"The Serpent's Shadow (Kane Chronicles #3)" by Rick Riordan

406 pages

In this thrilling conclusion to the Kane Chronicles, Carter and Sadie are down to their last chance to destroy the chaos snake Apophis. If they can't get rid of him once and for all, he will plunge the world into eternal darkness. The Kanes don't have much help, though, as the magicians of the House of Life are wasting time fighting with each other and the gods are divided by their own squabbles. It's up to Carter, Sadie, and the other young magicians of Brooklyn House to battle Apophis and his forces. Their only hope is an ancient spell that would turn the snake's own shadow into a weapon against him. Problem is, the spell has been lost for centuries...and time is running out.

This was my favorite book in the Kane Chronicles. I had trouble following the others, perhaps due to my lack of knowledge of Egyptian mythology, but I guess I'd learned enough from the previous books to help this story make sense. The action is pretty much nonstop, so I couldn't put the book down. Carter and Sadie both seem to grow up a little, which is good to see as the series concludes. I like the way everything came together for a very satisfying ending. Well done!

"City of Ashes (Mortal Instruments #2)" by Cassandra Clare

453 pages

Clary's life has sort of become a mess since she found out that werewolves, vampires, and faeries are real and that she is a demon-slaying Shadowhunter. Her mom is in a magically induced coma, and she just found out that the boy she thought she was falling for is actually her brother. But now things are getting even more crazy: someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. It seems that Valentine--Clary and Jace's evil, deranged father--is behind the killings, which are part of an even bigger, more sinister plan. When the second Mortal Instrument, the Soul Sword, is stolen, it seems that all is lost. Clary and her friends have to pull out all the stops to keep Valentine from starting a war between Shadowhunters and Downworlders. 

I think this is the last Mortal Instruments book I will read. I rarely don't finish a series I start, but I just can't handle any more of these. I'm not sure why they annoy me so much because I really like the Clare's prequel series, the Infernal Devices. I guess I just don't like these characters as much. And yeah, I'll come out and say it--I just can't handle the incest stuff. I have a feeling that Clary and Jace will turn out to not be brother and sister, but it's still gross that they make out and are so hung up on each other when they think they're siblings. I'm sort of interested in what happens, but I think I'll just read up about it on Wikipedia and save myself some time. 

Courtney Crumrin: Volume 1: The Night Things

by Ted Naifeh, 125 pages

Young Courtney Crumrin is none too thrilled when her parents eagerly agree to become "caretakers" of her wealthy, eccentric great (?) uncle Aloysius and move the family to his creepy old house beside some spooky woods in a class-conscious town where things go bump in the night (and not everybody comes out of the woods who goes in).

Naifeh takes the old fairy tale tack of keeping the darker bits in order not to shield children from the more unpleasant aspects of reality and, so, doesn't pretend bad things don't happen or that protagonists don't have personality flaws like everybody else.  His heroine makes as many selfish, ill-advised decisions as the rest of us, but she has the pluck to sometimes succeed in getting herself out of fixes, too.  No little angel role model, is Courtney, but she's got what it takes (including luck) to face both the school cliques and the things lurking in the shadows.  If she gets a little in over her head now and then, well, that's when kids need to rely on grown-ups, right?  Or at least on the reliable ones who understand her.

Shadow of Night: Book 2 All Souls Trilogy

by Deborah Harkness, 584 pages

Minor Spoilers!!


This is the sequel to A Discovery of Witches, which appeared on bestseller lists last year. The first volume begins when Diana Bishop, a history scholar and a witch, discovers a magical alchemical manuscript in Oxford's Bodelian Library (seen above). At first the book frightens her, awakening powers that she did not wish to possess. When she returns the book to the reference desk, it disappears into the bowels of the venerable library. But other creatures (vampires, demons and other witches) are all after the book known as Ashmol 782. For her own protection, Diana is forced into a partnership with handsome and brilliant geneticist Matthew deClairmont, who also happens to be a long-lived vampire (though not one who presently feeds on humans.)

This 2nd book takes up where the first one ended, with the pair's arrival in Elizabethan England. Diana and Matthew are still looking for the mysterious book, and also trying to find someone to teach Diana how to use her newly acquired powers. They are outlaws as well, since their relationship is forbidden by a covenant of The Congregation, which is kind of like a paranomal Spanish Inquistion. They travel all over Europe and meet all sorts of famous people of the age, some helpful, others lethal. Though there is some mention in the beginning of Diana's outlandish American accent, she doesn't seem to have much problem adapting to the Elizabethan age. It helps that she's a historian, and she does have Matthew to clue her in since he's been there before.

 I had a little bit of a problem with the "timey-wimey wibbly wobbly" stuff. I thought it should prove more of a handicap for Diana than it seems, and everybody is just a little too overwhelmed or charmed by Diana except for the dangerous and jealous demon known as Kit Marlowe. The book also glossed over the problem of travel in 1591. Maybe since the deClairmonts are so rich and powerful, they could jaunt from one country to another without much difficulty. All that nit-picking aside, the story does move along at a fast clip for such a long book. It ends with a lot of loose threads waiting to be knotted tidily up in the third book. If you liked Discovery of Witches, you will probably like Shadow of Night. If you found Discovery a bit too much like Twilight, then you might find the same issue with Shadow.

Ursula

by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, 66 pages

Unblemished childhood love conquers all in this brief, magical tale of first love never really lost because its participants refuse to let it go.  Just because you have to grow up doesn't mean you have to leave who and what you loved as a child behind.

The art here is cute and eclectic and a nice fit for the magic literally in the air around these youngsters, even after they've grown up.  Whatever their ages, their hearts are forever young and open to the wonders of imagination and writing their own stories.  My only complaint is that the story is so short, it feels a little lost all by itself and like it belongs in a collection of other magical, imagination-fueled tales by this creative pair of brothers--which I would totally read.  :)

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

J.K. Rowling
309 pages

This is the first book in the Harry Potter series.  Harry's parents were killed by "You-Know-Who" when he was just a baby.  "You-Know-Who" also tried to kill Harry, but failed and disappeared.  Harry is a celebrity in the wizarding world, but he is unaware of this.  He doesn't even know that he's a wizard because he's spent the last ten years living with his unmagical relatives who have been hiding this knowledge from him.  However, Harry is now 11 years old, and it is time for him to go to Hogwarts, the school for wizards.  He is suddenly thrust into the wizarding world and learns about his family and his past.  He also faces many challenges as he "You-Know-Who" takes steps to gain power once more.

I've read this one before, so there weren't many surprises.  However, I did catch some foreshadowing I'd never caught before...like how Harry's father's wand was good for transfiguration.  Overall, it's an okay read, but it's not my favorite in the series.

Daughter of Smoke and Bone: Book 1

by Laini Taylor, 418 pages

Enrolled in a Prague art school, Karou sports a head of shockingly blue hair and some unusual tattoos.  She also leads a very atypical personal life (most teenagers don't live with a quartet of chimaeras, get paid in tiny wishes, and travel the world via magic portals in search of teeth).  She tells her mundane friends all about the doings of her family, but lets them believe it's just entertaining back-story to go along with the fantastical drawings in her sketchbooks.  She has her moments of loneliness, but she knows she's lucky to have friends, even if they don't really know her, and a family, even if they're secretive beings no one else would believe existed.  But then she meets an angel.  And the angel tries to kill her.  And all of Karou's lives start to unravel at the seams.

Ooh, and here I thought I was getting a little tired of YA fantasy series.  The world-building is creative, the plot pleasantly unpredictable, and Karou's a pretty cool lead in that she is not a passive heroine.  She makes decisions (not all of them wise, but then whose are?) and isn't afraid to be proactive.  Sure, the romance is a little sudden in its onset, but it turns out there's a reason for that.  Besides, when you're talking angels and demons and all-out war, you shouldn't be surprised if emotions run a little high, no?

If you enjoy Cassandra Clare's urban fantasy The Mortal Instruments and its prequel series but would like a heroine with a little more independence and grit, you might give this a shot.  Karou may be a teen, and she may even act like one on occasion when her heart's involved, but this could just as easily be an adult series.  I hope the next book comes out soon!

"Curses! A F**ked Up Fairy Tale"

320 pages


Things aren't going so well for private investigator/villain RJ. Thanks to his crazy ex-wife, he's on probation from the Villain's Union. This means he can't be mean, cruel, vicious, or evil--at all. And it's killing him. Meanwhile, Cinderella has just been run over by a bus, and her not-so-ugly stepsister, Asia, suspects that it wasn't an accident. She hires RJ to find the killer, and due to his can't-be-evil curse, he is forced to say yes. When he begins to investigate, he finds himself getting sucked into Asia's crazy family: King and Queen Maledetto, who are constantly trying to kill each other; Cinderella's fiance, Prince Charming, who is obviously flamboyantly gay; and the so-ugly-she-hurts-your-eyes stepsister, who is in love with the butler. To make matters more complicated, RJ starts falling for Asia. He just has to solve the murder case, get the girl, and win over the Villain's Union so he can get his evil powers back. Unfortunately, someone starts trying to kill him, and it turns out that Asia is suffering from a curse of her own...


This is just a goofy, goofy book. I thought a few jokes were a little too over the top and it gets repetitive occasionally, but I did crack up quite a bit. I enjoyed the over-the-top characters and trying to figure out who really killed Cinderella. There's plenty of vulgarity so it's not for the faint-hearted, as it's heavy on the adult language and content. If you can handle that, though, and you like silly humor that you don't have to think about too much, this is the book for you. 

The Unwritten: Volume 4: Leviathan

by Mike Carey (story), Peter Gross (art), and Yuko Shimizu (cover and incidental art), 136 pages

Tom, Lizzie, and Savoy arrive in New England searching for clues to the "source" of story-bound magic so Tom can start to figure out how to control it instead of just being at its whim and crossing his fingers. While he inadvertently gets pulled into the story of Moby Dick, Lizzie and the increasingly sun-averse Savoy get caught up in one of the Cabal's webs.

Oh no, Savoy's looking a little green around the gills! But I worry less after seeing Lizzie's practical but undisturbed reaction. As long as somebody brings him his meals and he stays out of direct sunlight, maybe he'll be ok (as will the jugulars of those around him). Stupid Ambrosio, biting people without their permission.

I do love the way this series draws on literary allusions and philosophical theories as a basis for its magic. All the whale business this time around was rather fun (Tom meets up with some interesting personages in the belly of one). And the continuation of the story of Pauly, former acquaintance of Tom's father, in the form of a deranged rabbit now exiled to a scary staircase land with a bunch of other (somewhat familiar) talking animals is weird and disturbing and a bit cool (I do hope he gets his comeuppance, the selfish thing).

Clockwork Angel

by Cassandra Clare
673 pages
(Large Type edition)

When sixteen-year-old orphan Tessa Gray's older brother suddenly vanishes, her search for him leads her into Victorian-era London's dangerous supernatural underworld, and when she discovers that she herself is a Downworlder, she must learn to trust the demon-killing Shadowhunters if she ever wants to learn to control her powers and find her brother.

What’s not to love about this book? It’s my favorite time period (Victorian-era), in one of my fav places (London) about a supernatural underworld with a love triangle. I can't wait to devour the second book.

The Familiars by Adam Jay Epstein and Andrew Jacobson

360 pgs/2010


About the Book: Aldywn is a typical ally cat-trying to find food and running away from the local animal bounty hunter. When Aldywn is running for his life, he ducks into a pet store to escape. But this isn't just any pet store-it's a pet store for familiars, animal companions to wizards. Aldywn doesn't know anything about the wizarding world or magic, so it's just his luck that a young wizard chooses him to be his familiar!

Aldwyn tries to fake his way in his new home and pretends to be a magical cat. When the familiars young wizards are kidnapped, Aldwyn and his new familiar friends must help them before it's too late-and Aldwyn has to decide if he should reveal the truth or not.

HermioneWeasley Says: I remember when this book first came out and it looked fun, but I'm not the biggest fan of animal fantasy, so I passed on it. I picked up it again for two reasons-1) it's nominated for our state book award and 2) a co-worker's third-grade son said it was the best book he ever read. So with those things pushing me to read The Familiars, I decided to give it a try.

The Familiars is very much The Warriors Series meets Harry Potter. (I was all excited to think of that "meets" line and than realized that Michael Buckley says the same thing on the back of the book-so much for being creative!:) It really is the best way to sell this book to tweens though and I think young fans of both series will enjoy The Familiars.

The Familiars has everything tweens will love-lots of adventure and excitement, humor, good guys versus bad guys, magic, danger, secrets and friendship. It's a non-stop adventure-filled ride and even though the book is long, it's easy to get caught up in the story and it ends up being a very fast paced read. Add in the fact that it's the start to a series, and I think this one will end up being very popular with tweens.

For adults, it's a bit predictable, but it's great for younger readers looking for excitement and adventure and a fun magical series. Since we put this out on our award shelf, it hasn't stayed long! Lots of fun for readers who enjoy magic and animals.

The Amulet of Samarkand

by Jonathan Stroud
Read by Simon Jones
462 pages

This story takes place in an alternate form of modern London where magicians rule.  Nathaniel is a capable, ambitious apprentice who has been apprenticed to an inferior master named Arthur Underwood.  During the previous year, Simon Lovelace, a powerful magician, had been visiting Nathaniel's master.  During this visit, he demeaned Nathaniel, and Nathaniel has been plotting revenge against Lovelace ever since.  Nathaniel summons the sarcastic and antagonistic djinni Bartimaeus to help him steal the Amulet of Samarkand from Lovelace.  Bartimaeus is able to carry out this charge, but the theft has many unintended consequences.

This was great on audio.  Simon Jones really embodies Bartimaeus.  Jones is able to give the djinni just the right amount of sarcasm and haughtiness to make him come alive.  I wasn't a big fan of the end, but it was an enjoyable read overall.

The Tiger Saga: Book 1: Tiger's Curse

by Colleen Houck, 405 pages

Kels just wants a summer job when she accepts a temp position as an extra pair of hands for a small circus while it's in town. Ticket collection? Check. Cleaning up the bleachers after the show? Sure. Bonding with the troupe's oddly domesticated tiger, flying off to India on a private jet, traipsing Indiana-Jones-style through jungles and temples in search of mystical clues, and falling in love with a 300-plus-year-old prince? Not so much mentioned in the original job description. But Kels is an adaptable 17-year-old and throws herself into her "other duties as assigned" with conviction. What she does worry about, however, is what will happen when her mission is accomplished.

Oh, angsty youth. I wanted to smack Kels for being such a self-defeater in emotional matters when she's so willing to take on angry monkeys, murderous trees, and personal snake-spirits. This series has a nifty premise and offers a wealth of fascinating details regarding Indian culture, history, and religion. It feels a little too hokey-convenient and Indiana-Jones-like now and then, and the language has an odd, staid rhythm to it (mostly Kels's voice, as everyone else has an excuse to sound formal and mature--she's a teen from Oregon, but her dialogue could lose the quotation marks and first person indicators and easily blend in with the narration), but it's still a fun adventure-romance with a mystical heart. Also, I am a sucker for cats, large and small, and Houck knows her kitties. (I once cried from a Siberian tiger's facial expression on a PBS program. Like I said, sucker.) The attractive cover design and physical feel of the book are professional quality, so I didn't realize until partway through the novel that it was originally self-published. Knowing that, I cut the imaginative author some slack about the language, which is very "subject-verb, subject-verb" without as much switching-up of the order (for example, with lead-in prepositional phrases and other clauses) as one would normally expect. I think that's just her style, though, and I got used to it by the end, though I do wish Kels would talk a little more like the native speaker she is and let the natural verbal shortcuts fly. It may not be perfect (I have additional quibbles regarding the "translation" of rhyming texts related to the titular curse), but nevertheless I like these characters (teen angst aside) and the big story well enough to wonder what's next and look forward to the entrance of the big bad in book 2.

The Unwritten: Volume 3: Dead Man's Knock

by Mike Carey (story), Peter Gross (art), and Yuko Shimizu (covers), 152 pages

Lizzie struggles with her own identity issues and Savoy has an unlucky run-in with Tommy Taylor's immortal nemesis, the vampire Ambrosio, as the release date of missing Wilson Taylor's fabled fourteenth Tommy Taylor book draws near. At the center of a complex plot he doesn't understand, Tom believes the only way he'll find any answers is to track down his father and demand a full explanation. But he should know better than to assume he'd get anything like a straight answer from the man who may have written him into this chaotic mess in the first place.

Lizzie and Savoy appear to be the "real world" mirrors of Tommy Taylor's loyal friends Sue and Peter, who are themselves rather Ron and Hermione-like (on purpose), so I can only hope they fair better in the end than most of the unfortunate people caught up in this word-woven web. Poor Lizzie's messed -up background is laid out for the reader as a choose-your-own-adventure chapter. I've never had much patience for those, so I ignored the "go here," "go there" instructions and just read the pages in order, trying to link them together logically in my head, which seemed to work ok. I've grown rather attached to Savoy's comic relief, so Ambrosio and his possessed vessels had better keep their sharp pointy teeth well away from him. But as unpleasant as Wilson's intentionally Voldemort-like "fictional" vampire is, the shadowy cabal of wordsmiths and string-pullers trying to shape the world to their liking is far more frightening.

Tom and friends are off to Nantucket next to "catch a whale." Hee! Being a fan of Moby Dick, I'm looking forward to seeing how Carey ties it in with Tom's metaphysical quest for truth.

This is one series where the lovely dream-like cover illustrations balance out the cartoony Tommy Taylor segments and the main story's more traditional, old-school comic book look. The mix of art styles blends interestingly with the dark violence, reality-bending philosophical examinations of literature, and moments of levity (the latter being rare but, oh, so appreciated!).

When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen

2012/296 pgs

This is a vampire book that's not a vampire book, an alternate historical fiction, a book about social classes and magic and families in power. It's a lot all rolled into one. To escape her family and an impending marriage to a man she can't stand, Felicita fakes her death and runs away to the slums of Pelemburg looking for a new life. There she finds a city in turmoil, an uprising brewing, and a mysterious vampire. Readers looking for something more than just a typical paranormal should enjoy this one.

The Unwritten: Volume 2: Inside Man

by Mike Carey (story), Peter Gross (art), and Yuko Shimizu (covers), 164 pages

With all the circumstantial evidence against him, Tom Taylor loses the love of his erstwhile fans as well as his freedom following a spree gruesome murders at a historic villa. In prison, he meets his new cellmate Savoy, the only person who seems remotely sympathetic about his situation. But even on the inside, Tom's not safe from the powerful forces looking to remove him as a threat. And he's still struggling to accept the truth of who or what he is, the depth of his father's elaborate plans, and the existence of what it is increasingly difficult to deny is magic.

This volume gets even darker and more surreal than the last as Tom and his companions (Savoy and Lizzie Hexam, a possible agent / pawn of his father's) step out of the bloody reality of the prison under siege and into a pre-recorded-film-like WWII Nazi Germany. It's all harmless enough...until you focus your attention on something and give it substance. A twisted tale's corruption takes on physical mass and threatens to swallow everything in its path. The power of words to shape people, perceptions, and history, itself, takes some work to wrap your head around, but it's interesting stuff. And the side story about one of Tom's father's enemies trapped in a Beatrix Potter / Winnie the Pooh-ish story with a dark underbelly is both disturbing and cool. (The first volume ended with a chapter about Rudyard Kipling's assisted rise to prominence, the effects his writing had on the British Empire, and his desperately clever efforts to fight back against his "handlers" with more words when he realized what he'd contributed to. Neatness!)

Girl of Fire and Thorns

by Carson Rae
423 pages

Once a century, one person is chosen for greatness. Elisa is the chosen one. But she is also the younger of two princesses. The one who has never done anything remarkable, and can’t see how she ever will.
Now, on her sixteenth birthday, she has become the secret wife of a handsome and worldly king—a king whose country is in turmoil. A king who needs her to be the chosen one, not a failure of a princess.
And he’s not the only one who seeks her. Savage enemies, seething with dark magic, are hunting her. A daring, determined revolutionary thinks she could be his people’s savior, and he looks at her in a way that no man has ever looked at her before. Soon it is not just her life, but her very heart that is at stake.
Elisa could be everything to those who need her most. If the prophecy is fulfilled. If she finds the power deep within herself. If she doesn’t die young. Most of the chosen do.

I read through several raving reviews of this book before reading it and now, after reading it, I completely agree with all of them. A transformation story that, along with the character, starts out slow, but turns into a fast-moving read till the end. There was a shocking twist at the end, but I still refuse to believe it and am waiting to see what happens in the sequel.

Tithe: a Modern Faerie Tale

by Holly Black
331 pages

After returning home from a tour with her mother's rock band, sixteen-year-old Kaye, who has been visited by faeries since childhood, discovers that she herself is a magical faerie creature with a special destiny.

This book was just not my cup of tea. For a few reasons. First, while I like fantasy and magic, I didn’t like the fairies and their world. And I like my heroines “pure” for lack of a better word right now. Kaye smoked, drank and was a high school drop out. I just didn’t want to believe that she could lead. She once uses her magic to enchant her best friend’s (her only friend) boyfriend into falling in love with her. He kisses and gropes all over her. Then when you want to see some groping action between Kaye and Roiben, there’s none.

And even though there may be answers to some of the questions I have in the following books, I don’t think I’ll be reading them.

The Unwritten: Volume 1: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity

by Mike Carey (story), Peter Gross (art), and Yuko Shimizu (cover and incidental art), 140 pages

Having your emotionally distant beloved-children's-author of a father base a universally popular character on you is hard enough, what with the legions of adoring fans who can't tell the difference between fact and fiction. But it only gets worse when he disappears after publishing the thirteenth and final (?) book, leaving you to fight for your identity, fend off the increasingly suspicious police, and deal with the possibility that you may have no better a grasp on what is and isn't real than your father's readers.

I quite liked this first installment and will definitely read more. What starts out as a peek behind the curtain of the publishing and convention worlds becomes an intriguing tale of magic and mystery dark enough to qualify as horror, all with a literary, philosophical bent.

A Great & Terrible Beauty

by Libba Bray
432 pages

Recommended to me by teens that read and like similar titles as myself, I thought this would be a new series I could get into. I was wrong. Well, I guess I shouldn’t be that harsh. I think I just didn’t like the readers voice. Otherwise, it had several elements that I did like; set in a historical time period that I love with beautiful writing and complex characters.

I might give Rebel Angels, the second in the series, a try, but definitely in print. No more soothe-me-into-a-sleep voice of that reader.