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9.8/10
Review: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Title: The Night Circus Author: Erin Morgenstern Genre: Fiction Publisher: Doubleday Books Release Date: 2011 Format: Kindle / Audiobook Pages: 387 The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night. But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway – a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love – a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands. True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead….

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7.2/10
Review: The Paper Magician Series by Charlie Holmberg

Title: The Paper Magician Author: Charlie N. Holmberg Genre: Fiction Publisher: 47North Release Date: July 8, 2014 Format: Kindle Source: Amazon Under the tutelage of magician Emery Thane, Ceony Twill discovers the wonders of paper magic, but when her teacher’s life is threatened, she must face the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic to save him. The Paper Magician Series — Charlie N. Holmberg In The Paper Magician, set in an alternate turn of the 20th Century, Holmberg has created a unique magical world for the series.  Trained and licensed magicians work with only one particular medium among those available — all involving man-made materials. We first meet Ceony at the close of her education when she is to begin her apprenticeship.  Ceony wants to work in metal — to be a smelter. However, after completing magic school (all theory because students can’t perform magic until they bond with their material) she is instead assigned to apprentice with a folder — a paper magician because there are only eleven left in England. Ceony is not happy about it, but finds that she wants to please her teacher, Magician Thane. The set up is well done, and Holmberg has created a wonderful…

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9.1/10
Review: Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton
Fiction , Reviews / April 2, 2017

Title: Rebel of the Sands Author: Alwyn Hamilton Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult Publisher: Viking Childrens Books Release Date: March 8, 2016 Format: Kindle Pages: 320 Source: purchased “Amani is desperate to leave the dead-end town of Dustwalk, and she’s counting on her sharpshooting skills to help her escape. But after she meets Jin, the mysterious rebel running from the Sultan’s army, she unlocks the powerful truth about the desert nation of Miraji…and herself”– In her excellent debut fantasy novel, Rebel of the Sands, Alwyn Hamilton sets us in a depressed desert village of miners and rough characters.  A wild blend of outlaw western and Middle-eastern based mythos with a dash of political intrigue, Rebel of the Sands engaged from the opening chapter to the closing pages, with a blend of well-drawn characters, magic, adventure, and a fast-paced, twisting plot. Amani, the narrator, is an orphan raised by an aunt and uncle who want nothing to do with her except marry her off, or in the case of the uncle, marry her.  Determined to leave, Amani disguises herself as a boy and attempts to win money in a shooting competition.  She ends up competing with a stranger and the house champion,…

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9.5/10
Review: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Title: Neverwhere Author: Neil Gaiman Genre: Fiction, Fantasy Publisher: Harper Collins Release Date: July 1, 1997 Format: Kindle + Audiobook Pages: 352 Source: Purchased Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but demanding fiancee. Then one night he stumbles across a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her–and the life he knows vanishes like smoke. Several hours later, the girl is gone too. And by the following morning Richard Mayhew has been erased from his world. His bank cards no longer work, taxi drivers won’t stop for him, his hundred rents his apartment out to strangers. He has become invisible, and inexplicably consigned to a London of shadows and darkness a city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, that exists entirely in a subterranean labyrinth of sewer canals and abandoned subway stations. He has fallen through the cracks of reality and has landed somewhere different, somewhere that is Neverwhere. For this is the home of Door, the mysterious girl whom Richard rescued in the London Above. A personage of great power and nobility in this murky, candlelit realm, she is on a mission to discover the…

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6.5/10
Review: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
Fiction , Reviews / March 7, 2017

Title: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West Author: Gregory Maguire Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, Fairytale Rewrite Publisher: Harper Collins Release Date: September 29, 2009 Format: kindle & audiobook Pages: 432 Source: purchased When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum’s classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious Witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? Gregory Maguire has created a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Gregory Maguire’s novel transforms the world of Oz, expanding on Baum’s original works and most importantly, telling the story of the Wicked Witch of the West. In Elphaba (later to be known as the Wicked Witch of the West), we have a classic outsider. Her green color and manner set her apart, but so does her upbringing. As she grows up, her political activism again separates her and makes her a target. She is told she is cursed, and despite her brilliant mind, and deep passion for protecting those oppressed, she believes this to be true. Maguire’s Oz…