When Margaret Welty spots the legendary hala, the last living mythical creature, she knows the Halfmoon Hunt will soon follow. Whoever is able to kill the hala will earn fame and riches, and unlock an ancient magical secret. If Margaret wins the hunt, it may finally bring her mother home. While Margaret is the best sharpshooter in town, only teams of two can register, and she needs an alchemist.
Weston Winters isn’t an alchemist–yet. Fired from every apprenticeship he’s landed, his last chance hinges on Master Welty taking him in. But when Wes arrives at Welty Manor, he finds only Margaret and her bloodhound Trouble. Margaret begrudgingly allows him to stay, but on one condition: he must join the hunt with her.
Although they make an unlikely team, Wes is in awe of the girl who has endured alone on the outskirts of a town that doesn’t want her, in this creaking house of ghosts and sorrow. And even though Wes disrupts every aspect of her life, Margaret is drawn to him. He, too, knows what it’s like to be an outsider. As the hunt looms closer and tensions rise, Margaret and Wes uncover dark magic that could be the key to winning the hunt – if they survive that long.
In A Far Wilder Magic, Allison Saft has written an achingly tender love story set against a deadly hunt in an atmospheric, rich fantasy world that will sweep you away.
My Review:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
I can see why one of the comp titles for this book is the Scorpio Races. This has a similar sense of place and magic, and a slowburn love story (though it’s a bit more physical). It slowly pulled me in until I was thoroughly hooked.
The writing is gorgeous and I highlighted several quotes. I also was able to listen to an advance copy of the audiobook and the performance was really excellent. The narrator was able to give each character a unique and recognizable (and believable) voice, and really brought the text to life.
Margaret, the main character, is cold and prickly and closed-off, trapped alone in her silent manor and barely alive. Wes burns with ambition, is impulsive, and has a large, loud family. It seems like they would never get along — and at first they don’t — but their gradual coming together is believable and romantic.
This book addresses religious prejudice well, making Margaret and Wes outsiders because of their family’s religion. They are bullied and tormented but they bear it and overcome it with empathy and grace.
The pace is glacial at first, and while it never gets anything like fast, it does gradually increase. I recommend giving it longer than normal to hook you because once it draws you in it really is a magical read.
*Thanks to NetGalley, Wednesday Books, and Macmillan Audio for providing an e-arc and audio arc of this book.
Favorite Quotes:
“A little tragedy is good for the constitution.”
Beneath his fear, there’s a glimmer of relieved acceptance. Mauling, he thinks, is a preferable death to shame.
She scours every surface until it gleams, until her mind begins to disconnect from reality, until her pain feels distant.
She has built herself a mother out of those precious memories and kept herself alive on them. But she can’t subsist on crumbs anymore.
She could lose herself in this. The heat of his body against hers; the heady, ridiculous scent of his aftershave and the wild bright salt of the sea; the way he holds her as though she’s something precious.
Right now, she strikes him as entirely otherworldly. A siren — or one of the aos si liable to drag him to a watery grave. Fey magic as ancient and wild as the hala, wearing a girl’s skin.
She is so beautiful.
She feels as though she’s been threaded through with an electrical wire, jittery and wild with dread.
I love him. It doesn’t surprise her to finally admit it to herself. It feels nothing like a revelation, nothing like falling — only like the punchline of some cruel, predictable joke. She has only given the universe more ammunition to wound her.
There is something dark within him that enjoys this heady rush of power. It’s intoxicating to at last hold all the cards — to cradle a life in his hands. The divinity of God lives within each of them, but only an alchemist can harness that spark. Jaime’s is just a pale insignificant glimmer against his.
She’s lived her whole life braced for another blow, but no amount of preparation or precaution has stopped them from landing.
This is the beast half of the hunters here today would’ve killed them for. The last demiurge: the last of the Katharists’ false gods, the last of the Sumic god’s children, the last of the Yu’adir god’s gifts.
The wind quivers, as tremulous as a long-held breath. And there is less magic in the world.
Welcome to my stop on the One For All book tour with Colored Pages Tours. (This blog tour is also posted on my Tumblr book, art, & fandom blog Whimsical Dragonette.)
An OwnVoices, gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers, in which a girl with a chronic illness trains as a Musketeer and uncovers secrets, sisterhood, and self-love.
Tania de Batz is most herself with a sword in her hand. Everyone in town thinks her near-constant dizziness makes her weak, nothing but “a sick girl”; even her mother is desperate to marry her off for security. But Tania wants to be strong, independent, a fencer like her father—a former Musketeer and her greatest champion.
Then Papa is brutally, mysteriously murdered. His dying wish? For Tania to attend finishing school. But L’Académie des Mariées, Tania realizes, is no finishing school. It’s a secret training ground for a new kind of Musketeer: women who are socialites on the surface, but strap daggers under their skirts, seduce men into giving up dangerous secrets, and protect France from downfall. And they don’t shy away from a swordfight.
With her newfound sisters at her side, Tania feels for the first time like she has a purpose, like she belongs. But then she meets Étienne, her first target in uncovering a potential assassination plot. He’s kind, charming, and breathlessly attractive—and he might have information about what really happened to her father. Torn between duty and dizzying emotion, Tania will have to lean on her friends, listen to her own body, and decide where her loyalties lie…or risk losing everything she’s ever wanted.
This debut novel is a fierce, whirlwind adventure about the depth of found family, the strength that goes beyond the body, and the determination it takes to fight for what you love.
Author Bio:
Lillie Lainoff received her B.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing and distinction within the major from Yale University. She currently is studying for her MA in Creative Writing Prose Fiction at the University of East Anglia.
Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry has been featured in The LA Review, The Washington Post Outlook, Today’s Parent, via the Disability Visibility Project, Washington City Paper, and The Yale Daily News, amongst other places. She’s received recognition from Glimmer Train and The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and is the 2019 Winner of the LA Review Literary Award for Short Fiction. She was a featured Rooted in Rights disability activist, and is the founder of Disabled Kidlit Writers (FB).
As an undergraduate, Lillie was a member of Yale’s Varsity Fencing team. As a senior, she was one of the first physically disabled athletes to individually qualify for any NCAA Championship event, and helped her team to an end-of-season 10th place ranking by the National Coaches Poll. She still fences competitively and coaches. In 2017, she was named a recipient of the inaugural Spirit of Sport award by the US Fencing Association.
I loved this book. I mean, I went into it knowing I would because, genderbent Musketeers? Everything I ever wanted. And I did love it for that, but mostly for Tania. She is such a great MC, not least of which because she lives with debilitating chronic illness AND IS ALSO a great fencer and a Musketeer.
This book does an absolutely amazing job driving home the point that yes, you can be disabled AND competent — AND that competence does not make you any less disabled. This is maybe the only book I’ve read that makes such a clear point of this. Disability does not equal incompetence. Competence does not equal a lack of disability. They can both be true.
Tania’s illness is never far from her. She never takes a breath free of the dizziness, and we never lose sight of her struggles or her determination. Her illness is threaded through every scene, every moment of the story — but it does not define the story, and it does not define her. It does not truly limit her, not in any way that matters or that she and her sisters in arms cannot find a way to overcome.
Aside from that, I love the way Tania and her sisters in arms grow closer and come to trust and rely on one another. I love that they are trained and trusted to go on missions to protect the king, even if they are denied official entry into the Musketeers. I love that they use every means at their disposal to complete their missions — and are also relatable teen girls.
Another thing I absolutely love is that the four girls’ names are clearly related to the original Three Musketeers (and D’artagnan), and that they also share some of the same personality traits as their namesakes. It’s such a clever and subtle nod to the original.
I love how Tania’s father steadfastly believes in her and teaches her to fence despite her mother’s worries and despite her illness. And that his lessons give her tools to combat the dizziness she feels.
I also love the musing about others like her, reduced to begging and being disbelieved. About how there are so many words for disbelief that a girl can be having the physical symptoms she complains of. About how it’s the poor who suffer during a regime change. This book has a lot of really powerful passages that hit hard and don’t shy away from ugly truths. And yet it still manages to be fun and empowering.
Empowering is actually a great word to describe how I feel about this book. As someone with chronic illnesses myself, I really deeply felt Tania’s frustrations and rage at being disbelieved, mocked, treated like a delicate object, not seen. Her journey is uplifting and empowering and I am so glad that I read it. And even more, I’m so glad Lillie Lainoff wrote it, that it will be available to future “sick girls” who secretly yearn to be Musketeers and save themselves for a change.
I also had the chance to listen to the audio arc and I have to say that I wish the narrator had done more justice to this story. She spoke at a reasonable speed but left long pauses between sentences sometimes — maybe between paragraphs? — which made it difficult to pay attention no matter what speed I tried. She also didn’t really distinguish very much between character voices which made it difficult to follow different speakers. She also had a little bit of a monotone quality to her performance which meant my mind tended to wander while listening.
*Thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, Recorded Books, Colored Pages Blog Tours, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing an e-arc and audio arc for review.
Favorite Quotes
When was the last time we’d touched when she wasn’t providing support for my wavering legs? When was the last time she’d reached for me and it wasn’t because I needed help?
Now, whenever I had a good day, people were quick to assume I felt better. It was hard enough living with the knowledge that if I felt healthy, it didn’t mean the next day would be the same. Being reminded of that fact by others was a painfully close second.
Men wanted quiet wives, quiet wives with quiet nervous habits. Not even our bad traits, our unconscious traits, belonged to us.
If I’d known the directions, if I could’ve drawn her a map, I would have done it in an instant. I would have ripped up the precious books in my room for paper and used my tears for ink.
This Paris was nothing like the Paris of my hazy dreams.
It was loud and people-full and the smell stuck to the inside of my nose and grime was everywhere and oh, it was beautiful.
We are not the ones who are written into history. We are the ones who ensure history exists to be written.
But the party was still a crashing wave that broke at my ankles, the clash of music against voices, against laughter, against clinking glasses and the susurrus of shoes against marble.
And even though dizziness lingered at the edges of my vision, even though my toes were clenched tight within my slippers, I was gliding across the smooth surface of a stream. It was just a bout without the swords — a bout that I would win.
…all those years of doing my best to pretend nothing was wrong had stitched a permanent mark into my skin.
That’s what Musketeers did. Earned their wounds.
I wasn’t any less dizzy than before, any less sick. But my legs were stronger. They were fighting for me. All the same symptoms, but no fainting.
They may not be the Musketeers I’d imagined. But they were better, because they were mine. And I knew, as I looked at them and saw the cold steely resolve inside me mirrored in their eyes, that I was theirs.
It was just like what Papa told me. Yes, I was dizzy; yes, his body swayed before me like the rocking of a ship; yes, my legs felt as if they’d collapse at any moment. But I knew the rhythm of this bout. It was in my bones, in the throb of my wounded arm, in the beat of my heart.
Being sick meant, at any moment, the people I cared about could decide I wasn’t worth the trouble I put them through.
The entries were tedious. Descriptions of medical theory, the four humors, hypochondria, so many different words and entries for women in pain that wasn’t believed.
“The three of you made me realize that whatever this dizziness is … well, maybe it’s never been the real problem. It’s horrible and it hurts and it makes me feel fragile in a way I never wanted, but it’s not the thing that tears me apart. The problem, the real problem, is the people who decide I’m unworthy because of it.”
“Fight me!” I shouted. “I am not the fragile, breakable thing you’d have me be. I am a Musketeer.”
No matter how far she runs, the forest of Edgewood always comes for Emeline Lark. The scent of damp earth curls into her nose when she sings and moss creeps across the stage. It’s as if the woods of her childhood, shrouded in folklore and tall tales, are trying to reclaim her. But Emeline has no patience for silly superstitions.
When her grandfather disappears, leaving only a mysterious orb in his wake, the stories Emeline has always scoffed at suddenly seem less foolish. She enters the forest she has spent years trying to escape, only to have Hawthorne Fell, a handsome and brooding tithe collector, try to dissuade her from searching.
Refusing to be deterred, Emeline finds herself drawn to the court of the fabled Wood King himself. She makes a deal—her voice for her grandfather’s freedom. Little does she know, she’s stumbled into the middle of a curse much bigger than herself, one that threatens the existence of this eerie world she’s trapped in, along with the devastating boy who feels so familiar.
With the help of Hawthorne—an enemy turned reluctant ally who she grows closer to each day—Emeline sets out to not only save her grandfather’s life, but to right past wrongs, and in the process, discover her true voice.
Haunting and romantic, Kristen Ciccarelli’s Edgewood is an exciting novel from a bold, unforgettable voice in fantasy.
My Review:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Sometimes there are books that reach inside you, tear out your heart, then return it to you forever altered. This, for me, is one of those books.
I wasn’t sure about it at first. It seemed very YA love triangle which I personally can’t stand but it very quickly turned out to be not that.
I loved Edgewood. I loved the people who lived there. I loved the woods and I loved the shiftlings and I loved Emeline and Hawthorne. I loved how unpredictable the story is, how it kept shifting and changing and breaking its boundaries. I loved the music and the magic. I was utterly transported while reading and I can feel the forest and the magic waiting at the edges of my vision. The writing was beautiful and magical and perfect.
I would recommend it to people who loved Wintersong and The Light Between Worlds and An Enchantment of Ravens. Books about magic and boundaries and finding where you belong.
*Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing an e-arc for review.
Favorite Quotes:
Believing in monsters and cruel, fey kings made things easier. It gave them something to blame when senseless disaster struck.
She didn’t stop to think about how taking directions from trees was not something rational people did.
He was like the forest, she thought. Quiet and steadfast in the way he held himself, with secrets hidden beneath.
“But there is power at the edges: that sliver between night and day, the place where winter touches spring, the boundary where forest meets field. Wild magic grows up from the cracks in all things.”
“Moving on doesn’t have to mean forgetting, Song Mage.”
Brimming with Celtic mythology, action, and danger, Erika Lewis’s Kelcie Murphy and The Academy for the Unbreakable Arts introduces readers to a new kind of magical school and a warrior who must choose with which side of an epic battle her destiny will lie.
The Otherworld is at war. The Academy for the Unbreakable Arts trains warriors. And Kelcie Murphy—a foster child raised in the human world—is dying to attend.
A place at AUA means meeting Scáthach, the legendary trainer of Celtic heroes. It means learning to fight with a sword. It means harnessing her hidden powers and—most importantly—finding out who her parents are, and why they abandoned her in Boston Harbor eight years ago.
When Kelcie tests into the school, she learns that she’s a Saiga, one of the most ancient beings in the Otherworld. Secretive, shunned, and possessed of imposing elemental powers, the Saiga are also kin to the Otherworld’s most infamous traitor.
But Kelcie is a survivor, and she’ll do whatever it takes to find her parents and her place in their world. Even if that means making a few enemies.
My Review:
⭐
Rating: 1 out of 5.
I was looking forward to this book because I usually enjoy MG books – especially those set at magic schools – and the synopsis looked like something I would love. However, I failed to connect with the main character at all. The book is very plot-based, which is fine, but the events zip along with no real weight to any of them. It just feels rushed.
I felt like I was reading a list of ‘this happened then this happened then this happened’ and while it should have all been very exciting it was just boring and implausible and didn’t make a lot of sense. It also felt like it had been cobbled together from other MG magic school books and that was irritating. Like the beginning gave me major Percy Jackson vibes.
I can imagine liking this more if I were the target audience and hadn’t been exposed to a lot of other books in the genre, but for me it was a disappointment.
*Thanks to NetGalley and Starscape for providing an e-arc for review.
Welcome to my stop on the Pink, Blue, and You! book tour with TBR and Beyond Tours. (This blog tour is also posted on my Tumblr book, art, & fandom blog Whimsical Dragonette.)
Simple, accessible, and direct, this picture book is perfect for kids and parents or teachers to read together, opening the door to conversations about gender stereotypes and everyone’s right to be their true selves.
Is it okay for boys to cry? Can girls be strong? Should girls and boys be given different toys to play with and different clothes to wear? Should we all feel free to love whoever we choose to love? In this incredibly kid-friendly and easy-to-grasp picture book, author-illustrator Elise Gravel and transgender collaborator Mykaell Blais raise these questions and others relating to gender roles, acceptance, and stereotyping.
With its simple language, colorful illustrations, engaging backmatter that showcases how appropriate male and female fashion has changed through history, and even a poster kids can hang on their wall, here is the ideal tool to help in conversations about a multi-layered and important topic.
Author Bio:
I was born in Montreal in 1977 and I started drawing not very long after I was born. In kindergarten I was popular because I was able to draw princesses with long spiral hair. Then, in high school, the girls would ask me to draw their ideal guy in their diary. I became very good at drawing muscles and hair, which I used later when I illustrated my book The Great Antonio . On the other hand, I am always just as bad when it comes time to use a diary correctly.
Later, I studied graphic design at Cegep and that’s when I understood that I wanted to do illustration. After my first book, the Catalog des Gaspilleurs , I wrote and illustrated about thirty others . One of my books, The Wrench , won the Governor General’s Award in the Illustration category, and since that time I have a big head and I brag all the time.
I live in Montreal with my two daughters, my husband, my cats and a few spiders. I am currently working on various projects in Quebec, English Canada and the United States. My books are translated into a dozen languages. I hope to live a long time so that I can still make lots and lots of books because I still have lots and lots of ideas.
This was a really cute book that had a lot of good information in it.
I love the open-ended questions at the beginning of the book. They really get kids thinking about why things are the way they are, why we make these assumptions, and why that’s not really a good thing.
There is a simple and easy-to-understand explanation of what the terms gender identity, sex, and pronouns mean and how to distinguish between them.
There is also great messaging that highlights how unfair it is when people are told what they can and cannot do based on their sex, gender, etc.
The book is full of cute illustrations that are deceptively simple and really show emotion well to make their point. Some of the illustrations, especially the dinosaurs one, are also really funny. The colors used throughout are also very engaging and welcoming.
Kiddo enjoyed this story and was very thoughtful throughout and seemed to be really pondering the questions raised on each page. They even occasionally answered a few of the questions posed aloud.
I would definitely recommend this book as it provides a thoughtful yet easy-to-understand overview of gender, sex, pronouns, and gender stereotypes and discrimination.
*Thanks to TBR and Beyond Tours and Anne Schwartz Books for providing a copy for review.
Favorite Quotes:
“When I become extinct, I want to be a toy for BOYS!”
No matter who we are, what we like, how we feel, how we dress, and what our body looks like, we ALL deserve to be loved, protected, and respected.
The good news is that the world is changing. It is easier to be who we really are, and we can find friends and allies who support us.
Can you imagine how free we would feel if things changed even more in the future?
Up and coming fanfic author Kaylee Beaumont is internally screaming at the chance to finally meet her fandom friends in real life and spend a weekend at GreatCon. She also has a side quest for the weekend:
Try out they/them pronouns to see how it feels Wear more masculine-presenting cosplay Kiss a girl for the first time
It’s… a lot, and Kay mostly wants to lie face down on the hotel floor. Especially when her hometown bully, Miss North Carolina, shows up in the very same hotel. But there’s this con-sponsored publishing contest, and the chance to meet her fandom idols… and then, there’s Teagan.
Pageant queen Teagan Miller (Miss Virginia) has her eye on the much-needed prize: the $25,000 scholarship awarded to the winner of the Miss Cosmic Teen USA pageant. She also has secrets:
She loves the dresses but hates the tiaras She’s a giant nerd for everything GreatCon She’s gay af
If Teagan can just keep herself wrapped up tight for one more weekend, she can claim the scholarship and go off to college out and proud. If she’s caught, she could lose everything she’s worked for. If her rival, Miss North Carolina, has anything to do with it, that’s exactly how it’ll go down.
When Teagan and Kay bump into one another the first night, sparks fly. Their connection is intense—as is their shared enemy. If they’re spotted, the safe space of the con will be shattered, and all their secrets will follow them home. The risks are great… but could the reward of embracing their true selves be worth it?
My Review:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
This was such a good, affirming, joyful book!
As someone who is active in fandom but has never been to a con, and who spent a lot of years questioning my identity (queer: nonbinary, bi ace), I really identified with Kay and felt very seen. They are like my younger self, and the atmosphere of the con was incredible.
While I didn’t have much in common with Teagan, she was easy to like and I was still rooting for her breaking away from the strict mold the pageant forced her into.
The story had its ups and downs of course but I felt so much queer joy radiating from the pages and wrapping me in this blanket of acceptance and it was so soothing.
There are also some great messages about not judging people based on what they look like or enjoy doing. And the fandom representation is so good. Such an accurate portrayal of a03 and tumblr and writing fanfiction. I want to go to a con now.
I would recommend this to every teen who is questioning their identity or knows someone who is. Sometimes you just need a dose of joy and affirmation and that’s this book in a nutshell.
*Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing an e-arc for review.
Favorite Quotes:
And yet, it never occurred to me before that any of these people could be considered truly beautiful. And there’s a vast gulf between not judging someone for their appearance and actively appreciating their beauty.
…but if I can take anything away from this weekend, it’s that I don’t have to look a certain way to be who I am. If I feel nonbinary, I am nonbinary. There’s no right way to dress or act to prove it.
How long, exactly, had June been coming to Moonie’s for the sole purpose of pining after the bartender?
She certainly didn’t come for the karaoke. Even though the karaoke made her smile sometimes. All these young queers with their off-key, bouncy energy. They made Mal smile, too, June knew. Even if Mal tended to hide her smiles.
But she saved them sometimes, for June.
Maybe Mal had secret smiles for other women, when June wasn’t around. There was probably no good reason for Mal Edwards, a bastion of stability and good sense, to see any kind of future with June anyway. Was it even fair to express feelings to a woman like that when you spent months away on the road?
But as another Pride weekend approaches, June’s fiftieth birthday and the eventual end of her long-haul trucking days loom in her mind, nestled against the memories of Moonie’s nights gone by where it felt like June and Mal came close—close to something happening, something real. Until June would inevitably chicken out. Retreat once again to life on the road.
It’s time for June to finally figure out her next act. And if she’s not brave enough to ask Mal Edwards to be part of it, she doesn’t deserve her, anyway.
After all. If you can’t tell a butch you love her during Pride, when the hell can you?
My Review:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
I loved this So so much, and related to Mal and June so hard. Their love is quiet but it shines through every moment of the story, every word and every action and every look they share. I also loved that the conflict wasn’t external. It was an internal will-she-or-won’t-she brooding that was easily dispelled. The getting together was so natural and comfortable it just felt right.
The writing is so beautiful and I highlighted so many lines to refer back to. The one about being alone but together was just. Exactly how I’ve always felt with my partner. I crave that quiet companionship and it was so nice to see it on the page. Also, I too went to college in California and then went up the coast to (almost) Oregon and love the rugged pacific coast so. This novella stole my heart in a lot of different ways.
Even though I haven’t read the first two novellas — which I will remedy now — it was easy to know and love Mal and June. They were just so honest and easy together, and felt so real and present as characters despite the fact that this is a novella. The customers at the bar were only on the page for a brief time but I am intrigued by them and excited to read more.
*thanks to Anita Kelly for providing an e-arc for review.
Favorite Quotes
“Mal,” she said, quiet. “Your whole body relaxes when you talk about her. I’ve never even met her but I’m half in love with June Davis just from the way you say her name.”
Wasn’t that what love was, really? Doing beautiful, funny things, just for the hell of it. Because you wanted to. Because the other person made you feel like you could.
“We’re going to look like two beached whales,” she muttered.
“Good,” I said. “Whales are majestic as fuck.”
As if I would have something to say about this, her being a secret civil engineer, other than being supremely turned on.
Well, this was a delight. Calling each other by our full names. Which seemed way too simple a thing to elicit such pleasure in my spine, but there it was.
“It’s true,” I said slowly, “That I like being alone. But with you… it’s different. Like we can still be alone, but together.”
Whimsical Dragonette 