Shattered

After narrowly avoiding being blown up in Fractured, Teri Terry’s heroine Kyla (that girl has more names and aliases than anyone else I know) continues her search for herself, and her fight against the sick society she lives in. In Shattered Kyla/Riley/Lucy/Rain goes off in search of her real mother.

She does surprisingly well, until a variety of weird and awful happenings suggest that there is a lot more to truth than you’d expect. And who do you love more; blood family or adopted family?

Teri offers a juxtaposition between the beautiful Lake District, where she sends Kyla, and the long and awful arm of the Lorders, who seemingly can do anything they like, as and when they like.

One thought I had while reading this story, set in around 2054, was to wonder if young readers would see it as mostly scare mongering, not likely to happen. Because I see only the very near likelihood of something similar happening for real, some time soon or a little further into the future.

This is the kind of book that you just have to read very, very quickly. Although I decided against trying to read the end at a point when I needed to read to stay calm. It was not looking like a calm ending by any means.

The plot at the end was a little convoluted, perhaps, but satisfying. By then I knew who I wanted to really suffer, and whom I disliked, and who was all right. Anyway, things are rarely all black and white. There is much grey in Shattered.

What I want to know is how authors come up with the unlikely coded words their characters go round using. And witnessing only in passing what the resistance movement do in these books, I was left thinking I wouldn’t mind a book about them. What they do, and how they do it, and why. Those who are continually having to go round exchanging phrases about how beautiful the tulips in Prague look at this time of year.

Lucky you if you have this one, or all three books left to read!

Papa Chagall

I knew less about Marc Chagall than I wanted to admit. Sometimes the names of these big artists just blend together and you know they are great, but who painted what, exactly?

Now I know, because I have been properly introduced to Marc Chagall and his paintings and his life story, all in one fell swoop through the medium of a children’s picture book. They are often the best.

In Tell Us a Story, Papa Chagall, Laurence Anholt paints pictures of Chagall and of his paintings, with ‘real’ paintings used every now and then to illustrate parts of Chagall’s life. They are truly weird, but very appealing in a childish kind of way. What’s not to like about beautiful women and flying cows? In the same painting.

His grandchildren come and see the great artist in his studio, and like children do, they insist on being told a story. And he tells them about his life, about his childhood in Russia, about how he met their grandmother and what happened in the war (WWII).

They are touching stories, and help you understand him and sympathise with how his life turned out. But no matter how hard it was, Papa Chagall has time for his grandchildren, and time for one more story.

Rather wonderful.

Stuffed

I’m thinking it’s been too long, this wait for the third instalment of Miriam Halahmy’s Hayling Island cycle. But here it is at last; Stuffed.

Like the middle book Illegal, it’s about the bad girl, or perhaps more accurately, about the scary and rich and not always so likeable girl, Jess. It’s a very clever move, writing about less ‘worthy’ characters. It’s given me an opportunity of getting to know someone completely different to myself (obviously…) and finding it’s possible to like them too.

Jess’s family have had lots of money and have not been shy about flaunting it or spending it. And all of a sudden there is a change.

She has just met Ryan, who is a very nice boy. He tinkers with his van and dreams of going to Africa. But he too has a big problem in his life.

This is good stuff. Not only does Miriam need to untangle Jess’s and Ryan’s relationship, but also their individual big worries, while throwing in a few more things like sibling rivalry and the rest of the world.

Despite being a fan already, I began reading rather cautiously, but it didn’t take long for me to get totally caught up, and I didn’t cringe once, the way you sometimes do over books about teen romance and teen problems.

You could easily read this on its own, but why not read all three books? They throw a new light on contemporary teen life, and they are anything but the same as ‘all those other books.’

The Dragonsitter’s Island

I love Nessie. So I was rather perturbed to find that in this latest Dragonsitter book by Josh Lacey, the Loch Ness Monster (because it is she) is the bad guy.

Someone is eating the sheep, and we know it’s not Ziggy. Or baby Arthur. So I suppose it has to be Nessie (or Josh simply got it wrong). Perhaps this is Nessie’s evil twin/cousin, or something.

That detail aside, this is as much fun as all the other Dragonsitter books. This time Edward and his family have gone to Uncle Morton’s home, on a Scottish island, to mind the dragons while he’s off ‘somewhere’ again. That man is not to be trusted. He always drops off the radar when he is most needed.

There is romance in the air, which bodes well for the future. And it gets pretty exciting when Ziggy and Nessie have it out, and Mr McDougall realises he could maybe possibly perhaps have been wrong about the sheep-eater.

And as much fun as Josh’s story is, half the fun comes from Garry Parsons’ magical illustrations. Eddie and Ziggy are their illustrations. See those armbands?

The Raven Queen

Just as Che Golden suspected, I can hereby confirm that her book The Raven Queen is the best in her faerie trilogy, set in and around and under Blarney. The first two were very enjoyable, but this one has that little bit extra. I think what it is, is that Che and her heroine Maddy have worked towards a grand finale, and by now both know how to deliver.

It’s good to return to a setting you’re familiar with and people you’ve learned to love, seeing them grappling with a new challenge. In a first novel you don’t know what people can do. By the third book you do, and you can concentrate on wondering how they will do it, and not if.

Maddy was sent away to live with her ghastly aunt at the end of book two, and that’s where we find her in The Raven Queen. She’s miserable, and she’s still not as safe as her grandfather had intended when he banished her to live in a town, surrounded by iron. She’s visiting her batty Great-Aunt Kitty – who is not crazy at all, of course – and my one regret is that we don’t get to see more of Kitty.

Since there is no point in having a story where the heroine is safe behind iron fences, Maddy and her cousins Roisin and Danny soon end up somewhere totally unsafe. The faerie world isn’t the same it was before, however. Friend and foe are no longer friend and foe, and Maddy needs to work out who she can trust. (I say no one.)

The Winter Queen is starting a war, and that can’t end well. This time we get to meet the newly awakened Morrighan, boss of all faeries, and even she has her work cut out, dealing with the Kings and Queens who all want to take over from Queen Liadan.

I won’t say what happens. But it’s good that Maddy isn’t alone in being able to think on her feet, and I particularly like the fact that Danny is the one to do the girly stuff; like pack their food and feel sick.

Besides, there isn’t much you can’t achieve with Cheese & Onion crisps. And I feel I understand banshees so much better now.

Preston’s Plumage

Some people don’t want to earn money. Or so it seems, in this crazy world. Just like I give you my witchy musings for free (would love to charge if I could), Damien M Love is doing his level best to let you read his latest short story for free. Except the big bookshop in the (cyber)sky will only let big publishers give ebooks away for free.

Small Damien didn’t want to give up, however, so he is using the loophole of being allowed to offer something to download for free for five days. Starting today. So get shopping! It won’t cost you anything but your peace of mind.

And that’s only if you read Preston’s Plumage, a nice (no, it isn’t) and short (yes, it is) story. It is short. It is good. It is creepy, in an amusing sort of way.

It’s about a not very nice boy not called Preston. You could say he’s dim, even. He’s got a granny. There’s a fence. And a major splat.

Don’t worry; it will soon be over. And you won’t have paid for it, unless you wait until after Monday, and thwart Damien by paying good money for his little story on how crime pays. Or maybe not.

The Winter of Magic

I get it now. Ebony McKenna is working her way through the seasons. We did autumn three springs ago (she’s from Australia. She’s bound to get things like that ‘wrong’), and now it’s Christmas (with the before and after, so almost right) and it’s cold in Brugel. Very cold. Especially with the electricity cuts.

The Winter of Magic, the third book about Ondine and her beautiful Hamish, who is only occasionally a ferret, is out as an ebook, which means you can do amusing things with the lovely footnotes. Ebony said to tap the screen, but no amount of tapping the Resident IT Consultant’s Kindle did me any good. Was she pulling my leg, or is my equipment no good? Not to worry, the footnotes come at the end of each chapter, and if you have a good memory, you will even remember what they refer to, by the time you get to them.

If you’re waiting for Hamish, you can’t wait too long. Three years is obviously far too long a gap, but you will do it for Hamish. I mean Ondine – of course – because she is the main character here. A witch. Luckily for her, most of her witchery must be done by kissing Hamish. Such hard graft. 

They are back with Ondine’s family, working hard in the pub. Her sister is getting married, and her great aunt is poking her nose into everything. The Duchess is trying to make herself popular, while town is filling up with witches (it’s time for the CovenCon), one of whom is a very bad witch.

This is such fun. Again. I recommend this book against the dark depressing times we have to suffer through before it’s summer, or at least spring, again.

The seasonally obsessed Ebony seems to plan to end the series (which personally I thought was a trilogy) with a spring themed fourth book. She had better be kind to Hamish!

(Review of first book here. To buy The Winter of Magic.)

Tribute

Tribute is a terrific new fantasy novel by Ellen Renner. It’s another one for my best-of list in December, and I’m so excited I don’t know what to do about waiting for the sequel. There has been no mention of a sequel, but there has to be one. And in my opinion Ellen should be a household name. She obviously is in this household, but I would like her to be really famous. And rich. Not that I imagine she could write faster with more money, but still.

A Tribute is a slave belonging to a Mage, and Zara was given Swift when she was a child, and then her father, the Archmage, killed her Tribute when they became too friendly. Her revenge was to join the resistance, the Knowledge Seekers, giving them information about the ruling Mages.

As with so many magical settings, it doesn’t help that a character can do all sorts of magic, like entering the mind of animals – and sometimes of people – flying, and so on. Because whatever you can do, someone else can do to you. And the Archmage is more than happy to do the most unspeakable things, which is why Zara hates him.

When her father takes a hostage from another group of people, Zara ends up needing to do a lot more. She has to break with the Mages and go against her own people and join forces with the others, where not all are sympathetic to a Mage joining them.

This is civil war, it is slaughter of hundreds of innocent people. It is very cruel. But it is also a tale of friendship and trust across boundaries between different people. It’s very exciting, and not everything has been resolved by the end of the book. Hence my impatience.

(On the other hand, I would also like to see another Castle book, so…)

(Once I’d stopped moaning quite so much, I discovered that there is a sequel titled Outcaste coming in August. It looks like August this year. Yippee!!)

Paws and Whiskers

Who knew Philip Pullman has had dogs? Yeah, I suppose you all did, except me. He doesn’t strike me as a pet person, somehow. But he has had dogs. Three, of which two were very stupid, according to the doting Philip.

I learned all this in Paws and Whiskers, which is an anthology about cats and dogs, chosen by none other than Jacqueline Wilson. She wrote about her own cats, and they sounded so lovely I was halfway to Battersea and its Dogs & Cats* Home before I remembered I don’t want a pet.

Being my normal cynical self, I was intending to glance at this anthology, before handing it to someone who might appreciate it. Seems that person is me. I have only sampled the odd thing here and there – so far – but I can see that P&W will have to join my shelf of collections, where I can dip in and out of stories as and when I need something nice. (Will have to see about getting the shelf made longer.)

Jacqueline has written a new story herself, and there is also her old Werepuppy. Apart from Philip Pullman, you can read about Malorie Blackman’s fondness for German shepherds, even when they are cowards. The usual suspects like Michael Morpurgo and Enid Blyton are there, as is Sharon Creech with her lovely Dog. Adèle Geras has written about a cat I didn’t know she once had, including a poem about her beloved pet, who was never left alone when they went on holiday. They took turns…

Patrick Ness is there with his much missed Manchee, along with countless expected and unexpected authors who have had pets, or who have written about them. Some pieces are excerpts from books, and other stories have been specially written for P&W.

The really good thing with this kind of selection of writing is that if you love Jacqueline (and who doesn’t?) you will discover new writers and their work, simply because if it’s good enough for your hero, it will be good enough for you.

Illustrations – as nearly always – by Nick Sharratt.

*Some of the proceeds from the sale of this book go to the home.

Is that an avalanche I hear?

Do they help? Those reviews you see when you shop for books online. Do they? Or is it just reassuring for the author of a book to see many reviews, hopefully mostly positive?

If I wasn’t reviewing books on a blog like this, I would most likely put up a lot of reviews over there instead. As it is, I do a few of them. I don’t have time for more, because I tend not to be able to use the same reviews as I write for Bookwitch. They are often in a style that wouldn’t work elsewhere.

But then I get told by authors how valuable the shopping site reviews are. Some authors actively ask people to post a review once they’ve read their book. So it is at least perceived as useful. When there are truly awful reviews on the shopping site, I can see that having a more favourable one added will balance things somewhat.

I assume it also matters more if there are only a few reviews, whereas some books have more reviews than I as a potential buyer would ever want to read.

Which brings me to the question whether my reviews here make a difference. I just don’t know. Sometimes readers leave a comment to say they will definitely buy the book now, or that they have ordered a copy, and occasionally they report back later to say what they thought of the book.

But that’s just a handful. No one will eat well off that number of sales.

On the other hand, perhaps I start avalanches of book buying in silence. I hope I do.