Nixie: Wonky Winter Wonderland by Cas Lester and Ali Pye

Book review: "Bumblebees' Bottoms!" Nixie is back.

I read "Nixie the Bad, Bad Fairy", the first in this series with my 9-year-old daughter. She likes it because it is a little bit like the Rainbow Magic Fairy books but is different because it features a mischievous fairy as the main character, Nixie. This is the second book in the series.

Nixie is the Fairy who'd rather have snowball battles and sleigh rides than go about her chores ahead of the Midwinter Midnight Feast. And her playing normally ends up with her rival Adorabella, the Goody-goody Fairy getting "smothered in freezing cold snow", rather by accident of course. This story seems a little episodic with a number of separate stories weaved together with the Midwinter Midnight Feast being the main focus of the book (and a little clock at the beginning of each chapter indicating the time in the day that the chapter is taking place in). 

The book is aimed at 5+ year-olds and all the trouble Nixie causes is innocent enough. The chapters are short and there are a few black and white illustrations along the way. Some of the text is bolded too to and put into different fonts to make it even more exciting. The words used are not as dumbed down as the Rainbow Magic books which is as it should be. And interestingly the extract at the back for the next Nixie book is for "Splashy Summer Swim" so it seems Nixie is on a bit of a seasonal journey in these two books.

This is a decent enough book for early readers.

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

Publication date: 5 Nov 2015

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan

Book review: My version of “The Gracekeepers” is a lovely hardback version with dust jacket. The cover shows the girl North in the arms of her bear as they travel the seas inside their coracle. The stars are silver etched as are the ripples in the sea. The back cover shows the girl Callanish on her little island. The inside covers show maps of the fantasy world and beneath the dust jacket is another cover showing mermaids and mermen beneath the sea.
 

As for the story the first paragraph introduces the fantasy world this novel is set in perfectly. It says “In a world that is almost entirely sea, placing your feet on land was a privilege that must be earned.”
 

There are two types of people in this world, landlockers and damplings. Damplings travel the sea, landlockers stay on the land. And the two don’t really mix.
 

The book follows two young women, North and Callanish, one dampling and one landlocker, and their separate lives. Callanish is a gracekeeper. This means she lives isolated on her own small island where she performs resting ceremonies for dead damplings that are brought to her by passing ships. One day the group that visits is a travelling circus of which North is part of. She is the bear-girl. Her act is dancing with a bear. 
 

They bond but soon are leading their separate lives again, of which more and more is revealed as the story progresses to its thrilling conclusion.
 

A very good book.

 

Publication date: 23 April 2015

 

Amazon UK link: The Gracekeepers

 

 

The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech

This book starts off in a surreal manner. First there is a story in the prologue about a man pulling things out of a talking donkey's ear such as a loaf of bread and a sack of gold, then there is the opening chapter with a strange boy falling out of a tree on top of the main character of the book, Naomi Deane, the boy barely speaking except to say once in a while strange things such as "Don't take the gold" and "There isn't any gold".

Because of the imaginative off-the-wall beginning the story really grabs the attention, and I thought it was ideal to read to my nearly 7-year-old daughter.

The story tries to keep the same intriguing style throughout with lots of random bits with you left to try and decipher the bits in-between, but in my opinion the story gets confusing because of this, although by the end all the connections are revealed. However the beginning is still the best part and because of that I expected more of the rest of the book.

The basic story revolves around two girls, Naomi and Lizzie, and the mysterious Finn boy who fell out the tree, based in their small town of Blackbird Tree with its strange cast of characters such as Witch Wiggins, Crazy Cora and one-armed Farley.

Then there are occasional chapters "across the ocean" in Ireland following Sybil and Pilpenny who love the odd murder. The people that live in the two places are related, but the connections only come about at the end of the book. Knowing what I know now I think a 2nd reading of the book would be good so that I can understand the story fully.

Having said all that there are intriguing things in the book like a crooked bridge which has many turns as it crosses a river rather than just following a straight line, and the strange characters, but with all the disconnects the book is a bit weird and confusing.

Publication date: 1 November 2012

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed HERE.)

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass (not to be confused with Game of Thrones) is the first full-length novel to feature the fantasy world of Celaena Sardothien. I read the second, Crown of Midnight, first, and wanted to read this novel to fill in some of the gaps.

It was interesting to see how Celaena met the characters I'd grown accustomed to, and how different they they were at first before Celaena got to know them. For example Dorian, the crown prince, started off as "a pompous, selfish idiot", or a "spoilt young prince", far removed from the character he was to become as she even "kissed him - greedily at that."

Anyway Celaena's reputation precedes her. She was a renowned assassin, the best. Then she was betrayed and sent to a salt mine, to work as a badly-treated slave, at Endovier where the slaves were lucky to last a year. Prince Dorian, along with captain of the guard Chaol, pull her out of there for the sake of a competition. The king wants a new assassin, "a right-hand sword in a world brimming with enemies", and is holding a competition for entertainment to determine the winner. For her she has no choice but to accept.

The oppressive king is responsible for the loss of many lives in his pursuit of power from his throne of glass, and has "outlawed it all - magic, fae, faeries - and removed any trace so thoroughly that even those who had magic in their blood almost believed it had never existed", so the mysterious magic-related things she discovers in the castle surprise her. This includes her meeting with the long-dead queen Elena, who tells her "Nothing is a coincidence. Everything has a purpose. You were meant to come to this castle, just as you were meant to be an assassin, to learn the skills necessary for survival."

As well as the mystery elements she comes across, and the fantasy, the book also has a simmering of romance, or not, between her and the young prince, or maybe the captain of the guard?

All-in-all a good book with many elements that should interest many a reader.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine UK. It is available HERE.)

Young Knights of the Round Table by Julia Golding

This book says on the cover, “Under threat. Out of time. Pure magic.”

The “under threat” refers to the Earth as its very existence is under attack; the “out of time” refers to the parallel world from which attack is coming, a world where time runs differently, where 1 year passes compared with 100 Earth years, and “pure magic” because magic is involved all through the book.

The story starts in the parallel world where young humans Rick, Roxy and Santiago are being trained to hate humans because they themselves are orphans abandoned by the horrible humans before they were taken there by the Fey. But something is afoot. A magical power is threatening the rule of the world and something needs to be done so these three humans are sent into the human world to investigate, to Oxford to be precise.

There ensues a few funny moments as these three adjust to an alien environment with Rick in particular finding things strange as he infiltrates Earth. Their “foster parents” also stand out a bit, what with them being a Fey and a Pixie and basing their human lives on fictional books such as Sherlock Holmes stories.

As things progress the three children get deeper into finding out what is going on discovering that how the world they have been living has been a lie, and how the setting up of a new round table could be pivotal to linking the two worlds and overthrowing the evil King of the parallel world called Avalon, for it was the time of Arthur and Merlin at the round table before when Avalon was last threatened in the same way. 

There is a good crescendo at the end with a Darth Vader moment too, as decisions over which side to represent become harder.

There was the occasional slightly confusing moments as the magic interactions between the two worlds were explained but overall the book is well written, is set up at the end for the next in the series, and should provide a thrilling read for any young or old knights that choose to read it.

The book releases on 4 April 2013. It is listed on Amazon UK HERE.

A Conspiracy of Alchemists by Liesel Schwarz

The book starts off at a great pace with much intrigue surrounding a box that Eleanor (Elle) Chance, a female dirigible pilot, has been tasked with transporting. But straight away there is a chase as the box obviously contains something of value. 

And after a rip-roaring start the pace slows a bit and Elle manages to escape to Oxford with her companions Patrice and Mr Marsh but finds out that her father has been kidnapped. Bit-by-bit, with the help (or hindrance) of Mr Marsh or Lord Greychester as he is otherwise known, she learns about the magic in the world, about the light and the shadow and her role in it all. But can she believe him?

Set in Edwardian times I thought the start was brilliant, as were the other fast-paced parts of the book. The slower parts though didn’t hold the interest as much but I suppose were necessary to slowly reveal all the many bits and pieces about all the magic in the world etc.

The conversation between the characters was good at the beginning with the characters being polite in the Edwardian manner, but still managing to spark against each other.

The ending was clever too in that there was a clear ending followed by an epilogue which nicely set the book up for the sequel that is due to follow later in the year.

All-in-all a good debut.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Fire Spell by Laura Amy Schlitz

The novel starts in a fog-hit London 1860 and follows orphans Parsefall and Lizzie Rose. They've been taken in by the evil Grisini the puppet-master to help him with his puppet act. Gaspare Grisini is wonderfully painted as the evil, sinister, shifty old man à la Fagin. Theirs is a life of poverty and they are summoned to do a birthday performance for Clara, a 12-year-old child who lost all 4 of her brothers and sisters to cholera. At the performance there is a brilliantly-written scene of the skeleton act that really brings it to life, and Clara really enjoyed it too.

Clara then gets kidnapped and Grisini becomes the main suspect. But when his 2-room rented space is searched there is no sign of the kidnapped girl. That's because she has been magic-ed into an inventive hiding place, with Grisini only planning to return her once he has received his healthy ransom fee.

However things don't go to plan and things take a twist as the cast are uprooted to the home of a witch in Windermere, in the north of England. There lots of things happen, with magic playing a factor.

To me the first half of the book was better than the second. There the grubbiness Victorian London and the contrast between the well-off and the downtrodden came across really well, and the story was more purposeful. When the book went to Windermere loads of ideas were thrown in, some of them good, and others maybe not so good - how did Clara break her magic exactly, and how would it normally have been broken?

Anyway, it is still a well-written book surely inspired by Oliver Twist, and is worth a read. And if you liked it then another clever book with a lot of ideas thrown into it that you could try is A Face Like Glass by Frances Hardinge.

The US version is called "Splendors and Glooms"

(I got this book through Amazon Vne to review. It is listed here.)

Stormdancer: The Lotus War (Book 1) by Jay Kristoff

UK edition

US edition

In this fantasy world Stormdancers are warriors of old who according to legend rode into battle on thunder-tigers, or griffons. But those days are gone and thunder-tigers are now thought to be a myth. However that is until a shogun sends his chief hunter Masaru out on a mission to catch one. For Masaru this represents a change from his normal life of drinking and smoking as he drowns away the bad memories - he would be out hunting but the animals are pretty much gone because of the way the country is run on the blood lotus plant, a plant that pollutes the land but is useful to the shogun for the steampunk machinery in the book, and the stormtrooper like guildsmen it runs, as well as providing the weed that the populace smoke.

So Masaru goes on the mission with his 16-year-old daughter Yukiko, and others, in a sky-ship and they capture one, but because it is a thunder-tiger they had to go into a storm to get it and the storm sets fire to their hydrogen-filled ship. Yukiko though stays with the thunder-tiger and releases him from his cage, as well as befriending him as they spend time together on land as he is grounded thanks to the cuts to his wings that were inflicted in capturing him. She does this through her power that allows her to get into the mind of animals, a power that would lead to her death if the guild knew.

Together they get to learn the real story of their country and the real tale of their leader. They then set about trying to assassinate him.

So that is the plot. There is also a love-interest between lead-character Yukiko and one of the shogun's guards, but that wasn't all too convincing to be honest. Yukiko had moments thinking about the green-eyed guard who she only glanced at one-time near the beginning of the book, and based on this one glance it seems a bit of an unlikely happening. Obviously they meet later. Also unconvincing was the fear that Yukiko felt when caught by a renegade group of anti-shogun countrymen she meets in the wilds of the mountainous north when they do nothing really to make her fear them.

And one other gripe I had with the book was that the map at the beginning of capital city Kigen had a hexagonal building for the chapterhouse when throughout the text it was always referred to as having 5-sides.

Also the book does take a few pages to get into. Not only is the book set in a fantasy world you need to learn, it is also a Japanese style world. There is a glossary at the end of the book which can help with this, which I only found out at the end, and the world is worth getting into because the story is good.

The book is designed well with the maps at the beginning, the clan logos that are atop the chapters, the way the text indicates the thunder-tiger talking to the girl and so on. The story is a well-written story and has been set up for future adventures to occur in this world, although this book is perfectly good as a stand-alone with a satisfying ending.

I may well check out future novels in the series.

Found this fantastic art at: http://genzoman.deviantart.com/art/Stormdancer-284860432

And the video trailer:

This book is listed on Amazon UK HERE.