Tag Archives: @RandomTTours

Review: Wedded Wife, by Rachael Lennon

Imprint: Aurum
Pub Date (UK): Apr 20, 2023
Price: £16.99 GBP
ISBN-13: 978-0-7112-6711-4
Format: Hardcover Book
Pages: 256


Blurb

In this fascinating and insightful book, feminist curator Rachael Lennon provides an intimate and intersectional examination of the history of marriage around the world.
With a lively and accessible style, Lennon tells a remarkable story of how this institution has developed from the ancient customs of the stone age through to the modern form it takes today. This book also explores themes such as the pressure to marry, the politics surrounding proposals, the spectacle of marriage, the business behind it, and the politics tied to consummation as well as issues such as taking a man’s name, the nuances of marriage vows and obedience, ‘having it all’ and trying to keep up the fight to have an enduring marriage.

Having married her wife just a few years after the legalisation of same sex marriage in the United Kingdom, Lennon interweaves her own personal experiences of marriage with stories and anecdotes from throughout
history to explore how marriage has transformed over the years.

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Review: Strong Female Character, by Fern Brady

14 February 2023
£16.99 | Hardback

Blurb

A summary of my book:

  1. I’m diagnosed with autism
    20 years after telling a doctor I had it.
  2. My terrible Catholic childhood: I hate my parents etc.
  3. My friendship with an elderly man who runs the
    corner shop and is definitely not trying to groom me.
  4. Homelessness.
  5. Stripping.
  6. More stripping but with more nervous breakdowns.
  7. I hate everyone at Edinburgh uni etc.
  8. REDACTED as too spicy.
  9. After everyone tells me I don’t look autistic,
    I try to cure my autism and get addicted to Xanax.
  10. REDACTED as too embarrassing.

If you’ve ever been on a night out where you got blackout drunk and have laughed the next day as your friends tell you all the stupid stuff you said, that’s what being autistic feels like for me: one long blackout night of drinking, except there’s no socially sanctioned excuse for your gaffes and no one is laughing.

In this book, Fern uses her voice as an autistic, working class woman from Scotland to bring her experiences with sex work, abusive relationships and her time spent in a teenage mental health unit to the page. Written with unflinching honesty, Strong Female Character is a game-changing memoir on sexism and autism.

(I changed some of the blurb copy because Fern Brady has made it clear she doesn’t like being referred to as neurodivergent and wants people to use ‘autistic’ instead.)

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Review: The Jaguar Path, by Anna Stephens

Second chunky new fantasy in two days, I’m spoiling you all!

THE JAGUAR PATH
│16 FEBRUARY 2023│
HB │ EB │EA
Anna Stephens

Book Two of the new epic fantasy trilogy by the acclaimed author of GODBLIND.

The Empire of Songs reigns supreme. Across all the lands of Ixachipan, its hypnotic, magical music sounds. Those who battled against the Empire have been enslaved and dispersed, taken far from their friends and their homes.

In the Singing City, Xessa must fight for the entertainment of her captors. Lilla and thousands of warriors are trained to serve as weapons for their enemies. And Tayan is trapped at the heart of the Empire’s power and magic, where the ruthless Enet’s ambition is ever growing.

Each of them harbours a secret hope, waiting for a chance to strike at the Empire from within.

But first they must overcome their own desires. Power can seduce as well as crush. And, in exchange for their loyalty, the Empire promises much.

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Review: Song of Silver, Flame like Night, by Amelie Wen Zhao

2 FEBRUARY 2023
HB│EB│EA
Amélie Wen Zhao

Blurb

Once, Lan had a different name. Now, she goes by the one the Elantian colonizers gave her when they invaded her kingdom, killed her mother, and outlawed her people’s magic. She spends her nights as a songgirl in Haak’gong, a city transformed by the conquerors, and spends her days
scavenging for remnants of the past. For anything that might help her understand the strange mark burned into her arm by her mother, in her last act before she died.

No one can see the mysterious mark, an untranslatable Hin character, except Lan. Until the night a boy appears at the teahouse and saves her life.

Zen is a practitioner – one of the fabled magicians of the Last Kingdom, whose abilities were rumoured to be drawn from the demons they communed with. Magic believed to be long lost. Magic to be hidden from the Elantians at all costs.

Both Lan and Zen have secrets buried deep within. Fate has connected them, but their destiny remains unwritten. Both hold the power to liberate their land. And both hold the power to destroy the world.

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