Triple the Fantasy: “Silver in the Wood,” “Kiss of the Spindle,” “The Lost Years of Merlin”

I hardly ever post mini reviews of novels. I prefer to dedicate a full post to each one. But things are getting ridiculous because it’s now November and there are books I read in August that I haven’t yet talked about on here. Not that it’s a big deal, but I like to post a review for every book I read so being this behind on reviews irks me. It makes me feel as if I’m not progressing with my reading goals, even if I am.

Although the stories I’ll discuss in this post are all fantasy, they are quite different from each other. The first is a Tor novella about a Wild Man of the woods whose life is upended when he receives a visit from an unassuming human. The second, a paranormal, historical fiction romance with some steampunk influence that’s inspired by the fairytale Sleeping Beauty. And the third is a middle-grade fantasy novel about the boyhood years of the famous wizard Merlin.

I enjoyed reading two of the three, but one was surprisingly boring. However, I’m glad to have read them all. Here’s what I thought of each.

---

Silver in the Wood by Emily Tesh

Genre:

Fantasy

Series:

Greenhollow, book 1

Pubbed:

June 2019

Goodreads summary:

There is a Wild Man who lives in the deep quiet of Greenhollow, and he listens to the wood. Tobias, tethered to the forest, does not dwell on his past life, but he lives a perfectly unremarkable existence with his cottage, his cat, and his dryads.

Advertisement

Harry Potter Spells Book Tag

The end of July was Harry Potter’s birthday. Since I haven’t done a book tag in a long time (quite unusual for me), I decided to do a Harry Potter-themed one (although I’m a few days late for his birthday…happy belated?).

The Harry Potter Spells Book Tag was created by Kimberly Faye Reads.

An upcoming release you wish you could get your hands on right now

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

I’m still a little upset that I missed out on getting a copy of this AND meeting Erin Morgenstern at the ALA Conference in June. I love her Night Circus novel, which is about a magical circus that’s open only at night where two magicians compete to see who’s best. It’s beautifully written and easily sweeps up the reader in the story. I’m hoping The Starless Sea will be the same.

Book Recs: Dragons!

Here’s another prompt for #WyrdandWonder, a month-long celebration of all things fantasy. Click here to see the other prompts.

ten books featuring dragons

The prompt is actually “top ten dragons,” but I haven’t read that many fantasy books to do a decent post listing my top ten dragons. Instead, in this post I’ll list five books I’ve read that feature dragons I like and five books I’d like to read that feature dragons.

Five books about dragons I like

In Search of Lost Dragons by Elian Black’mor (illus.) and Carine-M (illus.)

Book Recs: Amazing Magical Systems

I’m so mad at myself. It’s already mid-May and I’ve yet to do one of these #WyrdandWonder prompts… until now. Initially, my plan was to post every day but that quickly got pushed aside as life got busy. But finally I’m able to post a prompt. Today I’ll feature

my top 10 magical systems

But it’ll be seven instead because I couldn’t think of any more to include.

By the way, #WyrdandWonder is a month-long celebration of all things fantasy. Click here to see the other prompts.

bending

Avatar: The Last Airbender by Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino (illus.)

I Heart Characters! #17: A Female DRAGON

I Heart Characters! is a weekly meme hosted by Dani at Perspective of a Writer to share our love of great characters. Each week, Dani assigns a topic/type of character that we must find examples of in the various media we consume (books, TV shows, movies, comics, podcasts, etc.).

Since I often skip a week (or two), I mash the character types Dani assigns into one to create a bonus character type that I include at the end of the post. The title of my post indicates the bonus character type I’ll feature at the end. But for now, here are the topics Dani assigned.

March 14 topic:

A Woman You Want to Be

Literally any female character that you want to become. Just slip right into their life and take over! It can be for whatever reason, revenge, the world, her personality or loves, whatever!

Atomic Blonde

I Heart Characters! #16: A Minor Character OTP Hook Up

I Heart Characters! is a weekly meme hosted by Dani at Perspective of a Writer to share our love of great characters. Each week, Dani assigns a topic/type of character that we must find examples of in the various media we consume (books, TV shows, movies, comics, podcasts, etc.).

Since I often skip a week (or two), I mash the character types Dani assigns into one to create a bonus character type that I include at the end of the post. The title of my post indicates the bonus character type I’ll feature at the end. But for now, here are the topics Dani assigned.

February 14 topic:

A Minor Character Romance

There is that character that is off to the side … how should their romance go? Is it with a character in the same story world or a cross-over romance? You get to decide all the details … how do they meet? Is it love at first sight or does it entail an adventure?

Queen Kettricken & Peottre Blackwater

Reblog: Guest Post // A Fantasy Fan’s Best Characters to go Questing with

Hey y’all!! Something great happened: Dani invited ME to do a guest blog post on her blog Perspective of a Writer!! 😀

As the title of this post indicates, I wrote about fantasy characters who I’d love to go on a quest with. And, unable to help myself, I wrote all about Robin Hobb characters!! Hahahaaa…!! It was such fun brainstorming the characters and thinking of a quest to go on with them.

Go ahead and check out my guest post over on Perspective of a Writer. I hope it’ll get you interested in trying some of Robin Hobb’s books.

BTW, check out this gorgeous portrait of the Fool that Dani found:

“The Fool” by FloorSteinz

The portrait looks almost exactly as I imagined the Fool when he became Lord Golden in the Tawney Man trilogy (my favorite of Hobb’s books).

According to the artist, she used David Bowie as her reference when creating this portrait. It’s spot on. I think she did a great job. Visit her DeviantArt page to see more of FloorSteinz’s Robin Hobb-inspired work.

10 Books Challenge | Book Tag

Tag week continues with the 10 Books Challenge, which I found Lindsey’s blog, A Rambling Reviewer. I tried to find who the creator of it is but was unsuccessful.

The rules:

• List 10 books that have stayed with you in some way.
• Do not take more than a few minutes and do not think too hard.
• They do not have to be the “right” books or great works of literature, just ones that have affected you in some way.
• Paste these instructions and tag 10 friends.

A book that made me think:

Thunder & Lightning: Weather Past, Present, Future by Lauren Redniss (illus.)

Two Audiobooks: “The Girl with All the Gifts” by M.R. Carey & “The Two Towers” by J.R.R. Tolkien

My reading experience with these audiobooks were vastly different. As I mentioned in my recent Weekend Reads post, I loved one but hated the other; however, both were a struggle to read since it’s hard to keep a rein on my mind to prevent it from wandering while listening to the story.

I guess my ratings of these books are questionable. I rate books based on how much I enjoyed them and what they made me feel, not necessarily if they are composed well, though I do consider that but not as highly as the enjoyment factor. With audiobooks, I also consider the narrator’s contribution to the work, and my rating reflects that, which is seen in my rating of The Two Towers. If I’d read the physical/e- book, I’d have given it a half star more.

---

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey, narr. by Finty Williams

Genre:

Horror; sci-fi: dystopian

Goodreads summary:

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her “our little genius.”

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

Top Ten Tuesday #32: Totally Surprising

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme that was created and hosted by The Broke and the Bookish but is now managed by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic:

Top Ten Books that Surprised Me

For this, I’ve decided to focus on books with plot twists I either didn’t see coming or suspected but was surprised by it anyway.