Book Review: Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic by Meghan Ciana Doidge

Sometimes trusting the cover works, sometimes it doesn't. I picked up Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic because it was free (on Nook and Kindle), and I was looking for a nice, light, fluffy, low-violence read to offset some of the more violent, darker stuff₍₁₎ I have been reading lately. It is not at all light. Not that Doidge gives an excess of gory detail—she does not—but the murders and the motive here are deeply nasty.

Jade owns a bakery where she crafts elaborate and beautiful cupcakes which she gives whimsical and sometimes suggestive names like "Love in a Cup," "Bliss in a Cup," and "Sunshine in a Cup." She is a half-witch with the minor power of dowsing for magic: She can sense it in people and objects, and people with magic tend to be attracted to her. As a hobby, she collects objects with a minor magical residue and crafts them into "trinkets," mostly necklaces and sun catchers. Then, someone is murdered and drained of blood and a vampire informs Jade she's the chief suspect. Soon, there are werewolves involved as well, and Jade finds herself busy trying to solve the murders.

There are several good points about Cupcakes, Trinkets, and Other Deadly Magic. I love a main character who has and loves a craft, and Jade does love her cupcakes. Also, chocolate! And descriptions of chocolate! Mmmm. The process of making "trinkets" also sounds like a nice, relaxed hobby that creates something beautiful. Even when they gain in importance, they still sound lovely and fun to make.

Doidge writes good, clear prose, and has a good sense of timing. There are humorous moments, and the tale itself unfolds at a good pace. The opening description which helped the cover lure me in, is strong, and she keeps the pace well. The mystery itself is only mildly mysterious: The obvious suspect is, in fact, the killer. It is easy to see why Jade does not spot this, but I am surprised that the vampire and werewolf detectives do not figure things out sooner.

Jade is, like many heroines of mystery series, described as extraordinarily beautiful—blond, athletic, tanned and etc, something which is becoming a pet peeve of mine, though Jade's case is less annoying than it often is because Jade herself is quite matter of fact about it and has not found it to make her life notably better or worse and it is not bringing throngs of adoring admirers to her door.

Unfortunately, though, this is coupled with Jade learning that she is Special after all. I liked her as a low-level magic worker who found herself over her head and had to use her wits to solve things. It turns out she is not, and both vampire and werewolf know this.

Doidge has put some work into her magic system, which was consistent and balanced. The relationship between magical people and "normal" folk is a little blurry: They do, apparently, intermarry. How often or under what conditions, or who they tell about their powers and why is not entirely clear—yet. It is sufficiently clear for the story at hand, and Cupcakes is the first book in a series that will presumably develop this area further.

Bonus point: The vampire finds Jade "intriguing," but not in a romantic sense. In fact, it looks as if, if he ends up dating anyone at all, it will be Jade's mother, which is kind of fun.

The book did not end up being what I was looking for, but I can see where it would appeal to those in search of a fast-paced, magic-laced, mystery with some possibility of romance in the future and a dark strip down the middle.

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(1) Much of it very good—the set includes a reread of Sunshine for one thing—I just needed a break.
(2) It also turns out that

SPOILER BREAK



Her mother and grandmother didn't tell her about her Special ability in order to keep her safe from those who might exploit her. Since three different people figure out her ability, two of them very quickly, it seems a remarkably foolish choice for two otherwise intelligent women. It seems like training her to use the gift—which she finds she needs and has to figure out by instinct—and protect herself would have been a much better choice.


END SPOILER

Book Review: Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann

First of all, this wins the award for most misleading cover ever. It suggests a light, steampunky, adventure sort of book; the color-scheme and overall goofiness of the metal bird says there might even be puns.

Peculiar is dark, dark, dark. When the back cover suggests that changelings (halfbreeds) should hide lest they get hanged? It means it. This is the sort of world where kids are hung, where a woman is possessed by a dark, nasty sort of fairy and made to kidnap children, and where the faeries have neither forgiven nor forgotten the not-so-long-ago war they fought with humans.

Bachman knows how to keep a reader's attention, and I'm not at all sorry I read Peculiar, but it isn't the book to listen to while falling asleep that I had expected.

Peculiar is the story of a young half-human, half-faerie boy who has been living in hiding all his life; changelings aka peculiars have very short lifespans if discovered by most full-blooded folk of either species. He's been taught that safety comes from not being noticed. Then his sister is kidnapped, and he sets out to hunt her. At the same time, Arthur Jelliby, a nice young man with lots of wealth, a beautiful wife, and a comfortable political position, finds himself overhearing secrets that make him very uncomfortable, being asked for help by beautiful women, and generally ending up acting like a hero. Both of them risk rather nasty deaths and face some thoroughly desperate, very determined opponents.

Bachman is good at world building, creating a land where faeries and humans live together in uneasy peace, where there are regular precautions against magic but where it creeps in at odd moments anyhow.

The prose is mostly good, and the majority of the descriptions are evocative. The Prologue is nicely chilling, with the Bath being destroyed in a night. "There were no flames. No screams. Everyone within five leagues disappeared" and the city is left a ruin, starting a war "called the Smiling War because it left so many skulls, white and grinning, in the fields."

There are, however, the occasional clunkers such as "the word fell like a furry ball to the floor" or "The word flittered up the staircase, through the silent passages..." which served to effectively yank me right out of the book and set me to wondering how words could be like balls of any sort and whether the words flew on bat or butterfly wings and which would be more efficient and other such imponderables.

There are also bits of the plot that made me as an adult ask questions but might not bother a middle-grade reader. My biggest question was: Why haven't these people cooked up some good birth control? Peculiar makes it clear that it's not a matter of whether a changeling child will die but when--one family has seven children; six are hanged, one is kidnapped. Both humans and faeries find the children revolting, so you'd think that either the faeries or the humans would have come up with a way not to have them.

And, yes, it bugged me that the half-fairy, half-human children were called changelings, though there is a sentence sort of hand waving this. On a more nitpicky level, it also bothered me that the protagonists bought and ate food (bad pies, at that!) at the Goblin Market without ill-effect and that, later, one of them drinks tea in a faerie's home, and one refuses, and it doesn't matter. Traditionally, eating and drinking fairy food is a Bad Idea, but it doesn't seem to be in Peculiar

On a larger level, though, Bachman is very, very good at atmosphere. His Faery-haunted world is pretty scary, and there are lots of nice touches, like the possessed woman's clothing slowly deteriorating as she isn't caring for it any more or the way church bells are now ringing every five minutes in an effort to keep fairy magic from working around the towns.

Also, the main villain's plot makes sense. He has a very good reason for his schemes and is being quite methodical about getting what he wants. He's not quite human sane, but he shouldn't be, so that's just as well.

Bachman follows two protagonists, altering between Bartholomew and Arthur Jelliby quite deftly. The two different points of view--adult (ish: Arthur has to do a lot of growing up here!) and child make for a good pairing, and the chapter breaks and shifts in view keep suspense going quite nicely. Also, like the villain, the heroes have good, solid motivation and both grow into the role of hero quite satisfactorily.

Peculiar isn't a perfect book, but it's a book I quite enjoyed reading--or rather, listening to. I'm not sure about the audience: Some middle-graders would enjoy it, some might find it far too dark. I suppose it's a matter of "read the prologue and decide from there." As for adults, some may be able to forgive flittering words for the sake of smoky cities and creepy, plotting faery people, some might not.

I'm sort of at the mid-point myself, but I do have The Whatnot, the book's sequel, on hold at the library.

Oh, and the audio version has some very good music to it, including a good, long stretch at the end by Bachmann himself.

Publication Details
Published September 18th 2012 by Greenwillow Books
ISBN: 0062227696 (ISBN13: 9780062227690)
series: The Peculiar #1

Additional Reviews and Pages
Stefan Bachmann's Page
Lots and lots of reviews found via Fyrefly's Book Blog's Search Engine.

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

I love the idea of this book--more than one of the ideas. There is a mysterious school out in the woods that trains fairy tale characters in the ways of Good and Evil. Once a year, two children between the ages of twelve and sixteen from the village are kidnapped and taken there; at the beginning of this book, the chosen pair are Agatha, who wears black and is perpetually grumpy and Sophie, who loves pink and wants to go to the school to find her happy ending. The thing is, they end up in the "wrong" schools, and only their friendship can save them.

Before I get started: Lots of people appear to have liked this book. According to the its Goodreads' page, the book is a "New York Times Bestseller * Indie List Bestseller * Soon to be a Film from Universal Pictures * A Barnes & Noble Best Book of 2013" and etc, so clearly not everyone had the same allergic reaction I did. As for myself, I think I'm allergic.

Problem the first: What friendship? Sophie has only befriended Agatha as one of her "good deeds," and Agatha knows it. She sticks to Sophie more out of desperation than anything else, and this holds true through most of the book--Sophie keeps trying to ditch Agatha, except when Agatha's help is convenient. Agatha never makes any other friends, either. There are people who comment on their friendship, but in action? Not so much.

Problem the second: The book can't really decide how much internal beauty really matters. Oh, sure, Sophie looks good but acts evil (more on that later), but Agatha's "goodness" ultimately manifests in everyone discovering that she was beautiful all along and just needed to smile more, stand straight, and wash her hair. After that, people love her. So much for internal beauty being what matters.

Problem the third: Sophie's evil mostly consists of liking pink, trying to stay beautiful, and wanting to get away from the village. She gives facewash to orphans! The horror! She worries about her weight (gasp!) and so doesn't cook fattening meals to her father (Dreadful!). This, by the by, in a world at least as fixated on beauty and slenderness as our own.

She picks up some more recognizably evil as opposed to purely gendered traits later, courtesy of the school insisting on it (as in, severely punishing people who don't live up to their traits) but... Oh, I get angrier every time I think about Sophie's initial "evil," so I'll stoop now.

Problem the fourth: The book is dull. I started skimming after the first hundred pages or so and never did settle back down or get drawn into it. The behind-the-scenes plotting of the thoroughly pointless teachers and school owner never did draw me in, nor did the sort-of romance(s) that developed. No one other than Sophie and Agatha got more than cursory character development and theirs was, as I've mentioned, thin.

The sequel appears to focus on gender wars. I think...not.



Publication details
Published May 14th 2013 by HarperCollinsISBN 0062104896 (ISBN13: 9780062104892)

Other reviews found via Fyrefly's Book Blog Search Engine

The Literary Omnivore
A Backwards Story--who liked it a lot.
Books with Bite
So I Started Reading
And lots more

Book Review: The Shadowy Horses by Susanna Kearsley

Verity Grey is hired by an eccentric archeologist obsessed with finding out what became of Romes lost Ninth Legion. He's sure it disappeared in Britain, on the ground he now owns, inf fact. Working with him is Verity's ex, her employer's daughter (and ex's current fling), and a handsome local archeologist who is initially elusive but very attractive. Verity is won over by her employer's enthusiasm, but not as thrilled with his evidence: He's basing his theories on a young boy's second site. Still, Verity agrees to stay for a time, and finds herself troubled by ghosts, fog, and the sound of horses galloping by at night in an area where no horses live.

The Shadowy Horses reminded me quite a bit of the Mary Stewart mystery/romance stories. This is both good and bad: It's good because I like Mary Stewart, and I have read all of her other books, so it was nice to find a potential read alike. It's bad because it wasn't quite a read-alike. Kearsley does some good atmosphere work, and the ghostly centurion, still on guard after all these centuries, and still trying to right old wrongs is a great character. There are also plenty of intrigues and troubles in the present-day crew, enough to make anyone nervous.

The trouble is, Verity Grey lacks some of the spunk of Stewart's heroines. Sure, they all end up turning to the nearest handsome male for help, but they usually don't quaver at the very first sign of ghostly chills. Grey's convinced there's a ghost, and terrified of it, well before there's any real evidence of any actual ghost. Also, I would have liked to see more archeology going on. Kearseley introduces Verity as a well-established, respected archeologist in her own right, but once she reaches the site, actual digging seems to give way to ghostly visitations, romance, and alleged second sight.

Ultimately, I found it fun, light reading, and I'm not sorry to have picked it up, but I thought it needed more oomph. I kept wanting Verity to assert herself more, to turn around when there were ghostly rustles, to show just a bit more backbone.

Random side note one: I think Kearsley also reminds me of Phillippa Whitney, but this is more a memory of some late, late nights reading Whitney's books during my high school years than any other real feeling. And, as those nights spent quietly reading, with no one else up, are treasured memories, I probably won't risk revisiting Whitney and discovering I don't like her any more. That, of course, risks not reading an author I would like now, but all the same, I think I'll let her be.

Random side note two: The Lost Legion caught my attention because of Andre Norton's The Last Planet, which really has nothing to do with the story here, but is one of my favorite books ever, and has had perpetual place on my bookshelves wherever I may be.

Other Reviews

A Book a Week This is where I first learned about it. Kiirstin Maki likes it loads more than I did, so you may want to read her review as well!

Melissa's Bookshelf
A Good Stopping Point
The Eclectic Reader
Lots more results from Fyrefly's Book Blog Search

Got a review I should include? Drop me a line and let me know!

Links of Interest
The Shadowy Horses on Amazon Gracious! It's a 2012 book! Here I was thinking it was written back when...whenever Mary Stewart was writing. I should look that up, I suppose, but Stewart's one of those writers whose just always been there on the shelves, you know? Something of a legend I'm not sure I'm ready to look up her bio and put her in the real world.

Anyway.

Susanna Kearsley's home page, where you can read her blog, catch up on her book lists, and generally find more stuff!

Earwig and the Witch by Diana Wynne Jones

Diana Wynne Jones books are always good, and they usually get better on rereading, so I was quite happy when I was able to download a copy of Earwig and the Witch from the library and do my reread via audio book. This is the first time I've listened to it, and Charlotte Parry does an incredible job. I ended up listening to it more than once because I wasn't anywhere I could change books--and that was fine with me!

Earwig and the Witch is a children's book for early readers just getting into chapter books, so don't expect complexity. Do expect fun, and a dose of Diana Wynne Jones eeriness. Earwig is an appealing, and almost entirely amoral kid who just wants her way. She is quite happy at the orphanage where she was left as a child because she has a number of people to boss around and figures no family can ever match that. When she's adopted by a witch and a very strange man (or demon? It's never really clear quite what the Mandrake is), she has to team up with the resident cat and do some quick thinking to get her own way.

Part of what makes the book work so well is that Earwig is basically a likeable child. She wants her own way, but she isn't mean about it: She has a good friend, she bargains well with the cat, and she's not out to cause trouble for its own sake. The other part is that Earwig usually does get her own way, through sheer strength of will, and that is incredibly fun. Her new house is pleasantly but not scarily spooky.



I am so sad that this is the last Diana Wynne Jones ever!

Book Review: Sunshine by Robin McKinley

Happy New Year! And happy old book--I'm still erratically and happily working my way back through McKinley's books.

Sunshine is one of Mckinley's Beauty and the Beast retellings, though it departs further from the tale than, say Beauty or even Chalice. In fact, Sunshine, the "Beauty" of the story tells the tale to Constantine, the "Beast" quite early on in the novel.

Sunshine is set sometime in the near, non-specific future, in a land where vampires, werewolves, triffids, zombies etc are entirely real and where a recent magical war has left scars across the land. It begins Sunshine is abducted by vampires and taken to a deserted mansion. Once there, finds herself allying with a vampire, Constantine, and has to learn to use magic she barely understands to survive a vampire war and takeover attempt. The trouble is: She hates vampires. Everyone hates vampires, and rightly so. They're predators and, unlike the other supernatural beings, there is no way of making peace with them or sharing the world with them. Sunshine is sure, and with reason, that if any of her other friends find out about the vampire, Constantine, they will never forgive her.

Sunshine has deeper world-building and is darker than most Mckinley, which is why it is both one of my favorites and one of my least favorites. I've read it before, but I'm still surprised by the amount of gore and despair that there is in the book₍₁₎. Also, I'm not a fan of vampires though for Mckinley, I'll make an exception, just as I do for Hambly. It's just that I keep managing to pick it up expecting a nice, quiet read like Beauty or Chalice and instead I'm immersed in this dark, tangled, dangerous, suspenseful novel wondering what happened.

There are significant alterations to the "Beauty and the Beast" story here. For example, Sunshine already has a perfectly good human boyfriend who stays steady, strong, and reliable all through, and Constantine is, and will remain, a vampire and that is a predator, even if a reasonably honorable one. The relationship Sunshine and Constantine have can't really be described as romantic, either. Also, this one is, as I've mentioned already, very much a suspense-veering-toward horror story. There are monsters out there and they have to be fought, often violently, and it takes all of Sunshine's courage and then some to face them.

Like Mckinley's other Beauties, Sunshine has a real-world passion that keeps her grounded in the middle of all the insanity. Hers is baking: She is the Cinnamon Roll Queen, maker of Sunshine's Eschatology and other deserts. There are lavish, loving descriptions of baking that I could lose myself in quite happily.

I'm sure I will be reading Sunshine again, and I can't help wishing there were a sequel. I like Rae/Sunshine, the heroine and I love her world. I want to find out what happened to the Blaise family, to find out how the humans win (We will win, right?) in the end, and to see what becomes of Sunsine as she furthers her studies of the magical, and to find out more about Mel, and to meet all of the coffee shop folk again. Mckinley is quite, quite definite about the absence of sequels, and the book does end quite well in its own right, and the loose ends are the perfectly respectable sort of loose ends that imply that, yes, there's a world out there, and it's still going, but the author hasn't chronicled all of it, and it works just fine. I'm greedy, that's all.

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(1) This really shouldn't surprise me. I have read Deerskin which is one of the more visceral descriptions of the aftermath of rape and incest I've ever come across. It is very, very good, and a book someone absolutely had to write, and I am never reading it again.

Other Reviews
Tales of the Marvelous
Love Vampires
The Eclectic Review

Links of Interest
Robin McKinley's Blog
Robin Mckinley's entry on why there will probably never be a sequel to Sunshine, so please stop asking
Sunshine on Amazon.

Book Review: Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Princess Ben : Being a Wholly Truthful Account of her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection is the story of how Princess Benevolence learned to become a proper princess and saved her kingdom in the process. Ben is a slightly spoiled child living happily with her parents. Then, they are killed and she finds herself heir to the kingdom and subject to the queen's kill-or-cure re-education and makeover process. She rebels, runs away, and eventually figures out how to actually be a princess.

By the end, it's kind of charming: I enjoy a good tale of hidden passages, mysterious passages, secret magic lessons, and (possibly) dragons. The political intrigue finally comes into focus and starts to matter, and some mysteries are cleared up. There are even hints of an eccentric castle here: The magic room only gives lessons when it wants to, it only lets her open the book to certain pages, and it insists she clean it.

The trouble is Princess Ben spends about three-quarters of the book being a nearly intolerable brat. I knew she'd straighten out eventually, that was the kind of story it is, but she took far too long. Even once she starts learning to use magic, she spends most of the book using it for small, selfish things. I mean, she sneaks around and steals stuff rather than learning useful things. The one Useful Thing she does overhear, she has to have explained to her later in words of one syllable, and even then she doesn't actually do anything about it until much, much later in the book.

I only managed last long enough to reach the charming bits it because a) secret passages and b) It was on my MP3 player and I was busy. Also, I had a hard time believing that the, by all appearances, politically savvy queen could come up with such a stupid re-education program. I could believe in one Ben wouldn't like (there was not much she would like at that point), but not one that featured such an inept tutor.

The pseudo-archaic dialog bothered me too. I can only handle so many inverted sentences at a time, and "wherefore" is not an old-fashioned way of saying "where." It really isn't.

Verdict? Only for the truly die-hard Princess fans. Tuesdays at the Castle is a much better eccentric castle book with a much more congenial set of orphan heirs.

Other Reviews by other reviewers some of whom liked it rather more than I, and some of whom did not:
Teen Book Review
Small Review
Pica Reads
The Story Siren

Book Review: The Stepsister Scheme by Jim C. Hines

I like a good fairytale mashup, and this one is very good. Hines goes back and draws on the Grimm version of the fairy tales, complete with the stepsisters cutting off parts of their feet to fit the shoe and the birds attacking at the wedding, and updates and blends them together to tell a new tale of intrigue and romance.

Cinderella has already won her prince. She is ready for a happy ending, and the marriage is happy. Adjusting to palace life, however, is proving challenging; she keeps having to repress the urge to clean things and having people remind her that she is supposed to be the one in charge is difficult. Then her stepsisters kidnap her husband and smuggle him over the border to fairyland. Now, she has to team up with Talia (Sleeping Beauty) and Snow (White) to get him back, battling magic, trolls, evil shadows, and political schemes along the way. She has to learn how to be in charge, how to handle a sword, and, hardest of all, when to be nice and when to go for the kill.

I picked up The Stepsister Scheme because I liked the title, and it proved a good call. The book is like its title: A little offbeat and fun. It's got some spy stuff, some neat fairy tale twists, some spunky princesses, a prince worth rescuing, and a complicated and interesting fairyland.

I've read the "innocent expecting a happily ever after learns its not that easy" before, and it's not my favorite plot, but there is enough else going on here to keep things new. Also, while Danielle has to learn to be a little more cynical, she helps Talia learn to be a little less so, so there's some balance there. Do be aware that, though I persist in describing this book as "fun" that doesn't mean it doesn't go some dark places. The story of Snow and her mother, in particular, is quite nasty and there are parallels there with Cinderella's stepmother. Hines is using the early Grimm stories as the basis for his tales and, as many people lately have been saying, these were not always "nice" or "pretty" in their details.

Verdict: Not up there on the "must hand it to everyone I know" level, but certainly on the "I want to read the sequels" list.


Other Reviews
Fantasy Book Critic
The Mad Hatter's Bookshelf and Book Review
The Good, the Bad, and the Unread

Links
Jim C. Hines' web page
@jimchines on Twitter

The Stepsister Scheme on Amazon.

Book Review: Wednesdays in the Tower by Jessica Day George

Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George was a tremendously fun book about an eccentric castle and the people who lived in it (see my review here). The sequel, Wednesdays in the Tower, is even better. In Tuesdays, Celie and her brother and sister had to deal with missing parents, conniving councilors, and a takeover attempt by a neighboring prince. They're aided by an eccentric, unpredictable castle who nudges them in the direction they need to go. In Wednesdays in the Tower, the family is back home, but there is now a strange wizard intent on researching the castle, and the castle has presented Celie with a baby gryphon that it wants her to hide from everyone else. The castle's behavior is even stranger than this, though, as it starts adding new rooms in a seemingly arbitrary fashion, puzzling and worrying the Glower family who, in addition to ruling by its grant, love their strange home.

I loved the castle in Tuesdays in the Castle. I think I love it even more now that it's being somewhat selfish, even putting its favorite people in danger. It makes it seem even more real and alive now that it is truly desperate and needs help and, since it cannot communicate clearly, is now being downright manipulative. Part of what makes this appealing rather than evil is that Celie still loves the castle. The other part is that we learn that the castle used to be more, and it's entirely possible that at some point in the past it really could communicate with its caretakers/people/friends so that its current, rather fractured and imperfect method is probably frustrating and worrying it at least as much as it does Celie and her family.

I was slightly disappointed that Lilah, Celie's older sister, got less page time in this book. Mostly, Celie is busy caring for a truly delightful young gryphon and working with her brothers, Rolf and Bran. Bran, Celie's older brother, was absent for most of Tuesdays in the Castle, and I'm pleased to say he makes a fine addition to the sibling group. He's just finished his training as a wizard and is balanced between being an adult and being the familiar older brother. Rolf and Celie are a great brother-sister pair, and Pogue, the blacksmith's son gets an expanded role.

The castle's unpredictable behavior makes Wednesday's in the Tower more of a page turner than Tuesdays in the Castle. While Tuesdays was delightful, and I wanted to see some more peaceful days with the castle, its care for the children meant things were probably not going to get too bad for them. Now, their ally has turned strange, and they are left more to their own devices in figuring things out. Their other opponent here has a more complicated motivation that helps keep matters unpredictable. All of this means that Wednesdays in the Tower is a sequel better than its predecessor and I'm definitely eager for the third book in the series.

Publication Information
Hardcover, 235 pages
Published May 7th 2013
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's (first published May 1st 2013)
ISBN: 1599906457 (ISBN13: 9781599906454)

Book Review: Shadows by Robin McKinley

In Shadows Robin McKinley has built another world I want to see more of. I initially was not that happy with the concept of the magic-using world vs. the technology-only world. I have my jaded-reader moments when I think "I've seen that before." But it was McKinley, and I will always read books by McKinley, so I read it, and of course, I hadn't seen it before, and I loved it.

Maggie's new stepfather may make her mother smile, but he comes complete with terrible taste in shirts, an odd accent, and far, far too many shadows. The shadows are oddly shaped and they don't move the way they should. Maggie has enough to handle dealing with her senior year of high school, hauling around an enormous Algebra book, and helping out at the animal shelter to cope with shadows that shouldn't be there, and that she shouldn't be seeing anyway. Then she meets a handsome young man who recognizes her stepfather, gaps in reality start opening near her town, and the army moves in to help out, and magic, which should not exist in Newworld, where Maggie lives, becomes increasingly important.

I'm always happier as a reader when I like the narrator, and I liked Maggie. McKinley avoids making her the horrible sullen teen who dislikes people for no reason. Maggie is prejudiced against her stepfather because he is her stepfather (and because of his shirts), but she only really dislikes him because she is terrified by the shadows that come with him. And, even then, she mostly tried to avoid him rather than starting a confrontation. She also has a group of friends she spends time with plus some closer friends that she's known for years, and I do love a good, strong friendship. Both aspects of Maggie--her difficulty with her family and her good friendships--are portrayed well. The details and love that go into animal care help ground the more fantastical bits, and the two types of work complement one another.

There are several memorable characters in here. Maggie and her friends, Takahiro and Jill are strong protagonists. Her hyper dog, Mongo, "a hairy attack squad carooming off the walls and trying to fetch pieces of furniture so somebody would throw them for him" is a standout. The shadows develop as the book goes on as well. I think my favorite, though, has to be the most unexpected: an Algebra book. Like Maggie, I disliked my math classes, so it was surprising, funny, and good to find a truly useful textbook in the subject.

Shadows is a good read, by the writer of Beauty and Sunshine both, something to curl up with and be happy. It's closer in kin to Beauty, in that while it has difficult choices and deep troubles, it will not take you to some of the truly dark places Sunshine inhabits. Sunshine, while a book I like, is not going on my comfort-read shelf. Beauty has had a place there for years, and Shadows might gain one (It's hard to tell. "Comfort reads" develop over the years). Like Sunshine, it has a more complex world-building and a strong sense that there is more to do yet. This means that, like Sunshine, it has a perfectly good, perfectly respectable ending, and it still leaves me hungry for more.

Did you read Shadows? What did you think?

Other Reviews
Books with Bite

Links of Interest
Shadows on Amazon.
Your library (No, I can't actually link to your library, but if you don't have your library's catalog bookmarked or haven't memorized the address, it's time you did).
Robin McKinley's blog (Which just distracted me. Again.)

Publication Details
Hardcover: 368 pages
Publisher: Nancy Paulsen Books (September 26, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399165797
ISBN-13: 978-0399165795

Did I miss a review I should have included? Let me know in the comments or by using the Contact Me link above.

Book Review: Fairest Vol. 2 The Hidden Kingdom by Bill Willingham (author), Lauren Beukes (Author), and Inaki Miranda (Illustrations)

Fairest: The Hidden Kingdom wasn't for me. I can't really say it was a bad book. I think, probably, for what it was, it was a good book, but despite wildly loving the Fables series and thoroughly enjoying Fairest Vol. 1, I found this not my cup of tea. There will be some spoilers in the following, though I will try not to touch on major plot and turning points.

Fairest: The Hidden Kingdom is Rapunzel's story which, like most Fables tales draws from and exaggerates elements of the traditional tales. It seems that, after being kicked out of the tower by the witch, who was none other than Frau Tottenkinder, Rapunzel gave birth to twins with the help of a kindly elderly woman who told her they were stillborn and took the bodies away. She is sure they are alive and that the woman was Frau Tottenkinder, and she spend years looking for them, eventually ending up in the Hidden Kingdom (the Fables version of Japan) shortly before the Adversary invaded.

Now, in present day Fabletown, she is attacked by a flurry of origami cranes with the words "your children" on them. She immediately bargains for help with hair control and heads out to modern Japan in search of the twins. She takes her friend and barber, Joel, with her. She also takes Jack who proceeds to be his egotistical, oversexed, unreliable self through the rest of the book. Yes, I know he's a trickster and that's what tricksters do and are; that doesn't mean I have to like this particular incarnation of the Trickster type.

in any case, the story switches between the three time periods: Rapunzel's life just after being kicked out of her tower, her life in the Hidden Kingdom, and her present-day hunt for her children and attempts to navigate alliances old and new alliances in the unstable Fabletown communities of Japan.

It's not so much that Fairest breaks the Fables mold as that it takes it and pushes its darker side, hard. There's dark and then there's "Dropped down a well and trapped under a pile of your friends' corpses as they decay." There's "weird and a little twisted" and there's "eating your own hair to survive and then coughing up deadly, angry bezoars who devour everyone around." The humor that marked the other tales was largely absent as was most of the warmth.

Too, I found neither love story present particularly compelling. Snow and Bigby have me on their side all the way. Ali and the Snow Queen had me laughing and hoping. Rapunzel and the kitsune? Not so much. As a sexual indulgence I could more or less believe it, as a love that lasts through the centuries and survives multiple perceived and actual betrayals? No. By the end of the story, I did not particularly care for either partner, and was definitely rooting for Puntz to put the past behind her. The other story should have been more compelling; Joel actually is likable, but the ultimate pairing didn't really have the kind of emotional resonance I want.

The art, also, seemed to be more of more: More crowds, more creatures, more scenes, more sex, more fighting. Like the story, it wasn't bad precisely, it just wasn't to my taste.

Read it? What did you think? Got a review I should link to? Let me know, here in the comments or by clicking the "Contact Me" link up there.

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Book Review: Courtney Crumrin Vols. 1-3 by Ted Naifeh

The Courtney Crumrin books were one of this year's serendipitous finds. I stopped by the library one day and, scanning the shelves, saw a handsome dark blue hardcover book of just the right size to slip into a bag or prop up at the table. Of course, I checked it out and found myself in the world of Courtney, a young teen forced to move from her inner city house to a grand house in a wealthy neighborhood owned by her aloof and somewhat scary Uncle Aloysius Crumrin. This uncle, it turns out, has a library full of books on magic. This comes in handy when Courtney finds that the neighborhood woods is full of goblins and is near the entrance to Goblin Town, a dangerous place for mortals.

Being independent and inquisitive, Courtney soon figures out how to use the spells, and quickly starts exploring the goblin haunted woods, eventually venturing into the Twilight Kingdom where the Faerie folk live. She also experiments a bit with using them to help out in daily life, with somewhat mixed results.

I liked Courtney precisely because she is prickly and aloof or, as she says, "I'm rude, bad-tempered, and basically, I don't like people." She is uncertain and vulnerable in both worlds, and determined to protect herself. Her parents are would-be social climbers who pay more attention to the daughter they want to have than the daughter they do, and Courtney's background makes her unable to reach out to her wealthy and snobbish classmates. She alternates between not caring and wondering what is wrong with her. She's also never quite willing to give up her independence in order to fit in, but she does, gradually begin to trust some of those around her and to gain their trust in return.

I appreciate Naifeh's portrayal of someone who is gifted at magic but also still a young teen. Courtney does some powerful magic, but she also makes some big mistakes as she's learning, and they cost. Neither the human world nor the Faerie world is particularly forgiving, though the Faerie rules are, perhaps, easier to understand in the end.

Naifeh's angular artwork is very well suited to the Fairie folk and their town. The black and white is minimalistic and understated. I admire the line work. In the hardcover versions, color has been added to add atmosphere and lighting more than for detail purposes. The effectiveness of the addition varies: On the one hand, color! On the other, I really liked the understated black and white and don't find that the color always adds as much to the new versions as it could.

By the way, anyone who pays attention to the cover colors will notice that I picked up the third book first. It read quite well as a stand-alone. I went back and read it in its proper order after getting books one and two out, but if you'd rather start later in the series--or can only start later--things should work well!

I find myself in a bit of a bind in terms of copies. I now own two of them in paperback and I like the cleanness of the black and white and the line work. I also like the size: They're small, easy to carry, and light. However, Oni is reissuing the books in hardcover, and, as I mentioned earlier, the books are beautiful with jewel-toned covers, ribbon book marks, and color. They're a nice size, too, not the huge spread of the usual hardcover graphic novel but a nice, well-balanced book that sits nicely in the hand₍₁₎. Do I go for a matched set or try for mixed? Neither bookshelf nor wallet supports multiple copies, so no answers of "both" please!

And, for your enjoyment and enlightenment: Here is a spread, both colored and uncolored. My thanks to Oni Press for the use of it!



I have not read Courtney Crumrin and the Monstrous Holiday yet, but the hardcover just came out this month.

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(1) My library system is awesome; they have both versions of volumes 1-3, and I was able to compare them side by side!
(2) Many thanks to Oni for sending me good-quality versions of the same page in color and in black and white. This way, you can compare!

Book Review: Chalice by Robin Mckinley

This is one I picked up while in the mood to reread (see my initial review here).

In Chalice, Mirasol, a beekeeper and woods-tender must learn to help run her segment of the country while trying to bring the lord of the land back from his near-total transformation to an inhuman priest of fire. She must also contend with political intrigues she barely understands. It is not made easier by the fact that, while she is a very good beekeeper, she was never trained in the rituals of her new status and has no training at all in politics.

Chalice is a leisurely read, perfect for a relaxed day. A lot of it focuses on Mirasol's daily life as she tends her bees, studies her new role, and tries to apply the things she used as a beekeeper to life as a Chalice--someone who comforts the land and sees to the people's daily needs.

This is one of Mckinley's many retellings of Beauty and the Beast, and it shares some of the traits with Beauty and Rose Daughter. As with those, the heroine has some special bonding to the land and, as with those, she has a mundane talent that helps keep her anchored in the magical world. Where Beauty/Honor loved her horses and her books, and Rose Daughter Beauty knew and loved roses, Mirasol knows bees and plant care, and draws both her magical and practical strength from their presence. In all three cases, the seemingly trivial aids in the large.

This is not to say the books are mere echoes of one another. They aren't, not by a long shot. Chalice stands up well on its own with hints of a long history and tradition that I was dying to learn more about. Much as I loved Mirasol, I also loved the land she lived in and I wanted to see more of it. I wish there were going to be a sequel! There's room for a sequel, but of course there never will be. McKinley never writes sequels--Except when she does--see Pegasus and Blue Sword (sort of)).

Other Reviews
Bookshelves of Doom
Erin's Bookshelf

Links of Interest
Chalice on Amazon
Robin Mckinley's home page. The spot where you can find out which book is coming up next and why the book coming out this year isn't the Pegasus sequel but another book entirely (but Pegasus II is coming, and I'm definitely planning on reading Shadows) and other such items. Also there's plenty on the absence of sequels, and some on gardening, and lots of footnotes.

Book Review: Fairest. Vol. 1 Wide Awake by Bill Willingham (Author) and Phil Jimenez (Illustrator)

Yes, I'm in love with this series!

Fairest: Wide Awake is another spinoff from the main series, but it's by Willingham himself, so it has the balance of fun and seriousness that the tale does so well, plus a good stiff dose of the multi-layered fairytale play: Ali Baba, the Snow Queen, and Sleeping Beauty are main players, and then there's a bottle imp.

It's a spinoff, but it is more closely tied to the main stories than some. I really, really, really don't recommend reading it until you're at least past Volume 16 of the main series, not if you don't want some more spoilers. In fact, if you haven't gotten that far and you do mind spoilers, you should probably just accept that Fairest Vol. 1 is awesome and skip the rest of the review, because there are going to be a couple of spoilers for Fables.

What's Fairest about?

It goes back to battle tactics in Fables. Remember how Sleeping Beauty's curse put everyone around her to sleep? The Fables used this against their enemy, taking her to a major city and having her prick her finger. She thus put an entire enemy city to sleep and was left there to keep them from waking. Later, soldiers were instructed to move and guard her carefully. The problem? There were two beautiful maidens found asleep in the city. Both were collected and left in the center of a camp. Now, a resourceful thief, Ali Baba, has found a bottle imp who leads him to the princesses. He wakes both. One is Sleeping Beauty, one is not. There could be true love ahead. There could be death.

The bottle imp really steals the show here. Oh, the thief and princesses are great, but the bottle imp is the one using his wits and words to shape the tale and he's fantastic. I love the fact that he really wants to be mischievous and cause trouble, but his orders mean he can't--at least, not mostly. This is also the first retelling of "The Snow Queen" I've ever liked.

Also, there is a really heart-breaking "Beauty and the Beast" story at the end. The volume would be worth it just for that.

I don't really recommend this for people who haven't been reading the main series; it will make you want to read the rest, and you'll go into the book with some major plot elements spoiled, but if you like the series, but are unsure about spinoffs, don't wait any longer. Pick it up!

Other Reviews
The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia
Book Banter
Fyrefly's Book Blog

Links of Interest
Fairest: Wide Awake on Amazon.
Bill Willihngham's website
@BillWillingham on Twitter
Phil Jimenez website

Book Review: Cinderella vol. 2 Fables are Forever by Chris Roberson (Author) and Shawn McManus (Illustrator)

Oh dear.

As I may have mentioned once or twice, I absolutely love the main Fables series, so of course I'm running out to pick up all the other books around it. Fables are Forever is something of a disappointment, even though it works with spy-Cinderella, whom I love, and has fun with genres and characters, which I also love.

Cinderella has to face off with "the Silver Slipper," an assassin foe from her past. Having this super-assassin turn out to be Dorothy Gale was clever, but other than that, there's really not much substance to the book. Dorothy and Cinderella try to kill each other several times over the years and in many different countries. There's no character development for either, and thus no real reason to like or dislike Cinderella any more than I already did. Dorothy is so one-dimensional that her evilness is more a matter of form than anything else.

There's some shallow discussion of the difference between a mercenary and a patriot, and who is more justified in which despicable actions, but it doesn't really go anywhere. It's not a case of either woman developing doubts, or of letting the reader explore the issue, it's just what a pair of spies chat about while they fight.

The art was...eh. I mean, it's not entirely out of character for Cindy to traipse around in the snow in a bikini, but surely even Fables get cold? Shouldn't she be blue and shivering, not svelte and appealing?

So, overall, this was a disappointment. I mean, it's not that it's especially ghastly, it just has a really, really high bar to reach, and it settles for being decidedly average.

Other Reviews
Back to Books
Comic Book Resources
Got a review I missed? Drop me a line and I'll include it!

Links of Interest
Chris Roberson's home page.

Book Review: Cinderella Vol. 1 From Fabletown with Love by Chris Roberson (Author) and Shawn McManus (Illustrator)

Yes, I read the Cinderella books out of order. This was sloppy of me, but I'm glad I did it.

Fables Are Forever had me just about give up on the Fables spinoffs. From Fabletown with Love has restored my faith.

For one thing, there is a lot more going on here. The Fables all work very hard at keeping their true nature hidden from the mundane world. Now, someone is selling magic items wholesale, and Cinderella has to figure out who it is and stop them before the world wakes up to the existence of real, and powerful, magic. She also has to deal with witches, a fairy godmother, and a handsome stranger who may or may not be on her side. In the meantime, her shoe-shop in Fabletown is being run by a disgruntled employee who wants to make changes of his own.

There are no deep character insights; perhaps Roberson is being kept on a leash in terms of development, but there's a bit from Cinderella's past, some amusing work with her assistant and his Fabletown problems, and enough variety of setting and plot to keep things fun.

It's not quite the heady amazing awesomeness of the main storyline, but it's good, and it's got the same sense of play that underlies them, the sense that the entire world is a treasure box of stories just waiting to be pulled out and played with.

Oh, and it takes place late in the series. If you mind spoilers, don't read it until you're through Fables: The Dark Ages vol. 12 of the main Fables arc. As best I can tell by the dates, you should be safe at that point. If anyone wants to give me a better estimate, send me an email. I really did tumble through the main series in record time, not keeping track of what went where, just so I could findoutwhathappensnext. This makes me enthusiastic, but not terribly helpful about specific volumes.

Other Reviews
Fantasy & SciFi Lovin' Reviews
Get Graphic
Fyrefly's Book Blog

Links of Interest
Chris Roberson's home page
Shawn McManus's home page.

Got a link or review I missed and should include? Let me know and I'll add it to the list!

Tales from Lovecraft Middle School by Charles Gilman

If you're the sort of person who likes rats mysteriously finding their ways into sealed lockers, thinks a heroic two-headed rat makes a fantastic addition to the cast, finds giant bugs in disguise deliciously creepy, and likes horror with a side helping of humor plus truly courageous and yet ordinary kids for main characters, and if you think throwing in  tentacled monsters,inter-dimensional portals, and secret plots makes things even more fun, then these books are for you.

In Professor Gargoyle Rob finds himself going to a brand new, beautiful school where he only knows a few of them--one of them Glenn, the school bully from his old school. An unexpected encounter with a multi-tentacled monster forces the two to join forces, and they find themselves becoming friends as they try to figure out just who the mysterious Master is and what his plans are. They are joined in the fight by Karina, a ghost now tied to the school, and an extremely intelligent two-headed rat, Pip and Squeak.  It's a delectable little snack with just the right balance of horror and humor.

In fact, it was so delicious that, after I finished gloating a bit over its wonderfulness₍₁₎, I sat right down and read The Slither Sisters at once, glad that for once I had the next book in the series on hand and didn't have to wait₍₂₎.

By The Slither Sisters,  the demonic forces are trying to take over the school by winning the election for student council president--and it makes sense, in context, that other-dimensional creatures are after a middle school. Rob and Glenn are learning the hard way that anyone and everyone might be a monster in disguise, making it hard to find allies in their fight against the otherworldly evils.

In Teacher's Pest, Rob finds he has trusted someone he shouldn't, and now he and his friends have to figure out how to stop his plans to expand the Master's plot to take over the world. Also, there is an invasion of bugs at the school. This time, they are ordinary-sized, but there are gargantuan numbers. Rob isn't sure how they fit the Master's plot, but he knows it isn't good. Trust continues to be a problem, and though he and his allies (including the school librarian, yay!) have found a way to combat the creatures individually, it isn't enough for wholesale combat.

I adore these books. They're perfect slices of fun and spookiness--and, yes, Lovecraftian mythos (The series' title and the mention of tentacled creatures likely gave you a clue or two there). The pacing is perfect, keeping things moving while giving enough information about this strange, spooky world. Also, the characterization is strong. I tend to be a little leery of "the school bully can be your best friend" stories, but there's plenty here to motivate Glenn and Rob's new partnership and move it on into friendship. Karina's a good character, too, dealing with the difficulties of being a ghost, trying to fight the person who is responsible for her death, and dealing with just plain boredom from being stuck at the school alone on long weekends. Pip and Squeak are far more delightful than a two-headed rat ought to be.

Also, the physical books are things of beauty. They are just the right size to hold, and they have covers that change as you move them. On one angle, you'll see the nice, friendly teacher or student. On the other, the darkness below is revealed. I don't entirely like the way these feel to the touch; they're a little unpleasantly scratchy, but the cover illustrations are worth it.

And, of course, there's a great trailer for the series, complete with spooky, Gothic music:



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(1) I may have hugged the book and done a little jig in the room. There were no witnesses. I definitely have run around telling people about it.
(2) I keep promising myself that I'm going to review series decently and in good order instead of blasting through them. But these were good. Also, they were short. Nice, tasty, snacky things. Just one wasn't going to happen.

Links of Interest
The Lovecraft Middle School website
Professor Gargoyle on Amazon
The Slither Sisters on Amazon
Teacher's Pest on Amazon.
Substitute Creature (coming Sept 24, 2013) on Amazon.
Substitute Creature on the Quirk Books site. You can get a good look at the cover there as it changes.

Book Review: Fables: Werewoles of the Heartlands by Bill Wilingham (Author), Craig Hamilton (Illustrator), Jim Fern (Illustrator)

This is outside of the Fables main plot, for the most part, and I'm glad this is far from the first Fables book I picked up. I love the series in general (see the understatement there? See?) but this one--eh.

Bigby is looking for a new home for the Fables, traveling through the Midwest. Along the way, he stops at a town full of werewolves, and they both want to worship him and to kill him. There's a certain amount of backstory here and hints that it will tie into the main story later, but on its own, it's a fairly generic fight story. Honestly, it reminded me of Wolverine in his more incomprehensible honorable modes than anything else, and Bigby usually doesn't (No dead girlfriends, for one thing). It's just lots of fighting and "you're not worthy to be a wolf"-ing, and some explosions, and the undoing of a rather good short story included elsewhere.

There's some plotting and counter-plotting going on in the town itself, but all the fighting ends up rendering everyone's plans moot, and I knew too little about any of the characters to really care which side came out on top anyway.

This is a shame because under ordinary circumstances Bigby is one of my favorite characters, and I was super-excited about the book that featured him. I was hoping for more detective work, as in Legends in Exile, or more of his history, perhaps.

Willinham does include an essay about his real visit to the real Story City at the end, and I enjoyed that. Verdict? Check this one out from the library, read the essay, and politely return the book. Then read, or reread, the Fables proper.

Other Reviews
Fyrefly's Book Blog
Other Reviews found through the book blog search engine
Did I miss a link I should include? Let me know and I'll add it!

Links of Interest
Bill Willihngham's website
@BillWillingham on Twitter.

Book Review: Floors by Patrick Carman

Young Leo and his father are the maintenance crew for The Whippet, an eccentrically designed hotel full of surprises. Not only are the rooms oddly themed (the cake room, the cave room, the room that's a giant pinball machine), and not only is there a duck pond on the roof, there are hidden floors. With its amusement-ride elevators, building-high slides, and an eclectic complement of live-in guests, it's pretty much paradise for a boy. There are only two problems: Leo's father is still mourning his mother and, a more immediate threat, the hotel's owner has disappeared and the manager is aiding outsiders in a hostile takeover.

If he is to save his home, Leo has to figure out a series of odd clues, find unexpected levels to the hotel, and beat a series of strange, and sometimes dangerous, challenges sent through a series of mysterious boxes. He enlists the help of the new doorman, the housekeeper's son, and the two become fast friends as they fight for their home. He's an engaging character, and the story of his learning to make friends and grow is part of the fun.

The breakout star for me was the hotel. The Whippet is a wonderful strange building. Although not sentient in its own right, it was designed by a truly zany inventor and reflects his personality. It is inhabited by designer robots like Blop, a little robot who was designed to socialize and desperately wants to, but turns out to annoy his audience who routinely asks him to be quiet. Probably the person who knows it best is the duck, Betty, who leads her flock, and sometimes Leo, through the chaos.

I am pleased that there actually did turn out to be a reason behind the zany challenges and the cryptic clues. I am growing increasingly impatient with cryptic clues that are cryptic only for the sake of complicating matters rather than because anyone has any reason to phrase them oddly, so this was a plus for me. Other readers may be less concerned about this.

Floors isn't Deep Literature, it's pure, whimsical fun. I recommend it for light reading or for leaving casually lying about for kids (or adults) to stumble upon.

Reminder: Floors II: 3 Below is already out and Floors III: The Field of Whacky Inventions comes out next month, September 2013.

Other Reviews
The Book Zone (For Boys)
Good Books and Good Wine
Literate Lives
The Book Swarm

Links
Patrick Carman's home page.

Floors on Amazon

I listened to and enjoyed the audio version, read by Jesse Bernstein (Hurray for Downloadable audio books at the library!)

Got a review I should link to? Another link I should add to the list? Contact me or leave a note in the comments and let me know.

Book Review Fables: The Great Fables Crossover by by Bill Willingham (Author), Matthew Sturges (Author), Russ Braun (Illustrator), José Marzán Jr. (Illustrator), Mark Buckingham (Illustrator), Andrew Pepoy (Illustrator)

The Great Fables Crossover is getting its own min-review because it's something of an oddity. I loved Fables, and I was devouring them as quickly as I could, but then I hit volume 13 and was thrown back.

You see, it mostly departs from an ongoing, rather urgent arc in Fables, to tell its own story. It's clear from bits and pieces here and there that the big tale is still continuing, but now there's another danger: Someone is trying to rewrite the world and in this case, that is entirely literal. If Kevin Thorne gets over his writer's block and decides what revisions he wants to make, the world we know will become an entirely different place. Jack discovers the danger and comes back to warn the Fables who set out to stop him, despite the way Thorne keeps writing difficulties for them.

This is a crossover with Jack of Fables, which I have yet to read. In many ways, I think it's more of a Jack story than a Fables tale. The good news is, I enjoyed the humor in the Jack of Fables Books. There is a visit by all of the genres incarnated as characters to offer the would-be reviser advice, and they're great. Fantasy, especially, is a wispy, elvish sort who keeps wanting everything turned into an epic while science fiction proposes manly battles. So: I will have a new series to follow, and that is good.

The bad news: The Great Fables Crossover comes smack in the middle of the battle with the Dark One and diverts everything onto a completely different path. I read it while saying "But what's happening with the Dark One? What are they going to do?" and the like. I suspect that for me, and for any beginning Fables reader, it will be better on the second read, and maybe after I've read the Jack of Fables series and learned more about the Literals.

Really, if you're plowing through the books for the first time, you may want to set this aside to read while you're waiting for Fables 19 to come out.

It does get bonus points, though, for having a fantastic fighter whose place of power is the library. YES!

My review of the Fables series as a whole is here.

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Links of Interest

The Great Fables Crossover on Amazon.