There are few books of contemporary fiction that I wholeheartedly recommend, for which borrowing from the library is not enough and ownership is required. The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is one of these rare novels. It is a story of Marco and Celia, of love and magic and illusion. It is also the story of an atmosphere, and it is this that makes the book. The atmosphere of the Cirque des Reves draws you in. It truly is a circus of dreams, where the impossible happens naturally. Trees can make wishes come true, gardens can be made from ice, and evocative smells can be bottled. Each tent is more magical than the last. I’m sure I’m not the only reader who wished that the circus was real and could be thoroughly explored.

Celia and Marco are both magicians, trained by magicians who differ philosophically in what exactly that training should look like. As a result, they create a competition for their pupils. The venue is the circus. Moves are made by each side, and as they are, Marco and Celia begin to fall in love. This leads to all sorts of complications in a competition where only one side should be left standing at the end. As you would expect from any good writer, the solution to this problem is ingenious, both completely unexpected and completely inevitable.

I enjoy books where magic is woven into our normal world. The Night Circus reminded me of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke for this reason. Magic is there; you just need to know how to use it. It doesn’t require a wand or fancy spells. The world can be manipulated by your mind, real magic disguised as illusion. The twist of competing magicians who then fall in love simply provides more opportunities for the magic to shine through.

This was one of those books that I wanted to devour and savor all at the same time. I viewed the dwindling pages with dismay, wanting to stay in the world that Morgenstern had created. The characters and the story were wonderful, but it was honestly the atmosphere of this book that grabbed my imagination on the first page and still hasn’t let it go. It’s an impressive debut novel, and I’m already looking forward to what else may come from this author.

Find it on: Goodreads  |  Amazon  |  Better World Books

The Wicked Day is the story of Mordred. In case you’re not familiar with the Arthurian legends, Mordred is typically the villain of the piece. He is King Arthur’s son with his half-sister, and he causes the downfall of Arthur and Camelot. He’s not a character that gets a whole lot of sympathy.

Until you read Mary Stewart’s The Wicked Day. She does an admirable job of turning Mordred into a character you can care about. One who, granted, does have some problematic traits. But overall, his actions have just been misunderstood. We follow Mordred from his childhood on the Isle of Orkney to his final battle with Arthur. Along the way, we see why he acted as he did. And it all seems perfectly reasonable. It’s not an easy feat to turn a villain into a misguided hero, but that’s exactly what Stewart does.

If you have any interest in the stories of King Arthur, you should certainly add this book to your reading list. All the elements of the legend are there, but from an entirely different and fascinating point of view.

At one point in my life, fantasy was about all I would read. That point was about fifteen years ago, but I still decided to pick up Auralia’s Colors because of the idea of colors saving the day. In the kingdom of Abascar, the king has declared that all of the colors belong to the palace. None of the “common” people, whether they live inside or outside the city walls, are allowed to wear or own anything with color. Auralia is the abandoned orphan destined to change all of that.

While I enjoyed living in the world of the Expanse for a little while, I can’t say as I fully enjoyed this book. Auralia drove me crazy. She didn’t do anything. She didn’t fight back; she didn’t stand up to anyone, even when it all went wrong. She simply discovered and collected colors. For a title protagonist, she was an extremely passive character. I just couldn’t summon any loyalty for her or even care about her all that much. The ale boy, on the other hand, I’m extremely curious to learn more about. But that would require reading the next three books in the series, and I don’t think I’m up for that. I can tell that there is a lot more to discover in the world that Jeffrey Overstreet has created, but Auralia’s Colors didn’t hook me enough to keep me reading.

This book is strongly reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. It tells two stories – the real story of Hans Thomas and his journey to find his mother who ran away eight years ago, and the “real” story of a magical island where playing cards come to life as dwarfs. Hans Thomas is given a very small book that tells the story of this magical island, which he reads as he and his father traverse Europe. His father is an amateur philosopher, and they stop frequently along the road to discuss the meaning of life and reasons for existing. These big questions become the theme of the book and the purpose of both the real and “real” stories. The two stories are cleverly interwoven and come to have more in common than the reader might expect. This book provides an interesting way to look at philosophy at the same time as it tells an awfully good and touching story.

The world has flooded, and only a few hundred habitable islands remain. The Earth Mother has moved the remaining population there, and has created rules to keep them in line. Honor’s family moves to Island 365 when Honor is ten. When she enters school, she begins to learn the rules and history that Earth Mother wants her to learn. But her parents aren’t interested in the rules, and they have a different version of history than the one Honor is learning. Suddenly Honor is caught between believing those she loves or those she fears.

I’m not a huge fan of dystopia, but I found The Other Side of the Island better than most. A lot of it takes place when Honor is still young, before the rebellious, independent (drama-filled) teenage years that many dystopias seem to encompass. Goodman did a fabulous job of informing her readers about the world subtly. She truly embodies the old adage, “Show, don’t tell.” My one complaint about the book is that the ending felt rushed. The action had moved so slowly for so many pages, and then suddenly it all comes to a head and is over in fifty pages. It also seems (to me at least) to be left open enough for a sequel, but as far as I could tell, there isn’t one. Despite the loose ends, this is a well-written story with a very compelling main character. If you like dystopias, you should definitely give this one a try!

I picked A Little Folly by Jude Morgan up off the New Books shelf at the library. It was a book I couldn’t resist – a Regency romance! Think Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer. This is a genre I love to escape into.

A Little Folly follows siblings Valentine and Louisa. The novel begins with their extremely overbearing father dying, leaving them free to live their lives the way they want for the first time ever.  This means inviting their cousins (on their mother’s side, therefore frowned upon by their father) to stay. They bring a friend, Lady Harriet Eversholt, who is currently separated from her husband. Scandalous! And fascinating…especially to Valentine, who hasn’t much experience with worldly women.

Louisa is thrilled that her father’s death means she can finally turn down Pearce Lynley, the man her father picked out for her to marry. After that bold stroke, where were her newly found freedom take her next?

A Little Folly was certainly a enjoyable read. The plot had just enough twists to keep you guessing. The characters, for the most part, where easy to imagine being friends with. Honestly, though, I did have a bit of difficulty in getting a handle on James Tresilian. His characteristics kept changing enough that I couldn’t quite get a hold on who he was. There are definitely some plot points and themes strongly reminiscent of Jane Austen. As someone who wishes Jane Austen would have written three times as many novels as she did, I am happy to see her influence in A Little Folly.

For fans of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer,  A Little Folly is a great addition to your bookshelf.

So last week, I read through the entire Harry Potter series. It took a lot longer than I was expecting. I knew they were fast reads, so I thought it would take a day and a half, maybe two. Nope. Four days. Forty-five hours of reading. By the end of it, I was tired of Harry Potter, tired of doing nothing but sitting and reading all day. The seventh book took me longer than it should have because I just didn't feel like reading about Harry Potter anymore.

When I finished Friday night, I was overjoyed to be done for about five minutes. And then I started missing it. I missed Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I missed Hogwarts. I missed the magical world. And now it's Tuesday morning, and I'm still missing it all. I still wish I could return to Hogwarts, and I'm almost willing to start this whole crazy marathon over again just to reenter that world.

I also noticed just how well the characters age throughout the series. Harry starts out as an eleven-year-old who is unsure of himself and his place in this newly discovered world. By the end of the series, he is a supremely confident seventeen-year-old, yet he's still figuring out this whole romance thing. And despite the fact that Harry goes through things we will never experience, we still see ourselves in him and his friendships and his struggles. Even if we came to this series as an adult instead of a child, there are still characters and experiences to relate to.

Rowling is a master of comic relief. These books are funny. Serious, too, and occasionally terrifying. But there is always something funny to break the tension (Ron and Hermione's kiss in the middle of the battle of Hogwarts is a perfect example of this!). I found myself chuckling more than I expected to. The series as a whole is profound, but it's the comical moments and chapters that make it so enjoyable. 

I could go on for a very long time about all the things that make Harry Potter amazing. (I haven't even touched on the immense amount of imagination it must have taken to build such a complex world!) But I want to hear your thoughts too - because I'm sure you have some. :)

This is not your typical book about vampires in Transylvania. Wildwood Dancing follows five sisters who have discovered a portal to the Other Kingdom in their bedroom. This portal allows them to visit the Other Kingdom on the night of the full moon each month. There, they dance with fairies and trolls, debate with philosophers, and enjoy audiences with the queen of the forest people. It’s a wonderful escape from their difficult everyday life, in which their father is very ill and runs a trading business that is suffering the effects. It’s an innocent pleasure – until the Night People arrive and the oldest sister, Tatiana, falls in love with one of them. Suddenly their visits are not quite so safe, as they discover an entirely different side of the Other Kingdom.

The narrator of the book is the second sister, Jenica. She’s practical and business-minded, the sister who is most grounded in reality. It’s a little hard to understand, then, why the monthly visits to the Other Kingdom mean as much to her as they do to her more flighty sisters. Well, that’s not entirely fair. None of them are exactly flighty – just far from practical. Jena’s best friend is a frog with whom she converses, again something that just doesn’t quite fit with her sensible nature. Still, as the book progresses, Jena’s dreamy side increases to encompass true love, laying the more realistic problems aside for a moment.

The book does take place in Transylvania, but Juliet Marillier’s author’s note explains how she tried to focus on all of the vast folklore and mythology that this area has to offer. There is much beyond vampires and werewolves, folklore first popularized by Bram Stoker’s Dracula. She does a wonderful job of drawing a contrast between the two (or three) worlds, while still showing how they overlap. Decisions made in the Other Kingdom have far-reaching consequences in the real world, both good and bad.

One can’t help but feel for Jena as she strives to keep her sisters safe, her father’s business running, and the household going despite the constant interference of her cousin, Cezar. It’s a lot for a fifteen-year-old to take on, and she handles it admirably, with spirit and fire, until the happy ending is reached.

The world Marillier creates is convincing and intriguing. After all, who wouldn’t want to dance with a gentlemanly dwarf in the light of a full moon?

“It is the ultimate quest for the ultimate treasure. Chasing a map tattooed on human skin, across an omniverse of intersecting realities, to unravel the future of the future.”

I’ve never read a back cover blurb quite like that one before. It’s intriguing, isn’t it? And confusing, wouldn’t you agree? That seems to be the point.

The story begins with Kit, who happens to run into his great-grandfather Cosimo, who should have been dead years ago, in a back alley in London. He soon discovers he has a gift for travelling between dimensions, realities, whatever you want to call them, using ley lines. Cosimo gives him little enough explanation before sending him home to process this information. Kit returns to his girlfriend, eager to prove he did not make up what just happened to him. He decides to prove it by showing Wilhelmina – and consequently loses her somewhere in space, time, or both.

Stephen Lawhead jumps between storylines like his characters jump between realities. We follow Kit with Cosimo and Kit without Cosimo. We spend time with Wilhelmina in her new reality. We are introduced to Arthur Flinders-Petrie, who mapped skin provides the title of this book. It is rather difficult to keep track of the when of each character’s reality, but it’s surprisingly not difficult to keep track of each character’s story.

The premise of this book really is intriguing, and Lawhead really writes a good book. My only complaint is that this book, the first in the Bright Empires series, seems to be entirely exposition. It’s just the backstory, which could be elaborated in a chapter or two, but instead is filler for an entire novel. There was plenty of action to keep the story going; it just seemed almost superfluous to the real meat of this plot. This novel doesn’t get to the real meat at all. That is saved for future books in the series.

I’m looking forward greatly to reading the remainder of this series, where I hope Lawhead finally lives up to the potential of his premise – omniverse, ley lines, and all.

Jane Rubino and Caitlen Rubino-Bradway had an uphill battle to create a lovable heroine out of Lady Susan Vernon. In Jane Austen’s original novel, which was written in letter format, Lady Susan is a beautiful widow who does not scruple to use flirtation and manipulation to get what she wants. Her priority is herself, first and foremost. She does not hesitate to do what she wants to do, even if that is holding a long-standing flirtation with a married man. Lady Susan professes no real affection for her daughter, Frederica. She varies between annoyance with any disobedience and frustration with Frederica’s refusal to marry the rich man her mother has picked out for her. She is hardly an endearing character.

The authors of Lady Vernon and Her Daughter do their best to change all of that, and they clearly succeed. Acceptable motives are presented for Lady Vernon’s behavior. Her relationship with her daughter is positive and strong. The tables have been turned entirely from Jane Austen’s original manuscript. Lady Vernon and Frederica are the heroines, and Charles Vernon and his wife have become the self-absorbed villains of the piece. This novel is a very creative retelling of Lady Susan, full of twists and turns that Jane Austen herself would have applauded.

I confess that I am a huge Jane Austen fan. I have read each of her six novels many times, starting with Pride & Prejudice the summer before my junior year of high school. I enjoy the time period and the characters, but most of all, I enjoy Austen’s style of writing. A turn of phrase has often caused me to laugh out loud. While Rubino and Rubino-Bradway do an admirable job of imitating Austen’s style, they do miss out on the sparkle – the satiric wit that makes Austen such a pleasure to read. There are places where satire shows through, especially all the mentions of how the London gossips so continually misread the situation. But there was never a sentence that caused me to smile or laugh at the ludicrousness of a situation or character. Alas, no one can imitate the master exactly.

Lady Vernon and Her Daughter is not a seventh Jane Austen novel. But it is an impressively fleshed-out version of one of Austen’s early manuscripts. And it certainly makes for a wonderful read and an enjoyable story.

Honor Bright has left the home she knows and loves to move to America with her sister. When her sister Grace dies before they reach their destination, Honor is left to find her own place is this strange, entirely new world. She has to adjust to new animals, different building materials, and the opportunity to put her Quaker beliefs about helping runaway slaves to work.

I’m really just starting to learn to love the genre of historical fiction. I love learning about history, but I’ve usually gleaned my facts from nonfiction. Now that I’m really discovering historical fiction, I’m rather picky about the quality of the books I read.

Thus far, my model of wonderful historical fiction is Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland (my review).

Other end of the spectrum: Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini (my review).

Where does The Last Runaway fall, you may be asking? I’d say smack dab in the middle. It includes plenty of history without reading like a textbook. Yet I never really felt like I was there with Honor. I remained a passive observer from the 21st century. I’ve yet to pinpoint why exactly this is. In part, it could be that there was something just a little too flat in the character of Honor. She wasn’t as real as she could have been. And it could have been that the plot had the potential for epic events, but it remained limited to one town and just a few characters. That’s probably more realistic for actual people in that actual time period. But I expect fiction to go beyond that and tell me a big story.

I’m probably being much too picky. I’m just trying to figure out why I was left feeling slightly dissatisfied at the end of this book.

All that being said, I still recommend it. It’s an interesting look at Quaker culture in the 19th century, as well as the actual running of the Underground Railroad. And being written by Tracy Chevalier, it’s of course deeply researched and includes many details. The Last Runaway would make a good addition to a list of novels about the Underground Railroad – just make sure it isn’t the only one, because there’s a lot more to say on the subject!

Is there anyone out there who doesn’t love Anne (with an e) Shirley, inhabitant of Green Gables, P.E.I.? She is one of L.M. Montgomery’s most beloved heroines, and it’s easy to see why. It also makes it pretty intimidating to try and tell her story before she arrives at Green Gables, but that’s exactly what Budge Wilson attempts to do.

Before Green Gables begins with Anne’s parents, a couple who loves each other and their daughter with everything they have. Unfortunately, that doesn’t keep them from succumbing to the fever that rages through the town. Anne is then taken in by a local family with a lot of small children who needs the extra pair of helping hands.

Anne’s life with this family (and the subsequent one, full of twins) is far from easy and far from happy. But as we would expect with Anne, she finds glimmers of hope and love to help her survive. Wilson really tries hard to portray Anne as a child, and she does a fairly decent job. We can see hints of the Anne who can’t stop talking, the Anne with a temper she can’t control, and the Anne who revels in nature. But try as she might, Wilson just can’t capture that elusive something that Montgomery’s Anne has. I give her all sorts of credit for trying, but she just falls short.

Before Green Gables is not for the Anne purists. But it does still tell a good story, and it’s a perfectly plausible history of Anne pre-P.E.I. If you enjoy Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, you would enjoy this book – provided you come with realistic expectations. Just relax and relish the story of a red-headed girl named Anne (with an e).