Anu Recommends #56

Contemporary fiction by a Malaysian fantasy author, an inventive retelling of the fall of Troy, and a new piece

Dear reader,

We’re back! Did you miss us? I hope you enjoyed issue #55 which was honestly one of my favourite issues to send out so far this year. India’s always a delight to speak to, and the more people I can shout out her books to, the better! In case you’re yet to catch up, here’s the link:

What about today’s issue, you ask? Well, I have a new piece in HT Brunch and two new release recommendations for you, including one that is already a top 2024 book in my, well, book, so get comfortable and read on 😊.

Pulling back the certain

Link here: https://epaper.hindustantimes.com/mumbai?eddate=10/08/2024&pageid=768331

Storyteller alum Maggie Jackson and her brilliant book Uncertain make an appearance!

If you haven't read that issue yet or need to jog your memory:

Let me know your thoughts on the piece!

Moving on to the recommendations.

The Friend Zone Experiment by Zen Cho

Publisher’s blurb:

From the outside, Renee Goh’s life looks perfect. She’s thirty and beautiful, runs a glamorous—and profitable—women’s clothing company in London, and is dating a hot Taiwanese pop star.

But Renee is lonely. Estranged from her family in Singapore, she practically lives at the office, and now she’s just been dumped by her supposed boyfriend. Who she never saw anyway, so why is she ruining her Instagram-ready makeup by crying?

Before she can curl up on the couch with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s, Renee’s father calls. He’s retiring, and, thanks to the screw-ups of her wastrel brothers, he is considering her as the next CEO of the family business: Chahaya Group, one of the largest conglomerates in Southeast Asia. That stamp of her father’s approval would mean everything to Renee, but can she cooperate with the brothers who drove her out of Singapore?

But fate isn’t done with her. That same night, Renee bumps into her first love, Yap Ket Siong, who broke her heart during university. They spend a wonderful night together, but Ket Siong is pursuing a dangerous vengeance for his family. In the light of day is there any hope for the two of them?

I fell in love with Malaysian fantasy writer Zen Cho the moment I read her wuxia novella, The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water a few years ago (I haven’t posted about it on here yet, but I am slowly making my way through her backlist and am hoping to eventually do an author spotlight issue, so watch out for that). So when her debut romance novel was announced, I knew I had to read it—thank you to Bramble publishing and Netgalley for letting me read it early!

Once I realised that this isn't a romcom as marketed (pretty much within the first chapter), but more of general fiction with shades of family saga and a romantic sub-plot, I was able to truly dive in with adjusted perceptions and enjoy the ride. This is an engaging story with Cho’s trademark assured narration that blends observation, humour, and heart. Renee and Ket Siong are easy to root for as individuals—well-crafted, three dimensional, and, cue drumroll and a dramatic gasp if you so wish, actually act their ages—and as a couple. Though they both had personal journeys of growth and healing to embark on before anything else—I particularly appreciated how they both have very valid non-dramatic-plot reasons for avoiding their feelings and staying apart/as friends.

It was also refreshing to read a book that managed to balance the fun (and witty) with the realistic, whether it was the plot’s and the characters’ interrogation of their own (many times, immense) privilege and their part in the world's inequalities, or the lack of caricatures that proliferate many such stories. Instead, here we got a solid supporting cast with their own depth without taking away page time from the leads.

Family, class, love in modern London: a breath-of-fresh-air contemporary story that I wholeheartedly recommend.

The End Crowns All by Bea Fitzgerald

Publisher’s blurb:

Princess. Priestess. The most beautiful girl in Troy. Cassandra is used to being adored—and when her patron god, Apollo, offers her the power of prophecy, she sees an opportunity to rise even higher. But when she fails to uphold her end of the agreement, she discovers just how very far she has to fall. No one believes her visions. And they all seem to be of one girl—and the war she’s going to bring to Troy’s shores.

Helen fled Sparta in pursuit of love, but it’s soon clear Troy is a court like any other, with all its politics and backstabbing. And one princess seems particularly intent on driving her from the city before disaster can strike...

But when war finally comes, it’s more than the army at their walls they must contend with. Cassandra and Helen might hold the key to reweaving fate itself—especially with the prophetic strands drawing them ever closer together. But how do you change your future when the gods themselves are dictating your demise?

I could write essays about this book and it still wouldn’t fully convey just how much I enjoyed it and how fast I devoured it. This is a fresh, fierce, inventive, heartrending, but also beautiful and hopeful, take on the Fall of Troy through the points of view of Cassandra and Helen.

By turns quiet and loud, intimate and sweeping, chaotic and peaceful, this is a story that simmers and blazes with love, destiny, war, duty, fate, identity, friendship and kinship, strength…and the various forms all of these take.

We are, for a large part of this 512-page epic retelling, within the walls of the besieged city, and, as the story moves along to where we know it is going, as the tension and the urgency ramps up and both leads are faced with seemingly impossible choices and situations, it feels increasingly claustrophobic, making for a very immersive experience that adds to this story’s strengths. At the same time, the growing connection between Cassandra and Helen that only we are privy to, beyond the pair, leads to an aching, at times unbearable, intimacy, so that you’re as one with them, sharing the burdens of their pain, their grief, their hopelessness, their hope, and, finally, against all logic and reason, their joy.

Fitzgerald has a deft hand weaving the mythology and making it her own; her classical education standing her in great stead. The narration, as with her Girl, Goddess, Queen, is a delightful mix of modern and of the time that works as well as that one did—this story is much more intense and trigger-warning-worthy than her debut, though, and I’d urge you to read her opening author’s note before proceeding further. There is nuance and depth in even the supporting characters and their situations, creating a rich tapestry befitting the scope and stage of this story for all the ages.

A sapphic love to defy the Gods, and how! Highly recommended.

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Please feel free send in recommendations—books, movie, TV shows, authors to interview, ideas of what you’d like me to write on. Let me know what you’re currently reading and watching, send me rants/ramblings/excited monologues, GIFs and memes (especially them) and more. Just drop me a line and turn this into a conversation, even if just to say hi and let me know what you thought of the latest issue. Or share this with someone you think might enjoy it. I always enjoy hearing from you 😊.

Take care and I’ll see you next on August 25!

Anu

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You can find me on Twitter at @AnuNande (follow for all the football chatter) and on Instagram at @booksinboston.