Assassin's Heart

On the face of it, Sarah Ahiers' ASSASSIN'S HEART is a classic vengeance story: Lea (Oleander) Saldana belongs to the first family of clippers in Lovero--highly trained assassin's whose work is in service of the dark goddess who protects their kingdom. Her privileged life is only complicated by a secret romance with a rival Da Via--until she comes home one night to find her family murdered by the Da Vias. Lea vows vengeance, promising not to rest until the Da Vias (including the boy who loved and betrayed her) are dead.

But the story is much more than just a revenge plot. Ahiers' world is rich and complex. The cities of Lovero have some of the rich and vibrant feel of Italy, but this is a world of fascinating gods and angry ghosts that haunt the dead plains between walled cities. Lea's quest for vengeance forces her to confront the limits of her abilities, her heart, and her faith.

I loved the immersive world Ahiers' wrote (though I think I'd be terrified to actually visit it). I loved the surprises and twists she threw into the story, I loved Lea's growing relationship with Les, and I was sad to leave the world as the story ended.

Rebel of the Sands

I've been wanting to read Alwyn Hamilton's REBEL OF THE SANDS since it was announced. (Really: her announcement was at the top of Publisher's Weekly's deal announcements the same week mine was announced. It was hard not to notice!)

So I was not unnaturally thrilled at a chance to read an ARC--and I loved it just as much as I hoped I would. Alwyn's world--a desert kingdom inspired by Arabian culture with religious links to the First Beings (djinn and other mystical creatures)--is so vivid. But it's not an easy world, and for Amina, a sixteen-year-old orphan living in Dustwalk, in the middle of nowhere, all she wants to do is get out. Her opportunity comes in the unlikely form of a boy named Jin, who's wanted by the Sultan's soldiers. But as Amina gets farther from the world she was born to and learns more about the politics destroying her native land and the rebellion growing to change that, the  more she begins to question who she really is--and what she wants.

I loved this book--I loved Amina's strength, and Jin's humor (even when it got him in trouble. Or maybe especially then). I adored the setting, how I could imagine riding through the night across a Nightmare-haunted desert. The story is wonderfully paced too. It has all my favorite things: a unique setting, a powerful romance, and terrifying and powerful creatures. Really, a book for all YA fantasy readers to enjoy.

The Storyspinner

I was able to meet Becky Wallace at a book launch she held for The Storyspinner at the King's English in Salt Lake City. She was wonderful and gracious and I loved hearing about her book. Luckily, the book it self is equally charming.

This is the kind of YA fantasy I love: strong heroines, clever characters, a fun romance, and just the right amount of historical-esque details for a fantasy world.

Wallace uses six different POVs to tell the story of the Keepers who are charged with preserving a faltering magic that divides their kingdom from the southern dukedoms (and protects both sides, though the Southerners have come to believe that the Keepers are the stuff of legends). But when things start breaking through the barriers, a small group of keepers goes in search of a missing princess who can help heal the magic.

Meanwhile, Johanna is reeling from the death of her family and struggling to support her brothers while her grieving mother drinks away their livelihood. Her family were performers, respected tradesmen--but after her father's death they were sent away from their troop. When Johanna is invited to perform the storyspinning art her father taught her at a local duke's estate, she jumps at the chance--despite her mixed feelings about the duke's heir, Rafi. When dead girls start showing up all across the country, the same age and look as Johanna, it becomes clear that Johanna might be ensnared by a plot much bigger and much more dangerous than she could have imagined.

While some of the POV shifts were confusing at first (I didn't fully understand what the Keepers were doing), I quickly became attached to the characters, particularly Johanna, who is strong and spunky and smart. Wallace writes wonderful romantic scenes--full of sweetness and tension and that heart-pinging sense of longing.

And, this is probably just me and the coincidence of the heroine's name, but as I read I kept thinking of one of my favorite (and undoubtedly cheesy) childhood movies--Disney's Black Arrow (Lady Joanna! Beautiful Lady!).

The Hollow Kingdom

 My sister recommended this book to me--and I think  it was only by virtue of her recommendation that I kept reading initially. The fairy-tale nature of the story was originally a little hard to get into, particularly since the book starts with a prologue of characters who don't appear in the rest of the book (except as mentioned in passing). But I'm glad I kept reading, because the story--particularly the characters drew me in.

Kate and her sister Emily have recently been orphaned and have gone to stay with their great aunts on Hollow Hill, at an estate that belongs to Kate. But Kate soon realizes that they are in grave danger: their estate rests on a goblin kingdom, and the goblin king is determined to have her. Of course, Kate's outspoken insistence of danger only draws pitying looks from her aunts and her uncle, who are convinced that the goblins are a product of her overwrought nerves. When Kate's sister Emily disappears, however, Kate swallows her pride and repugnance and goes directly to the goblin king himself to help win Emily back--knowing, as she does, that she's dooming herself to a life below-ground as the goblin king's bride.

I really loved the characters here: Kate is feisty and smart, and Marek (the goblin king) is, well, oddly charming. He's ugly, but he's forthright. Lots of the reviews mention being disturbed by the whole Stockholm syndrome thing (that Kate would fall for her captor), but Marek never made any pretences to be other than what he was. And in his world, he had no choice: goblin women don't bear children well--the only way to ensure the continuance of his line and the protection of his kingdom was to steal a wife. So, while I was initially horrified for Kate, I did understand why he could put his people above her preferences. What made this book fascinating, though, was the way that Kate and Marek came to understand and love each other. (That, or maybe watching Labyrinth as a teenager had a bad influence on my taste in romance. I still find myself dreaming about David Bowie's goblin king!).

The pacing and structure of this book was a little odd: there are really two different stories, tenuously connected. Despite that, I enjoyed this book. The storytelling is charmingly old-fashioned--it reminds me more of books by Lloyd Alexander and the fantasy authors of my childhood than current fast-paced fantasy retellings.

House of Ivy and Sorrow

 Natalie Whipple's House of Ivy and Sorrow is a very different novel from her debut Transparent. From the opening chapter I was intrigued: Jo Hemlock lives with her nana in an unusual house in a town full of magic. Though Jo's life hasn't been perfect (her mom died ten years ago from a brutal magical curse), she feels safe.

Safe, that is, until signs that the person who cursed her mother may be finding ways to get past the spells her nana set on the town. Until a stranger shows up inside the town, looking for her. And a boy she's always liked finally starts to notice her.

The opening chapter is magical: dark and warm and whimsical. I love the relationship between Jo and her Nana. And the intrigue sets in right away, which is nice.

It does slow down a little in the middle--we get more of Jo's relationship and less of the danger--but it picks up considerably at the end. I enjoyed Whipple's snappy dialogue and the development of Jo's first boyfriend. While some readers seem to think the lightness detracts from the gothic tone, it worked for me. (But then, I'm a wimp who generally doesn't do really dark stuff anyway).

Cruel Beauty

 Rosamund Hodge's Cruel Beauty has been on my to-read list for sometime and I was thrilled to find it lived up to the hype. In this imaginative retelling of Beauty and the Beast, Nyx has been betrothed to the demon lord her whole life--and raised to kill him. Her family believes this will set her world (an alternate universe England with strong Roman overtones) free from the spell that confines them to their island beneath a parchment sky.

Nyx herself is willing, but bitter that she has been chosen over her sister because she is the expendable one. Not unnaturally, given the source material, she finds herself drawn to the demon lord in ways she did not expect. As she learns more about him and the spell-bound house he inhabits, she becomes more and more uncertain of her ability (or her desire) to follow through on the original plan.

There was so much I loved about this. The prose was gorgeous and smart. I loved all the well-placed allusions to Roman mythology. The book also reminded me of C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, both for the rivalry between the sisters and the idea of deep sacrifices--I was thrilled to find in the author's note that this link was not accidental. And the allusions to T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets? Even better.

But I loved, loved, the romance. Nyx was strong and prickly, the demon lord dark and quixotic and with a biting sense of humor. Just the kind of match-up I adore.

The novel wasn't perfect: I still have some confusion as to how Nyx was so easily able to obtain the demon lord's keys and I didn't love the love-triangle aspect here, but the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses.

Unspoken

I loved Brennan's Demon Lexicon, and I have been waiting for some time to get my hands on a copy of this particular book. It did not disappoint.

The premise was intriguing. Kami Glass has lived her whole life in a town under the shadow of the currently uninhabited great house. People speak of the Lynburns in tones of reverence or abhorrence, but no one is indifferent to them. But they've been gone for all of Kami's life. So when she hears they are about to return, the girl-reporter in her has to know what's going on. But what she finds is much more than expected.

To begin, all Kami's life she has talked to a voice in her head: Jared. She suspects she might be crazy, but Jared is familiar, comforting, and she's not about to give him up. Until the Lynburns return, and she finds that Jared is real--and he's one of them. Then, what was fascinating becomes terrifying. (In fact, I loved this part of the storyline, that Brennen did not romanticize how creepy and horrifying it might be to find that a *real* person has access to your mind and feelings. Particularly when that person is someone you might otherwise very much like). Not that she's ready to give up on Jared--her history with him runs too deep--but things are . . . complicated.

Not to mention, someone is doing dark magic in the village, leaving bloody animal carcasses in the forest. But when Jared starts seeing strange creatures in the wood and a girl turns up dead, Kami and her friends realize that it's up to them to figure out what's going on--and what the Lynburns have to do with it all.

Brennan has a knack for creating fascinating, flawed characters. I loved Kami--her outspokenness, her inquisitiveness, and even the fact that she wasn't conventionally pretty. (In fact, when Jared first meets her, he's not impressed).  And I loved Jared too. He was interesting, intense, prickly (in all the right ways) and outrageous. Kami's friends were fun and unpredictable too.

But more than the characters, I loved Brennen's writing, which was the perfect balance of dark, funny, and lush.

What I didn't love? The ending. I really disliked the ending and it's only (slightly) redeemed for me by the fact that there is a sequel . . .

Stolen Songbird

This book was precisely the kind of lush, vividly imagined fantasy that I enjoy, and it focused around a mythical creature--trolls--that we don't often hear of. At least, not as the heroes. (Though I have my own suspicions as to what the trolls *really* are).

Cecile de Troyen's life is just about to begin (her diva mother has arranged for her to come to the city to begin a career as a singer) when she is kidnapped and sold to the trolls--as a bride for the king's son.

Cecile is not unnaturally horrified, both to find that the trolls she's always assumed were just a story are, in fact, real, and at her abduction and forced marriage. It's not that she finds her prospective husband unattractive (as a point of fact, the prince, Tristan, is unnaturally good looking). It's simply that he's a troll. He's not human. And he clearly has no time or affection for her. Their marriage is a matter of convenience, an attempt to fulfill a prophesy that says that a human bride can break the spell that keeps the trolls bound to their mountain. If she could run, she would. Unfortunately, their marriage vows also mean that Cecile can feel what Tristan feels--and if she dies, Tristan will die too.

Tristan is not entirely what he seems, either. Though trolls cannot lie, they are particularly good at misdirection and manipulation. And Tristan is in the middle of a campaign to challenge his father and change the face of Trollus. The more Cecile learns about Tristan, Trollus, and the spell that binds them, the more unsure she is about what she actually wants.

The book started out slowly for me, but I was intrigued enough to keep reading, and I'm glad I did. The romance between Cecile and Tristan was great (just the kind of heart-twinging conflict that I love), and Trollus was an intricate, vividly imagined world. While I do think the pacing of the book was also a bit slow (the story could have been trimmed without much damage to the plot or character development), the story was rewarding: a lovely, lyrical, dark fantasy.

In the Shadows

 In the Shadows, Kiersten White and Jim Di Bartolo

I loved this little gem of a book. In an unusual combination of text and gorgeous illustrations by Di Bartolo (husband of the fabulous Laini Taylor), this story follows a handful of teenagers in turn of the century Maine. Sisters Cora and Minnie have had an idyllic childhood, but a chance encounter with the local witch and the death of their father have changed all that. When Arthur shows up at their mother's boarding house, their mother claims him as a long-lost relative. But Arthur hides dangerous secrets about his past. Brothers Charlie and Thomas are sent to Maine for Charlie's health, and fall quickly for the sisters. But Charlie is dying and Thomas overheard a strange conversation of his father's that suggests a darker purpose for their visit. When strangers start converging on the town, dangerous secrets begin emerging.

I'll admit I didn't understand the art at the beginning, though I was intrigued. As  I read, the graphic novel added a layer of depth and intensity to the story, because it made it clear that something big, something supernatural was happening. And White's prose was  lovely edition. Romantic, gothic, eerily beautiful--I read most of this in one sitting.