This is not a thing I do often, because a) I do not often read books for actual grownups, and b) I’ve read a few too many listicles with condescending titles like “If you liked these books for kids, then here’s a list of corresponding books you may enjoy as an adult,” whereas in my opinion if you love Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper, and Joan Aiken, I think maybe you enjoy reading Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper, and Joan Aiken, no matter the number of years you happen to have lived on this planet.

I’m sorry. I ranted again, didn’t I?

That said. Some people do write gorgeous books that are decidedly not to be handed to a child, and while adults should not read them in lieu of books one could hand to a child, I enthusiastically endorse reading such books in addition to reading, for example, Time of Green Magic by Hilary McKay.

One such author is Kat Howard. Now, I’ve admired Kat Howard for a long, long time as someone who writes beautifully about books (NB: she has a Substack Epigraph to Epilogue where she writes about reading exactly as I think about it, but more regularly and much more concisely), loves Julian of Norwich, and has lovely cats. But, because I rarely consider reading novels for adults, I never read hers, even though I had a strong sense they were ones I’d genuinely enjoy. Then, one day, I replied to one of Kat’s beautiful posts with a book I thought she’d like, and, as we corresponded, I mentioned I had a copy I would be happy to send her. (The book I sent was Alison Uttley’s A Traveller in Time, for the curious.) What I did not expect was her to send me, in return, signed copies of her own Roses and Rot and An Unkindness of Magicians! I was stunned, grateful, and frankly thrilled to have no excuse not to read them.

Now, Roses and Rot is one of those beautiful, interwoven stories of fairy tales, family, magic, and art I love so much. Think of Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle and Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones. Think of Alan Garner. Now, give them a twist and a pull. Put them through university, put them in high heeled shoes as they graduate, and make them suffer through 37 rejection letters from editors before they get their first story accepted. They’re a bit older, wiser, and trying to heal from all that life threw at them.

And that, right there, is Roses and Rot. It’s got sadness and hope, pain and unexpected kindness. I genuinely don’t want to tell you too much more for the simple reason that I think it’s better if you go in knowing the experience, but not much about the story. It is a story of sisters, and what they went through to be where they are now, once upon a time…

I had an unexpected stroke of luck with An Unkindness of Magicians, which was originally published in 2017 as a stand alone novel, got a sequel in Sleight of Shadows, which came out shortly after I, shaking slightly, put down An Unkindness of Magicians. (Note: if you’ve got a small child– there’s a description of a baby suffering I found hard. The sympathy is strong, but the description is painful, but not gratuitous in the least.) I don’t think I respect anything more in an author than taking the time necessary to do what a story demands. I can understand readers coming to the end of An Unkindness of Magicians with questions, many questions. The book is satisfying and complete, as it stands. Kat Howard could have said, “No, that’s it, that’s all there is.” Or she could have heard the questions of readers and cobbled something together. But Sydney deserved more, the Unseen World deserved more, and Kat Howard’s writerly gift knew it could do better. She took the time necessary, and pulled off an honest, painful, ultimately honest ending.

If there is a constant for me among these books, apart from Kat’s direct, forthright, yet beautiful writing, it’s her nuanced integrity in telling a story. It’s easy to feel sympathy for Kat’s characters, to want to yank them out of the painful scenario. There is also, ultimately, always another character there for them. Frequently, and in a way I found really powerful, it’s women supporting each other, just as I’ve found such support in my own life from my own friends! The realism of hope in the face of painful destruction and cruelty is restorative in a world which tells us to “suck it up, that’s reality.”

Sydney, ultimately, refuses to give up. She does what she has to. So does Imogen in Roses and Rot. So do their friends, standing behind them, standing up for them. This isn’t even the stuff of epic, it’s the stuff of ethics. This is fantasy being more true, more real, than realism. This, in a nutshell, is what you should read if you liked Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper, and Joan Aiken as a kid.

Dammit, there I am. As bad as a listicle. (But, I’m going to go ahead and guess– Kat Howard would enthusiastically agree that reading the kiddie books is good, too. And, also, hers. The more books, the better.)

Thank you, Kat, for sharing your words with me– and your worlds with all of us.