Old Firehouse Books suggests three samples of thrilling escapism

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 fantasy history, a locked-door mystery and the tale of a sci-fi spy.

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From the publisher: “The Beheading Game” begins in the hours after Anne Boleyn’s beheading, when she wakes to find herself unceremoniously laid to rest in a makeshift coffin, her head wrapped in linen at her knees. Discarded by King Henry VIII for being unable to give him a male heir and reviled by Cromwell for being too smart for her own good, she was ultimately executed based on trumped-up charges of adultery, incest, and high treason.

Anne escapes the Tower of London, sews her head back on, then sets out on a quest to kill Henry VIII before he can marry her own lady-in-waiting, Jane Seymour. The stakes are high — if Jane gives birth to a rival heir, Anne’s daughter, Elizabeth, will lose her claim to the throne. Traveling the streets of London in the guise of a commoner, with the help of a prostitute who becomes a trusted friend (and perhaps something more), Anne soon realizes how little she knew about life in the real world.

A fantastical journey through the wilds of England and Tudor history, filled with danger and magic and steeped in Arthurian legend, “The Beheading Game” is a prescient reminder that “mouthy” women have always been punished. Now, thanks to debut novelist Rebecca Lehmann, nearly 500 years after Anne Boleyn’s death, one of history’s most maligned women finally has the chance to tell her story.

From Allison, book buyer: Anne Boleyn awakens in her coffin, reattaches her head, and seeks revenge (and a secure future for her daughter)! Debut novel from a poet and you can tell (complimentary). Appreciate that Lehmann keeps the three most important aspects of Anne: Whe was widely intelligent, deeply religious…and a bitch.

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From the publisher: Arthur Fletch, one of the world’s bestselling novelists, is a reclusive genius known for his iconic protagonists and fiendish twists. When six struggling authors are invited to spend a weekend on his private Scottish island, they arrive to discover a shocking secret: Arthur Fletch is dead . . . and his last book is unfinished.

Desperate to publish the novel, Fletch’s agent and editor have summoned these writers in the hope that one of them will imagine a worthy ending for this final book. To sweeten the deal, they are offering an irresistible prize: in addition to ghost-writing the last chapter — for a mind-boggling sum — they will also help the lucky writer successfully relaunch their own career, guaranteeing future bestsellers. The catch: the writers have just 72 hours to finish Fletch’s magnum opus.

It’s the perfect plot. All it needs is a killer ending.

From Revati, co-owner:  I love a good locked-room mystery and this one delivered! “The Ending Writes Itself” bounces around viewpoints (and victims) in an entertaining way that makes it fun while still maintaining a classic mystery feel. It felt like a combination of “Yellowface” by R.F. Kuang and “Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone” by Benjamin Stevenson. Read it!

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From the publisher:  In his training as a spy, Ro was warned: You will always be living a lie. Jumping into a Star Eater’s mind in the first place requires a moment of perfect psychic connection, and he has studied all his life to comprehend their species. Admires them, respects them, is reverent at the idea of being one of them — the only species physiologically capable of mining the element needed for lightyear-spanning space travel. The species all others crave to know more of, but who have notoriously shared so very little. The species Ro’s own small civilization, with its dwindling resources and withering reach, needs to know more about.

It will feel real, his elders impressed upon him. It will never be real. But Ro’s certainty runs deep: he will be different. Ro will not be an imposter hiding the truth of his past, because his heart will be one of them. He will be one of them. To understand is to become. It never occurs to him that the mere act of understanding can destroy.

From Miriam, events coordinator:  Intergalactic language schools, a fight for equal resources, a dying sacred species, all through the eyes of a young student who should’ve paid better attention in class. This book was weird from start to finish and I have yet to stop thinking about it and how it impacted me.

Type of Story: Review

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