"a literary bodice-ripper"

So boasts the top blurb, from Publisher's Weekly, on the back cover of Breath and Bones by Susann Cokal. The nice people at Unbridled Books sent along a copy the other day, and it turns out to be just as delicious as promised. The prologue is marvelously creepy: the delivery of a large painting by a widow; sideways glances at paintings embodying myths and all featuring the same flame-haired woman; a body with bright red hair floating in a glass case full of water, eyes missing. I was hooked. Cokal's writing is so precise that she's able to pull off some things that would be cringe-worthy in lesser hands. And it's a lovely, hefty book as a physical object.

The perfect book for a sick day and a too-hot spring. Has anyone read Cokal's first novel Mirabilis? Recommend?

See also: PW on Unbridled Books' start

Unrelated: At least one person has emailed me and said they're having trouble seeing the new template in Safari. Let me know if this problem persists. Or, um, let me know if you're running Safari and it looks okay to you.