A Review of The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

I really liked this book. Like other readers whose reviews and reactions I’ve seen, I was a little irked by the lack of payoff on certain plot points at the end, but that’s syndrome series, and its all too common these days. What the author does very successfully is develop an Outsiders-worthy cast of characters struggling with the very act of being themselves. I say The Outsiders, but the titular Raven Boys are at least in part a fabulously wealthy bunch. The book’s first major perspective, though, us that of a girl from the town of Henrietta who doesn’t have a lot of money. She lives in a home full of women who are fortunetellers, or more probably witches. The odd group of people living in her house are presented in such a mundane, slightly quarrelsome way that they do not seem contrived or staged. We start with a wonderful first line: “Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told she would kill her true love.”

Which, I will tell you right up front [SPOILER!] is the promise that is not fulfilled in this book. A promise that is set up, however, rather beautifully. Although The Raven Boys ends up being about a particular kind of danger that is dealt with here, its focus is primarily on character and the interactions between characters. Blue, in fact, turns out to be less important and even less interesting than the four boys she meets. She’s right to be dubious about this group from the elite boys’ school on the edge of town, Aglionby: two wealthy boys named Gansey and Ronan, a quiet boy named Noah, and a scholarship boy named Adam.

Adam takes a shine to Blue that she cautiously returns, but that’s only after Blue has had a supernatural encounter with what appears to be the ghost of Gansey in a graveyard. You can tell Blue is meant to be with Gansey and that that’s going to cause trouble. Gansey’s relationship with the other three boys is fascinating. He is on a quixotic quest to find the ley lines and a mythological figure in Henrietta. He leads the other boys, saves them, but also controls them in ways that Adam, at least, resents furiously. The themes Stiefvater brings up with this web of lives and personalities are thought-provoking, and they read simply as offshoots of these characters.

If anything, The Raven Boys reminds me of Margaret Mahy’s book, The Tricksters, which is high praise indeed.

The supernatural elements in Steifvater’s story wind in and out in ways that only serve to heighten the tensions between characters. The boys wonder if the paranormal is real. Gansey has his reasons for believing, and Blue knows all too well that it is. Her own power is not what she wishes it were. Even the villain of the piece has an uneasy relationship with the supernatural. He has longed for it, sacrificed for it, and done terrible things for it. It’s easy to see him as a symbol of the future for one or more of these boys, especially considering his past.

The writing itself is superb. Here is Blue talking to Adam for the first time. She doesn’t know any of the boys’ names yet, but she’s given them nicknames.

To her surprise, it was Elegant Boy, face gaunter and older in the distant streetlight. He was alone. No sign of President Cell Phone, the smudgy one, or their hostile friend. One hand steadied his bike. The other was tucked neatly in his pocket. His uncertain posture didn’t quite track with the raven-breasted sweater, and she caught a glimpse of a worn bit of seam on the shoulder before he shrugged it under his ear as if he was cold.

You get a strong feeling of fate in The Raven Boys, a feeling that for all their personal struggles and thoughts, this group of people is being driven madly in a direction far past their own understanding. Like classic characters along the lines of Oedipus or Romeo and Juliet.

Another complaint about the book I’ve heard is that it moves too slowly. This is certainly not The Lightning Thief or even The Hunger Games. But are we past enjoying a subtle plot that relies heavily on character to smolder towards certain conclusions and then other, later destinies in YA fiction? No, that first sentence does not entirely play out in this initial volume. But other plot points do. Perhaps more important, the set-up is eerily powerful and touching in aching, personal ways. If that works for you, please do read The Raven Boys.

Here’s the book trailer, insufficient to my way of thinking even if it is by the author.

Note for Worried Parents: This is just not a middle grade book. It’s thoroughly YA, mostly because of mature themes and the way it reads. Don’t bother giving The Raven Boys to anyone under 12, or maybe even under 15. They won’t get it.

A Review of Grave Mercy by Robin LeFevers

Forget about Catherine, Called Birdy; it's time to meet Ismae! If your horrible father forces you into an arranged marriage in 1485, what you really want is to flee to a convent where the nuns specialize in training female assassins. Hopefully you'll get to kill some men who remind you of dear old dad. Except—Ismae isn't really her father's daughter. As the circumstances of her birth make clear, her true father is Death, or "St. Mortain." Once she has passed a test at the abbey (by not dying), Ismae finds happiness in her new life. She makes a friend named Annith and trades her father's endless beatings for intriguing lessons. She even learns to read. Ismae is especially good at poisons, and she meets a strange girl named Sybella who has apparently survived horrors worse than her own.

Soon Ismae is being sent out on an assassination mission. She succeeds, and another mission follows. But her third mission isn't like the others. Ismae is asked to accompany a man named Duval to the court of the young, uncrowned duchess of Brittany. There she will have to face intrigues for which she is thoroughly unprepared, including spying on Duval to see if he is loyal or a dangerous enemy.

As Ismae sneaks about the castle, you may be reminded of Elizabeth C. Bunce's Starcrossed or Rae Carson's The Girl of Fire and Thorns. Who can be trusted? Obviously not the brutal Lord D'Albret, who is trying to force the young duchess to marry him. Nor the French, who consider themselves to be in charge of the girl. But even though Ismae is feeling more and more like she can trust Duval, her contacts from the convent pressure her to find him guilty of treason.

LaFevers does a masterful job of showing how a sheltered, downtrodden girl can grow in confidence and purposefulness. Yes, there's an odd sort of romance brewing between Ismae and Duval, but the rest of the plot holds its own. The characters seem so real and ordinary and flawed that it's easy to forget you're reading a story. The world the author builds is a medieval one—with a twist. The language is smooth and clear. Here's a sample:

We ride all day. In the newly cleared fields, sheaves of wheat hang from a cross, begging for Dea Matrona's blessing on the harvest. Cattle graze nearby, feasting on the remaining stubble in the ground, one last fattening before slaughter. Indeed, the slaughter of animals for winter has already begun and I can smell the copper tang of blood in the air.

A few stone cottages are scattered throughout the countryside, squat and stubborn against the encroaching wildnerness. Most doors have a polished silver coin nailed to them, an attempt to discourage Mortain from casting His gaze on their households, since it is believed He will go to great lengths to avoid His own reflection. Those that are too poor to afford that small protection hang hazel twigs, in the hope that He will mistake them for the real bones He has come to collect.

One ongoing mystery in Grave Mercy has to do with the will of Mortain, or rather the mark of Mortain. Being Death's daughter gives Ismae certain powers. Taught that when she sees the mark on someone, she has the go-ahead to assassinate them, Ismae begins to wonder if the nuns got it quite right. This book is arguably a coming-of-age story as Ismae begins to trust her own judgment even when everyone around her says otherwise.

Grave Mercy is a long book, but a thoroughly satisfying read. The next book in LeFevers' His Fair Assassin series will be about Sybella, and it's a safe bet the third book will be about Annith. Definitely something to look forward to, not to mention a nice break from fallen angels!

Note for Worried Parents: This is a book for teens with some mature situations involving violence and sex (or the threat of both together). Though these scenes are handled tastefully, I wouldn't recommend Grave Mercy for tweens or MG readers.

A Review of Pandemonium by Chris Wooding and Cassandra Diaz

My favorite thing about the relatively recent incursion of the graphic novel into children's literature is that for some reason the quality has been very high—as compared to, say, movies. With the exception of Pixar, most movie studios make a lot of bombs. But look at the current crop of graphic novels for kids, and you'll find a lot more success stories than failures. (My theory is that they're so much trouble to make that no one dreams of signing off on them unless they're really terrific, but I'm open to suggestions.) At any rate, Pandemonium is another winner.

Wooding (author) and Diaz (illustrator) launch right into fantasy tropes with a game of Skullball, which seems to be a dark parody of Quidditch. Our hero is Seifer Tombchewer, a dark-haired boy with wings. Actually, everyone in his kingdom seems to have wings.

At first the name "Tombchewer" sounds like a hokey attempt at a fantasy moniker, but then we learn that Seifer's grandpa "hasn't been quite right ever since he ate something poisonous that fell asleep in his porridge." The man literally gnaws on gravestones. He also regularly hunts his cat, knife and fork in hand, hoping to eat it, too. (There's another great cat joke later in the book.)

Seifer lives up in the mountains, at least until he's kidnapped and ordered to impersonate a missing prince. Seifer gets it all wrong, but he gets it right in unexpected ways. He makes a couple of friends and a couple of enemies. He survives various attempts on his life and muddles around trying to help his kingdom.

As you can tell by the bit about Seifer's grandpa, Wooding has a great time with all of this, throwing in satirical touches and funny dialogue even as he tells a somewhat classic dark fantasy tale. For example, when Seifer comes to after being kidnapped and knocked out, he cries out to Queen Euthanasia Pandemonium:

My queen. What would you have of me? How... How did I get here? [new bubble] And why does my body ache as if I've been expertly and viciously coshed by midgets?

Which, of course, he has. Wooding gives us a nice array of characters, from the cynical Prime Minister (Master Lumbago) to the little trio of red-cloaked, masochistic thuglets known as the Velvet Spies. We also come across a number of suitably horrid villains, as well a couple of princess sisters and a clever, dynamic kinda-girlfriend for Seifer, now known as Prince Talon.

Seifer-Talon apparently has a fiancée, too, though she doesn't show up for the time being. It's said of the beautiful Lady Asphyxia's mother, Baroness Crustacea Effluvia, "that one of her marathon nagging sessions drove her last husband to snort a bag of scorpions."

I hope you're getting the picture—Wooding spices his story with a lot of excellent tongue-in-cheek humor. Just one more example. When Seifer asks what happens if he doesn't agree to pretend to be the prince, the next page shows him dangling over a pit of fanged monsters, saying, "Alright! Alright! You could have just told me about the psycho carnage beasts." This is funny enough in and of itself, but then a few pages later, we glimpse the psycho carnage beasts filing their long, sharp nails as one says, "You didn't think it was a little too much? The whole 'RAAARGH' thing?" The other replies, "Oh, no. I think you got it just right." Thing #1 says, "Are you sure? Because I really wasn't feeling it tonight."

Heh heh.

Meanwhile, people are trying to kill Seifer-Talon, and he's trying to figure out how not to be killed, along with who exactly to trust. One issue is that the missing prince is a real jerk, while Seifer's a pretty nice guy. A drawback—but also a surprising source of strength. I like that Seifer knows enough to be scared when he gets tossed into an arena with a powerful opponent: "Oh, crud. I'm gonna die," he says. Nice real guy there!

Cassandra Diaz's artwork is dynamic, with a definite anime influence. Keep in mind that Seifer's kingdom is always in darkness, so backdrops vary from gray to black, with touches of blue and especially red or orange to add contrast. The whole effect is very striking.

If you're a fan of graphic novels, dark fantasy, and adventures, track down Pandemonium. It'll be worth it for the humor alone.

Note for Worried Parents: There's some violence here, though it's a bit cartoonish. Pandemonium does have a tween, if not teen, feel. For one thing, Seifer has to be at least 15 or 16. Amazon says the book is for 8 and up, but I would say 10 and up unless your 8-year-old is into anime, kill-the-orc-type video games, and/or dark fantasy.

Also: You can visit the author's website here.

A Review of Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

I liked Laini Taylor's Blackbringer and Silksinger, so I knew I was going to like this book. And... I did. But I will say, it has a yearning, angsty tone worthy of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, especially after the romance kicks in. Be warned!

Karou is an art student in Prague, and her classmates love looking at her fanciful drawings, never dreaming that they are not fanciful at all. Even though Karou has a tiny student flat, she runs back to her childhood home whenever she is summoned by her foster father, who just happens to be a Wishmonger named Brimstone, a ram's-headed, reptile-eyed chimaera. Creepy creatures come to his shop to buy wishes. It's very hard to get in, and once they're inside, customers have to wear poisonous snakes around their necks to ensure good behavior. Three other chimaera work in the shop, where Brimstone collects the teeth of dead animals—and humans.

Karou grew up learning the different types of wishes: scuppies, shings, lucknows, gavriels, and bruxes. She turned her hair blue and gave herself certain tattoos with scuppies she earned making tooth runs all over the world for Brimstone. He thinks she wastes wishes on trivial things, e.g., when her cheating ex-boyfriend shows up in her art class as a model just to mess with her and she gives him a highly unpleasant little curse.

As for the eyes tattooed onto Karou's palms? Well, that's a different story, and it has to do with the reason Brimstone won't ever let her through a certain door deep inside his shop and maybe even with the wishbone that hangs around his neck.

Meanwhile, people are seeing seraphs: austere, angelic warriors who have begun to mark with charred handprints the myriad hidden doors leading to Brimstone's wish shop from all over the world. The seraphs and the chimaera are at war—have been for millenia—and the war is about to reach Karou.

There's some wonderful world building going on in the first half of the book. I was a little less sold on the star-crossed lovers' subplot that takes over during the second half. However, Taylor is a darn good storyteller no matter what she's doing, and Karou is a very fun main character. I also like her best friend, Zuzana, who is not initially privy to Karou's secrets but is a staunch, if pocket-sized, supporter throughout the book.

The seraph, Akiva, is a little more difficult to like, but that's deliberate. Here's a glimpse of him:

Overhead, darkness massed where a shape blotted out the moon. Something was hurtling down at Karou on huge, impossible wings. Heat and wingbeats and the skirr of air parted by a blade. A blade. She leapt aside, felt steel bite her shoulder as she slammed into a carved door, splintering slats. She seized one, a jagged spear of wood, and spun to face her attacker.

He stood a mere body's length away, the point of his sword resting on the ground.

Oh, thought Karou, staring at him.

Oh.

Angel indeed.

He stood revealed. The blade of his long sword gleamed white from the incandescence of his wings—vast shimmering wings, their reach so great they swept the walls on either side of the alley, each feather like the wind-tugged lick of a candle flame.

You see? The girl can write! I love Taylor's luxurious style and her attention to detail. Of course, I'm also a sucker for a great metaphor. The author's sense of humor adds, as well. Take this bit: "'Oh, yes,' Karou muttered to herself later that night as she dragged three hundred pounds of illegal elephant ivory down the steps of the Paris Metro. 'This is just so much fun.'"

Or this little aside: "They ordered bowls of goulash, which they ate while discussing Kaz's stunt, their chemistry teacher's nose hair—which Zuzana asserted was braidable—and ideas for their semester projects."

Much as I loved Taylor's (and Karou's) version of Prague, this book is about something much bigger: the endless war between the self-righteous, militant seraphs and the beast-like chimaera, their former slaves. Karou is on the side of the underdogs, of course. (Well, in some cases, the chimaera literally look like dogs!) Daughter of Smoke and Bone is obviously a series launch, with an unabashedly cliffhanger ending.

Face it, Laini Taylor does fantasy/paranormal, not to mention broody romance, better than just about anybody out there right now. Maggie Steifvater, Becca Fitzpatrick, and Holly Black, et al., you have been challenged!

Note for Worried Parents: Daughter of Smoke and Bones is a book for teens, and it's fairly open about sex, even though that's not a major emphasis here. The p-word is used early on, for example, in the context of a lecture on why not to sleep with just any good-looking guy.

Also: Check out the official Daughter of Smoke and Bone trailer. Then there are two more trailers I like even more; I'm not sure who made them, but they're really good! Here are Part I and Part II. Finally, you can visit Laini Taylor's blog.

Book Picks: If you like this book, try Chime by Franny Billingsley, The Hollow Kingdom by Clare B. Dunkle, and Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge, besides the authors mentioned above.

A Review of The Near Witch by Victoria Schwab

You could batch Schwab's first novel in with the latest crop of paranormal romances, but it's really something more than that. It's a sort of horror fairy tale, complete with ghosts and small children who dance in a circle, singing an ancient song, before they begin disappearing one by one, night after night.

And then there's Shane. No, I mean there's a stranger in town, a strange stranger who almost immediately gets blamed for the disappearing children. Only Lexi doesn't believe the rumors: she is sure the boy has troubles of his own. She names him Cole, and she asks the town witches—who are wisely, even cynically, gearing up to be the possible subjects of a witch hunt—to help her.

Turns out the town of Near has been keeping secrets about its past. Now Lexi must investigate, although her scowling uncle and a bossy suitor try to stop her, telling her it's not lady-like.

Lexi is a strong main character, determined to put on her dead father's old boots and go searching for answers, no matter who might try to stand in her way. Lexi's powerful personality and sense of justice make her admirable, but they also make her a target.

Schwab is interested in themes of small town loyalty, as well as small-mindedness and a suspicion of anyone who doesn't fit in. The events of the Salem Witch Hunt inevitably spring to mind. (See Rosalyn Schanzer's new book, Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem. Check out Betsy Bird's review here.) In The Near Witch, a tragedy from the past will not stay buried; it reverberates into the future, Lexi's present.

The author has a lovely storytelling voice. Here is Lexi thinking about her father and the present-day witches of Near:

My father taught me a lot about witches.

Witches can call down rain or summon stones. They can make fire leap and dance. They can move the earth. They can control an element. The way Magda and Dreska Throne can. I asked them once what they were, and they said old. Old as rocks. But that's not the whole of it. The Thorne sisters are witches, through and through. And witches are not so welcome here.

The Near Witch is almost a fable, but it is saved from being pedantic by Lexi's appealingly fierce character and her efforts to help, not only Cole, but the entire town.

Cole's story is also moving, and his interactions with Lexi are more heroic than romantic. The romance is quiet and tender, taking a backseat to the pair's efforts to find the missing children.

Other characters may be a tad more predictable, but the parts they play in the unfolding drama contribute nicely to the whole in Schwab's new book. I especially like the Thorne sisters.

Perhaps the best thing about The Near Witch is how atmospheric it is. Even though no one runs around a Victorian mansion in a white nightgown, you get a wonderfully eerie feeling of a town that is haunted, of ghosts drifting silently across the empty moors. I'll end with one more excerpt, as Lexi looks out the window one night:

Our house sits at the northern edge of the village of Near, and beyond the weathered glass the moor rolls away like a spool of fabric: hill after hill of wild grass, dotted by rocks, and a rare river or two. There is no end in sight, and the world seems painted in black and white, crisp and still. A few trees jut out of the earth amid the rocks and weeds, but even in this wind it is all strangely static. But I'd swear I saw—

Again something moves.

This time my eyes are keen enough to catch it. ...

I squint, pressing my hands against the cool glass. The shape is a body, but drawn too thin, like the wind is pulling at it, tugging slivers away. The moonlight cuts across the front of the form, over fabric and skin, a throat, a jaw, a cheekbone.

There are no strangers in the town of Near. I have seen every face a thousand times. But not this one.

Note for Worried Parents: You'll find a scary witch in this book, as well as some teen attraction and a few kisses. We also hear about a cruel murder. The Near Witch is a book for teens, but 11- and 12-year-olds who like dark fantasy, historical fiction, horror, and paranormal romance will be interested, too.

A Review of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

It didn't surprise me to see that the jacket quote on this book is from Neil Gaiman, who says, "A glorious balancing act between modernism and the Victorian fairy tale, done with heart and wisdom." After all, Valente's book reads like a cross between Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Gaiman's own Coraline. (Which is ironic, since Coraline has been compared to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. But structurally, Valente's book is really much more Alice-like than Coraline is.)

In case you weren't aware, Valente is the writer of dark, beautifully strange and successful adult fiction, most notably The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden and Palimpsest. She wrote this, her first children's book, in a series of crowd-funded online posts, reminding me of the way her Victorian predecessor, Charles Dickens, first wrote his books—as magazine serials. Then The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making got its due by winning a 2009 Andre Norton award. In a publishing story for the 21st century, the book contract followed.

The book itself is mostly not 21st century in tone, except for an overall stylistic cleanness and a subtle tongue-in cheek feel. Valente's ornate approach and her love of props like smoking jackets and velocipedes hark to the steampunk subgenre (or "mythpunk," as she has half-jokingly called her work). In any case, when young September runs away from the dullness of washing her mother's teacups and playing with her family's "small, amiable dog," she does so with a fine heartlessness that the author informs us is typical of children:

One ought not to judge her: All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one. But, as in their reading and arithmetic and drawing, different children proceed at different speeds. (It is well known that reading quickens the growth of a heart like nothing else.) Some small ones are terrible and fey, Utterly Heartless. Some are dear and sweet and Hardly Heartless at all. September stood very generally in the middle on the day the Green Wind took her, Somewhat Heartless, and Somewhat Grown.

Yep, there's an intrusive narrator commenting along the way. This technique sometimes backfires or is overdone, but here it feels completely of a piece with the rest of the Victoriana.

But on with our plot: A girl named September agrees to be taken to Fairyland by the Green Wind, a Harsh Air who rides the Leopard of Little Breezes. He issues various warnings, e.g., "Obviously, the eating or drinking of Fairy foodstuffs constitutes a binding contract to return at least once a year in accordance with seasonal myth cycles." None of this deters September, who is, after all, wearing an orange dress.

She liked anything orange: leaves; some moons; marigolds; chrysanthemums; cheese; pumpkin, both in pie and out; orange juice; marmalade. Orange is bright and demanding. You can't ignore orange things. She once saw an orange parrot in the pet store and had never wanted anything so much in her life. She would have named it Halloween and fed it butterscotch. Her mother said butterscotch would make a bird sick and, besides, the dog would certainly eat it up. September never spoke to the dog again—on principle.

Hmm, I'm only on page 6, and I keep finding things I want to quote you. This is a very good sign, though not a very good way to write a book review (I remark, in rather Valente-ish tones). Suffice it to say that September goes on to meet three witches, one of whom is a wairwolf and the husband of the other two. She agrees to retrieve a magic spoon for one of the witches, mostly because she wants a storybook-type quest. She next meets a wyvern with its wings chained who becomes a quest companion. But even as this author seems to do something ordinary when it comes to fantasy, she doesn't: The wyvern turns out to be the son of a wyvern and a library. His name is A-Through-L, though he lets September call him Ell.

September and Ell come across a golem made of various kinds of soap and nearly get eaten by Glashtyns while crossing the river. September does lose her shadow, bargaining for the life of a Pooka child who looks like a jackal cub. Then she reaches the capital, and rather than obtaining the magic spoon, she finds herself sent on a dire quest by the terrible Marquess, the dictator of Fairyland who at first glance looks like a little girl crowned in ringlets. September does manage to rescue a marid boy named Saturday on her way out of town.

Of course, the Marquess has given September a deadline, and the best way to cover a lot of ground fast is by lassoing a mount from a herd of migrating velocipedes. "Remember, they are fast and tall and vicious! Many have perished or, at least, been roundly dumped off and bruised in the attempt to travel by wild bicycle." These dangerous, magnificent beasts are one of Valente's best creations, as is the woman who regularly rides with the herd, Calpurnia Farthing.

September's adventures grow still more dangerous after she reaches the Autumn Provinces. I will give you one more passage as Valente's narrator introduces these lands:

I suppose you think you know what autumn looks like. Even if you live in the Los Angeles dreamed of by September's schoolmates, you have surely seen postcards and photographs of the kind of autumn I mean. The trees go all red and blazing orange and gold, and wood fires burn at night so that everything smells of crisp branches. The world rolls about delightedly in a heap of cider and candy and apples and pumpkins, and cold stars rush by through wispy, ragged clouds, past a moon like a bony knee. You have, no doubt, experienced a Halloween or two.

But, we learn, our autumns are nothing more than pale imitations of the richness of autumn in Fairyland. (Ahem: "a moon like a bony knee"? I am in awe of that metaphor!)

Only autumn is the harbinger of winter, and therefore of chilly death. Following a feast with some slightly unnerving spriggan scholars, September ventures into the woods to find what the Marquess has sent her for, a treasure in a glass casket. There September meets her own death, a small creature at first. Until it grows bigger.

That's a taste of what's in this book, but you'll find so much more. Valente's Fairyland is both beautiful and dangerous, a place where life and death rub shoulders more often than you might wish. September has blithely chosen the road to heartbreak, and she certainly has her heart wrenched a time or two in this story. There is a dark streak in the book, the reason I mentioned the Coraline comparison above. Valente seems very interested in the idea that "the dark and the light go together," as my mother likes to put it.

Make no mistake, blood is required in this book. But then there is a magic key that flies around trying to catch up with September throughout her journeys, and it is nothing less than a shining scrap of winged hope. Which makes September something of a Pandora, I think.

Some of the edgy touches that crop up in Valente's tale are presented tongue-in-cheek. For example, there's a running joke about how September misunderstands the clause about not eating fairy food. ("Witch food must be okay! And dragon food! And...") We learn, too, that human visitor September gets classified as Ravished, kind of like Persephone, rather than as a changeling or a child who has merely stumbled through a hidden gate (or wardrobe!). I suppose it's technically because the Green Wind is bit of a rogue and lures her away, though that's certainly the extent of it.

Speaking of ravished, what ravishes me literarily is freshness, or what I call the F Factor. A book that's pleasingly new in its style, voice, description, language, metaphors, plot, and/or characters makes me swoon every time—and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making qualifies on all counts.

Note: The book is illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators of all time, Ana Juan. And check out the very cool book trailer.

Note for Worried Parents: The book is a little dark, but it's no stronger than Coraline and is much more of a fantasy story than a horror one. Some mournfully deep/painful notes are sounded in spots; however, younger MG readers might miss that stuff altogether, to tell you the truth!

A Review of The Iron Thorn by Caitlin Kittredge

This author isn't the first adult writer to cross over to YA, but so far she's one of the best. Steampunk, urban fantasy, alternate history, dystopian fiction, romance, gothic novel, you name it: The Iron Thorn combines the best of all these subgenres, throwing in one of those genetic ticking clocks plus an actual ticking clock that's the nerve center of an entire house made of magic-infused gears. Which is to say, if you liked Fever Crumb, Leviathan, Lament, and Twilight, you should take a look at Kittredge's new YA offering.

As the jacket flap puts it, "Aoife's family is unique in the worst way." Her mother has gone crazy and is in an insane asylum, while her beloved older brother lost his mind, too, nearly killing Aoife before running away.

Aoife lives in the dark city of Lovecraft, where she studies in the strict school of engineers, applying reason and science to practical problems as the city's great Engine beats like a malevolent heart beneath it all. Her fellow student and best friend, Cal, stands by her, but even he is uneasy when it appears that Aoife herself will lose her mind when she turns sixteen. The city authorities, as represented by the Proctors, also have their eye on the girl, which is a very bad thing.

Then Aoife gets a cryptic message from her brother Conrad and sets off to find him, presumably at their father's home in a village to the north. Crossing the city, let alone the countryside, is a dreadful prospect, considering the threat of death or capture from monsters like the nightjars and government spies in the form of clockwork ravens. Fortunately, Aoife and Cal find a scruffy guide named Dean, who has secrets of his own. He knows a guy with an airship, and it appears he won't sell them out to the monsters that live in the sewer system, so off they go.

The little company eventually reach the house where Aoife's father lived, only there's no sign of him or of Conrad. Of course, Aoife has never met the man. And his house turns out to be very strange indeed. That's even before Aoife has her first encounter with the fairy realm, whose denizens—most notably a fey named Tremaine—may prove to be the greatest threat of all. But Aoife, despite her growing attraction to Dean and her loyalty to Cal, will do anything to get her brother back. Anything.

This book is a thoroughly marvelous tale, one of my favorites so far in 2011. In fact, I felt that my experience of YA horror/steampunk/dystopian fantasy was refreshed by reading The Iron Thorn. I also appreciate how the main plot thread comes to a satisfying conclusion, even as new problems set us up for the next volume in this series. In addition, for those of you looking for romance, Aoife's interactions with Dean aren't cliché in the least; they're clever and bumpy and real (with Cal acting sweetly jealous, to boot).

I guess about the only thing that threw me off even a little would be the logistics of Aoife's role relative to the fey, especially her use of magic in the book's climax; however, close enough. The rest of the book more than makes up for a bit of trouble in that regard.

Here's part of Aoife's description of the marvelous clock in her father's mechanical house:

On the opposite side of the long narrow room was a leviathan clock—a full-bodied, intricate machine, much different than a pocket chronometer. As I watched, the hands swung in a parabolic arc, their wicked spiked finials grinding to a halt at twelve midnight. The chimes let out a discordant, muffled bong.
The hands swung again, and I stepped closer, watching them trail across the clock face like compass needles that had lost north, the unearthly ticking echoing loud enough to vibrate my skull. Each numeral was actually a tiny painting, wrought in delicate ink. A naked girl lying sleeping on a stone. A great goat with the body of a man sitting on a throne. A circle of figures in a dark forest who wore the sign of Hastur, the heretical Yellow King, whom cultists worshipped before the necrovirus. According to Professor Swan, and who knew where he got his stories from?
...Friendly as the library was, the clock was a monstrous thing, a machine of bloody teeth.

I know you're all wondering how to pronounce the main character's name, so I looked it up: that would be ee-fa.

Now, please get your shivers on and enter the alarming world of Aoife's Lovecraft!

Note for Worried Parents: This is a book for teens. The horror elements are pretty horrific, and there's some teen attraction with eventual kissing.

Update 8-17-11: Check out this interview with the author on The Enchanted Inkpot!

A Review of The Invisible Order Book One: Rise of the Darklings by Paul Crilley

Most people don't have the Sight, but 12-year-old Emily does. The place is Victorian London, and Emily is selling watercress in the streets to support herself and her younger brother now that their parents have disappeared. Then she takes a shortcut down an alley just in time to see a battle between two groups of fairy creatures. After she helps a wounded straggler named Corrigan, she finds herself sucked into the ancient war between the Seelie Court, the Unseelie Court, and a secret order of humans founded by architect Christopher Wren to hunt them both.

All three groups try to use Emily, and all three tell her lies—or insufficient truths. It's up to Emily and her sometimes irritating, larcenous friend Spring-Heeled Jack to sort out what's real and save London from a fae invasion.

This is dark fantasy, with monstrous fairy folk and humans who are equally horrible. Mr. Ravenhill of the Invisible Order is utterly ruthless, as are the Unseelie King and the Seelie Queen. The Unseelie King sends out Jenny Greenteeth and Black Annis, who lurk in the Thames devouring children. The Seelie Queen's servant, a soul-sucking black slug of a cloud called the Sluagh, is even worse.

But Crilley does leaven his tale with humor. Emily is a rather stern little soul, but Spring-Heeled Jack is a joker, practically a trickster. We also meet a clan of gnomes who live beneath the city, imitating the Victorian upper-class with amusingly mixed results. Oddly enough, Jenny Greenteeth and Black Annis are kind of funny—in a way the Grimm Brothers would have appreciated.

"You can't escape us, Emily Snow. As soon as you touch water, we know where you are. But even on land, we'll catch up with you in the end. We need something personal, of course. Blood's preferable, but hair will do. How does it taste, Jenny?"
"Like fear, Miss Annis," replied Jenny. Lovely, juicy fear, ripe for the bursting."
"Bless her," said Black Annis to Emily. "She likes the taste of fear, don't you, Jenny?"
"I do, Miss Annis. It makes me shiver."
"Right," said Black Annis. "Come along. Before that wretched sneak Ravenhill thinks to check out the back." She turned and set off down the dark street, the two sacks thrown casually over her shoulder.

(The sacks contain Emily's friends Jack and Corrigan, whom the two creatures have just snatched.)

There are fight scenes along with a solve-the-riddle prophecy, and Emily is one of those Chosen One-type kids, but these plot machinations sometimes seem less important than the atmosphere of the book, which is satisfyingly colorful, as long as your color palette consists of shadow black, chilly midnight blue, and bone white. Crilley has created a goosebump-inducing version of Victorian London, with grotesque fairy creatures filling in for the likes of Jack the Ripper.

The adventure moves fast enough to please young readers. Slightly quaint chapter headings include a "ticking clock" time frame, which contributes to the sense of motion, e.g., "Chapter Eleven: In which the All-Seeing Eyes watch Emily. A magical artifact stolen from Merlin. Inside the Royal Society / Four o'clock in the afternoon on the first day of Emily's adventures." (By the by, the way the fairies use unsuspecting Londoners' glass eyes is one of Crilley's best touches.) After a lot of chasing, capturing, escaping, and riddle solving, Rise of the Darklings ends with a battle and a bang, as Emily makes a choice that solves the book's central problem even as it propels her into a new, sequel-worthy adventure involving time travel.

If you like this one, try Charlie Fletcher's Stoneheart trilogy for a more modern but equally dark and uncanny adventure in the great city of London. Or take a look at China Mieville's Un Lun Dun.

Note for Worried Parents: This book is for middle grade readers (9-12), but it's a little scary. Generally speaking, I would recommend it for the older end of the MG spectrum.

Also: I requested this book as an ARC from Amazon's Vine program.