September Wrap-Up: My Favorite Reads of the Month
- The Bossy Bookworm
- Oct 3
- 7 min read
Bossy Favorites of the Month
Here are my six favorite reads of September, with a strong literary fiction showing--and a couple of other titles.
What were some of your favorite reads of September?
01 A Sorceress Comes to Call by T. Kingfisher
I loved my first T. Kingfisher read. This was dark, sometimes wryly funny, haunting, and intriguing, and the resolutions to the significant dangers at hand required the messy found-family to employ their collective intelligence, creativity, and teamwork.
The knowledge that she was alone and no one could see her—that she could do anything, say anything, think anything and no one would be the wiser—made her feel fierce and wicked and brave.
For some reason this was my first T. Kingfisher (this is Ursula Vernon's pen name) read, and I loved this retelling of the Grimm Brothers' story Goose Girl.
Young Cordelia is becoming aware of her mother's significant power and reach, and she is terrified senseless. She is made to be magically "obedient" to her mother, and as such she is incapable of warning others about how dangerous her sorceress of a mother is--and how extensive and dastardly her plans are for those around her.
The story is sometimes funny, and it's consistently suspenseful and character-driven. I appreciated that resolutions weren't obvious or easy, that friendship and bonds were key, and that some overlooked, unlikely-seeming characters played important roles in the undoing of the evil at hand.
Kingfisher's characters love, but they're never swoony. In an extreme version of keeping a stiff upper lip, they sometimes carry on wryly funny conversations, even in the midst of the quite dark forces threatening them. And the found-family element is a favorite of mine; Kingfisher builds this aspect poignantly, messily, and wonderfully.
This story felt smart, strange, and intriguing.
I can't wait to read more books by this author. I listened to this novel as an audiobook.
Kingfisher/Vernon is a prolific author who has published many standalone novels as well as multiple series.
For more fantasy novels I've loved, please check out the titles at this link.
For my full review of this book please see A Sorceress Comes to Call.
02 Fagin the Thief by Allison Epstein
Allision Epstein shapes Charles Dickens's greedy criminal mastermind Jacob Fagin into a character with a rich backstory, showing him to be a man shaped by personal and societal circumstances in mid-1800s London and imagining his efforts to teach thievery to his wards as valuable survival instincts that allow for a desperate survival.
In Allison Epstein's version of mid-nineteenth-century Dickensian London, the traditional villain of Jacob Fagin acquires a rich backstory. Jacob has been scrabbling for existence since he was a young boy. When his father was murdered as a thief in the Jewish quarter, the family's situation became increasingly desperate. His beloved mother Leah kept her son fed and supplied with books, and she worked relentlessly at menial jobs to keep them afloat--until her own untimely demise from disease.
Now Jacob's options for survival are limited, and he begins to train as a pickpocket, soon eclipsing his teacher and the other thieves in the area, beginning to be known as Fagin--and gradually, driven by a measure of empathy, taking in and training young people who are also fighting for a chance in a tough world.
I haven't read Oliver Twist in many years, yet Fagin has remained ingrained in my head as a selfish, greedy, detestable character.
Epstein's writing is lovely, and she skillfully evokes details of the place and time, exposes Victorian London's stark class contrasts, and presents the filthy rabbit warren of streets, alleys, and squares flanking the polluted Thames where the band of thieves scrape by, care for each other, sometimes betray one another, and live their complicated lives.
Allison Epstein is also the author of A Tip for the Hangman and Let the Dead Bury the Dead.
You might also be interested in these Bossy reads that are also set in the 1800s.
For my full review of this book please see Fagin the Thief.
03 The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Smith was inspired by the real-life Victorian England case of a cockney impostor attempting to wrest an inheritance from the nobility, but I was most captivated by the unmarried, aging, complex character of Eliza and how she found unorthodox avenues by which to find fulfillment.
In her first historical fiction novel, Smith offers a Victorian England tableau featuring a wonderfully complex female character in Eliza Touchet, the unmarried, aging housekeeper, cousin, and confidante to the terrible but prolific, well-to-do novelist William Harrison Ainsworth.
Smith builds a subplot from the real-life, much-publicized case of the Tichborne Claimant, in which Arthur Orton, a cockney butcher, returned from an extended stay in Australia and attempted to lay claim to the Tichborne family fortune, insisting that he was a long-lost noble son much changed by his time away--and with the actual Tichborne heir's former slave as his key witness.
But I was far more interested in the character of Eliza and the shape of her life. Her voice and point of view are sometimes testy, often incisive, and at other times diminished--a product of the limitations of single women in that time. I found Eliza irresistible.
Zadie Smith is also the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, and Swing Time, as well as essays and short stories.
For my full review, please check out The Fraud.
04 Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
Patrick Ryan's literary fiction traces decades of the messy, poignant lives of two families shaped by uncompromising societal expectations who work to connect across secrets, upended traditional roles, shocking loss, and unanticipated love.
In Patrick Ryan's literary fiction title Buckeye, which begins before World War II and spans to the end of the twentieth century, we begin with the story of a young couple in Bonhomie, Ohio, as they meet, fall in love, build a family, and struggle to stay connected.
Relationships shift, unlikely ties grow stronger, characters grow apart and find their way back together, and what seemed like indelible relationships fall away as Buckeye stretches across decades of life, choices, and loss.
The unexpected, unorthodox, secret-based links between two families shape the story (with a supporting cast made up of an older generation steeped in habit and old-fashioned values yet poignantly capable of change and growth). The found-family messiness was a highlight of the novel; the caring that emerges due to and among heartbreaking splits is particularly powerful.
Patrick Ryan is also the author of The Dream Life of Astronauts, Send Me, and young adult novels.
For more family stories you might like, please check out the Bossy reviews at this link.
For my full review, please check out Buckeye.
05 What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
Ian McEwan's new literary fiction looks back upon our present with a cutting 2119 eye. An enthused future academic and a contemporary poet's put-upon wife trade points of view to illuminate across two timelines a calculated rewriting of history, our brave and hubristic present-day existence, and fictional yet hauntingly plausible dangers.
In Ian McEwan's newest novel, we're introduced to characters living in a 2119, post-global-warming, post-nuclear war existence in which the population has been cut by more than half, inland seas spread across the globe, and much of the world's variation, richness, and natural world no longer exist.
Within this timeline, Tom Metcalfe, one of our main protagonists, is an academic fascinated by the past (the years surrounding our present day). In particular, he is obsessed with a famous poet named Blundy's ambitious 2014 poem, the single copy of which was read aloud for the (obtuse, grumpy, belligerent) poet's wife's birthday, then lost to time.
Early on, I found the academic focus somewhat tedious, but then the story builds into unexpected, often dark layers. The tone of the book is quiet, shadowy, and reflective, but there are rich, sordid, often unexpected twists beneath the largely academic, intellectual exercises and discussions.
Affairs, theft, lies, murder, negligence leading to death, drug-addled decision-making, and terrible mistakes are all essential components of the novel, yet the pacing does not charge along; this is a slow creep through the surface to often-wretched underbellies.
Ian McEwan is also the author of Atonement, On Chesil Beach, Saturday, Amsterdam, and other books.
06 The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club #1) by Richard Osman
I was delighted by the poignancy, humor, and layers in the first installment of this series of stories about sharp, disparate septuagenarians who meet to resolve cold cases--then aim to solve the mysteries of murders occurring in their own community.
In this first installment in Osman's mystery series, the story begins in medias res, as the reader witnesses our key characters--four septuagenarian--coming together for a weekly discussion of unsolved murders. Joyce is their newest member, and the four put their wits to the test to try to resolve cold cases. (They reserve their room as "Jigsaw Club" to discourage others' interest and interruption.)
But when a slick local developer associated with their own retirement community is murdered, and other deaths follow, this sharp, funny, grumpy, big-hearted, underestimated group of friends becomes determined to solve the case. Then an event from decades earlier grows in importance and shapes the Club's search for answers.
Justice isn't black and white, and motivations matter; the Club isn't set on following the letter of the law, as they appreciate how complicated life can be.
I was surprised by how charming, intriguing, layered, and lovely this story was, and I'm eager to read the next installment.
Deanna Raybourn's Killers of a Certain Age is another series about capable, clever older protagonists who use their wits and significant life experience to solve crimes--and, in their case, evade their own murders. You can check out my reviews of the first two titles here and here.
And you can find Bossy reviews of many other mysteries here.
For my full review, please check out this link.