Readers and writers: Two novels that bring back familiar characters, and a handful of nonfiction
- Rachel Gold's new novel "Get Curious" follows college student Rev as she uncovers a story of love lost due to sexual harassment 30 years earlier, blending mystery with exploration of LGBTQ+ identities.
We've got witches and a genre-jumping mystery today, plus memoirs and other nonfiction.
"Get Curious":by Rachel Gold (Bella Books, $18.99)
If college student Rev wasn't so good at urban explorations in tunnels and other places in campus buildings where she wasn't supposed to be, she wouldn't have found the bulging old boxes filled with documents that tell a story of love lost because of cruel sexual harassment 30 years earlier.
Minnesotan Gold's new adult novel is part mystery, part exploration of Rev's life as lesbian/ace (asexual). Her friends at this enlightened college are trans, gay and non-binary. Among them are Maze and Lys, protagonists of Gold's previous novel "Curious Minds."
Gold is a pioneer in writing about teen sexuality across the spectrum, beginning with "Being Emily," one of the first novels to tell the story of a trans girl from her perspective.
In "Get Curious," Rev finds in those dusty files legal papers and loose pages of letters written by an unnamed girl on campus three decades earlier. Rev grabs a few pages but leaves the boxes. When she returns they are gone. Who knew the old files were hidden there? Who would care after all these years? What happened to the anonymous girl and and the lover with whom she broke up?
These questions send Rev and her supportive friends into the past through investigations that lead to the story of women forced to leave college because of male harassment, and a secret settlement by the administration that someone doesn't want made public. Through persistence and help from the internet, Rev and her friends find the women involved in the lawsuit and uncover an ugly story it is time to expose.
Gold does a great job of growing tension as the sleuths find clue after clue but it takes awhile to put it all together. It's also interesting that Rev is having chronic stomach pains she describes as having a sea monster squeezing her. This leads to her discussions with some other students, including those opposed to gay/trans people, about beliefs surrounding medicine in other cultures and the many aspects of sexuality, while also trying to see an antagonist's point of view. And through the story runs the deep connection between Rev and her posse as they build community.
Besides being an award-winning author, Gold teaches at her alma mater, Macalester College, and at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.
Teaser quote: "As I do more of the reading for Medical Anthro, I wonder about the tension between attachment and authenticity. Did she figure it out? She must have. I need those answers for conversations with my mom — and all the elements of sexuality and gender I haven't figured out for myself yet."
"The Blackthorn Women":by Jess Lourey (Thomas & Mercer, $16.99)
If this thriller-with-magic seems familiar, it's because it's a revised and re-edited edition of Lourey's previous novel "The Catalain Book of Secrets," published independently in 2014.
In the small Minnesota town of Faith Falls, near the Rum River, stands a Queen Anne mansion where the witchy Blackthorn family has lived for generations. There is Grandmother Velda, who takes whatever she needs from men; her daughter Ursula, maker of potions who poisoned her father; Ursula's daughters Katrine and Jasmine; and Jasmine's daughter Tara.
Katrine returns to Faith Falls after being in Europe for 14 years, eager to see her sister Jasmine to whom she was so close in childhood. But Jasmine is distant and closed off mentally because she gave up her powers in exchange for sending her sister away so Katrine could be safe from their grandfather's dying curse. Does he have the ability to come back in any human form?
The curse comes alive every few years when the snakes rise, hundreds of them slithering everywhere in the town ankle-deep. Could the curse account for the appearance of the sexy musician who intrigues Katrine? Are all the green-eyed Blackthorn women in danger and how do they reverse the curse?
Besides tension rising, the story explores which of the women kept their powers and which, like Katrine, haven't tapped into their full potential.
Lourey is an award-winning author who writes popular thrillers such as "The Quarry Girls" and "The Taken Ones." She explains in her acknowledgments that she began writing "The Catalain Book of Secrets" in 2002, after the unexpected death of her husband. She independently published it with help of a Kickstarter campaign and it "always sat sort of in the background." After three rounds of professional editing, the new edition is published by Thomas & Mercer. Lourey writes: "I felt like there was a message in the world of these women, and it wasn't meant only for me."
Lourey's fans can also look forward to mid-August when her new thriller, "The Crying Killer," is published. It's about a monster who was thought to be shot down but was seen on the streets.
Nonfiction
"Bear Tracks: Memoirs of a Ho-Chunk Elder":by Sherman Funmaker (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, $20) — A poet, essayist and speaker, enrolled member of the HO-Chunk Nation from Baraboo, Wis., describes in this poetry collection his youth as a poor Native American kid growing up in a loving family.
"On an Inland Sea: Writing the Great Lakes":edited by Michael Welch (Acadia Publishing, $15) —33 writers offer thoughts in this essay collection focusing on these five bodies of water. Most are inspired by Lake Michigan, but a few are about Lake Superior. Topics range from wild rice to boat wrecks, thinning ice to Art is a Lake.
"Northwoods Cabin Companion":by Robert M. Zink (Independently published, $15.99) — Now that we're in cabin season, what better time to read essays by a professor and biologist who loves the outdoors? He writes in a friendly way about everything in the wild, from chronic wasting disease in deer to a mouse in a bottle of vegetable oil, fish holding their breath, the taste of mammoth and more. Keep this one handy for those sure-to-come rainy afternoons.
"The St. Paul Phantom: The Gibbons Brothers Fight for Glory":by Gerard Gibbons (Fight for Glory Press, $34.95) — In the world of professional boxing, the names of St. Paul-born brothers Mike and Tommy Gibbons are an integral part of the sport's history 100 years ago. The author's great-uncle and grandfather, respectively, were sons of immigrants and Irish rebels. His 464-page hardcover, the first of a trilogy about the brothers, begins in 1850 and includes a four-page cast of characters with their pictures in oval frames. Other old photos and images dot the pages. Gibbons did much of his research at the Minnesota Historical Society. He writes about the fighters: "Together, they were the greatest boxing brothers of their time, acclaimed Hall of Famers, known as 'the shining knights of the ring.' They embodied the grit and grandeur of the early twentieth century, when boxing was not only the world's most popular entertainment, but a powerful looking glass into the soul of the American Dream."
"Growing Up on the Gunflint Trail":by Keith Morris (Minnesota Children's Press. No price listed; go to minnchildpress.org ) — This oversized paperback is about the author/illustrator's boyhood when his family operated the first Gunflint Trail flying service on Poplar Lake, and helped their relatives run the neighboring resort Norwester Lodge. He was six days old when his father flew him and his mother from Duluth back to their Gunflint Trail home. Now 75, Morris looks back at a childhood any kid would envy in 19 essays ranging from ice houses to loons. Morris is a storyteller, wilderness paddler, kayak designer and builder, artist, inventor, and north woods adventurer. His book includes 35 photos from his family's archives and 55 pencil sketches, linoleum block prints, acrylic paintings, hand-drawn maps and pictures of furniture he designed and built.
