Review of Unseelie, by Ivelisse Housman

Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

Unseelie

by Ivelisse Housman

Inkyard Press, 2023. 423 pages.
Review written March 4, 2023, from a book sent to me by the publisher.

This is a debut novel I read in consideration for the 2024 Morris Award, with a review written before any discussion with the committee.

This book begins with this inscription before the story:

Stories tell of children stolen away by faeries, replaced by inhuman look-alikes.

These look-alikes, they say, could be identified by their strange speech or silence. They cried without reason or never showed any emotion at all, and struggled to relate to a world that seemed foreign to them. Folklorists theorize that these stories were early descriptions of autistic children – proof that autistic people have always been here.

But once, they called us changelings.

Unseelie is a story told by a changeling. But she lives with the twin sister the faeries tried to steal – because their mother went to the Seelie Court, and when offered a choice, refused to give up the baby she already had and brought up both girls as her own.

But now at seventeen the girls are on their own, living by their wits, with twin Isolde having developed into a clever thief and pickpocket. On the night of Revelnox, she has a plan to break into the local manor and steal the treasure hidden behind locked doors.

When they go after it – this particular lock needs two people to pick it – it turns out they’re not the only ones who had that idea. The treasure turns out to be a compass. For Isolde and for the other two would-be thieves, the compass only brings a vision of a faerie guardian. But when Seelie touches it, it magically goes into her skin and now shows on her palm. What nobody else realizes is that the faerie guardian also gets inside her head.

The book is about their quest to follow the compass to an unknown treasure. It’s not long before they’re forced to join forces with the others who tried to steal it, who have a personal history with the lady of the manor. But they’re also being chased by the manor’s security forces.

Seelie has trouble with crowds. And textures. And other things. She’s used to Isolde looking out for her. But now her magic has been stirred up, and when she gets angry, it flares out in dangerous ways. Can she learn to control her magic? And what about the faerie guardian of the compass?

They travel in an enchanted coach with a cat that’s really a brownie. (I loved that part.) Their journey seems a little random, but after all, they’re following an enchanted compass while trying to avoid pursuit.

I enjoyed the book and especially the portrayal of an “autistic” (without using that word) heroine, who’s different, and discriminated against for being a changeling. I did think how the magic in that world works was pretty murky – though, to be fair, Seelie is just figuring it out. I absolutely hated their reasons for living on their own in the first place, and didn’t completely understand the coincidence of four people going after the “treasure” at the same time, nor any of their motivations to try so hard to get it. I also didn’t appreciate that, although there was a map at the front, I had no idea where they were on the map except at the very beginning. (Was I just not reading carefully enough?)

Those are all nitpicky things. I was reading in a nitpicky way because I was reading for the Morris Award. As a first novel, this was delightful and the author shows lots of promise. (And needing to understand the magic and the location is an affliction that not all fantasy readers have anyway.) I enjoyed my time spent with Seelie and Isolde.

The most frustrating part, though, is that the story is not finished yet. This is the first book in a duology, and I will be watching for the concluding volume. (Looks like it’s scheduled for September 2025 – a long wait.)

IvelisseHousman.com
InkyardPress.com

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Review of Kaleidoscope, by Brian Selznick

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Kaleidoscope

by Brian Selznick

Scholastic Press, 2021. 192 pages.
Review written January 13, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

This is something new for Brian Selznick, but like the rest it contains his detailed and beautiful artwork done in pencil. This is a series of very short stories, and each one has a picture at the front. But before that picture, we see the picture viewed through a kaleidoscope.

And the stories themselves are kaleidoscopic. They all involve the first-person narrator and his friend, a boy named James. But they couldn’t all happen in the same universe. There are many fantasy elements in the stories with trips to the moon and magic apples and meaningful dreams and giants and dragons. I think of them as stories of the same people happening in parallel magical universes.

At the back, he tells that he was working on a book on and off for five years:

… but when I finally was ready to think about the story again, I found myself ripping apart everything I’d already written. It was like the narrative was shattering along with everything else, and out of the shards a new book began to take shape. As I worked, certain themes and images kept reappearing: gardens and butterflies, apples, angels, fires, trees, friendship, islands, keys, shipwrecks, grief, and love. That’s why I decided to call this new version of the book Kaleidoscope, because each of these elements, like bits of colored glass, turn and transform and rearrange themselves into something new. And like looking into a kaleidoscope, the view is always changing and only you can see it.

This book is very reminiscent of works by Chris Van Allsburg and Shaun Tan with a lot of surreal elements and haunting pictures.

I’m not sure the book completely worked for me, but I very much suspect that’s because my logical mind likes to understand a bit better how everything fits together. And I do find many of the stories sticking in my head after I shut the book. I highly recommend giving this book a try and seeing if it works for you.

thebrianselznick.com
scholastic.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.

Review of Little Witch Hazel, by Phoebe Wahl

Fantasy, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Little Witch Hazel

A Year in the Forest

by Phoebe Wahl

Tundra Books, 2021. 92 pages.
Review written December 4, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

Little Witch Hazel is a lavishly illustrated picture book for young elementary school readers, telling four stories about a tiny witch who lives in the forest along with fairies and gnomes and animal friends.

There’s a story for each season. In Spring, Hazel finds an orphaned egg and cares for what hatches. In Summer, Hazel has a lot of things she needs to do and all her friends are enjoying the wonderful weather, being lazy. In Autumn, Hazel helps the small animals of the forest investigate the frightening sound coming from a hollow stump. And in Winter, Hazel is tending to animal friends and doesn’t notice that a blizzard is coming. There ends up being a nice connection at the end that ties back to the beginning.

That simple description doesn’t communicate how charming this book is. Hazel is not a sweet or delicate little fairy. She’s a little chubby and matter-of-fact, wearing practical clothes instead of gauzy dresses. She gets grumpy when all her friends are taking the day off. But she’s also friendly and helpful and kind.

Here’s the start of the Summer story, “The Lazy Day”:

It was the most beautiful day of the summer, and Little Witch Hazel was busy. She had a million things to do, and it didn’t help that everyone else in the forest seemed to be out enjoying the day.

“Some of us have errands to run!” she muttered as she went to return her library books.

And here’s the beginning of “The Haunted Stump”:

Little Witch Hazel was working in her garden when she first heard the noise.

It was the kind of noise that sent prickles through your whiskers and chilled you right down to your boots.

Towering toadstools! thought Little Witch Hazel, a shiver running down her spine. Whatever could that be?

Little Witch Hazel is someone I would love to have for a friend.

phoebewahl.com

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Review of The Boy Who Grew Dragons, by Andy Shepherd, illustrated by Sara Ogilvie

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

The Boy Who Grew Dragons

by Andy Shepherd
illustrated by Sara Ogilvie

Yellow Jacket (Little Bee), 2020. First published in Great Britain in 2018. 212 pages.
Review written March 21, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

Here’s a gentle and amusing fantasy story that reminds me of books I loved when I was a kid. There’s no agonizing over realistic consequences, no deep dark inner turmoil – we’ve got a kid who grew a dragon in his grandpa’s garden and now is trying to hide his little fire-breathing pet from his parents and the class bully.

The note from the main character nicely gives you an idea of what you’re in for if you read it:

When people ask me what we grow in Grandad’s garden, I think they expect the answer to be cucumbers, tomatoes, or green beans. I don’t think they expect the answer to be dragons. But there it is. We grow dragons. And I can tell you this – they’re a lot more trouble than cucumbers.

Things cucumbers do not do: Poop in your dad’s oatmeal.

Singe your eyebrows.

Make a really cozy nest by shredding all your mom’s alphabetically ordered recipes.

Leave your underwear (the embarrassing ones covered in backhoes) hanging from the TV antenna.

Chase your cat.

Drop cabbages on your cat.

Try to ride your cat like a rodeo bull.

Wake you up at 4 a.m. every morning by digging razor-sharp claws into your forehead.

Set fire to your toothbrush WHILE IT’S STILL IN YOUR MOUTH.

Of course, they also don’t have scales that ripple and shimmer like sunlight on the sea. Or have glittering eyes that can see right into your heart. Or settle on your shoulder with their tail curled around, warming your neck, and their hot breath tickling your ear.

Nope, none of these are things you can expect from a cucumber. Well, not any cucumbers I’ve ever come across. Maybe a mutant radioactive space cucumber, but not your average garden variety. But dragons? Well, they’re a whole other story.

So, who wants to grow dragons? Dumb question, right? I mean seriously, who in their right mind would say no? Not me, that’s for sure. And not you by the looks of it.

But if you want to grow dragons, you need to know what you’re getting into. Sure, they’re fiery, fantastical, and dazzling, but dragons are not all fun and games. Not by a long shot. And it’s not just the fire and the flammable poop I’m talking about. Oh, no!

Which is why, my dragon-seeking desperados, I’m writing this all down, so at least you can go into it with your eyes open. Because, believe me, you’ll need them to stay wide, wide open.

This book is full of light-hearted fun. It doesn’t delve into a lot of questions about why this would happen or how the whole world wouldn’t know if it did – it simply has fun looking at one boy it happened to. Sure, there’s a classroom bully he has to deal with, and a mean neighbor next door, but Tomas is just an ordinary kid who’s delighted to now have the coolest pet in the world. Grandad is an especially lovable character who sees the best in everyone, Tomas’ parents are busy and distracted, and Tomas’ little sister Lolly is young enough that no one understands she’s talking about an actual dragon.

Tomas’ friends notice something’s up right away. Can he keep the secret from them? Does he want to? But would they believe him if he tried to tell them? The only way would be he’d have to show them….

I’m delighted to learn this is the start of a series. It’s a light-hearted and short book with lots of illustrations and plenty of magic and fun.

andyshepherdwriter.co.uk
saraogilvie.com
yellowjacketreads.com

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Review of The Hedgewitch of Foxhall, by Anna Bright

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Hedgewitch of Foxhall

by Anna Bright
read by Fiona Hardingham, Alister Austin, and James Meunier

HarperTeen, 2024. 12 hours.
Review written May 29, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

This is another eaudiobook I chose because it is wildly popular with our library customers. And this time, I struck pure gold! I loved this book with all my heart.

Now, as any time where the narrators have gorgeous British accents, listening to these readers made me love it all the more. But the tale itself has everything I love in a fantasy novel — characters who defy expectations and live by their own rules, magic that is easy to understand and makes sense, a plot that gets you wondering how they’ll make it through but ties up brilliantly, and of course some romance. [In this case, plenty of romance but no sex between the characters. Nowadays, I like to let people know.]

This book is set in medieval Wales, and the Author’s note reveals that she took pains to be true to what we know of that history. Our title character is Ffion. She’s a hedgewitch, not affiliated with the giant coven in Foxhall her mother and sisters are part of — a coven that charges for people even to wait in line to request help. Ffion does small magic for people who can’t afford their prices. But much worse is that the coven doesn’t care what price they take from the land to work their magic — and Ffion’s fox familiar is caught up and killed in a fire of their making. Ffion is determined to do a summoning spell to bring him back — but she will have to do it before the new moon, when his spirit will depart for good.

There are two more viewpoint characters in this book. They are the princes Dafydd and Taliesin. They are being set against each other by their father the king. The court magician — before losing his magic altogether — prophesied the death of the king at the New Moon. Everyone’s sure it has to do with fighting the encroaching Mercians and their king, King Offa. So the king sets the princes on a task of destroying the dyke King Offa has built at the border of Wales. They believe this dyke is what has leached the magic from Wales and caused sightings of magical creatures to stop.

Taliesin goes to the coven at Foxhall to get help to destroy the dyke with magic, and gets no help from them — but does recruit Ffion to his cause. Instead of using the land to give her power, Ffion gains power from her work, and she plans to walk the entire length of the dyke to gain the power to bring it down — and gain the power to summon her fox while she is doing that. But also in their travels, they realize they will need to gain the use of three magical objects important to Wales — but it will take some work to convince the current possessors of those objects to relinquish them.

Tal’s competition is his older brother Dafydd, who has long said he doesn’t want to be king. Instead of spending time in court, he works as a blacksmith, where he feels he can do unambiguous good. But their father wants Dafydd to follow after him, and as it happens, he’s been having visions of Ffion for years – to be his court magician when he is king.

Something I love about this book is that I loved all the characters and honestly wasn’t sure who I wanted to win the kingdom or who I wanted to end up with Ffion. Both princes have their own strengths and weaknesses, and since both were viewpoint characters, they each had my sympathy as the reader.

And so most of the book is traveling through Wales, ultimately trying to bring back Welsh magic. With plenty of obstacles and interactions, adding up to a marvelous tale.

And I’m super excited to find another stellar author! I found another of her books already available as an eaudiobook, so expect to hear more.

annabrightbooks.com

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Review of The Assassin’s Blade, by Sarah J. Maas

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Assassin’s Blade

by Sarah J. Maas
read by Elizabeth Evans

Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. 12 hours, 52 minutes.
Review written April 25, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.

I select youth and children’s materials for a large public library system, and by far the most popular author of all the books I purchase is Sarah J. Maas. All of her books consistently have long waiting lists. Since I love fantasy novels, I decided to see what the fuss was about. Now, it’s not clear that I picked the correct order. It turns out that this book I picked up was written as a prequel – so the events happen before the first book written. Anyway, Overdrive had it listed as number one in the series, so this is the one I’ve started with.

It turns out that The Assassin’s Blade is a collection of five novellas, all of them about Celaena Sardothien, at sixteen years old her kingdom’s most notorious assassin. I enjoyed the fact that each part was a contained story. Each novella had a sort of heist scene. Each novella has a complete storyline and a satisfying resolution (or, well, at least a resolution). Each novella happened directly after the one before, but I liked the way the action moved into each story as its own entity.

And the stories were compelling. Each one had a big challenge for Celaena. I definitely did not like the way it all ended, though I’m sure if I had read the books in publication order, I would have known where Celaena would end up. She’s a character worth following – forced to train as an assassin, she became the best. But when the king of the assassins wants her to facilitate a deal with pirates to get into the slave trade, she decides to free the slaves.

I got the flavor of a brutal world, with a ruthless king who has banished magic from the kingdom, but assassins and pirates and crime lords all doing their own thing. Celaena finds love in these stories and dreams of leaving the assassin’s guild and the continent altogether. The fantasy world where she lives is dark and sinister – but I enjoyed Celaena’s character, learning to shine in a difficult world.

I wasn’t completely hooked on this world, but I was hooked enough to put the next (first?) book on hold.

sarahjmaas.com

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Review of A Tempest of Tea, by Hafsah Faizal, read by Maya Saroya

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Tempest of Tea

by Hafsah Faizal
read by Maya Saroya

Macmillan Young Listeners, 2024. 11 hours, 2 minutes.
Review written May 8, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.

I put this audiobook on hold because it’s wildly popular with our own public library customers. A Tempest of Tea is a heist novel with vampires.

By day, Arthie Casimir runs an upscale teahouse in the bad part of the capital city. By night, secret panels come open, and it transforms into a bloodhouse serving vampires, so they can sate their thirst with folks willing to be paid for the privilege, or with special coconut-mixed blood drinks. The bloodhouse is illegal, but Arthie has paid informants to warn her before raids so she can put the bloodhouse gear back into hiding.

Arthie’s an immigrant to the kingdom. When she was a child, colonizers killed her parents and took their land. Later on, she teamed up with another young orphan named Jin, and she figured out how to pull a magical pistol from stone and win the respect of the city. (Between her name and pulling the weapon from stone, I expected Arthurian overtones, but didn’t really find any more than that.) Together, she and Jin built up their teahouse and peddle tea and secrets.

But as the story opens, Arthie learns that the future of her teahouse is threatened. A mysterious figure comes and tells her she can save it if she will help him steal some compromising material about the king of the empire — housed in a citadel kept by elite vampires that is opened once a year for an exclusive charity auction.

So that’s the heist novel part. Arthie and Jin assemble a team and lay plans to pull off the heist. Of course things don’t go completely according to plan….

I wasn’t the best audience for this book, because although I do enjoy heist novels, I’m not a big vampire novel fan, and am also not a big fan of blackmailers and others consistently slipping under the law. They gave Arthie strong reasons for her contempt of people in authority, and I was won over to be on her side. My other problem, though, was that the plot was fairly complex and there was a pretty big cast of characters with the perspective switching frequently. I listen to audiobooks while I’m doing other things (makes housework so much more pleasant!), but I think maybe I missed some crucial details and wasn’t following along all that well in the middle. All the same, I wasn’t going to stop listening. And there is an annoying cliffhanger ending, and I think I will be compelled to find out how things turn out. (It’s said to be a duology, so yay, this is the only suspense required.) One of the most delightful things about this audiobook was at the end, they give us a conversation between the author and her husband about the book, which is truly delightful.

If you do like vampire novels or heist novels, and don’t mind a little not-quite-legal dealings from characters who have good reason to be upset with the authorities – then give this book a try!

hafsahfaizal.com

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Review of Paradise Sands, by Levi Pinfold

Fantasy, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Paradise Sands

A Story of Enchantment

by Levi Pinfold

Candlewick Studio, 2022. 40 pages.
Review written January 31, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review

This picture book beautifully continues in the tradition of Chris Van Allsburg, eerie and beautiful and full of magic. It’s not a book for preschoolers, but elementary school students will love the creepy innuendos.

A girl and her three brothers drive off into a desert, singing a nonsense rhyme their mother used to sing for them. Or is it nonsense? The girl notices that they’re doing the things mentioned in the song.

When they find a grand palace, she doesn’t “sip from the chalice” like her brothers do.

And it ends up being up to her to save her brothers.

The art in this book is magnificent and eerie and is perfect for this unsettling adventure.

candlewickstudio.com

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Review of Threads That Bind, by Kika Hatzopoulou

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Threads That Bind

by Kika Hatzopoulou
read by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw

Listening Library, 2023. 12 hours.
Review written February 20, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review
2023 CYBILS Award Winner, Young Adult Speculative Fiction

This year I was Category Chair for the CYBILS Awards Young Adult Speculative Fiction category, but because I was reading for the Morris Award, I didn’t get to take part as a judge or panelist. So I’m making up for lost time and reading the great books they picked.

Threads That Bind is a distinctive fantasy. It’s set in a world after an apocalypse with separate city-states divided by barren wastelands in between. In the city of Silts, where tides regularly flood, Io has grown up with her two sisters, all of them descendants of the Fates, the Mira. Like all Otherborn, the Miraborn have inherited powers. All three can see people’s life threads, the connections between people and the things or people they love, including life itself. The oldest can weave the threads, the next can draw the threads, and the third, Io in this family, can cut the threads.

As the book opens, Io is doing work as a private investigator, afraid she’ll have to report that her client’s husband is indeed having an affair, and she can see by the strong thread between him and his lover that they are in love. But then a person shows up and attacks and kills him. This person is alive, but shouldn’t be alive — because she has only one thread, her life thread, and it’s been cut.

But someone shows up at the crime scene — and it’s the person Io’s been avoiding — the boy she shares a Fate thread with, before she’d even met him. His name’s Edei, and he works for the Mob Queen who rules their city. The Mob Queen orders Io to investigate this wraith, because it’s not the first one to show up in the Silts. Who is making this happen, and how are they choosing their victims, while talking about justice?

What follows is a long and somewhat convoluted investigation, trying to find out who’s behind it all and what they are plotting. Io must talk with many different Otherborn and dig around lots of people with power — including the new mayoral candidate — and her oldest sister, who abandoned them years before.

Like I said, the plot seemed a little convoluted to me — but the problem may have been that I didn’t listen closely enough. The magic system is intriguing, but I had to not look at the details too closely. (If Miraborn always come in sets of three, why are they not triplets? What happens if the third is never born? And why are all the threads not hopelessly tangled up?) I also didn’t completely understand all the motivations revealed at the end, having to do with the Gang War many years ago.

But all the same, it’s a great story also looking at questions of emotional abuse, justice, and violence. Although the book does solve the mysteries presented, there’s an overarching story that isn’t finished yet. I just checked and see that Book Two, Hearts That Cut, is coming out in June, and I’ve already ordered copies for the library.

kikahatzopoulou.com
penguinteen.com

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Review of Dragonfruit, by Makiia Lucier

Audiobooks, Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Version 1.0.0
Dragonfruit

by Makiia Lucier
read by Mapuana Makia

Clarion Books, 2024. 8 hours, 12 minutes.
Review written April 29, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

Makiia Lucier is a relatively new fantasy author I’m watching closely. I read her second book when I was on the Newbery committee, but it was for young adults, so I took note but I had to keep quiet about books I was reading at that time. Then later her book Year of the Reaper was a Cybils Finalist, and I was impressed with the way it handled a population traumatized by plague and war. I snapped up this new book, and got something completely different – a fantasy set in a tropical island world.

This story features 18-year-old Hanalei, whose father fled with her from the island of Tamarind ten years ago, and 19-year-old Samahtitamahenele, Sam, the prince of Tamarind. But the crown passes only to women, Sam’s grandmother is getting old, and his mother has been in a coma for ten years. So Sam needs to find a wife. But more than that, Sam is searching for Dragonfruit – the eggs of a sea dragon. The eggs of a sea dragon, dragonfruit, are said to have the power to undo a person’s greatest sorrow. But with that hope comes a warning: Every wish demands a price.

Ten years ago, Hanalei had been a page at court, and she had eaten the same poison that still keeps Sam’s mother asleep. When dragonfruit was found, her father stole it and fed it to Hana instead of leaving it for the princess. And then fled the queendom with Hana. Hana did recover, but a few days later, her father died. She’s had a hard life since then, working in the factories that process the valuable body parts of sea dragons until she was fourteen, when her hands got too big. Since that time, Hana has been studying sea dragons, sending information to the academy on the largest island.

But as the book opens, Hana warns a set of dragons so they can escape the dragoners ready to kill them. Two of the dragons escape, but Hanalei doesn’t. However, they all see by the color of the frill that this dragon is pregnant, soon to lay eggs.

Further adventures bring her back to Tamaraind. Now Sam, too, is looking for the Dragonfruit, to at last wake his mother. But so is the ruthless dragoner. And what will the price of the wish be?

The setting of this book is delightful. Some additional magic of their island is many of the teens on the island develop magical tattoos of an animal. That animal can move around on their skin and even materialize off their skin in the real world, a companion who communicates with them and is always close at hand.

There’s a gentle romance in this book – indeed, I expected more drama than I got – and no sex at all, so it feels completely appropriate for younger teens, too. Hana and Sam are almost adults and it is a coming of age book, so older teens are the main audience. The book ended at a good place, but I can’t help hoping more stories are coming about this lovely island world, the sea dragons, and these two characters coming into their own.

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