Following a Hero to the Top of the World

On March 31, 2014March 26, 2014 By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult3 Comments

I launched my reading for Once Upon a Time with Hero by Alethea Kontis. This also goes to my goal of reading more sequels, as it’s the follow-up to Enchanted.

Enchanted introduced us to the Woodcutter family, with their seven daughters, three sons, and penchant for stumbling into fairy tale situations. Hero focuses on Saturday, the sixth daughter. She’s spent her life out in the woods, felling trees with her father and brother, and dreaming of journeying in pursuit of a great destiny. A series of mishaps leads to Saturday’s arrival at the mountain at the Top of the World, where she meets Peregrine and Betwixt. Peregrine is an Earl’s son who was cursed by a witch’s daughter to assume her place on the mountain, and has been running around in masquerade (and a skirt) for uncounted years. Betwixt is a magical creature who frequently shifts shape, but always to something combining animals (like a chimaera or a gryphon). The three join forces to fight the witch, and the sleeping dragon under the mountain.

There’s quite a lot going on here…and I reduced half of it down to “a series of mishaps.” I had trouble with the first several chapters of this book. So much happens so quickly that I was beginning to get whiplash. But then Saturday arrives at the Top of the World, where time moves much more slowly than the rest of the world…and the book slows down too. Rarely do I talk about a book slowing down as a good thing, but this was exactly what Hero needed. The focus on only five characters on the mountain also helped…

In a way I had opposite problems to my experience with Enchanted–there, I rolled with the plot shifts but the romance felt insanely fast. Here, the plot shifts were more dizzying, but the romance felt better. The good news is that I still enjoyed both of these books!

The romance was not what I would call slow, but it still felt more like the normal YA book or chick flick speed. Peregrine does fall pretty quick (but there’s a magical explanation about these visions he’s been having…) and Saturday holds out for a while longer.

One of the most interesting aspects of this book is the gender-reversal of the two leads. Saturday is tall and strong and tough, a warrior who’s mistaken for her brother Jack. Peregrine is described as effeminate, and spends most of the book in a skirt. It’s a little vague on how much is who he really is, and how much is the curse, but it’s still the prevailing situation for most of the story. In some ways the book is somewhat heavy-handed on the subject, but hey, I’m always happy to see a fierce heroine in fairy tales!

My favorite part may be Betwixt, the shape-changing creature with a snarky wisdom. It seems to be a truth universally acknowledged that a hero in possession of a clever animal sidekick will find himself upstaged…

After a frenetic opening, Hero has a somewhat frenetic closing too, mostly (I think) setting up plot threads for the next book (which won’t be out for almost a year!) That seems to be the fate of second books in a trilogy, and I felt satisfied by the plot threads that did wrap up…and I guess I’ll just have to wait until February, 2015 for the rest!

Author’s Site: http://aletheakontis.com/

Other reviews:
Fyrefly’s Book Blog
Good Books, Good Wine
The Book Smugglers
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Hero

Don’t forget, you can win a signed copy of my fairy tale retelling, The Wanderers! Just put #WanderersGiveAway in your comment to enter.

Saturday Snapshot: Comic Con, Scarf Edition

On March 29, 2014March 28, 2014 By cherylmahoneyIn Saturday Snapshot9 Comments

In my last two Saturday Snapshots, I shared photos of celebrity sightings at the Wizard World Convention. No more celebrities this week, but I have been promising a picture of my completed Doctor Who scarf being worn…and since I wore it all day at Comic Con (and never tripped!–so proud), it was a perfect photo opportunity too.

Visit West Metro Mommy for more Saturday Snapshots–and have a great weekend!

Favorites Friday: TV Themes

On March 28, 2014March 24, 2014 By cherylmahoneyIn Favorites Friday8 Comments

A great TV show is one thing–a great TV opening theme song is something else entirely, and today I thought I’d make the nod to a few of my favorites…

Firefly: With its Western air and refrain, “You can’t take the sky from me,” this opening song perfectly encapsulates both the style and the theme of the show, in the way that the best openings should. I just wish there were more verses (and episodes…but never mind that).

Big Bang Theory: This song crams the entire history of the universe into 20 seconds, and it’s fun and fast and a little bit frantic. Again–kind of encapsulates the show! Plus it’s really fun when you get a group of people who can spontaneously go through it in unison at high speed. It sounds very impressive to people who don’t know the song!

Star Trek: Enterprise, “Where My Heart Will Take Me“: I’m actually not sure this one is really in the right style for Star Trek, but on the other hand–I think it captures the “I can reach any star” theme at the heart of Trek better than the series’ episodes do.

Psych, “I Know You Know“: This is a fun, bouncy opening song, that fits a fun, bouncy show…but what I really love is whenever the show changes the opening to reflect a particular episode. Like sleigh bells for the holiday episodes, or Spanish lyrics when the plot involved a telenovela…(and I found a video with the different versions!)

And even though they’re not songs, honorable mentions to the openings of Star Trek and The Twilight Zone. It doesn’t get more classic than to boldly go, and Rod Serling is our perfect guide through the land of both shadow and substance, whose boundaries are that of imagination…

Your turn! What are you favorite television theme songs?

Classic Review: Silver Woven in My Hair

On March 26, 2014March 24, 2014 By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews5 Comments

I don’t know about you, but what with one thing and another, I find myself in a fairy tale mood! So until I have time to finish reading something fairy tale-related and review it for you, here’s a classic review of one of my very favorite retellings of Cinderella…

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I originally read Silver Woven in My Hair by Shirley Rousseau Murphy from the library when I was…maybe nine? I don’t really remember. Young. I read it several times, and then it somehow disappeared off the shelf. Miraculously, I remembered the title–I usually don’t. I usually remember something like, there was a bit in there where the girl is watching the royal family come back from the island and she sees the goatherd, and then she invites him into the kitchen at the inn to have dinner and it makes her stepfamily mad but he just laughs so it’s all right…oh and then they had a picnic later on in the book, and there was that really good part about the owner of the sword.

And that’s not going to help anyone find the story they’re looking for. But fortunately I remembered the title, and by the time I was in high school the wonderful world of online booksellers existed and I was able to buy Silver Woven in My Hair for my very own, and I spent an entire afternoon rereading the whole book. It was lovely.

It’s one of the best retellings of Cinderella I’ve ever read. It’s a story about Thursey, and her terrible stepfamily. The royal family was coming back from that island because they were there while the queen and the prince recovered from being captured in a war. Thursey’s father went to the war and never came back, so this Cinderella actually has a reason to stay where she is–even though she knows he’s probably never coming back, she can’t bring herself to leave, just in case.

Thursey doesn’t have a sparkly fairy godmother, but she does have friends who want to help her go to the ball at the palace. There’s Anwin the monk, and there’s Gillie the goatherd, who’s funny and charming–and very far from a sparkly fairy godmother. 🙂

I love that Thursey is a Cinderella who loves Cinderella stories. Her family runs an inn, and she collects stories from the travelers who pass through–all the different Cinderella stories from different cultures, Cendrillon and Aschenputtel and Catkin and so on. Even though Thursey’s life isn’t very good, she never stops dreaming. The ball is one aspect of the story, but Thursey’s dreams have a lot more substance than dancing a single night at a ball.

The characters, from Thursey to Gillie to the nasty stepfamily, are well-drawn and life-like. The story is very grounded in reality, in a practical world where dishes have to be washed and goats have to be fed and there’s none of the impossible and incomprehensible leaps that the original fairy tales often make. Yet there’s also something whimsical about the tale. For some reason the word “gossamer” keeps coming to mind, and I think it has to do with the writing style. Murphy has kept some of the poetry of the old tales, while giving us characters and a plot that are more substantial.

Silver Woven in My Hair isn’t exactly a fantasy…or it could be. Murphy leaves it up to the reader to decide whether some elements are really magic or not, and I’m not entirely sure what I think.

But even if you decide it’s not a fantasy, it’s definitely a magical story. And a marvelous tale.

Author’s Site: http://www.srmurphy.com/

Other reviews:
Ex Libris Draconis
Mel’s Desk
Anyone else? I am sad that this book is not better known…

Buy it here: Silver Woven in My Hair

Cats and Mice in Victorian London

On March 24, 2014March 23, 2014 By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews2 Comments

I was between audiobooks recently, and browsed through my library to stumble upon The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale by Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright. How could I resist a story about a cat set in Victorian London? And even better–read by the amazing Katherine Kellgren!

“He was the best of toms. He was the worst of toms.” So says the opening line, describing alleycat Skilley. He sets out to improve his lot in life by slipping into Ye Old Cheshire Cheese, pub and inn famous for making the best cheese in the realm. With a grand display of mousing, Skilley earns a place at the inn. Except he has a secret–he hates eating mice! Skilley forms an alliance with Pip, the leader of the inn’s mice, but this happy arrangement becomes complicated by the arrival of another (much more vicious!) cat at the inn, as well as the presence of a royal raven who insists he must be returned to the Tower, or England will fall.

This is a delightful little tale with a lovely cast of characters (including Charles Dickens in a supporting role). The friendship that develops between Skilley and Pip is sweet and genuine, and not without challenges. I like that the book doesn’t oversimplify the challenges of two traditional enemies forming a friendship. They have to deal with outside prejudice, and both make mistakes along the way. It’s a light story, but I like that more complex thread.

That complexity and depth aside, this book has wonderful fun moments. I particularly enjoy the image of Skilley showing off his mousing skill, by trotting through the inn’s common room all day long, always with a mouse in his mouth–except that it’s Pip, every time, because it’s part of their plan. So he just keeps catching the same mouse, again and again…

There are some more violent moments in the interactions between cats and mice, but nothing too graphic. Just be warned the book doesn’t ignore the reality of normal relations between cats and mice.

Besides Mr. Dickens, there’s a good crop of supporting characters, from the hard-faced and terrifying cook, to the hysterical servant Adele (who always seems to be the one who sees mice), to the tiny mouse Too and the wise but condescending raven Maldwyn. There are a lot of threads of story in here, including Dickens’ writers block, all well-balanced and keeping the adventure moving quickly.

I would not recommend thinking too hard about the sanitation issues of 10,000 mice living in an inn (kind of like Ratatouille that way), but I would recommend having some cheese on hand while reading! Or listening–because Katherine Kellgren’s reading, of course, was wonderful. And obviously I recommend picking up this book in one form or another!

Book’s Site: http://cheshirecheesecat.com/

Other reviews:
Ms. Tami Reads
Reads 4 Tweens
Cat Chat
Anyone else?

Buy it here: The Cheshire Cheese Cat