fantasy

Review: Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers

| Tasha

dark triumph

Dark Triumph by Robin LaFevers

Sybella has been forced to return to her family after fleeing to the convent for safety.  There she learned the art of assassination, but nothing prepared her for returning to the family that abused her for years.  Now she has to play the dutiful daughter while waiting to see if the marque of Death will appear on her father’s body.  She has been promised the right to personally murder him.  Around Sybella, politics are being played out.  Loyal to the Duchess, unlike the rest of her family, Sybella is able to send a message to warn them and turn the result of a battle.  When the convent orders her to rescue a valuable prisoner from under her father’s nose, Sybella risks losing her entire protective disguise.  She doesn’t realize that she risks losing her heart as well.

I adored the first in the Fair Assassin series and looked forward to this second book.  The heroine in this book is Sybella rather than Ismae.  While the first book was awhirl in the politics of 15th century Brittany, this one is much more about a person and her own personal history.  Sybella is a compelling and rich character.  As the abuse she suffered is slowly revealed, readers will discover more and more about the incredible strength of this girl turned killer. 

Sybella also questions her own loyalties and ties to Mortain, the God of Death.  She wonders whether the convent may be wrong about things or if perhaps she herself has overstepped and lost the God’s favor.  These questions of faith against the dark stain of familial abuse add to the depth of the novel.  As with the first book, there is a passionate romance that rings true and honest.  Sybella slowly falls in love, so gradually that she doesn’t notice until she is fully intoxicated with it.  It is beautiful and glorious, especially as she is accepted as she admits the entire truth about her life.

A killer book, this is a strong sophomore book in a riveting series.  Not for the faint of heart, this book has abuse, murder and true tragedies in its pages.  Appropriate for ages 16-18.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Obsidian Mirror by Catherine Fisher

| Tasha

obsidian mirror

Obsidian Mirror by Catherine Fisher

The author of Incarceron has returned with the start of another series.  This is the story of Jake whose father has disappeared.  Jake knows his father is dead and blames one person, Venn, the idiosyncratic wealthy man who was his father’s best friend and is Jake’s godfather.  So Jake gets himself expelled from his posh Swiss boarding school and sent back to Venn’s home in England.  When he gets there, he learns about the mirror that allows people to travel through time.  He also finds out that his father is not dead, but lost in time.  At Venn’s house, others are arriving.  There is a girl from the future with a tie to the mirror, a man from the past who used to own the mirror before it was stolen from him, and a boy tied to the Faerie World and living long past he should have died.  All of them have purposes for the mirror, but not everyone will succeed in their dreams.

Fisher is a consummate world builder.  Here she has created a decaying but splendid abbey that is located on the border of a vast woods.  It is a lonely and wild place, perfect for experiments with time since it seems to be timeless itself.  Readers are also invited into a faerie world and on journeys through time where honest depictions of the past offer real insight into places like Victorian England.  The mirror is the hub of this complex book, with everyone’s lives revolving around controlling and using it. 

Fisher also excels at creating complex characters and she has several in this book.  Jake himself is not completely likeable except in his devotion to his father.  Everyone has their own personal agendas and reasons for acting.  Because she creates characters who have an opportunity to really show how complex they are, the book does slow at times.  Yet it is this attention to detail and character that makes her books so intriguingly rich.

Get this in the hands of teens who loved Incarceron.  They will enjoy the twists of time travel and revel in the striking characters and vibrant world building.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from ARC received from Dial Books.

Review: Jinx by Sage Blackwood

| Tasha

jinx

Jinx by Sage Blackwood

Raised in the Urwald, Jinx knows that no matter what you never leave the path through the woods.  So when his stepfather decides to get rid of Jinx, they leave the path.  That’s when Jinx meets Simon, a wizard who agrees to take Jinx from his stepfather rather than letting him die in the woods.  Jinx moves in with Simon, who makes incredibly delicious food and has only one rule, never go into certain rooms.  Jinx has his own sort of magic: he is able to see people’s emotions as colorful clouds above their heads.  He can also talk with the trees of the Urwald.  But Simon does not believe he can actually do either.  Living with a wizard brings Jinx into touch with other sorts of magic and soon he is learning about that magic too, though he doesn’t seem to be any good at it.  Life is cozy and as good as Jinx has ever had, but it can’t stay that way.  Jinx soon wants to explore the Urwald himself, which leads to all sorts of amazing adventures and deadly dangers.

Blackwood has truly invented her own fantasy world here.  While she borrows from classic fantasies for some of her creatures: vampires, werewolves, wizards, and trolls, she has created her own rules for their world.  By creating the Urwald, a living woods that takes knowing the laws to survive for any length of time, she has effectively created a smaller world inside a larger one.  There are glimpses of the other parts of the world that are tantalizing.  It’s a complex world that she has created, which makes it all the more delightful to explore.

In Jinx, Blackwood has created what seems to be a very simple character.  Jinx grows throughout the novel not just in his age but in his perspective.  At first he is just happy to have somewhere warm with good food, but quickly he becomes intrigued with the magic around him.  Readers will immediately understand the Jinx is special thanks to his unique vision of emotions, but as they grow to know him more, they will discover he is just as complicated as the world he lives in.

Blackwood has written an impressive fantasy novel for middle grade readers that is both dazzling and dangerous.   Appropriate for ages 11-13.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

| Tasha

etiquette and espionage

Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger

I must admit right up front that I haven’t read Carriger’s adult series The Parasol Protectorate.  So it is with fresh eyes that I came to the first book in her new teen series.  Here we meet Sophronia who at age 14 is rough and tumble enough for her mother to send her to a finishing school, hoping that she will learn proper manners and decorum before her older sister’s debutante ball.  Sophronia thinks she is being sent to a dull school only about curtsying and clothes, but Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality turns out to be about far more than Victorian manners and society.  Instead Sophronia is thrust into adventure right from the trip to school, finding herself the heroine when they are attacked on their travels.  As she discovers her real gifts are embraced by her new school, much of which would chagrin and alarm her mother.  This blend of boarding school and steampunk espionage will not stay on library shelves for long!

Carriger has created a great world in her book, one that I understand is the same as that in her adult novels.  Populated with vampires and werewolves as well as humans, the world that Sophronia is sent to at school reveals that there is far more to life than her mother would approve of.  The setting of a school that floats in the air also adds that distance and isolation that works so well in boarding school novels. 

Happily, Sophronia is a girl who loves adventure and though she may disdain her mother’s focus on fashion and decorum, begins to learn that as well.  She is a brave character, one that is unafraid to go against societal rules.  It makes for a book that is rambunctious and wildly fun while at the same time filled with wide skirts, hats and frippery.  It’s a charming mix.

With the popularity of steampunk, this is one book that belongs in every public library collection for teens.  With no sex and plenty of action, middle school readers will also enjoy it immensely. It’s a very fun read, so expect demand for the upcoming books as well.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli

| Tasha

hokey pokey

Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli

No adults live in Hokey Pokey, just kids.  They fall asleep right where they leave off playing and then jump up again to start playing the next day.  There are plenty of places to play: the Doll Farm, Thousand Puddles, Snuggle Stop, and Trucks.  Jack is one of the biggest kids at Hokey Pokey. He rides a legendary bike, Scramjet, captured from the herds of wild bicycles that roam the plains.  But when Jack wakes up one day, Scramjet has been taken and by a girl!  As Jubilee rides Scramjet around Hokey Pokey, everyone soon realizes that something is changing.  Jubilee paints the bike yellow but as she tries to get under Jack’s skin, Jack realizes that he himself is changing.  It must have something to do with hearing a train whistle no one else can hear.  But trains never come to Hokey Pokey despite the train tracks.

I was captured by this book the moment I read the first page.  I knew that I was in for a treat from Spinelli that is unlike anything he’s every written before.  This is a wonderfully wild and fanciful book that will remind readers of Peter Pan, yet it is brightly modern and not afraid to be dark too.  Spinelli uses a new language in Hokey Pokey, one that is easily understood but that also marks that we are somewhere new.  Take this description of children at play in Hokey Pokey, “…kids big and little everywhere streaking, leaping, chasing, shrieking, warring, hopscotching, footballing, hide-and-seeking, jumproping, hokeypoking, razzing, dazzing, runamucking, chuckleducking…”  The language he uses has a wonderful rhythm to it that is evident throughout the book.

The setting of Hokey Pokey is such a large part of this book.  Some places remain rather mysterious while others are completely explained in action in the story.  When readers are given a glimpse of some of the other wonders of Hokey Pokey, they can immediately relate to what it is because all of it is about childhood and play.  As Jack moves towards adolescence in the story, the book changes too.  It becomes more filled with questions, more angst pervades it.  This is a story of leaving childhood and all of its bright, candy-colored play behind and heading into the unknown.

Gloriously fun to read, this book was impossible for me not to love.  Spinelli writes with a lovely playfulness and yet beneath it all is truth.  A truly outstanding read for middle graders.  Appropriate for ages 10-13.

Reviewed from digital galley received from Knopf Books for Young Readers.

Review: A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff

| Tasha

tangle of knots

A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff

Cady has a Talent for baking cakes and making just the right one for a specific person.  Miss Mallory’s Talent is matching children with the perfect home, but she hasn’t been able to find the right fit for Cady for years.  Will has a Talent for hiding, passing through walls and disappearing along with his pet ferret.  Zach has a Talent for spitting, something just right for a troublemaker.  Marigold is desperately searching for her Talent, trying all sorts of things with no luck.  Then there is the mysterious man who has a Talent for knots who seems to appear whenever he is needed most.  There is even a man who steals Talents and keeps them in jars, as he frantically searches suitcases for a slip of paper he lost over 50 years ago.  The stories of all of these characters are just a tangle at first, but slowly the stories come together into one gorgeously designed knot of a tale.

Graff has created a world like ours but with more than a touch of magic infused into it.  While most of the characters have Talents, there are some who don’t have any.  There are others who only discover their talent late in life like Marigold.  But in this book it is not the magical bits that make it special, instead it is the intricate storytelling, the puzzle.  Readers who want a straightforward book should not look here.  This is a book that hints, it rambles, it invites you in for cake and adventure, then wanders a bit more.  But the wandering is rather the point, the cake is particularly important, and one wouldn’t want to miss a ramble.

Give this one to the dreamers, the wanderers, and those who want a hint of magic, sweetness and frosting with their stories.  Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from ARC received from Philomel.

Locus Online 2012 Recommended Reading List

| Tasha

Locus, the magazine that covers science fiction and fantasy, has put our their 2012 recommended reading list which are this year’s favorite books of the editors and reviewers of Locus.  They have a list of their top Young Adult books:

Apollo's Outcasts Be My Enemy Bitterblue (Graceling Realm, #3)

Apollo’s Outcasts by Allen Steele

Be My Enemy by Ian McDonald

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

Black Heart (Curse Workers, #3) 11164791 The Broken Lands The Chaos

Black Heart by Holly Black

The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan

The Broken Lands by Kate Milford

The Chaos by Nalo Hopkinson

The Crown of Embers (Fire and Thorns, #2) Days of Blood & Starlight (Daughter of Smoke and Bone, #2) The Diviners (The Diviners, #1)

The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson

Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor

The Diviners by Libba Bray

Dodger The Drowned Cities (Ship Breaker, #2) Every Day

Dodger by Terry Pratchett

The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi

Every Day by David Levithan

A Face Like Glass The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (Fairyland, #2) Pirate Cinema

A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente

Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow

Radiant Days  Railsea The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle, #1)

Radiant Days by Elizabeth Hand

Railsea by China Mieville

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Son (The Giver, #4) Team Human Zeuglodon: The True Adventures of Kathleen Perkins, Cryptozoologist

Son by Lois Lowry

Team Human by Justine Larbalestier and Sara Rees Brennan

Zeuglodon by James P. Blaylock

Review: Midwinter Blood by Marcus Sedgwick

| Tasha

midwinterblood

Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick

Intertwined stories that range from the near future of 2073 to the distant past of the Vikings, this book lures the reader in with dark promises, strange happenings, and dares you to follow your curiosity deeper and deeper.  When Eric Seven arrives at the island of Blessed to see if the claims that people have discovered how to live longer (if not forever) are true, he is greeted with warmth and immediately set up in house of his own.  No one lives on the western side of the island and the eastern side only has adults, no children.  Eric starts out with drive to discover what is wrong, but the longer he spends on the island and drinking the tea the community provides him, the less he wants to explore at all.  When he travels to the western side of the island finally, his story forms the door to those that follow.  Layer upon layer, the lives of the people on Blessed are told, each layer revealing something new and equally odd.  This impressive novel is impossible to put down until the final story and the real truth is revealed in all of its horror.

Immediately upon opening this book, the strangeness of the story was apparent.  As Eric slips into complacency, I was almost screaming at him with frustration.  It was the ideal way to open this book where so much hinges upon the moments of hair raising oddity that link the stories.  Sedgwick has built this book so exquisitely that there is no guessing at the ending until it comes.  It is a story of love but also of revenge, of brotherhood but also of murder. 

Set on a Scandinavian island that is remote, Sedgwick uses the unusual formation of the island as a large part of the story.  The two halves nearly severed from one another, they are two worlds connected only slightly.  So the island itself reflects the story of generations of people who remain connected as well.  The inclusion of the dragon orchid and the powerful tea it brews is also a great symbol within the story.  The orchids are powerful, strange but also beautiful and delicate. 

This compelling novel is amazing teen literature.  It has enough depth to be used in a classroom where the symbolism and incredible writing can be celebrated.  It is also a riveting combination of romance and horror that will thrill discriminating teen readers.  Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

Review: The Demon Catchers of Milan by Kat Beyer

| Tasha

demon catchers of milan

The Demon Catchers of Milan by Kat Beyer

Mia’s life is turned upside down when she is possessed by a demon.  She terrorizes her family, throws them across the room, and destroys their home.  Priests try to exorcize the demon, but nothing works until her relatives from Italy arrive and force the demon to flee.  Mia has to return to Milan with them so that she can be protected from future attacks by the demon.  Once there, she is kept inside most of the time unless several of her family are available to escort her outdoors.  Even with their protection, the demon tries to attack her often.  Mia begins to learn Italian, the history of her family, and the strange arts that they practice.  Soon she feels very at home in Milan, but will there ever be a time that she is truly safe there?

Beyer’s book is very well-written.  It has a style that celebrates the historical in Milan, the beauty of the Italian language, and the strength of a close-knit family.  The perspective of Mia is crucial to this, allowing readers a way to see Milan for the first time through her eyes.  Add in the exorcisms and demons, and you have a book that is a dazzling addition to teen lit.

The setting of Milan is as much a part of the story as Mia’s extended family.  It is Italy that is celebrated here.  At the same time though, Mia’s extended family of aunts, uncles and cousins are each written as unique and intriguing characters.  Some are imposing, others motherly, but they all surprise and delight. 

The opening scene of the book with Mia’s possession is written so vividly and with such strength that you know that you are in for a unique and fascinating read.  Happily that stunning opening continues through the entire book.  Appropriate for ages 15-17.

Reviewed from copy received from Egmont.