Old Firehouse Books features tales of magic, homecoming, hounds

Each week as part of SunLit — The Sun’s literature section — we feature staff recommendations from book stores across Colorado. This week, the staff from Old Firehouse Books in Fort Collins recommends tales of magic, homecoming and hounds.

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From the publisher: Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes, the greatest magician in the world at Cambridge.

That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams….

From Revati, store manager: I was already excited to read the next R.F. Kuang book and that excitement doubled upon hearing that it was about students going to hell because of the rigors of academia. This book exceeded my expectations! It was interesting, funny, engaging, accessible and stressful in the best way. I felt like I was reading a combination of the “Phantom Tollbooth” mixed with “The Magicians” and of course Dante. Love, love, love!

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From the publisher: In this contemporary debut novel — an intimate portrait of queer, racial, and class identity — Andrés, a gay Latinx professor, returns to his suburban hometown in the wake of his husband’s infidelity. There he finds himself with no excuse not to attend his 20-year high school reunion, and hesitantly begins to reconnect with people he used to call friends.

Over the next few weeks, while caring for his aging parents and navigating the neighborhood where he grew up, Andrés falls into old habits with friends he thought he’d left behind. Before long, he unexpectedly becomes entangled with his first love and is forced to tend to past wounds.

Captivating and poignant; a modern coming-of-age story about the essential nature of community, The Town of Babylon is a page-turning novel about young love and a close examination of our social systems and the toll they take when they fail us.

From Sterlin, bookseller: Now that we’re really getting back into the swing of things with school, here is the book I credit with giving me the final push I needed to further my education. “The Town of Babylon” takes the time to explore numerous suburban characters’ unique arcs, but Henry’s story hit me especially hard. Spoiler? “…But Enrique was dead. Dead. Thirty-two, and dead.” This book gave me a much deeper appreciation of my access to education and opportunity, and a way to feel heard and realize I really wanted to be heard in the first place, among numerous other things.

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From the publisher: Even before the rumors about the Mansfield girls begin, Little Nettlebed is a village steeped in the uncanny, from strange creatures that wash up on the riverbank to portentous ravens gathering on the roofs of people about to die. But when the villagers start to hear barking, and one claims to see the Mansfield sisters transform before his very eyes, the allegations spark fascination and fear like nothing has before.

The truth is that though the inhabitants of Little Nettlebed have never much liked the Mansfield girls — a little odd, think some; a little high on themselves, perhaps — they’ve always had plenty to say about them. As the rotating perspectives of five villagers quickly make clear, now is no exception. Even if local belief in witchcraft is waning, an aversion to difference is as widespread as ever, and these conflicting narratives all point to the same ultimate conclusion: Something isn’t right in Little Nettlebed, and the sisters will be the ones to pay for it.

A richly atmospheric parable of the pleasures and perils of female defiance, “The Hounding” considers whether in any age it might be safer to be a dog than an unusual young girl.

From Teresa, store manager: Set in England in the 1800s, you are introduced to the five Mansfield girls through the eyes of other people in the small town of Little Nettlebed.  The girls keep to themselves, don’t try to make friends and seem to think they are better than everyone else. Pretty soon a rumor spreads of the girls turning into wild dogs and then all bets are off; the entire town becomes obsessed with the girls and all the truly terrible things they have done or will do if they aren’t controlled.

Type of Story: Review

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