Author: cherylmahoney

I'm a book review blogger and writer. I have published four novels, The Wanderers; The Storyteller and Her Sisters; and The People the Fairies Forget; and The Lioness and the Spellspinners. All can be found on Amazon as an ebook and paperback. In my day job, I'm a Marketing Specialist. Find me on Twitter (@MarvelousTales) and GoodReads (MarvelousTales).

Book Review: Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young AdultLeave a comment

I picked up Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis because it had the most fascinating sounding premise: every time Nolan closes his eyes, even to blink, his consciousness flashes to another body in another world.  Which makes life for him extremely challenging!

Nolan is a teenage boy living in our own world, but every time his eyes close, he’s in the body of Amara, a teenage girl who lives in a very different world full of magic and danger.  Amara and her companions are on the run from hostile magicians, guarding the princess of a deposed monarchy.  Princess Cilla is cursed: if she bleeds even a drop, the blood triggers the curse and the world–rocks, grass, anything nearby–will attack her.  Amara has the ability to heal herself, so it’s her job to take the brunt of the attack until the magic loses track of Cilla’s blood, distracted by Amara’s.  So not only is Nolan dealing with distracting flashes of another life, it’s often a very painful life.  Amara doesn’t know anything about him…until he discovers a way to take control. Continue reading “Book Review: Otherbound by Corinne Duyvis” →

Fiction Friday: Magical Knitting and General Hostilities

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fiction Friday2 Comments

I’ve been working on revisions for my next fairy tale novel (and NaNo novel of 2014) and so thought I’d share another scene with all of you…  This is very early in the book, just after a strange and decidedly unfriendly young woman has crashed into Forrest’s life.  His mother insists they should be understanding and friendly, but he has doubts.  This scene also explores one of the major magic systems of the book.  Enjoy!

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Forrest went back to the kitchen. He could see Karina through the doorway before he entered the room, and he found himself stopping on the threshold to look at her. Alone in the room, she had let her shoulders slump. She clutched the clasp of her cloak with one hand and played with her spoon with the other, tracing patterns in the bottom of her emptied bowl of porridge. She was staring into the bowl, expression…sad? Forlorn? Some emotion he hadn’t seen on her face previously.

All right. Maybe she was lost and scared. Maybe.

He deliberately stepped audibly on the wooden floor as he came into the room. In an eyeblink her shoulders were straight again and her face had wiped smooth of any expression at all except faint disinterest.

“There’s more porridge in the pot if you want it,” he said, even though he was pretty sure that hadn’t been why she was staring into the empty bowl.

Her gaze flicked to the pot hanging over the fire. “I can see that.”

Maybe lost and scared, but still unfriendly. “Right,” he said, pulling out a chair at the opposite side of the table with possibly more force than was necessary. He sat down and unrolled the half-made scarf, concentrating his attention on untangling the loose end of the yarn and lining up the last row of stitches on the needle.

“So you don’t just tie bows,” Karina drawled, “you also knit?” Continue reading “Fiction Friday: Magical Knitting and General Hostilities” →

Book Review: The Door in the Wall

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Juvenile, Reviews2 Comments

I picked out The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli from the list of Newbery Medal winners because I wasn’t sure if I had read it before or not. It turns out the answer is no, as all I could remember of the book I thought it might be was that it involved canal boats—which don’t appear here at all. But now I have another one to check off my list!

The door of the title is much more symbolic than literal—when life presents a wall, keep looking until you find a door. Ten-year-old Robin is facing a wall with a vengeance. The son of a knight during the reign of Richard II, Robin was always meant to follow his father’s footsteps—until he’s struck by an illness that leaves him unable to use his legs. His father is on campaign, his mother is away with the queen and so Robin is taken in by the nearby religious order.  He’s cared for by Brother Luke who also offers philosophy about doors and walls. Robin eventually goes to a new guardian, a friend of his father’s, but still must find his proper role in his changed life.

This is a rather charming picture of medieval England…which is both the strength and the weakness of the book. Because it’s pleasant to read, and I like charming books. But I strongly suspect that the Middle Ages were not actually a charming time period, especially if you had the misfortune to be crippled! Continue reading “Book Review: The Door in the Wall” →

Blog Hop: Listening to Books

On By cherylmahoneyIn Blog Hop5 Comments

book blogger hopThis week’s Book Blogger Hop question: Do you believe audio books are the future and why do you believe that?

I don’t think audio books are the future any more than paperbacks or ebooks are.  There was a lot of talk when ebooks first appeared that print books would disappear, but I hear the percentage of ebooks to total books sold has leveled off.  I haven’t heard anything about audiobooks being particularly on the rise (though maybe I’ve missed a development?)  I think print books, audio books and ebooks are all co-existing because they each have different appeals to different people, and I think that will probably persist for at least a good while.  Print books may eventually disappear, but I don’t think it’s in the near future, and I don’t think audio books have a universal enough appeal to replace the other two.

I’m still sworn off ebooks, but I like my print and audio both, in different situations!

 

Book Review: Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Ruminations, Young AdultLeave a comment

I want to start this review by saying how much I respect Scott Westerfeld as an author, due to his Uglies quartet.  That respect is why I kept reading his Afterworlds.  I still respect him…but Afterworlds was very disappointing.

The premise seemed appealing, two alternating storylines.  One is about Darcy, a new author, alternating each chapter with Darcy’s novel.  Cool idea!  However…

The book irritated me right out of the gate.  Darcy Patel is eighteen and wrote her entire novel during NaNoWriMo (not identified by name, but she wrote it all during November, so…), with no clarity on whether she’d written anything previously.  With minimal or no revisions, she promptly got an agent, sold her book to a publisher for a three-hundred thousand dollar advancement and a two book contract.  Which just does not happen.  Okay, maybe it does, but it’s about as likely as winning the lottery.  And the only author I’ve ever heard of it being that easy for was Edgar Rice Burroughs, ’round about 1910.

It doesn’t get better on that front.  Darcy moves to New York (because, of course), gets an apartment on her own in Manhattan and is adored by all the other writers.  She also gets an immediate new best friend who promptly and with no effort or angst from Darcy morphs into an awesome and incredibly understanding girlfriend.  And we are right smack in one of my pet peeves, the Too Beloved Heroine.  Because…really?

One of the best things in Darcy’s plotline, honestly, was when one of Darcy’s friends describes something as “nervous-making,” slang from the Uglies series that has crept into my brain.  Seeing it in a Westerfeld book made me happy.  Not a whole lot else in here did.

While everyone tells Darcy how wonderful her book is, I’m actually reading it in alternate chapters and…it’s just not that good.  Lizzie survives a terrorist attack and, in the midst of this near-death experience, accesses the underworld and meets Yamaraj, a sort of Hindu death god but not.  Ish.  We then fall smack into another pet peeve, Instaromance!  Because despite being midway through a terrorist attack and a near-death experience, Lizzie manages to describe Yamaraj as “beautiful” three times (that exact word) in his first five pages.  And it all just sort of goes from there. Continue reading “Book Review: Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld” →