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J for Jessica Spotswood – Born Wicked (book review) – eccentric sisters, witches in hiding

Apr11

hardback book cover of Born WIcked by Jessica Spotswood published by PutnamDon’t talk about the girls who disappeared,
Pray that the Brotherhood will approve your choice of husband,
Hide any hint of difference or intuition or possible magic skill,
Witches persecuted in New England… how 19th century?

A new alternate history, where New England is the ultra-religious patriarchy and the Middle East is the home of freedom.

The next book in the Cahill Witch Chronicles, Star Cursed,  will be published in June 2013, so grab Born Wicked  now at your  local library  or independent bookstore – and if you buy your copy from Jessica’s favorite indie bookstore, One More Page Books,  she’ll autograph it, too!

Oh, In case you wondered, clicking any link in BooksYALove posts won’t benefit me in any way, shape, or form, just like my Policies page states.

Is Cate right to keep secrets if the truth will put her family in grave danger?
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Book info: Born Wicked (Cahill Witch Chronicles, Book 1) / Jessica Spotswood. Putnam, hardcover 2012; Speak, paperback 2013.  [author site]  [publisher site]  [book trailer]

My recommendation: Magic only in the rose garden, avoid attracting the Brotherhood’s attention, watch over one another – that’s what Mother told Cate before she died. How can a sixteen-year-old keep her younger sisters from spellcasting in this land where suspected witches are sent to Harwood Prison?

Oh, to live in Dubai where women have freedom, can learn more than reading and simple sums, where they can use their magic gifts if they choose! Here in New England, the Brothers preach that magic is “devil-sent” and the Brotherhood Council runs absolutely everything.

Keeping to themselves except to attend Services and piano lessons hasn’t stopped gossip about the Cahill sisters, as Cate had hoped. Now Father has hired a governess for them! Worse yet, she’s from the Sisterhood, where women must go if they do not marry by 18. She will polish their manners and perhaps help them repair their social standing in their small town.

Cate’s own intention ceremony is in just six months, when she’ll announce who she intends to marry – probably Paul, her lifelong friend who’ll return from university soon. But she’s becoming fond of Finn, the bookstore owner’s son who’s had to take on other work as the Brotherhood drives off their customers.

Social calls among Brotherhood wives bring out new information about old situations, and the most influential daughters decide that Cate is worth spending time with after all, to her chagrin. A letter from “Z.R.” tells Cate to search for her mother’s diary and find answers there.

Who is Z.R. and why did she wait so long to contact them?
Is there truly a prophecy about three sisters like Cate, Maura, and Tess?
Will Cate’s intention ceremony begin a life of contentment or close the door on happiness?

This first book in the Cahill Witch Chronicles introduces an alternate world where New England is a place of religious oppression, where truth can be more dangerous than lies, and where Cate must decide how much she’ll sacrifice to protect her sisters from the Brotherhood’s menace.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

I for In the Shadow of Blackbirds, by Cat Winters (book review) – dead man’s worries, live girl’s fears

Apr10

book cover of In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters published by AmuletSpirit photography,
Searching for answers,
Trying to find meaning for all those deaths…

Between the ongoing “Great War” (World War I) and the sudden Spanish Influenza epidemic, fall 1918 was a dangerous and desperate time in the USA. Researchers were trying to ascertain the weight of the human soul, wondering yet again what animates life.

Read the wartime poetry of Isaac Rosenberg to imagine what life in the trenches was like for Stephen, consider that scientists are still puzzled about how the Spanish Flu killed so many healthy 20- to 40-year-olds, and you too might wish to see the image of a dead loved one when the photographer’s glass plate negative was developed.

Just published on April 2, 2013 – don’t miss it!
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Book info: In the Shadow of Blackbirds / Cat Winters. Amulet Books, 2013.  [author site]  [book site]  [publisher site]  [book trailer]

My recommendation: When Mary was sent to her aunt’s house in San Diego, her father thought she would be safe from the influenza epidemic, from the authorities who imprisoned him when he spoke out against the war, from fear. He couldn’t know that her sweetheart’s ghost would visit her and cry out for justice.

Schools, theaters, dance halls – all closed to keep the contagion from spreading, but in autumn 1918 the death toll is mounting here and over in Europe where countless soldiers are dying. Aunt Eva lost her husband in the earliest days of the epidemic and is trying to contact him through spirit photography and séances.

Stephen told Mary that his brother Julius used trickery to create the spirit photographs, but after her sweetheart left for the war, she visited the studio with her aunt anyway. An expert who debunks spirit photographers has found nothing fraudulent in Julius’ work where ghostly images appear next to the living.

The letters from Stephen stop arriving, a telegram comes for his family, a funeral for yet another fallen young soldier – then he starts visiting Mary in her dreams and her waking moments, begging her to make the blackbirds quit attacking him. She volunteers her time at the veterans’ center, reading to injured soldiers back from the war. One man tells her that Stephen wasn’t killed over there, and 16-year-old Mary begins to wonder what really happened.

Is she truly talking to Stephen’s spirit?
How could blackbirds have caused his death?
Why does he tell Mary to stay away from his family’s house and studio?

The author ably captures the terror of the Spanish flu epidemic which often killed within hours and the longing of people wanting to believe that death is not the end of everything in this historical novel with a psychic twist. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

E for Elle in A Conspiracy of Alchemists, by Liesl Schwarz (fiction) – steampunk, magic, love, danger

Apr5

book cover of A Conspiracy of Alchemists by Liesel Schwarz published by Del Rey BooksCorrect steam pressure in airship boiler? Check.
Passenger and cargo aboard? Check.
Clearance from Paris station to cast off? No? No?! Go, go, go, go!!

Being raised as a rational woman by her scientist father, airship captain Elle is most skeptical of Warlock Marsh’s claim that she will soon transform into Pythia as she becomes the world’s next Oracle, just as her runaway mother was…before her untimely death.

A wild chase after an artifact which must not fall into the hands of evil Alchemists takes Elle and Marsh from Oxford to Istanbul via Venice in this first book of The Chronicles of Light and Dark.

Can anyone outrun their destiny?
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Book info: A Conspiracy of Alchemists (Book One of The Chronicles of Light and Dark) / Liesel Schwarz. Del Rey, 2013. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation:  A routine airship charter flight from Paris to London turns into a quest to close the gateway between evil Dark and the rational scientific world of Light for a young lady pilot in 1903, who little realizes that she is the gate-key that both sides will do anything to possess.

When a Warlock steals the sealed wooden box just given to her, Eleanor thinks she should have questioned her docking agent Patrice more closely before taking this charter. As gunfire starts at the Paris airfield, the young pilot knows that this is not a routine flight for her steam air-freighter at all, and when she arrives home in Oxford to find that her inventor father has kidnapped, she realizes that all these events are connected somehow.

Her charter passenger Mr. Marsh is really Viscount Greychester, an eminent Warlock on the Council which harnesses the Dark for productive purposes in this world. All signs point to Dr. Chance being abducted by the Alchemists, whose service to the undead Nightwalkers over centuries has made them hungry to unleash the Dark into this world for their own nefarious purposes.

Off go Elle and Marsh in the professor’s experimental gyrocopter, racing to reach the Council in Venice before the Alchemists can get there by train. No, Elle will not discuss her mother, who abandoned the family and was killed. No, Elle couldn’t have inherited her spiritual gifts, can’t possibly be an oracle, the Oracle, the key that would allow access to the full powers of Dark…

Unsatisfactory answers in Venice, reports that the Alchemists’ train is en route to Istanbul, visions appearing in Elle’s dreams… time is growing short, and the box stolen from Elle in Paris holds a magical substance that could allow the Alchemists to start pulling Dark power without the Nightwalkers’ assistance – if Dr. Chance is forced to create the triggering device!

Can they trust former allies in a strange land?
Is Elle truly on the verge of becoming the Oracle foretold?
Is Marsh really walking into her dreams of love?

There’s danger at every turn as Elle and Marsh must battle air pirates, rescue Dr. Chance, and race against time to save the world from Darkness eternal in this steampunk-paranormal start to The Chronicles of Light and Dark. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

B for Bluebeard in Strands of Bronze and Gold, by Jane Nickerson (fiction) – luxurious halls, ghostly companions

Apr2

book cover of Strands of Bronze and Gold by Jane Nickerson published by KnopfRescued from a life of drudge work,
Cocooned in luxury,
No visitors welcomed or allowed, at all.

An old English abbey transplanted with all its contents into the sweltering Mississippi woods, secrets behind every locked door, mysterious names etched into hidden corners of Sophie’s bedroom furniture… four wives tragically lost, M. Bernard’s only child dead, ghosts murmuring in her room.

The Bluebeard legend is lushly retold by Jane Nickerson, who lived in Mississippi several years before moving to Canada. She shared her writing inspiration in a Nerdy Bookclub blog post on her novel’s publication birthday, and I saw a tweet that it’s the first in a trilogy!

How do you know when something is too good to be true?
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Book info: Strands of Bronze and Gold / Jane Nickerson. Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2013. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation:  Whisked away to her godfather’s mansion after her father’s death in 1855, auburn-haired Sophia envisions plenty in place of her family’s genteel poverty. She is startled by the luxury she finds there, unsettled by slavery supporting the rich, sensitive to the ghost women wandering the halls, yet slow to heed the dire messages they try to convey.

The seventeen-year-old couldn’t have prepared herself for the magnificence of Monsieur de Cressac’s estate, a real English abbey shipped to America stone by stone and reassembled at his rural Mississippi plantation 25 years ago. Nor could she have imagined that her bearded godfather was so handsome, so much younger looking than always-ailing Father, nor that Madame de Cressac was deceased and that Mrs. Duckworth the housekeeper would be her chaperone in this vast mansion.

Monsieur insists that Sophia call him by his first name, that she cast off her mourning for the finest clothes, that she try every dish the chef prepares. Mrs. Duckworth cautions her against defying him, as his temper can get the better of him, so she allows the new lady’s maid to help her dress for dinner and plays the piano pieces he prefers.

But amid all this opulence, strange details emerge: M. Bernard has lost not one wife, but four. Their spirits appear to Sophia when she visits the long-closed nursery, as she pretends to sleep when Bernard taps on her door in the middle of the night, as her nightmares begin to outnumber her dreams.

By chance, she meets a young minister and an old former slave woman in the Abbey’s extensive woodlands; both warn her of Bernard’s very dark reputation. She writes many letters to her sister and brothers in New England, yet receives none in reply. Bernard decides that they must be married, despite their age difference and her misgivings – and will not accept no for an answer.

What truly happened to M. de Cressac’s wives?
Did he choose to court each one because of her red hair?
Can Sophia escape this house of darkness before it is too late?

This lush retelling of the Bluebeard story is garlanded with details about all that Sophia experiences as she moves from a loving home with few comforts to Bernard’s extravagant estate, supported on the backs of countless slaves and circumscribed by his moods.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

TBR2012 Challenge Marches On (reflective) – more 2012 titles recommended, more to go!

Mar29

sketch of tired walking stickman from Online ClipArt LibraryAnother swath of my to-be-reviewed-2012 bookshelf cleared in March, bringing my total to 28 this-year recommendations of last year’s books, including my January and February lists.

Just in case you missed a few, try these 2012 titles:

The Dark Unwinding – Sharon Cameron

Exposure  – Kim Askew and Amy Helmes  

Mothership – Martin Leicht and Isla Neal 

The Secret War (Jack Blank #2) – Matt Myklusch

Sisters Red  – Jackson Pearce

Tempestuous  – Kim Askew and Amy Helmes

Making pretty good progress on the TBR2012 Challenge at Evie’s Bookish blog, but wait till you see the list after the Blogging from A to Z Challenge in April!

(sketch of Stickyman Tired courtesy of OpenClipArtLibrary http://openclipart.org/detail/86137/stickyman-tired-by-cybergedeon)

Secret War (Jack Blank #2), by Matt Myklusch (review) – superhero-in-training with dark secret

Mar27

book cover of The Secret War by Matt Myklusch published by Simon Schuster

Job-shadowing true superheroes!
Saving humanity from brutal invading robots!
Finding the robot virus too close to home…

From a bleak orphanage to the technological marvels of the Imagine Nation, Jack has now found true friends, a productive outlet for his power to communicate with machines, and a growing sense of dread regarding the Rustov virus that has crept into his new home city.

You can get all three books in the Jack Blank series now at your local library or independent bookstore.

Be sure to read book one, The Accidental Hero (my no-spoiler review here) before you meet up with the Secreteers in book two, and yes, I’ll have a recommendation of The End of Infinity (book three) on BooksYALove soon!

How can you tell whether an inner voice is friend or foe?
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Book info: The Secret War (Jack Blank #2) / Matt Myklusch. Simon & Schuster, 2011 hardcover, 2012 paperback. [author’s website] [publisher site]

My Recommendation:  Jack has found his place in the world at last, a superhero-in-training in the Imagine Nation. But some still think he has connection to the evil Rustov who won’t stop until they’ve conquered all worlds, and something inside Jack whispers that they might be right!

Called into the real world on an emergency with their superhero mentors, Jack and his classmates have their first brush with the Secreteers who keep humanity in the dark about the Imagine Nation. Selective memory wipes erase the superheroes’ involvement in these outside rescues, although Jack is sure he saw the true form of one Secreteer.

Jack’s gift of communicating with any machinery leads him to investigate the rumored Rustov virus that’s targeting the Mecha citizens of his city – another secret to hide from his School of Thought friends, like his growing concern that he really could turn into the most feared enemy of all.

When a rogue Secreteer announces that he’ll sell any and all secrets of the Imagine Nation to the highest bidder, the young superheroes decide to track him down before he can further endanger everyone. But how can you find the best-hidden place in the universe?

Will Jonas Smart buy the secrets and discover that Jack might truly become Revile?
Can Jack disarm the virus before it infects the city with evil?
Can he dismiss the new voice inside him that swears it is Rustov?

This second book in the Jack Blank trilogy follows the astounding developments in Jack’s life told in book one, The Accidental Hero, and sets the stage for the mighty war at The End of Infinity, book three.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Sisters Red, by Jackson Pearce (fiction) – werewolf-hunting sisters long for love

Mar18

book cover of Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce published by LBTeenRemote town or crowded city,
more “missing” young women reported,
time to hunt down the werewolves.

The first in Pearce’s Fairytale Retellings, Sisters Red  takes the Little Red Riding Hood tale several steps into the present-day with chilling effectiveness.

The Atlanta-based author keeps her Retellings series firmly rooted in today’s South with Sweetly (Hansel and Gretel…and Fenris) and Fathomless (the Little Mermaid…and Fenris). Click the title links to go to my no-spoiler recommendations.

Which cover art do you prefer – the new paperback release with the hatchet or the original hardback and paperback art with the two girls’ faces and those red wolfeyes?
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original paperback cover of Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce published by LBTeen
Book info: Sisters Red (Fairytale Retellings #1) / Jackson Pearce. LB Teen, 2010 hardback, 2011 paperback. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Recommendation:  Girls are disappearing – time for Rosie and Scarlett to take up their hatchets, don their red cloaks, and hunt down the werewolves again. Perhaps the teen sisters can kill enough of these Fenris before their power becomes too strong…

Closer than twins, Scarlett and Rosie feel like they are one heart divided between two people and that they have a mission to protect people from the Fenris who slaughtered their grandmother, clawed out Scarlett’s right eye, left the March sisters selling off Oma’s things to stay afloat – hunting killer werewolves near and far leaves no time for a regular job. At least Silas is back from California, back to being their nearest neighbor out in the Georgia countryside, even if he didn’t take the traditional woodsman’s path like the rest of his family.

Attacks on young women during the Apple Time Festival reveal that outside clans of Fenris are converging on their area, and the sisters’ scan of the news tells them that Atlanta is getting hit hard. It’s Silas who suggests that they temporarily move to the city to deal with the werewolf outbreak, the three of them hunting together again to keep unwitting victims safe.

Now the trio has a whole new landscape to learn, trying to remain unseen as they stalk the leering men whose skin bursts forth into full fur when their prey has no more way to escape, the two girls donning mysterious red capes to entice the Fenris away from others and into the death trap of their hatchets and knives.

Silas insists that Rosie do something – just one thing – that’s not Fenris-related so she can keep her mind and soul together, so she tries an origami class. In the calm classroom, Rosie wonders if she’ll fight the Fenris forever, if she could have a future with Silas.

What is luring the other Fenris into territory not their own?
Can the three young people stop them?
Is there more to life than fighting away this darkness?

Told in alternating chapters by Rosie and Scarlett, Sisters Red brings an old fairytale into the here and now as the author’s home city is plagued by werewolves.  (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Cats of Tanglewood Forest, by Charles De Lint (fiction) – saved and condemned, quest to make things right again

Mar4

book cover of Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles De Lint published by Little BrownThe forest cats did what they could.
Is it so wrong to wish death away?
Lillian so wants to be a human girl again, but the consequences…

Trying to follow the instructions of Old Mother Possum, meeting up with the Bear People, Lillian only wants to make things right, even if she cannot undo everything that the cats’ magic set in motion.

An excerpt posted by Tor here gives you the flavor of Lillian’s story in this lyrical tale, much expanded from De Lint’s 2003 “Circle of Cats” 44-page novella also featuring illustrations by Vess.

This most-magical book is being released tomorrow (March 5, 2013), so ask for it at your local library or independent bookstore.

Indeed, is it so wrong to wish death away?
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Book info: The Cats of Tanglewood Forest / Charles De Lint; illustrated by Charles Vess. Little Brown, 2013.  [author’s website]   [publisher site]  [illustrator’s website] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

My Book Talk: It was the cats who decided to save Lillian. She just wanted to say hello to the fairies, but here she lies, dying of snakebite. Changed by their magic from a dying girl into a live kitten, Lillian can’t comfort her aunt or the neighbors who search the old woods. She must find out how to turn back into herself… and then how to make right the consequences of her choice.

These forest cats know that their magic might anger the Father of All Cats, that great black puma who stalks these ancient woods, who prowls in dark dreams. But they just couldn’t let the girl die, not after she’s been so generous with milk for them and respectful of the Apple Tree Man.

Lillian-kitten sets out to find Old Mother Possum, who might help her turn back into girl-Lillian. Accompanied by T.H. Fox (his mother named him Truthful and Handsome), she makes the long journey, despite his warnings that the part-witch-part-someone may not choose a solution that’s easy or simple.

Oh, turning back one death puts it onto another! Now Lillian has a bigger problem to solve and consults the wise woman at the Kickaha reservation nearby. Aunt Nancy sees only one path and not an easy one, as this problem is so big that Lillian must ask a difficult favor of the fearsome Bear People, no matter what the personal cost.

Does young Lillian have the courage to walk alone into the Bears’ den?
Why do the cats of the forest keep watching her?
Is love enough to turn away death?

Originally a very short picture book, The Cats of Tanglewood Forest brings even more depth to Lillian’s journey as she searches for a way to make things right again in her world, despite the danger to herself. (One of 6,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Rocketing through the TBR2012 Challenge (reflective) – February update

Mar1

mock pulp magazine cover Amazing Wonder Stories BooksYALove from 2012 created at webomator

With February being the shortest month, I had fewer TBR2012 Challenge titles on BooksYALove than in January (as listed here), but I am moving on through my to-be-reviewed stack at a fairly decent pace.

Check out a few recent titles that you might have missed:

Fantasy:
Down the Mysterly River  – Bill Willingham
Something Red  – Douglas Nicholas
The Treachery of Beautiful Things  – Ruth Frances Long

Graphic Novel:
Peanut  – Ayun Halliday, art by Paul Hoppe

Paranormal:
Dangerous Boy  – Mandy Hubbard
Spookygirl: Paranormal Investigator  – Jill Baguchinsky

Sci-fi/thriller:
Altered –  Jennifer Rush
A Girl Named Digit  – Annabel Monaghan
Safekeeping  – Karen Hesse

So far in 2013, I’ve recommended 22 of my old-year titles for y’all  (and no spoilers) – hurry to your library or bookstore to get some today.
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Something Red, by Douglas Nicholas (fiction) – white winter journey, red beast of death prowling

Feb27

book cover of Something Red by Douglas Nicholas published by Atriasnowfall,
If only they can escape this winter hell with their lives.

Dangers on all sides as Molly’s pieced-together family survives the treacherous pass (thanks to warrior monks!), but must reach the inn and the castle on their own. A deadly dangerous something is magically shielding itself from even  Nemain’s fey perception and is waiting…

Fantasy, fear, mythology, a desperate trudge through snow and snow as Something Red,  something evil stalks the travelers.

Can you spy it just there, out of the corner of your eye, as Hob does?
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Book info: Something Red / Douglas Nicholas. Atria/Emily Bestler Books, 2012. [author interview] [publisher site]

My Recommendation: Just out of sight, danger stalks them along the remote forest roads. Dame Molly, her niece Nemain, mysterious Jack, and the orphan Hob push their ox-drawn wagons fast as they dare, hoping to escape the oncoming snows. But when an attacker is snowed-in with them, their castle safe haven becomes a death house.

This is Hob’s first journey through the Pennines since Irish healer Molly adopted the young teen from the priest in his small north English village. Bandits regularly rob and kill travelers on these mountain byways, despite armed escorts by St. Germaine’s monks, veterans of the Crusades. Molly and burly Jack are on high alert, for something is trailing them on this steep road, hiding among the dense trees, its night-call darkening their souls.

From the monastery-guarded mountain pass to the double-walled palisade of Osbert’s Inn, patrolled by a dozen vicious mastiffs, they hear tales of recent tragedies and join forces with pilgrims to travel together to Sir Jehan’s castle before the road is closed by snow.

The caravan is ambushed as snow falls harder still. Molly and Nemain of the old religion try to interpret the omens appearing in the blizzard’s shadows. Even within the castle stronghold, they will not be safe, it seems, for the relentless evil being stalking them along the road has arrived there, too.

How did the death-bringer pass through prayers and countercharms around the castle?
Can massive warrior Jack protect those he claims now as family?
Why has this dreadful evil chosen them for its prey?

Wooden-wheeled oxcart, the traveler and the knight, mysterious forces consulted by Molly and Nemain, the high-born and the low, all spring forth in the intricate tapestry woven by poet Douglas Nicholas’ first novel recounting this inexorable hunt by a hidden enemy. (Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.)