Desert Rose

I seem to recall reading Gregory Hinton's Cathedral City many years back, based on reviews comparing it to Tales of the City. It's not quite like Maupin, but I can see where that review came from.

We're in the very late 90's in the Coachella Valley, outside of Palm Springs in Cathedral City, which is slowly transforming from a desert oasis filled with those not welcomed to live in the higher end desert communities to a modern city, complete with megamalls and ice skating rinks. We're centered mainly around Nick's a bar run by Nick and Kenny, a gay couple who've been together a few decades. Nick's become a drunk over time, running the front of the house, while Kenny runs the kitchen with some newly minted citizens of the United States. We hear of Nick's upbringing in an orphanage and Kenny's out out rejecting by his campus priest after confessing to a random encounter with another guy. Indeed, Kenny seems to almost enjoy tormenting Father Gene at the local parish, although Father Gene does eventually admit to waiting to retire to be who he is. Jealous of Father Gene's obsession with Kenny is Inez, who lives across the alley from Nick's. Inez is a very hard woman, having issues getting her citizenship due to a problem with some blood work. Inez was upper class in Mexico, but now is cleaning houses and rooms at one of the local gay hotels. She cleans Ruthie and Sam's house; they own most of the tar paper shacks lived in by the immigrants and the land Nick's sits on. Ruthie was a lounge singer, but she suffers from sever depression. Sam is Jewish, and fights against the constant racism he encounters in the area. We have Pablo, who comes from very rich stock in Mexico, but enjoys hustling in the desert; and we have Maria, who we meet through Kenny when he winds up joining her and her grandmother in an illicit border crossing.

As the book progresses, we watch as all of these relationship stretch, break, expand, heal, and grow in new directions. We watch as Sam tries to protect his quadrant of town from developers, we watch as Marcella the bar maid tries to get a cut of the developer's funds to set up herself. We watch at how hard she falls and how she ends up redeeming herself. We watch Inez and Pablo heal rifts in each other. We watch Kenny and Nick, as Nick dries out in Betty Ford. And towards the end, we, as readers, are privy to all the secrets these people have been hiding from each other.

It's hard reading in places, as I think most readers can fully understand some of the emotional places everyone visits within, the loneliness, the separations, and ultimately, redemption for most. While not all of us will ever get that last, it's worth the hope invested.

Underrated book. A good one for fans of Maupin or Rechy.

Cocoa for Cuckoo puffs!

In a nice break from the current situation, I finished Seanan McGuire's Imaginary Numbers, book 9 in her InCryptid series. Here, we're following our favorite Jhorlac, Sarah, who is mostly recovered from wiping the memories of most of New York City 5 years ago. For the most part. We also spend some time with Cousin Artie, the half-Lilu incubus, who's relationship with Sarah borders on soap opera.

So, we start with Sarah traveling from Cleveland to Portland and the family compound. When she lands in Portland, she runs into another Cuckoo, whom she promptly beats the crap out of. That order of business taken care of, Sarah reunites with Antimony and her gang at Roller Derby. She and Artie drive back to the compound, having an accident along the way caused by the Cuckoo from the airport.

Long story short, Sarah gets lured out of the compound by the hive of Cuckoos in Portland, who are trying to make her evolve into a Queen. Sort of. (Jhorlacs are sort of humanoid wasps from another dimension, so there are a few insect metaphors in here that get more complex as the plot begins to resolve. For the sake of keeping this simple, run with this.)

Anyway, this all happens after Sarah and Artie finally admit to their feelings and kiss. Which is when Artie becomes the focus of the narration for a while, as he and the family deal with the fake Sarah in the living room and the great Cuckoo rite they're trying to get Sarah to run.

Eventually, Artie and Sarah start trading chapters as somehow everyone ends up in Iowa and Sarah starts the metamorphosis into her fourth and final instar. We end on kind of a cliffhanger, although based on several mentions of the Aeslin mice in both the main novel and the Follow the Lady novella tucked in at the end, one expects that they might be able to resolve some of the conflict unanswered at the end.

Said novella takes place between the last book and this one, as Antimony, Sam, James, Fern, and Cylia break down near the Healy family hometown in Michigan and meet Grandma Alice. While the main novel is very good, the novella has the gut punch for me, as Antimony finally discusses how she feels like the expendable spare in the family.

Once again, a great entry in one of my favorite series.

Elves from California

It took quite a slog to get through Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory's Crown of Vengeance, but it was mostly worth it.

As a prequel to two other trilogies in the same world, it took some time getting used to centering on only the elvish race, with occasional interludes to the Endarkened. The map this time, however is basically the Western US, with Elvish kingdom's stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific even though most everything is centered around what we would consider California. (We end somewhere near El Paso.)

For the sake of my sanity, we'll refer to our heroine, Vielliessar, as V, and use initials for any other characters needing named, since Elves seem to enjoy long freaking names that put everyone else to shame. V is the last of House Farcarion, who's father died in battle, betrayed by his allies and who's mother died in childbirth at the Sanctuary of the Star. the Astromancer in charge of the Sanctuary believes V to be the fulfillment of the prophecy that will doom the Hundred Houses and lead the Elves in battle against a greater darkness. Which doesn't help when she gets schlepped back to the Sanctuary at 12 by the Lady of the most powerful house after the fall of V's original house.

Anyway, V is exiled by the Lady, basically. She does eventually figure out who and what she is, and most of the rest of the book is her figuring out how powerful she is, uniting most of the Houndred Houses, figuring out she's love bonded with R, Heir Apparent to the House she grew up in (and neither of them are exactly happy about this) and essentially leading everyone into a war that violates all the old rules.

It's a long trek.

It's a good trek.

The plotting in this setting is much more involved than what one might expect, and war and politics dance under the stars, and the reader is never sure exactly who is actually a decent person.