Chez Aloysius

This is my fourth Netgalley ARC and it was another winner!
Through All Our Heavens by Olivia Hawker is a split narrative novel. One thread follows Helen Bywater throughout the American Civil War in the 1860s, as she struggles to keep her Southern estate running while also doing whatever she can to help the Northern cause. The other thread is set in 2053, after the US has split apart and is in the throes of another civil war. Derryn, an art historian is called behind the Blockade to study a cache of paintings that's been discovered - which seem to date back to the 1860s but depict scenes from the 2050s.
But it didn't proceed how I was expecting at all. The ways in which the two storylines connect are more thematic than actual, with both women taking parallel journeys within the turbulence of their respective times.
The themes themselves are explored and stated rather bluntly, with the author perhaps overexplaining her point throughout and both storylines felt a bit dragged out in the second half - but the writing is beautiful, both historical and futuristic settings are vivid and immersive (though the potential prescience of the events leading up to Derryn's not-too-distant world is chilling), I connected with and got invested in both protagonists, and the ending felt satisfying and deeply resonant.

I heard about The Book of Elsewhere when it came out and was intrigued because it's by China Mieville, one of my favourite authors, and Keanu Reeves, one of my favourite actors. But I also heard it was terrible - and I think I tried listening to the audiobook and only got a few pages in before giving up.
But my brother gave it to me for Christmas and I decided to give it another chance!
The first 30 pages or so were almost unreadable and largely incomprehensible (though each new short section was somehow terrible in a different way, which was pretty impressive). But then, around pg 35, the first female character was introduced, along with a long scene of perfectly credible dialogue and reasonably readable prose - and I was hooked. Some of the writing was still a bit tortured in places, but either that disappeared over time, or I just got used to it - because the rest of the book was awesome!
It's possible the forces in the book invaded my brain and influenced me (in the same way they do with some of the characters), and I'll later come to my senses and decide the book was terrible after all - but just after finishing it, it's definitely my first five-star read of 2026!
It's about a man who comes back every time he dies, and the various people who either want to study him or kill him outright, as well as his own struggles with the nature of his existence. It's very violent and gory (which is not usually something I like but which didn't bother me here - more evidence of paranormal activity, I feel...) but also has a lot of depth and layers. There were multiple characters I got invested in and attached to - and the sections charting bits of Unute's history over the centuries were varied and interesting in showing his impact on the world.
It did unravel a bit towards the end, when it got rather over-complicated and a bit silly in some ways - but I was very much along for the ride by that point and just went with it.
So, a very surprising about-turn for a book I wasn't sure I'd be able to get through! But I can't think of anyone I'd be able to genuinely recommend it to...

I'd heard a lot about Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang before I started reading it, which will definitely have impacted on my response to it. And I unfortunately largely agree with those who found fault with their experience of reading it.
The opening pages are exquisitely written but incredibly horrifying - but then it settles down into the main narrative and it did feel like everything was being overexplained and hammered home a bit too hard.
I really wasn't keen on Sciona as a protagonist and the initial hints of romance felt quite forced.
There are a lot of good ideas here but the story didn't really engage my emotions and I wasn't invested enough in it to finish the book.

The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay tells the story of Jean, who works in a wildlife park and has a special relationship with the dingoes, which is developed much further when a plague leaves people able to interpret the body language and noises of animals as speech.

Jean ends up going on a road trip with Sue the dingo and sees first-hand the implications and consequences of this increased connection between humans and animals. And it's not pretty.

This book is not an easy read - but it's definitely a worthwhile one. I particularly like the fact that what the animals say is weird, alien and largely very creepy. The books is fairly unpleasant in places, but it's both impactful and compelling - I read it in two days and stayed up way too late reading on both of them!

In terms of its arc, it really reminded me of Flowers For Algernon. It didn't hit as hard, but I thought it was really good overall.

The Little Vampire by Angela Sommer-Bodenburg is the first in a long series of kids' books about a young boy called Tony, who befriends a vampire.
I hadn't come across them before - but there are over 20 in the series, published throughout the 80s and 90s, and re-released in updated versions only a couple of years ago.
I wasn't a big fan, though, I'm afraid - I didn't like Tony and felt his reactions to things were very odd in places. There's also the usual problem with vampire stories involving young protagonists - while Rudolph and Anna (the vampire siblings) present as children, they are actually over 100 years old, which makes their friendship with Tony a bit unsettling.
I also found the story itself rather torturous and awkward - but then it's not aimed at me!
I have had a lot of success with middle grade stories recently - but not this one.

I read On Beauty by Zadie Smith a few years ago and remember thinking it was amazing.
And on rereading it across the end of 2025, into 2026, I can still appreciate the skill, the intricacy and the impact of the writing.
I didn't know before that it's loosely based on Howard's End, so that was a fun thing to look for on the reread - but I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to stick with it this time around.
I think the time of year was an issue, since my reading was interrupted a lot with festivities and travel - so it was definitely me and not the book.
Wrong moment to revisit this, unfortunately.

Pack the Essentials is a tile tesselating game, where you have a player mat with a grid that is a suitacase and you bid for different shaped pieces to fit into it. You can gain tokens that allow you to flip the pieces over to reveal cats for extra points. There are also other point-scoring conditions that change with each game. It's a fun version of this type of game (which I generally love) and I enjoyed it but it's not the best I've found in this genre (eg I preferred Zen Garden, which I played the day before).

At our usual New Year gaming get-together yesterday, I played Zen Garden, which is exactly the kind of game I really love. You collect tiles to build a garden on your player mat, matching background surface, path type and feature in various combinations to try and obtain the most points. There's a decision point around where the tiles are in the available gallery (they cost differing amounts of money to obtain, depending on position, but they get cheaper if they are left to the next round) and there are too many scoring variables to be able to achieve everything.

It was really fun - I always love pattern matching to maximise point scoring. I didn't do fantastically well, but I really enjoyed it and would definitely like to play it again.

The Notebook by Roland Allen has been on my shelf for a long time - and I finally got around to giving it a try. I love stationery and was very interested in the concept - but I don't think I was really in the right frame of mind for quite dense nonfiction this week, unfortunately. Certain aspects of it were very interesting, but it was a bit dry and more about historical detail than human interest for me, so I didn't finish it.


Heaven and Earth by Nora Roberts is the second in her Three Sisters Island trilogy - this time following deputy sheriff Ripley Todd in her journey to connect back to her magic and also find lasting love. It was - fine. I know what to expect from these books now, and I have to admit I'm getting a bit tired of them, as they are all very similar. The romance in this one was less problematic than the others I've read recently, which was a nice change and I liked how the supernatural threat built on what had happened in the first book, but it wasn't wildly compelling - and all the spell poems felt a bit twee. I'm less invested in finishing this series now - but I probably will at some point, just to round it off.

Over the weekend, I played two games that were new to me:

Castle Combo:
In this game, you purchase cards from a display in the middle and add them to your three by three grid. Each card has an immediate effect (usually providing you with money or keys) and an end-game effect (usually amassing points according to specific criteria). As with a lot of games, it's all about balancing obtaining resources during the game and racking up points for the end of the game. Most of the points relate to where the cards are positioned in your grid, so there's some careful planning involved. It's exactly the kind of game I like, with lots of criteria to fulfil across the course of the game, and I really enjoyed it.

Phantom Ink:
In this game, there are two teams, each of which have a 'ghost' giving them clues to identify a specific word. The teams have cards with questions on them, which they can give their ghost to answer, and the ghost then writes the answer one letter at a time, until the team tells them to stop. The questions gradually build up on both sides, until one team guesses the correct word. It's a bit different to other games like this that I've played, because both teams are trying to guess the same word, which adds layers to the strategy.
I usually prefer to be the clue-giver rather than guessing in these types of games, but I actually really enjoyed both in this one.


I also finished my second Netgalley ARC - Loon Point by Carrie Classon:
In this book, we follow Norry, who runs a holiday resort in rural Minnesota; Lizzie, an 8-year-old whose mother is struggling with drug addiction; and Wendell, an elderly man who thinks his life is terrible.
Over the course of the book, they all come together in various ways, and build connections with each other over the period of a year. All three perspectives are extremely well written, with distinctive narrative voices that match their age and lifestage. I wasn't all that keen on Wendell to begin with, but he had the best arc of all of them by the end.
It's a much quieter story than I was expecting, but I really enjoyed it. It's a bit repetitive in places, but that fits with the nature of the story being told and it didn't bother me that much.
I do like a female protagonist in her mid-40s, and Norry's attitudes and responses to things felt authentic.
I liked the romance aspect a lot, but was glad it didn't overpower the other parts of the story.
There were some logistical issues that weren't quite thought through (particularly in relation to hospital bills) but that didn't really detract from the emotional impact of the book, which was very good.