September 2026 Reads
The key word for September was “travel”. Over Labor Day weekend, I visited Lake Chatuge in North Carolina to go camping with some of my oldest friends and their partners. Getting a little retreat into nature, soaking up tons of sun, and dipping in the lake was deeply needed! Then, mid September thru the end of the month, my partner and I visited Japan! We started in Tokyo and bounced around Osaka and Hikone as well, where we did tons and tons! I unfortunately had an incredibly nasty cold during part of the trip, but still, I had a great time! This was our fifth trip to Japan, and even though neither my partner nor I are anywhere close to fluent in Japanese, it’s great to practice what little bit we do know. Between down time at the lake and 12 hour plane trips, here’s what I read this month.
LAVENDER HOUSE
Lev AC Rosen (2022)
This is a read I picked up on a whim at my local library, and I brought with me to the lake trip!
Lavender House follows a disgraced former police officer, Evander Mills, who has been ousted from his department after being discovered in flagrante at a gay club during a raid in 1950’s San Francisco. At his darkest moment, contemplating ending his life, he’s approached by the typical beautiful, mysterious woman — your femme fatale. However, this isn’t a story of a woman who brings temptation and/or ruin to a man, because not only does he not swing that way — neither does she.
Our not so fatale femme is Pearl Velez, who wants to hire him as a private detective to find out who murdered her wife, and invites him into the secluded life of Lavender House, a somewhat on-the-nose-named abode of a cast of queer characters who are engaged in various false relationships to protect themselves from the judgement and danger of the outside world.
(As a sidenote, to be fair, Lavender House is named for the lavender soap scent that was the cornerstone of the Lamontaine Soaps empire, but like….we know what you’re getting at here.)
Pearl’s wife, the deceased Irene Lamontaine, is the heiress of the Lamontaine Soaps empire. Who is responsible for her death — a member of her found (and biological) family, residing within the walls of Lavender House? A rival soap empire? Or someone else?
This is a very by-the-book noir mystery, structurally, but the cast of queer characters against the historical backdrop make it really stand out. And the way they live in a kind of idyllic state in their own world, in denial or defiance of the world outside, almost gave me a kind of “dark academia” feel, reminding me of books like The Secret History by Donna Tartt, or The Likeness by Tana French (although I’m not sure many folks would classify that one as “dark academia”).
I noticed a second book following Evander Mills’ escapades on the shelf at the library, and I’d be interested to check it out in the future.
A MAGICAL GIRL RETIRES
Park Seolyeon (2022, 2024)
Another read at the lake! I actually didn’t realize this is more of a novella than a novel (I read it digitally on my Kobo) so I was surprised at how short it was, and actually managed to read it in its entirety during my lake trip.
I have had this book on my radar for a long time, but I found myself actively putting it off, because I was afraid I wouldn’t like it. As a self-professed magical girl aficionado, a book with “magical girl” literally in the title almost felt too obvious, even for me. What if I didn’t like it? However, I found myself completely charmed by this book, and a little sad I had waited so long to pick it up and give it a try.
In the last….I’m not even sure, fifteen years or so? dark, gritty magical girl stories have become quite popular. I tend to date this back to Puella Magi Madoka Magica in 2011 primarily, which has given birth to subversive magical girl stories that primarily focus on suffering, sometimes in a way that feels like it takes glee in the despair of young women that I find tiring. I think this is a bit what I was afraid of encountering in this book.
Our unnamed narrator certainly is a character in despair, described as a typical millennial, struggling to find consistent work and drowning in credit card debt. Unexpectedly, she is approached by an angelic woman, telling her she is destined to be a magical girl herself, and not just any magical girl, but THE magical girl.
However, our narrator’s tenure as a magical girl is not what you might expect, if you’re familiar with the genre.
There is some really interesting world building, in that being a magical girl is treated like a specialized career field, and even has unions and organizations (a recent example of this that I can think of in manga/anime is Magilumiere, Inc, which I read the first volume of ages ago and always meant to go back to.)
However, the most interesting part of this book to me is its sincerity in its effort to remain grounded and serious. The book handles serious topics like climate change, sexism, and capitalism. It would be easy to slip into the aforementioned misery porn genre of magical girl media that’s risen in the past. However, there’s a thread of honest hope that runs throughout, centered around the idea of balance and justice.
I don’t want to say too much because this book is a delight to read, and given that it is so short, you should just pick it up yourself. I know there’s a sequel coming later this year (soon!!!) and I can’t wait to check it out.
I read this book digitally, but it has gorgeous illustrations, almost like a light novel, and I plan to own it and the sequel in physical editions, for sure.
THE CASE OF THE MURDEROUS DOCTOR CREAM
Dean Jobb (2021)
Started this one at the tail end of our lake trip, and it carried me over til our flight to Japan!
I feel bad, I can’t remember exactly what podcast I was listening to, but a true crime show mentioned this case, and referenced this book, and well, here we are. Sometimes I just need to dip my toes back into the well of historical true crime, you know?
Dr. Cream was a real piece of work: a poisoner, blackmailer, multi-national serial killer, and minor Jack the Ripper suspect (when I say minor, I mean minor.)
Starting us off with Dr. Cream’s release from prison in Chicago in the early 1900s as a kind of prologue, we immediately jump into the meat of Cream’s crimes in London. As they play out, and investigators slowly become aware that several seemingly unrelated crimes may be connected, they begin to investigate one suspect: the titular Doctor Thomas Neill Cream. And as his past begins to unfold, so do we begin to see the man behind the murders, and his evolution from a hardworking, religious young man in Canada to unhinged narcissist.
This isn’t groundbreaking in the realm of like….old timey murder case nonfiction, of which I’ve read my fair share, but I still really enjoyed it!
NINTH HOUSE TRILOGY
NINTH HOUSE
HELL BENT
Leigh Bardugo (2019. 2023)
Ninth House and Hell Bent both carried me through our travels in Japan, and the end of the month. I’d been wanting to reread these two, and when I realized the third and final book in the trilogy, Dead Beat, was coming out later this year, I made myself wait. I put in my preorder for Dead Beat, and as soon as we got back to the States, I went to my local bookstore and grabbed it as quickly as I could.
After a tragic event resulting in multiple deaths, self-professed human cannonball Alex Stern is offered the chance of a lifetime: a second chance to start her life over as a student at Yale University, in exchange for working for one of their secret societies: Lethe House, which exists to keep “name brand” societies like Skull and Bones or Book and Snake in check. However, she’s not there to be the fun police for weekend ragers or even standard hazing — the secret societies of Yale are doing real, dangerous magic that can have real, dangerous consequences. And why was Alex chosen, you might ask? For her ability to see ghosts (aka “Grays.”)
The first time I read Ninth House, it left me breathless. It was an un-put-down-able read, and I immediately tried recommending it to old friends. Given that we’d all grown up in the 90s during the Harry Potter craze, the best clumsy metaphor I could come up with was that these books felt like Harry Potter for grown ups. But that sells the complexity of these books so short, much less its willingness to touch on so many real issues, from campus sexual assault to race to power and privilege, and who gets to benefit — and at what cost.
I think of the two books that have come out so far, Ninth House remains my favorite. The scale of the book is a little smaller — I appreciate the way the world, and the stakes, open up so much more in Hell Bent, but Ninth House just feels….cozy, in a way? Can a murder mystery about secret societies and dangerous magic be cozy? That said, Hell Bent has excellent character development, and characters that I didn’t get to know that closely in the first book, I completely fell for in the second.
At the time of writing this, I’ve picked up my copy of Dead Beat and have already started it!
I’m getting this post out a little later than I’d like due to jet lag, and trying to integrate back into my normal life — and I have more travel coming up at the end of the month, which I’m both looking forward to and dreading a little. However, in this moment, I’m reveling in the fact that spooky season is here, the weather is changing, and I can’t wait to sink even further into it with great reads in the coming weeks!
—M.