Tag: The Ballad of Black Tom

We are so, so close to 2020 being over and while we can’t wait to finally escape the dumpster fire that was this year, we’re also taking the time to look back at the books that helped get us through. Check out which books we are most grateful for here.

Jordan Hanley, Marketing Manager

Rachel Taylor, Marketing Manager

So I don’t know about y’all, but I kicked off this year thinking I was going to CRUSH my Goodreads challenge. But then…2020 happened and my attention span went straight out the window. But suddenly, TJ Klune was there to save the day. opens in a new windowThe House in Cerulean Sea was one of the first books I read after starting at Tor and I devoured it in a single day. It was the warm, comforting read I needed this year and it truly saved me in the early days of the pandemic. I spent most of the year anxiously hovering, waiting for  opens in a new windowUnder the Whispering Door, TJ’s next adult book with Tor, to come in. Though it’s not publishing until September 2021, I was lucky enough to read it early and once again was completely absorbed. This is a must-read for 2021 and I personally can’t wait for more people to get their hands on the book so we can scream about it together.

Giselle Gonzalez, Publicity Assistant

There’s so many books that I’m so greatful to have read in 2020, but if I had to narrow it down,  opens in a new windowRiot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi would definitely be at the top of my list. Riot Baby was the first work I’ve read by Tochi and it is absolutely essential reading. It is powerful, eye-opening, moving, and nerdy-as-heck. A book I will never forget and will recommend to everyone! Another novel that I’m grateful to have read this year is  opens in a new windowOf Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia. As a Cuban American woman it’s rare that I find a book that portrays my experience and that of the women in my family, but this novel felt like coming home. It’s a story of family, women, immigration, loss and it’s absolutely stunning, fierce and left me in a puddle of tears. It was one of the first times I saw myself and my family in a book and it holds a special place in my heart.

Leah Schnelbach, Staff Writer, Tor.com

Two of my favorite reads this year were, on the surface, quite different: opens in a new windowDrowned Country, Emily Tesh’s sequel to her lovely opens in a new windowSilver in the Wood, and Marilynne Robinson’s opens in a new windowGilead, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005.

Drowned Country is a funny, ache-y return to characters I loved. Henry Silver and Tobias Finch are one of my favorite literary couples (honestly, my only quibble with these books is that they’re not giant fantasy doorstoppers because I want to spend more time with those two) and Henry’s monster-hunting mother is hilarious. But what’s great about Drowned Country is that it takes this trio and deepens them. The narrative hops around in time, stranding us in terrible memories before dropping us back in the present, creating a palpable sense of Henry’s grief. By letting Henry’s neediness shade into real selfishness, Tesh is able to explore the consequences and put the poor, silly boy through more of an emotional wringer. Meanwhile, Tobias’ taciturn nature very nearly ruins everything, until the moment when he allows himself to act on impulse (and thus saves the day), and Adela Silver is older now, and has vulnerabilities of her own. Plus there’s a terrifying quest? And a whole new fantasy country? And a new character, Maud Lindhurst, who holds her own even with Henry’s mother? The book gently worries at the idea of past mistakes echoing up into the present—both personal failings like Henry’s, and the giant, world-shattering choices that led to the Drowned Country in the first place.

Now, Gilead is again, on the surface, quite different. The engine of the book is that Reverend John Ames, a septuagenarian father, is writing letters for his seven-year-old son. The Reverend has a heart condition. He could go at any time. The letters may be the only way the boy will know his father, so Rev. Ames knows he has to get them right. This is a slow, quiet, meditative book about the different shapes love can take. It spends pages and pages turning over one idea, one memory. It also talks, beautifully and at length, about John Brown’s fight against slavery, and the ultimate moral failure of the nice white people who refused to back his fight. The threads of personal history and national catastrophe weave together beautifully to add up to a book that is, at its heart, about the need to connect across time.

In both cases, these books allowed me to slow down and spend time with characters who became quite real. They gave me space to think about the past as both personal and political, and to read about people who are brave enough to drop their defenses and be honest with each other in order to heal sins of the past.

Anneliese Merz, Publicity Assistant 

I’ve been immensely grateful for so many books this year, but I think that if I had to choose (help, Tor is making me!), I would say opens in a new windowThe House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune was the perfect pick me up and feel good book that I needed in this god awful year that is 2020. I would also say, I finally read the opens in a new windowShadow and Bone series by Leigh Bardugo in preparation for the show coming to Netflix in April 2021 and my body and mind is SO ready!