The Unicorn Hunter

It was only as I studied the cover of Che Golden’s second faerie book, The Unicorn Hunter, that the penny dropped. I’d been thinking the cover was fantastic, but also that it made Maddy, the heroine, look too old. She looks a cool 14, while she’s really only ten. I think. She acts more like 14, too. But back to the cover illustration. If you have Maddy looking ten years old, and add a picture of a unicorn, and if you made it pinker, it would be something straight out of My Little Pony.

Thank goodness for cool looks.

A year has passed since Maddy and her cousins Roisin and Danny went over to the other side to find a snatched human boy. Halloween – the day when the boundaries can be breached – is almost here again and a unicorn has been attacked. Someone has to find out who did it, and that someone is Maddy.

To be honest, I’d been wondering if another adventure meant it would be the same as before, with the children popping across and dealing with the faeries. I was relieved to find that most of the excitement takes place in the real world, in Blarney, and things managed to get quite heated and dangerous before any trips through the mound.

Those faeries can be quite vicious. But Maddy can be quite difficult, if she puts her mind to it, and her cousins are pretty useful helpers, despite being ‘normal.’

Maddy is under pressure to make a deal with one of the faerie houses. Her grandfather does his best to keep her safe. But what can one old man do against Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn?

This is nothing like My Little Pony.

I’ll be waiting for the last in the trilogy. There is an ‘Aunt Petunia’ moment coming up. Bound to be good.

The Dragonsitter Takes Off

Despite my non-pet leanings we once pet-sat a goldfish for some neighbours. The father (of the girl owner, not of the goldfish) indicated ‘discreetly’ that he would not be heartbroken if the goldfish snuffed it during their fortnight away. I had imagined a goldfish would be about as perfect for looking after as you could get. Enjoying that glowing feeling of doing someone a small service, while little fishy swam around in its bowl. Trouble is, that’s what it did. Swam. Opened and closed its little mouth, leaving me thinking it was desperately trying to tell me something, and failing. It was a relief to hand him (her?) back.

So I can totally see what it must have been like for little Edward Smith-Pickle minding his Uncle’s dragon, in Josh Lacey’s new book. He has to send email after email with bad tidings. The main problem being that Uncle Morton has gone to a retreat and is almost internet-less.

First Ziggy goes missing. Then Ziggy is found in the linen cupboard. It also appears that Ziggy might not be a male. So you can probably work out what Ziggy was doing in the linen cupboard.

Yes, there is soon the pitter-patter of little dragon feet. And soon there is also the earthquake of visiting, cast-out dragon Dad.

Edward’s Mum bonds surprisingly well with her dragon counterpart. Old films and chocolates are always good, even when you’re sitting in your post-dragon visit wreck of a house.

OK, so I know this is a short book for young readers. But I loved it. Was slightly miffed to find out there had been another book before this one, which I HAVE MISSED.

Mortal Fire

Let me tell you, I have had to twist arms to get this review. My very dear friend L Lee Löwe reads a lot and she reads well, and she has a lot of opinions on all that she reads. But she has this strange notion about writing reviews. She thinks they have to be good. So there is no problem, because this is a good review. Both in the respect of it being favourable, but mostly because it is well written.

I know very little about Elizabeth Knox, but she happens to be a favourite of Lee’s. I know that much, because when I sent Daughter to her for a visit, she returned home with a copy of one of Elizabeth’s books, and simply had to buy the next one… And the trouble is, after reading the excerpt from Mortal Fire, I happen to think it looks really very tempting.

Before I ado even more, here is the review:

“In a perfect world, we’d all be canny. Or Canny, the heroine of Elizabeth Knox’s latest YA novel, Mortal Fire. Canny is a 16-year-old maths prodigy whose genius is matched by her loyalty to her only friend, Marli, a polio victim confined to an iron lung, and by her own uncanny ability to see Extra – ‘cryptic letters salted like frost between a certain pair of gate posts, or floating like thistledown above the grandstand when she was at the racetrack with Marli’s family’, a script only Canny sees yet whose purpose has always been incomprehensible to her. A fully stand-alone story, Mortal Fire is set in the same alternate South Pacific world as Knox’s award-winning and well-loved Dreamhunter Duet, but about 50 years later.

Canny is obliged by her famously fierce mother and professor father to accompany her stepbrother Sholto and his girlfriend to a remote region of Southland, where they chance upon the Zarene Valley. Canny is left to her own devices while Sholto researches an earlier, and increasingly suspicious, mining disaster for his father. There is magic in the valley, and Canny soon recognises its affinity with her own Extra. As if driven by the power of her name – ‘canny’ derives, via Scots, from the Old English word ‘cunnan’ – she is determined to know more. Once she encounters the reclusive and hostile Zarene family, who use magic signs to protect themselves and their valley, and then the intriguing 17-year-old Ghislain, imprisoned in a house since 1929 by a powerful spell which keeps him from ageing, she learns just how powerful her own magic can be.

And it takes the magic of a fine writer to bring characters as complex, idiosyncratic, and infuriating as Knox’s to life. She writes with a lushness about the natural world which at times can be overwhelming, but we never doubt that we are right there in the valley, struggling  alongside Canny to discover her true nature and use it to free the many prisoners in Mortal Fire - her friend Marli, Ghislain, the Zarenes themselves. Life is indeed as intricate as Knox’s plotting, as vivid as her insights, and though the device by which Canny proves to have acted cannily – far-sightedly – seems rather too convenient, and I’d have wished for a glimpse of Ghislain’s despair during the three years which precede the final chapters, Mortal Fire is an exceptional fantasy novel – not perfect, but a perfect choice for the canny (and discerning) reader.

Read an excerpt of Mortal Fire.”

(The book will be published in the US on June 11th.)

Life after Artemis

What to do now that Artemis Fowl, that loveable rogue, has ‘retired?’ Luckily, the fact that Eoin Colfer writes hardboiled adult crime novels these days, has not prevented him from coming up with more outlandish plot ideas for us younger readers.

In W.A.R.P. The Reluctant Assassin he returns to the Victorian era, with a crime thriller complete with a sci-fi twist. As Eoin warns in his author’s notes, there are neither vampires nor werewolves on offer, but he can give you mutants, murderers, magicians, and other dreadful types. And an ‘Injun princess.’

We have Victorian urchin Riley and 21st century FBI agent Chevron Savano, age 17. (So, totally unrealistic. Or not. How are we to know what those alphabet agents really get up to?) What’s more, we have a wormhole. And Riley and Chevie couldn’t meet without one or other of them travelling through said wormhole.

Other people go through the wormhole, too, and in some cases it doesn’t end so well. W.A.R.P. is the witness relocation scheme with a difference. Witnesses are stashed in 1898, which is so safe.

There is a villain, who – I think – is actually quite charming. The blurb describes Garrick as a terrifying assassin – which he is – but I quite liked him. Not sure if I was meant to.

So, a thriller set in London, now and in 1898. The advantage being that even an FBI agent will recognise the landmarks in the past. They are the same, but smell worse. And Riley’s reaction to television was quite something.

This book has the usual humour that you come to expect and crave from Eoin, and whereas at times I was afraid that it would turn out to be only a Victorian FBI through the wormhole kind of affair, when you get to the end – which is not really an end at all – you understand that there is much more to it. Temptingly so.

Lulu and the duck, and the dog

Only a very skilled author could make a non-pet kind of person want to find and befriend a wild dog, and then keep it. Hatching a duck’s egg under your clothing is another almost attractive animal adventure (although I’d worry about accidentally harming the egg).

I have been reading about Lulu, one of Hilary McKay’s lovely heroines. She is only seven, and normally I wouldn’t pick a young book like these for my own entertainment. But I know I’ll be all right with Hilary.

Lulu, and the Duck in the Park, and Lulu, and the Dog from the Sea are the first two in the series about Lulu and her love for animals. True to Hilary’s story telling style, we have another set of lovely parents, and Lulu’s best friend is her cousin Mellie, with whom she doesn’t seem to have any quarrels, either.

It’s very refreshing, not to mention soothing, to read about characters who don’t fight every step of the way. No tantrums needed. No tedious misunderstandings. There is enough excitement in the story itself. And humour.

I just love them. I know I won’t be adopting a stray dog, but it’s still very charming. And I don’t mind admitting I shed some tears over that duck.

Sesame Seade

I enjoyed this first Sesame Seade book very much. To begin with I was merely amused, because the style is, well, amusing, and I could see it would appeal to nine to twelves, or thereabouts. But Sleuth on Skates by Clémentine Beauvais rather grew on me, and by the end I couldn’t put it down. Almost as if I’m no older than about ten, in fact.

Its author, Clémentine Beauvais, whose name I can’t even pronounce, is young and pretty and writes in her non-native English, which she learned by reading Harry Potter as a child. Then she came over here, went to Cambridge – naturally – and after a degree or two is writing books in English. (She has already written books in French…)

To top it all, she is funny. (I’m beginning to turn an unattractive shade of green here, but no doubt it will pass at some point.)

‘But what about the book?’ I hear you asking. It’s a crime story set in Christ’s College, Cambridge. It’s where 11-year-old Sesame lives with her parents, and she has the run of the college. She almost has the run of all Cambridge. She does what children have always done in fiction; she goes all over the place detecting and seeing her friends. As well as a bad guy or two.

Something funny is going on, and it’s not the pregnant duck. There are swans too, in lakes. Ballet, Russians, intrigue and inexplicably large cheques. Sesame rollerskates everywhere, and she finds things out. She solves the mystery, which is good, but reasonably innocent, so there is no need to disapprove of an 11-year-old detective at large in Cambridge.

Sesame uses large words. Her slightly dimmer friends need them explaining, so you too find out what they mean. This is an excellent way of teaching young readers a new vocabulary without them even noticing.

The plot is fun, the setting is charming, and the writing is simply funny. We like funny.

I could even see myself looking forward to Sesame’s next outrageous mystery. OK, OK, I am.

The Drowning

I must agree with Rachel Ward here, and suggest that if you have any hang-ups regarding water, you’d better not read her new novel The Drowning. It’s a bit spooky, and it contains a lot of water based horror.

But if you don’t worry – any more than normal – about water, this is a great horror thriller, set in a gritty, poor area of an English town, featuring some not terribly savoury characters. And that’s another thing; I generally don’t enjoy too much of this kind of background in a book, but The Drowning is quite spectacular.

Also, you can’t really work out how it will end. It could be bad. It could be good. The big question is whether something supernatural is going on, or if it’s all in Carl’s head.

Carl wakes up half drowned, not remembering what has happened. His older brother Rob is dead beside him. There is a muddy looking girl nearby. And he just doesn’t know what’s been going on. But water sets him off on a peculiar journey for the truth.

That truth isn’t particularly nice. Carl finds that Rob wasn’t always a nice boy. He discovers that quite possibly he himself wasn’t all that nice. Their single mother drinks, and they live in a dreadful little house. People in the neighbouhood seem to fear him.

What did he do? And how did Rob die?

And what is that water doing?

Drip. Drip…

The Fate in the Box

To me it feels like Michelle Lovric’s children’s books are getting better and better. I really, really liked The Fate in the Box, which is set in the same fantasy Venice as her previous books, but a little earlier.

It’s 1783 and a child is about to be sacrificed. As prologues go, this was a good one. In only a few short pages you get to know and like – love, even – Amneris, and you can just feel that something momentous is going to happen. But you can’t guess what.

The ghastly Irishman Fogfinger has taken over Venice and everyone is scared. Automata do everything for the rich, while the poor get poorer. And hungrier. There is much going on that people don’t understand, but Amneris and her friends Tockle and Biri end up being thrown in at the deep end, in more ways than one.

They are brave and friendly and resourceful, like any good fictional heroes should be. They even befriend the rather dreadful Latenia, who is rich and spoilt, and too fat to be sacrificed.

And what about the crocodile that reputedly eats children? Or the strange goings-on in the families of Tockle and Amneris? Talking – and flying – cats seems quite a normal thing, once you get used to this version of Venice. Its statues are not always as stony as they appear.

Things get worse before they can get better. There is an underground movement against Fogfinger, but what can they do?

This is just so exciting! And the clever Michelle adds lots of real natural history as well as facts about Venice to her fantasy plot, so there is a risk that the reader gets a worthwhile education.

Go on! Take that risk!

Blame My Brain – the review

I can safely say I have never felt the urge to crawl into a supermarket trolley. And doing so with vodka, would appear to make it more crowded, so I don’t really think I will bother. While on the subject of trolleys and supermarkets, I enjoyed visualising Mr M and his wife out hunter gathering in their local Sainsbury’s. (Wine and cheese hunted down by Mr M, and porridge oats successfully gathered by the wife, as she’s been programmed to do. Or so I imagine.)

Mr M’s wife, Nicola Morgan, has written a book about brains, as humorously as ever. It’s a bit of a trademark of hers; humour and wit. And lots of it. There is a new edition out of Blame My Brain, which contrary to what I’d imagined has actually been written for the teenagers themselves. Those with the brains in question.

It explains a lot, including why I was a perfect teenager (as elaborated on here by Nicola yesterday), and why I am also such a perfect parent. It’s not easy (actually, it is) but someone has to be.

BMB is very interesting, and should be extremely helpful to those in need. Teenagers with teenage brains, and their parents who have already forgotten what it was like to have one.

There is science to base almost every fact on, and the best thing is that even if you don’t fit the stereotype, it doesn’t matter. The world has a use for all sorts of people; the perfect ones, and those temporarily a little bit odd. (I believe that’s the one with the vodka in the trolley.)

I can’t decide who will benefit the most from reading BMB. The young person who needs reassurance that they are totally normal, or the unsympathetic oldies who don’t think they are. Both probably.

And seeing as you not only get better at something by doing it – repeatedly – but you can learn to do quite a bit of it by watching someone else do it, I’d say us oldies have a duty to perform, and to do it well. That way we will be looked after by someone in our even older age. Someone looking after us as well as we do our own oldies.

Or some such theory.

(At no time when chased by a lion have I felt so depressed that I have fallen asleep. Which could be why I’ve made it this far.)

Convince me!

It was a kind of emperor’s new clothes moment. I wondered why I hadn’t looked at it this way before.

I read a review by someone of someone else’s book, neither of which are important here. What the reviewer said was that the two main characters in this novel surprised each other by what they said, and what they did. But they didn’t surprise him as a reader. And he felt he wanted to be surprised.

It’s back to the ‘show, not tell.’ Probably hard to do (I am sure I would struggle), but necessary.

I fell out with someone over a book they’d written. I liked it a lot. But I didn’t like it until I was about ten percent into the book, when it changed in an instant. And the reason was that the author described everything in too much boring detail, forgetting to make a story of the ‘introduction.’

One of the reasons my comments weren’t welcomed was that I admitted to not liking the main character in this first tenth of the story. The author pointed out they liked the main character a lot. I could tell. The description of this woman was such that you were meant to see how lovely she was. But I never saw that she was wonderful. I was told she was.

And that’s the difference.

Luckily – or sadly – she was murdered at this point, and I could get on with the story. Because I didn’t actually care she was dead. Not one bit. She never came alive for me. Not even in death.