By: tanita davis,
on 5/15/2013
It's not every day that you read a book set in Vienna that has really nothing to do with the stereotypical Vienna. I mean, there's the odd schnitzel, a few mentions of Mozart, but only in a passing kind of way. It's funny how some cities seem to... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita davis,
on 5/7/2013
This has all the earmarks of a great series: an engaging, realistically flawed main character, stupendously detailed world-building, and tons of new-things-per-page. It's got adventure and heart -- but felt uneven. I wasn't aware this novel would... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita davis,
on 4/30/2013
This book is allegedly for MG. Well, my inner fifth grader is all kinds of happy right now, then. And my inner sophomore. And my Alleged Adultness. This is a Cybil potential, all right, straight up. It has heart-pounding adventure, right out of the... Read the rest of this post
Welcome all to my first Author Spotlight feature where you will get a chance to meet a well known author and learn about the writing process.
By: tanita davis,
on 4/26/2013
I frequently complain about the plethora of authors switching tracks from adult books to YA novels, and not bringing their best game. This is not one of those complaints. Sophronia took a deep breath. " What, precisely, will I be expected to learn... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita davis,
on 4/24/2013
In the world of judging a book by its cover, I'll admit, I caved. I was interested in this novel solely because of its cover, and because it was put out by a Canadian press. I find that I enjoy historical fiction from Canada, because it's generally... Read the rest of this post
Halfway through The Mystery, by Samuel Hopkins Adams and Stewart Edward White, I decided that I definitely was not going to review it. But now that I’m done, I kind of feel like I have to. It’s just so weird. At least, it seemed weird do me, but I’m not really in the habit of reading slightly sci-fi pirate-y horror stories, so.
The Mystery has a Frankenstein-esque framing narrative, which takes place aboard a Navy ship, the Wolverine. The ship is sort of wandering around the ocean, blowing up wrecks, when it comes across a schooner called the Laughing Lass. This is odd for two reasons: first, that the Laughing Lass had disappeared two years before with eminent scientist Dr. Schermerhorn, journalist Ralph Slade, and its captain and crew. The second reason is that the ship is entirely uninhabited, beyond the dead bodies of a few rats. That, and there’s food and still-warm ashes from a fire, so the Laughing Lass can’t have been unmanned for long. Then…well, more mysterious stuff happens. And eventually one of a large number of missing people shows up and tells his story, and it’s absorbing and awful.
I usually have trouble with books fueled by impending doom, but not here. Or rather, I was pretty freaked out the entire time I was reading, but not in my usual, irrationally upset about bad things that haven’t happened yet way. Actually, I think I might have been reacting to it the way people are supposed to react to scary books and movies but that I never do. I mean, I’m not going to start reading more scary stuff, because I’m still a wuss, but I’m closer to understanding the appeal than I was a week ago.
I should probably also mention the animal slaughter. There was a lot of it. It was very effectively horrible in the traditional sense of the word, and I can’t believe I managed to get all the way through it. I just — there are a lot of dead seals, okay? A lot.
In conclusion: way to go, Samuel Hopkins Adams. I trusted you, and now I don’t. And I guess it could just be Stewart Edward White at fault, but, not having a whole lot of information on the subject, I’m going to blame them equally.
By: tanita davis,
on 4/10/2013
The adventures I have, when I randomly buy, pick up, or otherwise gank books! Once again, I am SUPER EXCITED because I've found another Cybils contender so early in the year. I'm a Luddite at heart, and I have had access to ereaders for years, but... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita davis,
on 4/10/2013
ALL RIGHT. I know I say this every time, but I ♥ Tu Books. It's just the kind of publishing company so many people were waiting for - because where else can you tell your crazy YA tales of monsters, the Malleus Maleficarum - the Spanish... Read the rest of this post
Author: Jane Murphy & Allison Fingerhuth
Illustrator: Neal Sharp
Publisher: Mutt Media
Genre: Adventure
ISBN: 978-0-615-38808-3
Pages: 145
Price: $16.95
Author’s website
Buy it at Amazon
Pipper’s food blog is popular, and her readers expect her to dish up some tasty morsels. But Pipper is stumped, and doesn’t know what her next topic should be. When she meets with her friends, she stumbles on the idea of finding the “secret ingredient” to the best biscuit. They help her make arrangements, and off she goes on a trip around the world.
Unbeknownst to her, Bull Bogus of Bogus Biscuits has sent out a spy, hot on her tail. Bumbles follows diligently behind, leaving chaos in his wake. But Pipper has been warned about Bumbles, and she’s watching for him. Pipper meets some interesting characters and samples some wonderful food along the way. And when she finally discovers the secret ingredient, her friends agree. Her blog is a success, as is her newest enterprise.
Pipper’s Secret Ingredient blends adventure, friendship, and food in delightful proportions. Kids will enjoy Pipper’s travels, while cheering for her to outsmart Bumbles. And everyone will agree that the secret ingredient is perfect, and well worth the search. I highly recommend this entertaining adventure.
Reviewer: Alice Berger
By: aquafortis,
on 4/4/2013
Reader Gut Reaction: I remember reading Tiffany Trent's first Hallowmere book for the Cybils way back when, and I had enjoyed it much more than I'd expected to—I can't say Southern Gothic historical fantasy is my thing, but she crafted a fun and... Read the rest of this post
By: aquafortis,
on 4/1/2013
Reader Gut Reaction: The first book in this trilogy, Under the Never Sky, was on my radar since it launched, but I hadn't gotten around to reading it until my library recently dangled a free e-book version of it and its sequel in front of me. Being... Read the rest of this post
I know I’ve said before that no one ever should have let Alice Williamson publish without Charlie, but I think I’ve changed my mind. I’m still not a fan of To M.L.G., and Shay says that The Adventure of Princess Sylvia isn’t so good either, but I just finished The Girl Who Had Nothing and I’m really glad it exists. (For what it’s worth, while this book is credited solely to Mrs. C.N.Williamson, it was published while he was alive.) This book, though. It’s like a cross between Miss Cayley’s Adventures and The Career of Katherine Bush, and it’s not as good as either of those, but that just means that it’s not as good as the beginning of Miss Cayley or everything but the end of Katherine Bush. It’s better than the less good parts of both of those.
The girl in question is Joan Carthew. Abandoned by her actress mother at a young age, Joan lives in a Brighton boarding house and works as a household drudge for the mean proprietress. Eventually she gets fed up and runs away, but instead of, I don’t know, looking for work or begging or something, Joan throws herself under the wheels of a wealthy woman’s carriage and uses her subsequent injury to insinuate her way into the woman’s house. Joan is, at this point, twelve. Yeah, she’s kind of a badass.
Lady Thorndyke takes Joan in, sends her to finishing school, and eventually adopts her, but then she dies, having neglected to update her will, and Joan is left penniless again. That’s okay though, because she still has the following:
• Her finishing school education
• A fashionable and expensive wardrobe
• Brains
• Beauty
• Confidence
• Knowledge of shorthand and typewriting
With these, she embarks on her career as a con-woman. Other people call her an adventuress, and she apparently thinks of herself as a highwayman (“rather a gallant one”), but basically she makes her living off conning people. It’s great.
She starts by taking the job that George Gallon grudgingly offers her after Lady Thorndyke dies. She makes herself extremely valuable there for long enough to pick up some knowledge of a secret business deal, which she manages to parlay into two months living on a yacht on the Riviera and a few hundred pounds for spending money. That interlude doesn’t go on for as long as she’d like, but Joan escapes unscathed and is soon in Cornwall, going by the name “Mercy Milton” and getting her landlady and the girl she used to babysit well established in life. That episode leaves Joan with little money, but the landlady’s house in Bloomsbury now belongs to her, and going forward it becomes her home base, the place where she stays in between adventures.
Basically, everything is awesome. Joan manages to be both ruthless and human in a way that really surprised me. In most books of this type — books about adventuresses, I guess — the heroine is only allowed to be capable and independent up to a point. It’s as if heroines of this kind are being allowed to take on a male role, having agency and adventures, but have to return to a passive female role in order to have a happy ending. Either that or they’re horribly punished. Joan does, inevitably, fall in love and settle down of the end of the book, but for the bulk of it, she’s allowed to play both the male and female roles simultaneously, lying and stealing and acting as a protector to other women but also caring about people and examining her feelings and things.
I found the ending to be incredibly abrupt. It was the thing I liked the least about the book. But I wonder if it was sort of on purpose — if A.M. Williamson didn’t want to add in the romance at all but thought she had to. I think she had to, too, but not in a bad way, and I wish she’d drawn out that portion of the story more. It’s interesting, though, that Joan’s love interest seems to be there mostly to affirm that Joan is a good person. She’s not particularly happy about the way she’s lived, but he tells her over and over again that everything she’s done has been okay. I want to wait at least one more Alice without Charlie book before I declare this a trend, but I hope this theme of good women doing bad things without being made to seem like bad women continues. It’s pretty cool.
By: tanita davis,
on 3/5/2013
Well, you know what they say about middle books.No? You don't? Well, "they" usually say that in any trilogy, the middle book is awful - that it doesn't give you any new information, and that it doesn't do anything but take up space. Sometimes this... Read the rest of this post
By: genevieve,
on 2/26/2013
By: tanita davis,
on 2/26/2013
Technically? This is a WCOB - one of those wicked cool, overlooked books. The technicality surfaces when you realize this anthology is made up of previously-published pieces by author Ruth Nestvold. Asimov’s Science Fiction mag, Realms of Fantasy,... Read the rest of this post
By: aquafortis,
on 1/14/2013
Reader Gut Reaction: I was very excited when I saw this one at the library. It's the third volume in Wilce's Flora Segunda books, and it felt like it had been a little while since I'd last read one. I always enjoy being plunged into the fantastical... Read the rest of this post
By: shelf-employed,
on 1/15/2013
Wisdom’s daughter walks aloneThe Mark of Athena burns through Rome,Twin snuff out the angel’s breath,Who holds the key to endless death.Giant’s bane stands cold and pale,Won through pain from a woven jail.
If you like The Westing Game, you’re sure to like Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist (illustrator of Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events). The book jacket says Chasing Vermeer “is a puzzle, wrapped in a mystery, disguised as an adventure, and delivered as a work of art.” A famous painting by Jan Vermeer known as A Woman Writing has disappeared and its mysterious thief has threatened to destroy it. Sixth-graders Petra Andalee and Calder Pillay start out as classmates but soon become friends and fellow sleuths as they boldly venture to follow a trail of clues and track down the missing painting. Using their wits and intuition, they solve the puzzle of the painting’s disappearance and its mysterious thief . Chasing Vermeer reminds me a bit of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Petra finds an old used book called Lo! that tells of coincidences throughout time. As Petra thinks, “Why wasn’t more time . . . spent studying things that were unknown or not understood . . . ? . . . To try to piece together a meaning behind events that didn’t seem to fit?” Perhaps there are no coincidences–perhaps life is really full of patterns and cosmic synchronicity. Petra dreams of [...]
If you like The Westing Game, you’re sure to like Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett and illustrated by Brett Helquist (illustrator of Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events). The book jacket says Chasing Vermeer “is a puzzle, wrapped in a mystery, disguised as an adventure, and delivered as a work of art.” A famous painting by Jan Vermeer known as A Woman Writing has disappeared and its mysterious thief has threatened to destroy it. Sixth-graders Petra Andalee and Calder Pillay start out as classmates but soon become friends and fellow sleuths as they boldly venture to follow a trail of clues and track down the missing painting. Using their wits and intuition, they solve the puzzle of the painting’s disappearance and its mysterious thief . Chasing Vermeer reminds me a bit of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. Petra finds an old used book called Lo! that tells of coincidences throughout time. As Petra thinks, “Why wasn’t more time . . . spent studying things that were unknown or not understood . . . ? . . . To try to piece together a meaning behind events that didn’t seem to fit?” Perhaps there are no coincidences–perhaps life is really full of patterns and cosmic synchronicity. Petra dreams of [...]
I am all set to go on an Edgar Wallace kick. It will actually be a delayed-onset Edgar Wallace kick. Thursday last week I was hunting around for something to read and found myself wishing I owned more Edgar Wallace. I eventually settled for one of Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise books — and then three more — but the yen for Edgar Wallace was still there and last night I went over to Project Gutenberg Australia (is it illegal for me to download post-1923 books from there? I don’t think I want to know) and read Room 13, featuring Wallace’s series detective J.G. Reeder.
So, here’s the thing about Edgar Wallace — I’ve talked about it before — every time I try to write about one of his books in particular I end up taking about his books in general. It’s like most authors’ books are individual objects, which can be discussed and compared, but Edgar Wallace’s fiction is a fairly homogenous substance to be measured out in page-lengths. I’m going to pretend for a moment that it’s not, though, and that Room 13 stands alone and has nothing to do with any other book. And when I am done, I will have described a pretty typical Edgar Wallace thriller.
Room 13 opens in Dartmoor Prison, where Johnny Gray is serving out a sentence of a couple of years for something to do with horse racing. There’s lots of fairly self-consciously used thieves’ cant — a “screw” is a warder, forged banknotes are “slush” — and a clear picture of what the world of professional criminals in England looks like (I mean, what it looks like in this book. The connection to reality is probably pretty tenuous). There’s a sense that everyone who lives by breaking the law is acquainted with all the others, if only by reputation, and that a stretch in jail is an accepted part of their way of life. [redacted for rambling about Edgar Wallace].
There’s also a fair amount of gossip, which introduces us to old lag Emanuel Legge, who was in Dartmoor when Johnny’s sentence began, and to his son, Jeff, who is responsible for Johnny’s imprisonment. Jeff has never been in jail, and has rarely been seen, but he’s known by some to be the Big Printer, whose counterfeit notes are so good that even the police can’t tell them from the real thing.
We also hear about Peter Kane, another criminal — or former criminal — who is a friend of Johnny’s. He has a daughter, Marney, who Johnny’s in love with, but Peter would prefer that she marry someone respectable. The night before he’s released from prison, Johnny receives a letter from Peter, letting him know that Marney is engaged to be married to a Canadian, Major Floyd.
Johnny’s independently wealthy, so when he’s released from prison, his luxurious apartment and valet are waiting for him. Marney, on the other hand, isn’t — although he heads straight to the Kanes’ home the day after his release, she’s already married to Major Floyd. And Major Floyd, when Johnny comes face to face with him, is none other than Jeff Legge, impersonating a respectable Canadian in order to help his father get revenge on Peter Kane.
That sets most of the plot threads in motion. There’s the question of Jeff and Marney’s marriage — is it bigamous? — the mystery of the Big Printer — can anyone actually get proof that it’s Jeff? and where are the notes printed? — the bad blood between Peter Kane and Emanuel Legge, and the question of why a wealthy, well-educated young man like Johnny would get involved in crime anyway. Not to mention all the smaller questions that come up (who shot Jeff Legge?). [redacted for rambling about Edgar Wallace]. Having all of these different things going on at once means there’s no slow, investigative section of the book. Aside from the occasional appearance of the unassuming, middle-aged J.G. Reeder, knowing much more than anyone thinks he ought and making the most delightful insinuations, the pace is pretty breathless. Something is always happening, and it usually involves guns. [redacted for rambling about Edgar Wallace].
“Action-packed” isn’t always a recommendation, especially if you’ve passed your fourteenth birthday, and it’s not enough to make a book enjoyable all by itself. Humor is. Engaging characters are. Twists that you don’t see coming right alongside ones that you do probably aren’t, but they are pretty fun. And Room 13 has all of the above. We’re exclusively concerned with archetypes, obviously, but they’re archetypes with charm, or a sinister fascination, or an innate trustworthiness. You can see the strings above the puppets, but that doesn’t stop you from liking the characters you’re meant to like and hating the characters you’re meant to hate. And puppets are all that’s called for, really.
Room 13 doesn’t particularly want to do anything but entertain, and it does that very well. And it does it without being a half-coherent mess, which by all rights it should be. [redacted for rambling about Edgar Wallace]. Instead, every time the plot does something twisty, you can pinpoint the clues that led up to it. It’s great.
So, yeah. That’s what Edgar Wallace is like. As a writer, anyway. As a person he seems to have been pretty unpleasant. But he’s been dead a long time, so you can read his books with a clear conscience.
By: tanita davis,
on 2/12/2013
Well, sure we all know who Rosemary Wells is. She's the one who does the bunnies! The adorable bunnies! The cuddly bunnies! The fabulous Ruby and Max! Oh, and Nora, Yoko, and McDuff, too, but mostly we know her from Ruby and Max. So, how did we go... Read the rest of this post
By: shelf-employed,
on 2/13/2013
Keeping this in mind, you might not want to smile or laugh while reading this book. And when you get to the Flip-O-Rama parts, I suggest you flip with a bored, disinterested look on your face or some adult will probably take this book away from you and make you read Sarah, Plain and Tall instead.When I checked today, Captain Underpants and the Revolting Revenge of the Radioactive Robo-Boxers was ranked #213 on Amazon.com. Not #213 in children's books, #213 in all books. Not too shabby. And the reviews? All 5 stars.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
By: aquafortis,
on 2/18/2013
Reader Gut Reaction: I don't post about too many middle grade titles—to be perfectly honest, I don't read as many MG books as I do YA—so it's kind of ironic that I read this book a couple of weeks ago and then realized I should wait to post... Read the rest of this post
By: tanita davis,
on 2/19/2013
Well, this one has a nice, succinct title, doesn't it? FREAKS. Misfits. Mutants. This is a strangely compelling but freakish little work, first published in Britain in 2011, and winner of The Times/Chicken House Publishing Children’s Fiction... Read the rest of this post
This is on my wish list, especially when I discovered that the author wrote for Batman: The Animated Series. Plus, I love the premise.