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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...
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The Secret

The Secret

Prairie Fire

By E.K. Johnston

Ignore the cover.  Ignore the summary.  Go straight for the first page of this book and start reading because this is the single most amazing, beautiful, heartbreaking, hilarious, emotionally compromising, pulchritudinous, SOUL TEARING sequel I have ever laid eyes on in my long history of laying eyes on books.  Or better yet, read the first book.  

Prairie Fire finishes the tale of Siobhan McQuaid and Owen Thorskgard started in The Story of Owen, where Siobhan becomes the bard of Owen, a dragon slayer.  The world building in this series is phenomenal.  Set in an alternate universe shaped by the existence of non-magical, carbon-consuming dragons, everything is pretty much the same as our world, but tweaked for the allowance of dragons.  For example, the United States is half the size as it is in our universe, Canada claimed all the extra land, and the Sahara Desert was created through an environmental disaster caused by a dragon war.  Driver’s Ed contains sessions detailing dragon evasion, and there is an international army of dragon slayers that work around the world to protect people from the dragons, called the Oil Watch.  

In the beginning of Prairie Fire, Owen and Siobhan enlist in the Oil Watch, proving to be difficult for Siobhan, who suffers from physical injuries after the events of The Story of Owen.  The book follows Owen and Siobhan’s experiences in the Oil Watch, with Siobhan struggling to overcome the limitations of her injuries, and Owen trying to do his duty to protect people, no matter the outcomes.  Everything is told through the voice of Siobhan, who proves not only to be subtly hilarious, but insightful and immensely entertaining.

The relationships between characters in these two books are extremely diverse and genuine for a young adult book.  The main female character does not end up dating the main male character, and said main female character does not have a rivalry with main male character’s girlfriend.  Owen’s aunt is married to another woman, and his father is not married to his mother, who chose to stay in her country, Venezuela.  The characters themselves are extremely well written and constructed, including the side characters, who do not get written out of the story.  Even in Prairie Fire, when faced with a potential love triangle, Siobhan does not feel pressured to start relationships with either of the love interests, but rather chooses not to engage in a romance at the time so she could work on her other issues, such as composing music of Owen’s deeds and staying alive.

The only things I did not like about these books have nothing to do with the content.  The cover art is rather atrocious, looking so badly photoshopped that I had decided not to read The Story of Owen when I first saw it (I later read it and discovered just how wrong my assumptions were).  The summary is no less convincing, a little cheesy and not at all compelling.  

Overall, The Story of Owen and its sequel, Prairie Fire, were both engaging, entertaining, hilarious, and magnificent.  The ending of Prairie Fire made me sob so much my family grew concerned.  I can not write enough to express my love for these two books.  If this review did not convince you to read it (I doubt it did, these books can not be explained and my writing does not do them justice), then just go, find The Story of Owen in your local site of book distribution, charge past the horrible cover and slightly better summary and read the first page.  These books are so beautiful that I place them on the same shelf as Harry Potter.  E.K. Johnston is an incredible writer, and I am looking forward to more books by her. 

If these books were food, they would be homemade apple fritters with vanilla sauce, still warm.
 Sweet, but not barf your face off sugary, kinda sorta healthy, filling and satisfactory, and so good that you have an emotional breakdown after finishing them because there are no more left and you need more because they were so amazing and huggable (though I do not recommend hugging apple fritters) and make you want to cry and sing Disney songs at the same time.  If by any chance apple fritters are not a favorite or an experience you have had yet, then these books are like your favorite comfort food.  I give both The Story of Owen and Prairie Fire five out of five stars.

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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...
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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...
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Storm

By: D.J. MacHale This is the sequel to SYLO where a small island off the coast of Maine was invaded by the US Navy (the US navy is called SYLO).  The main characters, Tucker, Kent, Olivia, and Tori escaped from Pemberwick and got to Portland, Maine.  In Storm they pick up another character, Jon, a doctor from a Portland hospital.  As it turns out the US Navy is at war with the US Airforce.  Over three fourths of the worlds population is dead.  Tucker, Tori, Kent, Olivia, and, Jon are trying to get to Nevada where a radio signal they picked up said to come if they wanted to fight back.  There is a lot of action and the plot moves along at a good pace.  One thing that was different from the first book was how much you found out about their relationships.  Kent is with Olivia and Tucker is with Tori.  It sort of bothered me that they were so into who was with who when they were trying to figure out why most of the world's population was killed. ...
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