Half Cannonball! Charmed Life is the story of Eric Chant (called Cat) and his sister Gwendolen, who are orphaned in the first few pages of the book and eventually wind up living with a mysterious, peculiar man called Chrestomanci, who takes charge of their schooling as well. Gwendolen is a promising young witch, but Cat doesn’t seem to have any magical talent. OR DOES HE? Of course, we’ve seen this before, with a luckless British orphan who doesn’t seem to be anybody special, who gets […]
Temeraire Meets the Far East
Just in case there was any doubt, dragons are still my JAM. I should clarify that it’s specifically the dragons in Naomi Novik’s world that I am adoring. I’ve never encountered such interesting characters inhabiting and giving personality to such mythic bodies. Sure, lots of great stories have dragons, or dinosaurs, or talking frogs, or whatever. But these dragons are the heart and soul of this corner of the multiverse and I am ON BOARD. Throne of Jade picks up just a few weeks after […]
The Last Time I Encountered Something Centred on a Male ‘Witch’ It was “The Covenant”: This is Much Better
Half Bad. Half Wild. Half Lost. It sets itself up to follow the usual young adult series storyline, yet there was something really intriguing about this series to me, and I absolutely devoured all three of the books as fast as possible. It might be that I’ve never really experienced the mythology of witches presented quite in the way this book does, which made it interesting to me. There is also such a survival instinct present in these books, and a connection to nature that […]
Unnecessary “I liked this” headline
As a reviewer, I get to a point with authors I love — and as much as I hate to segregate out certain authors, this is especially pronounced with genre authors who proudly inhabit a particular niche — where I can’t really go too deeply into what I love about their books without feeling like I am repeating myself. I talk about how and why they excel at characterization, the themes that they tend to explore really well, their excellent scene-setting, reliable pacing, and effective […]
Tryin’ to reach my goal, my power of speech: unimpeachable
Everyone (like…internet everyone, I don’t know anyone in real life who read these books) said I’d love Across a Star-Swept Sea more than For Darkness Shows the Stars and I scoffed (that’s right SCOFFED) because I super loved For Darkness Shows the Stars the first time I read it (because Persuasion) so I just couldn’t imagine. And, in fact, had I not reread For Darkness Shows the Stars before reading Across a Star-Swept Sea, the first novel may have remained my favorite. But Across a […]
I’m a diamond in the rough, a shiny piece of coal
I’ve now read this twice. I read it immediately upon learning that it was based on Jane Austen’s Persuasion, which (as I get older) is slowly overtaking Pride & Prejudice for my favorite Austen novel. Pride & Prejudice is the novel that made me fall in love with Jane Austen. Persuasion is the one that kicked me straight in the heart for hundreds of pages. Something about regret and missed chances…it takes age to truly begin to appreciate it and really FEEL it. Not that […]