When comes the wind that billows our words' sails?

Eidolon
by Grace Draven

This romantasy is the sequel to Radiance, and takes place shortly after that book ends. Ildiko and Brishen's happily ever after and the world's survival are threatened after Brishen's evil mother unleashes a ravening demonic horde into the world. Presumed to be the last surviving member of the royal family of Bast-Haradis, Brishen must find a way to save his kingdom and Ildiko. Brishen soon discovers that he must perform a dire and risky act of magic to save his kingdom, and that he may have to sacrifice his marriage in order to take up the kingship he has unexpectedly inherited. This of course puts strain on his relationship with Ildiko, as they navigate the impossible choices of love, duty, and sacrifice.
Eidolon is more of a straight fantasy novel than a romance, although the fate of Ildiko and Brishen's love and relationship are very central to the story. The stakes were very high and the potential costs devastating. I really enjoyed the way Draven took a standard fantasy story about saving the world from a great evil and centered the emotions and relationships of the people involved. While the romantic relationship is the primary one, family bonds and close friendships among the whole cast were also important. She did a great job of showing how a profound crisis can stress a relationship and how Ildiko and Brishen coped with that.

Chasing Cassandra
by Lisa Kleypas

This historical romance is the penultimate in the Ravenel series. After seeing her sister married, Cassandra Ravenel feels lonely and out of sorts. A surprising encounter with business magnate tom Severin creates an undeniable spark between them. However, Casssandra is unsure that he can give her the quiet, domestic life she wants, and Tom is convinced that love is not for him. Yet, they cannot stop thinking about and wanting each other. When Cassandra finds herself the victim of a cruel scandal, Tom proposes marriage and she accepts his marriage proposal, hoping that her desire to be loved will be fulfilled. And this is a romance novel, so it ultimately is.
This one started out a little iffy for me. It took me quite a while to warm up to Tom, as he starts out as a ruthless businessman who has trouble dealing with people and admitting his feelings and thus keeps himself emotionally locked down. He was very much not the kind of hero that appeals to me. His attraction to and developing feelings for Cassandra break down his walls, but, thankfully, he was already doing some of that work himself before they became involved. I did grow to like the way he cared deeply and fiercely for her, even before he recognized or admitted it. I also liked the way he always listened to Cassandra and considered her viewpoint. Cassandra was very likeable, as a woman who knows what she wants and won't settle for less. Their differences truly complemented each other.

Up All Night with a Good Duke
by Amy Rose Bennett

This solid historical romance centers around Artemis Jones, a gothic novelist and former schoolteacher returned to London to help her sister and her best friend with their first Seasons. She herself has no intention of getting married, but plans to look for a patron who can help her open an school for young women. On her arrival at Paddington Station, she literally runs into Dominic, Lord Dartmoor, a man with a teenaged daughter and a swirl of dark rumors surrounding him. Artemis and Dominic meet a few more times and end up in an engagement of convenience. Naturally, their attraction to each other ignites into something more and they must each decide if their love is compatible with their individual dreams.
I enjoyed this romance. Dominic is a fundamentally good man whose love for Artemis is unwavering and accepting of all that she is. His relationship with his daughter Celeste is sweet and realistic. His ability to truly appreciate Artemis for all of her qualities is delightful. Artemis is a headstrong, smart, and strong person . I liked the way she overcame her reservations about marrying Dominic, and I especially liked the way neither of them were pushy or overly demanding of the other. Their relationship really worked.

Radiance
by Grace Draven

This romantasy novel was very sweet. Ildiko is a human woman, niece to the Queen of Gaur. As part of a political alliance, she is married off to Brishen, the younger son of the Kai king and queen. The Kai are an elder race, nocturnal, clawed, and fanged (think Dark Elves without the obligatory evil alignment). Humans and Kai generally find each other unnerving and unattractive, the political advantage takes precedence over the personal reservations for Ildiko and Brishen. Luckily, they are both accepting of their roles as minor members of their respective royal families, and strive to make the best of their union. Even more luckily, Ildiko and Brishen find they truly like each other and slowly fall in love.
I really enjoyed this slow burn friends to lovers romance. Ildiko and Brishen are both good people who want to do right by each other and their marriage. Ildkio is brave and very savvy in her approach to living among the Kai. It doesn't take her long to see Brishen for the good and caring person he is. Brishen is considerate towards her and quickly comes to admire her indomitable nature. They form a great partnership that fosters a deep love. It was really interesting and in some ways refreshing to read a romance where physical attraction was not a very big or important part of the love story. I liked seeing physical attraction develop from the feelings rather than the physical attraction being a key catalyst for the feelings.

Music, Body, and Desire in Medieval Culture: Hildegard of Bingen to Chaucer
by Bruce Holsinger

This fascinating and intellectually intricate (in a good way) book covers the embodiment of music in the middle ages: the way music was conceived of emanating from bodies and affecting those bodies. Holsinger draws on a wide range of sources: early church writings, the mystical revelations of Hildegard von Bingen and other medieval nuns, translations re-writings of Ovidian myths, and the literature of Chaucer and others. He weaves a web of interconnection among them, tracing various threads through time, geography, and cultural milieu. It's deft and compelling and paints a vivid and dynamic picture of medieval musical culture that was fairly eye-opening. I especially loved his investigation of the music body as a site for the expression of deviance, sexual or otherwise.

Ferdydurke
by Witold Gombrowicz

This satirical 1937 novel concerns a 30 year old man who is forced into the state of an adolescent schoolboy. He has various encounters and adventures in this state of immaturity which are often a bit surreal and absurdist. Through this narrative, Gombrowicz satirizes the serious, intellectual, and perhaps overly mature literary and artistic culture of his day.
There is a lot of insight to the highbrow cultural scene and a scathing critique of it. I do wish that some of the narrator's rambling ruminations had been a bit shorter so that there could have been a bit more plot.

Destiny of Fire
by Zoé Oldenbourg

This older historical novel takes place in southern France during the early 13th century and covers the Albigensian Crusade, which wiped out the Cathars (a heretical Christian sect). The narrative centers around the minor Cathar nobles Arsen and Ricord, and their daughter Gentian, as they navigate the persecution and destruction of their sect and community. They are all very devout, yet make different choices about how to face the Crusade against them. Ricord chooses to fight, Arsen to adopt an ascetic, mendicant mission, and Gentian to marry and and try to follow her religion as a wife and mother.
This is a tragic story with vivid characters whose plights I cared about. I especially liked Gentian, a spirited woman caught between her desire for a religious life and the need to live a more worldly life. Arsen was alternately sympathetic and a little frustrating. She had a a great capacity for loving those around her, but also was a bit overly zealous in her pursuit of a as life of stringent observation of Cathar ideals. Indeed, the one drawback of the book for me was that a lot of time and space was given over to the religious ruminations and discussions within and between the characters, and that much theological content is just not my thing. It did serve to illuminate the senselessness of the religious intolerance and perseuction of the era, though.

Dirt Music
by Tim Winton

This novel is set on the coast of Western Australia, largely in a fictional rough and tumble fishing town called White Point. There Georgie Jutland has lived for three years as the partner and housewife to Jim Buckridge, a very successful fisherman, unspoken leader and enforcer of the town, and man with darkness and violence in his past. Georgie does not quite fit in to White Point, and is starting to feel restless and like her relationship with Jim may be winding down. Luther Fox is an illegal fisherman, basically a maritime poacher. The Fox clan had been a free-living group of musicians until a car crash killed all of them except Luther. He now lives alone in the family farm house, only going out to poach and sell fish, mired in grief and regret. When Luther and Georgie have a chance encounter, they strike up something of a friendship, something of an affair. It's dangerous, but also brings each of them out of their respective emotional ruts.
Dirt Music is a bit spare of plot, but long on evocations of the landscape and explorations of character. I could really feel the sun and smell the dry salt air. I could also feel Georgie's restlessness and emotional loose ends, as well as Luther's haze of grief and loss. The thread throughout the novel is how Georgie and Luther rescue each other from the dead ends they find themselves in, and Winton beautifully makes this metaphoric rescuing literal at the end.

The Telling
by Ursula K. Le Guin

In this contemplative sci-fi novel, Observer Sutty goes to the planet Aka, where they have speed-run technological advancement, suppressing the old ways, histories, and literature in the process. She is granted permission to visit a rural village, where she finds that the villagers are surreptitiously continuing the old spiritual and cultural practices known as the Telling. Sutty starts learning about these ways, and taking part in them. Eventually, she joins some of the villagers in a pilgrimage to a mountain sanctuary and temple, where she finally begins to fully understand the Telling.
This was such a quietly wonderful book. Le Guin explores how and why repressive regimes suppress and destroy cultures and religions, and how they are often kept alive in spite of purges and punishments. She also illustrates the importance of storytelling to a people's understanding of themselves, their world, and bonds between everyone and everything. It was all incredibly resonant and relevant for the present moment.

Sugar Street
by Naguib Mahfouz

This is the final volume of the Cairo Trilogy, ending right at the close of WWII. Here we see the older generation pass away and the third generation of the family achieve adulthood and independence. Kamal, the youngest son, sees the last vestiges of his youth pass out of his life and appears to settle into his life of bachelorhood and intellectualism. Egypt continues to change both politically and socially, resulting in the grandsons steering their lives very differently than their elders did.
Mahfouz is a good writer and spins a fascinating narrative out of everyday lives and people and makes the ordinary beautiful. I got very involved in the lives of the family members. Unfortunately, Mahfouz is remarkably uninterested in the lives of his women characters. He rarely and briefly delves into their inner lives or dreams, and does not have them drive the plot in any way that is significant or independent of the men.