Category: Fairytales

Fairytales, Fantasy, Folktales, Magical, Romance

Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett

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Description

A curmudgeonly professor journeys to a small town in the far north to study faerie folklore and discovers dark fae magic, friendship, and love in the start of a heartwarming and enchanting new fantasy series.

Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party—or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily’s research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones—the most elusive of all faeries—lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she’ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all—her own heart.

My Thoughts

This was exactly the book I needed in place of the negativity out in the real world right now. Heather Fawcett has given us a fabulous heroine who inhabits a world many of us fantasy fans only dream of – scholarly study of faeries. I mean, who wouldn’t love that job??? There’s no suspension of disbelief here. These things are REAL!

Fawcett’s writing is peppered with high-level vocabulary that incredibly flows through the text without bogging down the narrative. She tosses out words like “inchoate” like candy left as offerings for the fae. Main character Emily Wilde is delightful. She knows who she is and she definitely knows her value, even if she’s socially awkward. It’s refreshing and comforting to find a character who isn’t perfect and who lives in her skin no matter how odd that feels sometimes.

The only thing that keeps this from being a 5 star read for me is the goofy and IMHO unnecessary romantic entanglement that happens in the last half. However, I expect that will appeal to fans of romance/fantasy of which I am not one.

UPDATE: I’m re-reading this for a book club and I have to admit that my previous statement was off the mark. The relationship between Em and Wendell is, indeed, the very heart of the story. They seem to understand each other in ways others cannot, and I have begun to suspect that Emily may indeed be more than she seems.

Otherwise, this is a supremely fun read. I look forward to more of Fawcett’s stories.

Publication Date: January 10, 2023
Published By: Random House Publishing Group; Ballantine, Del Rey
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Children's, Fairytales, Folktales, Makes You Think, Women

Beasts and Beauty by Soman Chainani

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Description

You think you know these stories, don’t you?

You are wrong. 

You don’t know them at all.

Twelve tales, twelve dangerous tales of mystery, magic, and rebellious hearts. Each twists like a spindle to reveal truths full of warning and triumph, truths that free hearts long kept tame, truths that explore life . . . and death.

A prince has a surprising awakening . . .                           

A beauty fights like a beast . . .

A boy refuses to become prey . . .

A path to happiness is lost. . . . then found again. 

New York Times bestselling author Soman Chainani respins old stories into fresh fairy tales for a new era and creates a world like no other. These stories know you. They understand you. They reflect you. They are tales for our times. So read on, if you dare.

My Thoughts

I’ve read a lot of fairy tales retold and reimagined, but nothing – nothing! – like this. Chainani completely disrupts the old tales and rewrites them ferociously for all those readers who never once saw themselves in those stories.

There is power here – power of women and girls, power of color, power of sex – all woven together into a dark and delicious fist raised to the traditional, exclusionary tales.

Little girls with onyx skin and springy curls will see themselves here, as will beautiful boys who prefer red-haired thieves to brittle wives.

There is anger here, but there’s also righteousness. These are tales for our time.

Highly Recommended.

Publication Date: September 21, 2021
Published By: Harper Collins Childrens Books
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Fairytales, Fantasy, Historical, Magical, Romance

The Hidden Palace by Helene Wecker

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Description

In this enthralling historical epic, set in New York City and the Middle East in the years leading to World War I— the long-awaited follow-up to the acclaimed New York Times bestseller The Golem and the Jinni—Helene Wecker revisits her beloved characters Chava and Ahmad as they confront unexpected new challenges in a rapidly changing human world.

Chava is a golem, a woman made of clay, who can hear the thoughts and longings of those around her and feels compelled by her nature to help them. Ahmad is a jinni, a restless creature of fire, once free to roam the desert but now imprisoned in the shape of a man. Fearing they’ll be exposed as monsters, these magical beings hide their true selves and try to pass as human—just two more immigrants in the bustling world of 1900s Manhattan. Brought together under calamitous circumstances, their lives are now entwined—but they’re not yet certain of what they mean to each other.

The Golem and the Jinni was one of my top reads in 2013 and I still recommend it to readers in my library. I was excited to discover this sequel and dove in right away.

That was a couple months ago.

As with Golem, Wecker takes her time introducing characters and floats the various storylines along a gently running river. Normally, I would find this a lovely and welcome difference to the suspense stories I usually read; in March 2021, I found it impossible to keep my attention on the story and had to put it down. This had nothing to do with the book – it was everything going on in both the world at large and my own little corner of it.

Fast forward to May and a slightly calmer environment. I picked this up again and spent a wonderful weekend immersed in the world of Chava and Ahmad. It was my time to read this.

I thoroughly enjoyed the stories of Chava, Ahmad, and all the people who touch their lives, as well as the way Wecker ties in the significant historic events of the times, To be sure, there are lots of stories here, but Wecker keeps them all bound together, much in the way that people interact in real life. She presents a view of community and caring among people who are very different and shows that human decency can transcend differences – a message we all need right now.

Recommended.

Publication Date: June 8, 2021
Published By: Harper
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Fairytales, Fantasy, Horror, Magical

The Night Country by Melissa Albert

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cover173062-mediumThe New York Times bestseller! The Night Country is the highly anticipated sequel to Melissa Albert’s beloved debut The Hazel Wood.

In The Night Country, Alice Proserpine dives back into a menacing, mesmerizing world of dark fairy tales and hidden doors of The Hazel Wood. Follow her and Ellery Finch as they learn The Hazel Wood was just the beginning, and that worlds die not with a whimper, but a bang.

With Finch’s help, Alice escaped the Hinterland and her reclusive grandmother’s dark legacy. Now she and the rest of the dregs of the fairy tale world have washed up in New York City, where Alice is trying to make a new, unmagical life. But something is stalking the Hinterland’s survivors—and she suspects their deaths may have a darker purpose. Meanwhile, in the winking out world of the Hinterland, Finch seeks his own adventure, and—if he can find it—a way back home…

I confess I found this sequel to The Hazel Wood hard to read. The grim and bloody violence was wrenching at times, and the story seemed a bit convoluted. However, all of the odd story strands were pulled tight and tied off in a pulse-pounding conclusion that will resonate with fans of The Hazel Wood and the Hinterland.

All that said, I really think I was not in the right frame of mind to read this. It was early days of “New York on PAUSE” due to coronavirus and my nerves were super-taut. I’m recommending it because the writing is awesome and the conclusion to the story begun in The Hazel Wood is highly anticipated by fans.

Publication Date: January 7, 2020
Published By: Flatiron Books
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Children's, Fairytales, Magical

Of Salt and Shore by Annet Schaap

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cover180004-mediumFor fans of The Hazel Wood, this middle grade novel takes the dark stuff of fairytales and crafts it into a powerful story of friendship and light.

Every evening Lampie, the lighthouse keeper’s daughter, must light a lantern to warn ships away from the rocks, but one stormy night disaster strikes. The lantern is not lit, a ship is wrecked, and someone must pay.

To work off her debt, Lampie is banished to the Admiral’s lonely house, where a monster is rumored to live. The terrors inside the house aren’t quite what she thought they would be–they are even stranger. After Lampie saves the life of the neglected, deformed son of the admiral, a boy she calls Fish, they form a close bond. Soon they are pulled into a fairytale adventure swimming with mermaids, pirates, and misfits. Lampie will discover the courage to fight for friendship, knowledge, and the freedom to be different.

Ready for a weird and harsh twist on The Little Mermaid fairytale?

This twisted tale imagines the life of the offspring of the union between a mermaid and a human, told through the voice of a young, uneducated but fierce girl named Emilia.

Emilia, also known as Lampie, endures a hard life as a lighthouse keeper’s daughter, made more difficult by the loss of her beloved mother and her father’s subsequent drinking and depression. A horrible lapse in memory causes a terrible disaster, which separates Lampie and her father. Sent to live in the “Black House,” Lampie quickly comes to understand that there is something very wrong there. Lampie uncovers the secret of the household, the deformed son of the master who is kept locked in a tower room. Lampie finds that he is a rude little boy, but also much more. The two form an unusual friendship, which grows out of Lampie’s natural inclination to treat Edward, or Fish as she calls him, as any other person. Ultimately, they both find their way “home.”

This is not a sweet fairy story and includes some violence. It examines the darker side of human nature, focusing on the suspicion, fear and intolerance associated with people who are different, but also demonstrates the utter joy and beauty that can be found when human beings connect despite their differences. Beautifully written, with characters that jump off the pages and swim around in your mind long after the book is closed, Of Salt and Shore should be one of the most anticipated books of the year.

Publication Date: September 15, 2020
Published By: Charlesbridge Books
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Fairytales, Folktales

Between Worlds by Kevin Crossley-Holland

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cover157690-mediumAncient, rich, and strange, these magical and eerie tales from across Britain and Ireland have been passed down from generation to generation.

A handsome, cocky young man is swept up by a dark horseman and cast into a life-or-death adventure. A pair of green children emerge from a remote hollow and struggle to adapt to a strange new land. A dauntless farm girl finds that her fearlessness earns her a surprising reward.

Dark but often funny, lyrical yet earthy, the folktales presented here have influenced our landscape and culture. This definitive collection of forty-eight stories, retold by master storyteller and poet Kevin Crossley-Holland, opens a doorway to a lost world and shows the enduring power of language and imagination.

No one tells folk and fairy tales as well as Kevin Crossley Holland. His knowledge of the folklore, fairytales, and general lore of the U.K. region would probably only be surpassed by Katherine Briggs and she’s been gone for almost 30 years.

Crossley Holland tells some new stories, and puts a shine on old ones, all wrapped up in his trademark lyrical and saucy text. Storytellers will especially love this.

Publication Date: October 8, 2019
Published By: Candlewick Press
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Books About Books, Fairytales, Fantasy, Magical, Reading

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

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cover165880-mediumFrom the Publisher: Zachary Ezra Rawlins is a graduate student in Vermont when he discovers a mysterious book hidden in the stacks. As he turns the pages, entranced by tales of lovelorn prisoners, key collectors, and nameless acolytes, he reads something strange: a story from his own childhood. Bewildered by this inexplicable book and desperate to make sense of how his own life came to be recorded, Zachary uncovers a series of clues–a bee, a key, and a sword–that lead him to a masquerade party in New York, to a secret club, and through a doorway to an ancient library hidden far below the surface of the earth.

What Zachary finds in this curious place is more than just a buried home for books and their guardians–it is a place of lost cities and seas, lovers who pass notes under doors and across time, and of stories whispered by the dead. Zachary learns of those who have sacrificed much to protect this realm, relinquishing their sight and their tongues to preserve this archive, and also of those who are intent on its destruction. Together with Mirabel, a fierce, pink-haired protector of the place, and Dorian, a handsome, barefoot man with shifting alliances, Zachary travels the twisting tunnels, darkened stairwells, crowded ballrooms, and sweetly soaked shores of this magical world, discovering his purpose–in both the mysterious book and in his own life.

This is a tough one for me. I confess, I did not love this book. I *liked* it well enough, but found the structure disconcerting. I sometimes struggle with focusing on books that alternate stories with each chapter, which is why this did not fully resonate with me. I kept wanting to read the Zachary Ezra Rawlins narrative and got annoyed that it kept being interrupted by the alternating fairytale chapters. Yes, it all comes together in the end, but the format kept me disconnected and made the narrative drag. It didn’t help that I was reading this in e-format. If I’d hard a print copy, I would have totally skipped around the chapters to satisfy my curiosity.

At the same time, this is a book filled with gorgeous language and description, the fairyland of my childhood dreams where one can get lost for centuries among all the stories in the world. Could there be a better place? I think not. I did enjoy the DungeonMaster/RPG approach to telling Zachary’s story, which at times made me feel as those I was inside the story, and I really enjoyed the characters.

I am 100% certain that fans of The Night Circus will eat this up. Morgenstern’s writing gets ALL the adjectives – lovely, luminous, lyrical, etc. and I predict this will appear on all the “Best of 2019” lists.

Publication Date: November 5, 2019
Published By: Doubleday
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Children's, Fairytales, Fantasy, Ghosties, Magical

The Little Grey Girl by Celine Kiernan

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cover159644-mediumFrom the Publisher: In the second book of the Wild Magic trilogy, courageous young Mup and her family are trying to heal and restore the kingdom when they uncover an ancient and powerful anger. The old queen and her raggedy witches have fled Witches Borough, and Mup’s family has moved into the cold, newly empty castle. But the queen’s legacy lingers in the fear and mistrust of her former subjects and in the memories that live in the castle’s very walls. When an enchanted snow blankets the castle, Mup’s family is cut off from the rest of the kingdom, and the painful memories of the old queen’s victims begin to take form, thanks to a ghost whose power may be too much for even Mup and Mam to handle. Celine Kiernan weaves a timely and essential truth into the second book of her trilogy: that dismantling oppression means honoring the pains of the past, and perhaps the most potent magic of all is encouraging joy and hope wherever possible.

Kiernan introduced Mup, Mam, Dad, Crow, and Tipper in Begone the Raggedy Witches (Book One of the Wild Magic Trilogy) last year, and now follows that wonderful debut with a continuation of the same story. After having defeated the Raggedy Witches and dethroned the wicked Queen, Mam moves her family into the other world and takes up residence in the old Queen’s castle. Once there, Mam struggles with the need for a Queen expressed by the people, since she wants to do everything different from how her mother, the old Queen, ruled. There’s no question that Mam has the power, but does she have the will to rule?

At the same time, Mup is struggling to understand her place in this new world, and come to terms with her own power, which sparks from her fingertips. Mup can sense that something isn’t right, and Kiernan does an excellent job of communicating not only Mup’s feeling of being out of place but her powerful sense of something bigger being wrong.

The juxtaposition between Mup’s happy family and the residual sadness, anger, and fear left in the old Queen’s castle is made more powerful by the cursed moon and snow the old Queen sends to disrupt the land. Throw in an unhappy ghost, a confused Raggedy Witch, and a friend who feels betrayed and you have a story that will keep you reading well into the night.

Publication Date: September 3, 2019
Published By: Candlewick Press
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Books About Books, Fairytales, Magical

The Book Charmer by Karen Hawkins

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book charmerI have a fondness for books about books, so the description of The Book Charmer drew me in. Every once in awhile a book comes along that is a just a gentle affirmation on the goodness of neighbors, and this is one of them. The concept of a town librarian hearing books talk and giving the right book to the right person at the right time is the stuff of magic for people who love books. Pair that with a small town full of down to earth people who love each other despite their differences, and a set of main characters so appealing that it’s impossible not to like this book.

Comparisons will inevitably be drawn to Sarah Addison Allen’s Waverley novels and I’d be lying if I said the similarities didn’t occur to me. Like Allen’s stories, Karen Hawkins has imbued her characters and the town of Dove Pond with a certain kind of magic, which creates a modern day fairy tale for people who are searching for the right place to be in life, despite often rough beginnings. In Book Charmer, Hawkins offers a wrenching but hopeful looks into the foster system, but also into the decline of a loved one with Alzheimer’s. Mama G’s illness is handled with sensitivity and honesty, while Grace’s experiences as a foster child inform her adult life in ways she never expected.

Dove Pond is one of those places that you dream of, and you are left wanting to know these people in real life. That is the mark of a good story, and Hawkins fully succeeds here. Recommended.

Publication Date: July 30, 2019
Published By: Gallery/Pocket Books
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy

Fairytales, Fantasy, Folktales, Young Adult

House of Salt & Sorrow by Erin Craig

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cover157025-mediumHouse of Salt & Sorrow by Erin Craig

Folktales have been told and retold for centuries, and I am always up for reading something new. Often, the retellings are interesting but not very original. Erin Craig, though, has produced an imaginative, lovely, wholly original retelling of the Twelve Dancing Princesses which takes the kernel of the old story and builds a whole new world peopled by fascinating characters and customs.

The “Thaumas Dozen” is as interesting a group as I can remember from my reading. Twelve sisters, all different in their own ways with very different wishes for their futures. Tragedy strikes the family again and again as first their mother then sisters begin to die tragically. The family, it is whispered, is cursed, with the girls being described by hoped-for suitors as “lovely as a bouquet of belladonna.”

Two sisters, Annaleigh and Verity, know something is very wrong and each works towards solving the riddle of their “curse.” Throw in the wicked (is she or isn’t she?) stepmother, an enchanted father, and all the glorious wickedness of Faeryland and you have a tale that will delight and capture your senses.

This will appeal to teens and adults alike, and Erin Craig is on track to take a place next to Marissa Meyer, Naomi Novik, and Sarah Maas.

Publication Date: August 6, 2019
Publisher: Random House/Delacorte
Thanks to Netgalley for the review copy