Rather than share more fairy-tale
reviews this week, I’m doing something a little different. All of the books here were recommended over
on Rachel
Neumeier’s blog. (If you ever
read secular urban fantasy, you should give Neumeier a try. She’s my favorite in that category. She also has some really good fantasy. Even if you usually stick to Christian books,
you would probably enjoy her City in the Lake, The Floating Islands, or Keeper
of the Mist.) Her blog is always
entertaining and she posts frequently, so I’m often over there at 3 am when I
should be sleeping.
So here are the books that she
recommended and I read. FYI, none of
them are Christian books.
Wings of Fire series by
Tui T. Sutherland
This is a wonderful middle-grade
series about a group of dragonets who have to save the world from an unending
war—at least, they have to according to a mysterious prophecy. I’m about seven books into the series and looking
forward to the rest. Each of the books
is told from the POV of a different dragonet. Each dragonet has a distinct
voice and agenda. While I definitely have favorites—Moon and Winter are
great—each voice is a pleasure to read.
There is action, excitement, politics, and friendship—just enough of
each to be rewarding for an adult reader as well as a middle-grader.
Discern: As in a lot of
middle-grade fiction, adults—especially parents—tend to be either absent or
awful in this series. Apparently dragons
are even more lacking in parenting skills than humans.
Island of Ghosts and
others by Gillian Bradshaw
GB is apparently a famous
historical fiction author. Somehow I had
missed her all these years. I have a
vague memory of maybe trying her Arthurian trilogy as a teenager and not making
it through, but after I read Island of Ghosts I couldn’t stop devouring
her books. The ones I’ve read have
mostly been set during the Roman Empire (4 BC to 400 AD), although I also read
a medieval story with a small but crucial fantasy element (The Wolf Hunt).
Island of Ghosts is the
story of an army of horse nomads who were defeated by the Romans and sent to
reinforce the Roman garrisons in Britain as part of their peace treaty. The main character, a war-weary general who
learns the Roman way of doing things out of sheer determination to keep his men
alive, is absolutely stellar. When the
situation in Britain becomes unstable, he finds himself stuck between the
Romans, the Britons, and the Picts. I
strongly recommend it.
The Beacon at Alexandria, The
Bearkeeper’s Daughter, Imperial Purple, and Cleopatra’s Heir
were also good.
Discern: There is a lot of
historically accurate, non-Christian stuff going on in these books. The main characters always have a certain
amount of integrity, but they don’t necessarily make moral choices. While Christians and Jews are represented in
a nuanced, often positive manner in these books, main characters who would
claim to be Christians clearly aren’t (they don’t refer to Jesus even in their
thoughts or change their behavior because of biblical values).
Margaret Rogerson – An
Enchantment of Ravens
This is an entrancing fantasy
about a practical woman who paints portraits for the Fae. When a too-accurate portrait gets the Autumn
King in trouble with his subjects, he drags her into fairyland to set things
right. I really enjoyed this and am
waiting for the next in the series, which is scheduled to come out soon.
If you like Naomi Novik,
Katherine Arden, or others authors who write fairy tales with a bit of an edge,
you would like this too. While it’s fun
with a strong romance and many funny bits, it also includes many dangerous
moments.
Heather Dixon – Entwined
and Illusionarium
Entwined is a fun
retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses.
Princess Azalea and her eleven sisters love to dance, but when their
father outlaws all amusement, they have to find a new place to practice… and
they find it in a forgotten (and cursed?) cellar of the castle. I enjoyed it… wouldn’t mind rereading it… don’t
remember it all that well.
Illusionarium has a very
different tone. Living in a snow-locked
city in a steampunk world, Jonathan is a perfectly ordinary doctor’s
apprentice. After a sudden plague
appears, the king arrives to demand that they find the cure. But the surprises don’t stop there. A strange drug named fantillium, which causes
hallucinations so vivid they can affect reality, may hold the key to curing the
plague victims. But it also opens doors
to other worlds. Jonathan soon finds
himself trapped in the world next door, a world with a mad queen and a broken
civilization.
I had a hard time getting into
this book… Dixon has to set so many different things in motion at the beginning
that the story feels very slow at first.
But once I realized what was going on I couldn’t stop reading. This is a rather dark story, but hope
triumphs in the end.
