A bit of a vague title, but there is no other way to talk about these three books at the same time because they are totally different. What they have in common is that I read them this week and now have time to blog about them.
SOOOOO...
1. Toads and Diamonds by Heather Tomlinson: This is the first novel I have read by Tomlinson, but I heard so many good things about her books that I had The Swan Maiden on my TBR shelf anticipating that I would like Toads and Diamonds....which I did. It took me a few chapters to really get in to the book because it moved so quickly through everything I already knew that I really could not see where the story would go. Clearly the author did her job well since the book was not just a predictable fairy tale. It is a fairy tale based on some old possibly Indian stories. But the premise is that Diribani and her sister Tana each receive a gift from a goddess. One speaks flowers and gems, the other toads and snakes. Neither girl is entirely sure what she is to do with her gift. The sisters end up separated trying, as all teens do, to discover her place and the importance of her particular gift. The book is a bit of a love story as fairy tales often are, though there is not much action. It is a lovely story and I will be reading The Swan Maiden soon.
2. Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier: I was only in about the third chapter before I came up to the computer to Google the author. She is German and has a great many books published there, but I really only found this one in English. There are two more books in this series, the next of which will not be available until spring 2012, which makes me sad. I loved this book. Time travel is my favorite type of science fiction. Gwenyth has known about time travel for most of her life, but she and her whole family always thought her cousin Charlotte would be the one to inherit the time travel gene, and has therefore been preparing for 10 years to be able to fit in to the past. Gwenyth meanwhile has had no preparation and is completely freaked out when she pops into the past on her way to the market. Luckily she at least knows such a thing is possible and keeps her head reasonably well until she returns to her own time. One of the best parts of the book is how "normal" Gwenyth is until the gene kicks in. Because this is the first of a trilogy, we only skim the mystery surrounding the Circle of 12, the Count, other members of their time traveling family, and Gideon. Gwenyth is really a fantastic heroine handling herself well even without having any idea how to behave in the past. She does not let anyone push her around including her counterpart, Gideon who trained along with cousin Charlotte and is not necessarily thrilled about the switch. I look forward to their continued adventures.
3. The City of Bones by Cassandra Clare: YES, I realize I am way behind as the 4th book in the series has just been released, but I assure you I will catch up quickly. If you like fantasy, fantastical creatures, special powers, and weapons all wrapped up with some romance, you too will want to get out and find these books. They take place in NYC, the center of all that is weird and unbelievable, in the present. Clary, unlike Gwenyth, has no idea the world is not as she has always seen it, until the night she and her friend Simon visit a club where she witnesses three Shadowhunters dispatch a demon, all of which only she can see. Things move pretty quickly after that as her mother and all of their possessions disappear, her mom's best friend abandons her, and she meets some pretty fierce bad guys. I am not necessarily partial to female protagonists, but I do like them to be smart, tough, and a little bit vulnerable and Clary delivers. (I do hate the name though, which is short for Clarissa, but I do not like that much either.) No book is perfect, but as I try to read YA novels as a librarian, not my former English teacher self, with a thought to how my students will feel about it, I did not find any significant flaws in the story. In fact, because I could not get the second book in the series (City of Ashes) from the library right away, I switched to the first book (Clockwork Angel) in Clare's next series, which is meant to be a prequel to the others, to tide me over.
All in all a pretty dang satisfying week of reading!
