Lydia Schoch

December 12, 2024 · 1:00 am

Winter Solstice Delights: A Review of Midwinter Magic and Mayhem

Title: Midwinter Magic and Mayhem

Author: edited by Frances Evelyn

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: October 15, 2022

Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Holiday, Romance, Contemporary, Historical

Length: 199 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb:

Short stories for the darkest of nights
Midwinter fantasy from award-winning fantasy authors

Witches, demons, spirits and ghosts haunt these pages, tricking, trapping and seducing unwary mortals. Humans, meanwhile, are wielding magic and the spirits for their own ends, with no guarantee of good intentions or great success. Along the way, God and Lucifer wash their hands of us all.

Real-world and epic fantasy rub shoulders with fantasy romance and horror in this new collection of short stories by much-loved authors. Ration yourself to one a night to colour your dreams or binge through them all in search of your next favourite series.

Why so cheap? What’s the catch?
Don’t you worry about that. Just put out your hand and let us take you into the chill of a winter night. What could possibly go wrong?

Content Warning: Migraines. Ancient curses and ancient blessings. Characters drinking alcohol. Hypothermia. Death. I will not discuss any of these topics in my review.

Review:

Prepare for something delightful.

Galyna received warnings in her dreams from one of her ancestors about various forms of danger that were threatening her and those she loved “The Horse Woman.” This was something established pretty early on on in the storyline, so I don’t consider it a spoiler. What I found interesting about this tale is that Galyna’s ancestor had lived so many generations ago that nobody in the family knew anything about her other than these few sparse facts. Imagine getting warnings from someone so far back in one’s family tree. Where the storyline went from there surprised me and made it difficult to stop reading. What creativity! I’d read an entire book about these characters if such a thing existed.

“Daisy” showed what happened when Janie decided to adopt an odd little stray cat that showed up in her garden one autumn. There are so many details of this story that I can’t share without giving away the plot twists, but what I can say is that I loved Janie’s compassion for her new pet no matter how strange life became for the two of them. One of my all-time favorite tropes involves ordinary people performing acts of kindness for those who can’t possibly repay them. There is something so wholesome about someone who simply wants to make the world a better place in whatever small ways they can without any expectations of being noticed or thanked, and I don’t think I’ll ever grow tired of reading about these quiet, sweet moments that happen regularly both in fiction and and in real life.

One of the things that frightens me the most about winter is the possibility of getting stuck outdoors in the cold for too long. After Jessica’s car died, she became so hypothermic she fell asleep and then woke up in a bizarre bar in ‘The Spirit of Winter.” Due to the dangerous beginning of this story, I was pleasantly surprised by where it meandered off to after Jessica’s exposure to the cold weather began to affect her so seriously. It was not at all what I was expecting, but it worked well for the characters and plot and gave me multiple hints about how it could be interpreted depending upon how a reader reacts to certain clues.

Midwinter Magic and Mayhem was the perfect read for the holiday season.

2 Comments

Filed under Science Fiction and Fantasy

Tagged as 2020s, Book Reviews, Christmas, Contemporary, Fantasy, Frances Evelyn, Historical, Holiday, Novels, Paranormal, Self-Published, Winter Solstice

December 11, 2024 · 1:00 am

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Myths or Legends From Where I Live

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A photo of a plastic toy shaped like Bigfoot. It is about six inches tall and is sitting in a forest that’s strewn with last year’s autumn leaves and that has just begun to grow this year’s crop of leaves. The toy is positioned so that it looks like it’s walking through the leaves.

One of the negative stereotypes about people from Toronto is that we think we’re the centre of the universe and that the way life is here is the way it is everywhere else in Canada, too.

I certainly do not agree with that, so I am purposefully not mentioning my city at all in the rest of this post.

A few years ago I blogged about famous urban legends in Toronto, so today I’ll be sharing some legends from other parts of Ontario. It’s a big province, and I only wish I had space here to talk about all of our amazing myths and stories.

Old Yellow Top

Many different parts of North America have legends about Bigfoot or Sasquatch, but Ontario is the only one I know of who has stories about one of these creatures that has blonde hair. All of the other stories I’ve heard about this cryptid describes it being covered in brown hair. Maybe there was a rare genetic mutation in this one?

The Little People of Doghead Mountain

The Anishinaabe in Northern Ontario have a very cool story about the little people of Doghead Mountain which is close to the town of Nipigon.

The mountain is called Doghead Mountain because it is shaped like the head of a dog, and the Anishinaabe word for it is Memegwesiwijiw. It is said that the little people who live there like to trick anyone who crosses their path, so watch out for things like your water being spilled or your trap lines being set off without catching any prey if you decide to visit.

Black Donnellys

The Black Donnellys were an Irish Catholic immigrant family who settled in Biddulph township, Upper Canada (which is now known as Ontario) in the 1850s. There was a dispute between them and their neighbours about who really owned the farm that the Donnellys believed they had legally purchased but who others had been squatting on for a long time. After multiple altercations, a local group ironically named the Peace Society visited the farm with the intention of merely harming the Donnelly men and scaring them into giving up their land.

Tensions rose, though, and many members of this family ended up being murdered that night. Some of the details are kind of violent, so I’ll leave it up to my readers to click on the link above if they want more information.

Gaasyendietha

The Seneca tribe in Ontario tells of the legend of the Gaasyendietha, a fire-breathing dragon that is said to live in all of the Great Lakes but prefers Lake Ontario. It is said to have been created when a large meteor fell from the sky into the lake. All of their tales warn people to avoid this creature, so I will definitely not be seeking it out!

9 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Tagged as Legends, Mythology, Ontario, Toronto, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

December 10, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books to Read During a Storm

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

Thank you to Astilbe for submitting this theme!

I’m tweaking the theme a little so I can share some books that turn weather or nature into a character.

A photo of a willow tree whose every branch has been coated with a thick layer of ice. The tree is white with ice! There is a bright blue sky behind the tree that only makes the ice prettier. I don’t know about all of you, but sometimes when a particularly bad snowstorm or blizzard hits southern Ontario it almost feels like there’s an angry creature shrieking outside as it tosses snow everywhere.

Logically, I know it’s just the wind, of course, but it’s fun to imagine more paranormal explanations for why the weather is so dangerous that day.

Here are ten books where the weather – whether snowy, sunny, bone-dry or otherwise – feels like another character to contend with. I suspect that all of them would good reads during a storm.

1. Dry by Neal Shusterman

2. The Great Wide Sea by M.H. Herlong

3. Trapped by Michael Northrop

4. To Build a Fire by Christophe Chabouté

5. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

6. The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

7. Snow by John Banville

8. The Sun Walks Down by Fiona McFarlane

9. Summer at Mount Hope by Rosalie Ham

10. Rose in a Storm by Jon Katz

54 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Tagged as Top Ten Tuesday

December 8, 2024 · 4:01 pm

Calling All Authors: The 2024 Winter Blogfest Is Open for Submissions!

A dark blue banner with white snowflakes gently falling from the top portion of it. The blue gradually grows lighter, too, as your eye scans to the bottom of the banner. The text reads” Long and Short Reviews Winter Blogfest. A Prize on Every Post. December 23-27, 2024. www.longandshortreviews.com

Author friends, here’s something fun for you from Facebook!

If you don’t use Facebook, I’ll provide a quick summary here.

Long and Short Reviews hosts two Blogfests per year, one in the summer and a second one in December.

They are currently accepting submissions from authors who want to write a guest post for them over the holidays.

They will need things from you like:

1) a prize to give to one of the people who comments on your post.

Previous participants have chosen prizes like a free ebook or print copy of one of their books, bookmarks, mugs, a gift certificate to somewhere bookish like Amazon, etc. You pick whatever sort of prize you’d like to offer, and this is otherwise a completely free opportunity to meet new fans and network within the bookish community.

2) a 250-500 word guest blog post on any winter or winter holiday themed topic that is not pure promotion for your books.

If you want a few ideas, common themes have been things like short true or fictional stories, recipes, poems, your favourite memories of winter, Christmas, Solstice, Hanukkah, New Year’s, ect.

The last day to submit your post is December 18, 2024.

The Blogfest will run from December 23 to 27, 2024.

This is the form to fill out if you’re interested: https://form.jotform.com/50622657191960

There is space there to include your book cover and an optional photo to illustrate your post, too, so be prepared ahead of time.

The Facebook link above includes contact information if you have any other questions. Feel free to spread the word!

A Review of Christmas Inc.

Title: Christmas Inc.

Author: Tim Vee

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: November 15, 2024

Genres: Fantasy, Satire, Political, Contemporary

Length: about 181 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 4 Stars

Blurb:

When a new US president is elected, and war is declared on illegal immigration, there is one “illegal immigrant” to America firmly in the cross-hairs of this new president, who was always a very naughty boy and was never, not even once, on the nice list.

Christmas Inc. tells the story of Mrs. Claus, four elves, the reindeer, and a little red crab, and their battle to save Santa and Christmas from the forces of greed, hubris, and dysfunction.

Christmas Inc. is an anarchic, subversive, timely, and satirical look at populist politics, greed, capitalism, slave labor, the cult of the billionaire, and (of course) the magic of Christmas.

Content Warning: Reindeer being harmed. Smoking. A detainment camp for undocumented people. A few brief references to waterboarding (but it wasn’t actually shown). Pigeon pie made from pet pigeons. Someone choking on a bone while eating.

Review:

Not even Santa is safe this Christmas.

It takes a lot for someone to end up on naughty list year after year. Santa would much rather see everyone be judged as nice from what I observed! Some of the most memorable passages for me were the ones that explored how the North Pole worked in this universe and what Santa, Mrs. Claus, and the elves did in the lead up to Christmas Eve to ensure everything ran smoothly. As someone who wasn’t taught to believe in Santa, there were a lot of things about his mythology that I quietly wondered about as a kid when children who did believe tried to figure out how it all worked. It was amusing to see how these characters explained it all and what happened to people who consistently disappointed Santa with their naughtiness.

I thought the satirical elements of the storyline were a little heavy-handed, especially in the beginning. In my opinion, satire works better when it requires some additional work from the audience to figure out what the author is poking fun at. It will be interesting to see if other reviewers agree with me there as I do agree this is a subjective topic and that some readers do need things to be spelled out more clearly in order to understand what’s going on.

With that being said, I enjoyed the thought of Santa of all people being one of people the president targeted as immigrants were identified and removed from society. One would think that Santa would be loved and admired by everyone who believed in him, but that wasn’t so for reasons I’ll let other readers discover for themselves. This was a fun twist that helped to smooth over the heavy satire in the beginning as it drove home the author’s points.

Christmas Inc. made me chuckle.

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Something I Wish Would Come Back Into Fashion

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A photo of a large, spotted, white and black dog wearing a black and white cloak while sitting in the snow in front of an evergreen forest. I have one word for you all today: cloaks.

Why should they come back into fashion?

They are versatile. Other than being used as a coat, you can wrap up in one if you need a blanket, take it off and use it to carry all sorts of things, or spread it out and share the warmth with someone else.

They fit people – and animals – of all sizes. It’s uncommon for a cloak to be too large or to small for someone as the fabric is purposefully designed to have a lot of extra space in it just by the nature of how such items are made. This means that you don’t have to try six different cloaks on to find the right fit.

They are unique. The colour or pattern of a cloak can make one of them look quite different from the next. I think there’s something to be said for standing out from the crowd sometimes.

They are beautiful. I adore the way the edges of cloaks seem to float through the air when someone wearing one is walking at a fast pace. It almost looks as thought they’re flying from a certain angle!

In short, cloaks are amazing and I wish they were popular.

8 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Tagged as Fashion, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

December 3, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’ve Had Dreams About

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

A photo of an unmade bed whose white rumpled covers have been pulled back to air out the white sheets for a while. Or maybe this person simply didn’t want to make the bed! Above the bed there is a headboard that has a small lamp on it as well as a series of paintings of four colourful and possibly tropical birds hanging on the white wall above. My vivid imagination sometimes spills over into the dream world, and with this freebie post I finally get to talk about them today. Here are several books I’ve had dreams about over the years.

1. The Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean M. Auel

My Dream: It involved hunting mammoths near a glacier and then triumphantly bringing as much meat home with my fellow hunters as we could carry. The ground was rocky and uneven, so I worried about tripping as I sprinted over it. I also remember how itchy my wrap was, how the perspiration trickled down my body as I ran even though it was a chilly day, and how elated I felt when the hunt ended. (I was not the person whose spear brought down the mammoth, though).

2. Minecraft: The Island (Official Minecraft Novels, #1) by Max Brooks

(Did you all know this is a book series as well as a video game?)

My Dream: I was the Steve character in the dream, and I was attempting to build a shelter before night fell and the monsters came out. Daylight was not lasting as long as it should, so I was rushing to finish my work. I woke up when a creeper snuck up behind me and blew everything up.

3. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

My Dream: After being assigned to be a Handmaid, I quietly began looking for a way to escape. Could I trust the other Handmaids not to report me to the Aunts? I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to bring as many of them with me as I could. All I needed was the chance to start running and never look back.

4. The Abominable Snowman (Choose Your Own Adventure, #13) by R.A. Montgomery

(I am not 100% sure this was the particular Choose Your Own Adventure book that gave me a nightmare as I was only about 9 or 10 when it happened, but it was something similar to this title at the very least).

My Dream: It started in the middle of the book as I was trying to hide from the monster. I could see the words of the current page projected in front of me and needed to decide which option to take. No matter which option I chose, though, the monster always found me in the end. The dream repeated a few times before I woke up frightened.

Which books, if any, have you had dreams about?

50 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops, Personal Life

Tagged as Bookish Stuff, Dreams, Nightmares, Top Ten Tuesday

November 28, 2024 · 1:00 am

A Review of The World Will Not Miss….

Title: The World Will Not Miss…

Author: C M Weller

Publisher: Self-Published

Publication Date: September 27, 2024

Genres: Science Fiction, Satire

Length: 12 pages

Source: I received a free copy from the author.

Rating: 3 Stars

Blurb:

In a world where branding and algorithms are trusted more than common sense… one trillionaire seeks to break ALL the rules.

Review:

Money makes the world go around, right?

The satirical elements of this story were straightforward and honest, as humorous as that may be to say. They weren’t intended to be difficult to figure out, so don’t worry about that if this isn’t a genre you read regularly. A little bit of pondering should soon bring up a well-known person who exists in real life who acts a lot like the arrogant and impulsive Plutarch Eritruscan. I nodded along as this character’s glaring and sometimes dangerous faults were exposed in all sorts of amusing ways.

It would have been helpful to have more character and plot development in this piece. Everything happened so quickly that I never really had the chance to savor any of it. While I know the narrator wanted to keep things moving briskly along to the end, there was space here for more exploration, and it would have made the final scene an even better payoff if it had been included.

I also liked what this tale had to say about the dangers of wealth. Those of us who are ordinary people will generally be informed if we accidentally say something hurtful or have ideas whose flaws we might not have noticed yet. The wealthy don’t always have these chances to to correct themselves, and it can lead to some of them developing very odd and unhelpful notions about how the world works and how much other people – and in this fictional case even the laws of physics themselves – should bend to accommodate their wacky wishes. It was something of note to think about while Plutarch Eritruscan bumbled around and made everyone’s lives ridiculously harder than they could have been. Yes, it was exaggerated for comedic purposes, but the kernel of truth about the very real psychological, physical, spiritual, and emotional dangers of wealth and power remained.

The World Will Not Miss… tickled my funny bone.

Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge: Musicals I Liked

Hosted by Long and Short Reviews.

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question and here to see the full list of topics for the year.

A red rose lying on a sheet of musical notes. When I was a kid, I loved Chitty Chitty Bang Bang because I was fascinated by the flying car and the child catcher in the other world the characters ended up once their magical flight ended. I desperately wanted to ride in that car. While I didn’t want the child catcher to steal me away, I did understand his desire for peace and quiet and wished he’d make an exception to his child-stealing ways for kids like me who could silently amuse themselves for hours as long as there were plenty of books to read.

For a long time, I thought that was the only musical I liked, but I eventually found a few more of them that appeal to me.

The sorts of musicals I enjoy these days are generally the ones that are aware of how silly it is to suddenly burst out into song in the middle of conversation and that either poke gentle fun at that aspect of this genre or purposefully lean into the oddness of it all.

Let me give you two examples of what I like.

Schmigadoon!, which was about a couple who accidentally end up stuck in an overly-cheerful musical after going out for a hike in the woods,

and

Avenue Q, which was about muppets and humans who are friends and who all have real-life problems that a lot of adults have. It was sort of like a PG-13 version of Sesame Street.

Another musical I liked that did not follow this pattern was Hamilton because it tapped into my love of two topics that aren’t mixed together very often: history and rap music.

8 Comments

Filed under Blog Hops

Tagged as Music, Musical, Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge

November 26, 2024 · 1:00 am

Top Ten Tuesday: Celebrating the Harvest

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl

My previous Thanksgiving freebie posts were about Native American Reads, What I’m Thankful For, Bookish Memories, Ten Reasons I’m Thankful for Books, and Books Set During Thanksgiving.

A few stalks of wheat lying gently on a loaf of bread. This annual prompt continues to be a bit of a stumper as I don’t actually celebrate Thanksgiving unless you count making a fancy meal to celebrate the end of the growing season as part of this tradition!

Some of the harvests were not very good this year in Canada due to things like drought, the dry, warm winter much of the country had in 2023 and 2024, and unpredictable swings in temperatures last winter and spring that killed off a lot of buds and vulnerable plants while also allowing more pest species to survive the winter than normal. Food prices are higher now due in part to this.

My hope is that next year will be better. In the meantime, here are ten books that are directly or indirectly about harvesting crops. Several of them include puns because I love puns.

1. Chicken Culprit (Backyard Farming Mystery, #1) by Vikki Walton

2.At the Edge Of The Orchard by Tracy Chevalier

3. The Silence of the Llamas (Black Sheep Knitting Mysteries, #5) by Anne Canadeo

4. The Martian by Andy Weir

(Yes, there is farming and harvests on Mars in this book, believe it or not!)

5.Fruit of All Evil (A Farmers’ Market Mystery, #2) by Paige Shelton

6. Strega Nona’s Harvest by Tomie dePaola

7. A Streak of Bad Cluck (Bought-the-Farm Mystery #3) by Ellen Riggs

8. The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley

9. Going Organic Can Kill You (A Blossom Valley Mystery #1) by Staci McLaughlin

10. The Almond Picker by Simonetta Agnello Hornby

61 Comments