Hex Appeal edited by P. N. Elrod

I really enjoyed this anthology. I picked it up for the Jim Butcher story, which was excellent, but I really liked most of the other entries as well. Lots of morally ambiguous characters, lots of witches. The magic systems were all straightforward enough that I didn't have a lot of trouble getting into the worlds (sometimes a problem with anthologies) and even the parts of larger series were clear without familiarity with those series. I'll be on the lookout for other anthologies by this editor.

The Last Hundred Days by Patrick McGuinness

In this book a young, British man who's recently lost his father (and his mother before that) finds himself in Bucharest, Romania, teaching at the University despite not having a bachelor's degree or even having interviewed for the position. While the first part of the book deals with his at-times naïve culture shock and his response to the Communist regime, as the story progresses, the narrator finds himself more and more deeply embroiled in the society and more and more called upon to react to the abuses of the regime. While this book is certainly about the end of the Ceauşescu regime, it's also about growing up and taking responsibility for your actions rather than drifting through life.

Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman

This book focuses on Harri, a recent immigrant to England from Ghana, and his attempts to both figure out how to navigate life and school in the UK and to solve the mystery of the murder of one of his peers. Harri seems hopelessly out of his league on both counts (his attempts to fit in lead to dangerous behavior like throwing stones at buses and trying to set off fire alarms, and he investigates the murder by collecting fingerprints on cellophane tape), but his optimism and his faith in God and his family place the reader firmly in his camp. I also enjoyed the pigeon element--yes, Harri speaks pidgin English, but he also becomes mildly obsessed with a pigeon, who speaks to him and narrates parts of the book. A moving account of the best and worst of a tough childhood.

Derby Day by D. J. Taylor

This book is written in the style of a Victorian novel: there are many characters whose stories come together around one event: Derby Day. Mr. Happerton (a cad of the worst sort, who has married into a family better than his) buys Tiberius, a fabulous race horse, but decides that he can make more money by losing than by winning. Of course, getting his hands on Tiberius is not the most legal of processes, and the way he gets the money to bet is even worse. There are a number of memorable characters here (although all the best-developed ones are villains), and the story is enthralling, but I wish it were longer. Mrs. Happerton could use much more development, for instance. Still, I'm going to go back to Kept, a Victorian mystery which features the same detective.

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

This book masterfully tells the story of a jazz band just before and during the Second World War. The trumpet player, Hieronymous Falk, is a prodigy--worthy to play with Louis Armstrong, but even in Paris he's having visa problems (his German nationality isn't helping matters any) as the band tries to head for the United States. Jealousies about musical talent and a woman, and the pressures of living in occupied Paris all come to a boil as the band cuts a wonderful record turning Nazi propaganda on its head. I loved the way this book played out--moving between (something close to) the present day and the past, with a narrator just self-interested enough not to be entirely trusted. It's a fresh and engaging World War II story.

On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Berry

This book chronicles the sense of loss that its narratory, Lily Bere works through during the days following her grandson's death by suicide. As she deals with her grief, she also reflects on the entirety of her life, from her early days in Ireland, to her flight to America, and her days as a cook here. The book is both elegiac and beautiful as it slowly develops into a portrait of a life.

A Cupboard Full of Coats by Yvette Edwards

This book tells the story of Jinx, whose beloved mother was murdered in their own home and who carries the guilt of that murder, since she suspects her own actions and inactions contributed to her mother's death. But when an old family friend comes to visit and they return to that troubled time, Jinx gets a chance to escape from the crippling guilt that's been slowly dismantling her life ever since. This story is both luminous and horrifying and above all a compelling read.

Far to Go by Alison Pick

This book is a beautiful story about the power of human courage and the temptations of betrayal in the face of unimaginable evil. It's also a testament to the power of storytelling to reclaim experience. I hate to say too much, as a good deal of the story's power comes from its challenge to the reader to make sense of what's going on and who has control over the narrative.

The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst

This book tells the sprawling story of a family with secrets by means of extreme compression. It takes five moments in the history of the related characters and through these five extended scenes shows a lot more about the personal histories and secrets entangled in those moments. At times the book was a bit too glib--even though the characters are faced with ambiguity, the reader knows enough more about what happened and what the characters were like to draw her own conclusions, which works against the book's carefully constructed demonstration that our history remains partially inaccessible and unknowable, even as we're living it. It was definitely interesting to see the characters' assessments of each other and their relationships changing as time passed. Unfortunately Paul Bryant, the biographer trying to figure out the real story (or dig up the dirt and hidden secrets) of the Valance family, whose scion Cecil was an up-and-coming poet until he died in the trenches in World War I, was extremely annoying to me, which colored my enjoyment of the second half of the book. Overall, it does present a world you can get lost in and a plausible and entertaining story.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

This book starts as a brief bildungsroman, but it develops into an intriguing story about regret and whether you can go back to reevaluate the past. Anthony Webster is a young man whose girlfriend dumps him for one of his best friends. When that friend later commits suicide, Anthony puts the whole episode out of his mind. But forty years later, he receives a strange bequest that prompts him to reexamine his past. While the book comes together in a thought-provoking way and was generally enjoyable, there's something a bit pat about the whole thing.

Snowdrops by A.D. Miller

In this book we explore Moscow in the early years of the new millennium with a British expatriate working for a financial company. He gets drawn into a relationship with a Russian girl, and with helping her and her aunt with a real estate deal. We watch him ignore his intuition as the deal turns shadier and shadier. I found it to be a fascinating character study.

Jamrach's Menagerie by Carol Birch

I enjoyed this book, which has more than a little Dickens in it. When Jaffy Brown finds himself in the jaws of a tiger, his whole world changes. He goes to work for Jamrach, who specializes in exotic animals, and eventually finds himself on a voyage to capture a dragon. Once the party gets the dragon, though, things start going horribly wrong. In the end, this novel becomes a story of the limits of humanity and friendship in dire circumstances. This book is both vivid and compelling and fans of Moby Dick and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym will find it deals with similar themes.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt

I enjoyed reading this book, which chronicles the last job of a pair of hired killers, the Sisters Brothers, who are instructed by the mysterious Commodore to find and kill Herman Warm after extracting the formula (for what we discover only late in the novel) from him. I found the dynamics between Charlie and Eli Sisters particularly moving--deWitt does a great job of showing the characters' nuanced and changing morality and the shifting power dynamic between the brothers. A great Western!

The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers

I still don't know how I feel about the main character or her actions in this novel. Set after a biological terrorist attack which has infected the entire earth's population with Maternal Death Syndrome, a condition which kills pregnant women, the novel portrays a population facing the coming end of human existence on earth. While scientists have made some steps toward overcoming the problem (using pre-attack frozen embryos and women who volunteer to spend their pregnancies in a coma and then die after the baby's birth), these solutions are far from ideal. The novel looks at the choices of one idealistic, teenage girl in the face of these massive changes to the world she lives in. As I said earlier, it's hard for me to tell exactly how I feel about Jessie's choices. While I admire the courage of her convictions, I can't help feeling that she's not fully considering the choice she makes (not least of which because she's so young). An intriguing exploration of choice and sacrifice--but scary!