Review of Plain Jane and the Mermaid, by Vera Brosgol

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Starred Review 0

Plain Jane and the Mermaid

by Vera Brosgol

First Second, 2024. 364 pages.
Review written September 30, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

I’ve appreciated Vera Brosgol’s graphic novels since reading her middle school memoir Be Prepared the year I was on the Newbery committee. And her picture book Leave Me Alone! has won Caldecott Honor. I like both her art and her stories, and she knows how to put them together well.

This graphic novel for kids deftly shows that some things are much more important than good looks. And as with all Vera Brosgol’s books, it delivers its message in a quirky and thought-provoking way.

Jane is a very plain looking girl from a wealthy family, but as the book opens, a lawyer tells her that since her parents died and her little brother is dead, their stately home is going to pass to her cousin. Her cousin proves to be an odious and greedy man. Jane, still a teen, will have to move along to “wherever women go.” They give her a week to move out, but the lawyer tells her that if she were to marry, she’ll get a dowry, enough to live on quite comfortably.

So there’s nothing else to do. Jane goes down to the harbor, where the fisherman’s son whom she’s long had a crush on works – or rather pretends to work while he spends his time looking beautiful. Jane reasons that he might be willing to marry her if it means he can quit working, and he seems quite agreeable to that idea. But before they can seal the deal, a mermaid comes up out of the water and pulls the boy into the sea, the mermaid also being taken with his good looks.

Jane vows to save him, and she finds a crone in a shop by the sea who gives her magical items to help her on her way. But still, Jane’s quest is dangerous and difficult. She gains further help along the way, and before she arrives, the boy learns that the mermaid’s planning to marry him and then eat him in order to stay beautiful. But it’s not going to be easy to get him out of her clutches.

The fun thing about this tale is that by the time it’s done, we see that there are wonderful things that go much deeper than beauty. There’s a satisfying ending as Jane herself sees that love can be based on more than looks. I love the fairy tale elements (three magical objects to help – though there’s a twist in how Jane uses them) that are presented in Vera Brosgol’s unique way to give us a modern story with a classic fairy tale feeling.

firstsecondbooks.com

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Review of Heartless Hunter, by Kristen Ciccarelli, read by Grace Gray

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Heartless Hunter

by Kristen Ciccarelli
read by Grace Gray

Listening Library, 2024. 12 hours, 9 minutes.
Review written September 23, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Heartless Hunter is an example of masterfully written young adult Romantasy. We’ve got the enemies-to-lovers trope, but nothing about this book felt stereotypical.

The beginning reminded me of a beloved classic, The Scarlet Pimpernel, with our first viewpoint character, Rune Winters, posing as an airheaded socialite interested only in fashion – but in secret rescuing witches from the new regime that would execute them. Rune showed her loyalty to the new regime by turning in her own adopted grandmother. Nobody but Rune knows she did that at the strong request of Nan herself, who knew they’d been betrayed – and didn’t want to see Rune killed alongside her. It was after Nan’s death that Rune discovered she, too, was a witch, which gave her extra resources and incentive in her quest to save Nan’s friends and fellow witches. Now Rune’s best friend and helper has suggested it’s time for Rune to accept one of her suitors, the better to get inside information on what the government is planning next.

The signature left behind by Rune’s magic is a small crimson moth. And Gideon Sharpe, captain of the witch hunters, has been trying to catch the witch who is the Crimson Moth for the two years that she’s been helping witches escape his clutches. And now there have been brutal murders of members of the Guard as well. When he learns that a magic signature was seen on one of Rune’s ships, it’s suggested that if he were to court Rune and join her high society suitors, he could learn if she’s the Crimson Moth.

Gideon knows that his brother Alex has long been in love with Rune. So she should be off limits. But Gideon decides he should find out if Rune is the Crimson Moth and save Alex from marrying a witch. He’ll stand down if he discovers she’s innocent. Or so he tells himself.

As for Rune – when Gideon begins to show interest, she reasons that no one could give her better inside information than the captain of the witch hunters. But can she keep him underestimating her?

To add to the fun, witch’s need blood to cast spells. And when they use their own blood to cast spells, the scars turn silver. In the old days, intricate silver scars were a badge of honor, but now they are all that’s needed to convict a witch.

Rune came into her power after the fall of the witch queens, so she hasn’t dared to cut herself. Instead, she stores the blood from her monthly cycle to cast spells, so she has no scars on her body. So – when Gideon finds excuses to see her naked, she has nothing to hide.

And yes, that gets as steamy as you might imagine. Yes, there’s a descriptive sex scene in this book, and lots of smoldering tension leading up to that scene. But it’s carried off far more subtly and compellingly than my description makes it sound. There are narrow escapes, misunderstandings, and misdirection – but there are also vulnerable moments. I appreciated learning that in this world, it’s not a simple case of witches are good and non-witches are bad to want to kill them. And that came from learning about Gideon’s back story.

And there’s a love triangle as well. Gideon’s brother Alex has indeed been in love with Rune for years, and she’s appreciated him as a true friend who knows her secrets. The author makes the choice Rune is faced with exceptionally difficult.

Oh, and did I mention the narrow escapes? The clever misdirection? The reversals and reveals?

The description says this is a duology, and it did leave me anxiously waiting for the sequel.

kristenciccarelli.com

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Review of Splinter and Ash, by Marieke Nijkamp

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Splinter & Ash

by Marieke Nijkamp

Greenwillow Books, September 2024. 345 pages.
Review written July 7, 2024, from an Advance Reader Copy.
Starred Review

Oh, this book is a delightful start to a middle grade fantasy trilogy. The title characters are both twelve years old. Princess Ash has just come back to her kingdom after years learning with her aunt. And the court doesn’t seem to think that she measures up. She has joints that always want to pop out, her health is fragile, and she walks with a cane and wears braces. In our world, I think we’d say she has Ehler-Danlos syndrome, but in her world she’s called a cripple, and not good enough to be a princess by the unkind. Even her own brother is disappointed in her.

Splinter wants to be a squire more than anything. But everyone says that girls can’t be squires. Splinter doesn’t feel like a girl, and the word “boy” isn’t quite right for them either – but Splinter does know that being a squire feels absolutely right and they want to protect the princess.

There is a war going on, and some nobles may be taking the side of the empire against the queen. When Ash becomes a pawn in intrigues against the crown, both Ash and Splinter get a chance to prove themselves – but it’s not going to be easy.

Not only did this book give us a great story about characters we’re rooting for, it also set up situations for the rest of the trilogy with the kingdom possibly in the balance.

The only trouble with starting a trilogy with an Advance Reader Copy is I’m going to have to wait far too long to hear more about these characters.

mariekenijkamp.com

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Review of Ghostsmith, by Nicki Pau Preto, read by Molly Hanson

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Ghostsmith

by Nicki Pau Preto
read by Molly Hanson

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2024. 13 hours, 34 minutes.
Review written August 30, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.

I am delighted to report that this epic fantasy series from Nicki Pau Preto ended up being a duology, not a trilogy, so I have happily finished the complete story.

I enjoyed the second volume even more than the first. The plot is still a bit convoluted. There are betrayals and reversals, but it felt organic to the story. She doesn’t do a whole lot of catch-up, and it was almost a year since I read Bonesmith, so basically I took what they said was happening at face value and pretty much gave up trying to fully understand how the magic worked. And it did feel like it was hanging together more than before – maybe because there was less need to explain things in the second book, and the characters understood how the magic works and used it.

I also had gotten over the coincidences from the first book – mainly that our main character Wren is dealing with long-lost family. I was reminded of one unlikely thing when another character listened and watched at the very same door where Wren had gotten her earth-shaking revelations and this character also didn’t get caught. But this character didn’t learn as crucial information, so the unlikelihood didn’t bother me nearly as much.

The story itself had me listening eagerly the whole way, wondering how in the world our crew was going to come out on top. In fact, there was only about an hour left before I figured out that this wasn’t, in fact, a trilogy, where everything would be terrible by the end of the second book. (Hence my joy in learning it’s a duology.)

Wren’s trained all her life as a Bonesmith, but learned in the first book that she inherited from her mother the powers of the Ghostsmiths. Bonesmiths can manipulate the bones of the dead, but Ghostsmiths can manipulate their ghosts. In the first book, Wren and her companions learned what had gone wrong in the world and in the Breachlands and that there were powerful people (coincidentally related to them) trying to get even more control. In this second book, they’re trying to shut down the source of leaking magic and thwart those who want to take power. But there are not many resisting with them. And those they are fighting have an incredible amount of power.

It all ended up being a wonderful yarn with a satisfying ending. The snarky and scrappy win out!

nickipaupreto.com

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Review of Throne of Glass, by Sarah J. Maas

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Throne of Glass

by Sarah J. Maas
read by Elizabeth Evans

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. 13 hours, 4 minutes.
Review written August 19, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.

Sarah J. Maas’s books are wildly popular at our library, so that we’ve hit the cap on some of the ebooks and can’t keep up with the holds list. I decided to see what all the fuss is about and started in on the Throne of Glass series. I followed the order I found online and read the prequel novellas, collected in The Assassin’s Blade first, which may have taken a little bit of mystery from the main character, Celaena Sardothien, in this book. But I don’t think it was a bad thing to already know her and be impressed with her skills. I also know her history and the people she reasonably holds grudges against – though she doesn’t know who betrayed her and sent her into slavery in the mines, and I do.

At the start of this book, the prince of the empire has taken 18-year-old Celaena out of the mines, where she’s been slaving for a year, surviving despite the high odds against that. The prince tells her she has a chance to win her freedom. He is sponsoring her in a contest to determine the king’s champion. If she loses, she’ll have to go back to the mines. If she wins, she’ll have to serve the brutal king – responsible for killing her parents when his army destroyed her people – for four years as champion.

So the stakes are high. I already knew about Celaena’s incredible skills, so her confidence didn’t feel misplaced to me, but she’s up against some powerful opponents, and she has plenty of work to do to prepare. On top of that, contestants begin dying – killed brutally with their insides ripped out.

Celaena does have allies in the palace. The prince chose her because he knew it would anger his father. He has put his captain of the guard in charge of monitoring her progress. And Celaena befriends a visiting princess, whose language she learned in the mines, where so many of those who spoke it were also enslaved.

The story is absorbing with its high-stakes contest. I’d heard that Sarah Maas’s books have explicit sex, but not this series, or at least not this book. There is some kissing, but not a lot. In fact, the book seems to be setting up a love triangle, but that kind of fizzles out at the end, and I’m expecting more to develop in one side of that triangle in the next book.

Although I did enjoy the book, it hit a number of my pet peeves. Not badly enough that I stopped listening (as I have been known to do), but enough that I’m withholding a star. The first was the terrible king with a noble prince for a son trope. Yes, the king is awful, responsible for the deaths of thousands – but the prince is different. Really!

The second pet peeve this book hit was the Noble Thief trope. Someone was forced into living a life of crime, but they’re good at heart and when good things happen we all cheer. Disney’s Aladdin popularized this one. In this book, our main character isn’t a thief – she’s an assassin. An incredibly skilled assassin, the best in the kingdom, at seventeen years old. She knows multiple ways to kill people with her bare hands – and yet it’s not her fault. She was taken in by an assassin and forced to learn the trade. And she learned it well, so that despite her small size, she can kill almost anyone. And she’s good at heart. Really!

The third one was about writing style. The point of view didn’t stick with the main character, but dipped into other heads here and there. It wasn’t often enough to really make them viewpoint characters, and it felt a little undisciplined. Tied in with that, the writing felt a little overdramatic. Yeah, sure, she’s the best assassin ever. A little more telling than showing. Though it’s possible that was from the way the narrator read it – but I think it was in the words themselves.

Despite all this, I think I’m going to continue with the series (though I may have to wait until after this year’s Cybils Awards to read on). Celaena is growing on me. I think there are six more books in the series, and I’m hoping eventually the brutal king will get his comeuppance. Also, Celaena’s been through a lot. I’d already love to see her find love and friendship. And have her loved one not die horribly right away. Though I do have a feeling she’s in for a lot more trouble first.

sarahjmaas.com

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Review of Illuminations, by T. Kingfisher

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Illuminations

by T. Kingfisher

Argyll Productions, 2022. 260 pages.
Review written April 17, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

I need to read more books by T. Kingfisher! I checked this one out because of how thoroughly I enjoyed A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, and then picked it up and got it read after a librarian mentioned T. Kingfisher as one of her favorite authors. I wasn’t quite as big a fan of this one, but it’s got the same flavor of a whole lot of fun in a magical kingdom.

Rosa Mandolini is almost eleven years old, a member of Studio Mandolini, surrounded by artist family members who do the important magical work of illumination.

The Mandolinis painted pictures of radishes with wings to ward off sickness, and they painted great droopy-faced hounds with halos to protect against burglars. They painted flaming swords on shingles to keep storms from blowing the roofs off houses, and they painted very strange pictures of men with hummingbird heads to keep venomous snakes out of people’s gardens.

And every one of these paintings worked, although they would wear out over time. Sometimes the illumination had to be very large. It was no good getting a tiny painting of a blue-eyed cat to keep mice away if you had a barn that was already full of rats. The tiny painting would keep mice out of your pantry, but to keep them out of a barn, you needed a painting six feet high with a blue-eyed cat the size of a tiger.

But one day, when Rosa is bored, she goes searching for a stuffed armadillo model for her uncle in their disorganized storeroom — and discovers a box with an illumination that makes her walk away and forget about it. When she manages to overcome the forgetting about it part, her next challenge is to figure out how to get the box open. When she does, the crow illumination on the box cover comes alive — and something inside the box escapes. The crow informs her that she’s just let loose an evil creature that’s been imprisoned for two hundred years and will proceed to suck the magic out of all of their illuminations.

The crow is absolutely right. And hijinks ensue. Eventually her whole family needs to get in on the act of stopping the evil mandrake root running around the corners of their studio.

It’s all told in a light-hearted way with eccentric characters, a creative magic system, and a kid who wants to not get in trouble — but also contribute to the family.

redwombatstudio.com

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Review of Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries, by Heather Fawcett

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries

by Heather Fawcett
read by Ell Potter and Michael Dodds

Random House Audio, 2023. 12 hours, 6 minutes.
Review written July 23, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This one is wonderful! Our main character is Emily Wilde, a young academic living in an alternate reality to ours where the main difference is that the faeries exist and can be studied. And Emily is writing the authoritative guide on the subject.

As the book opens, she is beginning her field work in the Arctic village of Hrafnsvik. She’s got a shack to stay in – if she can figure out how to chop the wood. But Emily’s not much of a people person, planning to spend her time out in the field, not socializing with the villagers. So she’s dismayed when she gets a letter at this remote place from Wendell Bambleby, her colleague at Cambridge whose work gets far more notice than hers, and she thinks it’s more than his annoying good looks that make this happen.

Emily has a breadth of knowledge of faeries and faerie stories that is unsurpassed, but no one has done field work among the Hidden Ones of this area before. She starts simply, by befriending a brownie but making mistakes with the people of the village. When Wendell Bambleby does show up at her door, he takes care of some problems, but adds new ones.

In spite of herself, Emily finds herself caring about the villagers. Can she use her knowledge of faerie to help some from the village who have recently been taken by the fae? But before the book is over, her actions get her into more and more trouble and she gets pulled ever more deeply into the faerie world.

The characters here are marvelous. I can relate all too well to Emily, more interested in her studies than the people around her. But then her vast knowledge of her subject serves her well. And could it be love sneaking up on her? The book felt a little dry at the start – because Emily introduced herself as an academic making field notes, but I got more and more absorbed until I was finding excuses to keep listening at the end. My next step is to put Book 2 on hold.

heatherfawcettbookscom

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Review of Songlight, by Moira Buffini

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Songlight

by Moira Buffini

Harper, September 3, 2024. 376 pages.
Review written June 18, 2024, from an advance reader copy sent to me by the publisher.

I probably wouldn’t have picked this book up if I’d realized it’s by a debut author – I read enough debut novels last year on the Morris Award committee. But this one ended up standing up with the best of them. If I were still on the Morris committee, I’d have put this book forward for further consideration.

The setting is a far distant future dystopian earth after mankind destroyed themselves in nuclear war. But some people have telepathy – which they call Songlight – and those people are hated and feared by the powers that be – and all others are taught to hate them, too.

The community of Northaven is rigidly controlled, all under the Brethren at Brightlinghelm. The boys will go off to fight the Aylish. And after they’ve served for ten years, they’ll come back and be rewarded with a First Wife from the choirmaidens. They can choose a Second Wife for pleasure, but the girls who are left are going to be made sterile and serve in a Pink House as Third Wives for soldiers.

Meanwhile, any deviation – adultery, love for anyone other than wives – is punished, but especially those who have the Songlight, who are called unhuman.

This story especially features two teenage girls, Lark and Nightingale. They meet each other in the Songlight, but both are in danger of being discovered. Lark is mourning her lover, Rye, who was taken away to have brain surgery that will turn him into a compliant shell. Nightingale’s own father is an Inquisitor, who must find and root out the unhumans.

Those two are our main viewpoint characters, but we get the perspectives of several other people as well, as we learn that there’s unrest even in the seat of power. Then when Lark is almost lost at sea, she’s saved by the Aylish, and they are coming on a mission to make an overture of peace. But how can two peoples with such a history come together?

The story is well-told, and I was pulled into the intrigue – my biggest disappointment is that it’s the start of a trilogy and doesn’t really resolve at all. I hope by the time the sequel comes out, I remember what happened – things aren’t looking good at this point, but all our heroes are in a position to make a difference.

Something the book portrays well is how hard it is for young people to go against what they’ve always been taught, and how much it takes to leave what you know, even if that is a bad situation. But people in power are invested in keeping things the same, even as people start to realize that’s not best for anyone.

I do hope this book gets some attention so the sequels come soon! I want to know what happens to these characters and the people they love and what it looks like when they come fully into their power.

EpicReads.com

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Review of Cruel Beauty, by Rosamund Hodge

Audiobooks, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Cruel Beauty

by Rosamund Hodge
read by Elizabeth Knowelden

HarperAudio, 2014. 10 hours, 17 minutes.
Review written April 19, 2022, from a library eaudiobook
Starred Review

This is a Beauty and the Beast tale with complicated and beautiful world-building. I chose this audiobook because none of my audio holds were available and I wanted something to listen to while cleaning house. So I searched for books read by my favorite narrator, Elizabeth Knowelden. She makes any book a magical experience. As soon as I checked the book out, several of my holds were available all at once, but I was already hooked and finished this book before I was willing to look at any of them.

All her life, Nyx has known that when she comes of age, she will marry the Gentle Lord — and she must destroy him. She has been trained in just enough of the magical arts to make the Gentle Lord’s magical castle collapse in on him to free Arcadia forever. The catch is that she would be trapped as well. The Gentle Lord supposedly keeps the demons in Arcadia in check, but not always successfully. Since the time of the Sundering, Arcadia has been separate from the rest of the world with the Gentle Lord ruling over them. He makes bargains with people — bargains that pretty much always turn out badly for those who agree to them. Before her birth, Nyx’s father made a bargain for children, with the price that one of his twin daughters would have to marry the Gentle Lord on her 17th birthday. But he forgot to include that his wife would have the strength to bear children, and Nyx’s mother died in childbirth.

All her life, Nyx’s family has been preparing her for this task, but unsurprisingly, she’s not happy about it. She’s expected to avenge her mother and bring about the deliverance of Arcadia, but at the cost of her own life. When she gets to the Gentle Lord’s castle, nothing is as she had thought. She works on the plan to find the hearts of water, fire, earth, and air to negate them and bring down the castle, but as she follows this quest, she learns that’s not going to free Arcadia after all.

And it turns out there are two beasts in the castle. There’s the Gentle Lord, known as Ignafex, and his shadow-servant, Shade — who is only in human form at night. They share the same face, but Ignafex has eyes of a demon. Nyx needs to find out who they are and how they got there, or she’ll never be able to defeat the Gentle Lord — and there are questions and secrets and layers to everything.

I’m not sure if I would have enjoyed this book as much if I had read it myself, but as always, Elizabeth Knowelden cast a spell and enthralled me with this complex and dangerous world.

rosamundhodge.net

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Review of Carrimebac: The Town that Walked, by David Barclay Moore, illustrated by John Holyfield

Fantasy, Folk Tales, Historical, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Carrimebac

The Town That Walked

by David Barclay Moore
illustrated by John Holyfield

Candlewick Press, 2022. 40 pages.
Review written May 25, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

The flap of this picture book calls it an “original folk tale,” and I’m not sure if technically one person can make up a folk tale, but that’s the feeling this book gives, whether or not you bog down on the technicality.

This is the story of how a town of African Americans outwitted the “Fearful Folks” (who wear white hoods and carry torches) back in 1876.

And it’s all about a 100-year-old lady, Rootilla Redgums, and her peculiar grandson.

Rootilla brought magic to the town.

She taught them to weave rugs that never wore down, to fire or bake ceramic jugs that never emptied of sarsaparilla, and to carve wooden walking sticks that somehow never got you lost in the woods.

But the Fearful Folks who lived around the town believed the Blacks who lived there practiced magic.

Rootilla always used to say that she wasn’t magic.
But the things she made were . . .

The first night the Fearful Folks decided to attack, Rootilla thwarted them, turning their torches into cornstalks. But they were planning to come back, and that next morning, on her 100th birthday, Rootilla passed away. She asked her ten-year-old grandson to carry her back to where she came from.

The way he answered that request makes a tale where the whole town escapes — and now there’s a lake in its place, named Carrimebac in memory of the folks who lived there before.

This magical and folksy tale is delightful fun. It’s always good to hear a story about humble people victorious over those who want to oppress them. The beautifully painted illustrations add to the warm feelings the book brings.

davidbarclaymoore.com
johnholyfield.com

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.