Category: Young Adult

Book Review: Blackfin Sky

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young AdultLeave a comment

I didn’t plan to do a “dead heroine returned to life” theme this week…but I seem to have stumbled into one! Blackfin Sky by Kat Ellis begins with just that premise.

Sky Rousseau hurries in late one morning to her high school, to be greeted by staring faces and the news that she died three months earlier. Sky remembers the last three months as perfectly ordinary—but her family, friends, the cute boy she’s been flirting with, and everyone else in town remembers that she drowned at Blackfin pier the night of her sixteenth birthday. Blackfin, a tiny secluded town, has never been quite normal, and now Sky has to unravel some of Blackfin’s and her family’s secrets to find out what happened, and how to defeat the danger still threatening her.

I’m debating how much I should reveal of this story—because I thought the novel got much better once a few of the mysteries were cleared up. To hit a middle ground, suffice to say that Sky discovers she has special abilities, and using them leads her to answers and gives her power to fight the villain those answers reveal. Continue reading “Book Review: Blackfin Sky” →

Book Reviews: The Ascendance Trilogy

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Young Adult3 Comments

I had an excellent time reading The False Prince by Jennifer A. Neilson, so I went very quickly on to the rest of the Ascendance Trilogy: The Runaway King and The Shadow Throne. This continued to be a very entertaining series—although the trilogy developed a few issues too. Unavoidable spoilers ahead for the first book!

Book 2 opens with Jaron (Sage) trying to convince his council and his country of his fitness to rule, while neighboring countries are rumbling about war. One of the most immediate threats is from a band of pirates who are allied with an enemy nation. Jaron sets out in disguise to infiltrate the pirates, and to find an old enemy.

The story is exciting, and there are enough twists and turns and obstacles (some Jaron anticipated, and others not) to keep the pace going. Some characters from the previous book return and grow in complexity, including Imogen (the girl Jaron cares for) and Amarinda (the princess he’s betrothed to). Continue reading “Book Reviews: The Ascendance Trilogy” →

Book Review(s): The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

On By cherylmahoneyIn Reviews, Young Adult2 Comments

Years ago, whenever it first came out, I saw the movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and thought vaguely that I ought to read the book. Much more recently, I was hunting for a new audiobook, and my library chanced to have the first book of Sisterhood by Ann Brashares (read by Angela Goethals) sitting on the shelf—so I listened to it, and then went on to listen to the other four books in the series too.

The series centers around four best friends, Carmen, Lena, Bridget and Tibby, whose mothers met during maternity yoga classes. All born in September, they have been the closest of friends ever since. The summer before they turn sixteen will be their first significant time apart—and right at that time, a pair of blue jeans comes into their lives, which mysteriously fits all four girls perfectly, despite their different shapes and sizes. The girls exchange the pants throughout the summer, using them as a way to stay bonded while they each pursue separate adventures. Continue reading “Book Review(s): The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” →

Book Review: The Crown of Dalemark

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult9 Comments

The first three books of the Dalemark Quartet by Diana Wynne Jones seem for all the world like they have nothing much to do with each other—until we finally get to Book Four, The Crown of Dalemark, which ties it all together. The funny thing is, it didn’t come along until twenty years after the third book. It makes me wonder if Jones had the fourth book in mind all along, or if she looked back at three slightly-connected books and decided to bring them together.

The book opens with a return to a familiar character, Mitt, who in Drowned Ammet botched an assassination and escaped to the “free North” of Dalemark. Unfortunately, he now finds himself the victim of blackmailing by a northern Earl—his friends will suffer if he doesn’t assassinate Noreth, a noble girl who claims to be the daughter of the One, and plans to unite all of Dalemark.

In the second section, we jump some two hundred years into the future, to a much more modern-feeling Dalemark, and meet Maewen. She happens to be the perfect image of Noreth. A magician(ish) sends her back to Mitt’s time, to take the place of the disappeared Noreth. With hazy ideas of how the history of the time is meant to turn out, Maewen tries to lead her small band of followers, including Mitt and Moril, the minstrel from Cart and Cwidder, to ride the “green roads” and unite Dalemark. But the ancient evil we met in The Spellcoats is stalking them, and someone in Maewen’s band is a traitor.

I really wanted to love this book—and I ended up liking it, so that’s not really so bad. This is much longer than the first two books, and it has a much more sweeping, epic feel to it. We’re dealing with complex plots and significant events, and the fate of the country as well as the particular characters plainly hangs in the balance. Continue reading “Book Review: The Crown of Dalemark” →

Book Review: The Spellcoats

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult5 Comments

My favorite book of Diana Wynne Jones’ Dalemark Quartet is Book Three: The Spellcoats.  Oddly enough, it exists completely separately from the previous two books, to the point that (barring one epilogue-type note at the end), you can’t tell you’re in the same series when you read it.  In fact, I read my library’s copy a couple of times without ever realizing it was part of something else!

The Spellcoats is set centuries (millennia?) before the previous two books in the quartet.  Tanaqui, a young woman who is a highly skilled weaver, lives with her father and her siblings along the Great River.  When invaders from across the sea plunge the country into war, Tanaqui and her siblings flee down the river, in danger from their own people because of their resemblence to the invaders.  At the mouth of the river they meet the true enemy, a powerful magician intent on stealing souls.  Tanaqui must learn about her family’s past and her own magic to save her family and the country that will, eventually, become Dalemark. Continue reading “Book Review: The Spellcoats” →