Chuyển đến nội dung chính

Geeks and the Holy Grail (Camelot Code #2), by Mari Mancusi, for Timeslip Tuesday

The first book in the Camelot Code series, The Once and Future Geek , mixed time travel between the medieval world of King Arthur and our own, and it is a very entertaining book.  The second book in the series, Geeks and Holy Grail (Hyperion, October 2019), is also entertaining (though not quite as funny; King Arthur as a modern day high school student is hard to beat....). When Morgana, sworn enemy of King Arthur, attacks the druids of Avalon, Nimue, the youngest of them, takes the Holy Grail and runs with it.  King Arthur is dying, and only the Grail can save him.  Desperate to keep it from falling into Morgana's hands, she stumbles into Merlin's Crystal Cave.  But instead of Merlin there to help her (he's on vacation in Los Vegas, in our time), there's only his very inexperienced apprentice, Emrys.  His attempt to hide the grail works, in a sense--as a small, flatulent dragon, it sure doesn't look much like a grail.  But it isn't much use to Arthur as a...
Đăng nhận xét

The Secret

The Secret

The Mirk and Midnight Hour


Written by: Jane Nickerson
Pacify your sweet tooth with a honey stick and a slice of sweet potato pie.

If you're hankering for a run of the mill adventure romance, you might as well stop reading here. The Mirk and Midnight Hour is a book set in the time of the American Civil War about a young Miss Violet Dancey who stumbles upon a little magic and a little excitement as she adjusts to her shifting environment brought on by the war. As she romps through the forest with her little cousin, they meet a wounded man holed up in Violet's old secret hide out. For a number of different reasons (the war, a deceased sibling, some ominous villains) the solider, Thomas, must be kept hidden in the woods, even in the face of possible danger.
There are several different plots that sneak through the book, and they are written fairly well. Violet's life is both quaintly average (for the times), and secretly exhilarating. 

On the whole, the subplots were good. On their own the independent story lines were original and interesting, but together they didn't always piece together perfectly. There was also something to be desired in terms of suspense. Although the climax was fun to read, it wasn't heart-pounding, blood-rushing exciting. 

Despite these few critiques, I really liked this book. Nickerson has a beautiful imagination, and her words give the novel a fairy tale quality. The scenery is sweet and fanciful, and honestly made me wish I could dive into the pages and walk through the sparkling woods alongside Violet. The writing is in beautiful style, and I was drawn in immediately to the mysterious and whimsical world she created. I could almost taste the air, feel the wings of the bees as they flitted cheerily through the air. Nothing was overpowering, and I felt almost lulled into the story, enticed by the simple and mischievous quality. 

There is magic, yes, but this is not a full out Harry Potter wands spells and werewolves kind of magic. This is a low-lying kind of magic that is mysterious and dark and realistic. The romance is of the same kind, it is slowly blooming, and lovely to read. 

I recommend reading this novel, it's really wonderfully enticing. Be warned however, this book is not for the faint of heart. If you aren't patient and only want action, you might want to pass on this one. But if you're a romantic or a dreamer, grab this off the shelf in March! 

3.75/5 stars!


Nhận xét

Đăng nhận xét

Bài đăng phổ biến từ blog này

Dead Voices, by Katherine Arden

Dead Voices , by Katherine Arden (middle grade, G.P. Putnam's Sons, August 2019), is a delightfully spooky sequel to Small Spaces , perfect for a chilling read as winter draws closer! Ollie, Coco, and Brian became close friends under somewhat trying circumstances last fall--the evil Smiling Man trying to turn them into scarecrows--and now winter has come, they're on their way to a fun weekend at a new ski lodge with Ollie's dad and Coco's mom.  They almost don't make it through the intense snowstorm, and when they arrive, they find themselves the only visitors.  The snow keeps falling, trapping them inside, and the power goes out.  And there are ghosts. The day after they arrive another visiter makes it through the snow, a young reporter for a ghost hunting magazine.  The owners of the hotel aren't sure that publicity about the hotel's previous incarnation of an orphanage with a dark, sad, history is what they want, but the young man is keen to get ghost hun...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

Premeditated

I'm going to start with the blurb from the back cover of this book, because it does a remarkable job of introducing the story in very few words: A week ago, Dinah’s cousin Claire cut her wrists. Five days ago, Dinah found Claire’s diary and discovered why. Three days ago, Dinah stopped crying and came up with a plan. Two days ago, she ditched her piercings and bleached the black dye from her hair. Yesterday, knee socks and uniform plaid became a predator’s camouflage. Today, she’ll find the boy who broke Claire. By tomorrow, he’ll wish he were dead. Claire and Dinah are cousins who are incredibly close, close enough that when Claire ends up in a coma in the hospital from a failed suicide attempt, Dinah knows where to look to find Claire's diary (or the computerized version of one, anyway). Dinah figures out what drove Claire to the point of suicide--a boy from the private school that Claire was supposed to attend that fall. Dinah enrolls at the school herself, determined to get...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

The Hippo at the End of the Hall, by Helen Cooper

If you are a fantasy fan who loves quirky small museums with collections of oddities, you will love  The Hippo at the End of the Hall , by Helen Cooper (first published in the UK in 2017, now out in the US from Candlewick, Oct 2019). Ben's invitation to the Gee Museum was delivered by bees.  He'd never heard of the place before, but despite his mother's reservations about letting him go there on his own (reservations which seem, for reasons, to be a bit much, even taking into account the fact that Ben's only ten)  he went...There, in its rooms full of taxidermidied creatures, other natural history collections, a glass bee hive, and clocks and other treasures collected by the Gee family from around the world years ago, he found magic, and the truth about his father, who died many years ago while off on an expedition of his own. Ben also found danger, one of my personal least favorite types of danger--the unscrupulous developer, in this case paired with the unscrupulous d...
Đăng nhận xét
Đọc thêm

Free $100

Free $100