heroes of Flight Who Changed the World by Jade Sarson (GN)

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

Just Like Heaven by Julia Quinn (Reread)

How to be Ace by Rebecca Burgess (GN)

Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander

Tower of Treasure by Scott Chantler (GN)

The Faerie Path by Frewin Jones

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block

Middlegame by Seanan Maguire

The Disgraceful Mr. Ravenhurst by Louise Allen (Reread)

The Other Country: Legends and Fairy Tales of Scotland Retold by Marion Lochhead

All the Ways Home by Elsie Chapman

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

The Perfect Stranger by Anne Gracie

Gallant Waif by Anne Gracie

The Last Wicked Scoundrel by Lorraine Heath

Civilization on Trial by Arnold J. Toynbee

The Grave Robber’s Apprentice by Allan Stratton

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

*This particular book I think I actually mostly read in 2021, then had to return it to the library and finish it later, because it is a fairly dense history-philosophy type book and those go down slowly with me.

[casadegatos]

werid asks: 1 4 12 27 29

1. I have many comfort characters as it happens. Edmund Reid (naturally), Rick and Ilsa (Casablanca), Richard Jury (detective series by Martha Grimes. He's a lovable grouch), October "Toby" Daye (Book series by Seanan Maguire), Jim Rockford (The Rockford Files).

4. Cryptid I believe in? Well, cryptid I want to be real is the Loch Ness Monster

12. Today is a rainy, stormy, watch old movies kind of day. Nice because it's no longer over 100 degrees fahrenheit

27. I usually get 8-9 hours of sleep. I love sleeping.

29. My shower water is hot af.

[axlaru]

Someone make a spiders georg style meme about seanan maguire and her pen names

[thejuniperjinx]

Book 13 of 2023

Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan Maguire

This is the first book in one of my absolute favorite series. An American legend, wrapped in a unique magic system, and a ghost story all in one. Main character Rose Marshall, the Prom Dress Ghost, the Girl in the Green Silk Gown, tells us her story in her own words, scattered through the short tales that make up the chapters in this book. The side characters she is surrounded by are intriguing and tale worthy themselves, from the WW2 era teenager, to the banshee proprietor of her favorite diner. This novel's has a deep love for the American highway, road trips, and the kind of magic you earn only by putting miles behind you. It makes me want to just hop in the car and go until the road runs out. And it is only the first in the trilogy.

[asecondglassofcinnamonwine]

Haunted Nights edited by Ellen Datlow and Lisa Morton

My fifth Datlow, this one centered around Halloween horror stories. Familiar names: Seanan Maguire, Stephen Graham Jones, Garth Nix, Jeffrey Ford, Brian Evenson and Pat Cadigan.

And of course I had to save the spookiest one for last, and finish it when it’s pitch-black outside. Congratulations to you, John Langan - Bad Agatha will haunt my dreams tonight.

[st-just]

tinker-tanner

So Seanan Maguire is, like, a good author? I just follow her Tumble because I like the posts, I never tried to see whether any of her books were good

Wait, she’s on tumblr? I thought they banned all the famous people. 

But, I mean, I am just over 300 pages into one book of the...christ there’s 14 pages in the Goodreads category, so I’ll go with ‘of the many, many books she’s written.  So, like, not even close to an informed opinion, and with that many I’d assume at least one of them’s bad? (And most of them seem to be from long running series which means the chance I ever get around to actually trying them are fairly slim). 

But yes, anyway, I am a shade over halfway into Middlegame, because it was nominated for a Hugo and I am a mindless drone who allows my betters to determine my tastes. But it really is a lovely read so far! It vaguely reminds me of Prachett, most likely on account of the sardonic narration and the fairytale sensibilities, but the prose is just a real delight to read (I’ve got a dozen or so paper scraps sticking out marking passages I liked as I read them, anyway). It does cute/interesting things with style and format which would make it an absolute nightmare to adapt to any other medium, which is always a plus to me. Both the leads are likeable and extremely easy to get invested in, the three major supporting characters are well drawn and engaging, and the plot is engaging enough that I have to force myself to stop and put it down instead of reading it in one hazy 8-hour stretch and remember absolutely no details the next morning. 

So, short answer: yes?

[lgbtqreads]

Fave Five: Books with Biromantic Asexual MCs Let’s Talk About Love by Claire Kann (m/f YA Romance) Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan Maguire (Crossover Fantasy) Belle Revolte by Linsey Miller (YA Fantasy) Thaw by Elyse Springer (f/f Romance) Beyond the Black Door by A.M. Strickland (YA Fantasy)

[alliandra]

Wayward Children Series (5*)

Wayward Children Series (5*)

Books: Down Among the Sticks and Bones; In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire

As may be gathered from my previous reviews, I am a big fan of this series so this is me finally getting round to reading books 2 and 4 (I started with book 1: Every Heart a Doorway and then jumped to book 3: Beneath the Sugar Sky because of the Hugo nomination last year).

Down Among the Sticks and Bones

The thought that…

[sunspotery]

So having read the blurb for the new Toby Daye book...

Tybalt: Showing up after a few weeks healing in the Court of Cats

Several things: On fire

Quentin and May: Desperately trying to stop things being on fire

Some ancient and important Fae: Overthrown/Dead/Disgraced

Toby: Covered in her own blood

Toby: I thought you were never ever coming back...so I panicked.