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I very much enjoyed The Name of the Star, the first book in Maureen Johnson's Shades of London series.  It's the story of a southern girl, Rory, who comes to London for a year in an exclusive boarding school--only to find herself menaced by of a truly creepy killer who is recreating the murders of Jack the Ripper.   Rory begins to realize that there is more to the murders than meets the eye, because it turns out that Rory can see ghosts...and ghosts are involved.  She's not alone in that ability, and is recruited by the small unit (3 young people) of London's police force who are responsible for handling the ghostly crimes of London--but will Rory be able to help them track down the murderer, or will she end up dead herself?  And in the meantime, there's the whole culture shock of life at a British boarding school....

The Madness Underneath (Putnam, Feb. 26)  begins as Rory has more or less recovered physically from the knife wound she got at the end of book one.  Her parents agree to let her return to school....but it's not exactly going to be a peaceful end of term experience for her.  For one thing, she has a new, unique, ability--her touch can dispel ghosts--and since the devices that were able to do this all got destroyed in Book 1, she is the only actual weapon the small police ghost force has to work with.  Her place within that force is uncertain, as Stephan, the leader of that team, is reluctant to recruit her and swear her to a life of secrecy and lies...

But when faced with murderous spirits, and a plot by some very sinister folks indeed to capture Rory and use her for their own ends (this was a slightly odd plot, a bit jarring), there's no way for her to just sit quietly at school and worry about her homework....

Though there are many creepy and exciting goings on, this isn't a book full of non stop action.  I myself like this--non stop action gives me a headache.  Instead, there is lots here about Rory as a person, struggling both with her feelings (toward boys and toward her new ability), and struggling academically.  I must confess I became so worried about her academic struggles that I wanted to flip to the end to see if she flunked out or not.   But then I got interested in the actual plot of ghosts and mysteries and bad guys, and since it was becoming all too clear that Rory was doomed academically, I was able to focus on what was actually Happening.

But oh, Maureen Johnson, why did you have to give me that one full voltage scene of beautiful romantic tension only to snatch it away from me?

Courtesy of the publisher, I have an ARC of The Madness Underneath to give away (US only); please enter by next Wednesday, Feb. 13, at midnight!  It's my first rafflecopter giveaway; I hope it works. Edited to add:  It didn't work.  For one thing, it made me answer the question "What makes you smile" which did Not make me smile and for another it gave extra entries for following rafflecopter on twitter.  So I am going back to --Please enter by leaving a comment that includes some way to reach you!

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This week's adventure in reading fantasy books for grown-ups (though it has huge YA crossover appeal) was Norse Code, by Greg van Eekhout (2009), one I enjoyed very much indeed.  It is a swirlingness of Norse mythology in which two main characters try to fend off the annihilation of Ragnarok, and are forced to be very brave indeed. 

When the story starts, Fimbulvetr, the unending winter, has arrived--three years have passed on earth with no spring.  And Kathy Castillo, an MBA student, has been murdered, only to find her newly dead self offered a new life as a Valkyrie.   Recruitment for Odin's army has been stepped up, and NorseCODE, a secret project funded by the Aesir gods, is tracking down every mortal descendant of Odin it can.   Even ordinary ones like Kathy, now known as Mist.


But Mist goes AWOL.  Instead of being a good Valkyrie, recruiting others, she decides that what's really important is finding her way to the kingdom of Hel, where most of the dead end up-- like Mist's sister, also murderd. To get to Hel and save her sister, Mist needs a guide, and the only choice is the Vanir god, Hermod, who made the journey himself once before (to save his own brother--it didn't work out).   Hermod is a kind of loner god, not really into the mead-soaked fun and games of his family, and rather preoccupied with tracking down the wolves who are going to devour the sun and the moon....but off they go to Hel.

And then lots happens.  Basically, Mist and Hermod team up to try to diffuse Ragnarok, despite all the weight of prophecy and immortal machinations pushing it forward to its deadly conclusion.  They don't have much going for them--some help from Odin's eight-legged horse, and a bunch of dead farmers from Iowa (tornado victims) who, along with Mist's sister and the blind god Höd, have formed a resistance movement in Hel.  Odin's all-seeing eye might help if they can get it, and then there's a sword partly forged from Nothing, that might be useful....

So there's a lot happening, and Mist and Hermod don't really know what the heck they are doing for much of the book, and even when they do know, they have a hard time being special enough to do it, and sometimes people die, and Ragnarok keeps on progressing--yet it wasn't depressing!  I do not like depressing books, so this was good.

Reasons why it wasn't depressing, even though when the story begins it is never ending winter and it's all grim and one isn't at all sure if one wants to read it:

--Mist and Hermod manage to muddle through at every turn; they keep on trying, even when things look their darkest.  This keeps the reader from loosing hope too (I hate it when I loose hope). 

--There are lots of little funny bits, little zingers that made me chuckle and longer bits of the author not taking things too seriously but not falling into farce.

--There is violence, and there's at least one graphic mentions of intestines, but it doesn't have the off putting pages of gore and fighting that one might encounter in grown-up books (and some middle grade fantasies)

--I liked the romance.  If this were written as a YA book, there would be lots more about the romance, with angst and thrawtingnesses etc.  This is a nice grown up romance, tastefully presented--growing tension, followed by brisk mutual enjoyment snatched from despair,  conducted offstage.  Though I wouldn't actually have minded a bit more conducted onstage.....

--I really liked the farmers from Iowa.  Plain People of Middle America ftw!

--It is also not any longer than it needs to be.  Clocking in at a brisk 292 pages, there was no wallowing in pointlessness.

In short, Norse Code is the best Ragnarok novelization I've ever read, and the best girl with bare shoulders holding a sword on the cover book I've ever (though it was my first, as far as I can remember, on both counts, so that isn't saying much), and, much more meaningfully, a cracking good read.

Note:  I do not think you have to be deeply conversant with Norse mythology to appreciate it, but on the other hand, I think you need to have at least heard of Ragnarok and Odin's gang and Valkyries etc.

Additional note:  Mist is from Mexico--her family immigrated when she was a child-- which is neither here nor there as far as the story goes, but there it is, so I'm counting this as multicultural fantasy, and anyone who has been wanting to read about a Hispanic Valkyrie need look no further.

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Sometimes even picky readers of historical fiction (ie, me) are allowed to just enjoy the ride, especially when the ride in question is to a steampunk 19th-century London that never was.  The Friday Society, by Adrienne Kress (Dial, YA, Dec. 2012), is a playful mystery/thriller in which three teenage girls--an inventor's assistant, a magician's assistant, and a would-be samurai warrior from Japan find their paths (littered with dead bodies) crossing....and they end up working together, in a sisterhood of mad talent, to foil your basic megalomaniac evil genius plot to destroy London.

(Yay!  A one sentence summary!)

So sure, it isn't historical fiction at its most un-anachronistic, but a lot of the fun comes from the author's relaxed and playful use of modern turns of phrase.  As in the first two sentences, which made me feel all happy to read the book:

"And then there was an explosion.
It was loud.  It was bright.  It was very explosion-y."

I liked all three girls--Cora, the serious inventor, Nellie, the beautiful girl who's an ace escape artist, and Michiko, formidable swordswoman confronted by barriers of language and culture.  They were each strongly individual, with nicely doled out back-story and motivations and opinions.  The point of view shifts between the three girls, which was good, in large part because it gave the reader a chance to get to know Michiko, and hear her thoughts.  I liked how Cora and Nellie, even though they couldn't exactly have complicated conversations with Michiko, never treated her as an exotic other--she was a person and an equal.  The one real reservation I had, regarding Cora being swept off her feet by feelings of physical attraction to a jerk, proved to be a reservation that the author shared, and not something she thought was ok, which was a relief.  

I liked the story--it was enough of a steampunk thriller to be interesting, without the thriller-ness using up too many pages with violent chases etc, which I often find tedious.  (nb--people who actually like tightly plotted thrillers that exercise their brains might find it untightly plotted, and might put in some critical thinking type comments here, but I am not that reader).

In short, I liked reading the book! It was just the sort of escapist fun that makes for excellent bus ride reading.  This came as a very pleasant surprise, because I did not much care for the author's two middle grade fantasy books.  I think her writing has improved lots--I felt here that she was in control of her story, which was not quite the feeling I had gotten in the past.

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Magisterium, by Jeff Hirsch (Scholastic, October 1, younger YA, 2012)--a good one for the younger reader who enjoys sci-fi and magic mixed together to form a high-stakes thriller.

It's the year 2153; over a hundred years have passed since the cataclysmic formation of the Rift divided Earth into two distinct parts.  On one side, a girl named Glenn has grown up in a high tech world, living at the edge of the Rift, with no desire to explore its forbidding, and forbidden, wastes.  But when a government raid on her father's workshop ends up with her father imprisoned and no where else to run, Glenn, along with her friend Kevin, flees across the border.

There she finds a world of magic--a place where she is taken under the protectin of a sentient feline warrior, known as Aamon, a place where those with Affinity can feel the magic, and bend it to their own ends.   And no one can control the Affinity more powerfully than the sinister figure known as the Magistra, who rules with an iron hand. 

Glenn is shielded from the force of the Affinity by the bracelet her father had made, a marvel of magic and technology that is the reason for the government's all to fierce interest in her family.   But Kevin becomes drawn into the world across the rift, sharing his memories with a boy cruelly executed by the Magistra.   And Aamon (Glenn's own cat) was the one responsible for bringing her to power.

As the secrets of this new and blood-soaked land gradually reveal themselves, Glenn is forced to determine where her loyalties lie...and what will happen to her when she takes the bracelet off, and all the wild magic of the Affinity threatens to consume her, just as it did the Magistra.  And the arrival of a high tech attacking the people of the Magisterium forces Glenn to decide if she will use her power...or watch people die.

It was a gripping and interesting story, with revelation following on revelation, danger following danger.   It's one I'd recommend to the younger YA reader looking for a high-stakes science ficitony/fantasy adventure, especially the reader who isn't drawn to stereotypical other-world-with-magic fantasy--there are strange creatures here, to be sure, but no unicorns or wands!  I say younger YA because Glenn presents as being young--she's resisting Kevin's romantic nudgings in a very prickly adolescent not wanting things to change way, her plot arc is still focused on family, as opposed to her own life, and she has not become the fully "strong teen protagonist" type that I be she'll be in later books.  And this isn't a criticism--just an aspect of the book that might make it appeal more to a 12 year old than to a 17 year old.

The story is told in  tight third person perspective--we see what Glenn sees, and understand what she does.   Since she's in a situation that is as confusing as all get out, at times I myself was confused, especially with regard to minor characters.   The fast progression from one dangerous encounter to the next allowed little time to fall back and regroup, which was somewhat off-putting to me personally.  I like to spend peaceful time with characters, getting to know and care about them when they aren't in danger/disagreeing vehemently with each other/totally self-absorbed, and I get muddled if too much World Building Extravaganza is heaped on top of itself. 

However, the tight concentration on Glenn's perspective allows the emotional tension of her situation to come through with vivid clarity, adding intensity to the story.  The relationship between prickly Glenn, desperate for order and things that makes sense, and Kevin, busily introducing the disrupting force of romance into her life, and a fine character in his own right, is very nicely done indeed.

Conclusion:  I found it an absorbing read, not quite to my own personal taste, but one that I would happily offer to a seventh or eighth grade girl who wants a good speculative fiction adventure (especially the girl who is really fond of her cat.  The Girl-Beloved cat relationship is important here).   For those concerned about such things, there's quite a bit of violence, but no sex--just one passionate kiss (with Kevin, not with the cat, just in case anyone was confused).


Other reviews:  The Book Smugglers, The Cozy Armchair, and YA Litwit

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

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Before I get started on this review, look at this cover.  Here is a black teenage boy front and center as the romantic lead in a paranormal YA story.  He is not one of an ensemble cast, and he is not shown from behind, or in shadow.  I cannot think of one single other contemporary YA speculative fiction book cover that does this (tell me if I'm wrong!).   I hope it is selling well, so that having a black main character on the cover can become something normal and unremarkable (I have made a point of leaving it face up around the house for several weeks, to brainwash my boys into thinking it normal.  I'm not sure it registered, but you never know).   Now that's out of my system, here's the review.

Transcendence, by C.J. Omololu (Walker, 2012, YA) is a type of time travel book that I've never reviewed before--on in which reincarnation is front and center.  But since reincarnation in this story is more than just having memories of past lives--it's actually reliving bits of the past, in a vivid, really being there way--I'm counting it as time travel.

Cole (short for Nicole) had no idea that she had lived many lives before her present, teenage cello playing existence until she is beheaded at the Tower of London.  Fortunately for Cole, this happened in the past...though the experience felt very real.  And also fortunately for Cole, maybe, a handsome boy named Griffon is there to catch her as she faints.   He knows that she's more than just a tourist overwhelmed by the history of the place....because he, too, has memories of many lives.

Griffon and Cole are both from the same California town, and their paths cross again.  And Cole is caught up in a fluster of teenaged crush-ness, which is a new thing for her, because until now the cello has filled her time very fillingly.   But her uncanny visions of the past are happening more often... and Griffon has answers for her that are almost unbelievable.  There is a secret cabral of  those who remember their past lives exists, and Cole has just become eligible to join the club. 

But the energies of her gradually remembered pasts have attracted someone who has born a grudge against her for over a hundred years....a deadly grudge.  Murderous, even.  So Cole must figure out the mystery of what happened back then, or else she may well not live long enough to be able to settle nicely into her romance with Griffon....let alone sort out her various pasts, and what her future might hold.

This is definitely one for readers who like their teenage romance right up there, front and center. Following along with Cole's first person present narration, the reader gets to share the anxiety, the attraction, the heat of passion (which takes a while to actually heat up, but which is rather steamy once it gets going.  Although they don't have sex.  Yet.).   The reader, thanks to this first person present, also is privy to lots of miscellaneous details and thoughts that don't advance the story all that quickly.  It is very much a slow build to the really exiting, "will Cole be killed," part (the realization that she can remember past lives, like Griffon, isn't actually all that exciting--explanation from Griffon that he is special, incredulous acceptance from Cole that she is special too...and repeat intermittently). 

In fact, things were so slow to get going  that I started and put the book down twice....but I pressed on the third time, and was rewarded with a final third of much more excitingness (the "will Cole be killed"part, and the whole mystery of why).   That being said, if you like teenaged paranormal romances, but want to keep the paranormal on the human end of things, this might really work for you.

Fans of time travel might be a tad disappointed in as much as there really isn't any travel qua travel--there's reliving of things that happened, and as such Cole in the past doesn't have any free will as her modern self.  There's no  culture shock or paradoxes or other time related entanglements, except for the reverberations of the past into the present.   So, time travel fans, be aware that you are going to get more contemporary romance than  time slippishness.

All that being said, the final third of the book redeemed the whole for me, and I do recommend it in a mild way to anyone not off-put by my caveats!

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For Timeslip Tuesday today, I have an old favorite--The Many-Colored Land, by Julian May (1981).   The cover at left is the cover I have.  all other covers are wrong.  This one is so much a favorite that I am on my second copy, having read the first to death; I think my mother might be on her second copy as well, which just goes to show. Even my husband enjoyed it. It was marketed to adults, but I think it has lots of teen appeal (I was a teen when I first read it), and as well as being a darn good story, there's a generous sprinkling of paranormal romances (lots of people get to have romances.  Some happy, some less so).

So.  Imagine that in the future, various alien races with psionic powers have made contact with Earth, Earth having reached a critical mass of psionic inhabitants of its own.  Earth is now part of a galactic milieu of calm order; more and more humans are being born with mental gifts, war is over, all is happy.   Except that there are some people who still aren't--the deviants, mystics, misfits, eccentrics, criminals, those whose souls are out of step somehow with a galaxy of good feeling.

Then imagine that a French professor invented a machine that allows one way travel back to the Pliocene (six million or so years ago).   He dismissed it as worthless, and his widow was just about to dismantle it, when the first would-be time traveller begged to pass through, wanting the chance to explore an unpeopled world.   And more and more travellers came...some willing travellers, some pushed back in time because they were too troublesome to be allowed to stay.

Time travel becomes organized; the travellers equipping themselves with what they need for life they'll imagine they'll have (I love reading all the lists of what people are taking back to the past!).   They are sent back in groups, after a brief period of bonding.  One such group (our main characters in this first book--men and women, old and young) is about to pass through....a group whose members are going to change the past, and in so doing, make the future what it's going to be.

It's not a walk in the park, back in the Pliocene. There are surprises (you know that paranormal romance thing?  that's a hint).  What the time travellers find will blow their minds (some to the point of insanity).  And the reader (if the reader is at all like me) will be riveted. 

I don't generally like books with multiple main characters, and story lines of great complexity and fantastical-ness going of hither and thither.  My first time through, lo these many years ago, I might have found myself uncertain during the introductory period--there are a lot of characters, and we meet them all individually, and there's a lot to keep track of.  But May makes it all work in a masterpiece of plotting and characterization and exuberant imagination.    For those who like the mental powers and the paranormal, there's that.  For those that like the survival in a strange land, there's that.  For those that like their characters put through various emotional ringers, and/or their characters finding love and friendship, there's that too.  Magic. Sex. Death. Flying on the wings of the mind.  Extinct mammals (so few fantasy books do as nice a job with extinct mammals).  Crafting of beautiful things.  Generous splashes of humor.  Tragedy.

In short, I really cannot recommend this too highly to anyone who wants a sci fi/fantasy adventure of epic proportions, set on a very different earth.    But I've read it so many times I can't be dispassionate about it...this first book, and the three that follow it, are and integral and much loved  part of my mental map.   However, since my mother and my husband, both of whom are less emotional thinkers than me, and both of whom read grown-up books, enjoyed the series as well, I feel pretty confident in my recommending.

(I also don't feel like writing a thoughtful review, because that would be full of spoilers.  I hope I haven't spoiled it too much as it is!)

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I am writing from New York, where I am busily attending Kidlitcon.  Yesterday I attended two lovely publisher previews, at Random House and Harper Collins, where us bloggers heard about many wonderful sounding books (about which more later), enjoyed tasty snacks, and left with generous bags of books.  It was then banquet time, where very good company (I sat with Kelly from Stacked and Leila from Bookshelves of Doom, neither of whom I'd met before today), and more tasty food combined to make a very pleasant evening. 

The particular upshot of all this is that, due to the generous bags of books, there is no way I want to take my ARC of the Diviners, which kept me company on my journey, back home with me.  So I am quickly sharing my thoughts.

The Diviners, by Libba Bray (Little Brown, YA, Sept 18, 2012) --paranormal historical fiction in which the excitement of life as as party girl in  New York in the Roaring Twenties turns into the excitement of trying to stop a murderers, would-be Antichrist!

The Basic Plot:   Evie is a flapper girl, desperate to plunge into life and (this is my opinion) immerse herself in sensory overload so that she doesn't have to think about things she'd rather not thing about (such as her dead brother.  Such as the effects of her actions on other people.  Especially the effects of her preternatural gift--the ability to hold an object, and see things about its owner).   So when her parents send her off to her uncle in New York (curator of a museum of the occult), she's thrilled.

When the first bizarrely grotesque murder victim is discovered, and Evie's uncle is asked by the police for his opinion on the occult elements of the crime, Evie goes along for the ride, excited to see her first New York crime scene.  And finds herself into very dark and dangerous waters...because this is no ordinary murder, and no ordinary police force can stop the inexorable progression of killings.   Killings that might lead to hell on earth....

And in the meantime, the canvas of New York on which the murders are being played out is as full of characters as a Bruegel painting.   All of whom have secrets...

My Thoughts, written in haste because of needing, like Evie, to hurl myself back into the giddy excitement that is Manhattan (although I don't think Evie would be interested in Kidlitcon):

--Evie annoyed me at first, but grew on me.  I decided that I liked having a flawed character front and center--she was very believable, but with room to change as she became more mature.  And she has her good points.
--the first few murders, before the identity of the murder was confirmed, were very interesting indeed.  After Evie and co. figure it out, the next murders are still interesting, but not as much so because we know what's happening.
--there were too many characters of interest with secrets and too many bits of unresolved or apparently extraneous side plot.  I really really did not think it added anything to the book, for instance, for Jericho to have the particular secret that he did.  I'm sure that it will all be useful in future books, but I do think that The Diviners could have been trimmed and tightened.   It was very long (the final version, according to Amazon, is 608 pages) and I don't think it really needed to be that long.

Final Conclusion:  Even the snappy dialogue, interesting characters (even though there were perhaps too many of them, they were all interesting), and a creepy, supernatural mystery weren't quite enough to keep the ball rolling as briskly as I would have liked.  

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Wowzers (and bang goes my resolve to write coldly crisp, analytical reviews of great intellectual rigor).   But when a book knocks your socks off, sometimes a wowzer or two is just called for.

The Broken Lands, by Kate Milford (Clarion Books, Sept. 2012, YA), takes place in New York, just after Civil War; the title is both a reference to the raw wounds of the war, and is the name of a hotel on Coney Island.   It's on Coney Island, with its crime, poverty, and exuberant energy, that we meet young Sam, making a living beating holiday makers from the big city at cards....

And to this place, through coincidence (possibly) or design, come others.  The Chinese firework maker, and his adopted daughter, Jin (who becomes a central character).  Tom Guyet, black veteran of the Civil War, now guitar playing Traveller of the roads.   And other travellers, those who live lives that cross the borders of what is real.  But a sinister evil is drawing close to New York as well.   Jack Hellcoal seeks to make New York his own literal hell on earth.  And his sinister henchmen have been sent before him, to open the city to him through the death its five guardians.

Sam and Jin become inexorably drawn into this bloody, supernatural struggle.  And in a new reality of things impossible to believe, they must believe in themselves, and their unique abilities. Or else the city will fall.....

So intricate is the world building, so scary the story, so fond I grew of Sam and Jin and their friends (and so happy to watch Sam and Jin moving cautiously toward love), and so poignant the flashes of pain from this wounded land and the wounded people I cared for that I fell, hard, for the book.   But so twitchy the book made me--the middle two hundred pages or so of darkness encroaching and things being scary--that though I wanted desperately to find out what was going to happen, I had to keep putting it down!  And then so riveted I was in the last hundred pages that I stayed up too late to finish.

In short, I really really liked The Broken Lands.  I couldn't quite love it, because of being made so twitchy (a weakness in me, rather than the book), and because of a niggling feeling that maybe it could have been pared down just a tad), but boy did I appreciate it emotionally and intellectually.   The Broken Lands is a prequel of sorts to The Boneshaker (2010), though it stands alone, and that one I only was able to appreciate intellectually.  Here, though, the characters won my heart (the good guys are good, and well intentioned, and vulnerable, and care about each other; it's about how families can be made from friendships, about healing from emotional pain), and my intellect was more than satisfied by the tremendous, intricate world of Milford's New York, with supernatural tendrils stretching along the roads that cross the country.  This one, also, differs from The Boneshaker in that it is most definitely Young Adult-- the central characters are teenagers, with age-appropriate concerns, as it were, and there is much dark violence of a savage kind.  This is primarily of the supernatural sort, but there are shadows of human violence too (Jin's feet, for instance, were bound when she was an orphaned child being raised for a single, unsavory, purpose).

Here's what I loved best of all:  the supernatural card game based on medieval haigiography.  It is my Favorite Fictional Card Game Ever.   Here's a bit of it:  "By the strange logic of Santine, Sam had defeated the black plague (remembering this time to use a Nothelfer rather than a Marshal), a deluge, and a plague of locusts.  He'd lost a few of his cards to torture and apostasy" (pp 372-373).  And then Sam gets to counter a play of two Stylites (the dudes that sat up on pillars all day) with a pair of Cephalophores (the saints that get to carry their own beheaded heads in their arms)--

"Walker jabbed a finger at Sam's cards.  "What the hell kind of play is that?"
Sam shrugged.  "Figured they could throw their heads and knock the Stylites down." Sam had no idea whether this was a legal move, but as far as he could tell it followed Santine's logic"   (p 373).

Highly recommend to fans of historical fantasy, paranormal horror that doesn't involve vampires/zombies etc., and teenagers saving the world (or city) while falling in love.   Also recommended to fans of fireworks.  They play an important part in the story.

Here are other reviews, at The Book Smugglers, Book Aunt, and Random Musings of a Bibliophile.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

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I quite enjoyed Magic Under Glass, by Jaclyn Dolamore (my thoughts), which told the story of how Nimira, a dancing girl with dreams of a better future, rescues Erris, a fairy prince, from a clockwork prison (he is the star of a clockwork tableau, forced to play a mechanical piano with mechanical hands when wound up). Unfortunately for both Nimira and Erris, the rescuing that took place in that first book only did half the job.

In Magic Under Stone (Bloomsbury, 2012), Erris may have been restored to autonomous life, but he's still trapped in a clockwork body. And Nimira loves him, and is sad that a. he's still a machine who needs to be wound up every morning and b. is distracted by his situation, and the unresolved issue of who did it to him (and is therefore not focusing on being in love with her).

Solving those two problems is the matter with which book 2 deals, with the pleasant addition of a djinn, bound to serve the current fairy ruling family. Nim and Erris have travelled to the remote home of sorcerer that they hope can help them, only to find that he is not at home. His daughter, however, and the young chatelaine of the house, are still in residence...and the daughter, in particular, has her own role to play in the machinations of fairy politics (especially with regard to the mission on which the djinn is sent).

It's a rather peaceful, slow, character-rich book, for all the intrigue and danger lurking in the fairy realm, and dangers from the human side of things as well. And that was fine with me--I'm happy to read about interesting people stuck together in a remote house, learning magic and trying to figure out what to do about their problems! And I liked the djinn, who was perhaps the most zesty of the characters, with problems of his own (of the sort related to magical servitude). The romance aspect of this book was a tad frustrating (for Nim as well as the reader), though the resurgence of the love triangle from book three did give it some energy. And the ending packed on a hefty dose of active adventuring and excitement, which was a nice contrast to the slower beginning.

So all in all, a satisfying read--not one I'd say was a must-read, but still one I was perfectly content to spend time with. And I'm pleased that it's another for my list of multicultural sci fi/fantasy, what with Nim being from a South Asian-equivalent country (as she is shown on the lovely cover).

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Variant, by Robison Wells (HarperTeen, YA, October, 2011) is a lovely example of dystopia writ small, all the more intense for the claustrophobia of its nightmarish setting.

Imagine an isolated boarding school. One where there are no teachers, where directives are issued electronically. One where breaking the rules means that you might disappear. One that where something is very, very wrong, and very scary.

This is the school where a foster kid named Benson is deposited one day, after winning a scholarship that he hopes will give him a chance at a new life. It is not the school he had had in mind.

The students have organized themselves into factions--those who are cooperating with a grim, self-righteous intensity (a gang of crisply dressed, stiff backed self-righteous rule under-liners), those who favor anarchy whenever possible (featuring self-drawn tattoos and as much bad ass attitude as circumstances allow), and the Variants--those who go against the grain, those who most often think of escape.

For Benson, the choice to throw his lot in with the Variants is easy. Escape from this insane school is clearly desirable. Unfortunately, it's also impossible. As the days pass, the depths of its dark wrongness become ever more apparent. Benson gradually discovers answers...but knowledge can be deadly. And there are no loving adults to come and rescue these trapped children...most, like Benson, have no family to care about their fate.

Boy did the plot twist in ways I didn't see coming! Obviously there was some Evil Scheme at work--the students themselves figured they were being tested in some way, for some unknown purposes. But they didn't have a clue what was going on...and neither did I! This one has all the tension of, say, The Maze Runner, but the surreal school setting, at once familiar and cozy, but also horribly wrong, made it all more subtly disturbing. It's a story of teenage orphans in psychological hell, but it's a hell made almost bearable by the rewards and treats bestowed from on high (tasty food, cool clothes, exciting games of combat style paint-ball), and by the friendships formed among the kids.

I devoured it in a fugue state of page-turning, slack-jawed enjoyment, and recommend it with great enthusiasm.

The sequel, Feedback, is coming out on October 2nd...I'm a little worried that now I have answers, and now that the action will be taking place on a a larger canvas, I won't quite enjoy things as much. But Wells did such a good job on this one that I am more than willing to chance it.

Note on age: If a kid is old enough for The Hunger Games, he or she is old enough for this one. I'd happily give it to a twelve year old.

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Cinder, by Marissa Meyer (Feiwel & Friends, January 2012) counts both for my multicultural sci fi/fantasy list, and my fairy tale retelling list, so even though it might well have reached review saturation point by now, here it is.

In a far future earth, there is peace between the small number of terrestrial goverements that share the globe. On the bad side, there's a horrible sickness sweeping the land, and the dictator of the Lunar people (the moon was colonized generations ago) has formulated evil schemes that will take her down to earth in a bid to extend her power in a terrible fashion.

That's the big picture.

The smaller picture is that of a teenaged girl, named Cinder, who lives with her de facto step mother (not nice) and two step-stepsisters (one nice, one not), and who is the wage earner of this family. She's a repairer of futuristic mechanical things, a crafter and tinkerer. She's also a cyborg, with a robotic leg and hand being the most obvious non-human components of her make up. Unfortunately for Cinder, cyborgs are despised out caste people in her society (the reasons why this is so never became clear to me, but regardless, there it is).

So when Cinder meets the Prince of the neo-China where she lives (he needs a special robot surreptitiously repaired), she doesn't want him to know what she truly is...and it turns out that she doesn't know who she truly is either (although it's easy for the reader to guess), and suddenly her life is in danger, the Lunar dictator has arrived and wants to marry the prince, and he (charmed by her, despite the fact that he never seems to see her at her best, and the fact that they never get to actually Talk much) wants her to go to a rather special ball with him.

This being the first book of the series, it ends with people still dying of the sickness, Cinder still in danger, and the Evil Plot still un-foiled. But I'll be happy to have more of the story to read! I especially loved the fact that Cinder is a girl who defies gender stereotypes--her personal fixation during the book is the repair of a very antique car....she'd never actually wear the sort of shoe shown on the cover. So in short, Cinder was Fun, in a really enjoyable reading sense--good for light vacationing, when one can keep turning the pages, absorbed in the story despite never quite believing all of it!

viz multicultural sci fi/fantasy--Cinder herself is not from this neo-China (she was a foundling in Europe), but the prince most certainly is, and that's the setting. This neo-China-ness is not made much of, but its an integral part of the world-making. It's also a pleasant change to read a sci-fi fairy tale retelling!

Note on age of reader--this is one of those books that can be read comfortably either at the upper end of middle grade (which is to say that there's no sex, and the relationship between Cinder and the prince isn't the be all and end all point) and on into YA.

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Dead Reckoning, by Mercedes Lackey & Rosemary Edghill (Bloomsbury, June 2012, YA) is a science fictional story of zombies in Victorian Texas, raised from the dead by a megalomaniac madman, and three unlikely comrades who ally themselves against him.

These three are Jett Gallatin, a girl from New Orleans passing for a young man (her ability to shoot straight helps her disguise considerably), Honoria Gibbons, a young woman with an extremely rational mind, whose steam powered vehicle provides a dash of steampunk to the story, and White Fox, a white man raised among the Meskwaki, and now working as a scout for the army. Honoria and and White Fox have both come separately to west Texas to investigate a series of mysterious disappearances; Jett meets them while escaping from one of the disappearances while it is happening. She got to witness an entire town (albeit a small one) engulfed by zombies.

And so the three of them put their disparate skills--science, gun slinging, and scouting-- to work to crack the case of the zombie attacks. There is a Dark Plot afoot, that must be stopped lest the zombies, and the evil mastermind whose minions they are, takes over not just Texas but the whole of the wild west!

Now, I am not, in general, a fan of zombies or of stories set in the wild west, but Dead Reckoning went to show that my biases are set in sand, not stone--I ended up enjoying this one. My enjoyment came not so much from the characters, who, though not uninteresting, tended somewhat to slightly exaggerated types rather than sympathetic, real, people. Instead, and this took me somewhat by surprise, I was really interested in the plot--from whence came these zombies, and how were they going to be stopped? It was a fast, undemanding read--good for summer time leisure, not desperately powerful in the Horror of it all, but disturbing enough to be engrossing.

Essentially, it seemed to me a collection of fun elements (like the steampunk vehicle--no real Need for it, but diverting), strung together in a "look, here's the next exciting bit!" way. The female characters had lots of agency (good), I didn't find the "white dude raised by Native Americans" as objectionable as I might have (although I have some doubts viz stereotypes, the fact that all three of the main characters are exaggerated makes it hard to figure out if they are worthy doubts).* Although I still won't be looking actively for wild west zombie science fiction, I was quite happy to read this one! And would probably pick up a sequel, if one emerged....

*(off topic rambling). For instance, Honoria knows White Fox was raised by Native Americans because he walks toe-heel. Is this, I asked myself, a stereotype, or is it a valid observation? Much research and experimental walking later, I have concluded that the "toe" part is a misnomer (not Honoria's fault, just terminology), and "ball of foot first" is a much better way to say it, and quite possible that was how people who don't wear hard-soled shoes walk. Although I don't think you can walk that way if, like White Fox, you are in fact wearing boots. At least, I couldn't. "Barefoot runners" says the website of the Society for Barefoot Living, " very quickly learn not to do heel strikes because of the transient forces created." I am now wary of transient forces.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

4 Comments on Haunted Waters, by Mary Pope Osborne, last added: 6/4/2012

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Unraveling, by Elizabeth Norris (Balzer + Bray, YA, April 24, 2012) is a sci-fi romance thriller, that I found a gripping (though perhaps overly busy) read.

When we first meet seventeen-year-old Janelle Tenner, she's finishing up a day as a lifeguard at a San Diego beach, making plans with her new almost boy friend, and finding her car tires slashed by bitchy jealous girls.

My thoughts: Nothing unusual. She seems nice enough, the boy seems nice enough, the girls are bitchy.

But then Janelle decides to jog home...and is hit by a pickup truck and killed...except that the one person on earth who can bring her back to life just happens to be there--Ben Michaels, a high school classmate from the stoner fringe, a boy who Janelle had barely noticed. And Ben heals her broken body.

My thoughts: is Ben an angel???? (this isn't the vibe I got from the cover--there nary a feather in sight--but you never know).

Being killed and brought back to life is strange and disturbing, but worse is to come. Janelle knows her Dad, a high-up guy in the FBI, will have started a file on her accident--finding out who the driver was, and the circumstances. But when she starts snooping through his files, she opens can of worms.

My thought: lax security, Dad.

Here's what her Dad is investigating--bodies of unidentifiable people turning up, hideously, horribly burned by radiation, and extraordinarily high-tech countdown clock. Both Janelle and her father reach the same conclusion--that there is a bio-terror assault on its way. Janelle enlists her best friend, a guy named Alex, to help her find out more.

My thoughts: ok, an interesting FBI-ish mystery/plot to be unravelled by clever teens. Fine.

And meanwhile, at high school, J. is (naturally--the dude brought her back from the dead) drawn to Ben. He is More than he Seemed. We see J.'s mom, caught in the grips of horrible depression, and see her trying to look out for her younger brother--she is the caretaker of her family.

My thoughts: I liked the high school bits, where Ben and J. spar in English class and conduct physics experiments, lots. He is showing no signs of being Angelic--but obviously there is something up with him (like, the ability to bring people back from the dead).

Then someone close to Janelle is killed. The darkness grows. The clock is ticking...

My thoughts: I am interested in this book, but there is still lots and lots of it left to read! The bioterrorism plot doesn't seem to be advancing much. Ben is still not an angel.

THEN. A twist! An unexpected leap into sci fi! A sudden game changing revelation, that ups the stakes (both in terms of Ben and J.'s romance, and the fate of the world).

My thoughts, on reaching the end of the book: Goodness. What a lot just happened. It all makes sense now...but I think I liked it best when we were just concerned with horrible dead bodies and the threat of bioterrorism...the sci fi part was not so gripping, plus the romance plot begins to take up a lot of room...

My general thoughts about Janelle: All her life J. has been the person who s

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Shadows on the Moon, by Zoe Marriott (Candlewick, April 2012, YA)

In an alternate Asian world, perhaps closer to Japan than anywhere else, Suzume lives the ordinary life of a well-born, sheltered girl. She's still too young for marriage, and, as far as she knows, she's lacking any extraordinary talents or beauty. She is wrong.

On her fourteenth birthday, the Prince's men come riding up the road, and slaughter her father, her cousin Aimi, and the household retainers. But Suzume escapes, instinctively disguising herself as a hare, and then concealing herself in the chimney flue under a magical blanket of ash. Youta, now the family's old ashman, but with a sad story of his own, finds her, and explains that she is a shadow weaver, one who can spin illusions.

Her mother, away from home during the massacre, almost immediately marries an old family friend, Terayama--who has been determined to possess her mother for himself for years. At Terayama's estate, Suzume's shadows keep a demure smile on her face, but she turns to self-harm to find release from her grief and her situation of forced passivity...and her growing fear that Teryama does not wish her well. When she learns that Teryama himself was responsible for the killings, her shadows are not enough to save her from his need to kill her, too.

Disguised from Teryama's eyes in the mundane rags and filth of a drudge, the only light in Suzume's life comes from clandestine meetings with a young foreigner--Otieno, one of a group of visitors from a land of dark-skinned people whose culture is very different from her own. But her desire for revenge, and her constant self-harm, stand in the way of her happiness, and when she does something unforgivable, she flees into the night.

Fate crosses her path with the one person who might help her take her revenge on Teryama once and for all. If Suzume, well-born girl turned drudge, can transform herself into a courtesan of unparalleled mystery and charm, she can become the Shadow Princess, and destroy her enemy. And give up on the love between herself and her young foreigner....despite the promise he offers of a life of hope.

It is a dark story, with flashes of light--just as the title, Shadows on the Moon, promises. I became emotionally invested in Suzume very quickly, and so I found it especially hard going to read about her time as a drudge--the hopelessness and pain are pretty intense, and I was anxious for the story to move onward more quickly than it did. But the immediacy of the darkness does lift, although, until the end, it remains unclear if revenge will swallow Suzume's life.

There is magic, but it is not the Point of the story; this isn't a "girl learns to use her magic powers" tale, although the shadow weaving plays an extremely important role in her journey. This kept the magic intriguing, and tantalizing--only gradually do we learn what Suzumi, and other gifted friends she meets, are capable of.

As might be expected from the above, this is very much a character driven book. If the reader doesn't care about Suzume, there isn't much to keep the pages turning--there are no magical battles, or monsters, or supernatural beings of any sort to be confronted. Instead there is intrigue, and plotting, and grief, and internal tension, a mix to which Suzume's romance, doomed or not, brings much needed relief.

If it were not for the rather protracted time in which Suzume is a miserable drudge, I would have loved this--despite that, I liked it quite a bit (althou

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In my review of Ship Breakers, by Paolo Bacigalupi, I said that "...the main reason I kept reading was Tool--an utterly fascinating character who is the most science-fictiony part of the book, what with being a product of genetic manipulation. There is clearly more of his story to tell--I hope it plays a large part in the sequel, coming out sometime next year."

And lo, the sequel (or rather, the prequel) is out, and Tool is a central character! And it was good.

The Drowned Cities (Little Brown, YA, 2012) takes place before the events of Ship Breaker. Tool, a human/animal hybrid, bred for war, has broken free of his captors. Half-men like himself are supposed to loose their will to live when their master dies, and they are the last of their pack, but Tool is different. Through the jungles and swamps of a future world of flooded cities and chaos a ragtag army pursues him...but he is a survivor, and even weakened by wounds that would have killed a lesser creature, he escapes...

And is found by two children, Mahlia and Mouse. Both are unwanted flotsam in this war-torn world. Mahlia, the daughter of a Chinese peacekeeper and a Drowned Cities woman, became a despised outcast when the Chinese withdrew and her father left. She escaped into the jungle, putting her own survival ahead of any altruistic thoughts for others, but lost her hand to one bloodthirsty faction in the process. Marked by her Chinese features, she's a lightning rod for fantastical hatred. Mouse's family was killed in more random slaughter--in this world, random slaughter is pretty much the order of the day-- and neither Mahlia or Mouse can envision a happy ending.

But when Mahlia and Mouse meet Tool, and the soldiers hunting him, things change.

It is a fearsomely dark place, this story. The children suffer. There is death--senseless, brutal, and bloody. There isn't a whole lot of hope. But still, Mahlia, and Mouse, and Tool are characters to care fiercely for. And Tool, impossible, unpredictable, unimaginable, makes it seem almost as though there can be a happy ending after all....keeping me reading as the characters wade through a swamp of near-death experiences and the horrors of insane, chaotic war.

I'd actually suggest reading this one before Ship Breakers, as this allows the reader to meet Tool for the first time here. In this book, a lot of the internal tension comes from not knowing if Tool can be trusted, not knowing if he can care for anything outside his own survival. Will he turn on the children, or will he help them? Is he a person to care about, or a monster?

The second reason (Tool being the first one) that the book is not entirely grim is that, even though every page makes it seem more likely that Mahlia and Mouse will be broken by violence, there is always just enough hope that they can survive with their fundamental selves intact, and make it through. In describing what happens to them, there's just the right balance of distance vs. immediacy. The reader is right there, caring fiercely, but is also able, like Mahlia herself does, to think about abstractions-- morality, altruism, and the effects of war on ordinary people.

In short: riveting, dark, powerful, and not one I'm giving to my eleven year old to read. However, I'd g

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Above, by Leah Bobet (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2012, YA, 368 pages)

Apart from brief trips to the city above, Matthew has lived all his life in Safe, an underground sanctuary. He is the Teller of his community's history, keeping safe the stories of the strange band of freakishly different people with whom he lives--the leader, crab-claw armed Atticus, Whisper, who speaks with ghosts, Jack, who channels electricity, and others. Some can Pass briefly above, as Matthew can (his scales can't be seen beneath his shirt), and some who cannot. But Safe is a fragile place--there is a lie at the heart of the histories that Matthew tells, lurking like a time-bomb ready to destroy all that Matthew holds dear.

Dearest of all to him is the newest refugee from above--Ariel, who morphs into a bee when angered or distressed. Matthew loves her, and tries to heal her deep psychological wounds; he tries to learn her story, and keep her close in Safe. It doesn't work.

When the worst happens, and Safe is invaded by dark shadows, Matthew, Ariel, Whisper, and Jack are driven above ground. Their survival, and hope of recreating a sanctuary for themselves, and others like them, depends on finding out the dark truth behind the story of Safe.

Like Safe itself, Above is carefully built up of bits of story, layer upon layer. It is absorbing, and emotionally intense. Like a dream, it requires suspension of disbelief. At first I found Matthew's voice--slightly awkward, slightly alien, and unschooled--off putting, and I was confused, and skeptical of the logistics of Safe, and wanted some explanation about why all these mutations happened.

But I read on, and found the story so carefully particular in its construction of layer on layer of character and detail, and the progression toward "truth" so inexorable, that I was carried easily first into acceptance, and then into intent, almost desperate, interest. And now, having read it, my questions are much more philosophical--what price is safety worth? and how does the telling of the past shape the present? It became, in my mind, as much an extended metaphor as a straight story, and although I probably won't re-read it, it will stick in my mind just fine regardless. This was Leah Bobet's first book, and I'll definitely be reading her second!

It's not a fun, fast, cozy read. It was gripping and intense. It's not a stereotypical YA paranormal novel, in which beautiful, extraordinary people fall in love, and you know they'll end up together. Matthew and Ariel are, indeed, extraordinary, and not unbeautiful, but their painfully constructed relationship is not an escapist fantasy. If you are looking for a memorable, though-provoking read, give this one a try.

note on age: There isn't any sex or bad language, but the plot is achingly intense at times, the themes are for older readers, and there's some violence. Though the girl with wings on the cover might suggest a fairy story, it isn't, so I wouldn't give this to a pre-teen reader. On the other hand, it would be a good crossover to adults who shy away from YA books. Fans of Margaret Atwood, for instance, might enjoy it. That being said, my husband looked at the wings when I pressed him to read it and did not immediately pounce on the book.

(ARC received from the publisher)

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Warning: This review of Spell Bound, by Rachel Hawkins (Hyperion, 2012, YA 336 pages) is, perforce, a tad spoilery for the first two books in the Hex Hall series (Hex Hall, and Demonglass). In any event, those are both very entertaining books, and there's no reason not to read them first.

Spell Bound continues the story of Sophie, part-demon teenager and reluctant participant in a no-holds-barred war involving demon-raisers (very, very bad), rabid crusaders against magical people (bad), slightly less rabid crusaders (not all bad?) and herself and her best friends--2 cute magical boys, and 1 cute vampire girl (very good) and her dead frenemy (good enough to help out lots, in a ghostly way). In short, the bad side is way more powerful, especially since Sophie's own demon powers have been locked up inside her.

But her powers aren't gone for good--if she can a. recover them b. stay alive, and help her friends stay alive c. not run screaming from a literal pit of hellacious magic, good might defeat evil! And she might figure her way out of the love triangle she's caught in, which would also make her life more peaceful.

I love how Sophie and co. rather desperately use humor and snarkiness to keep from buckling under the weight of their horrible situation. If I had to fight bad demons, I'd most definitely want to be fighting with them--how could you not want comrades who shout "holy hell weasel!" when things go bad? Yet even thought they do their best to banter, it's clear that they are taking things seriously (as well they should)--their situation is never trivialized. Add to that lots of surprising plot twists, and the result is a book that's both entertaining as a light, fun read, and emotionally gripping as all get out.

Sure, the love triangle thing was perhaps a smidge too much of a love triangle thing (I personally prefer the romantic tensions that happen before full-blown tirangularity, as was the case in the first book, Hex Hall), and one aspect of the ending was a bit like lightning coming from a clear blue sky ("No! no!" I thought. "This cannot be happening!") but those reservations are minor.

Sophie's story is wrapped up tidily, but Rachel Hawkins has not ruled out (as far as I can tell from her FAQ page) the possibility of more books set in her world...

A quick sample of other thoughts at So Many Books, So Little Time, Knight Reader, Obsession with Books, and Ms. Yingling Reads.

disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher

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When Hex Hall, by Rachel Hawkins, (Hyperion, 2011, YA, 352 pp) first came out, I, like many bloggers, read it with great enthusiasm. But there were so many reviews of it, I never felt a pressing need to add my two cents. Now, however, I have a new page dedicated to fantasy and sci fi school stories, and I can't not include Hex Hall on that list. Especially since I just re-read it, in preparation for diving into the third, newly released book of the series, Spell Bound!

In Hex Hall, we meet young Sophie, a high school student whose attempt to work a well-intentioned love spell at prom goes horribly wrong. So wrong that the governing council of the Prodiguium (folks with paranormal powers--witches, shapeshifters, fairies, and werecreatures) insist that she go to an isolated school where every student has an episode in their past similar to Sophie's own disaster.

But Hecate Hall is not the most gently nurturing of environments. From the Publisher blurb (time is short, and the gist of things is well-expressed): "By the end of her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire student on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect."

By the end of the book, Sophie is in seriously hot water. Unless she can solve the mystery, and make it through the final showdown, her stay at Hecate will come to an awful end...

Sophie is a gem. It's not that common for a paranormal heroine to have a sense of humor and a smart mouth, and I loved it. Here's Sophie addressing the headmistress, for instance: “I’m experiencing some teenage angst, Mrs Casnoff,” I answered. “I need to, like, write it in my journal or something.” If I had to go to a magical boarding school, I'd want Sophie as a room-mate. Her relationship with Jenna, her vampire room-mate, is based on delightful banter--they both use humor to buoy each others spirits when things go wrong (which they do, in spades!). Her romance (a hopeless...or maybe not...crush on a truly hot dude) is spot on in its tension and teetering hope, and because Archer, the dude in question, is also a smart-aleck, it's great fun to read their scenes together.

And on top of that, the mystery is gripping, and the