We moved, and now I can walk to the library!

Has it really been more than a month since my last blog entry? Yikes. And right after I made my highly realistic two-blogs-a-month goal. (I should never set goals; it never turns out well for me.) In my defence, moving makes you put your entire life on hold. I haven't even been reading anything (other than all fourteen Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher, but that was weeks ago.) We're still not unpacked and organized, because we're getting the place painted, so everything is a complete mess.

But it's a five minute walk to the local public library. Yesterday I escaped the chaos and went to get myself a new library card. I love libraries. Here are the first books I brought home with me:

   

Questors, by Joan Lennon, caught me with "three perfect heroes" who aren't quite perfect; it looks like an original concept

Epic, by Conor Kostick, looks like a cross between The Hunger Games and Omnitopia Dawn

The Minister's Daughter, by Julie Hearn, looks like a retelling of The Crucible

Wrapped, by Jennifer Bradbury, is Egyptology and Regency England; I picked it up because Book Aunt recommended it.

The Seer and the Sword, by Victoria Hanley, I picked up because of the cover by Trina Schart Hyman; love that artist.

City of Ships, by Mary Hoffman, is the latest in her Stravaganza series, which I've been enjoying.

Miles From Ordinary, by Carol Lynch Williams: this one actually didn't make it home from the library. I started reading the first few pages and I had to sit down and finish the whole thing right there. It's a deceptively simple story--it all takes place on one day, and not very much actually happens--but the emotional tension is ratcheted up tight all the way through. Brilliant writing, a brilliant voice. You are right inside this girl's head, and what a terrifying, heartbreaking place it is to be. Very impressive book.

Hex Hall and Demon Glass, by Rachel Hawkins. I needed something light and mindless after Miles From Ordinary, and this series fits the bill. Very typical plot: Sophie has never fit in because she is a . . . (which strange paranormal creature will it be this time?) a witch. She screws up and gets sent to a reform school for witches, vampires, werewolves etc., where she meets a guy who is wrong for her in every possible way, where the popular witches try to get her to join their dark magic coven, where people start getting attacked and the wrong people are accused of it . . . you get the picture. Not much original, but it's well-written, I like the characters, and it doesn't take itself too seriously. No brooding, lots of snarky comments. In the same vein as Paranormalcy.

Death, Rebirth, and a Book Club Recommendation: Matched, by Ally Condie

My computer died! Life came briefly to an end; I was bereft; I was useless. But all turned out well in the end, because I have an automated backup program. My life was returned to me, intact, with a new hard drive and all the same ridiculously unorganized data I can't seem to live without. It's a little scary how dependent I am on this screen with the little icons lined up at the bottom. (And if Google wants to take over the world, I don't think it would be very hard: we're all little Google slaves already!)

Speaking of taking over the world, I recently read Matched. Apparently it's now on bestseller lists, so it doesn't exactly need my recommendation. However, the other day I was a bit intimidated to discover that someone's book club was looking to my blog for a new book recommendation. (I hope they all like The Lost Conspiracy!) (I hope they can find enough copies; there are a couple in my local library, but that might be a bit far to come!) Considering books for a book club is a quite different matter than recommending to individual readers: you want something that appeals to a wide range of tastes and sensitivities, and something meaty enough to generate discussion (other than "she should have picked the other guy"!).

Given those criteria, I would have to suggest Matched as an excellent book club choice. It's science fiction in so far as it's a dystopian vision of the future, but it's a quiet, introverted kind of dystopian novel. The anti-Hunger Games, if you will. And it's a love story, of course. (The theme song could be from Muse: "Love is our resistance.")

Condie creates a perfect world where every decision--what to eat, what to wear, what job to choose, who to marry--is made by the Society. There is no violent repression or coercion: everyone willingly participates because they believe this is the best way to be happy. At least, that's what Cassia thinks. Her doubts about the beneficence of the Society begin when she Matched to her best friend, Xander, but her information packet shows her the face of Ky. Is Xander the one she is meant to be with, or is it Ky?

I thought it was brilliant of Condie to present this society to us from Cassia's point of view: as a teenager who has grown up in this peaceful, controlled world, she takes it for granted and is invested in its continuation. This is what life is like, and it works, and there's no reason to question it, is there? The subtle and obvious ways she is manipulated are all the more horrifying to the reader because Cassia thinks they're normal. Cassia wants nothing more than to take her place as a contributing adult in her society, but her growing relationships with Xander, Ky and her family start her wondering, and once she starts to question, there is no going back.

Matched is not an action-packed violence-fest. The suspense is quiet but constant and the conflict is almost entirely internal. The critical moments are not so much Cassia's actions as her decisions.  I loved that her first rebellion was over poetry. The actions are all so small, but the decisions they represent are huge. Holding a scrap of paper can be terrifying. Each decision Cassia makes leads to a slightly larger action with wider repercussions, until she makes a life-changing mistake. There is a sequel, due Fall 2011. I won't say it's a cliffhanger ending, exactly, but I am quite anxious to read the next one!

Matched is like salted caramel ice cream: a smooth, quiet surface with surprising hidden piquancy.

I'll leave you with a friendly reminder: when was the last time you backed up your hard drive?

The Lost Conspiracy, by Frances Hardinge

This is a really, really good book, and you must read it. Go see if your library has a copy. Even quicker, it's on Kindle and it's cheap (by its original title, Gullstruck Island). (No, I don't get a cut of every sale!)

I don't want to tell you anything about the plot, because I don't want to give anything away. This is a book about secrets and lies, conspiracies and betrayals, murder and revenge. It's also about family and loyalty and myth and redemption. It's dark but it has a light heart.

Here is our first glimpse of our heroine:

As it happened, the girl supporting Arilou had a name too. It was designed to sound like the settling of dust, a name that was meant to go unnoticed. She was as anonymous as dust, and Skein gave her not the slightest thought.

Neither would you. In fact, you have already met her, or somebody very like her, and you cannot remember her at all.

If that doesn't give you a frisson of anticipation about the coming story, then I give up on you entirely!

The Lost Conspiracy is set on a marvelous volcanic tropical island. On this island and nowhere else, some children are born with the ability to send their senses out of their body independently, so they can see, hear, taste, touch, and smell things at a far distance. Before they learn to control this ability, they are often absent from their bodies, so a child who has trouble walking or talking or who doesn't seem to connect with their surroundings might be disabled or they might be Lost. Arilou is one such child. She and her younger sister (oh, have I not mentioned her name yet? I must have forgotten. Hardinger doesn't even tell us until Chapter 2) get caught up in an island-wide plot masterminded by a man with no face, that threatens all of the Lost and all of Arilou's kin.

The richness of Hardinge's fantasy setting reminds me a lot of Laini Taylor. Flitterbirds peck at your shadow and when they fly away they unravel your soul with them. The volcanoes King Fan and Lord Spearhead are rivals for the affection of a third volcano, Lady Sorrow. Implacable bounty hunters, called Ashwalkers, gain strength and protection by dyeing their clothes in the cremation ashes of the criminals they catch. The original inhabitants of the island, the Lace, have become outcasts, because when settlers first built a town in the valley between two volcanoes, the Lace kidnapped townspeople and sacrificed them to turn away the volcanoes' wrath (and save the town). The Reckoning is a secret group of Lace who have sworn to take revenge for murderd kin: they get a half a butterfly tattoo on one arm when they take the oath, and the other half of the tattoo on the other arm when they complete their vengeance.

It's not always easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys; in fact, not a single character is what he or she first appears to be. But at the end, right and wrong are clear and everyone gets their true name. (Oh, right. The heroine's name. It's Hathin.)

Hardinge's prose is jungle-lush and full of imagery: "they swung into battle like leaves on a water eddy"; "the king of tricks hatched in Hathin's brain like a baby dragon"; "a young child's despairing cry drew its serrated edge across Hathin's soul." All the strands of myth and symbol come together in a very satisfying way when the nameless girl defeats the faceless man.

Have I convinced you yet? I've read one other book by Hardinge: Fly By Night. It was pretty good, too; also had an interesting fantasy world with conspiracies and secret organizations and a nobody heroine (named after a housefly). I'm going back to the library to pick up Verdigris Deep, also known as Well Witched. And I just checked out Hardinge's amusing webpage.

The Lost Conspiracy is like a dish I had in Hawaii: mahi-mahi crusted with macademia nuts in a lime/coconut-milk sauce served with mango-pineapple salsa. (Oh, I really want to go back to Hawaii!)

Monster Blood Tattoo, Book 1, The Foundling, by D. M. Cornish

Imagine a world where the oceans are vinegar, the wilds are infested with monsters of all shapes and sizes, and chemists are people who develop monster-killing compounds. It's a world that has elements of 18th century Holland and a hint of steampunk and a great deal of adventure potential. Cornish is brilliant at world-building, endlessly inventive in his details and gorgeously evocative with his language. A vinegaroon is a sailor, one who plies the vinegar seas. A lahzar is a person who has had their body surgically altered to give them unusual monster-fighting powers, like the ability to throw electricity. A monster blood tattoo is an image of a monster that you killed, using the monster's blood as ink. That is just . . . wicked.

Now into this world throw an orphan boy with a girl's name: Rossamund, the Foundling of the title. He is earnest, bookish and sensitive, but eager to go out into the world and find his place in it. His straightforward plans get derailed, of course, and the rest of the book is one adventure after another as he tries his best to get where he's supposed to go. Some fantasy novels (particularly those written by artists (Cornish began his career as an illustrator)) have characters and plots that are merely an excuse to go wandering around the wonderful fantasy world. Not this one. Rossamund is a compelling protagonist and we are completely invested in his story. The world, rich as it is, unfolds as the necessary backdrop to Rossamund's trials, not as the primary interest of the novel. The supporting characters are all complex and fascinating, and there are mysteries yet to be explained.

Cornish's illustrations are wonderful, conveying a sense of both the characters and the atmosphere.

This is the cover image I found on the web; not the cover of the book I bought, which is dark red-brown with several character portraits. This one is the new North American edition of the series, which, if you look closely, is now called The Foundling's Tale, not Monster Blood Tattoo. I suppose that since librarians and parents are the most likely purchasers of the books, the publishers thought Monster Blood Tattoo might be too off-putting. (If it were 12-year-old boys with the disposable income, there's no question which title is more appealing!)

I'm trying to think of something comparable to Monster Blood Tattoo, but there really isn't anything else like it. You might enjoy it if you like steampunk, even though it isn't steampunk. It's probably the same reading level and similar adventure-style as the Septimus Heap books. There are horror elements, but I was never biting my nails in anxiety. Although it is a dark world and a dark story, there is a certain humour underlying it all. Cornish might just be doing a little satirizing here and there.

I'm going to call this book a thin-crust wood-oven pizza with spinach, garlic, roasted red peppers, pineapple, and feta. Original, multi-flavoured and quite delicious. (Feel free to substitute your own gourmet pizza combination if you don't like mine. Just don't make it pepperoni green pepper extra mozza.)

Omnitopia Dawn, by Diane Duane

I really must stop reading the first books of series when the second books aren't out yet! But this one's safe: no cliffhanger ending.

Omnitopia Dawn is the first book in a series of unspecified length about the creator of a massively multiplayer online game and his fight to save his creation from evil hackers and underhanded corporate competition. Have I lost you yet? It's an adult book, and I was worried when a lot of scenes were set in boardrooms and offices and characters were Chief Financial Officers and suchlike. But not to fear: the true setting is Omnitopia itself, every gamer's perfect fantasy, every fantasy-reader's dream made real. Dev Logan's genius is that he's created a game platform that can be anything, any world you can imagine populated with any characters you can think up. And with his new RealFeel game controller, you can enter the world and feel as though you are there, complete with smelly griffin poop to step in.

It's not an original idea--how can it be, when it's what every video game aspires to--but Duane makes it convincing and oh-so-appealing. So when we find out about the former-friend-turned-corporate-rival who has hired some criminal hackers to bring down Logan's system right when he's rolling out a new expansion, we're invested, we care, we start cheering for the CFO and the programmers and various other employees who rally to face down the threat. And the battle is conducted within Omnitopia, so Dev gets to wield a convincing Sword of Truth, and shutting down attackers' IPOs is rendered as bashing them with clubs etc. (There is definitely some hero/king imagery going on that translates back into the real world in interesting ways. Dev Logan is perhaps a bit too Good to be entirely convincing, but in the end you swallow it because you really want to.)

I'm no computer geek, but Diane Duane seems to know what she's talking about when it comes to the science behind Omnitopia (apparently she once developed a game for Electronic Arts, so she does know whereof she speaks). At any rate, all the programming-speak was realistic enough to fool me. I suspect that if you really enjoy stories about corporate espionage and financial finagling then you'll find this one a little thin, because Omnitopia is all about the magic. Thank goodness!

The story ends satisfactorily (no cliffhangers=much happiness!), but there are intriguing sequel possibilities. In the meantime, if someone would actually develop something like Omnitopia, I would definitely want to play! Guess I'll just have to keep reading fantasy.

Omnitopia Dawn is like chocolate ice cream: fun and satisfying and sweet and you'll definitely want more.

Life Interferes With Blog. But I read Pegasus! And Blackout and All Clear

One really must be disciplined with this blogging thing. I have problems with discipline. My title makes it sound like I've been doing interesting things that haven't allowed me time to write blog entries, but I don't imagine anyone will find choosing kitchen sinks and wall sconces and shopping for bras with my daughter very interesting. (The bras were for me, as part of my daughter's on-going attempts to make me fashionable: apparently fashion these days requires Extreme Push-up and Beyond Cleavage bras.)(Is this too much info for a blog?) I've also been planning our Christmas trip to New York: the internet is wonderful for trip planning, but you have to wonder when it takes longer to plan the trip than the trip itself will last!

The upshot of all this non-interesting stuff is that I haven't read nearly so much lately. But there are still a few things I can talk about:

Pegasus, by Robin McKinley. I've been looking forward to this one for a while, and I celebrated its release with a Pegasus Release Celebration, and finally I got around to reading it. And it was as lovely as promised: princess and pegasi; what more do you need to know? But I find I can't say very much about it, because the story's not done. This is Volume 1 of a promised two volumes, and it ends right when things start getting interesting. What we get in Pegasus is a lot of world-building. It's a beautiful world (just look at the cover of the book), and I was happy to spend time in it. But nothing bad actually happens until the very last scene, so I feel as though I've read a very long prologue, and the book ends after chapter one. There are a lot of interesting ideas and relationships developed, and I can't wait to see what McKinley does with them. I'm just going to have to be patient, since Pegasus II isn't due until 2012. Stay tuned! (I'm going to call Pegasus creme brulee--sweet and simple with the complex underlayers of vanilla bean; and I'm anticipating that Vol 2 will be somewhat more chocolatey.)

Blackout and All Clear, by Connie Willis. Willis does the same thing McKinley does with this latest duo--cutting the story in half and publishing it as two books, but I was more patient and didn't read Blackout when it came out last year. Thank goodness. I don't think I would have bothered re-reading it this year in order to get up to speed before the sequel, and I would have missed out. Much like Willis' earlier novel Passage, Blackout spends most of its time following characters back and forth in futile quests to do apparently irrelevant things. It's deliberately confusing about who, where, and when, and reading it on my iPod meant it was harder to flip back and forth trying to figure out what I should have remembered from previous chapters. It's a time travel novel, set in the same world as Doomesday Book, Fire Watch, and To Say Nothing of the Dog, so Mr. Dunworthy is back, and so's Colin, (and so is St. Paul's cathedral) and we get three new characters going back to different points in WWII. Because I had read these other books, and Passage, I decided to stick with the confusion and frustration and keep reading, because when Willis finally gets to her pay-off it's usually worth it (and all the confusion and frustration are actually necessary in order to appreciate the pay-off). I have to say that All Clear's payoff wasn't as heart-stoppingly wonderful as Passage, but I still liked it. And I have a whole new appreciation for what England went through during WWII. That's really what this duo is: a paeon of praise to British courage and resiliance, and it's worth reading just for that. I wish we had seen more of Colin than we do--in fact, I wish Blackout had been shorter and All Clear longer--but I would still classify this as a must-read for Willis fans. (If you haven't read Connie Willis yet, don't start with these. Try Doomesday Book if you want something serious, and To Say Nothing of the Dog if you want really funny.) I can't make a food analogy for Blackout and All Clear, because they were set during rationing, so I'd have to use something nasty with cabbage! Rather, I'll compare it to those really good war movies that make you cheer for ordinary people doing heroic things. And now I want to go watch the movie Enigma.

I picked up the new Diane Duane book last week, and I just discovered Kirkus's Best Books for Teens 2010, so there's a lot of reading I want to do, but I'm working on an editing project and I'm trying to be good and do my own writing, so I may not have another review for a while. Maybe I'll do a post about wall sconces!

(I'm not so good with the putting photos in the blog; sorry for the weird formatting.)

I Shall Wear Midnight, by Terry Pratchett

I know I said I was going to focus on less-well-known authors, but this is one of those cases where I have to squee a bit about someone who is rightfully famous. And perhaps Terry Pratchett's YA books are less well-known than his adult ones, so maybe this counts.

In any case, GO READ THE WEE FREE MEN. And then come back and we can talk.

So. Now that you've read the first Tiffany Aching book, you'll want to go on to A Hat Full of Sky and then Wintersmith. Now. Do you see what I mean?

I love Tiffany Aching. From our first introduction to her, where she sees a monster in the creek so she goes and gets a frying pan, sets her younger brother out as bait, and whacks the monster on the head with a clang ("It was a good clang, with the oiyoiyoioioioioioinnnnngggggggg that is the mark of a clang well done"), you know this is a character whose head you want to be in. She's eleven years old, and she decides she wants to be a witch when she finds out about an old woman who was turned out of her house and died in the snow because people suspected her of being a witch.

"Tell me why you still want to be a witch, bearing in mind what happened to Mrs Snapperly?"

"So that sort of thing doesn't happen again."

She even buried the old witch's cat, thought Miss Tick. What kind of child is this?

Tiffany thinks, and she cares, and she pays attention to detail. She loves words like susurrus. And now that I'm in chapter one looking for more quotations, I think I'll just reread the whole book . . .

I love Pratchett's concept of witchcraft: the way Tiffany learns to use her First Thoughts and Second Thoughts and Third Thoughts, and "open your eyes, then open your eyes again." I love the memory of Granny Aching, who wasn't exactly a witch, but was there, and did what had to be done, and never lost a lamb. "Witches deal with things."

Then if all that wasn't enough, we get the Nac Mac Feegle. Just say that out loud. You have to read a book that has Nac Mac Feegle in them. Nothing I say about them will do them justice--but that's okay, you've already read The Wee Free Men, so you know what I mean.

And all this was supposed to be a review of I Shall Wear Midnight, the fourth Tiffany Aching book. So if I'm preaching to the converted, and you just want to know if the latest book lives up to our expectations for Tiffany: it does. Tiffany is now sixteen and living back with her family as the witch of the Chalk. There is realistic character development as she tries to fit herself into her new responsibility, and we're cheering for her. The ante is upped yet again, with an even more frightening villain: this book is the darkest of the four, because what Tiffany faces isn't just supernatural; it's the evil in men's hearts. But I was still laughing out loud on almost every page, unless I was crying. Sometimes both at once. There's a scene near the end that perfectly illustrates what I mean (it doesn't give any plot away):

There was a general murmuring from the other Feegles, on the broad theme of slaughter for whoever laid a hand on a Feegle mound, and how personally each and every one of them would regret what he would have to do.

"It's yon troosers" said Slightly-Thinner -Than-Fat-Jock-Jock. "Once a man gets a Feegle up his troosers, his time of trial and tribulation is only just beginning." . . .

Later in the conversation:

There was a glint in Wee Mad Arthur's eye that prompted Tiffany to ask, "How exactly did they commit suicide?"

The policeman Feegle shrugged his small broad shoulders. "They took a shovel to a Feegle mound, miss. I am a man who knows the law, miss. I never saw a mound until I met these fine gentlemen, but even so my blood boils, miss, it boils, so it does. My heart it does thump, my pulse it does race, and my gorge it arises like the breath of some dragon at the very thought of a bright steel shovel slicing though the clay of a Feegle mound, cutting and crushing. I would kill the man that does this, miss. I would kill him dead, and chase him through the next life to kill him another time, and I would do it again and again, because it would be the sin o' sins, to kill an entire people, and one death wouldnae be enough for recompense. However, as I am an aforesaid man of the law, I very much hope that the current misunderstanding can be resolved withoot the need for wholesale carnage and bloodletting and screaming and wailing and weeping and people having bits of themselves nailed to trees, such as has never been seen before, ye ken?"

Pratchett has such complete command of tone that it's possible to have tears of laughter streaming down your face while at the same time catching your breath with sympathetic horror, and in fact the horror is more real because the laughter has engaged your sympathy. Have I mentioned that I love the Nac Mac Feegles?

I Shall Wear Midnight is a very satisfying conclusion to the Tiffany Aching books, and now I think I'll reread all four of them, with a pen and paper to write down all the great little lines that I think I'll remember and then don't.

This series is like a really good breakfast buffet, with fresh pancakes and waffles and bacon and sausages and porridge made with cream and fruit and everything. And cheese, can't forget the cheese.

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, The Mysterious Howling, by Maryrose Wood

I picked this book up for the title: I love intriguing titles. Then I met Miss Penelope Lumley, and I was hooked.

A cross between Mary Poppins and Jane Eyre with a dash of Edgar Allen Poe, The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling is funny, surprising, and mysterious. We begin with Miss Penelope Lumley, a recent graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, taking a train ride to her first job interview. She worries that the train may be attacked by bandits, that she might forget the capitals of European countries, or that she might "end up with marmalade all over the front of her dress and run from the room weeping," but it soon becomes apparent that Miss Lumley is "much, much more than her current circumstances would indicate." Upon meeting the children under her care and discovering that they have been raised by wolves, she is "not in the least bit alarmed." After all, she has "spent many a useful hour assisting Dr. Westminster," the Swanburne veterinarian. She is appalled that the children are being kept in the barn: "they had plenty of hay and the saddle blankets for warmth--but no watercolor paints? No decks of cards? Not a single book to pass the time? . . .To Penelope's way of thinking, it approached the barbaric."

I fell in love with Penelope's original thinking and strength of character, and I loved watching her gentleness tame the three children (they are soon reading poetry and learning Latin, of course). But all is not well at Ashton Place, for there is a mystery concerning the unpleasant Lord Fredrick, and he appears to have evil intentions regarding the children, which Penelope must try to thwart. There is a gloriously comical and suspenseful Christmas ball: poetry is recited to much chaos, gentlemen go hunting, something is almost discovered in the attic, and a squirrel is adopted. We are left, however, with a number of compelling questions: Where did the children come from? Where did Penelope come from? What or who is hiding in the attic? Why does Lord Frederick keep consulting the almanack, and where was he during the Christmas party? Alas, we must wait for a sequel! Luckily, Maryrose Wood appears to be a fast writer, and The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Hidden Gallery, is coming out in Feb 2011. In the meantime, I'm going to check out her teen novels.

Oh, I forgot to make a food metaphor! TICAP:TMH (I really didn't want to write the whole thing out again!) is like sticky toffee pudding: sweet and delicious with hidden chewy depths, and oh, so very British. (And did I mention it's hilarious?)

Blackbringer, by Laini Taylor

Fairies of Dreamdark, Blackbringer finally arrived at my local bookstore, and I gobbled it down. I wouldn't have picked this book up had it not been recommended by someone: I don't normally find fairies appealing. But these are not normal fairies! Okay, they're small and have wings, but Magpie is a seriously kick-butt heroine! She hunts devils for fun. Yes, there are devils in this story, and Djinn, and glyphs and thespian crows and magic knitting needles. Taylor is brilliant at taking elements from all sorts of folk-tales and mythology and weaving them into an entirely original world.

The Djinn created the world and filled it with animals and birds and fairies and imps and elementals. Some nasty devils got made, too, but fairy champions caught them all and imprisoned them in bottles. Then the Djinn went to sleep. Thousands of years later, humans started opening the bottles and letting the devils out. (I love how this is an amalgamation of Pandora and Aladdin.)

Magpie is the granddaughter of the West Wind, and so she has more skills and magic than the average fairy. She takes it upon herself to recapture the released devils, with the help of a troop of crows (they also perform plays, but Magpie has serious stagefright). She's caught twenty-three devils so far, but the latest one is different. It might be more than she can handle. So she returns the fairy homeland, the forest of Dreamdark, to look for the Djinn King, Magruwen. Maybe she can wake him up and get him to help.

I love Magpie's language: she's a Scottish/Shakespearean fairy with street-cred. I love that Magpie's parents are fairy archaeologists/ethnologists, travelling the world to find and record fairy magic before it is lost forever. I love Magpie's encounters with the Magruwen, a frighteningly powerful being who is confounded by her stubbornness and goodness. I love the scavenger imp Batch Hangnail, who can't be called a traitor because he has no loyalty to anyone but himself.

If I have a complaint about this book, it's that it isn't long enough! I would love to see more of the warrior prince Talon and how he learns to fly. There's a fascinating subplot about a usurper of the fairy throne that could have its own book devoted to it. Then there's Bellatrix, the fairy champion, and her tragic love story. And dragons: there are dragons!

This book is like lamb tagine (or, if you don't like lamb and don't know what a tagine is, how about chicken mole)(and if you don't know what chicken mole is, go find a good Mexican restaurant and find out!): it's layered with multiple, complex flavours, it's meaty and spicy, it's wholly unexpected the first time you try it, but then it becomes must-have comfort food.

I've ordered the next book, Silksinger, and I can't wait to delve more deeply into this fascinating world. It looks like there will be a new set of characters, but we'll still get to see what Magpie and Talon are up to. *Rubs hands together gleefully.* Go read this book!

Anne Ursu, The Shadow Thieves and The Siren Song

These are the first two books in a new trilogy that I hadn't heard of: I came across The Shadow Thieves while browsing my local library. The cover isn't very appealing, but the title was intriguing, and as soon as I read the first page I knew I'd like this author. She's funny, snarky, and her characters are very real. Here's a sample:

So, sometimes really bad things happen and, for reasons that are rather complicated, you're the only one who can stop them. And sometimes, in order to do so, you have to sneak out of the house late at night to get to the Underworld. And on those occasions, you, because you are a conscientious person, leave your parents a note explaining that you know what's making everyone sick and you have to go save the world. Helpfully, you also tell them you love them and not to worry.

The problem is, your parents don't really listen to this last part, and when you finally get back the next morning . . . after Philonecron tried to throw you in the Styx, a few monsters tried to eat you, you met up with the Lord of the Underworld, and a whole shadow army tried to bring his palace down on your head--well, you find out that they have, in fact, worried. A lot.

That's from the second book, The Siren Song, when we discover that after Charlotte and her cousin Zee successfully save the world from the evil Philonecron (who is stealing children's shadows to create an army to defeat Hades), her parents ground her forever.

Yes, this is another book using Greek mythology in a modern setting. The difference between The Chronus Chronicles and the Percy Jackson series is that Charlotte and Zee are not demigods. They don't suddenly develop magical powers, and when they get thrown into the world of myth they have to defeat the bad guys with courage, luck, and stubbornness. And their parents don't understand. The plots are fairly original, the mythological people are fun (Poseidon sails around the Mediterranean on a very tacky luxury yacht), and there's enough action and adventure to keep the pages turning, but what I loved about these books was how convincing the main characters were. Plus the voice: loved the voice. (But then I'm a sucker for snarky humour.)

These books are like chocolate- and peanut butter- covered pretzels: sweet and salty and addictive. Worth being better known. Now I have to convince my library to get the third book.

Laini Taylor, my new favourite author

It's only fitting that my first blog entry should be about Laini Taylor, because her website is what inspired me to create this blog in the first place.  I discovered Laini Taylor via Robin McKinley's blog (she's also a favourite author), because someone on her forum recommended the book Blackbringer. My library didn't have it, but they did have Lips Touch Three Times, and this book hooked me from the first taste.

It's a beautiful book: the cover is evocative and striking, everything about the design is enticing, but then you turn past the title page and you get a gorgeous illustration by Jim Di Bartolo (Ms. Taylor's husband). He reminds me of Trina Schart Hyman. And then you turn the page and there's another one. In fact, a whole little story told only in pictures. Then Taylor's story begins, and it's juicy and spicy and surprising and delicious. It's like eating a summer-ripe peach, one that's so exquisitely flavoured it gives you shivers.

And that's just the first story. Lips Touch Three Times is a collection of three novellas, each entirely different, each set in a differently-flavoured fantasy world, all centering around a kiss. What a brilliant concept! And these worlds: Taylor borrows from Slavic and Hindu and Roma and I don't know what other mythologies to create her very own fully-realized universes. Which Di Bartolo illustrates perfectly with his introductory graphic stories. You could set ten-volume fantasy epics in each world. Yet this sense of depth, of excess, of reality makes each story completely satisfying. You don't need more: each story is exactly the story that needed to be told.

My favourite of the three stories is "Spicy Little Curses Such as These." It has the best title, ever, don't you think? The first chapter is called "The Demon and the Old Bitch," and it just gets better from there.

I'm not going to say more because my words aren't doing Taylor justice. I've ordered Blackbringer from my local bookstore, and I can't wait until it comes in. Taylor joins the list of writers I'll buy instantly, no questions asked.