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: In Other Lands

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews1 Comment

A Book Club friend recommended In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan some time ago, and I finally got to reading it in the last couple weeks.  I’m glad I finally did, because it was funny, insightful and very original, while commenting on so many familiar story tropes.  Excellent read!

The story centers on Elliot, a boy from what we’d recognize as the real world, who has the chance at age thirteen to cross a magical wall into a country wholly separate and secret from the world he knows, where magical creatures abound.  He’s invited to join the Border Camp, launching us into something that somewhat resembles many other stories of children going away to magic school.  Except – Elliot is obnoxious, sarcastic, and cuts right through any pleasant fantasies.  He’s wildly indignant that they have no pens or central heating, and when he realizes they’re being trained for war promptly observes that they’re being turned into child soldiers.  Which is…actually quite true, but something I’ve never seen put so bluntly in any magical book!

Elliot only agrees to stay because he meets Serene, an elf maiden.  Her full name is Serene-Heart-in-the-Chaos-of-Battle.  Elliot thinks this is the most badass thing he’s ever heard, falls promptly in love, and agrees to remain.  Also, maybe he’ll get to meet mermaids.

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Blog Hop: Bookish Identity

On By cherylmahoneyIn Blog Hop2 Comments

book-blogger-hop-finalToday’s Book Blogger Hop question is:  When did you first know you’re truly a bookworm? Did you lose sleep over a novel?

I think I’ve always known I was a bookworm…?  My parents took me to the library weekly since I was toddler-age, and I memorized The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree before I could actually read (so I count it as the first book I ever “read”).  I had a book bag all through my childhood that I’d bring home full of books from the library every week.  So this dates back!

Reading was so normalized that I don’t know if there was a point when I realized not everybody read this much.  Probably somewhere in elementary school, I imagine, when I noticed the divide between people who liked sports and people who liked books (I’m sure some people cross over but the two camps seemed clear to me at age ten!)  Ironically, perhaps, my clearest memory that should have told me I was unusually fond of reading is of reading a book (!) where the kids got points for prizes for each page they read.  I was politely incredulous of the very low numbers of pages they were reading and counting as good…

I can’t say I really lose sleep over books.  I stayed up late recently to find out the ending of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, but the previous book I can distinctly recall staying up late reading was Jane Eyre, five years earlier.  And I don’t lie awake thinking about books in a worrying or angsting kind of way.  One thing I like about books is that they don’t make me feel that way!

When did you discover you were a bookworm?  Do other people often lose sleep over books?

Writing Wednesday: Short Story Ventures

On By cherylmahoneyIn WritingLeave a comment

Happy March!  I’m pleased to report that I completed my February writing goal, and finished this revision pass of Guardian III.  I plan to let it sit for now; I’m waiting on one final beta-reader response, and I plan to read it aloud in a couple of months and then make final tweaks.  With a launch date in December, things are looking good so far.

In March I’m turning away from revision and towards some short stories.  I’m diving back into my short story for an upcoming anthology; well, possibly wading in gradually because I’ve been a bit stuck so far.  I wrote 80% of the story months ago and just need to finish it off, but I’m having trouble getting into the flow.  I’m sure it will come…and then I can go on to finish my second story for the same anthology!

I think I’ve mentioned this project before – the anthology premise is for short stories about people magically entering into familiar books.  It’ll be out later this year.  Right now I’m working on a story about a ballet dancer entering into the original Gaston Leroux Phantom of the Opera (which I reread recently).  My second short story is about a boy going to Neverland in Peter Pan.  I hope to finish both before the end of March.  We’ll see!

I did enjoy a bit I’ve written so far, though I may eventually decide it’s too heavy-handed.  Here it is anyway.

**********

Following Christine and Raoul began to seem like an even less wise choice when they started climbing up.

And up and up and up, stairs after stairs, until I finally realized they had to be heading to the roof.

It was a lot more steps than I had imagined when I watched the play.  I mean, I was a ballet dancer; I had strong legs and good breath control, but this opera house had to be ten, twelve flights tall, easily.  Why did they think this was where they wanted to go?  And why had it seemed logical in the play?  When I was seven flights up with more stairs disappearing into the gloom above me, it seemed far less reasonable that Christine had run away in terror from the Phantom by climbing all the way up to the rooftop.  The building was a labyrinth, but there were simpler ways to get out of it than this.

It was a good reminder to me that these people were fictional.  Fictional.  If they were behaving strangely, it was because some author somewhere in the real world had made a dubious decision.

Book Review: The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

On By cherylmahoneyIn Historical Fiction, Phantom Challenge, Reviews1 Comment

As part of the Phantom Reading & Viewing Challenge I’m hosting this year (you can still join us!) in February I reread the story that began it all, Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera.  I’ve read it at least twice (probably three times?) before, but it’s been a few years since my last read.  The first time I was entirely new to the story, and hadn’t seen or read any other version.  The second and possible third times, I was comparing to numerous other versions and also looking for ideas for my own version of the story.  This time, I found myself fascinated by how uncertain an account it really is – more than most books, Leroux’s Phantom has the potential to be completely altered depending on how much we trust the narrators, and I wonder how this influenced all those later versions.

On the surface, the story is essentially as it is in later versions, although Leroux’s focus is a little different than most, putting much more of the spotlight on Raoul.  From this angle, it becomes a story of the young nobleman trying to unravel the mystery of what’s going on with Christine Daaé, opera singer and love interest.  Raoul eventually finds himself contending with Erik, a skeletal, masked man who lives below the Opera Garnier, posing as a ghost.  Raoul’s story is intercut with the almost unrelated account of the Opera’s managers as they try to cope with the pranks and extortion of the Opera Ghost.

Most later versions shift the focus to be less on Raoul and much more on Christine and the Phantom.  And personally, I find the Phantom a far more interesting character than Raoul, so that seems like a good choice!  But in Leroux, the different focus changes how we learn some key portions of the story and, with some other narrative choices, opens up room for doubt.

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Friday Face-Off: The One Ring…

On By cherylmahoneyIn Ruminations1 Comment

FFO.jpg

It’s time again for the Friday Face-Off meme, created by Books by Proxy, with weekly topics hosted by Lynn’s Book Blog.  The idea is to put up different covers for one book, and select a favorite.

This week’s theme is: Leap Year – One Ring to rule them all – A cover with a ring

I had some trouble thinking of one for this.  Well, actually, I thought immediately of The Secret of the Ruby Ring, but apparently that’s only ever had one cover, and it doesn’t show the ring anyway!  And then I got curious about how many covers for Lord of the Rings actually showed the ring…so I’m going with the possibly obvious Fellowship of the Ring this week.

This one certainly puts the ring front and center…although it’s so simple that if you didn’t know about the One Ring, it would kind of just look like a glowing circle!

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