Category: Reviews

Feuding Magical Families in Caprona

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews, Ruminations5 Comments

The next book in Diana Wynne Jones’ splendid Chrestomanci series is The Magicians of Caprona. This is another one focused mostly not on Chrestomanci and his Castle, taking the action instead to Italian-influenced Caprona.

In Caprona, there are two great spell houses, the Casa Montana and the Casa Petrocchi, and the two families have been bitterly feuding for two centuries (although they both get on well with Chrestomanci). The story begins with family problems within the close-knit Casa Montana, like young Tonino’s apparent lack of magical aptitude, or the question of finding an appropriate suitor for Cousin Rosa. The situation escalates, with threats from neighboring city-states, and only hope to save Caprona—finding the true words to “The Angel of Caprona,” said to be given by an angel centuries before. Soon both families are on an increasingly urgent search for the song, while forces are massing for war and something sinister is going on at the Duke’s palace…

Here we see again one of Jones’ best types of protagonists, the earnest boy hero, seemingly unlikely to succeed, who discovers hidden abilities. I don’t mean to be dismissive by classifying—it’s a type of story that works very well! Tonino is a particularly appealing boy hero, considering his love of reading, and his talent of talking to cats.  Boss cat Benvenuto is also a delightful addition of the story–I do have this fondness for cats in books, you know! 🙂

I particularly enjoy the spell houses, with their huge clan of aunts and uncles and cousins all living companionably together, making magic and cheerfully getting into one another’s business. It’s warm and friendly and vivid. I also love their magic, which centers around sung spells. Singing off-key or muddling words can (and does) have disastrous consequences.

Chrestomanci has a relatively small role here, though he does make a flying appearance early in the crisis, so his arrival near the end isn’t quite a deus ex machina. Besides, he performs his usual role of not actually solving the crisis, just helping the lead characters to solve the crisis themselves.

I wouldn’t read this one first, because it could make Chrestomanci a somewhat confusing presence, but it’s stand-alone enough to read anywhere after Charmed Life.  I have just one more Chrestomanci novel left, plus a few short stories, which I plan to review soon too!

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

Other reviews:
Masha du Toit
The Aroma of Books
Readers By Night
Anyone else?

Buy it here: The Magicians of Caprona

Following a Hero to the Top of the World

On 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.

Classic Review: Silver Woven in My Hair

On 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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Silver Woven in My HairI 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 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

Enchanted by an Abundance of Fairy Tales

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Ruminations, Young Adult10 Comments

I’ve been seeing Enchanted by Alethea Kontis float around book review blogs for a couple of years, and it’s been on my To Be Read list all that time.  So have a lot of books, but I should have got to this one sooner, seeing as I have this thing about fairy tales…

The plot is, well, complicated.  Sunday is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter (with three brothers besides).  One day she meets a talking frog named Grumble.  From there it’s “The Frog Prince,” which, upon Grumble’s restoration as Prince Rumbold, morphs into “Cinderella.”  Plus there’s a wicked fairy, a couple of different threads relating to “Tam Lin,” a bit of “Snow White,” a changeling child, and did I mention there are pirates?  Also a giant beanstalk, and a house shaped like a shoe…

According to the author’s note, and the evidence of the plot itself, Kontis set out to write a novel with as many elements of fairy tales as possible.  She seems to have succeeded…creating a plot that is a very fun ride, although at times you do have to just throw up your hands and go with it.

Mostly I didn’t find that too difficult, and I was willing to roll with all the new developments.  I mean, it’s an endless string of fairy tale elements.  That’s fun!

I have to confess I had a little more trouble with the romance and some of the characters’ choices.  Sunday and Grumble the frog fall in love very, very quickly.  Then when Grumble turns back into Rumbold, he doesn’t tell Sunday that he was the frog…for reasons I never quite understood.  There’s bad blood between their families, he thinks she won’t love him as a prince…so he invites her to three balls, which pretty much just shoves his princeliness in her face.  I don’t quite understand that decision either.  And yes, of course, Sunday falls in love with Rumbold very quickly too.

But, but, but–if you can suspend disbelief a bit, it is a fun ride.  And very fast romances are a particular pet peeve of mine, so you might be far less bothered.  Even I wasn’t bothered enough to not enjoy the book anyway.  I mean, endless fairy tales references!  Fun!

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

Other reviews:
Fyrefly’s Book Blog
Charlotte’s Library
Katie’s Book Blog
Anyone else?

Buy it here: Enchanted