{Put This One on Your TBR List} Review of Children's Book Selections by T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon or Ode to Sourdough by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Review of Children's Book Selections by T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon

 or

Ode to Sourdough

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Ursula Vernon aka T. Kingfisher 

Back on December 5, 2025, I posted my first review on the Alien Romances blog featuring four young adult fantasy stories by T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon, who is one and the same--a talented author, illustrator/artist, and gardener (which I really appreciate, as I aspire to someday call myself the same). The first book I ever read by her was A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, in which 14-year-old Mona accidentally creates a sourdough starter "familiar" and later purposely animates gingerbread men and doughboy golem soldiers for an army in her quest to save the city from a corrupt wizard. 

From there, I went on to read and review nearly every book she's written under these two names--and pretty close to back-to-back, which, in retrospect, may have been a bit of a mistake (more on that later). As I've said many times before in my weekly posts, readers can enjoy any level of book they choose. I like children's stories just as much as I do young adult and adult fiction. There's everything to love about this author's children's book selections, regardless of whether they're written under her real name Ursula Vernon or her pen name T. Kingfisher. 

  Recently, I read the ebook of Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher. I found that there are two separate editions available (one published by Sofawolf Press with illustrations done by Lauren Henderson instead of the author herself; and another published as free web serial by the author's Red Wombat Tea Company--I'm not sure if Vernon did the illustrations herself for that one but I think she did). Both came out in 2017. This massive children's story (some editions have 386 pages!) features the fabled witch Baba Yaga. Summer is eleven years old and has little in her life that causes her joy, in part because her mother is so overly protective, Summer feels suffocated by her mom's overwhelming fear--of everything. She wants to do something--something unexpected and worthy. For good or ill, the witch sends her to the fascinating world of Orcus to do just that. I loved how bumbling but good-hearted Summer was. She's not quite sure she wanted an actual adventure, but she never wavered in wanting to help those less fortunate than herself--and, ultimately, she doesn't want her mom to worry about her too much (just like Dorothy realizes she doesn't want Auntie Em, who may not understand her but loves her all the same, to suffer without her). 

 Prior to that, I checked out the audiobook of Nine Goblins (manageable at only 161 pages, released in 2013), another Kingfisher children's story, in which a party of goblin warriors, commanded by Nessilka, are trapped behind enemy lines. One way or the other, the sergeant intends to get her people home. The tagline of "low fantasy, high mischief" was fun and captivating, as was the story itself. I expect I would have loved it more when I was younger, as a few of my eclectic favorites included How to Care for Your Monster (Norman Bridwell of Clifford fame); William Steig's one-of-a-kind Shrek!; and anything by Ruth Chew, who wrote about witches instead of the usual array of spoiled princesses, adorable mice who rode motorcycles, giant peaches, or mischievous monkeys--all of which, let's face it, I loved just as well.

Under her real name Ursula Vernon, she's published a whole slew of hybrid children's books/graphic novels/comics she both writes and illustrates: 

  Digger (series) is a wombat engineer trapped in a fantasy world. 

  Dragonbreath (series) features a dragon Danny, who's fielding and figuring out life at a school for reptiles and amphibians. 

  Hamster Princess (series) is a hamster that sits atop her battle quail (in lieu of a white horse, I guess) in twisted fairytale retellings.

 

  Nurk (standalone novel with 145 pages) highlights the (mis?)adventures of an anything-but-brave shrew who nevertheless puts on big-boy-panties and does the best job he's capable of in saving a kidnapped dragonfly prince. 

You quickly learn after you've read a few of this author's books that, regardless of whether she's writing children's or adult fiction, she has distinctive trademarks, namely:

1)    Off-the-wall humor and angsting.

2)    Never-read-anything-like-it-before unique perspectives and secondary characters.

3)    Heartfelt heroism that stems not (necessarily) from skill but from heaps of unflagging determination capable of saving the day (luckily but I'm not entirely sure it's a realistic sentiment).

4)    POV characters (usually female but not always) that are cut from the same cookie cutter--you meet one, you've met them all, and I believe all are based on the author herself. Names, settings, and skills have been altered, sure, but basically the main character "cookie" almost never changes from one book to the next. This author does like that character type almost to the point of it getting overwhelming sometimes because I’ve been reading them all back-to-back. Despite that I love her work, I highly recommend reading a book of hers here and there instead of binge-reading them all at once in the space of a couple weeks or months (as I have and mildly regret).

As a general rule, if you like this author, as I most certainly do, you'll like the majority of her work. If you don't, well, I'm sorry for you, and farewell, there are other writers in the sea. For my part, I became an instant fan with A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking. On that note, a little aside of my own in what I hope is true Kingfisher/Vernon style: 

Ode to Sourdough 

My husband, who's on the cusp of retiring in mid-2026, has decided that now is the perfect time for him to learn how to capture wild yeast, a.k.a. make bread from sourdough starter. We'll be living on a budget soon and bread is cheap. We're both lifelong fans of it. Can't hardly go wrong, right? Well… 

Apparently, this whole sourdough craze became a big trend during the height of the COVID pandemic, but many that started it then have since lost interest. (The luxury of being out and about in the world again is probably a contributing factor there. Who has time?) We didn't get on board then, instead waiting until now. Honestly, I thought I knew what sourdough was but, once I found out it's a way to ferment bread naturally, without commercial, industrially produced baker's yeast, just using the "wild yeast" in the air, I was amazed…and, admittedly, a little grossed out. I couldn't help thinking, "Soylent green is people!", or, more aptly, "Wild yeast is people!", as this lactobacillus bacteria is essentially made up of anything and everything in the natural environment of a household--you guessed it, bacteria, plant, animal, even human stuff. Eww! I just lost my appetite. Seriously. But it's also fascinating. The wild yeast element is what gives sourdough its unique tang. (Does that mean my husband and I have tang? I suppose it does. I repeat myself: Eww.) No two sourdoughs are ever the same, even from one loaf to the next. 

On December 30, 2025, my husband began experimenting and journaling his progress in the art of making sourdough. That night, he asked me what we should name our sourdough. My first thought was, "Ursula Vernon". (T. Kingfisher just doesn't have the same ring in becoming the personality of a sourdough starter--don't ask me why not.) He wrote in his journal that first night that we'd named our baby sourdough starter "Ursula Vernon" and wondered whether it was Ursula's birthday or conception day. He ultimately decided that line of thinking was a bit disturbing and backed way off. 

  Our healthy and happy little Ursula Vernon Sourdough Starter. Isn't she sweet with her belt around her waist, her little cap on? 

There have been a few misstarts, but, as of this writing in late January 2026, Ursula is thriving in her new home in the warmest nook of our dining room. She's produced several very tasty loaves of sourdough bread. My husband has determined that she likes to eat in the morning, and she much prefers to do her rising overnight, baking the next morning in a very rigid and sturdy, tall bread loaf pan rather than any proofing banneton or free-form sheet pan, as she's still much too delicate to be jostled around too much. (We still want to try a Dutch oven though.) 

  Ursula Vernon, Tall and Proud, Caught Loafing, as she should be 

Sourdough starter discards have also become a staple in our household, providing pancakes, muffins, rolls, pizza dough--you name it! My husband likes to say proudly, "If I feed Ursula Vernon, she feeds me." 

Somehow, I think this quirky author who's made herself very much at home at the top of my "to buy" and "to be read" piles would approve. That is my Ode to Sourdough and Ursula Vernon. 

~*~ 

Here both at the end of the author's current selection (which I've mostly read at this point) and at the beginning of a future in which I look forward to reading her new selections, the bottom line is that, whatever you read by T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon, whether for children, adults, or somewhere in-between, you'll find wacky, character-driven adventures that are entertaining, incredibly well written, and engaging. Can't hardly go wrong, I'd say. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

If "Hell Is Other People" . . . .

Cory Doctorow quotes Jean-Paul Sartre's aphorism, "Hell is other people," to introduce the hypothesis that technology moguls' fantastized utopian society is one with as few real human beings as possible:

Hell Is Other People

Doctorow immediately points out that we need other people for a functional society, and we often cherish their company. Admittedly, however, there's an inescapable drawback to sharing our world with them: "Other people, then, are a thing that you can’t live without -- and yet other people stubbornly insist on organizing their lives around their needs, their preferences, their desires, without any consideration for how nice it would be (for you) if everyone would just do whatever you tell them to do."

Well, how rude of them!

Nevertheless, as Doctorow also remarks, "We understand other people to be co-equal with us in their needs and wants, and acknowledge that a world in which everyone lives their lives in a way that maximizes our happiness would be fundamentally unfair." That is, most of us understand those principles. But -- "A subset of humanity is committed to a world where everyone else takes orders from them. We have different names for these people. We call the majority of them 'toddlers,' but we call the others 'bosses' or 'tyrants.'”

Billionaire "tech overlords," who possess the wealth and power to potentially bring that imagined world into existence, eagerly anticipate a future when unruly live, flesh-and-blood employees and customers will be replaced by artificial intelligence. They do not, "at some foundational level, truly believe that other people are real." Doctorow quotes one notorious public figure as labeling the majority of the population "non-player characters."

"For these bosses, AI represents the promise of a world without people: a world where you have a product idea and it just appears." Whereas Doctorow initially regarded this sort of mindset as idle speculation, he now views it more ominously: "I think that this preoccupation with 10⁵³ hypothetical far-future artificial people is just an expression of the fantasy of a world without people, a fantasy that bewitches people who think that the answer to other people being hell is to get rid of the other people." Their utopia would be dystopia for the rest of us, those few of us who might survive to inhabit it.

So rather than seriously believing "hell is other people," he presents that idea as the foundation of certain powerful individuals' distorted worldview.

Every time I come across Sartre's claim (or, at least, the claim made by his character in NO EXIT), I mentally retort, "No, it isn't!" Quite the opposite. C. S. Lewis explains Hell, on the contrary, as the ultimate fulfillment of solipsism. When a person rejects the Good so completely he insists God should leave him alone, God -- rather than violate human free will -- does exactly that. After death, with no bodies to tether them to external reality, such damned souls are trapped for eternity within their own minds. As Lewis puts it in THE PROBLEM OF PAIN, such a person "has his wish -- to live wholly in the self and to make the best of what he finds there. And what he finds there is Hell."

Only someone who thinks like Doctorow's "tech overlords" could contemplate this kind of "life" as less than a nightmare.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Death, Taxes, And Litigation

Death, Taxes, and Litigation. Despite what some might think, one cannot avoid any of them, but one can mitigate some of the perils.

I have or manage four LLCs, and I am thinking of forming a fifth. An LLC does not cost very much to set up through an attorney. Once it is set up, one applies for an EIN (Employer Identification Number) from the IRS for use instead of a social security number, and one applies to ones State's Licensing And Regulatory Affairs division for a business Id and Password. Thereafter, one files an annual report online, which is quick and easy, and one pays a modest fee of around $25 per LLC.

Of course, the IRS also requires that in January, one files 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC and if applicable 1099-INT, if one has paid interest, or paid a non-employee who is not an Inc, or paid a lawyer.

I've no idea why the IRS is under the apparent impression that lawyers are dishonest. It seems rather Shakespearian!

Writing is a business, so is land lording, farming, running a consultancy, ghost-writing, editing other writers' work, web-mistressing, and so forth.

For the rare few writers who reliably earn half a million a year, year in, year out, they might consult a CPA about forming an S-Corp for the tax benefits of officially employing themselves. For the rest of us, the additional book keeping and red-tape wrangling might not be worth it.

Some advise, that if your writing ventures include separate activities, such as self publishing, taking on work for hire, paid public speaking, ghost-writing, it might make sense to compartmentalize the different businesses into different LLCs.

A Limited Liability Corporation cannot shield you -as an individual- from being sued for copyright infringement or libel, but it can be useful if your work eggs are kept in different baskets.

For other risks, consult a good insurance professional, and if you don't have a qualified agent, have an attorney (or a guild that provides such services, like Authors Guild) look over your contracts to be sure that the party hiring or employing your services indemnifies you and takes on as much of the insurance obligations as possible.

As for the Death bit, your copyrights last for your lifetime, and then for another 70 years or so. Therefore, you want to state in your Will who is to benefit from your businesses, works, and copyrights.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Review of Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Review of Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher

by Karen S. Wiesner 

   Beware: May contain unintended spoilers! 

T. Kingfisher (the pen name of Ursula Vernon) is a versatile author, illustrator, and artist. Her novel Hemlock & Silver, published in August 2025, wasn't the first Snow White fairytale retelling she wrote. In the "Toad Words and Other Stories" collection (published in 2014), my favorite offering from it was "Boar & Apples", written specifically for the anthology, which contained a character named Snow. (I reviewed that collection recently on the Alien Romances blog.) In "Boar & Apples", Snow's path--in true Kingfisher style--leads her to boars instead of dwarves, but the basic components of the original story of Snow White were evident with a wicked, vain mother; a magic mirror; and a poisoned apple. I have much more to say about "Boar & Apples" but that will come later. First, I've give you a rundown of Hemlock & Silver. 

To begin with, keep in mind that Snow White is not the focus of this particular retelling--the poisoned apple is the star of this show, which is a very interesting twist on the original. In Hemlock & Silver, Anja is a healer, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Anja will feel very familiar to Kingfisher fans because this is the typical character the author defaults to almost without fail--basically, you've met one of her heroines and you've met all of them (and I think all are based on the author herself). No big deal there. When someone Anja cared about died of poisoning while she was a child, her plight to find cures to poisons drove her to study and learn and, yes, poison herself in hopes of finding answers that might save other people. When the king of the land she lives in comes to her, begging her to cure his dying daughter, Snow, Anja can't refuse him (and not just because merchant daughters don't refuse kings). Note that, while I can't prove it, the world this story seems set in is similar (another region of?) to Kingfisher's World of the White Rat stories (which includes Swordheart, The Clocktaur War, and The Saint of Steel series). 

I'd say nearly a third of the book detailed the long and tedious journey to get Anja to the king's secluded "summer home" (not the palace) in the desert, where his daughter is convalescing. During that long trek, Anja spends a lot of time thinking about her pursuit of seeking cures to poisons. She grows close to her two bodyguards, Aaron and Javier. Honestly, at first I was convinced which of those bodyguards was slated to be Anja's love interest, though later it's the opposite one that becomes her partner in crime and the focus of the romantic interest she wrongly believes he doesn't want from her. (A silly misunderstanding intended to keep them apart.) 

Once they arrive at the house in the desert, there are a lot of "looking for answers" pages in the book. Despite how I'm describing these first two parts, there wasn't anything specifically boring about it all. I enjoyed the story almost all the way through. But I will say the pace was extremely slow-moving, and there didn't seem to be a whole lot happening during a big chunk of time. I began to fear Anja was going to have to pack up and leave Snow to her fate until, in a convoluted bit of unrealistic and unfathomable clumsiness, Anja is chasing a one-eyed, narcissistic cat and ends up crashing into the big, creepy mirror in her room. From that point on, her hunt for answers turns to exploring the secret, dark realm beyond the magic mirror, where monsters could be allies and those you trust may well prove to be enemies. 

So I'll admit it: My favorite part of this story was the romance between Anja and one of her bodyguards, which is something I never thought I'd say when it comes to Kingfisher love stories. Her other offerings in this genre tend to be riddled with too many strained obstacles and "we want to, but we can't" blockades in advancing what, bottom line, is an incredibly awkward relationship--yet there's usually something sweet and wonderful about it anyway. There is a touch of that angsting here, as well, but luckily it wasn't overwhelming this time. 

I will also state that the last twenty-five pages or so, as the mystery was finally being solved and answers were served up, felt just a little muddled to me. Overall, I think this particular story needed a more visual medium to adequately portray it. The mirror aspects were tricky, and, for all her words, I don't think the author did an overwhelmingly thorough job of describing what was going on with and inside them. I frequently felt like I was given little or nothing familiar enough to make her explanations plausible so I could grasp the mind-picture she was trying to conjure by throwing a lot of detail at me. However, that said, I was very satisfied by the conclusion of the story. I wouldn't mind if the author gave us more of Anja, her new love interest, and her snake and rooster pets--and maybe the not-quite-a-cat can tag along, too. I'd be interested if Kingfisher wants to tell Anja's sister's story. Or Aaron's. Hint, hint! 

Now, on to more about Kingfisher's other Snow White offering. At the time I was reading "Toad Words", I realized Hemlock & Silver was also a Snow White reimagining and, given that there was a character named Snow in it, I (naively) assumed there must be a connection between the two stories. More than that, I was hoping there would be a connection. I spent more than half of Hemlock & Silver convinced that "Boar & Apples" must be a prequel to it. It seemed possible that the father of Snow, who was absent for most of "Boar & Apples" (off trying to locate a new wife who could bear him a male heir) returned just in time to find out his current wife (Snow's wicked mother, who was influenced by the demonic mirror) had poisoned and tried to murder their only daughter. Snow, at one point after eating the poisoned apple, had gone into a kind of coma that her winsome swine friends feared she'd never wake from. Hemlock & Silver dovetailed into that. 

Interestingly, a friend of mine had recently read Hemlock & Silver before I did, and, when I mentioned to her that I'd originally thought it was the sequel to "Boar & Apples", a lively discussion ensued between us. She went back and re-read the short story, something she hadn't done in years, concluding she didn't see any link between the two stories, and they had a vastly different "feel" to her. I'm convinced the reason for that is a direct correlation to the order in which we read them. I agreed that, having read the novel first (and not having read the short story in many years), it made sense that she saw no ties to the previous story and therefore no thought was given to the two of them being connected. I, on the other hand, had read both recently and the short story was read first, the novel not too long afterward. I myself didn’t notice a hugely drastic feel between the stories in the order I read them in, in part because I assumed Hemlock & Silver was being told from a new point-of-view, continuing where the short story left off previously--with Snow in some kind of coma. I assumed from there that Anja would then heal her. I admit, the ending of “Boar & Apples” didn’t make a lasting impact on me. I can’t remember and/or I simply couldn’t understand in the reading of it (the latter strikes me as more probable) whether Snow ever woke up from eating the poisoned apple in the short story. All these elements pooled together spelled "sequel" to me when I went to read Hemlock & Silver. Ultimately, it was the mention of a younger sibling in Hemlock & Silver that made me realize the two stories probably weren't connected. Aww! 

To be clear, I’m not bothered that the author took the same fairytale and retold it twice. I enjoyed both "Boar & Apples" and Hemlock & Silver, so there’s no reason for me to be upset about that. A reviewer on Goodreads posted an irate diatribe about the author "recycling" the Thornhedge plot within Hemlock & Silver. I wasn't persuaded that actually was the case, or, more to the point, whether it mattered if the two stories did include similar elements. How different is it, really, to, say, write about vampires your whole career or various renditions of "Snow White"? Each can be unique in their ways, despite having a similar touchstone that crops up in each one. Even if Kingfisher did reuse a subplot element from one book to the next, I believe she put a fresh spin on it in each. 

No, what I did take issue with was that it seemed to me the author either purposely or accidentally created a lot of similarities and/or ties between her two "Snow White" stories--even beyond the theme of them both being based on the same fairytale retelling. The opportunity for connection seemed possible with "Boar & Apples" and Hemlock & Silver, like the author was reaching toward an obvious connection, then, at the last minute, she yanked the thread that could have brought them together harmoniously. A part of me felt set up by the author for disappointment because of this. As a reader, I yearn for links between an author’s stories--the more the better! Beyond that, I would love to understand what drove Kingfisher to write a second version of the original fairytale premise; whether Hemlock & Silver was borne out of some sense on the author's part that "Boar & Apples" didn't satisfy her Snow White craving in one way or another; or if all this was just random chaos in the life of a writer. 

Additionally, in nearly every Kingfisher book I've ever read, she's included an afterword, telling readers what inspired the story that may or may not include connections with past, present, or future offerings. The author did include an afterword in Hemlock & Silver, but there she talked about the feline inspiration, along with some other things that had nothing to do with the first Snow White story she wrote. As a result, the avoidance of "Boar & Apples" came off like side-stepping to me. But, I concede now, that was probably just my own disappointment talking. 

In Kingfisher's defense, she wrote the short story "Boar & Apples" long in advance of Hemlock & Silver (I think anyway--I could be wrong about that, as this author tends to be writing several books simultaneously and some of them take many, many, long years to complete; case in point, Daggerbound, the second Swordheart novel, which I believe the author started just after she finished Swordheart, which was first published in 2018, and will only just be published August 2026). Kingfisher no doubt forgot a lot of what happened in "Boar & Apples", remembered badly, or clean forgot about that story altogether (I suspect that's closest to the case). 

Sigh. Given that I’m reading all Kingfisher's work back-to-back and reviewing them here on the Alien Romances blog, I suppose I'm perceiving things like this that readers who’ve been following her all along (as well as with the author herself) may miss or never see the same way I am—in large part because Kingfisher and her long-time readers haven’t read these older tales recently, so none of my anguish would ever occur to them. I wish it wasn't the case, but all this did affect my overall enjoyment of Hemlock & Silver, though I'm at the stage in my grief where I can admit I'm at fault for the majority of that and not necessarily the author. 

In any case, don't get hung up on these albeit minor dissatisfactions. The vast majority of T. Kingfisher's stories are extremely good. No reader should pass up her unpredictably unique style of making every story a brand-new adventure, unlike anything that's been experienced previously. For that reason, Hemlock & Silver--as well as its unconnected Snow White predecessor "Boar & Apples"--are not to be missed.

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Hemlock & Silver, by T. Kingfisher

This author never disappoints me, and I especially love her adaptations of fairy tales and classic literature. HEMLOCK & SILVER (sic) is based on “Snow White,” with elements of Alice’s trip through the looking glass. It involves a possibly evil queen, a poisoned princess, enchanted sleep (apparently, anyway), apples, creepy mirrors, portal fantasy, a doppelganger dimension, and a talking cat. The opening sentence is irresistible: “I had just taken poison when the king arrived to inform me that he had murdered his wife.” Narrator/protagonist Anja experiments on herself with carefully measured doses of poisons to study their attributes and discover antidotes. She also uses roosters as experimental subjects, since chicken breeders often have a surplus of them. And she keeps a snake, which she describes as more of a colleague than a pet, for the useful qualities of its venom. The king’s unheralded arrival in her solitary workshop throws her into confusion. After all, she isn’t nobility, only a prosperous merchant’s daughter. The monarch killed his queen when he caught her in the act of cutting out their daughter’s heart. Now his surviving daughter, twelve-year-old Snow, suffers from a mysterious chronic illness. Grief and depression? Some kind of food or drink sickening her? Or poison? Having heard of Anja’s expertise in the latter field, the king asks her to tackle the problem because she has no court entanglements.

A royal request, however affably presented, amounts to a command, so despite her trepidation Anja packs up, snake and rooster in tow, to travel to the palace. How will the king react if she fails to solve the case? Suppose Snow really is being poisoned and Anja becomes a target, if the culprit sees through her guise of being the princess’s new natural history tutor? Whom can she trust? It quickly becomes clear that Snow isn’t deliberately making herself sick, yet Anja believes she knows more than she’s admitting. The girl’s volatile adolescent moods complicate the investigation. Anja methodically sets up procedures for ruling out possible causes, employing the scientific method she excels at and enjoys. On the other hand, she finds attendance at court dinners an ordeal. Dealing with people has always been hard for her, especially since her typical conversation focuses on poisonous and venomous plants and animals along with other bizarre natural phenomena that fascinate her. According to the Healer who’d been her beloved mentor, most members of their profession regard cases as people with problems; Anja, although she’s sincerely driven to find cures, sees a case as a problem with a person inconveniently attached.

When she discovers the strange mirrors made of sand from the late queen’s native country, Anja is baffled. She doesn’t believe in magic. Therefore, she addresses the conundrum of the mirrors and the other world inside them with the same experimental rigor she applies to poisons. She gets help from one of the local bodyguards assigned to her as well as a one-eyed, talking cat who has no patience with answering tedious human questions. The solution to the mystery and the connection between the mirror realm and Snow’s illness will astonish most readers as thoroughly as it does Anja. Although still unwilling to believe in magic, she keeps an open mind. Between her lack of confidence outside the boundaries of her profession and her bodyguard’s taciturn manner, it takes her a while to begin to recognize their mutual attraction. Its gradual development from friendship to passion is charmingly awkward. The supercilious, enigmatic feline is also a constant delight. (According to the afterword, by the way, he’s based on the author’s own one-eyed cat.) As usual with Kingfisher’s first-person narrators, Anja is an entertaining character whose combined intelligence and vulnerability can’t fail to engage the reader’s sympathy. I'm especially taken with her because I suspect she's meant to be at least slightly neurodivergent.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

A Recipe For Disaster (Or Not)

Having spent the past three hours perusing multiple legal blogs, and finding nothing that is both current and relevant, I will default to writing off the top of my head.

However, Joy R. Butler's "Guide Through The Legal Jungle" blog is worth a look for topics such as options for how to react to negative online reviews, comments, and defamation; pitfalls of promotions, sweepstakes and online lotteries to promote a product; what to do when another company uses your tagline, and what happens when someone takes a photo of your private property for their own commercial use.

https://www.lexology.com/blogs/887

Those articles are all interesting and relevant, but they are from 2016 through 2018.

Since I've shared a few recipes recently, I'll share my understanding of copyright and recipes. Copyright protects the expression of an idea, but not the facts. It protects photographs and paintings, not that I have illustrated my recipes for healthy elderly bowel movements and the prevention of UTIs.

If you wish to compile a book or blog of  other people's recipes, it's nice to give credit, it is safe to create your own photos and illustrations, and if you include non-AI derived descriptions and you own quirky phrases, figures of speech and terminology, you ought to be fine.

By the way, if you correspond with someone, the copyright belongs to the writer, not the recipient. You cannot publish someone else's love letters  (for instance) without permission... unless enough time has elapsed that your publication is well after the life of the author plus seventy years.

All the best,

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™ 

https://www.spacesnark.com/  

https://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Review of Jackalope Wives and Other Stories by T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Review of Jackalope Wives and Other Stories by T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Beware: May contain unintended spoilers! 

T. Kingfisher (the pen name of Ursula Vernon) is a versatile author, illustrator, and artist. She has a page on her Red Wombat website labeled "Short Stories" that includes links to her short stories, poems, articles, and essays, some of which are included in a variety of different anthologies. In this collection, she's assembled a bunch of them, some that I've already reviewed, but will included my previous reviews here so you don't have to keep jumping around to find them. The author also did the lovely artwork on and inside this volume. 

Note that "The Tomato Thief" came after "Telling the Bees" within the anthology, but I placed them together here because they're part of a "series". 

"Godmother": According to the author, this offering was the catalyst for Nettle & Bone (which I've already reviewed on this blog). Here, a godmother defends her reason for helping one child over the other. There's something poetic about this flash-fiction that evokes lovely images cast in shadows and, honestly, equal amounts of confusion for me. 

"Jackalope Wives" and "The Tomato Thief": This duo features Grandma Harken, a clever old woman who is far more than who…and what… she seems. She lives in a house with its back to the desert, and she understands this harsh environment much better than most. Her biting humor and compelling way of looking at the world around her make both stories irresistible.

In "Jackalope Wives", Grandma Harken's daughter Eve has a very foolish son who's, unfortunately, much beloved by females. However, he's only attracted to a jackalope wife. This shy being has the capability of removing her skin to dance under moonbeams. The boy does something stupid to obtain one, and Grandma Harken has to set things right. This very unusual folktale has an interesting message: "You get over what you can't have faster than you get over what you could. And we shouldn't always get what we think we want." Strange things happen in the desert, indeed!

In "The Tomato Thief", Grandma Harken is determined to find out who's daring to steal her famous, homegrown tomatoes. The answer surprises her and forces her to act. If she doesn't, those living in the desert will be in grave danger. It's very hard not to fall in love with a story with lines like these two gems: "Sometimes the best cure for life was a ripe tomato" and "…there was no telling how low a body would sink once they'd started down the road of tomato theft."

I loved both of these stories. I'm left wanting more of Grandma Harken and her hilarious wisdom. 

"Wooden Feathers": When artists invest too much of themselves in their craft, what can go wrong? There was something a bit terrifying in this story's answer to that question. 

"Editing": This short essay is something all readers should read--and heed! 

"Bird Bones": Something weird is going on with the birds in this tale. The underlying message derived (possibly not the author's intention?) is a bit sinister! 

"That Time With Bob and the Unicorn": Um, what in the weirdness is this!? A sexist named Bob wants to capture a unicorn, but, not being a virgin, how does one go about such a thing? Yeah, what the heck is this? The whole story really is just crazy, crazy, and more crazy!

"Razorback": So a witch meets a boar with a taste for magic, and the outcome boils down to what insane things one person will do to avenge someone they love. This story is classic Kingfisher. 

"The Dryad's Shoe": In this Cinderella reimagined story, there's a fairy godbird (a tufted titmouse) that kind of works for a dryad (an oak nymph or spirit) that lives in Hannah's family garden. This poor titmouse tries so hard to get Hannah set up for a good life, especially after her father remarries a woman with two daughters about Hannah's age. Hannah loves nothing more than to work in the garden, to raise bees, and to grow things. She has no interest whatsoever in balls, gowns, dancing, or pompous Dukes. Growing her own oranges, though--now that would be something! This story is totally unexpected…which is something I now always expect from T. Kingfisher. The stepmother isn't particularly evil, and the stepsisters are just trying to make their way in life so there are no hard feelings between the sisters. Way to turn an old tale on its head. Very enjoyably so at that. 

"Let Pass the Horses Black": A sister attempts to rescue her brother from the Queen of Fairies. This is an offering I felt like I really didn't understand. We were thrust into what was supposed to be a suspenseful scene without any setup. I never really got caught up enough to follow it. I left with the impression the sister didn't really care for the brother and was only doing what she was told to in trying to get him back after he's kidnapped. Then the not-so-evil fairy queen jarred her out of the notion that she had to be her brother's champion. For this reader, much more development was needed to make a cohesive narrative that could come out to a satisfactory resolution. 

"This Vote is Legally Binding": This poem is in support of the solidarity of women. 

"Telling the Bees": First published in Cicada (Cricket Magazine), this story is about the known superstition that bees must be informed once the owner of a house is dead. I found this short tale to be gruesome and a bit shocking when considering that the audience was younger readers. I'm also feeling highly superstitious now and believe I need to go talk to the bees as soon as possible. 

"In Questionable Taste": A poem about why planting a seed shouldn't result in a (free) yield but miraculously it does. 

"Origin Story": In this disturbing tale, a fairy works in a charnel house, taking apart dead beasts and creating something new. Not surprisingly, the humans find her creepy. You'll need a strong stomach and solid backbone to get through this one. I would be surprised if you don't get a chill, as I did, at the end of the story. 

"Pocosin": What this title means is a raised peat ecosystem--a rare thing that's becoming endangered in our world. The fictional aspect focuses on a woman (who seems more than just an ordinary human) trying to help a "god" possum from falling into the wrong hands when it's injured. This main character in all ways seemed (to me) identical to Grandma Harken in the Jackalope and Tomato stories. I wish it had been her instead because I probably would have enjoyed it much more if told through that lens.

"It Was a Day": This funny little poem celebrates the uniqueness of success and segues nicely into the acknowledgements that you really shouldn't miss, as it tells the author's story of winning an Alfie Award (created by George R. R. Martin) for "Jackalope Wives". 

~*~

Overall, I didn't like this collection as much as the previous one by Kingfisher (reviewed last week), although the stories featuring Grandma Harken are actually my favorites of both. Fans of this author will certainly find a mixed bag of intriguing randomness, perfect for those days when you just don't know what you want to read and you're willing to invite what you settle on to surprise you. Kingfisher, more than most people (writers in particular), certainly looks at the world very differently. I, for one, am always interested in her very compelling perspective. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Fantasy as a Safe Space

Here's a WRITER'S DIGEST article in defense of fantasy literature:

A Safe Space for Readers

The author of the essay disagrees with the widespread assumption that fantasy exists "separate from the real world, far removed from the day-to-day experiences that real people encounter." Rather, she maintains "quite a lot of fantasy stories are constructed around real world issues" and use their "core components to build a safe space for readers to confront and process problems that they have to cope with in their day-to-day lives."

Two examples she offers are the Hero's Journey (relatable to struggles in our own lives) and the treatment of marginalized people and groups. She also suggests that fantasy, particularly the "cozy" subgenre, can give us a "break" from our personal stresses. In general, "Escaping into a fantasy story gives the reader a safe space to process their thoughts, their feelings, and their hopes and dreams."

While I largely agree with her observations about the value of fantasy, I do have one reservation. We could infer that she thinks its value lies mainly in its practical application to readers' lives. The importance of fantasy fiction for its own sake isn't discussed: It invites us to identify with and project ourselves into the minds and emotions of people and creatures radically unlike ourselves. As C. S. Lewis puts it in AN EXPERIMENT IN CRITICISM, we see through a thousand eyes, yet without losing our own identity.

I'm reminded of Tolkien's classic essay "On Fairy-Stories," in which he names the vital functions of fairy tales, and therefore fantasy in general, as Recovery, Escape, and Consolation. He defines Recovery as "regaining of a clear view." The ultimate Consolation consists of the phenomenon he labels "eucatastrophe," the sudden turn, when all seems lost, from despair to joy. As for Escape, he famously says this about the charge of "escapism" often made against fiction not solidly grounded in mundane "real life":

"In what the misusers are fond of calling Real Life, Escape is evidently as a rule very practical, and may even be heroic. In real life it is difficult to blame it, unless it fails; in criticism it would seem to be the worse the better it succeeds. Evidently we are faced by a misuse of words, and also by a confusion of thought. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter."

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Bad Chat

One cannot necessarily trust "the internet". In a previous post, I mentioned a couple of legal cases where lawyers cited legal precedents in a court filing, and it turned out that those so-called precedents were either fictional or fake. The lawyers were in trouble with the judges.

It's tempting to believe the results one gets within seconds when typing into a search bar some question or other. For example, "Is my neighbor [in my home town] violating Zoning Ordinances by piling boulders on a utility easement?"

One will receive a prompt and detailed response, but there is a tiny font warning that AI may make mistakes. One cannot take the results to the bank, or to court.

Worse, according to Adam E. Witkov, anything that you shared with the AI platform might count as waiving your rights to attorney-client privilege on the matter of your neighbor's enormous boulders, if you subsequently consult an attorney.

Indeed, like journalists of old, one must have corroborating sources. And, at least one of them ought to be living.

Also, the difference between a live lawyer and ChatGPT (or Copilot, or Claude, or Gemini) is that the lawyer is bound by ethics rules and attorney-client privilege to keep your interests confidential. In most cases, a lawyer cannot be subpoenaed to reveal everything you said to him or her.

Adam E. Witkov of Michael Best & Friedrich has some important advice for the legally inquisitive.
https://www.michaelbest.com/insights/think-twice-before-asking-chatgpt-your-legal-questions-what-every-client-needs-t-102n7ca/

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http:s//www.spacesnark.com/ 

{Put This One on Your TBR List} Review Toad Words and Other Stories by T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon by Karen S. Wiesner

 

{Put This One on Your TBR List}

Review Toad Words and Other Stories by T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Beware: May contain unintended spoilers! 

T. Kingfisher (the pen name of Ursula Vernon) is a versatile author, illustrator, and artist. She has a page on her Red Wombat website labeled "Short Stories" that includes links to her short stories, poems, articles, and essays, some of which are included in a variety of different anthologies. In this collection, she's assembled a bunch of them, some that I've already reviewed. I'll include my previous reviews here just so you don't have to keep jumping around on the blog to find them. Note that the author also did the lovely artwork contained on and in this volume. Before she begins with the stories, she includes some fun potpourri. There are a few reviews offered for one of her other books that the author hilariously comments on herself. The introduction to the collection is must-read for the wit and wisdom included in it. Finally, there's a wonderful little poem about the magic and mayhem of fairy tales. 

In "Toad Words", there are two sisters. One begets gold and gems whenever she speaks. The other produces toads and frogs. A fairy godmother--who intends to retire and devote herself to long sea cruises--explains that it's a curse that may or may not have a gold-lining. The message of this unexpectedly fun story is: Use your gifts, even if they don't initially seem useful. 

"The Wolf and the Woodman" is one of the most unique retellings of Little Red Riding Hood I've ever encountered. Let's just say that this twist went so far around the bend, it turned into an upside-down roller-coast ride--something that I'd normally avoid like the plague, but I really loved it in this crazy little ditty. 

"Bluebeard's Wife" focuses on Pirate Bluebeard's notorious, bloodthirsty reputation with women and the fact that it doesn't faze Althea. She believes the best of her new husband and no one can speak a bad word about him in her presence. I won't ruin it completely, beyond saying, sometimes rumors have a basis in truth. I enjoyed the story written very vividly in Althea's point of view--with her rose-colored glasses on…until they're rudely knocked clean off her face. 

"Loathly" started out with a good premise of a curse that turns a woman into a bear but, for me, this story got repetitious and long (despite only being ten pages in length), seemingly stuck in a loop that came out in a surprising end that actually made a bit of sense when you consider human nature. 

"The Sea Witch Sets the Record Straight" isn't really a story. It's Ursula the Sea Witch from The Little Mermaid defending her actions in stealing Ariel's voice. Apparently, Ariel is a dumb bunny, and Ursula is either a lot more altruistic than we ever knew or she's lying. The truth is probably somewhere in-between. Oh, the mind of Kingfisher! There's none other like it. 

"Never" is the behind-the-scenes companion to Peter Pan's story, only in this perspective, Peter is painted as a selfish villain who keeps everyone a starved prisoner until he can no longer prevent them from growing up. As I've never cared for the original novel, it wasn't like there were any favorite characters here that were besmirched for me. 

"Bait" seems to be a poem inspired by T. Kingfisher's The Raven and the Reindeer story, which I've reviewed on this blog in the past. 

"Night" left me confused. I couldn't figure out what it was or was intended to be. I must have missed something. 

"Boar & Apples" is a retelling of the Snow White fairytale and surprised me a great deal, as the author's novel Hemlock & Silver was just released in August 2025, and it's also a Snow White reimagining containing a character named Snow. I think "Boar & Apples" might be the prequel to that, though I don't know that for sure, as it's not really reported anywhere as such. That doesn't surprise me, since authors and publishers can't be relied on these days to provide connections between stories. If this is a prequel, cool! Here, the Wicked Queen is Snow's witchy mother, the mirror is possessed by a demon, and Snow's path leads her to boars instead of dwarves. Kingfisher really makes the story her own with a plucky heroine, a dashing huntsman who could be a hero, and a handful of winsome swine. I really, really have to get hold of Hemlock & Silver--and soon! 

"Odd Season" is another not-sure-what-to-make-of-this inclusion. 

~*~

Although there are a lot of random things that defy description packed into this collection, most of them are well-worth your time and money. My favorites were "Boar & Apples" and "The Wolf and the Woodsman". As I've said before of this author, nearly all the heroines in this collection of stories are, I believe, the author herself in various fictional settings. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Vampire Retro-Review: Under the Fang

UNDER THE FANG (1991), edited by bestselling horror writer Robert R. McCammon, was the first of several anthologies published under the auspices of the Horror Writers Association (when it was still called “Horror Writers of America”). It’s a shared world anthology, sort of. Unified by the premise of a world ruled by vampires, the book apparently didn’t have a “bible” to impose consistency among the stories. Each author creates his or her vision of what such a world would look like. The volume includes distinguished authors such as McCammon himself (who, in addition to his story, contributes an introductory overview in the form of a “testament” by a human survivor in hiding from the conquering undead), Nancy Collins, Charles de Lint, and Richard Laymon, among others. My favorite story teams up the creators of two of my favorite vampires of all time. Suzy McKee Charnas and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, in “Advocates,” portray Yarbro’s Count Saint-Germain defending Dr. Weyland, central character in Charnas’s THE VAMPIRE TAPESTRY, against the charge of murdering other vampires. Weyland, guilty and disdaining to pretend otherwise, may be spared execution if Saint-Germain can make a case for mercy. I love the clash between two very different types of vampires.

Some other scenarios explored in these tales include a Gypsy who accepts the predators’ protection and finds the bargain a poor one (“We Are Dead Together,” by Charles de Lint); an experimental treatment to reduce vampires’ need for blood that has had the opposite result, and a man who arranges his wife’s transformation to save her from death by cancer, again with an outcome different from what he plans (“Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage,” by Chet Williamson); the viewpoint of a collaborator who supplies blood for the vampires (“Juice,” by Lisa W. Cantrell); an annual festival at which a vampire storyteller and teacher passes on their history and lore to the young (“Red Eve,” by Al Sarrantonio); a human resistance group attacking a train that transports captive blood donors (“Does the Blood Line Run on Time?” by Sidney Williams and Robert Petitt); a resistance base in the Arctic, with a sympathetic portrayal of both the human protagonist and a vampire military officer who’s tired of the killing (“Midnight Sun,” by Brian Hodge). This anthology has unfortunately been allowed to go out of print, but cheap used copies are readily available.

Highly recommended for the wide variety of innovative approaches to its theme.

Margaret L. Carter

Please explore love among the monsters at Carter's Crypt.

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List} Review of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson by Karen S. Wiesner

 

Oldies But Goodies {Put This One on Your TBR List}

Review of We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson

by Karen S. Wiesner 

  Beware: May contain unintended spoilers! 

I was looking for a new audiobook to listen to on my library apps, and it came down to whatever seemed mildly interesting that was immediately available. I've learned from my experience in the last year with checking out ebooks and audiobooks from the virtual library that it tends to be very difficult to actually get anything you really want to read or listen to on these apps because they either don't have what I'm looking for (especially subsequent books in a series) and/or it takes weeks or months of waiting to get hold of the literature most desired. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (author of The Haunting on Hill House, which I've read) was released in 1962 and happens to be her final work. The genre category I was informed this novel falls into is mystery, which I can kind of see, but I would more aptly describe it as a psychological thriller with a touch of Gothic flavor. 

In this story, a girl (who's 18, something I don't remember being said in the audiobook--unfortunately, it's very easy to miss a lot while listening to something as opposed to reading the book myself) nicknamed Merricat lives with her agoraphobic older sister Constance and uncle Julian on the Blackwood estate, which is isolated and closed away from the nearby village. She's gone into town to run errands, getting groceries and library books. That sounds pretty mild and non-threatening, but in the mind of this person I assumed was a 10-year-old child (or thereabouts), it's anything but. While in town, she feels the danger all around her based on the small-minded community's reactions to her. Most of it comes down to negative energy directed her way in attitudes and looks at her, but, at the café she stops in for coffee, she's actually bullied by a couple of the townsfolk. She does finally escape, but her home is just as strange and confusing as all that came before. Later on, a cousin named Charles arrives and penetrates their seclusion. Merricat realizes he's looking for the fortune rumored to be buried all around their "castle". Unable to drive him away with the magic she believes she possesses, she becomes desperate. 

In the sinister background of this story looms an incident that happened six years before and isn't told straight out but is instead doled out in bits and pieces. Constance and Merricat's parents, their aunt, and younger brother died of poisoning. Julian was also poisoned, though he survived. Constance was arrested for the murders and was later acquitted. The town has reacted to this by ostracizing the remaining family members. What really happened? 

I soon learned that this story was written in the "unreliable narrator" style. In other words, the point-of-view character's perspective is not to be trusted. Bernadette Dunne narrated the audiobook version of this and did a really good job of capturing the eeriness of the tale and the unnaturalness of Merricat herself. The creepiness sneaks up on you again and again, in large part because the town's bullying is so over-the-top, the reader is utterly helpless not to sympathize with this family just on principle. It's hard to blame people for their behavior if they've been driven to such extremes to protect themselves from cruel people. Because of the unreliable editor perspective, it was hard to know for sure, but I suspect it was a chicken-and-the-egg thing: The bullying led to the desperate acts that led to the bullying that led to… 

Both a stage play and a movie (with Crispin Glover) were made from this book. I'd actually be interested in how We Have Always Lived in the Castle was translated in such a visual medium. If you're looking for a story that's fairly short that will hover on your mind long after you've finished it, this will more than fit the bill. 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website and blog here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/