March, March on to Reading

Because I read a lot of good books this month and I’m once again too lazy to write full reviews for all of them…

Melanie Cellier – A Dance of Silver and Shadow. 

This is a Christian fantasy retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses.  When twin princesses Lily and Sophie visit a distant kingdom, they get roped into participating in a Princess Test, a magical ordeal designed to choose the right princess for a prince who hasn’t even bothered to attend.  When they see how young the other contestants are and hear the rumors about the beastly prince who called the Test, Lily and Sophie reluctantly decide that one of them is going to have to win.  -- While the bones of the familiar fairy tale are all there, there is a lot of new material, easily enough to keep this story from feeling predictable.  And I’m very excited to read the sequel now!

Brittany Fichter – Before Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast. 

Another Christian fantasy retelling.  Prince Everard is the heir to a kingdom whose Fortress imbues its rulers with magical power.  When his father is killed by their dark-magic rivals, Everard forms a ruthless plan to strengthen his kingdom.  But the Fortress is choosy.  Displeased with his psychopathic turn for the worse, it strips him of his power.  Now Everard thinks he can only save the kingdom if he brings someone new to the Fortress and persuades them to take on its power… and the person he chooses is the one who hates him most in all the world.  – This was a solid story and I enjoyed it a lot, though the romance didn’t quite make sense to me.  And the Fortress-as-divine-power (with angel/steward?) bit was heavy-handed at times.  Still, I’ll read the next one.

Stephen Bly – Creede of Old Montana.

When Creede stops a bank robbery, he ends up in more trouble than he ever expected. – No month is complete without reading something by Stephen Bly.  While the first six pages of this are kind of alarming (editor on vacation?) the rest of this book is pure edifying entertainment.

Martha Wells – Emilie and the Hollow World.

In this YA adventure, runaway Emilie stows away on a ship that turns out to be a magical submarine bound on a voyage to the land at the center of the earth!  We have strange peoples, dangerous sea monsters, ancient civilizations, and a good mix of Victorian-era science politics, like Journey to the Center of the Earth meets Around the World in 80 Days.  This story was lots of fun, though if you’ve read much by Martha Wells you will recognize most of the plot/setting elements from her other works.

Megan Whalen Turner – Thief series: The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, Conspiracy of Kings, Thick as Thieves.

I’ve been seeing this YA series on the library shelves for over a decade; I have no idea why I never picked it up before now.  Once I started I couldn’t stop reading (yes, I did read the whole series this month).  This ancient-Greece-inspired series has only a few fantastic elements but a magical feel, rich with myths and legends and larger-than-life characters.  The main character of the first several books is Eugenides the Thief.  Recruited from the King of Sounis’ dungeons to steal the royal artifact of Eddis from its hiding place in a booby-trapped temple, Eugenides impresses everyone with how reluctant he is to help.  But, as usual, he has a Plan B…

Naomi Novik – His Majesty’s Dragon and Throne of Jade. 

With a tone that seamlessly melds Jane Austen and Horatio Hornblower, Novik does a wonderful job of showing how the Napoleonic Wars would have been different with dragons as an integral part of everyone’s armies.  The first few and last few books of this series are gripping, but there are a few in the middle that we could have done without (so boring)—so be warned, if you decide to embark on a dragon adventure.

Eleanor Porter – Least Known Works

Eleanor Porter was the author of Pollyanna and other wholesome books for girls.  A lot of her works are free on Kindle, so I’ve been working my way through.  Most recently, I tried Mary Marie, The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch, The Turn of the Tide: How Margaret Solved Her Problem, and some of the short stories in The Tangled Threads.  Sunbridge Girls was probably the most fun, while The Turn of the Tide was the best (be prepared to cry...).  Porter’s books, like most of the ones written in that era, can be pretty sentimental, so I don’t recommend reading them all at once.  Still, I enjoyed them and “they do me good, Granny!”