Second paragraph of third chapter:

Her apartment building was only two minutes away, the mintgreen balconies within sight, but she couldn’t go home. Not until she did this first. She couldn’t explain it, but she knew she was wanted in the park. It was connected somehow to Oni, to the reading. The change was starting. Right now. Someone was waiting, someone was—

From last year’s Hugo packet (supplied by Diana M. Pho as editor), this is a great intrusive fantasy novel set in the Jamaican-Canadian community in Toronto. I’m used to fantasy novels with maps at the beginning, just not used to novels where that map is a sketch of the main arteries and landmarks of a major North American city. (Those that are set in US cities tend to assume that you already know the geography.)

The protagonist has a master’s degree but is working in retail rather than academe, and then finds herself confronted by the Jamaican water goddess River Mumma, whose golden comb has been stolen and threatens horrible vengeance against humanity if our protagonist does not retrieve it. There’s a very entertaining hunt through the freezing city on behalf of a tropical deity, with cultures, temperatures and intergenerational mores all clashing. I really appreciate a book with a good sense of place and where the background culture is well thought out, and this is one of them. You can get River Mumma here.

This was my top unread book by a writer of colour. Meanwhile I acquired Katabasis by R.F. Kuang, which goes to the top of that pile.