Madcap is a word often associated with Gingell‘s writing. The beloved City Between series kicks off with a new take on her unique writing style, in which the absurd is juxtaposed onto the ordinary, with extraordinary results.

The narrator of Between Jobs is known only as Pet—and that’s what she becomes for three non-humans who enter her family home. That home isn’t really hers. Pet’s parents were murdered in that house, and being underage, she couldn’t inherit. So she squats in the well-hidden room that saved her years ago, and saves money by working under the table at a local cafe. When Atelas, Zeno and Jinyeong purchase the family home, Pet—who refers to them as her “three psychos”—gets accustomed to other people being in the home again. It’s sort of comforting.

Until they find her. Set in Hobart, Australia and full of local dialect (Pet’s catchphrase is practically “Flaming heck!”), Pet gets enmeshed in the supernatural murder investigation conducted by her “three psychos.” With the promise of a little endearingly awkward romance on the horizon, Pet’s plucky outlook and enthralling world-building, the book takes readers on a sometimes violent and often hilarious adventure through Hobart Between and Hobart Behind.

The gruesome opening, in which Pet finds herself next door to another murder, was a shock after reading Gingell’s other work, and sets a darker, grittier tone. The deeper I got into Between Jobs, the more I loved it. I came very close to binge-reading with this one, and certainly lost hours of sleep. I am firmly team Jinyeong (they have to get together, right? Never mind the part about him being a vampire who will only speak Korean until he masters English) and can’t wait to continue the series. Keeping the “three psychos” as enigmatic characters is also genius; reviews of later books on Goodreads promise a serious twist.

This is an unforgettable book that’s wonderfully strange, dark and endearing all at once. I hope you’re not as behind as me on this series, but if you haven’t started yet, you should pick this one up. Immediately.

To learn more about this author, please visit her website.

Indie Book Spotlight: Twelve Days of Faery (Gingell)

March 20, 2021June 9, 2021

Another Indie Book Spotlight is upon us!

Twelve Days of Faery (Shards of a Broken Sword #1), by W.R. Gingell (Fantasy, 2018)

Who knew a king being overwhelmed with paperwork would be so endearing?

On the surface, Twelve Days of Faery is the story of a beleaguered king caught up in the dangerous realm of Faery when a peculiar enchantress arrives, claiming she can break the curse on King Markon’s son. Thanks to this said and so-called curse, a woman cannot even wink at the young prince without something terrible befalling her. And the one whose hair vanished got off easy; the outcomes are only getting worse.

This means Markon has two problems: Althea’s contract says she’ll eventually be made queen if she can stop the attacks, and Markon is steadily falling in love with her even as she grows closer to his son.

Twelve Days of Faery can be violent (but not excessively, in my opinion), and there’s no shortage of wicked, scheming characters. But thanks to off-beat enchantress Althea and procrastinating-on-royal-paperwork Markon, it’s a complete delight. A quirky one, too!

Quotable Quirk

“There’s a world of meaning in the almost-saids of the worlds.” – W.R. Gingell, Twelve Days of Faery

The wonderful characters are what makes the book, and the procedural-style structure also kept me binge-reading. Each day in the story is a day in Althea’s investigation. It doesn’t hurt that Markon is actually likeable, either. It’s hard not to root for him, and he’s just plain refreshing after the scheming royals in, well, almost everything.

As for Althea, she’s a bit like the character Luck in another book by Gingell, Spindle [find my review here], but is more self-possessed, less dotty and more aloof. While Luck (who has the same magical talents as Althea) practically makes a catchphrase out of the word “huh,” Althea’s catchphrase should be “I found something.” She’s Sherlock to Markon’s overwhelmed Watson.

Althea is also a faery-changeling who grew up and was able to escape the faery world. That is one interesting backstory.

The romance in Twelve Days of Faery is approached from a refreshingly mature angle, too. Markon is older, dignified and sensible. He approaches his growing feelings for Althea just how a person with those traits would, even though he’s sure things aren’t about to go his way.

Though the world of Faery settings (Seelie and Unseelie) were creative, the descriptions were a bit loosely sketched at times. Still, it was fun, zany and scary all at once as Markon marched into unfamiliar territory, following the magical clues toward the culprit.

This short book is well-thought out, creative and 100% enjoyable. I plan to pick up the sequel as soon as my lengthy TBR list allows, because it’s the perfect pick-me-up (wordplay alert! Don’t worry, the humor in Twelve Days of Faery is a lot more sophisticated than that—and not a small amount quirky). Funny, refreshing and great characters (plus a sizeable dash of mystery) will always equal five stars for me. If you like those things, faery, and portals into another world, you’ll love this book, too.

To learn more about titles from this author, visit W.R. Gingell’s website.

Indie Book Spotlight: Spindle (Gingell)

June 26, 2020February 13, 2021

Today we slap a well-deserved gold star on…

Spindle, by W.R. Gingell (Two Monarchies Sequence Book One, 2015, New Adult Fantasy/Fairy Tales/Romantic Fantasy).

Do you like fairy tale re-tellings, in which the original story is folded, spindled (ha!) and mashed into the unrecognizable and unique origami shapes of a drowsy heroine pretending to be the legendary sleeping princess people think she is, a little boy pretending rather convincingly to be a dog, an absent-minded wizard not even pretending to be listening (whose catchphrase might as well be “Huh. That’s interesting”), a malignant magical cube on a battlefield, a village in the shape of a spiral that’s bent by a jinx and an obvious but slippery villain?

Phew. That was one quirky mouthful. Today’s indie book spotlight lands on W.R. Gingell’s delightful Spindle, a fun and absorbing retelling of Sleeping Beauty that resembles the original almost not at all, in the very best way.

The magic system of Spindle is thread-based and interesting (and also literally hairy), with three different types of magic, each rarer than the last. The reader is dropped into it with no explanation. That leaves us catching up with what cursed heroine Poly (the non-princess sleeper) is discovering she can do as she discovers it, and as mystified as she is about what her rescuer, Luck, does with his magic. And he isn’t one to explain. It gives the world an authentic feeling, and keeps the pages turning, too.

Warm, silly, creative and clever: Not every book can surpass its typos like Spindle can. This wacky and wonderful book deserves all the stars I can chuck at it.

It isn’t a perfect book, but don’t let that stop you. The grammarian in me warns you that there are more typos in this book than the other high-quality indie books I’ve reviewed. Hyphens are almost nowhere to be found in the entire text, and the writing at the beginning left me as fuzzy as newly-awakened Poly. But its almost lyrical quality and the twisted presentation of an old tale cued me that this was worth reading. By the end I was beaming, and also leaving five star reviews without hesitation.

This isn’t a book that leans on its fun settings and quirky characters alone, either: it’s as imaginative as a fantasy reader could ever want. I continue to be amazed by the way little aspects of the plot and world-building came together at the end. It was clearly well-thought out and cleverly executed. And it’s enjoyable. You’ll find serious stakes and fierce fights here (and a bit of violence), but no endless doom and gloom.

Poly is also a heroine who gets kissed awake, then slugs her disinterested smoocher. She continually demands her personal space, which helps the romance feel earned. And she’s not a one-man gal, either; she has a couple forays into youthful romances, and who she ends up with is never truly a given (although a pair of time travelers threaten to spoil the suspense).

Spindle has more depth than just a romance plot, too. More than one kind of love is integral to the plot, and Poly’s development: there are parts about female friendship and kinship where there could have been a solid rivalry, a melancholic side-plot about the man who could’ve woken her, and a growing bond with the boy-turned dog that is crucial to Poly reclaiming a life after so many years of sleep. All of this advances the plot—and presumably sets it up for the next book in the series.

Well-rounded, often funny, carefully developed, with unique magic systems and a dive in-able magical world, Spindle is a fabulous book. Get past the opaque earliest chapters and typos, and you may adore it just as much as I do.

C.K. Beggan

Tag: W.R. Gingell

Review: Between Jobs (Gingell)

Between Jobs (The City Between #1), W.R. Gingell (2018; urban fantasy, quirky fantasy)

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