The Hazel Wood, by Melissa Albert, is like three books for the price of one. It’s a mystery, a fairy tale, and then it’s a meta-meditation. What’s wonderful about it is that if you like even one of these, it will convince you on the other two counts. It’s charismatic. Its sheer audacity will compel …
The kingdom of Karthia is ruled by the dead and sustained by the living, and mediated by those with the Sight. It is a world so perfectly balanced that change itself has been forcibly banished: the undead King Wylding has decreed that all remain as it was when he lived, and for two hundred years …
It is not immediately apparently what ship The Forever Ship by Francesca Haig is referring to. The ship that comes from a more advanced country to save a violently divided nation? That same ship, but seen in the light of its potential to doom everyone? A metaphorical ship, bearing the final fate of humanity? Well, …
This is my favorite of the Wayward Children series thus far, and it’s not like the first two were slouches. After a stint on the moors in Down Among the Sticks and Bones, we now have the chance to return to Miss Eleanor West’s home for Wayward Children and see how everyone is faring after …
The next few months have some promising releases, and I’ve compiled the best of them all in one place. Cruel Prince – January 2: Holly Black never disappoints with her combination of adventure, romance, and true darkness. I anticipate being impressed once again by her take on Faerie, a realm she imbues with deadly tricks …
When we last saw Vasya in The Bear and the Nightingale, she had just survived the onslaught of the Bear, who wanted to bring unending death and night to Rus. Vasya’s witchy powers, combined with the might of the god of the snows, Morozko, saved Rus but doomed her father and stepmother, and now Vasya …
Here are six books to bring with you into the holiday season, whether you need something to make you laugh, to help you escape for a bit, to make you feel epic, or to satisfy your desire for revenge now that your brother has once again stolen the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers to bring …
There’s a trend in SFF and YA publishing that has begun to grate on me, and I share it with you now so that you can share in my irritation. For lack of a better term I’m calling it the X of Y and Z, and it is everywhere. I draw attention to it not …
Girls Made of Snow and Glass (Melissa Bashardoust) – The writing is elegant, as are Bashardoust’s interpretations of the elements we all know so well, mirrors and apples and snow. Mina, the “evil queen,” has power over glass, which I found especially clever, and Lynet, the “snow white” has power over snow. The magic is …
The Red Threads of Fortune and The Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang are a matched pair of stories, and I figured that whichever I read first would change the way I read whichever I read second. So I did what any good D&D player would do and rolled a die. Even red, odd …
