neglect

Hello again. I guess I never did get around to telling ya'll about Christopher Paolini's Inheritance (which was still awesome). I got caught up reading. My favorite author, Tamora Pierce, suggested some books and I've now gone absolutely crazy reading everything. Two new authors to talk about today:

Patricia C. Wrede:
She's not new, by any means, but she's new to me. I read 6 of her books over the last few weeks. She has a four book series called the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, which includes Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, and Talking to Dragons. They deal with Cimorene and her friends and foes in the lands surrounding the Enchanted Forest.

They have lots of fun wit. The books poke fun at traditional fairy tales in a loving way. The books are all kind of short, and I got through each of them in 1-2 days (less if I could have read as continuously as I wish I could). I also enjoyed how they ended, which is usually what leaves the biggest impression on me.

She also has a new series called Frontier Magic. So far there are only two books (I believe there is one more coming).

The first is called The Thirteenth Child, and it's about Eff and her family as they move from an alternate reality eastern shore of the United States (of Columbia, not America), to the frontier. Across what I think could be the Mississippi (although it's called the Mammoth River) is a wild land where settlers can go (at their own peril), but it's also full of both magical and non-magical animals. Eff is one of a set of twins, with her brother Lan, who is some magical prodigy because he is the seventh son of a seventh son. Eff, on the other hand, is a thirteenth child, ridiculously un-lucky and destined to be evil. Who knows?

It's an excellent book and I was really excited to read the second one.

The second book is called Across the Great Barrier, in which Eff goes on an expedition, fittingly, across the great barrier that separates the settled east from the wild west. A new problem arises, and of course Eff is right in the middle of it as she struggles to understand her own weird magic.

The second book compounds on the wonderful character development from the first book, bringing us deeper and deeper into their lives. These books were awesome to read, even though I'm not generally a fan of 1st person narratives. Eff is such a laid back little lady that sometimes the plot seems like not much is happening, but it's really just because Eff is not a "freak-out" kind of girl.

The other author Tamora recommended was Maggie Stiefvater. She has written a lot of really great books, and I've read four of them of the last couple weeks. I actually just finished one last night. I'll have my next post be about Maggie and her amazing books. She's got two more that I want to read, but I finally got A Game of Thrones, so I'm definitely reading that next.

Until next time.