Book Review: Three mid-band books of different types

I haven't read as much this month as I usually do, thanks to flu and other family health issues, but I did manage to knock over three ok but not outstanding books from three very different genres - a mystery, a history / travel book (which I listened to as an audiobook), and a fantasy /witchcraft novel. All three had their good points and plenty of potential, but ultimately, none of them nailed it for me. I wouldn't say *don't* read them (except maybe Weyward, which definitely don't read without considering the content warnings). If these kinds of books are what you're in the mood for, they are fine of their type - but don't go into them expecting to have your mind blown.

This is a classic two-timelines cosy thriller-mystery with a mild twist. 

Half of the book is told through the diary entries of the then-teenaged Frances, who is the murder victim whose death in her seventies (by now, "Great-Aunt Frances") kicks off the story and provides its engine. The present-day perspective is provided by her great-niece Annie, an unsuccessful young writer, who is tasked with solving Frances' murder. Frances had lived her whole life convinced she would be a murder victim, after an unsettling fortune telling reading when she was very young.

I didn't think there was anything outstanding about the plot or the characters, but it was an reasonable story told at a good pace, and the writer achieved some genuine pathos when uncovering the tale of Emily, the first murder victim, killed when Frances and her friends were teens (although it was thought that she disappeared at the time), whose situation so materially affected everyone else's.

The solution was okay - it kind of made sense if you squint, but it didn't blow me away - but I am willing to forgive the lack of a knockout finale in an otherwise enjoyable cosy, which this was. I'll give it 6/10.

This book is about five ancient cities of the Mediterranean - Tyre, Carthage, Syracuse, Ravenna and Antioch. Pangonis considers each city in turn, providing details about their founding, their chequered history over time, their role in the complexities of regional politics, warfare and conquest, and their cultural significance. Alongside this project, Pangonis also shares contemporary and personal descriptions of the places and the effect they have on her.

I found it interesting, but my core issue was that I couldn't work out if it thinks it's a serious history or a travel book. The writer's personal insertions are a bit jarring. Like one minute you're telling me about the Phoenician empire and its religious practices, then the next you are narrating your concerns about sunscreen as you snorkel off the coast of Tyre? Or spending your last few pages on the city of Ravenna talking about the iconoclastic style and ice-blue eyes of contemporary street artists and skateboarders? I realise that blending memoir observations into non-fiction can be very successful in the right hands, but I just didn't feel these were those hands.

It's also entirely void of theory or any organising thesis, which, being trained as a historian myself, irritates me. Popular history can still incorporate ideas! Tom Holland's book Pax, which I reviewed last month, is a great example of this done well. There are also places in the book where Pangonis makes throwaway comments which could be the start of a really fascinating conversation on something significant, such as cultural relativism - she talks about the infant sacrifices of Carthage and says something like oh well cultural ideas about infants were different, who are we to judge, hand-wave hand-wave, then moves on. Not only does that strike me as an inadequate treatment of the topic, it misses a real opportunity to get into the questions of comparative values and historicity that this framing would have allowed. I found that quite disappointing. 

It also gestures at another weakness of the narrative, which is the differential (more negative) treatment of the monotheistic religions (especially Christianity and Islam) compared with the pagan traditions and beliefs referenced. I understand that it is tempting to read against the grain and sympathise with the "losers", but there is scant basis even in the evidence Pangonis presents to support the idea that any other belief systems of the time were more benign / less destructive / provided a better life for everyday people than the newly emerging monotheistic faiths. The BCE and early CE periods were often bloody, frequently violent, and full of challenges for almost all peoples, but also featured periods of calm and great cultural attainment, and this is true in cities with all kinds of religious affiliation. Pagan cities had no monopoly on peace, wisdom, beauty, and truth. (This should not be read as an apologia for either Christianity or Islam per se. Rather, it is an acknowledgment that by any measure, both have been, and continue to be, extremely successful and culturally potent movements, which have both light and dark sides, and have not been objectively worse for most people living within them than the pagan and other traditions that preceded them.)

That said, the descriptions in this book are great - really lush and evocative - and definitely make me want to visit Tyre and Syracuse in particular. I think it's probably a more enjoyable reading experience if you just consider it a travel book with some historical details in it, rather than a serious history text. Another 6/10 for me.

This is a three-timelines, three-perspectives grim fantasy-ish witch novel that provides the stories of Altha Weyward (1600s, tried as a witch), Violet Ayres (mid-20th century, descendant of the Weyward family via her mother and inheritor of the nature affinity witchiness that goes with the bloodline) and Kate Ayres, a contemporary woman who is fleeing an abusive relationship and makes her way to her great aunt Violet's cottage and also her witchy legacy.

The book has definite points of interest, but fundamentally, it manages to be both incredibly depressing / upsetting and also boring, which is no mean feat. Every terrible thing that can happen to a uterus-bearing woman happens to at least one, usually two, and often all three of these characters (including coerced pregnancy, which is why I specifically said uterus-having women). Yet, despite this, the story somehow fails to be compelling. The exposition is quite clunky, and the paralleling between the plotlines is so heavy-handed as to be unwieldy.

I found Violet's storyline to be by far the most interesting and well-written of the three, and honestly, it would have been a much better book if it just focused on her. Perhaps it could have incorporated her referring to or discovering / relating Altha's story, as that background does add heft to the longer theme of nature-aligned witchcraft (which was quite well done and the aspect of the book I liked the most). I honestly thought Kate could (and should) have been omitted altogether - she added nothing, she was an uninteresting character, and her story was the epitome of "both grim and dull" that I took issue with in the book overall.

Overall, if you like witch stories and don't mind reading something with every content warning under the sun, you might enjoy this one, but I wouldn't be in a hurry quite frankly, and I am not especially enthused to see where this author goes next. 4.5/10 for me.