This lovely readathon is hosted by Jackie @DeathbyTsundoku
You can find the Announcement Page on her lovely blog!
There are some stories which feel as if their world is not wholly unfamiliar to us, as if our first entrance into their setting is a returnt visit rather than the initial immersion! This is how I felt about reading A Mortal Song. The story which was unfolding right before my eyes was the kind of story you truly are hopeful to discover – where the author & the world they’ve left behind for us to find is achingly lush and spilling out into your imagination as if you’ve crossed this fantastical threshold many times and have become so familiar with what you’d see, you do not need a guide nor a map in hand to find your way again.
Of all the stories I borrowed from the libraries, this was the one I was most anxious about – I had no idea if it would even arrive in time, as I had to fetch it through inter-library loan – so imagine my happiness in finding it amongst the #libraryhaul selections I collected just ahead of the #ThanksgivingReadathon getting underway! It felt rather kismet – I was meant to read this story right now and it was a story which would evoke such an awareness of itself inside my mind, if I had been able too – I would have truly done as I tweeted: forsaken sleep and DEVOURED it straight-through on Wednesday night!
However, as I revealled on my #ThanksgivingReadathon TBR post – a serious back injury prevented me from being able to sit, type and read for any length of time. Hence why I grabbed an hour here or a few hours there between Wednesday & Friday to where I could chisel down my library holds into the thirteen stories I was most anxious to read in full! A Mortal Song simply percolated to the top of the list as soon as the world gave me something I was seeker as a reader who loves to #EnterTheFantastic whenever she can!
Nothing about Thanksgiving week went according to plan – not in the hours to read, not in the hours to plan a Thanksgiving feast and surely not, the ‘day’ in which we’d celebrate Thanksgiving. For starters, Mum was called into extra & double shifts – blessedly, our family is the most adaptive when it comes to holidays, as it was something we were always doing when my Dad worked as his industry was 24/7 as much as Mum’s is now. We decided we could cook the bird on Friday and feast after her shift; which turnt into cooking the bird from 8p to 1a on Friday rather than the morning/afternoon until after a double shift we decided a lighter dinner of chicken melted cheese sandwiches was closer to being a cosy comfort than a full-on turkey dinner with the fixings! Thereby, we re-shifted our plans once again – to where the bird is cooking happily in the oven (today) which is Saturday, by 7a the day of the #Mythothon chat! (hence why I’m trying to get two of my posts up on my blog ahead of it!)
Travelling back to Wednesday, a day and night which altered itself per hour – Mum and I found ourselves in a neighbouring towne, shopping for last minute bits for Thanksgiving and our weekly groceries – as sometimes, you just want a switch-up from going to your regular local haunts as it can become a strain of familiarity. Not to mention, our local shoppes and stores were more Grinch than Eggnog cheer this year; so by switching cities, we were able to find the ‘jolly’ we were dearly missing otherwise!
It was here, amongst free samples from cooking demos, bakery delights & deli specials we found our little cozy comfort of joyfulness the holidays generally exhume into our lives!! It was on our return trip where everything went slightly haywire – we passed by a petrol station and that is where our lungs & our eyes were inundated by a petrol leak! It contaminated the air in the car & I personally could not breathe – I have horrid environmental & seasonal allergies – which wasn’t helping at all to curb the smell – as I was trying to breathe through my shirt (and failing miserably!), I told Mum to head towards the diner which was slightly outside of the city back towards home.
There was wood smoke outside and petrol in the car – ironically enough with a biting chill to the air which gave us the most hope of all the smell would erase whilst we were tucked into the warmth of the diner. This is after hours for most places – well past the hour you’d think a place would be open but it is one of those dives you can’t help but return due to a kind-hearted staff and cosy comfortable foods! I grabbed all the bags full of our food choices and slammed the doors to walk in the brisk air and try not to hyperventilate in a delayed panic reaction to lack of breath!
As we made our ways into the front section of the diner (as who knew they’d be slammed the day before Thanksgiving?) – we settled in for coffee and conversation, as what is better than recovering from such a horrid and putrid air attack than coffee & a fireside chat!? I looked at the side dish menu of the day and spied a favourite: fried okra! Ooh, yes, please! We ordered a basket (which was plenty to share for two hungry foodies!) with bleu cheese dressing (beyond YUM) and had an unlimited mug of java to keep the conversation flowing!
The interesting bit is one of the waiters thought I was hyper excited due to the coffee – what he failed to know though is I’m naturally hyper and coffee actually has the reverse effect on me – it calms me down to my bones! I was so chill it was hilarious! What he mistook for coffee induced reactions is I was seriously on a high of love for A Mortal Song as I had just spent a considerable amount of time fully animated (with hand gestures!) discussing the ENTIRE 25 pages I had read earlier in the day!!
I wanted Mum to experience what I had experienced – thus, I tucked straight in- talking about the kami – from the crane and the monkey; commenting I hadn’t realised monkeys would be so keen for styling hair til Mum reminded me that Steve Irwin (we’ve been thrilled to bits the Irwin’s are back with their new show “Crikey! Its the Irwins” which we’re LOVING) met an orangutan who not only climbed down the tree – *he played with his hair* – I added! Ooh, I had forgotten that!
We didn’t even see the crowd in the diner, nor realise about twenty minutes went past before my mug was re-filled as they were making fresh decaf (I like to drink half/half so I’m not drinking straight fully loaded cuppas) – we were so invested in the moment, the height of the revelations and the curiosity of what is coming *after!* those first twenty-five pages! I am not even sure if anyone overheard us if they would understand the conversation as I was even delving into how Sora could morph dimensionally through solid rock of Mt Fuji!!
I’ll never forget Wednesday – the best gift I gave myself was participating in the #ThanksgivingReadathon – similar to July when I was participating in the INSPY Reads readathon – I’ve noticed, sometimes I need a proper nudge to get me back into the stories I most desire to read. Sometimes I need to pull myself out of my routines and rhythms and simply focus on a niche of literature I’m either wholly passionate about (like INSPY) or keenly curious over (such as Mythological After Canon Fiction) – it allows you to step through literature in a condensed state of concentration and walk out the other side with a renewed passion for reading, discovery of the stories and a better sense of who you are as you evolve through a new heightened layer of being an inquisitive and intuitive reader!
My #25PagePreview of the VERY first #Mythothon story which gave me such a warm bookish hug & inspired me to have a coffee klatch discussing it as if the pages were re-illuminating in front of my cuppa!
during the 2018 #ThanksgivingReadathon !!
A Mortal Song by Megan Crewe
was happily #borrowed via my local #library!
It ought to go without saying, but I am sharing my bookish ruminations for my own edification but also in a continued method of sharing my bookish life to help my readers find their own #mustreads and follow my own readerly journey into the stories I’m reading myself. I was not compensated for sharing my opinions and thoughts herein.
A Mortal Song
by Megan Crewe
Source: Borrowed from local library (ILL)
Places to find the book:
ISBN: 9780995216907
Published by Another World Press
on 13th September, 2016
Format: Trade Paperback
Pages: 380
Site | @megancrewe | Pub’d by Another World Press
*Ill’d (inter-library loan)
Read More
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- #ThanksgivingReadathon 2018
Cursed Rebel
Jacyln and the Beanstalk
Destiny's Gambit