When comes the wind that billows our words' sails?

Damiano
by R.A. MacAvoy

This short fantasy novel concerns Damiano Delstrego, a young man of Partestrada, a small medieval Italian city. He is a lutenist, alchemist, and witch who keeps company with the Archangel Raphael and a talking dog, Macchiata. when a band of mercenaries take over Partestrada, the denizens flee to the hills. Damiano follows them in an attempt to save them from the pursuing mercenaries and restore his city to its peaceful state. Damiano's quest leads him to dealings with Saara, a Finnish witch, and Satan as he tries to determine how to save Partestrada and its people. Damiano must reckon with the choices available to him, and their costs.
The plot of this book is fairly simple, but the writing is lovely, as is the setting. MacAvoy imagines a late medieval Italy as its people may have viewed it - populated by witches, devils, and angels and touched by their magic. Damiano's struggle to find a way to save his hometown without losing his soul is poignant. The fact that the story takes place in winter adds to the starkness of Damiano's choices and the harshness of the violence he encounters.

Atomic Anna
by Rachel Barenbaum

This excellent sci-fi novel follows three generations of Soviet Jewish women as they grapple with their family history, their personal and general traumas, and work out the secrets of time travel in order to address past mistakes so as to avert both personal and global disaster. Anna is a brilliant nuclear physicist who began working on nuclear power in the post-war USSR. Her daughter Molly grows up in America as the adoptee of Anna's closest friend Yulia and her husband. Molly is a talented artist who is determined to find success in comic books, but her life is thrown off course by a bad romance and addiction. Raisa is Molly's daughter, also raised by Yulia and her husband. She is a math prodigy who ends up probing the secrets of electromagnetic waves, gravity, and time. When the Chernobyl disaster reveals the secrets of time travel to Anna, she sets out to use her discovery to prevent the meltdown, only to find that saving her daughter and grand-daughter is just as imperative.
I really, really liked this book. The characters are wonderful - Anna, Molly, and Raisa are all brilliant and driven in their own ways. As Anna jumps through time, working to improve Molly's life, using Molly's comic books to communicate with Raisa, Barenbaum explores the questions of what to change, how much can be changed, and how saving one person and saving the world are more similar than we think. The relationships between Yulia, Anna, Molly, and Raisa explore the effects of generational trauma and the power of the mother-daughter bond. There's so much in this book, yet the plot and characters never feel overstuffed.

The Weaver and the Witch Queen
by Genevieve Gornichec

This historical fantasy novel is set in 10th century Norway and revolves around Gunnhild and the sisters Oddny and Signy who grew up together. Gunnhild dreams of power, Oddny of a quiet life, and Signy of adventure. When a seeress comes to Gunnhild's father's hall and makes a prophecy about the three girls, they become irrevocably bonded together. Gunnhild runs off with the seeress to learn witchcraft while Signy is kidnapped by raiders, leaving Oddny devastated and adrift. When Gunnhild encounters King eirik's warrior band and is subsequently reunited with Oddny, they both become wrapped up in the workings of both temporal and magical power as they work to rescue Signy. Both Gunnhild and Oddny find love in unexpected places and forge even more unexpected futures for themselves.
I enjoyed this book a lot. Gunnhild could be very frustrating sometimes, but I liked her a lot for her strength, courage, and determination. I liked the enemies to lovers trajectory of her marriage to Eirik and the ultimate strength of their partnership. I really related to Oddny, who was often overlooked but in reality a very interesting woman. She's the one with the most surprising fate. Gornichec does a great job of illuminating women's lives during the Viking age and exploring the ways they had agency and wielded power.

Slightly Married
by Mary Balogh

This historical romance concerns Aidan Bedwyn, a colonel on leave from the Napoleonic Wars who made a deathbed promise to a fellow officer to protect his sister Eve. When Aidan goes to break the news to Eve, he soon discovers that she does indeed need protection from a threat to her property and inheritance. Thus, they enter into a marriage of convenience in order to preserve Eve's home and household. They initially had intended to go their separate ways, but circumstances intervene to keep them in each other's company, resulting in a slow-burn romance.
One of the things I enjoyed most about this one was the way Balogh handles the crises that bring Eve and Aidan closer. They didn't feel forced and instead added depth to both characters. I really loved the way Eve handled Aidan's high-handed siblings, and the way she stayed true to her own ideas about how she wanted to live. Aidan's slow realization of his feelings was sweet, as was the way he showed his regard for her through his actions.

After the Dance, the Drums Are Heavy: Carnival, Politics, and Musical Engagement in Haiti
by Rebecca Hope Dirksen

This book looks at the relationship music has with the national carnival celebrations and politics in Haiti, covering the period around the 2010 earthquake. Dirksen examines how carnival music affected presidential elections and responses to the Haitian government and to foreign aid and influence. Dirksen lived in Haiti for several years during the period covered, and makes a lot of use of interviews and song lyrics, which gives the voices of Haitians center stage.
This book is fascinating. It covers a lot of ground without feeling ponderous or over-stuffed. I learned a lot about life in Haiti and the role music plays in it. I was especially taken by the way carnival songs often directly addressed elections and politics, and how they sometimes affected those things.

The Lotus Empire
by Tasha Suri

This is the final novel in the Burning Kingdoms series. The yaksa have returned to Ahiranya, but it quickly becomes clear that they are not saviors; they have their own agenda that is not designed for mortals. Both Malini and Priya must seek out ways of countering and ultimately destroying the yaksa so they can each save their world and the people they love. Their paths bring them together again but not entirely out of conflict. They each face the need for great sacrifices and great gambles in order to prevail.
The Lotus Empire was really, really good, and a fitting and satisfying conclusion to the story. While the focus is on Malini and Priya, there are several secondary characters who are crucial, espeically Rao and Bhumika. Their stories are also powerful and heartbreaking. I loved all the intertwining relationships between Malini, Priya, and their respective circles. I loved how hard everyone fought for their world and people. I absolutely loved the way Suri explored the nature of sacrifice, the double-edged swords of cosmic power, and how love shapes the world.

The Jasmine Throne
by Tasha Suri

This fantasy novel is set in a world reminiscent of ancient India. The action largely takes place in Ahiranya, a land subjugated by the Parijatdvipa empire and whose language and religion have been suppressed. Priya is a maidservant in the regent's household, serving Bhumika, the regent's Ahiranyi wife. Both of them are former temple children of the Hirana, survivors of a conflagration that killed elders and children alike. Bhumika and Priya each try to help their people survive under Parijatdvipa rule. Then Malini, sister to the Emperor, is imprisoned in the deserted Hirana temple. Priya is then assigned to be Malini's servant and the two of them find themselves on new paths towards freedom and power (and a bit of vengeance).
The Jasmine Throne was really good. I loved the world-building, and the way things about the magic and the history were revealed through Priya and Malini's experiences and memories. Suri takes her time with both the world-building and character development. It can feel a little slow, but is well worth it. Priya, Malini, and Bhumika are all complicated, and often morally ambiguous, women with different ideas about how to change the world so that it serves them better. I especially liked the growing relationship between Priya and Malini, full of longing despite their being on different sides of the political conflict. Suri explores the different ways people can find and use power, and the ways women's power is both feared and underestimated.

The Stars My Destination
by Alfred Bester

This 1956 sci-fi novel is set in a far future where humans have mastered interplanetary travel and have developed the ability to teleport themselves distances of up to 1000 miles. The story concerns Gully Foyle, a former mechanic on the spaceship Nomad. When the Nomad is attacked, Gully is the only survivor, trying despearately to survive on a catastrophically damaged ship. Another ship, the Vorga, passes by and knowingly abandons Foyle to his grim fate. He somehow survives and dedicates himself to discovering the person responsible for giving the order to ignore him and then exact revenge on that person. Foyle's quest brings him to a strange cult living on an asteroid augmented with the wreckage of spaceships, an underground prison, and the mansions of the wealthy. Along the way he transforms from an ignorant brute into a clever and cultured man. The final result of Foyle's quest is the unlocking of a incredibly destructive power and an equally productive power.
I quite liked this book, despite its old-fashioned aspects. Foyle undergoes a lot of change, starting out cruel and ruthless, and ending up more humanistic, self-aware, and forward-thinking, if still not necessarily a truly good person. I don't think there was much redemption there as in his transformation. Bester's vision of the future was fascinating, especially the ways teleportation changed society and the ways in which scientific advances weren't necessarily equalizing or conducive to social progress. The ending was a real tour de force with its space and time defying action and its really cool depiction of synaesthesia.

A Choir of Lies
by Alexandra Rowland

This is the sequel to A Conspiracy of Truth. It takes place a few years after the events of the first book. Ylfing has become a Chant and is living in Heyrland, a harbor town that resembles 17th century Holland. Recovering from the trauma of the events in A Conspiracy of Truth and feeling conflicted about his calling as a Chant, Ylfing puts aside storytelling for a bit and takes up a position as a translator in Sterre de Waeyer's business. Once Sterre realizes what Ylfing is, she gets him to put his storytelling skills to use to foment desire for the exotic flowers she is selling. (Why yes, this aspect of the plot is based on the Tulip Mania.) During this time, Ylfing also falls in love with the rakish junior member of a merchant clan, and encounters another Chant, with whom he has a contentious relationship. When things with Sterre's scheme go south, Ylfing has to really face himself and his relationship to stories.
I enjoyed this book a lot. Rowland beautifully examines the meaning of stories and storytelling, and the uses and abuses of them, but from a very different angle than in the first book. I really liked the way she delved into how writing a story down affects the story. Ylfing could be a bit frustrating, but I sympathized with him a lot, especially around his struggles to deal with what he had been through. He has a lot to grapple with and basically no one to help him with it. Even when he meets the other Chant, she is generally more interested in making sure he is fully aware of all the ways in which he is Doing It Wrong than in giving him any real help or support. Even after he tells her about what happened. That made her even more frustrating than he could be.

The Cambridge Companion to Bach
edited by John Butt

This volume of essays did a good job of covering the immense subject of J. S. Bach, his music, and its importance in Western classical music. Given the vastness of the subject, I very much appreciated that the introduction laid out the context and aims of the volume, since there was no way it could be comprehensive. I especially enjoyed the essays that strove to give a sense of how Bach and his work was situated in the musical world of the 17th and 18th centuries.The discussions of Bach as a teacher were also really interesting.