Ceony Twill has put herself through magic school in only a year when most people take two. She’s a smart girl and she’s hoping that her magic will be based on metal. She wants to design weapons and machines and things that matter. Instead, she gets paper. Boring old, get-it-wet-and-it-falls-apart paper. She’s crushed. She hopes Continue Reading…
The Resurrectionist by E. B. Hudspeth: Book Review
Dr. Spencer Black was a brilliant doctor whose career was derailed by an obsession with mythological creatures. He believed that anatomical deformities were not so much mutations as throwbacks to earlier days in the evolutionary timeline. He believed he could prove this by recreating creatures from fable and myth. If he could make them viable, Continue Reading…
A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray: Book Review
Gemma Doyle is living in India, but she desperately wants to move back to England. As 16-year-old girls will do, she’s bickering constantly with her mother over it. One day, in the midst of an Indian market, tragedy strikes and Gemma gets sent back to England. But she also starts having strange visions. Can the Continue Reading…
Journey to Inuyama by Lian Hearn: Book Review
Picking up exactly where Episode 1 left off, Episode 2 finds Takeo and Kaede en route to a marriage at Lord Iida’s stronghold. Takeo is still bent on revenge and Kaede is just trying to survive this brutal world of men. There’s still a lot of potential in this series, it’s just not getting places Continue Reading…
The Sword of the Warrior by Lian Hearn: Book Review
Tomasu is out wandering the mountains where his village is located, as he has countless times before, but this time when he comes back, a warlord has destroyed it and apparently killed all the inhabitants. Tomasu makes his escape after embarrassing the warlord and earning his eternal enmity. A kind stranger on the trail Tomasu Continue Reading…
The Wish Giver by Bill Brittain: Book Review
When The Wish Giver comes to the Coven Tree church social, four townspeople exchange 50 cents each for one wish. They can’t even begin to dream how their wishes will affect their lives. I remember loving this book when I was in about fifth grade. I couldn’t remember a thing about the story but I Continue Reading…
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern: Book Review
“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.” Two rival magicians agree to bind their students to a challenge. Hector will teach his daughter, Celia, and Alexander will teach a student of his own choosing. When the students are older, they will face each other Continue Reading…
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
Young Tristran Thorn (who’s birth is maybe not as…aboveboard…as Victorian society would like) is desperately in love with Victoria Forester. He screws up his courage one night to ask her to kiss him or marry him or just–something! He is met with laughter. In desperation, he offers to slay dragons and bring back treasures for Continue Reading…
A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin: Book Review
Picking up where the first book left off, the Seven Kingdoms are in chaos. There are now three claimants to the Iron Throne and the North has declared something of a war of independence on the rest of the country. This book has almost everything. Treachery, loyalty, conspiracies, conspiracies within conspiracies, turncoats, power plays, twists, Continue Reading…
Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis: Book Review
Kat Stephenson is the youngest in her family, but she just might be the most opinionated. Stepmama is trying to improve the family’s fortunes by marrying off the eldest daughter, Elissa, to a rich lord. Kat doesn’t like it and she sets out to stop it. Little does she realize that she has inherited her Continue Reading…
Dreadfully Ever After by Steve Hockensmith: Guest Book Review
I must admit that I have not read any literary mash-ups. I own Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Dawn of the Dreadfuls, thanks to Misty at Book Rat, but I haven’t gotten to them yet. Not for lack of interest, it’s just a matter of too many books and not enough time. My younger Continue Reading…