A Review of The Sweetest Spell by Suzanne Selfors

How often do you read a fantasy about magic cows? Jack in the Beanstalk doesn’t count, of course, because the cow wasn’t magic; it was those beans. And let’s not hear any nonsense about The Black Bull of Norroway. We’re talking female cows, dairy cows that give milk. And when you churn it, it turns into chocolate. Well, that’s only true if you are Suzanne Selfors’s unusual heroine, Emmeline Thistle. Not only is she a red-haired dirt-scratcher’s daughter, but she was also born with a crippled foot and left to die on the edge of the forest the night she was born. A cow rescued her, and ever since Emmeline has had a special friendship with the cows in her village.

 

Other than that, her life is pretty bleak. Her mother died and her father hasn’t been the same since. He’s always avoided looking at Emmeline, anyway. And the villagers think she’s unnatural because she didn’t die the night she was born.

When the best-looking young man in the village is up for bid at the village’s husband auction, Emmeline sighs with the rest of the girls even though Griffin is a complete lout who mocks her for her limp. But before the auction can proceed, the king’s soldiers come and take the men of the village away, saying there is a war to fight.

Then there’s a flood, and Emmeline the dirt-scratcher winds up living in the Wanderland with a family of dairy farmers. Her adventures are just beginning, though—she will discover her unusual gift and the role it has played in her kingdom’s history. She will also be kidnapped, meet the Empress, and find out the truth about the war. Oh, and fall in love.

This book makes me feel much better about my own chocolate addiction. It is also a fast-paced, adventurous read. The tyranny of the Empress and what Emmeline does to challenge the status quo give the story a further edge.

One reason I bought The Sweetest Spell is because I’ve read a couple of Selfors’ other books. What I discovered is that she is a refreshingly creative author. She also knows how to create appealing characters—here it’s Emmeline and her new friend, Owen, who take turns telling the story in the first person. As must happen in the best stories, our heroine faces danger and plenty of plot twists before she can make things right.

Selfors tells her tale in an eminently readable style. (Her work reminds me a little of Shannon Hales’s books.) Here’s part of what Emmeline does when the river floods:

Back inside the cottage I grabbed a few belongings—Mother’s rocking chair, the rug woven by Mother’s mother, the wooden bowl that Father had carved. I loaded these into the cart, along with a bag of potatoes and turnips. Water seeped beneath the cottage door. I tucked the two coins into my dress pocket. By the time I’d pulled the last bunch of winter carrots from the sand barrel, water covered our stone floor. The stones had been taken from the river long before my birth, but now the river had come to reclaim them with icy fingers.

The plot of this book is a little out there, but it’s a credit to the author’s storytelling ability that she sucks you in and makes you believe in what happens to Emmeline and the other characters. Plus there’s the chocolate. I mean, what’s not to like?

Note for Worried Parents: This book is for teens, but I think 10- to 12-year-olds would do just fine with it. There are scenes of peril, but nothing more upsetting than in the first few Harry Potter books, let alone the later ones.

A Review of House of Shadows by Rachel Neumeier

Neumeier builds a strange and solemn world in her latest book, beginning with eight sisters who must sell two of their number to survive after their father dies. The first sister is sold into what appears to be a high-class brothel, but we learn that in this partly Asian-inspired culture, girls can be trained to become “flower wives,” a type of concubine whose children have some legal status even though they are not the offspring of the higher-status legal wives. In this case, Karah is so devastatingly beautiful that the respected Cloisonné House pays a very large sum for her—and must then find a way to protect her from rival trainees.

Nemienne is apprenticed to a far different master, a mage named Ankennes. She has a knack for magic that her sisters only saw as dreaminess. Nemienne practices spells, yes, but she also practices going into the darkness under the mountain, a place that’s as much a magical dimension as a physical location. Challenging the darkness is the most important task Nemienne must face.

Another major player is Taudde, a young magician-bard from enemy kingdom Kalches. He hasn’t come for the reasons people in power suppose, though. Those people find out who he is and blackmail him into helping them in unpleasant ways. Then there’s Prince Tepres, who doesn’t suspect the plots against him and falls hard for Karah. Last but certainly not least is Leilis, a girl who was meant to be a flower wife but instead is a sort of glorified servant in Cloisonné House. She has more power over the doings in the house than one might think, however.

All of these people are intriguing, rich characters. And all of them wind up coming together in dangerous, complex ways when the dragon under the mountain stirs.

Really, my favorite character just might be a mysterious cat named Enkea who deigns to live in the mage’s house. And my favorite passage is a story Karah tells to some visitors at Cloisonné House.

There’s a stately, poetic feel to Neumeier’s writing that evokes older fantasy such as Tolkien’s famous work or perhaps more accurately Patricia McKillip’s or Ursula LeGuin's. The author certainly has a way with words—and with ideas. Here’s an example:

The steps of the [mage’s] house were like the house itself: rough and oddly angled, with unexpected slants underfoot. The polished statue of a cat sat beside the door, gray soapstone with eyes of agate. Nemienne touched the cat’s head curiously. The stone was silken smooth under her fingertips. “There’s no bellpull,” Enelle said, stating the obvious because she was nervous. “I think the cat is the bell,” Nemienne said with an odd certainty, running her hand across the statue’s head a second time. Before them, the door unlatched itself with a muffled click.

I also like how Neumeier gives Ankennes his own rather personal take on the situation in the kingdom. The contrast between his views and what the king sees reminds me that in many books, mages and wizards seem unbiased to the point of lacking personality—or else they are bad guys or good guys in simplistic ways. This is not true of Ankennes.

House of Shadows feels gravely atmospheric and stylized. The book is marked by ritualized storytelling and plot evolution—as if the author were an Indonesian shadow puppeteer. Rachel Neumeier has written an intricate fantasy world, and I’m happy to get the sense that a sequel might be in the works.

Note for Worried Parents: This book is for teens. It has a mature tone, and the talk about flower wives and references to their lesser sisters, the prostitutes (though they are not called that) pretty much seals the deal.

A Review of The Broken Lands by Kate Milford

In this prequel to The Boneshaker, a young card shark named Sam teams up with a girl named Jin who’s a Chinese fireworks maker to defeat an evil takeover of New York City. The chief villain here is Jack, who is the secondary villain in The Boneshaker. However, we see relatively little of Jack himself in The Broken Lands. Rather, two awful beings named High Walker and Bloody Bones (or just Walker and Bones) have been sent on ahead to prepare the way for Jack to take over nineteenth-century New York City.

Milford spends quite a bit of time showing us what these villains are up to, which provides a chilling counterpoint to what Sam and Jin are doing as they race to save the city. The two young people are aided by a few men who hang out at a saloon called the Reverend Dram, among them another character from The Boneshaker, a grizzled black musician named Tom Guyot. Apparently New York City has ten secret protectors, and the bad guys are trying to wipe them out. Unfortunately, Walker and Bones are rather successful, which ups the peril. And it's no ordinary peril; what we get is devilish magic being turned on New Yorkers. For example, Walker starts killing people in a truly terrible fashion just to draw out the city’s guardians. And here is the scene in which Bones makes his appearance:

A wind kicked up along the beach, sending hats and skirts and blankets whirling. The black-eyed man shoved his flying hair out of his face and stepped back. Where the pile of bones had been, a swirling mass of sand was collecting into shape. The shape spun like a little tornado, pulling sand and pebbles and stray bits of seaweed inward, collecting broken shells, snips of paper, and twigs of driftwood, creating a denser and denser cloud that hovered at about the level of the black-eyed man’s knees. It began to throb, to shift and pulse and mold itself. Little by little, it began to take shape. The wind flowing up and down the beach began to diminish. The dark shape, still indistinct and fuzzy at the edges, unbent itself. A tall man stood up.

But let’s consider our two heroes. When the book begins, something unusual is happening to Sam: he is being beaten at his own game. His card sharking and the man who beat him will come into play later in the book. Next we meet Jin, first seen through Sam’s eyes. (And yes, there’s a little romance blossoming.) She travels with her grandfather and another man, making fireworks and putting on shows with them. She sneaks a recipe from a strange, ancient book of fireworks that her grandfather owns, then makes fireworks that are more than a little magical. Sam and Jin are both appealing characters—and they are not the same old, same old, either.

Nineteenth-century Coney Island and other parts of New York, with an emphasis on the nearly completed Brooklyn Bridge, make a marvelous setting for an ominous otherworldly threat. The grand hotel Milford includes is especially effective.

The Broken Lands is fairly dark and serious, but it is an entertaining read. Fans of The Boneshaker will appreciate it, and those who are new to Kate Milford’s work should read both books. Milford uses the new book to add to the oddly supernatural version of historic America that she is creating. For example, we find out more about the crossroads and travelers of a certain magical persuasion. The author's work might be closer to magical realism than to traditional fantasy; it definitely includes an element of horror. If you like your historical fantasy with a touch of brimstone, take a look at The Boneshaker and The Broken Lands.

Note for Worried Parents: This is a book for teens. It has some gruesome violence, black magic, and oblique references to child prostitution. None of this is gratuitous, however, though the book does build in creepiness. I would recommend The Broken Lands for readers ages 12 and up.

A Review of The Unnaturalists by Tiffany Trent

In a steampunky new London powered by “myth,” a substance which is supposedly mined but actually has far more dire origins, Vespa assists her father in studying and even stuffing the Unnaturals, beasts like the Sphinx and little sylphs. But these imperialist scientists are denying what a boy named Syrus and his fellow Tinkers camping out on the edge of town already know—that the Unnaturals are sentient and are being exploited by the Empress in horrible ways.

The book is a dystopian fantasy, but it doesn't have a futuristic feel, so don’t let the genre make you think you'll be getting the usual post-apocalyptic fare. Instead you'll feel like you're in the nineteenth century as you follow Vespa’s perils and her attraction to a young Pedant named Hal, along with Syrus’s creepy adventures as he tries to fulfill the request of a great Unnatural in the forest to find the witch who lives in the city. Of course, that would be Vespa, but witchcraft is forbidden, and there’s a reason hers is just now beginning to make itself known. Then there’s her father’s assistant, the slimy Charles, who is also more than he seems. A group of vigilante magic-makers called Athena’s Architects rounds out the picture. Well, not counting a variety of creatures, including a particularly awful type of werewolf.

Vespa first meets Syrus in a way guaranteed to make her distrust him, which complicates matters when he finds out he must bring her to the forest. Hal is also not at all forthcoming about his plans, which leaves Vespa scrambling around trying to find out what’s going on. What she does learn changes everything she’s ever believed in. Here's a look at Vespa the young scientist as she travels through the Forest, where magic still hides:

The Wad and I both nod and follow him outside. Trees rustle their flaming robes along the road. We're in the Forest. Instinctively, I make the sign against irrationality to protect myself from pixie infestation. It's all I can do, since we've had no time to don nullsuits, if Father and Charles even remembered to bring them. Most young ladies my age would be terrified if they found themselves so unshielded on a Forest road that's likely teeming with Unnaturals.

I like Vespa for the most part, though I think Syrus is the more interesting character. The interplay between these two and Hal makes for good storytelling. One thing that struck me, though, is that Vespa’s story is told in first person, while Syrus’s is told in third person. It isn’t that distracting, but it just seems like an odd choice.

A major theme of the book is the clash between magic and science, or the numinous and the rational. Vespa starts out as a logical, scientific young lady, but she soon learns that the facts she’s been told about the world aren’t especially factual. She also discovers that she is not who she thought she was, and neither, in his way, is her father. This seems like a nice bit of symbolism for young adult readers who are busy trying to define themselves as someone other than their parents.

The Unnaturalists is a good read for anyone who enjoys steampunk and historical fantasy of the YA variety. Join Vespa in discovering that science isn’t everything, and magic is real.

Note for Worried Parents: This is a YA book, but I don’t think there’s any reason it can’t be read by older middle grade readers, especially 10- to 12-year-olds.

Poem for Poetry Friday

Here's a poem I wrote for Poetry Friday:


Clock

The clock ticks
like an old friend,

marking off minutes and hours,

making the earth turn

like a mobile

hanging in the dark.

The clock ticks

like a bomb waiting

to go off, the bomb

of morning that will blast

its radios and TVs,

its car engines,

its roar, rumble, talk.

The clock ticks,

singing of days gone by

and days to come,

humming with maybes,

buzzing like a hive

of probablies and

possiblies.

The clock ticks,

but I can't always hear it.

My mind ticks, too,

with checklists and worries,

with nouns and verbs

and even a few adjectives.

The clock ticks.

—Kate Coombs, 2012

all rights reserved

Today Poetry Friday is at Katya Czaja's site, Read. Write. Repeat.