Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.
Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.
Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!
Title: Tender Morsels
Author: Margo Lanagan
Published: 2007
Length: 436 pages
What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):
Tender Morsels is a dark and vivid story, set in two worlds and worrying at the border between them. Liga lives modestly in her own personal heaven, a world given to her in exchange for her earthly life. Her two daughters grow up in this soft place, protected from the violence that once harmed their mother. But the real world cannot be denied forever—magicked men and wild bears break down the borders of Liga’s refuge. Now, having known Heaven, how will these three women survive in a world where beauty and brutality lie side by side?
And from the synopsis of another edition:
In her inspired re-working of the fairy-tale Snow White and Rose Red Margo Lanagan has created characters that are vivid, passionate, flawed and fiercely devoted to their hearts’ desires, whether these desires are good or evil. It is the story of two worlds – one real, one magical – and how, despite the safe haven her magical world offers to those who have suffered, her characters can never turn their backs on the real world, with all its beauty and brutality.
Tender Morsels is an astonishing novel, fraught with the tension between love and horror, violence and tenderness, despair and hope.
How and when I got it:
I bought a copy many years ago.
Why I want to read it:
After reading Margo Lanagan’s amazing short story collection Black Juice, I was dying to read more by this author. I also read her novel The Brides of Rollrock Island, which I thought was incredibly beautiful (but also disturbing.) I’ve heard that Tender Morsels is very dark, and I’ve read some pretty extreme reviews both pro and con, which make me even more convinced that I should read it and judge for myself.
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Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:
- Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
- Add your link in the comments!
- If you’d be so kind, I’d appreciate a link back from your own post.
- Check out other posts, and…
Have fun!
It does seem dark and that cover is strangely disturbing, yet I can see why you want to read it – just to know!
I do love the cover!
Plenty of interesting retellings coming out-there are a few I want to pick up now. Hope this turns out a good one.
Here’s mine from this week: https://potpourri2015.wordpress.com/2018/10/10/shelf-control-18/
I’m always up for a good retelling 🙂
I might actually have a copy of this, it looks very familiar😁
I’m often surprised by what I find lurking at the back of my bookshelves. 🙂
I remember Margo Lanagan was a huge deal a few years back when Melina Marchetta was crazy popular. All the Aussies! I never did read anything of Margo’s but this sure does sound interesting.
I haven’t read a ton of her work… but what I’ve read, I’ve loved!