fantasy Archives - The Boomerang Books Blog

Review: The Vanishing Throne by Elizabeth May

The Vanishing Throne by Elizabeth May is the follow up to the first book in her Scottish steampunk faerie series, The Falconer. Since I adored The Falconer so much, I went into this one with high hopes for another amazing and heart-pounding action adventures. It did NOT disappoint! In fact, I feel thoroughly exhausted right now from just how intense and face-paced this book was. It drove us forward into a war-torn world, from wicked faerie prisons to a destroyed Edinburgh. I felt like I fought battles, wielded a sword, and unravelled faerie secrets right alongside Aileana. I think that’s why I adore this series so much! It makes you feel part of the world, taking every step and breath with the protagonist.

The story takes off several months after the events of The Falconer. Aileana is now imprisoned by the wicked and evil Lonnrach as he drains her blood and roots through her memories looking for a hidden object. And Aileana is not alone alone, she has no idea if the world survived the breaking of the seal and every monster in faerie escaping into the world. Are her friends alive? What happened to her love, her mysterious faerie warrior partner, Kiaran McKay? Every day is a torment of wondering and hating herself from failing to keep everyone safe. Until she gets a chance to escape, aided by Kiaran’s long lost sister, who will stop at nothing to get Aileana back home. Except home is not what she left. And Lonnrach will stop at nothing to get her back. Even with her Falconer lineage making her a better warrior, it’s not enough. Aileana needs to unlock her powers — but the cost of that is so very deathly high.

As a huge fan of faerie stories in general, I really loved exploring May’s Scottish variation. I’m used to the Irish strains with Holly Black, Cassandra Clare, and Maggie Stiefvater’s books. But this really pulls forth a dark and viciously monstrous breed of faerie who are very far removed from being human. Sometimes I found the rules of their powers a bit convoluted and would’ve preferred some clear-cut definitions, but overall it was nail-biting not knowing which fae alliances would hold and which were doomed from the start. We also explore more into the backstory of the Seelie and Unseelie rulers and some ancient and dark forces who have answers Aileana would do a lot for. It was also excellent to finally find out the origin of the Falconers themselves.

Aileana continues to be a collision of vulnerability and violent warrior. I love this about her! We’re not given a YA character who just bulldozes into any dangerous situation. Oh Aileana wants to fight. She will fight anything (Kiaran also is 10/10 fond of stabbing things and is frequently told to sit down). But the book takes time to explore the PTSD of the traumas she’s gone through, to talk about her fears and feelings. It made the story so personal throughout all the action scenes and plot twists. I also was relieved that the 1800s “proper society” speak and plot lines had been retired (um, due to the world turning to ash and war) because Aileana was less constricted by that and free to be her badass self.

The friendship between Aileana and Kiaran’s sister, Aithinne, was a delightful surprise! Finding female-friendships you just can’t help but root for is my favourite thing. Aithinne was also a fantastic character, a bit mad from being locked up so long, and very flippant in fighting so she’d try Aileana’s patience amazingly. She brought some humour to the otherwise intense and dark storyline. But Aithinne also had her traumas. The book touched on women bonding together and lifting each other up in the face of having been abused by a man, and it was very tone-appropriate for this day and age too.

The book also explores a lot of the backstory and history of the faerie kingdoms. It’s a lot, but it was so good to get answers…and obviously unwind more questions. Some of the story takes place in the pixie kingdom where there’s a fragile alliance with some of the fey and the remaining living humans. There are also explorations to fae realms and shadow realms, and it keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time. Not to mention the battles! The word we’re after here is: INTENSE.

This was a very satisfying sequel, with no hint of a lagging pace, and I couldn’t have been more pleased! The unwinding romance of Aileana (a girl who causes chaos) and Kiaran (a boy who brings death) is addictive and satisfying and I can’t wait to see where it goes in the finale, The Fallen Kingdom.

Review: Girls Of Paper And Fire by Natasha Ngan

Girls of Paper And Fire by Natasha Ngan is a brutal and harrowing story, mixed with gorgeous writing and a lush setting and a heroine you can’t help but adore. It’s a dark premise, but it’s handled so well, and it’s also important to discuss. And how amazing it is to see YA shelves being filled with more and more diverse fantasy tales?! This is rooted in Asian lore and myths and also has a sweet and lovely queer girl romance, along with demons and rebellions, secrets and assassins, and women who fight back.

The story follows Lei, who is a member of the Paper caste — the lowest of lows and also, disgracefully, human. The world is ruled by demons, with a demon king on the throne who has zero tolerance for rebellions. Her life is pretty quiet and simple as she lives with her father since her mother was taken by the palace some years ago. But then the palace guards return, this time for Lei. He’s heard tales of her intriguing golden eyes and he wants to own her too, nevermind how Lei feels about it. With no option but to go (or die), Lei is taken to the palace and turned into one of the king’s concubines. She and eight other girls are trained to serve him, learning to charm and be delicate ladies with manners. But Lei wants to find out what happened to her mother and she’d rather see this king destroyed instead of taking more girls. Amidst trying to stay afloat in this quiet but backstabbing world, she starts to fall for one of the other girls in the king’s consort: the mysterious and beautiful Wren, who is definitely more than she seems. Lei is determined not to lie down and let the world walk over her. It’s time to show the world she’s not made of paper, but instead: fire.

I particularly enjoyed the world building Ngan gives us. It’s intense and well-developed, making it a delight to explore as we learn the history and why the demon king is in power. It had a lot of typical average-YA-fantasy things going in, but wrote them in a captivating fresh voice. The inspiration is from the author’s own Chinese and Malaysian background and I think that’s incredibly special too. You can tell how much heart and love went into this telling!

The premise is ultimately very dark, centring around a demon king who murders humans and rapes his consorts. While it never gets graphic, it is also careful to unpack and discuss this horror. I’m actually really glad the author is dealing with this dark topic for teens because, as she said in her author’s note: While I realise these are hard discussions, especially for teens, it is of vital important we have them. Books can be safe places to explore difficult topics. While we cannot shelter young people from being exposed to sexual violence, whether through lived experience or indirectly, we can give them a way to safely engage with and reflect upon these issues. I hope Girls provides such a space.” This is so so true. Teens are aware and affected by these issues TODAY and they need discussion, not sheltering. It’s a horrible and harrowing topic, but handled with care.

I also loved the inclusion of romance between Lei and Wren! They’re so sweet together and I loved how their initial attraction grows into a deeper and lovely bond. It’s also special to see lgbtqia+ romances starring in fantasy books, because that’s still something we’re starved of!

Lei is such a winning protagonist too. She’s so real. She’s unsure and anxious, and prone to impulsive decisions. I loved her brave and fiery side, but also how she wasn’t stony or closed off. Her heart was on her sleeve and it was refreshing to have a heroine who is equal parts brave and awkward.

Honestly these girls just stole the whole book and are here to steal your hearts as well. It’s a gripping and emotional read, fantastically written and engaging. It features people who are cruel and people who are kind. It’s no light fluffy fantasy, but it’s one that will stay with you and make you think.

Greats Gift Ideas # 2 -Tweens and Teens

They may think they’re too old for Christmas but thrust one of these great reads into their Christmas stockings this year and your tweens and teens will love your forever, or at least have something incredible to tie them over until the turkey is ready. Here are some recent must-read middle grade and young adult fiction titles that make ideal gifts this season. There are literally dozens more, some featured already as full reviews this year. Check them out, here. Alternatively, visit the Boomerang Books Christmas gift books list for more literary inspiration.

His Name Was Walter by Emily Rodda

Historic, mysterious and crawling with supernatural scare. This is a consuming story within a story of love, embezzled fortunes and trust and old mysteries. Rodda enchants with her ability to knit the past with the present and overlay it all with a good old fashioned fairy-tale that lances kids’ hearts with imagination. Highly recommended late night reading for tweens and lovers of twisted fairy tales.

HarperCollins Children’s Books August 2018

Continue reading Greats Gift Ideas # 2 -Tweens and Teens

Review: Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean

I was absolutely drawn into Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean from the moment I started chapter one. It presents such a lush and dimensional world, full of monsters and oppression and girls hiding their true forms. It’s also based on Japanese mythology, by an ownvoices author, and just getting lost in the legends, weapons, food and monster lore was fascinating and brilliant.

The story follows Mari who’s off to enter the contest of the seasons to win the prince’s hand. Except she’s actually a yokai, a supernatural monster, and it’s her nature to destroy. She’s been trained by her family for this exact moment — succeed in the trials of Winter, Spring, Autumn and Summer, and marry the prince before stealing his fortune and fleeing back to her family. But there are tangles in the plot, which Mari soon finds as she enters the palace. The prince, Taro, doesn’t even want the throne, and Mari discovers she’s been followed by her half-blood yokai friend, Akira, who is getting mixed up in people craving rebellion. And as much as Mari needs to help them, she also has to focus on just surviving the rooms of death with other contestants who will do anything to beat her.

The world building is a standout in this one. It takes time to show us the world, from the reclusive mountains where Mari originally lives, to the gorgeous and lush emperor’s places. There are four magic rooms, each built to reflect a season, and filled with deathly trials for the girls to compete in and I loved how creative and intriguing they were. Stakes were high. Girls were dying. It reminded me of The Hunger Games!

I also loved the twist of how it was the girls competing for the prince’s hand for once! It’s a nice twist on an old tale, and the whole concept was done fantastically from the fights to the secret rebellions to the prince who doesn’t fit in and Mari masquerading as human when she’s not.

We have three narrators to cover the whole tale: Mari, Taro and Akira. Mari was the standout for me, and I adored her right from the start. She’s not afraid to get bloody, but she’s still a really soft and sweet person. She’s an Animal Wife, a type of yōkai who basically woos men into marriage and then runs off with their fortune. She’s incredibly good with weapons and is also a strategist. She’s the complex and intriguing kind of character you can’t help but root for (especially when she sighs at the annoyingness of men) and I also liked that she enjoyed being feminine and carrying a sword. You go, girl, smash the stereotypes.

Taro is the emperor’s son and he’s into inventing things, not oppressing the monsters. He makes adorable mechanical birds and tries to just stay out of his snarky father’s way, but when he meets Mari, he starts to think getting married might not be horrible after all. (Mwahah he has no idea she’s a yokai herself.)

Akira was an intriguing narrator, with less space to tell his tale then then the others. He was scarred and quiet, a tortured monster who’s just trying to find his place in a world where he is half yokai and half human. He does have a bit of an obsession with Mari, though she has no interest in him.

The plot is exciting and full of twists! No dull moments and you’ll honestly fly through the chapters.

Empress of All Seasons is a Japanese-inspired fantasy of monsters, murder and mayhem. It’s clever and exciting and if you have a heart that melts for tragic monsters and badass heroines? This is for you.

A Telling Future with Cameron Macintosh

Cameron Macintosh is the author of the exciting fantasy adventure series for future detectives in the making, steadily churning them out with number three being recently released. Having qualifications in Psychology and Professional Writing, and specialising in the educational publishing market for almost two decades, it is no wonder Macintosh knows exactly what makes an engaging and perfectly suited read for the junior to middle grade audience. With over 80 books released for the education field under his name, his break into trade publishing has been both rewarding and well-received.

The three Max Booth Future Sleuth books are a fun trip set 400 years into the future, including uncannily relatable characters (a history-buff youngster Max on the run with his robotic, yet loyal dog Oscar). They have demonstrated their keen interest in all things ‘ancient’ and ‘vintage’; sleuthing out the mysteries of objects from the past like a cassette tape in Tape Escape, photos on a mobile phone in Selfie Search, and an old postage stamp from 2019 in Stamp Safari. Macintosh has carefully weaved in suitable language, plenty of humour and suspenseful quests that will hook any tech-loving, sci-fi and mystery-hunting fans, with a clever enticement to finding out about artefacts and technology from the past. Imaginative, creative, the ability to emotionally connect, and so much relevant and important learning potential – the Max Booth series certainly tick all the boxes.

Big Sky Publishing

Cameron Macintosh is back for yet another amazing interview (here’s the last one) to discuss his books and writing life with us once again. 🙂

Coming from a background in writing for the education market, did you have teaching and learning purposes in mind when you started writing the Max Booth series?

Initially, I was trying to avoid any particular educational purpose beyond just getting kids reading – a major educational objective on its own. I just wanted the stories to be page-turners with lots of laughs along the way. But it didn’t take long before I realised they had their own educational potential – not in a didactic way, but in the possibilities they offered for classroom discussions about technology and sustainability, and a range of other issues. The stories deal with future people looking back at objects from our present day, so I figured pretty quickly that they’d offer teachers some interesting angles to discuss technological development, and the positives and negatives that go along with it.

How did you decide what kinds of technological developments to incorporate into the series?

I always intended the series to be episodic, so that any title could be plucked off a shelf and read without any prior knowledge of the characters or their world. I’m glad I chose this option, but it does mean that a little bit of world-building needs to be done in each book. Because of that, I haven’t pushed the technological changes too far, except for a few very big ones that don’t need too much explanation, including hover-vehicles, floating suburbs, robot companions, and the rarity of a few presently common things such as paper.

Who is the series aimed at?

As far as interest level goes, it’s aimed at readers around 7 to 10 years of age. I’ve tried to make the vocab manageable for less confident readers too, so I especially hope the series can be helpful in encouraging these readers to tackle longer texts. The Max Booth books are all around 12,500 words each.

How did you find the gap to write technology / futuristic-based junior fiction?

Before I fully drafted the first Max story, I did some research to see what future-based books were already out there in the marketplace. Although there was plenty of brilliant futuristic stuff, I couldn’t find anything that used the future as a lens to look back at our present day, so I figured I’d potentially found a bit of niche there.

The Max Booth Future Sleuth series makes a great point for readers to connect past and present technology with the possibilities of the future. What are the most significant aspects you’d like your audience to take away from the series?

I’d love readers to think about what a wondrous time we’re living in, with regards to the staggering pace of technological development. I’d also love them to consider the potential pitfalls of this development, in terms of environmental ramifications, and also in terms of the potential that technology holds to bring humanity closer together, or possibly divide us further.

I also really hope the series will spark lots of interesting discussions about technology between kids and their parents, grandparents and teachers – particularly about the way some items or ways of life have evolved over the last few generations, and others have remained pretty much the same. (Although, I don’t recommend describing pre-internet life to a school-aged person unless you want to feel extremely ancient!)

Do you think that setting stories in the future presents any disadvantages to a storyteller?

There’s always the risk of an emotional disconnect with the reader if you let the technological side of things take too much precedence. I’m constantly getting frustrated by sci-fi movies that are so clever and complicated that I lose any real empathy for the characters. And even though you have a lot of freedom in world-building in sci-fi, readers will still expect the world of the story to be believable, and to have its own logical consistency, so there’s a lot of balancing to be done along the way.

The Max Booth series is brilliantly and shrewdly illustrated by the talented Dave Atze. By Book 3, was there anything in particular you needed to collaborate on or did he basically have it all covered?

Dave’s incredible, isn’t he! We’re so lucky to have him on board – to have an illustrator who amplifies the pathos, action and humour is a massive privilege. It’s always very exciting to see how he interprets the illustration briefs, and to see what fun surprises he adds in. Dave had all of this stuff well and truly nailed in the first book (Tape Escape), so by book 3, it was really just a case of keeping out of his way!

Anything else of excitement you’d like to add? News? Upcoming projects? TBR pile?

Well, the wheels are currently turning to make Max Booth book 4 a reality. I’ve already seen the cover, which is always a big moment in the journey. As expected, it’s rather brilliant – thanks again to Dave, and the incredible team at Big Sky Publishing.

The TBR pile is getting out of hand but it’s not a bad problem to have! At the top of the pile is Ottilie Coulter and the Narroway Hunt by Rhiannon Williams, and Jane Doe and the Cradle of All Worlds by Jeremy Lachlan, and Markus Zusak’s Bridge of Clay (Aussie authors are really knocking it out of the park at the moment). Also, Joyce’s Ulysses has been sitting there for five years daring me to tackle it (I have a feeling it’ll be sitting there at least five more).

Thanks so much for your thoughtful responses, Cameron! It’s been a pleasure! 🙂

It’s been my great pleasure too. Thanks for such an interesting chat!

Cameron Macintosh can be found at his website, and on blog tour here.

#ByAustralianBuyAustralian

YA Books That Feature Brothers

There’s nothing quite like books about brothers who’ll die for each other or kill each other (depends on the day really)! And when it comes to books, I have a very soft place in my heart for stories that focus on sibling relations. Since I’ve done some some posts on YA Sister Books, it’s time to focus on the brotherly side.

INK AND BONE

This is set an alternate reality where books are illegal and the Great Library rules everything. If knowledge is controlled, then freedom is gone, right?! It also follows a group of book lovers off to try the difficult entrance exams to work for the library…and Jess is joining in as a double-agent. His family are smugglers and although Jess kind of hates them and their cruelty, he’s loyal to his family. Also he freaking loves books. He wants to work at the library with them, even if the library is corrupt and evil. Anyway! He has a very tumultuous relationship with his twin brother Brendan, who is cunning to the core. They are the kind who will die for each other if they don’t murder each other first.

THESE GENTLE WOUNDS

Here’s one to break your heart! This follows the story of Jordie who is slowly trying to piece his life back together after a horrific childhood that ended with him nearly dead. His anchor and soul is his half-brother Kevin and separated them would just about kill Jordie. And then his real father walks onto the scene and demands his son back. It’s the kind of story that unwinds soft characters and heartbreaking backstories along with the process of healing and learning to build yourself up as a person again. There are plenty of frustrated but loving brotherly moments and your cold dead heart will melt for this one.

TYLER JOHNSON WAS HERE

This is such a powerful and gutwrenching story about two brothers who don’t really get along, but they’re still family. And then Tyler goes missing. It’s a horrible moment when things aren’t quite right in your relationship with a sibling when you should be close and you don’t even know what’s driving you apart. But then they’re gone. It’s an #ownvoices and #blacklivesmatter tale too and features complex characters, soft boys, and a plot that will have you clutching the pages and whispering, “wait wait no“. Also that cover?! It is everything.

WHITE CAT

If you’re looking for double-crossing, backstabby brothers with magical powers and a crime family past? Look no further! This book is literally everything you want in life. Even if you didn’t know it yet, shh. It’s narrated by Cassel who’s at boarding school trying to be “normal” but considering he has a magical crime family, his best friend who he apparently murdered when he was a child, and his mother is in jail?? He’s not doing a great job of remaking himself as a “normal” person. And he’s also about to learn a very dark family secret which is going to screw up everything. Also Holly Black’s characters are just a pure delight. I can’t even explain how much I adore this series! It is beyond perfect!

Setting the Scene with Rachel Nightingale

Rachel Le Rossignol, aka Rachel Nightingale, is the debut novelist of young adult fantasy fiction series, Tales of Tarya, including the first two in the trilogy – Harlequin’s Riddle and Columbine’s Tale. She also happens to be an award-winning playwright, with a musical she wrote set for the stage next year. Rachel has a background in theatre as well, which, when you bring all these creative elements together, you have the perfect blend for a magical series underpinning the gifts of artistry and storytelling and their boundless possibilities. The Tarya Trilogy is about the power of creativity and where it can take you, exploring the states of being within two different realms of another time. Rachel states, ‘it was inspired by a quote by Broadway actor Alan Cumming about that in-between place you discover just before you step onstage and enter a different world – a place where anything is possible…’

Rachel is here to discuss her writing journey and the culmination of her passions for the arts and storytelling in her books. Thanks Rachel!

How did you come to be a writer?

Little eight-year-old Rachel decided for me. Sometimes I want to go back in time and talk her out of it and other times I want to pick her up, swing her round and go ‘wheeeee!’. It’s a fun job but it has its tough moments. Of course, it took many years, lots of writing, two creative writing degrees and a lot of persistence to actually get to the point of being published.

Please tell us a bit about your fascinating background in performance, and how you feel this helps with your storytelling abilities.

I did my first theatre show when I was 17. I was in the chorus of Cinderella, and I was hooked. Over the years I’ve done just about everything possible, from acting to lighting, sound, direction and stage management. It all feeds into being about to create the atmosphere and reality of theatre in my books. Working for a number of years on the improvised ‘Murder on the Puffing Billy Express’ show was really important for bringing the players to life on the page, because the Commedia dell’Arte, the travelling players I’m writing about, do improvised shows. Understanding how improv works, and what it feels like to perform something and make it up on the spot, was really important. Plus improv stretches the creativity muscles, which is really helpful.

What kinds of books do you naturally draw inspiration from? Has your series been influenced by any of these titles or their authors?

I love all sorts of books, but if I’m particularly looking for inspiration I go back to Ray Bradbury’s short stories. He is a master of language, he understands the human condition so well, and the ideas in his stories are fascinating. I dream of being able to write like him. I think the book out there that is most like mine is The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern, since it’s about performers and magic, with a dash of romance, but Harlequin’s Riddle was written a long time before it was published so it wasn’t a source of inspiration.

Columbine’s Tale follows the gripping first title, Harlequin’s Riddle. What was your process in developing each title and subsequent series? Did you have your plots consciously mapped out beforehand?

The books have changed so much from my original conception, but I think by the time I’d finished Harlequin’s Riddle I was pretty clear on the overall story. After that it was just fine-tuning the details. Aside from Mina’s quest to find her brother, there’s a very strong element of mystery related to the travelling players that Mina has to solve, and to do that properly I needed to be able to put some things in the first book that would only make sense in the third book. So plotting rather than pantsing (flying by the seat of my pants) was definitely the way to go. It means readers can look for clues early on, which is something I always love in a book.

What does the artisan life, costumes and drama mean to you personally?

I would love nothing more than to have a gypsy caravan and travel around, visiting many different places and offering up my stories. I used to pretend I was a gypsy when I was a teenager to make the walk home from school more interesting. I’d picture what I was wearing, and how I would cook over an open fire when I got home. I wish I could spend all my time creating, not doing the shopping or the other mundane tasks of life.

What has your publishing experience with Odyssey Books been like for you? How have they supported you throughout the process?

It’s been a sharp learning curve – being a writer and being an author are two different things. The main difference is learning about marketing and social media. But Odyssey have been great – there are company manuals that are super-helpful for knowing how to approach that side of things. And my publisher has a brilliant strategy, which is that she puts new authors in touch with the Odyssey author community, so you suddenly have an amazingly supportive network who can help you negotiate the whole ‘being published’ thing.

Anything else of excitement you’d like to add? News? Upcoming projects? TBR pile?

I’m pretty excited at the moment that a musical I wrote is going to be debuted in Auckland next year. It’s a re-telling of Aristophane’s classical Greek play, The Birds but with funky Spanish rhythms and a lot of comedy. Bach Musica are going to stage a concert version, with a full orchestra, soloists and forty-person choir. I will be travelling over to New Zealand to see it. I can’t wait, but I’m terrified at the same time – such a public performance of my work!

Thank you so much for your time, Rachel! It’s been a pleasure getting to know more about you and your books.

Rachel and the Tarya Tales can be found at her website, and her book blog tour is taking place here.

#ByAustralianBuyAustralian

YA Books About Magical Creatures

One thing we bookworms get quite enthusiastic about when it comes to fantasy stories must definitely be: magical creatures. Oh we have our cats in real life, but what could be better than a little pocket dragon or a suitcase full of weird and wonderful monsters? (Looking at you, Newt, from Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find them.)

So! If you are secretly mourning the lack of magical creatures in your life, do allow me to show you a list of books where you can vicariously live your dreams of having a pet who is possibly a shapeshifting kraken. Obviously what everyone wants.

GRIM LOVELIES by Megan Shepherd

Not only is this a brand new shiny release…it features beasts turned human! You know the old Disney stories where the fairy godmother turns the mice into coachmen? Here we have it! Except the witches are evil and the beasties are her slaves and very very desperate not to turn back into their animals skins. It’s also set in Paris and features Anouk, a demure and quiet servant for her witch overlord…until the witch is murdered and suddenly she has 3 days to figure out how not to turn back into an animal.

SHIVER by Maggie Stiefvater

Might as well thrown in a good oldie too…because werewolves are kind of adorable. Once you look past the part where they might eat you. but if you want a story about THE most sweet and soft werewolves in existence, please meet Grace and Sam. Grace is obsessed with the wolves that live in the woods and then she discovers one is a golden-eyed boy in the summer time. Come winter? He goes back into his wolf skin, but it’s getting hard and harder for him to shift. It is the worst luck that they just met when Sam is running out of time — and their sweet desperate romance drives them to look for a cure. Seriously, you have never read about a wolf who is sweeter than Sam Roth (he folds origami, I mean).

TEETH by Hannah Moskowitz

This is set on a rainy miserable island where Rudy is trapped while his family try to get his little brother cured with the apparently “magical healing fish”. It appears to be doing zlich and Rudy is miserable and lonely…until he meets a boy in the water who is absolutely not just human. He appears to be part fish himself. He’s a tortured and nasty little biting thing, but Rudy can’t help being drawn to him. At night he listens to the fish boy’s screams. In the morning? He plans how to save him. All I’m saying is that if you can’t fall in love with a werewolf, the next option is a cute fish.

TESS OF THE ROAD by Rachael Hartman

Look now we get to the real winner of the day: DRAGONS. If you’re going to take a fantasy roadtrip, you’re doing it wrong if you don’t bring your pet dragon. (Although if you want to be technical, this book features a quigutl, which is a sub-species of dragon and rather small and prone to too many opinions. However it is the best dragon companion. And Tess is a character you so easily feel for, after she escapes an abusive and oppressive life and dresses as a boy and heads off to find her fate on her own. It also deals with the oppression of women and the everyday abuse they suffer making it a very topical book, even with a setting of shapeshifting dragons and swords and very sharp cheese.

Review: The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tucholke

The Boneless Mercies by April Genevieve Tcholke is an exquisitely atmospheric fantasy tale that’s part Beowulf and part witchy glory. It’s the kind of book that you soak in because the world is so large and sprawls well beyond the page. Everything seemed so carefully crafted, from the delicious food descriptions to the scenery and the culture. It’s about girls who kill out of mercy, and sometimes out of vengeance, and it’s about monsters and witches and gentle magic and saving those who can’t save themselves.

I’d only read Wink Poppy Midnight by this author before (which is a treacherous and enthralling magical realism story) and I was so excited to see what she’d do with epic fantasy!

The story follows four girls who are known as Boneless Mercies: Frey, Ovie, Juniper and Runa. Their trade is death: they do mercy killings for those who are dying or sick, and sometimes they kill to save a vulnerable girl trapped in an abusive situation. But that’s rarer. The girls stick to their code and care their dark, dark burden that men won’t even touch. Frey narrates and as the story begins she’s so tired of this life, of being surrounded and permeated with death. So when there’s news of a monster that no one can kill and whoever conquers it will receive an immeasurable reward? She wants in. But she’ll have to travel through witch clans and dark magic to get there…and she’ll have to convince her close Mercies friends to help her. Because she can’t do it alone. Or will she have to?

The setting is very Norse-inspired and I loved this! There are jarls and snowy viking villages, all mixed with the magic of this new created world. We have witch clans and cut-queens and marshes and far off seas. I could feel the snow and the chill seeping from the pages. It’s easy to get absorbed in the setting, harsh and beautiful as it was.

The concept of Mercy Killers was so interesting too. They literally get hired to do this by people who just can’t keep going on. It’s really sad and very dark, and they often cut throats too, so it’s bloody and messy work. But the girls don’t revel in it. And they might be good at it, but they want another life too. Frey in particularly hates the idea of her life not being big enough.

We also get to meet this tight-knit group of five and travel the snowy worlds iwth them. I usually get a bit nervous by big casts and it took them a while to feel fully like individuals, but I loved them all by the end! Frey is our narrator, and a total selfless girl who wants to save all the things and wants to leap into danger. Then there’s Runa, who’s the feisty snarly one, and dreams of running through the forests with the Quicks (who felt like Robin Hood’s merry men!). Ovie is the solid and quiet one, the backbone of the group. Juniper is the actual sweetest of ever. She’s small and does the prayers and cares for the earth and is also a witch. And lastly we have the groups tagalong: Trigve. He’s the sole boy, who they basically scooped off the side of the road before he died. He follows them around loyally although he can never truly be one of them.

The story feels like a peek through a window into a world you only catch the corners of! It makes you desperate for more books, more sequels, to follow what happens next. And I love it when worlds do that. It also weaves in plenty of very apt storylines about women being dismissed and oppressed and how they’re not going to sit back and take it. It’s an empowering story about girls who save people that don’t even trust them. The Boneless Mercies is a heartfelt and strong and deeply magical tale.

Review: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

It’s hard to find the words to describe how exquisitely special and gorgeous Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor truly is. It’s so so well written that a mere review doesn’t seem even nearly able to capture the pure beauty of this tale! The marvellously detailed storytelling and the incredible world building will totally entrance you. It’s all gods and monsters and librarians and the most lush and gorgeous dreamscapes. I got to this point reading it and was just like “I never want this book to end thanks.”

The story begins by following Lazlo Strange, a foundling from an orphanage with no name and no future…until he finds himself working for an incredible library and falling in love with the mystical legends of a lost city named: Weep. Lazlo’s life is dedicated to serving, but also to uncovering the mysteries of this city. And when strangers cross the desert to bring news of not only the city’s true existence, but of a magical problem they need solving to save them — Lazlo would do anything to be picked for the journey. But the “problem” is like nothing he could’ve imagined. It turns out the legends of the gods and monsters aren’t fairy tales. They’re real and, even though they’re slain now, they’ve left behind the terror of their past-reign and something unforgivable: their blue skinned children with powers that could ruin the world. Or save it.

Lazlo is such a sweet and pure narrator that you can’t help but love him from page one. I love how his nose got broken by a fairy tale book and that he’ll walk into a wall because he’s reading so much and how his whole life is about fantastical lost cities and how he dreams the most beautiful and gorgeous dreams the world has ever known. He is the perfect embodiment of a bookworm! The world doesn’t deserve the wholesome preciousness of Lazlo Strange.

It’s also dual-narrated by Sarai, a blue-skinned goddess from the fallen tyrantical gods who used to rule Weep. She’s hiding from the world that wants her dead because of her horrifically cruel goddess mother. But she is so sweet and pure too. I just want to give her a cake. She hasn’t had a cake in years and wow, after all she’s been through? She deserves that. She’s also surrounded by 4 other godspawn: Feral, Ruby, Sparrow, and the vicious Minya. They’re so amazing and I loved them all, even Minya who is permanently trapped as a 6 year old and so caught up on wanting vengeance for the massacres that she’s bitter and cruel. But all she wants is to protect her family!

What really caught me is the writing. The flowery prose is absolutely breathtaking. It swallows you and totally tosses you into the story so all you know is Weep and magic and fairytales and impossible dreams. I just couldn’t stop thinking “I want to live in this book.” Every word was so perfectly chosen that I was devoured by the story. I’ve never seen a city so clearly as I see Weep.

This is all about magic and gods and monsters which is utterly my kind of story. Also there is: death and destruction and psychotic little girls who catch ghosts and legends inside legends and great monsters and beasts and cruel pasts and terrified warriors and god slayers and quiet librarian boys and falling girls with flowers in their hair and blue skin and despair.

It’s truly the kind of story that you don’t just read, but you fully experience. I want to read more books with sweet boys and nightmare girls. This is the story tha twill melt your soul with the most fantastically marvellous writing in the world. Strange the Dreamer is a book that inspires you to dream.

Review: Blackbird of the Gallows by Meg Kassel

Blackbird of the Gallows by Meg Kassel is a riveting and entrancing story about harbingers, beekeepers, DJing and the kind of romance that’s forbidden because one half might possibly be a mystical monster. This was just addictive, entrancing, and utterly beautifully written, which is all I ask for in a book! The characters manage to win your heart while the folklore of these shapeshifting crow harbingers is as fascinating as it is different. Move over typical paranormal vampires and werewolves…we gotcha death predictors and your heroines who are very anxious and also into EDM.

Angie Dovage is a pretty anxious and quiet kind of girl, just getting through highschool and keeping to herself since her mother died…except her new neighbours might also be harbingers of death who appear just before a monumental tragedy is about to occur in a town. This is bad news because: hello, catastrophe. But also Angie is developing feelings for Reece, who not only won’t be staying after the catastrophe, but who is definitely part monster. And as much as he tries not to be drawn to her…it doesn’t work. But he’s surrounded by chaos, including beekeepers who bring havoc with a single sting and could destroy Angie and her friends’ lives, and not to mention whatever is brewing is going to take out a lot of people. But who’s going to listen to Angie when she tries to warn them? And trusting Reece might be the best thing she can do or the absolute worst and she could doom them all.

I was instantly swept into this world of harbingers in a modern highschool setting. Of course it has a ton of the old paranormal tropes: hot mystery guy arrives in town, has a bit of a weird family, is probably immortal, shapeshifts into something feathery, has otherworldly eyes…etc. etc. But this just took them all from a new angle. Reece was respectful and kind of adorable and he feels the burden of his curse. He’s always tired, always carrying the weight of what horrors he’s seen. His harbinger family is dogged by beekeepers who quite literally sew madness and it’s so hard for him to meet people and not have them end up dead. Reece managed to be a sweetie and mysterious which was a combination I quite enjoyed. Not to mention say goodbye to any whingey paperdoll heroines. We have one who’s not only distrustful of random guys, but totally her own unique person.

Hello Angie Dovage! She was so relatable and just the kind of character you can enjoy spending a few hundred pages with. She doesn’t immediately fall into instalust with Reece (although she knows he’s hot; ok she ain’t blind) and she keeps her friends close. I love her epic friendships and how they were totally involved in the plot! Also Angie is a secret DJ and revels in her “other life” where people respect her and her music, while at school she’s the shy and quiet overlooked girl with a dubious past (her mother is dead but also was an addict) and pretty average in most opinions. Also Angie’s relationship with her dad?! SO nice! It’s great to see really wholesome and loving parent-kid relationships in YA and we sorely need more.

Also having the book feature harbingers and murders of crows was not only new to me, it was really interesting! I loved the lore and backstory of Reece’s family and got totally lost in this reshaped myth. The harbingers are immortal beings who turn into crows and follow around death and destruction. They arrive in town —> a tragedy goes down —> they feed off the energy. It’s a curse though and they hate it.

The book also features plenty of tragedy and catastrophe, grief and loss. It has so much heart with dealing with these topics and also paints its “villains” as more morally grey people. Sometimes they’re just propelled by their curse, other times it’s a choice to choose right vs wrong.

Should you read Blackbird of the Gallows?! ABSOLUTELY. Even if you’re tired of paranormal, this one will freshen up your world. And the heartfelt messages and relatable characters made it such a winning story. Not to mention that sidedish of utter death and destruction. What can I say?! This book has it all.

Interview with T.S. Hawken, author of If Kisses Cured Cancer

Tim Hawken is the West Australian author of New Adult novel If Kisses Cured Cancer published earlier this year. Thanks for joining us for an interview at Boomerang Books Tim.

Can you describe your book If Kisses Cured Cancer in one sentence?
A funny yet serious book about the importance of connecting with those around you (and not being afraid to go skinny dipping in the forest).

What inspired you to write If Kisses Cured Cancer?
It was a combination of a few things, but the big one was my wife being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour. The process was obviously awful, but there were lots of strangely funny and golden moments sprinkled in that journey. I wanted to create a fiction book that reflected those ups and downs, and would do the subject justice yet not be depressing or overly fluffy.

If you could meet any writer who would it be and what would you want to know?
Neil Gaiman. The guy is amazing at every form of writing – short stories, novels, comics, TV. He’s unbelievably great and deliciously odd. I’ve read about his writing process and general approach to life, so would probably just prefer to chat about magic, telling the truth through lies, and working with Terry Pratchett.

How do you organise your personal library?
You mean the pile of books that are precariously stacked on my bedside table? They’re generally organized by date of purchase. I do have a shelf of books I’ve read and loved in my office for reference as well. They’re loosely arranged by genre and then grouped by author.

What book is on your bedside table right now?
In no particular order, there’s: A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman, The Dalai Lama’s Cat by David Michie, The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape, Fromelles and Pozieres by Peter FitzSimons, Lost Gods by Brom, The Great Stories of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle, Bound by Alan Baxter, The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler, and Primary Mathematics by Penelope Serow, Rosemary Callingham and Tracey Muir. My Kindle is also there, which has a few hundred titles stored in it too.

What was the last truly great book that you read?
I actually had to go to my Goodreads page as a refresher to make sure I wasn’t just putting the greatest book I’ve read on here (which by the way is Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, closely followed by the Harry Potter series, closely followed by True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey). The last book I gave a full 5 staggering stars to was Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Total genius.

What’s the best book you’ve read so far in 2018?
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Wow, what a book. It’s like a dark version of The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion and so, so much more satisfying. Massive recommend.

I agree with you about Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, I read it last month and adored it. What’s your secret reading pleasure?
Fantasy and sci-fi books. Shhhh. I love these genres so much I had to make a rule that every second book I read has to be something else. I feel like broadening your reading habits is a sure way of finding gold you might not otherwise have come across.

What’s next? What would you like to tell your readers?
Next is planning out a new story idea I have that will remain mum until it’s actually a reality. There will be another book next year but what that is, you’ll have to wait and see. To follow any news, sign up to my newsletter at timhawken.com. You’ll also get some special content about If Kisses Cured Cancer you won’t find anywhere else.

Doodles and Drafts – Rebecca Lim and The Relic of the Blue Dragon

Less than a week ago, notable Aussie author / illustrator and prodigious writer for children, Rebecca Lim, release her latest action-packed middle grade series, Children of the Dragon. Book One: The Relic of the Blue Dragon promises magic, mystery and martial arts and I know for one already has young primary aged readers perched avidly on the edge of their seats.

Today we welcome Rebecca to the draft table to share a bit more about what drives her to write what she does and reveal her motivation behind Relic.

Continue reading Doodles and Drafts – Rebecca Lim and The Relic of the Blue Dragon

Review: Fawkes by Nadine Brandes

Fawkes by Nadine Brandes was one of my highly anticipated release for this! I was absolutely not disappointed! It was full of darkness, magic, assassination plots, and really creative and unique twists on the infamous Guy Fawkes. Because yes! This is a historical retelling. But with magic. I also didn’t know much about the origin of Guy Fawkes, but I know the author did a lot of research (um, except the magic part didn’t happen in London at that time…well, I mean, maybe it did. Who can say for sure). This was such a lusciously detailed reimagining of London and I could wait to see how the story would unfold.

Thomas Fawkes lives in 17th century London, where the world is ruled by two opposing forces of magicians, and if he doesn’t get his mask and join one side…he’ll have no way to cure the plague turning his face to stone. His father, Guy Fawkes, was supposed to turn up to his school’s ceremony and gift his sone a mask, but the man (who Thomas barely knows anyway) never shows up. Thomas isn’t interested in dying of this illness, so he goes in search of his father. And then he discovers Guy Fawkes deep in the midst of organising the assassination of King James. The two opposing magician clans, the Keepers versus the Igniters, are destroying this world with their war, but it’s said if the Keepers kill the Igniters — it’ll stop the plague. Thomas has no choice but to help…right? They need 36 barrels of gunpowder and no betrayals.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;
I know of no reason why the Gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot!
Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, ’twas his intent
To blow up the King adn the Parliment;
Threescore barrels of powder below,
Poor old England to overthrow.
By God’s providence he was catch’d,
With a dark lantern and a burning match.

The story is narrated by 16 year old Thomas Fawkes, who is hopelessly honourable. He is like the ultimate beautiful “I shall do my duty!” son and I loved him. All the gentlemanly pledges and goodness! He’s literally dying of the plague, blind in one eye, but he’s still very particular about honour and his sword and being treated like a true man. He’s completely ostracised because of his plague infection, and he does his best to hide it. I liked how it twisted the London Black Plague by making it this magic-infected-illness that slowly turned you to stone.

I really felt for Thomas and his confusion about whether to join his father or oppose murder. It was definitely a tug of loyalties and you really feel it as Thomas tries to decide!

The magic system was also awesome! It’s based on masks and colours! Basically you’re either a Keeper (controlling one magic at a time) or an Igniter (balancing multiple and lead by the voice of the White Light) and everyone wears a mask which helps link them to controlling the colours in things. So if your power is Brown, then you’ll control dirt and earth easily. I thought it was pretty clever and original!

There are also plenty of father and son drama issues. But of course. There’s nothing like an assassination plot that’s complicated by awkward fathers and sons who hate not being taken seriously.

I also really enjoyed the secondary cast, but particularly Emma! She’s a badass girl from Thomas’ school who constantly hides behind a mask (why?! Most everyone else takes theirs off sometimes!) and in the end she and Thomas accidentally end up working together — him trying to get information from the lord she’s staying with to use against the king, and her having Thomas as a servant guiding her through London while she tries to get hired as an artist. Their relationship is NOT smooth, which is always a lot of fun! Bring on the slowburn.

I loved the intense array of elements in the story too. From gunpowder and conspiracies, to disguises and miracles and plagues. There’s discussions on race and I felt the opposing magicians were a bit of a twist on the religious unrest in England at that time. Ultimately Fawkes is one you want to be looking out for! It’s available for preorder now and out in August!

YA Books With Crowns On the Cover

Look we all secretly like to sing the Lion King lyrics, “Oh I just can’t wait to be kiiiing” when no one is listening. Because it would be very nice to wear a crown. Agreed? Agreed. Until we accidentally inherit one, however, we can make do by admiring gorgeous crowns on YA book covers. And also reading the books so we’re not just judging books by their covers. (Although that’s kind of fun, I’m not going to lie.)

You can also find my post of a list of YA books with Knives and Swords on the covers too!

ASH PRINCESS by Laura Sebastian

Honestly this cover is super flawless, with it’s gorgeous dusky colour scheme and that crown that is so entrancing and yet is a symbol of oppression and devastation. Theo’s nation has been conquered by an evil tyrant, and now she’s a tortured captive princess in her own castle — and on special occasion she’s forced to wear this crown of ashes that makes a horrible mess over her face and clothes to remind everyone she’s worth nothing. But secretly? She’s planning assassinations and rebellions.

THE CRUEL PRINCE by Holly Black

This is only one of my favourite reads of this year, but the faerie queen herself: author Holly Black! This is about backstabbing royals and cunning plots and a prince who is poisonous…and also a little bit tragic.

Our heroine, Jude, is a mere human in the vicious and gorgeously deadly faerie world…and the crown might be up for the taking.

FURYBORN by Claire Legrand

This is about two women’s lives, but it’s set milleniums apart, which is a twist I hadn’t read before! It features one girl, an assassin who’s past might not be as boring as she imagined.

And a queen, who made a deal with an angel and has to prove herself through terrifying life-threatening trials to prove her powers are under her control. Or are they?

THREE DARK CROWNS by Kendare Blake

And of course we can’t forget this one! The story of triplet sisters who have been raised differently and separately until they’re 16 and will make the fight for the crown. One is raised by a poisonous, cunning household of poisons and snakes. Another in the forests, who can control beasts and minds. And another who has the elements under her thumb with a simple wish. But what if they don’t all want to be enemies?

STARS ABOVE by Marissa Meyer

A quick swap from the normal fantasies over to this sci-fi! It’s actually a short-story collection from the Lunar Chronicles world to give you that last taste of Cinder & Co before the series ends! And the cover is just gorgeous and gives us a hint of what’s going to happen to the now-returned Princess Selene and where the ex-Princess Winter will end up. Plus it just is such a fairy-tale cover! With the crown on a pillow, like a glass slipper waiting for it’s chosen one.

Review: Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian

Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian is a tale of darkness, oppression, and princesses who won’t be beaten down. It’s more of a political fantasy than a swords-clashing-and-people-screaming one, and I found it very captivating and full of schemers and careful plots. It features a captured country, a princess humiliated and tortured every day by her enemies as a trophy, and the complexities of needing to make a statement by killing a prince…but unfortunately falling for that prince at the same time. And isn’t that cover just stunning?!

The story follows Theodosia, who’s been a captive in her own castle after enemies torn her country apart, killed her mother, and proceeded to being a vicious reign. Theo is mocked at court, whipped for her people’s transgressions if they dare try to rebel, and given a crown of ash during festivities so everyone remembers she’s worth nothing. She’s now sixteen and desperate. And after they force her to kill the rebel who’s also her father…Theo is ready to plan ways to fight back. She is a pawn, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be a weapon in the dark — especially with the help of a childhood friend, pirates, and her downtrodden people.

The world building was the standout! It actually takes time to show us languages and cultures and built this complex world of oppression and lush beauty. I felt really drawn into the world after only a few chapters. Plus it had a lot of fantastic details so everything seemed super vivid!

The contrast of the opulent life vs the horror the conquerors deal out was so well written. Theo’s people are little more than slaves while she is a trophy, tortured daily for the crimes of her people but kept alive despite the horror she has to go through. She’s like lavished in pretty dresses and wears pretty makeup and goes to banquets and has books. Her “best friend” is one the daughter of a very powerful dude and she’s all pretty and light and flippant. To the court, Theo pretends to be satisfied with her life as a caged bird. But then in the background, we see the horror and torment the conquerors throw at their enslaved people. There are murders and brutal labour and anyone who even looks like they might be plotting something is executed. The contrast was vicious and vivid.

The magic is elemental style, but they channel it through gems which I thought was a nice deviation from the norm!

Theo herself was a character you quickly feel sorry for and root for her to get out. She’s scared to plot for her freedom, of course, but desperate to prove herself as still loyal to her people after having to fake being submissive to the enemy for 10 years. She wants to kill the evil king, but what if she has to take down people she cares about who are in the way? Like her flippant friend or the handsome prince who seems just as upset by his father’s horrific rule as Theo is? There’s lots of moral dilemmas and stretched loyalties which makes for a stressful (in a good way!) read.

It is dark, but not super so on page. The darkness is more in the backstory and eluded to, although it’s still powerful.

Ash Princess has such a stunning setting and a lot of potential as a series starter. The ending is loaded with threads to explore and questions to answer, so you’ll be desperate for book 2!

Review: The Smoke Thieves by Sally Green

The Smoke Thieves by Sally Green is a collision of plots and wars, princesses and thieves. It’s set in a complex world that takes it’s time to set the scene, build the countries, and totally immerse you in this world of Brigant and Calidor. It also features five narrators, all teens, who somehow end up with the fate of the world in their somewhat dubious control. I am a huge fan of Sally Green’s previous Half Bad books so I was wild with excitement to try these. Full warning: This is a very different style and tone, so don’t get in expecting it to be like Half Bad! We’ve left paranormal behind and journeyed into epic fantasy and complex politics. I do think the Half Bad books suited me better, but I can definitely say it’s exciting to see authors exploring and flexing their skills in new genres.

The Smoke Thieves follows 5 people: a princess, a traitor, a soldier, a hunter, and a thief. Their stories all complexly entwine at the end, but in the beginning we’re met with Princess Catherine who’s treated horribly by her father and forced to watch an execution before she’s shunted off to an arranged marriage. But she’s in love with her guard, Ambrose, who’s affection for her will end in his death. In the enemy’s country, a servant named March comes from a forgotten and annihilated country and wants revenge, so he helps kidnap the kleptomaniac Edyon who is also the king’s bastard and estranged son. Unfortunately Edyon is winsome and lovely and March can’t help falling for him. And lastly there is Tash: demon hunter who captures smoke out of demons and sells it on the black market. But is the smoke, supposedly a “cheap thrill”, all that it seems?

The world building is a stand-out of lusciousness and detail. There’s a ton of countries mentioned and everything is woven and connected and so it felt deep, a world of luscious dimension! We don’t often get such detail in worlds in epic fantasy in YA, so this was a treat. I like how it had culture for the different countries too.

The narrators are often the downtrodden underdogs. Which did make them easy to root for! I struggled the most reading Catherine’s chapters, as her heinous father literally thinks women are commodities, and women in court are forced to learn sign-language to communicate because the men don’t like them speaking. But even so, Catherine had a beautiful character arc and ended up in a position of quietly taking power away from her enemies. Go Catherine! And Tash’s chapters of being a grubby demon-thieving orphan were particularly amazing too. I also love how we have everything from escaped soldiers to angry and rebellious slaves.

A quick look at the narrators?! In detail we have:

Catherine: She’s a princess, doomed to an arrange marriage and viewed as property. She’s demurely spicy and I did honest love seeing her arc.
Ambrose: He’s the guard in love with Catherine and very loyal/valiant.
March: He’s a slave to a prince in a different country and so hateful of his captors and jumps at the chance to side with the rebellion and kidnap his king’s lost bastard son.
Edoyn: An actual human wreck on legs, kleptomaniac and smooth little ratbag thing, that you kind of fall in love with even though he would probably hurt himself with a spoon. I loved his chapters and his voice and how he flirts so incessantly with March who has no idea what it is to be loved.
Tash: A 13-year-old demon hunter who is a piece of work and will stab anything and loves pretty shoes.

The Smoke Thieves is a methodical and detailed fantasy adventure that winds so many storylines together at the end. It’s not fast-paced but it is always interesting and I think all the characters being so complex and developed made it addictive to continue reading! Definitely a great read!

Review: An Enchantment Of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson is an absolutely delightful wild adventure of fae and scheming and art. I admit to being wholly in love with the scheming aspect of this plot and how you never quite know what’s coming. Add that to gorgeous writing, some laugh-out-loud banter, the whimsical and dangerous beauty of a fae world — and you have an incredible book.

The story follows Isobel, an artist hired by vain faeries to paint their portraits. In return, she gets paid in enchantments (like chickens who always lay eggs, or a house that can never be attacked) and her life is quite good with two little sisters and a loving guardian and some amicable, if not still dangerous, fae customers. Then the Autumn Prince turns up for his portrait and Isobel finds herself smitten and does the unthinkable: she paints the human emotion she sees in his eyes. For a fae, who are otherworldly and pride themselves on this, she’s committed and abomination and Rook angrily declares he’ll put her on trial. But as the two tumble headfirst into the fae world, they’re met with rotting magical creatures and courts of decrepit and deceitful beings, and hunters who just won’t stop — and maybe the two can help each other more than they think.

This particular fae world focuses on courts that are based on all the seasons! It was whimsical and gorgeous and we get to explore the Spring court mostly, but the Autumn Court and Summer Court are mentioned too. Isobel’s human world, the town of Whimsy, is caught up in an eternal summer and on her deathly adventure with Rook, she also visitsthe Spring Courts which were rotting from the inside out. I love how this gave us types of faeries who can’t feel human emotions. They’re so vapid and silly, but deeply miserable and complex.

Isobel was a winning narrator from the second she steps onto the page. She was realistic, with very relatable reactions to things! Not to mention the story actually took the time to give us a road-trip that wasn’t all daisies and flowers! Everyone ended up smelling and dirty and hungry, and the realism just made the book more heartwarming. Her love and addiction to art was also amazing to read and she has a knife-sharp sense of humour and refuses to let the faeries play their wily tricks on her.

Rook, the autumn prince, was also a thorough delight. He is actually the vainest thing, which was so hilarious. He’s a warrior, knight and prince and yet completely becomes undone with clothes he doesn’t like or the strange peculiarities of humans. (They need to sleep and eat??? He gets so confused.) Isobel totally messes with him at times too and it’s adorable. I also loved how earnest and sweet he was. Here is a prince who could be so wicked, but he was respectful and kind…and very full of himself. Ha!

The romance was an interesting exploration of lust vs love. When Isobel meets Rook to paint his portrait, she “falls in love with him”. But she doesn’t really. She has a fluttering crush on this otherworldly gorgeous boy…and she realises this. Obviously after they’re thrown into a whirlwind journey together of monsters and the Wild Hunt and rotting castles and evil kings, and they save each other and get to know each other — they do truly fall in love. And they were so winning together, with their snarky banter but inability to let the other suffer.

The artist flair of the book also made the writing just exquisite. Isobel’s love for her craft bleeds from the page. And her perspective of the world turns everything into a gorgeous huge canvas. The writing is so visual and dimensional, you don’t just read faerieland, you fall face-first into it and get entranced by the magic.

An Enchantment Of Ravens is a whimsically gorgeous tale, with vicious undertones and schemes to twist your senses upside down. It’s not to be missed.

Intimidating Books on my Bookshelf

I have a few intimidating books on my bookshelf and I can’t be the only one. Sometimes it can be the size of the tome, the genre, the author or specific concerns about a book or series. Today I thought I’d share the most intimidating books on my TBR pile with you.

An author I’d like to read but have been too intimidated to try: is Haruki Murakami. I just don’t know where to start and whether I’ll understand his magical realism.

A book I haven’t read because I’m worried I won’t enjoy it is: Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis. It’s the latest book in the Vampire Chronicles and while Anne Rice is a favourite author, I’m terrified I won’t enjoy this. I hated the previous book Prince Lestat (find out why here) and I’m worried in case this isn’t much better.

The classic I’m most intimidated to read is: Macbeth by William Shakespeare. It’s intimidating for obvious reasons, it’s a play and it’s Shakespeare!

A book I haven’t read because it’s kind of embarrassing: I have two books in this category. Perv by Jesse Bering and My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday. Less said the better?

The series I’m most intimidated to start is: A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) by George R.R. Martin. I love the TV series and I’m worried I won’t be able to keep up with the mammoth cast of characters and complex sub-plots in the books. The series is very long and currently comprises: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance with Dragons, The Winds of Winter (forthcoming) and A Dream of Spring (forthcoming).

A series I haven’t finished that haunts me is: The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Stephen King is one of my favourite authors and I know The Dark Tower series is his ‘Opus’ but I just couldn’t get into it. I read The Gunslinger (#1) and The Drawing of the Three (#2) but haven’t progressed any further; despite owning the entire series. I’m a completionist so this bothers me quite a bit.

The most intimidating book in my TBR pile is: The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. I have the Penguin Clothbound Edition and it comes in at more than 1200 pages which is intimidating enough as is. An adventure novel written in the 1840s it’s translated from French and I just haven’t picked it up yet.

What books do you find intimidating? Have you read any of the above? Let me know in the comments below.

Review: To Kill A Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

To Kill A Kingdom by Alexandra Christo is the swashbuckly and deliciously dark pirate adventure we’ve all been waiting for. It’s got hints of a Little Mermaid retelling, with more nods to the original Hans Christian Anderson tale than Disney ever did. This is full of sirens who eat princes’ hearts and enchantments and runaway royalty and enough snark and banter to have you smirking in your seat.

The story follows two narrators: Lira, a siren who eats princes’ hearts and whose wicked mother is getting between her and the throne. And also Elian, who’s very opposed to his royal heritage and wants to be a pirate, riding the world of the murderous sirens that claim so many innocent lives each year. Their stories entwine when Lira is cursed to wear human legs until she can prove her loyalty to her people…and the perfect way to do that would be to kill Elian. Except Elian is on a quest to find a way to stop the siren queen forever and when he rescues a “mysterious” girl lost at sea — he has no idea who he’s truly making alliances with.

The characters just stole the seawater for this one! The dual narration is perfect balanced, with each character stealing the show as soon as they’re on page. He’s hunting her and she’s hunting him, which is obviously the recipe for a perfect romance. This is enemies-to-lovers at its finest! It wasn’t rushed or awkward. It was seriously such perfect fun to see them go from distrust to distant admiration to snarking at each other to “accidentally” “saving” each other’s lives. Lira’s denial of having feelings for him (hey, she’s a wretched evil siren, remember?!) was completely adorable. I also loved how they both had soft sides, even though they’re warriors here to fight in the seas. Lira is super sweet and protective of her little siren cousin. Elian is quite soft and kind to his crew, despite being a “pirate”. And his sass and banter levels were off the charts.

I also loved how it portrayed the sea! It fully makes you fall in love with it. I mean, yes the sea in this book is full of murderous dangers, like sirens and mermaids and monsters, but the vivid and lust descriptions made me understand why Elian couldn’t leave the sea to claim his birthright of the throne. The lure was there! I could see the gorgeous settings, taste the salty sea, and absolutely lose myself in the world. There’s actually quite a lot of world to explore, and even though the book is small, it takes you a variety of places with excellent world building. There are kingdoms and mountains and palaces with cursed queens. I found the description was perfectly balanced — not info dumps, but enough information to set you up in this diverse and intriguing world.

I particularly appreciated the amount of banter! It kept me smiling the whole time as Elian and Lira sparred words and gradually fell for each other. The secondary characters also had their quips too!

“If the necklace is that precious,” I say, “we should have just killed Tallis to get it.”
“You can’t just kill everyone you don’t like.”
“I know that. Otherwise you’d be dead already.”

To Kill A Kingdom is a lush and vicious book that will lose you in its winsome adventures of death and curses, love and magic. It was perfectly written and exquisitely told, face-paced and entrancing!

Review: Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody

Ace of Shades by Amanda Foody was a delightfully twisty tale of murder, magic and mayhem and I couldn’t put it down! I feel like I’ve definitely found a new all-time favourite! This book is an ode to schemes and cons, full of street lords and mysteries and the addictive love of playing a game where the stakes are: win or die. You won’t be able to stop yourself falling in love with these characters or not accidentally toppling into the City of Sin to stay.

It follows the journey of Enne Salta, who’s enter the City of Sin to find her missing mother. She’s a prim girl from a proper finishing school and tumbles head-first into this tumultuous world of casinos and street lords and backalley fights and the kind of magic where you can bet your soul in a card game and play to win or die. She meets a very young street lord named Levi Glaisyer, who’s in deep trouble from a con scheme gone wrong, and together their lives entwine as they look to find Enne’s mother and Levi hopes the reward payout will stop him dying. Except Levi’s enemies are tightening his noose fast, and despite his flashy smile and smooth card skills, they’re not playing around anymore.

It mixes magic and con artists to perfection. I see a lot of comparisons with this to Six of Crows, and yes! It works! But also this isn’t a heist book. It’s about con schemes and card games.

The world building was so detailed and exquisite, utterly flawless. It’s set in city with a 1920s vibe, so it’s all gangsters and casinos and grubby crime kids running around. But with MAGIC. Now it took me a while to get the hang of what the orbs/volts were, but I caught up. But everyone basically has talents, or two, and it’s just super cool how it’s a whole world of magicked people and how they use that. And how it affects everything. It’s impossible not to get caught up in the City of Sin and I couldn’t look away. Plus the writing is so visual and delicious that you can really see the whole thing.

The characters totally stole the show too, with their fantastic and complex personalities, plus detailed and heart-wrenching character arcs. I’m absolutely smitten with both Levi and Enne. Usually with dual-narrating books I have a favourite: but not this time. They were both a fantastically stunning mix of conniving and softhearted sweethearts. Their stories entwine so beautifully, with them using each other but then needing each other…and then a longing for more sparking between them. The book’s set over 10 days and romance is definitely not the focus, and I really loved how their relationship played out.

Levi was an absolutely precious masterpiece, a crime lord who’s gang is failing because he’s neck-deep in debt for a scheme he didn’t even want to run. He’s cursed to work for one of the biggest crime families, but what does he want? He wants to get to the top of his own game. He’s a card dealer and super smooth…but also absolutely adores his gang and is very loyal and sweet.

Enne Salta was also a fantastic delight, and her character development just swept me off my feet. She starts off as a “proper lady” but quickly develops into someone who’s witty, ruthless, and quite cunning (while still being gloriously polite!) and basically, by a few chapters in, she was an accidental badass.

I also just loved the writing and pacing. The writing just sweeps you up and the pacing of the book was also amazing, always luring you in deeper to the complicated plot that unwinds disasters for our favourite narrators. The plot is full of twists and turns, the foreshadowing is excellent, and it sets the scenes so well: murder card games, con schemes gone wrong, cabarets, magic and mayhem and murder, casinos and card games and gangsta hats and cherries and lush hotels and absolutely disastrous curses.

I can’t recommend Ace of Shades enough! It was everything I wanted and more, plus it included mountains of respectful and lovely diversity rep, and balanced characters you can’t help but fall in love with, plus a plot that will turn you inside out. High stakes. Magic. Wicked city schemes. Villains who never stop. And antiheroes leading the way. A fantastic adventure not to be missed!

Flights of Fantasy – Imaginative Picture Books

Perhaps one of the most fulfilling perks of writing for kids is the time spent flitting around in my imagination. It’s a weird, boundless place, which allows me to harness old memories and reinvigorate them into wondrous dreams-come-true. These next few picture books are glorious examples of tapping into imaginative flights of fantasy and exploring the possibilities.

Young MacDonald by Giuseppe Poli

When I was a kid, I trussed up my trusty bicycle with the dog’s lead so that I had my very own ‘horse’ to ride around the backyard. I jumped my Malvern Star-steed in Gymkhanas, rode for days through dusty paddocks and occasionally found a hut high in the Snowy Mountains to hunker down in and ride out a storm. A remarkable amount of miles covered for a 12-year-old.

Young MacDonald, son of the much loved, Old Mac, is no different. We first meet Young Mac after he gets his own little red bike. To the familiar refrain of this well-known nursery rhyme, Young Mac goes a ting-a-linging everywhere on his bike. Encounters with a variety of vibrant characters on the farm, slowly transform his bike into a bike-digger-pirate-ship-chopper-sub-rocket that fills his day with ‘fantastical adventure’ (albeit no ponies but there you go).

Continue reading Flights of Fantasy – Imaginative Picture Books

YA Books With Knives And Swords On The Cover

Now we all know they say “don’t judge a book by its cover”…but honestly, who doesn’t!? Plus covers tend to give us a great idea of what the book is about, which is helpful if you’re looking for a swashbuckling pirate adventure or a cute fluffy romance with, preferably, plenty of ice cream and cuteness. So today we’re going to amiably judge some covers on YA books that feature knives and swords! It’s very popular and honestly makes for a stunning visual. And will these books deliver the tales of adventure and war that we’re longing for?! One must just read them all and find out. (Excellent life plan. Do please go for it.)

YA COVERS FEATURING SWORDS AND KNIVES

The Knife Of Never Letting Go – buy here

This is a fantastic YA staple, really, as it just celebrated it’s 10th anniversary! It’s a sci-fi story starring a boy who can’t kill and a girl not from this planet. It’s one of those heartbreaking ones so the knife is A+ of a visual for how your feels are going to be stabbed. I also love how it features a world where all your thoughts can be heard! Talk about freeeaky.

Markswoman – buy here

This is a very brand new book with a southeast Asian setting, featuring Kyra who’s a novice of a religious group who bring justice to the clans. Their knives are actually a bit sentient and tell them things, which is fascinating! Everything goes wrong for Kyra, though, when her leader is murdered, so she steals the knife and takes off to find justice.

To Kill A Kingdom – buy here

This just came out this May (!) which is super exciting and I can attest to how stunning a book this is! Now I realise the squid thing is holding the sword at this point, but believe me: this contains pirates and princes, sirens and sea witches. It’s a fantastic dark Little Mermaid retelling about a prince who wants to kill a siren and a siren who accidentally falls for him. Hate-to-love at its finest!

Furyborn – buy here

This is an epic fantasy about murderous angels and vicious queens. It’s told in two parts about two women, a hundred centuries apart, and how their lives not only connect but really rely on each other to tell the tale! A queen and an assassin! With unheard of powers and strengths.

Lady Midnight – buy here

Can’t help but mention a Cassandra Clare book in the infamous Shadowhunter world! Her latest series is a whirlwind of adventure and dark magic, featuring Emma who wants to find her parents’ murderer and Julian, sole carer of his younger siblings and desperate to keep them altogether when the Clave wants to rip them apart. As they dig into the murder mystery though, things get out of hand very fast with secrets coming out that no one should ever know. Also features a swoon-worthy forbidden romance!

Bring Me Their Hearts – buy here

A purely fantastic tale of a witch’s monster, called a “Heartless”, who has no choice but to serve her mistress. Zera longs for her freedom and will do anything to get it, even when her mistress sends her to kill the crown prince and take his heart, in order to control the upcoming war. Zera, part monster with a hunger for raw organs, has no qualms doing this…until she accidentally might be falling for the prince. It’s a fairy tale gone wrong and deliciously captivating!

YA Urban Fantasy: The Sentinels of Eden with Carolyn Denman

Carolyn Denman was a horse-loving child who grew up in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, inventing all sorts of fantasy worlds in her mind. She completed a Bachelor of Science and worked in finance before realising her love of writing, which very soon became an addiction.

Carolyn’s debut The Sentinels of Eden speculative fiction series grounds a refreshing blend of Australian and Aboriginal heart with biblical roots in a thrilling and transcendent fantasy allegory, with elements of real life compromise and sacrifice. In Book One: Songlines, the journey to Eden is marked with the discovery of secrets and supernatural powers that begin a changing fate for a cast of complex characters; navigating the prosperity and protection of two sacred, opposing worlds. Denman explores the symbolism of Eden and the realities of adolescence, identity and lust through her fictional fantasy in a sensitive, tasteful way. These engaging page-turners and nail-biter endings will leave their young adult readers wanting more.

Carolyn has generously answered some questions about the series for Boomerang Books readers. 😊

How did you come to be a writer?

Where most writers say that they’ve been writing since the day they could hold a pen, that’s not my story. I wrote one awesome short story in Year 7 that my teacher hated and that was the end of that, at least until that day a few years ago when I told my daughter I’d help her write a story. She got bored after the first couple of chapters. I got addicted. Seriously, I started pulling books from my shelf to remind me when you were supposed to do things like start the next line when writing dialogue. I’ve always been an avid reader, but never taken much notice of technique. Thank God I have some really gentle beta-readers. Some of them are even teachers, which is handy, and they’re nice teachers.

What is the significance of your series’ title; The Sentinels of Eden?

As you’ll see from the third book, the series isn’t just about Lainie. It’s about the long history of the Cherubim who have made sacrifices for Eden. This series is about the ones who stand guard over the land. Who hold it sacred and are born to serve it. Yeah, there’s a metaphor there, but I have no right to tell those stories. I can only try to honour them with my little allegory. That’s what makes the series title significant.

The star of Songlines (Book 1) and Sanguine (Book 2) is young teenager, Lainie. What can you tell us about her? How have you developed her intriguing personality and her special secrets?

Lainie has become a great friend, and I’ve really enjoyed seeing the world through her eyes. She’s really made me explore what it would be like to live in a world with no tears. Sure, paradise sounds great, but what would it really mean for someone who has grown up in our world? Throughout the course of the series, Lainie has grown up and yet in some ways has also become more child-like. The duality of her journey has been a wild ride, and one that everyone should think through. Growing up shouldn’t mean becoming boring. There should always be room for whimsy, and I wish I could be more like her.

All of the Sentinels books in the series deal with navigating adolescence and identity, loss, truth and protecting the environment. What other themes / issues underpin these books?

I feel that there is an underlying exploration of the nature of free will in each story. Some people don’t believe in the concept at all, which is fine, but whether we are the sum of our free choices or the inevitable product of our previous choices, we must still grapple with decisions. Especially when we’re faced with completely unexpected situations. If you want to delve even deeper, I could discuss the concept of shame. That ‘unsolvable problem’ that goes beyond guilt and underpins so many mental health issues (although I’m certainly not implying there’s a simplistic cause for any of those). There is no room for shame in Eden. In fact, it’s the one corruption that the Tree of Life can’t simply heal, which is why ‘tainted’ humans aren’t allowed in. Shame is a complex issue, and I’ve only brushed across the surface of it as a theme, really.

How do each of the covers reveal a snippet of the magic inside the books?

Each of the covers has an image which symbolises an important concept in that story. The Tree of Life, the eagle, the shell – all these hold meaning to the main characters and represent their journeys. The illustrator also gave the covers an opalescent feel. Opals are the perfect mix of earth and hidden fantasy, don’t you think?

You’ve written a short prequel to Songlines, called Barramundi Triangle (read more here). Can you tell us a bit about that?

Barramundi emerged from a throw-away line near the start of Songlines. Lainie mentioned that she’d always been a little bit afraid of the police sergeant, ever since ‘that incident with Noah and the ride-on mower’. I couldn’t help it. I had to find out what insane situation Noah had got them both into that involved a mower and the police.
Also, as a debut author I felt it wasn’t fair to expect people to take a risk on buying my book if they hadn’t read anything I’d written, so I wrote something for them to nibble on first.

Thanks, Carolyn!

To see more from Carolyn Denman and to celebrate her third and most recent book in The Sentinels of Eden series, Sympath, you can join her blog tour here.

Odyssey Books, 2016 – 2018.

#ByAustralianBuyAustralian

Review: Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno

Summer of Salt by Katrina Leno was the beautifully magical time I always expect from this author! And excuse me while I sit here all starry-eyed, but this was EXACTLY as beautiful and magical as I hoped. In the past I’ve been fully in love with her books, Everything All At Once, The Lost & Found, and The Half Life of Molly Pierce.

The story is about Georgina Fernweh who’s on the cusp of leaving her home island to start college…and this will be the first time she’s ever left. Not to mention she’s from a family where magic is real and is passed down through the generations. (There may be tales of grandmas who’ve turned into birds, aunts who control fire, and potion makers and ones that fly.) Her own twin sister, Mary, floats, and her mother does magical things on full moons that can make anything happen. Unfortunately Georgie is 100% unmagical and her last summer on the island, By-the-Sea, is turning into a bittersweet farewell because: she has met Prue, the cutest girl, but also a tragedy has struck the island and everything threatens to collapse unless Georgie can figure it out.

On the island of By-the-sea you could always smell two things: salt and magic.

This one is slightly more magicy than the others Leno has written, with a family living on an island who actually do downright witchy things like float and turn into birds and make potions. But all in such a chill way that you kind of can look at it without looking at it. Or that’s what the other islanders do. I absolutely loved the world. And it was all The Scorpio Races vibes mixed with every Anna-Marie McLemore and I just couldn’t put it down. Whimsical but also with a really hard-hitting underlying story to make your face kind of water.

I loved the twins, Georgie (our narrator) and Mary, who are polar opposites but deeply supportive of each other. Their bond goes through the wringer, but it’s the kind of sibling story that is equal parts relatable and fantastic to read.

And Georgie and Prue were the cutest thing. Prue is visiting the island with her birdwatching brother and Georgie (obviously) lives there and her family runs the inn. But Georgie pretends to be chill at first but ohhh the crush is just THE CUTEST. It was so soft and sweet and I just loved them and how their friendship and feelings developed. Ah! I also loved how there were solid female friendships in the background and the hint of all things mystical and maybe even sinister lurking in the shadows.

And it does have a pretty darker undertone at the end. Which I thought was addressed and handled so well.

Basically Summer of Salt will NOT disappoint! I was totally swept up in the magic of this, and the aesthetic of the quaint and weird island, and people shedding feathers and eating cake and mysteries threatening to tear their world apart. SO GOOD.

Look out for Summer of Salt coming June 5th, 2018! Preorder now!

Review: Everless by Sara Holland

Everless by Sara Holland is a gorgeous fantasy where time is, literally, money. And you know what really captivated me?! The plot twists! Holy wow they did not stop coming and I was constantly surprised, which is exactly what I want from a novel. The imagination behind this book is superb and I will definitely keep my eye on this author in the future!

The story centres around Jules Ember, who lives in Sempera where you can draw blood and turn it into coins that count as money. Ergo the rich can live forever and the poor die so young. (It’s such a fascinating world!) Jules father is one of the unlucky ones caught deep in debt and poverty, his life nearly drained just trying to stay alive, so Jules decides to go work in the Everless estate, which is run by the infamous and filthy rich Gerling family. Fun part? She used to work there as a child but she and her father were forced to run away after an accident no one can know about. But if Jules goes back, hopefully no one will recognise her and she can earn enough to keep her father alive. But Jules ends up discovering her family is more entwined with the Gerlings than she knew, plus she stumbles over her childhood crush…now betrothed to a princess. But even putting her feelings aside, Jules knows there’s more to herself, this princess, and the gnarly old queen then meets the eye. And she’s running out of time to find out why.

I totally loved the premise, with time-turning-to-money! It’s clever (although I have seen it in the movie In Time) and interesting to read about people who can measure their life spans and what they choose to do with that information. I also loved how the world building was really caught up around this, with lots of the language translating to time-references, and society functioning more on blood coins. It was super impressive how beautifully the world was crafted.

Jules was a very admirable heroine. She wasn’t my favourite person ever just because she was very very GOOD. But I still loved her curious streak and how she wouldn’t let other people tell her “what was best”. Jules took charge of her own fate and THAT is what I love to read about in YA!

The plot twists at the end just came so thick and fast. The villain reveals were so very good. It’s brimming with morally grey characters and mind twisters and I love ending a book feeling betrayed and elated at being successfully tricked!

It actually had a marvellous focus on female friendship too. Which is something that I’m sorely in need of. Jules befriends a ton of the other servants at Everless, and ends up working for the queen-to-be, who treats her so well and they actually end up being epic friends, despite the class difference. Seeing complex females on every page just made my day.

The romance is very very slight, too, in case you enjoy books that focus on mysteries over romance. I think it was well done, but Jules was not here to be distracted by a boy. (Go her.) Her childhood sweetheart was charismatic but clueless and Jules was also shadowed by his older brother, Liam, who her father’s always told her to steer clear of. And Jules has an excellent reason to hate him, as you’ll find out.

Basically Everless is definitely the fantasy you don’t want to let slip through your fingers! It’s built on an interesting and wonderfully crafted world and full of characters you’ll definitely root for. Some of the tropes are a little overdone in there, but it still brings epicness to the table.

Review: The Falconer by Elizabeth May

THE FALCONER by Elizabeth May was a pure delight to read, full of stabbing, dark faeries and murderous girls and the occasional explosion. I was absolutely in love the whole time and totally infatuated with this steampunk Scottish series. I definitely want more books ASAP. It also featured sass and engineering inventions and beautiful and dangerous faerie powers that were so intriguing.

The story follows Aileana who is part time lord’s daughter and part time faerie slayer. She has to keep both lives seperate and it’s exhausting, but she’ll do anything to avenge her mother who was slain by a horrifying faerie. Aileana teams up with a rogue fey boy, Kiaran, and together they train and hunt to avenge Aileana’s mother…but complications are thrown in when strange faeries start crawling out of the ground and Kiaran reveals he has more secrets than Aileana could ever have imagined.

Although I have to admit the ending really got me!! It was the wildest and worst cliffhanger in the world and I immediately want book 2.

I really loved Aileana, our badass faerie killer. I loved how Aileana chaffed at her “proper” life as a lord’s daughter and doing the balls and dresses etc etc…but she didn’t diss them. Makes such a difference. And she was elegant and also badass and she was an engineer with all these murderous inventions to kill faeries. I mean, can she get any more awesome?! This is the kind of female heroine I love reading about!

Also I appreciated how heavily this book features PTSD. I often find with fantasy we like skip over the “effects” and just focus on the battle. But this goes into the actual mental health side!! Aileana’s mother was murdered in front of her (when she was little) and that absolutely messes with her all the time and the book really delves into the “cause and effect” reactions fo war.

Dark feral faeries are also my favourite. Kiaran was very mysterious and also extremely powerful, but he and Aileana train to kill faeries. Aka Kairan is killing his own kind. But why? He has so many dark secrets and we only catch snippets and honestly it just makes the book ridiculously hard to put down.

I just really like how dangerous and wild all the faeries are. Everyone gets stabbed and bitten and poisoned. It’s exciting and exhilarating to read a book that so grabs you!

I also loved the writing! It was really detailed and the added layer of describing all the smells made it really leap off the page. I thought the pacing was excellent and it interspersed things like balls and tea with lords and earls with huge action scenes, sassy faerie quips, and inventions of explosions and unravellings of mysteries that could end with the whole world in trouble.

THE FALCONER is a fantastic surprise and one I’ll not be forgetting. It’s full of dark faeries in a steampunk Scottish setting with a badass, engineering, and emotional heroine I absolutely want to read more about. It totally captured my imagination!

Review: Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore

Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore is the most magical and richly lush story ever! The gorgeousness of the cover does not lie I tell you, absolutely not. This book is aesthetically stunning inside and out and it’s a story of magical gardens and families of women with curses and a dirt and dark secrets and missing people. I was absolutely swallowed whole by the magical and ethereal tones and honestly it’s the kind of book you do not want to miss.

The story is about the Nomeolvides women who live in a garden they can never leave. Or basically they’ll hack up a lung. It’s not great. The five girl cousins are all in love with the unattainable granddaughter of the estate, but they try to be careful about showing it because there seems to be a curse that whoever a Nomeolvides women loves — they’ll go missing. Sure enough, the girls’ beloved Bee disappears and in her place, they dig a mysterious boy out of the soil. He has no memory and no idea what’s going on. The gardens are under threat, dark secrets are rising, and they need to solve the mystery of this strange boy’s past and what it means. It might be their saving or their tragedy.

I can’t even sum up all the things I loved about this tale! It’s complicated and interesting, the plot never letting you down for a second. There are secrets fairly popping up like daisies. It features a cast of completely complex and strong women who you just admire from the first page. The gardens are MAGICAL and, I mean, they dug a boy out of the soil. What more do you want from a book?

Honestly the writing is what absolutely captured my heart. It really hones in on the details. It’s not going to say “she grew a flower”. It will say “she grew a midnight blue rose” or similar, and it just absolutely captivated me with luscious description and carefully designed details. Everything leapt off the pages. I felt like I fell into this magical fairy tale garden of mystery and sadness and utter beauty. The style is thick and luscious. This isn’t the kind of book you skim because it’s like a very rich chocolate cake.

Actually speaking of food: the food descriptions in here are fantastic. Plus the boy they pull out of the garden sees all the women are sad so he cooks food for them. Quality lad.

It’s absolutely FULL of complex and interesting women! The Nomeolvides women all live in this garden that the can never leave (or they die; super fun times) and they grow flowers and tend it etc. etc. Most people think they are witches. 3 generations of women live in the house, 5 grandmas, 5 mothers, and 5 daughters. The 5 cousins basically function as sisters and this pleases me so so much! The girls all love pretty things and they love being feminine, whcih was so refreshing. I loved the Latina culture and how most of the characters fit onto the lgbtqia+ spectrum too.

The book is mainly from the pov of Estrella and Fel. Fel is the boy they dig out of the garden who is quiet and tragic and somewhat confused at everything. Estrella falls in love with him. They are so beautiful, both of them.

Ultimately? Wild Beauty is, in a word: GORGEOUS. It is a celebration of magic and flowers and how beautiful things can often cover up deep suffering.

Review: Daughter of The Burning City by Amanda Foody

Daughter of the Burning City by Amanda Foody was dark and murderous and magical. So basically everything a good book should be. I’m in absolute awe of the world building, the dynamic characters, and the finale plot twist that totally caught me off guard! This was just incredible and I highly recommend it!
Why aren’t all books full of murder and magic. I ask.

The story is set in a moving carnival called the Gomorrah Festival. It features Sorina who is an illusionist and “freak” because she was born with no eyes but instead has magical powers. Her illusions are so real that they can basically have lives of their own and she calls them her family. Then one gets murdered which, as you can imagine, shouldn’t be possible for a person who isn’t even real. Sorina teams up with the local charming but cocky gossip-worker named Luca to try and solve the mystery, that might be more deeply imbedded in the festival’s history than she originally thought.

The setting was so exquisitely described and detailed! I totally felt I could see and taste and smell Gomorrah. It explodes off the page with kettle corn and liquorice cherries and smoke from the permanently burning and walking city. It’s definitely the kind of setting I’d love to visit.

The plot was deliciously twisty and rich. There are conspiracy theories and murder mysteries! I loved the sort of genre mash-up of having an epic fantasy setting, but mixed with mysteries and whodunnit vibes, not to mention there’s religious tension in the background and people with wicked magical skills. And of course you have all the carnival and performance shenanigans and dramas. Exciting.

But the characters absolutely stole the show. (Har har, excuse the pun.) I adored them all. Sorina was amazing! She’s an illusionist, adopted by the proprietor of the carnival, and she is so incredibly powerful. Imagine making people up and then having them come to life and actually function as people. She loved her little made up “freak” family so much. I also loved how relatable Sorina was with her dedication to her family, her want to please her father and become Gomorrah’s next master, and her panic attacks and tears that made her so human.

And Luca was equally magnificent. He was entirely snarky and wore horrendous waistcoats that Sorina never let him live down and he trades in gossip and mysteries. He also asexual which was so refreshing to see on page! I loved how devious and cunning he was, and their relationship was slow burn and fraught with uncertainty.

The writing was also a piece of marvel. I couldn’t put the book down! Plus it really utilised the five-senses to make visually stunning words and paragraphs.

Basically if you are looking for a deliciously wicked story of magic, mystery, and mayhem…Daughter Of The Burning City is for you. It’ll totally capture your heart and your imagination and probably make you crave popcorn, but where exactly is the downside in that.

Review: All The Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater

All The Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater is about magic, darkness, and fighting your inner demons. I’m a huge fan of all of Stiefvater’s work, so I went in with excited expectations and wasn’t disappointed! It’s incredibly heartfelt and written in such a whimsical style that you can’t help being addicted to every page.

The story follows three cousins who live on a ranch, Bicho Raro, in Colorado, where their family gives out miracles. The trouble with miracles is that you have to accept your darkness to deal with it, and it often comes out in strange ways. Their world is populated by the weird and wonderful and magical, on a backdrop of deserts in the 1960s. The three teens are: Beatriz, who claim she has no feelings. Then Daniel, who is the resident saint, at 19, and used to be a pure child brat. And then Joaquin is the youngest and he runs an illegal radio station under the name Diablo Diablo (um, don’t tell his family, he’ll be in super big trouble). They watch pilgrims get their miracles all the time, but what happens when Daniel, the only saint who can help them, goes missing?

I loved how magical it was! The miracles are portrayed so interestingly. The Sorias family saints give the miracle and the trick is you have to deal with it yourself. If they help — everything will get dark and worse. Often pilgrims get stuck and are just living on the ranch for months trying to put themselves back together. It’s just accepted that everyone is freaking weird and magical here. Like there are girls entwined with snakes, a giant, someone who gets rained on all the time etc. etc. And everyone is chill with that.

It is written in an omnipresent style, which isn’t typically my favourite, but I loved how it transformed this book into a mythological fairy tale sort of vibe! Weget dozens of POVs and perspectives, from the Sorias to the pilgrims. I really loved how beautiful, whimsical, and melodic the writing was. It felt so rich and extravagantly magical and the extra perspectives actually made it feel juicy and deep. The story is about miracles, not just the Saints and not just the Pilgrims.

The setting was gorgeous too. I could totally see the ranch and the desert and the box truck. You could taste the dust and see the owls and tumbleweeds!

The characters are just so amazing and complex and different. They are odd little tumble weeds and I loved them. I adored the three Soria cousins and their illegal radio station and their inner darkness. I loved Beatriz who was very firmly convinced she had no feelings and Joaquin who loved his hair and Daniel, the childhood-devil-turned-saint. I loved Pete who loved to work (what the heck is wrong with him though) and was so earnest and pure. And I loved the dogs who wanted to eat everyone alive. #relatable

All The Crooked Saints the kind of story that definitely leaves you wanting more, which is amazing. It’s whimsical and bizarre and addictive. This book is a bit like being told wild dusty folklore stories with black roses and owls with strange eyes and strange box trucks and girls who like boys’ elbows. It’s unusual and it’s slow and it’s pretty and there are SAINTS. It’s every scoop of magic you need in your life.

Interview with Cameron Macintosh – Max Booth Future Sleuth

Cameron Macintosh’s debut children’s fantasy sci-fi series for middle graders, Max Booth Future Sleuth, is a mind-bending, time-warping fun adventure about a boy and his robo-dog sidekick on a mission to uncover the truths about ‘ancient’ artefacts (Are the ‘80s really that ancient?!). The first book to send us looping back and forth between time zones is Tape Escape. Set in 2424, it is a comically suspenseful story that sees Max and Oscar in all sorts of strife, following the theft of the valuable, all-encompassing, legendary David Snowie-archived cassette tape from the hands of a maniacal musicology nutter. Certainly one to goggle over (or google if you’re under 20), for its fascinating reflections into technological history and advancements.

Big Sky Publishing

With a background in editing and writing educational texts, Cameron coolly strode his way into the world of children’s fiction. Thanks for sharing your writing journey and Max Booth insights with us, Cameron!

Firstly, please tell us a bit about your writing journey and how you came to write for children. What’s the best part of this career choice?

My writing journey has been very long and slow, but worth every twist and detour. Like a lot of writers, my journey started as a primary school kid. In my case it was writing rambling rhyming stories that weren’t nearly as clever as I thought they were at the time! I didn’t seriously think writing could be a career option until I enrolled in the RMIT Professional Writing and Editing course and found work as an editor out of that – in educational publishing. It took a few years, but I eventually used my contacts as an editor to leapfrog into writing educational texts. I’ve been happily doing that since 2008, but it wasn’t until 2016 that I made the much longed-for leap into mainstream trade publishing when Big Sky Publishing offered to take on the first Max Booth book.

For me, the best part of writing for kids is that it’s a licence to let your imagination run wild, and to revisit ideas that added extra levels of magic to your own childhood. I also get a lot of satisfaction from knowing that, in a small way, I’m part of an incredible community of writers, teachers, librarians and parents who are passionate about encouraging kids to develop a love for reading.

Congratulations on the releases of your latest books in the exciting Max Booth Future Sleuth series, Tape Escape and Selfie Search! What was the experience of writing this series like for you? What themes are at the heart of these stories?

Thank you! It was a very different experience writing each of them. I started the first book, Tape Escape, about four years ago as an attempt to branch out from educational writing. It was three years before the wonderful people at Big Sky offered to take it on, so I’d been living with it for quite a while. That was probably a good thing, because the story had time to find its feet and go through several drafts and workshops with my wonderful writing group.

The second book, Selfie Search, was a very different experience – I’d pitched Max Booth as a potential series, and Big Sky wanted another book to follow it up fairly quickly. I’d already written four or five mini-synopses for future titles, so much of the plot was already in place. And obviously, the characters and world of the story had already been set up in Tape Escape, so it wasn’t too hard to put it together in the space of a few months.

The themes of the books include technology, family, friendship and historical discovery – a strange mix but somehow they seem to work together!

I loved the whirlwind time warp of recollecting the past and imagining the future. Where did the inspiration for these books come from? Were you a hard core sci-fi / fantasy fan as a child? Is there something about time travel that steered you towards this angle? How much research went into plotting accurate facts in technological history?

The initial inspiration came from a visit to Naples and Pompeii, where I encountered all sorts of objects that had survived the devastating eruption nearly 2000 years ago – mostly everyday, domestic items like crockery and hair combs. My fascination for these objects started me wondering whether similarly mundane objects from our own lives would be so interesting to future generations. All I needed was a character with that very fascination (hello Max!) and I was off and running.

Oddly enough, I wasn’t a huge sci-fi or fantasy fan as a kid, apart from Star Wars and Monkey Magic (if they count!), and a few one-off books. But over the last few years I’ve found that speculating about the shape of the world over the coming centuries seems to unleash lots of sparks for story ideas.

In terms of research, the main thing I need to be sure of is that the dates line up correctly for the 20th and 21st century objects Max investigates in each book. I also need to scratch a little deeper for some of the objects because each book ends with a factual spread about the main item Max investigates, giving basic information about its history and how it works.

How have you found the feedback from your readers so far? What have they loved the most about Max Booth? Is this what you had hoped to achieve?

It’s been very encouraging so far. Most importantly for me, they’ve enjoyed the humour, and have liked Max’s robo-dog, Oscar. I’ve also had feedback that readers have liked the future gadgetry, and that parents have found the stories a useful springboard for conversations with their kids about the technologies they grew up with. That’s really pleasing too.

Dave Atze’s illustrations are humorous, energetic and befittingly shrewd. What was it like collaborating with him? Were there any surprises along the way?

You’ve really summed up Dave’s work perfectly. It’s such a treat to work with an artist who has such an intuitive feel for characters and sci-fi settings. His illustrations are really funny too. In terms of the collaboration, I’d included lots of suggestions in the manuscripts. Between Dave, the publisher and myself, we whittled them down to the most important ones, and Dave pretty much took the reigns from there. He nailed the ideas really quickly and we really didn’t need to do a lot of to-and-fro.

The biggest surprise for me was seeing these characters come to life so closely to how I’d imagined them. There was definitely some kind of telepathy going on!

What is your favourite technological device from the past, and what do you think it might be in the future?

My favourite device from the past would have to be my Nintendo Game and Watch game (Popeye!) from the 80s. For the uninitiated, Game and Watch was a series of simple hand-held LED games that were seriously addictive, and are now quite collectible.

My favourite future device will be a scalp-massaging bike helmet – can someone please invent one soon?

What would be your dream time zone for writing be?

It’s not very romantic, but I sometimes wish it was the early 90s again – where we had the benefit of decent word processors without the distraction of the internet! Failing that, an attic in a French castle in the 1880s would be okay too – as long as I can bring a heater and a massage chair.

What projects are you currently working on? What can your fans expect to see from you in the ‘not-too-distant’ future?

I’m currently working hard on the third Max Booth book, and having a lot of fun with it. I won’t say too much about the plot, except that in this one, it’s a very low-tech item that Max is investigating.

There’s also an almost-finished YA novel that I’ll get back to when Max is off the desk, and I’ve recently started plotting a book for adults – I think it’s a crime story, but who knows, it’ll probably end up morphing into sci-fi!

Where can we learn more about you and your books?

Until Andrew Morton writes the biography, the best place to start is probably my website: www.cameronemacintosh.com.au. I’m also on Facebook as ‘Cameron Macintosh, author’ and Twitter @CamMaci99. The Max Booth books are available at www.bigskypublising.com.au.

Thanks so much, Cameron, for discussing your writing journey, past, present and future! 👦🏼 🐶 📼

It’s been a lot of fun, Romi. Thanks a billion for having me!

#ByAustralianBuyAustralian

Review: Wonder Woman Warbringer by Leigh Bardugo

Wonder Woman: Warbringer by Leigh Barudgo was a definite pocketful of feministic glory. I hadn’t actually ever seen the Wonder Woman movie or read any WW comics, but that didn’t hinder my enjoyment AT ALL. Leigh Bardugo is masterful! It was a bit slower than I expected, on a whole, but still so fun and full of empowerment to minorities and EXPLOSIONS. Which obviously every good superhero action sequence needs.

The story starts off on a mysterious secluded island of Amazons where Diana, daughter of the queen, is the only occupant who was born there and not earned her place through bravery and war. She’s desperate to prove herself as strong as everyone else — but during a race to do just that, she gets caught up rescuing a girl from a shipwreck. Helping a human on the island can equal banishment, but Diana takes the risk anyway to get Alia back home safely. But after consulting the Oracle, Diana learns that Alia is a warbringer and will insight wars and destruction forever unless she’s killed. Or cured. And Diana’s going to help find that cure.

I’m absolutely so impressed by how it features strong female friendships! This is so rare to read, especially in YA, and I can’t even remember the last time I read a good solid female friendship that didn’t dissolve into jealousy or cattiness over a boy. But Wonder Woman gives us not one but two solidly epic, uplifting and empowering female friendships. I adored Alia and Diana’s bond. They were sisters of war by the end, even if Alia was a small breakable human nerd and Diana is like AMAZON EPIC. And then Alia has her very close friend, Nim, who is feisty and funny and passionate. I’m so so impressed. Feminism for the win.

I also adored all the mythology of course! I didn’t realise how steeped in Greek mythology this would be, so that was a pleasant surprise. Think Percy Jackson = but with epic girls.

It’s also super diverse, with almost all the characters being people of colour. How awesome is that?! Here is an action adventure story featuring diversity in race and skin and sexuality in all the leading roles.

I’m also a huge fan of witty dialogue and banter and this book delivered that so well. The dialogue and banter was laugh out loud worthy and there was even a small Easter egg reference to Leigh Bardugo’s Six of Crows series that had me very impressed. Also Diana experiencing the mortal world was hilarious. That will never get old omg I laughed so much.

The characters are all terrific and so winning. I rooted for them the whole time! Diana and Alia take turns narrating, with distinct and complex and emotional voices. Then, of course, there’s Nim — who is a designer and bisexual and very protective of Alia. We also have Theo who is a gangly dork and hilarious and super annoying. Also of course Jason, Alia’s older brother, who is Mister Bossy Pants but loves his sister so much and just wants her safe.

I won’t even hesitate to say that Wonder Woman: Warbringer was thoroughly….wonderful. (Har har I couldn’t resist.) It was exciting with stunning and feels-smashing plot twists, with delightful feminism woven all through. Definitely an empowering and masterful tale.

Review: Caraval by Stephanie Garber

Caraval by Stephanie Garber was an absolute magical ride through a carnival where nothing was as it seemed. I was totally sucked in by the mind twisty plot and the luscious setting and the huge potential that everything was going to to up and flames and end in stabbing. Because it’s just that kind of book, okay!? Exciting.

It follows the story of Scarlett who escapes with her sister from her abusive father to participate in the infamous Game hosted by Legend, the master of Carnival. The game consists of many clues and ends in Legend granting you a magical wish. Scarlett doesn’t intend to stay long, but quickly gets absorbed with a roguish sailor who seems to know a little too much about the magical and eerily twisted rules and also because her sister goes missing. Scarlett has to find her. Because the game is a lot more sinister than it seems.

+ The world was incredible.
It’s set on an island that’s an entire mysterious carnival. So think: gondolas and weird tunnels of madness and magical shops and rooms that grow and shrink with your emotions. It felt like Alice in Wonderland with a Venice-type-vibe that’s all gorgeous…but with sinister undertones. I adored it!

+ The writing was exceptionally beautiful too.
It was full of luscious prose that totally swept you up with the sugary spun magic of this circus-type town. The descriptions were vivd but not overly-purple or flowery. And the way it sucked you in…you could totally see the amazing ballgowns Scarlett wore and the crazy buildings and murky dark tunnels under the city.

+ It was also deliciously mind twisty!
They start off the book saying “NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS” and Scarlett promptly forgets that 2 seconds later and freaks out over everything. It was really really well done and I got so swept up in the game. I had so many questions and it tangled me a lot…and I basically decided everyone was secretly evil by page three. So I had a lot of fun. I love worlds that are somorally grey and all “IT’S A GAME AND EVERYONE’S GONNA GET STABBED!” Wow, Monopoly was so yesterday.

+ It features sisters.
Scarlett was a very loving and loyal older sister, while Tella was a wild and self-involved younger sister…but their bond and dedication was still marvellous.

+ The romance was had a hate-to-love vibe which is such a fantastic trope.
Let’s have some salt and vinegar on those chips, my friends, because Scarlett was so not falling for Julian, the slightly roguish sailor who is far too wild and mysterious. But as they become accidental partners in the game and rely on each other — they form a really close bond. And even though Scarlett suspects Julian might not be who he seems, they can’t help but get tangled as they try to protect each other when the game goes wrong.

Carival is basically an excellent story if you want magical worlds in a theatre-type setting, with romance, knives, madness, and conspiracy theories. I am sitting here impatiently waiting for the sequel.

Every person gets on impossible wish, if the person wants something more than anything, and they can find a bit of magic to help them a long.

Review: Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz

Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz is a story about suffering, healing, loneliness and magical gay fish. Which is not a combination you find very often…or any time really. As a bookworm who devours hundreds of books every year, finding something unique and original is absolutely exciting! And on top of that, Teeth was so heart-wrenching and raw that I simply couldn’t put it down. This is the kind of book written with so much soul and heart you can feel the emotions on every page. Even if (like me) you have a rather cold dead heart. This book is 10/10 guaranteed to melt it.

The story basically follows Rudy who’s moved to a bitter cold and grey island with his family because the local fish are rumoured to cure illness. Rudy’s 5-year-old little brother, Dylan, is dying of a lung disease and his parents are desperate for these fish to be the cure they long for. But for Rudy it means isolation and loneliness as his parents are consumed with his brother and Rudy’s left his entire life behind. He’s not even sure who he is anymore, since he was a rather bad friend to his schoolmates and no one even misses him. Instead he finds a girl in a mansion on the hill who never leaves her house, but seems to be full of secrets. And he finds a boy who’s half fish, half human, swimming in the sea. The boy is tortured by the local fisherman and begs everyone to stop eating the fish which are his family. Rudy’s torn: the fish are saving his brother, but this fishboy is stealing his heart. If he can’t have both, who is he going to leave to suffer?

I don’t find a lot of mermaid books, so this was particularly special! Although technically Teeth is a fish, not a merman. But it was still exciting to find an incredibly well-written book staring someone who is part of the sea like this. #MermaidAppreciation The book also features Teeth’s extreme hate of humans and his struggle to even accept he’s part human. He claims he’s a fish at every opportunity, but being around Rudy maybe is starting to make him realise not all humans are evil.

The setting was so absolutely vivid. They all live on this cold and damp and barren island, and it was grey and bitter and I just felt that in all the descriptions! The fish are luring people there, with their promise of a cure, but everyone still seems sick and worried and miserable on the island. The fisherman are cruel and the locals are silent and secretive. The detail is sparse but so very vivid. I also loved the contrast of having a book featuring a place so depressing, but that offered hope of survival. It was very well done!

The writing was so brilliantly raw. Rudy narrates in 1st person and feeling his loneliness and angst and fears on the page was so vivid. He’s terrified that he doesn’t love his little brother enough and he feels like he’s becoming a nothing in the wake of everyone forgetting about him. The story is also fairly violent and gritty and brutal, featuring the abuse Teeth reaps from the local evil fisherman (since Teeth frees all the fish he can from their nets and they punish him for it) and the secret darkness of the locals. The book basically rips out your heart with fishhooks. It’s nice like that.

I absolutely fell in love with Teeth and Rudy! These two characters totally stole my heart, although I wouldn’t call either of them totally likeable. But they felt real! And complex! And that’s what I want wen reading a book. I particularly adored Teeth, the bruised and damaged merman. He is absolutely sarcastic and snarky and bitter…but also quite naive and desperate for a friend. He has severe PTSD and some warped hero-complexes going on, and while we didn’t explore his psychology in too much depth because it’s not his narration — I still appreciated the brutal and realistic look at the effects of living a tortured life. The book doesn’t brush over anything. It also freaking breaks my heart!

If you are looking for a story of darkness and magic and small miracles and tears and breaking: read Teeth! It gets all the stars from me for being so amazingly written!

Review: The Crown’s Fate #2 by Evelyn Skye

The Crown’s Fate by Evelyn Skye was an amazing duology finale that was absolutely exquisite. It was everything I was hoping for to wrap up The Crown’s Game series! Is it possible to flail enough?! This duology is rich in Russian mythology and culture and magic and a definite recommend. It’s magical and dark and beautiful and perfection.

You can check out my review for The Crown’s Game, book 1, here!

The story takes off where book 1 left off: with our magicians caught in the aftermath of their war together. Nikolai is trapped in another realm and Vika is now the Imperial Enchanter — but it’s more dangerous and complicated than she could ever have imagined. Rebels are rising and Pasha, the young new Tsar, is struggling to keep control of the throne. Nikolai is desperate to escape the shadow realm he’s created to save himself, but at what cost? When dark forces offer him a way of escape, he has to choose whether he’ll take them and continue the fight with Vika — or help save his friends.

I lowkey, I didn’t want it to be the finale! If there are more books in Vika, Pasha, and Nikolai’s world I would be totally on board for that. I might even pass bribes of cake, let’s be real here. You know a book is excellent when the world so so captivates you with its breathtaking descriptions and complexities that you want infinitely more of it. I love how it mixes historical-Russia with a dash of magic that just makes everything all the more special. Because every book should have magic in it.

One thing I particularly enjoyed about this sequel is that it’s a lot darker than the first book. We have shadow realms and darker magic and DEATH, with the return of sinister powers and with Nikolai frolicking in the dark side. I love him 5000% more now.

LIST OF OTHER THINGS TO LOVE

Plenty of character development. Like they’re all reeling from the heart-wrenching finale of book one, and the effects are so palpable.
Deepens the magic system. We get to see more of what the magicians can do, and since they were pretty dang spectacular the first time round, this is the best.
There is food. Vika makes an edible Christmas tree and I think this is why I love her.
Higher stakes. Which means you’re going to experience pain.
Girl power. Like serious girl power. Vika is #Fabulousness personified, and Yuliana (Pasha’s sister) just slays with her ability to run a kingdom because Pasha is adorable and I love him but he’s also as useful as a grape.
Better than the first! And I loved the first a lot, so this is saying something. All the AND ADORATION.
And excuse me while I take another moment for foodie appreciation. Look, I’m not try to tell you how to live your life, but if your epic fantasy doesn’t have gobs and gobs of delicious foodie descriptions — then it’s wrong. The Crown’s Fate rules for delicious Russian food descriptions.

And while it is about love, it’s also about friendship and family.
Which is my favourite thing in books. I can’t be more happy with how it all worked out. I loved getting to see Pasha and Nikolai interact as brothers now. Although, let’s be real: they took sibling rivalry to the next level.

The Crown’s Fate perfectly balanced gorgeous writing, a rich and imaginative Russia, with characters it’s impossible not to love. The plot was fast-paced and rich with intrigue and twists. It’s definitely a highlight of my year so far.

Perception – The Power of Picture Book Point of View

Picture books have an immense power and ability to relay subject matter in a range of perspectives. How young developing minds perceive the world around them helps them make sense of themselves as well as those living in worlds different from theirs. The following picture books all support themes of perception in the most tender and winsome ways.

The Cloudspotter by Tom McLaughlin

A young boy seeks solace in spotting clouds and the adventures they enshroud. His imaginative blue-sky sojourns stave loneliness until he encounters The Scruffy Dog whom he feels is after his cloud sanctuaries for herself. He plots to remove her but when she is no longer beside him, realises that both she and he had been searching for something else all along.

A beautifully illustrated succinct look at imagination, friendship and viewing things from a different point of view. A must read.

Bloomsbury June 2015

Ollie’s Treasures by Lynn Jenkins & Kirrili Lonergan Continue reading Perception – The Power of Picture Book Point of View

Breathtaking Fantasy Adventures for Middle Grade and Young Adults

It’s not often I get the opportunity to delve into the depths of fantasy-adventure novels, so the change has been an interesting welcome. If you’re a thrill-seeker, a supernatural-hunting-wannabe, a mission-impossible-style adrenalin junkie or courageous-fugitive aspirant, then these following books are for you!

Fenn Halflin and the Seaborn by Francesca Armour-Chelu, July 2017.

Following its predecessor, Fenn Halflin and the Fearzero, this final futuristic fantasy takes the resourceful and brave Fenn Halflin to new depths of heroism. With fantastic, fast-paced action, Fenn and his loyal mongoose Tikki are at the forefront of saving themselves and the Seaborn people from the grips of the merciless Terra Firma and their evil leader, Chilstone. Haunted by his past and his pain, Chilstone literally drowns in his own hatred in response to the inner strength of our protagonist, Fenn. Uncomplicated but enough visualisation to get lost in, the dystopian Fenn Halflin and the Seaborn will sweep its middle grade readers into a spunky science fiction odyssey.

The City of Secret Rivers by Jacob Sager Weinstein, June 2017.

Twelve-year-old Hyacinth gains a lot more than she bargained for when moving from America to London; the place of her ancestry. Drawing on a wonderful mix of real life and an underground magical alternate reality, author Jacob Sager Weinstein literally sweeps us through a series upon romping series of adventure into tunnels, pipes and mazes in the secret sewer systems of London. When something as simple as washing her hands sets off a complicated chain of dangerous events, Hyacinth is thrust into a world of outlandish characters, including muddy Saltpetre Men, toshers and a bather-wearing pig, facing tests of trust, bravery and the acceptance of a whole new identity. All this to save her kidnapped Mom, oh, and the entire city from the Great Fire – plot by the conniving Lady Roslyn. With elements of suspense, humour, excitement and pure terror, The City of Secret Rivers combines the kind of complexity and ingenuity to that of Lewis Carroll and J.K. Rowling all rolled into a fantastical adventure for mid to upper primary-aged children.

William Wenton and the Luridium Thief by Bobbie Peers, April 2017.

First in this exciting new series is William Wenton; an extraordinarily talented codebreaker which lands him in all sorts of strife. Kidnapped by the Institute for Post-Human Research for his code-cracking skills, what follows is a series of mystery, adventure and secret discoveries. Wenton not only discovers the powerful substance, luridium whilst held captive, but also forges a path of self-discovery and identity, as most youngsters do on their journey into adulthood. With cryptic puzzles and fiendish mechanical inventions, the Luridium Thief is a captivating and enigmatic fantasy novel that will immediately hook those upper-primary readers.

The Traitor and the Thief by Gareth Ward, August 2017.

More secrets, spies and being hunted. Another thrilling steampunk story for older readers, The Traitor and the Thief is essentially about fourteen-year-old petty thief Sin, on his own mission of soul-searching, relationship-building, and becoming a saviour. Caught and recruited into the Covert Operations Group (COG), Sin is trained to be an agile spy with mastery in weaponry and technology in order to uncover truths and conquer dangerous adventures. With quirkiness and elements of imaginative realities, as well as a touch of budding young romance and navigating teenagehood, this fantasy novel suits those readers out for a good mystery mixed with adventure.

Alex Rider: Never Say Die (Book 11) by Anthony Horowitz, June 2017.

From the bestselling series here is a new mission for Alex Rider, a fifteen-year-old adopted into a writerly family, and recruited by the M16 agents. Intensely terrifying adventure leads to clues as to the whereabouts of his female guardian, Jack – ultimately held for ransom by a terrorist organisation. Set in Cairo, and packed with plot twists and turns, Never Say Die is an exciting and absolutely gripping explosion of action and adrenalin that will have its readers on tender hooks until the end.

Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, including authors Cassandra Clare, Sarah Ress Brennan, Maureen Johnson, and Robin Wasserman, May 2017.

To fully immerse oneself in this latest volume of the ‘Shadowhunters’ series, background knowledge and loyalty to best-selling YA author, Cassandra Clare would be ideal. In essence of the Harry Potter-style ideology of mixing realms between the normal and the magical variety, these tales confront protecting the ‘mundane’ world from the dangers of the supernatural beings. With ten short stories written by four authors and varying in complexity, Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy fans will, I’m sure, relish learning of every new skill, memory and life discovery of its central character, human / vampire / Shadowhunter Simon Lewis.

Walker Books Australia

The Most Highly Anticipated YA Sequels Of 2017

Apparently 2017 is crowning itself the queen of the young adult sequels. There are so many epic additions to series coming out this year, it’s just impossible not to try and eat them all at once! And if you’re a little behind on release dates and figuring out which series you should be caught up on…sit down and relax, my friend. I am here to help.

Here are some highly anticipated YA sequels that are either newly on the shelves or just around the corner!

OUR DARK DUET (published June)

This is the sequel and finally to the incredible This Savage Song! It follows the story of Kate Harker, child of a cruel mafi overlord, and August Flynn, a violinist monster who wishes he was human and their fight to save their depraved and dying city of Verity.

It’s like Batman’s Gotham but with violins and heartbreakingly good writing. Definitely a must read!

NOW I RISE (publishing July)

This is the sequel to And I Darken, which is a gender-bent Vlad the Impaler retelling. It follows siblings, Lada and Radu, as they’re ripped from their home and given as gifts to secure a piece to their father’s enemy. They grow up far away from home, unloved, and unwanted, until they meet the future boy sultan and both fall hopelessly in love with him. It’s full of politics and intrigue and the most terrifying bloody heroine of ever. Do not mess with Lada. Like…ever.

LORD OF SHADOWS (published May)

This is the sequel to Lady Midnight, another addition to the ever-expanding Shadowhunter world by Cassandra Clare! If you haven’t caught up on her other books, don’t fear! This trilogy is actually possibly to read on its own. It’s a tangled mess of necromancers and dark faeries and war, and it focuses on Emma Carstairs who’s trying to solve the mystery of who murdered her parents. It also follows her parabati, Julian Blackthorn’s life as he tries to raise his siblings and keep them safe in a world that’s not kind to damaged people.

THE CROWN’S FATE (published May)

This is the sequel and finale to The Crown’s Game, which is about two magicians vying for the spot as the Tsar’s right hand. There can only be one, however, hence a fight to the death with magical tricks, games, duels, and manipulation. The only problem is Vika and Nikolai are also falling in love, and their future Tsar is their best friend…which makes the whole “fight to the death” thing super hard. It’s also set in Russia and has a luscious backdrop of Russian culture and food. The levels of magical imagination are absolutely breathtaking!

ALWAYS AND FOREVER, LARA JEAN (published May)

This is the 3rd book in the Lara Jean series that starts with To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and then PS. I Still Love You. The story is about Lara Jean (surprise!) who is a Korean-American teenager who used to write letters to her crushes. She never mailed them of course…until one day they accidentally get mailed. It’s a really super sweet and adorable story about family, sisters, first love, and baking. There is so much baking in it, you’ll probably eat your copy of the book. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Review: Royal Bastards by Andrew Shvarts

Royal Bastards by Andrew Shvarts was one of my most anticipated reads for 2017 and it absolutely did not disappoint. It’s full to bursting with sassy dialogue, bloody action scenes, and the most complex and amazing characters of ever. There’s so much love-and-hate relationships that just kept me flipping pages as fast as my eyeballs could gobble the words. And when I finished? I sit in anxious anticipation for hopeful future sequels. Please. I beg. I have needs here.

It follows the story of Tilla, who’s a bastard of a great lord who may or may not be brewing a rebellion. Tilla’s more into sneaking about with her half-brother the stableboy, exploring tunnels, and getting into mischief, so war is not her concern. Until she eats dinner with the visiting crown princess and accidentally saves her life from a murder attempt. Then they’re on the run with a group of unlikely local bastards who don’t get along all that well. But they miiiight just need to change that if they want to survive.

Honestly, the sass levels were what won my heart. When a book starts with two siblings bantering amiably about the snobby royalty, I know I’m in for a winning story.

The cast was quite large, but everyone was interesting and complex. They all had personalities and backstories, complexities and fears and venerabilities. And we’re not introduced to them all in a heap, so that was helpful. I can barely even pick a favourite! I adored our narrator, Tilla, who is (quite frankly) badass. She’s equal parts awkward and fierce, and she’ll do anything for her friends. Her half-brother, Jax, is a big dork and I couldn’t help but fall in love with him too! Their sibling relationship is THE BOMB and they’re so there for each other (also there to make fun of each other, but ya know…sibling love). Miles is the nerdy bookworm who gets understimated when he really really shouldn’t be. Zell is a warrior from the clans and totally Closed Off And Emotionless™ but secretly a big squish. And lastly Lyriana is the wizard princess who will nuture plants to grow and also smite her enemies really viciously if they mess with those she loves.

I loved the plot with the threats of wars, the betraying parents, the teens growing into weapons and strengths while they traverse through the forest in order to save the princess. (Although let’s be real here: the princess saves herself in this one.) The book gets gritty, which I wholly appreciated, because what’s an epic fantasy without high stakes and wild action scenes of blood and stabbing?!? I LOVED THIS.

I also really loved the writing style, which was abnormally modern for an epic fantasy. It was consistently modern though (with the characters using phrases like “badass” and “sucks” etc) so it didn’t feel out of place or jarring. And it made me connect to the story far more, because the jokes were ones I’m familiar with.

Overall, it was fun and exciting and kept the sakes high! Do NOT think your favourites will be safe! I think Tilla is one of the best, most winning YA protagonists of 2017, with her badassery and her sassery. It combines stabbing with explosions and powerful magicians, and adds in characters who fairly leap off the page with their shenanigans. I’m such a fan.

Review: Song Of The Current by Sarah Tolcser

Song Of The Current by Sarah Tolcser absolutely caught my heart with its levels of epic swashbuckling. I’m always on the look out for delicious pirate books, and this doesn’t disappoint! Also add in a dash of love/hate romance, smuggling, dark power that does not sleep, badass female captains, personified water gods, a small mention of a water drakon, and delicious amounts of fried fishfingers — and you have ourself a most spectacular novel. I can’t love this one enough!

The story centres around Caro Oresteia who is-first mate to her father, a wherry captain. They sail the rivers (and have a small side-business of smuggling) and they get called upon to deliver a secret box. When Caro’s dad gets thrown in jail, she has to sail her ship alone and deliver the box. Except a pirate attack drives her to check out this sinister cargo — and the contents change everything.

I will also emphatically rave over the world building. Most of the book takes place on rivers, and I could just feel the murky depths and the jungles and the wherries catching the right tides as they slink up and down jungle infested rivers. I could see it all! It was perfect and brilliant. #aesthetic Plus it actually had a unique and interesting magic system and an intoxicatingly vicious political aspect going on. I didn’t get confused or overwhelmed. Details were sparse but pointed.

Caro was an AMAZING protagonist! She’s stubborn and feisty and loyal and brave. She’s in love with the water and her boat, and when her dad gets thrown into jail for not smuggling something super top secret and suspicious for the royalty? CARO DOES IT. She gets a letter of the marque and becomes a privateer. Also she will stab you in the eye if you insult her ship.

The romance was just the best, with the love-to-hate trope done to perfection. Caro getting entangled with an important and stuffily vain boy who needs her help. Their banter is exceptional. Mostly because they hate each other. I ship these two. Markos is forever my favourite. He dresses nicely, he has no idea what anything does on a ship (#relatable), and he is badass when he’s finished being vain.

The plot was engaging the whole time! Although all the sea/ship explanations lost me. However it did make the book feel real. There as plenty of sailing and gunshots and sneaking around like skulking pirates.

My only dislikes? Not much! I was just disappointed I guessed all the plot twists and the stakes never felt really high enough for me to be worried for the characters.

This is a completely murky and beautiful tale of rivers and pirates, of smugglers and guns, of sea gods and monsters. It was beautifully and engagingly written with characters I fell totally in love with! I adored how much it empowered women and gave us the badass female pirates we’ve all been longing for. There’s explosions and deathly sword fights and stolen ships and an engaging plot. What more could we want?!