I’ve wanted to join in on Top Ten Tuesdays for a long time now, and I’m finally taking the plunge! It’s always seemed like a bunch of fun, so I’m excited to participate!
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly post currently hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. It celebrates lovely lists, wonderful books and the bookish community. This week’s topic is Ten Things I Loved About [Insert Book Title Here] – basically pick a book and mention ten things you loved about it!
The book I chose is Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett. (I feel like I’m always bringing this one up somehow, even though I’m not. There’s just so much to love about it though!)
Emily Wilde: She’s such a unique and refreshing protagonist, and I found her intelligence endearing, and her tendency to hyper fixate relatable.
Wendell Brambly: He’s just so… you know.
The banter and romance: It’s sooo good – I just can’t gush about it enough! And Emily and Wendell’s chemistry is amazing.
That the story is told in journal entries: It’s something I don’t see often (or at all) in books I read nowadays. (The only other recent book I read with consistent journal entries/letters was Lydia Bennett, Witch.)
The atmosphere/tone: Fawcett absolutely nails this. It’s perfect – especially for a fall read – and it always felt cozy sitting down to read the book.
The cover(s): The cover – and the alternative Barnes & Noble edition (that I have) – are both gorgeous and eye-catching. I love them both, but I think that I love the B&N just a little bit more. I love the blue and purple and green on the white background.
The way that faeries are portrayed: So many books focus on the smuttier aspects of fairy stuff nowadays, and ACOTAR (as much as it’s guilty pleasure trash for me) really encouraged the publishing landscape to focus on the elf-like with big 🍆 that it kinda invented. It was a breath of fresh air to read about more traditional and lore accurate things.
The plot itself: I would be remiss to finish off this list without mentioning one of the most crucial parts of the book. The plot is fantastic.
The footnotes: I loved the option for extra information on faeries, magic or lore that were frequently at the bottom of pages. It made more descriptions available if one wanted to read more, but made them optional for those who wanted to opt out. Plus, they meant that the paragraphs weren’t over cluttered with information and drawn out.
The ending: The ending is simply *chef’s kiss*. 🧑🍳💋
It’s been a couple weeks since I last participated in this post. But here I am again!
Anyway, First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words, but I saw it over at One Book More.
What if instead of judging a book by the cover, author or most everything else, we judged it by its content? Its first lines?
If you want to join in, all you gotta do is:
📚 Take a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open it to the first page 📝 Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first 📙 Finally… reveal the book!
Here’s the first line:
The police officer’s body goes blurry, then sharpens again.
Know what book it is? Here’s some more hints if you don’t know…
Still have no idea? Here’s some great pictures of books to look at while you consider it…
After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC-Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.
And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.
The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.
She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.
What books have you been reading lately? What’s on your TBR that you’re currently the most excited about?
As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you have an great day/night!
Much like May earlier this year, July is absolutely stacked in regards to new books coming out that I’m interested in. Just take a look at this.
Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Tressa @ Wishful Endings (and was previously hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine where it was known as Waiting on Wednesday) to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. They’re usually books that have not yet been released.
This week’s book is:
The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer! 📖🌳
So, I’m actually not sure when I’ll get around to reading this one, since I’ve got a few things on my TBR that I wanna read first. Not to mention there are even more new books coming out soon that I’m even more excited about reading, so this one might go by the wayside for a bit. But I’m nonetheless excited about this one – the premise just sounds so interesting!
Inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case—from the author of The Wishing Game.
As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell vanished in a West Virginia state park, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.
Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Jeremy is a famous missing persons investigator with an uncanny ability to find the lost, while Rafe is a reclusive artist unable to stop creating otherworldly paintings and sculptures he shows to no one. He bears scars inside and out from his disappearance but has no memory of what happened while they were gone.
Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth behind their time in the woods. While the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons.
But the time for burying secrets comes to an end when vet tech Emilie Wendel hires Jeremy to find her long-lost sister… the long-lost sister he and Rafe knew while living in that hidden kingdom. Now the former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories. Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy return to the enchanted world they called home for six months… for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.
Are you looking forward to The Lost Story? What other books are coming out soon that you’re looking forward to?
As always, thank you all so much for reading and have a fantastic day/night!
Happy Tuesday everyone! It’s been some time since I’ve last done this post. Sorry. June completely screwed up my productivity and reading time and stuff. But I’m back with another Tasteful Tuesday!
For anyone unfamiliar, Tasteful Tuesdays (formerly Majestic Mondays – so it’s not new, I just switched days, haha) (might switch back, who knows) are when I highlight an awesome looking book cover and talk about what I like about it. That’s it, that’s pretty much the point of this post.
This time I’m (once again) screaming over another new release. The book is The Night Ends With Fire by K.X. Song!
Infused with magic and romance, this sweeping fantasy adventure inspired by the legend of Mulan follows a young woman determined to choose her own destiny—even if that means going against everyone she loves.
The Three Kingdoms are at war, but Meilin’s father refuses to answer the imperial draft. Trapped by his opium addiction, he plans to sell Meilin for her dowry. But when Meilin discovers her husband-to-be is another violent, ill-tempered man, she realizes that nothing will change for her unless she takes matters into her own hands.
The very next day, she disguises herself as a boy and enlists in her father’s place.
In the army, Meilin’s relentless hard work brings her recognition, friendship—and a growing closeness with Sky, a prince turned training partner. But has she simply exchanged one prison for another? As her kingdom barrels toward destruction, Meilin begins to have visions of a sea dragon spirit that offers her true power and freedom, but with a deadly price.
With the future of the Three Kingdoms hanging in the balance, Meilin will need to decide whom to trust—Sky, who inspires her loyalty and love; the sea dragon spirit, who has his own murky agenda; or an infuriating enemy prince who makes her question everything she once knew—about her kingdom and about her own heart.
Book Cover Rating: 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 • 5 burning fires
I’m not gonna mince words: this book cover is absolutely gorgeous. It’s one of the prettiest covers that I’ve seen all year. Not to mention the sprayed edges. Ack – so beautiful!
I love the painted art style. You know, the one that’s sometimes used for telling stories, particularly used in certain movies and videogames to tell a legend or show a flashback. I just adore the way it looks. Not to mention how you can see the brush strokes and the way that the colors blend. I can’t stop gushing about this cover!
The way the fire is simultaneously a phoenix is also absolutely beautiful. And the way that (presumably) Meilin is rather small compared to said phoenix, but still stands out and is still the ficus of the cover art is also awesome.
And I just love, love, love the sprayed edges. Like, I always love sprayed edges. But the ones here are particularly pretty. I really like the colors and detail used – it all just helps the book as a whole stand out even more. The entirety of the outside of The Night Ends With Fire is just a masterpiece.
So yeah, that’s another Tasteful Tuesday. What do you think about this cover art? Have you read The Night Ends With Fire? What did you think of it?
Anyway, as always, thank you to everyone who reads my posts. I hope that you enjoyed this one as well, and that you have a awesome day/night!
Happy Monday! It’s a little bit late, but I’m back doing that thing I do every quarter again. That’s right – it’s time for Most Anticipated SFF Reads of 2024 Part #3!
This is another big one guys, mostly in part because July is stacked. Like, totally stacked with new releases that I’m interested in. I was honestly shocked, but pleasantly so.
But yeah, this time I have a list of eight books that I’m interested in. Eight. (Edit: Now it’s nine.) Just like when I did this post last time. What’s going on 2024?! Anyway, you know the drill; I’m only interested in these books – there’s no guarantee that I’m gonna read all of them. We shall see.
(Edit 7/16/24: I can’t believe I forgot to add Wrath of the Triple Goddess! It’s one of my most anticipated books of the year! Regardless, it’s here now.)
RELEASING: July 2nd
Infused with magic and romance, this sweeping fantasy adventure inspired by the legend of Mulan follows a young woman determined to choose her own destiny—even if that means going against everyone she loves.
The Three Kingdoms are at war, but Meilin’s father refuses to answer the imperial draft. Trapped by his opium addiction, he plans to sell Meilin for her dowry. But when Meilin discovers her husband-to-be is another violent, ill-tempered man, she realizes that nothing will change for her unless she takes matters into her own hands.
The very next day, she disguises herself as a boy and enlists in her father’s place.
In the army, Meilin’s relentless hard work brings her recognition, friendship—and a growing closeness with Sky, a prince turned training partner. But has she simply exchanged one prison for another? As her kingdom barrels toward destruction, Meilin begins to have visions of a sea dragon spirit that offers her true power and freedom, but with a deadly price.
With the future of the Three Kingdoms hanging in the balance, Meilin will need to decide whom to trust—Sky, who inspires her loyalty and love; the sea dragon spirit, who has his own murky agenda; or an infuriating enemy prince who makes her question everything she once knew—about her kingdom and about her own heart.
RELEASING: July 16th
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Magicians trilogy returns with a triumphant reimagining of the King Arthur legend for the new millennium.
A gifted young knight named Collum arrives at Camelot to compete for a spot on the Round Table, only to find that he’s too late. The king died two weeks ago at the Battle of Camlann, leaving no heir, and only a handful of the knights of the Round Table survive.
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Table, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight, and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.
But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords lay siege to Camelot and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell, and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.
The first major Arthurian epic of the new millennium, The Bright Sword is steeped in tradition, full of duels and quests, battles and tournaments, magic swords and Fisher Kings. It also sheds a fresh light on Arthur’s Britain, a diverse, complex nation struggling to come to terms with its bloody history. The Bright Sword is a story about imperfect men and women, full of strength and pain, who are looking for a way to reforge a broken land in spite of being broken themselves.
RELEASING: July 16th
Inspired by C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case—from the author of The Wishing Game.
As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.
Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons’ investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.
Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.
Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.
RELEASING: July 25th
Perfect for fans of everything from Lockwood & Co. to The Haunting of Hill House, this gothic graphic novel follows a young medium with the gift—or curse, as some might say—to communicate with the dead. This ghost story “powerfully, tenderly, and empathetically examines death, grief, and the afterlife” raved Kirkus in a starred review!
Dorian Leith can see ghosts. Not only that, he listens to their problems and tries to help them move on to the afterlife. It’s a gift that’s made him an outcast to everyone in town. That is except for his dearly departed grandmother, who he’s partnered with to turn this paranormal ability into an honest living, and the local bookshop owner, who seems to be the only non-deceased person willing to give him a chance. But it’s all worth it to Dorian, who feels like he’s been given a bigger purpose. A chance to save those who cannot save themselves.
Then one day, the key to Death’s Door is stolen, trapping all the ghosts in the land of the living. Since he’s only one who can see them, the spirits rely on Dorian to retrieve the key before it is too late. If they can’t move on, they’ll soon be consumed by a ghostly rot that has begun to plague them.
As it continues to fester and spread, and the ghosts become desperate for relief, Dorian must do whatever it takes to find a way to bring peace to the restless dead—even if that peace comes at the cost of his own….
RELEASING: August 6th
A young woman chosen as the crown prince’s bride must travel to the royal palace to meet her new husband—but her world is shaken when she discovers the dark truth the royal family has been hiding for centuries—in this lush fantasy debut perfect for fans of Song of Silver, Flame Like Night and Violet Made of Thorns.
Princess Ying Yue believed in love…once upon a time.
Yet when she’s chosen to wed the crown prince, Ying’s dreams of a fairy tale marriage quickly fall apart. Her husband-to-be is cold and indifferent, confining Ying to her room for reasons he won’t explain. Worse still are the rumors that swirl around the imperial palace: whispers of seven other royal brides who, after their own weddings, mysteriously disappeared.
Left alone with only her own reflection for company, Ying begins to see things. Strange things. Movements in the corners of her mirror. Colorful lights upon its surface. And when, on the eve of her wedding, she unwittingly tears open a gateway, she is pulled into a mirror world.
This realm is full of sentient reflections, including the enigmatic Mirror Prince. Unlike his real-world counterpart, the Mirror Prince is kind and compassionate, and before long Ying falls in love—the kind of love she always dreamed of.
But there is darkness in this new world, too.
It turns out the two worlds have a long and blood-soaked history, and Ying has a part to play in the future of them both. And the brides who came before Ying? By the time they discovered what their role was, it was already too late.
RELEASING: August 6th
A dance to the death. A girl who’s just as monstrous as H.H. Holmes. A hallway that’s constantly changing—and hungry. All of these stories exist in the same place—within the frame of a particular house that isn’t bound by the laws of time and space.
Following in the footsteps of dark/horror-filled YA anthologies like His Hideous Heart and Slasher Girls and Monster Boys, and Netflix’s ground-breaking adaptation of The Haunting of Hill House, this YA speculative fiction anthology explores how the permanence of a home can become a space of transition and change for both the inhabitants and the creatures who haunt them.
Each story in the anthology will focus on a different room in the house and feature unique takes on monsters from a wide array of cultural traditions. Whether it’s a demonic Trickster, a water-loving Rusalka, or a horrifying, baby-imitating Tiyanak, there’s bound to be something sinister lurking in the shadows.
RELEASING: September 17th
In this highly anticipated second book in the Talents Trilogy, the world of the dead is closer than you think.
Agrigento, Sicily, 1883. With the orsine destroyed, Cairndale lies in ruins, and Marlowe has vanished. His only hope of rescue lies in a fabled second orsine—long-hidden, thought lost—which might not even exist.
But when a body is discovered in the shadow of Cairndale, a body wreathed in the corrupted dust of the drughr, Charlie and the Talents realize there is even more at stake than they’d feared. For a new drughr has arisen, ferocious, horned, seemingly able to move in their world at will—and it is not alone. A malevolent figure, known only as the Abbess, desires the dust for her own ends. And deep in the world of the dead, a terrible evil stirs—an evil that the corrupted dust just might hold the secret to reviving or destroying forever.
So the dark journey begun in Ordinary Monsters surges forward, from the sinister underworld of the London exiles, to the mysteries of a sunlit villa in nineteenth-century Sicily, to the deep catacombs hidden under Paris. Against bone witches, mud glyphics, and a house of twilight that exists in a netherworld all its own, the Talents must work together—if they are to have any hope of staving off the world of the dead, and saving their long-lost friend.
RELEASING: September 24th
The second book in the YA graphic novel series about star-crossed lovers and misunderstood monsters, which is already a webcomic phenomenon!
All Dr. Henry Jekyll wanted to do was make London a safe place for rogue scientists. That’s why he and his best friend Robert created the Society for Arcane Sciences in the first place, and why their upcoming exhibition to show the public all the incredible things they can do for the world is so important. But ever since Frankenstein arrived, nothing has gone according to plan….
And now Jekyll’s dirty little secret is about to become a huge problem. Hyde, his devilishly devious alter-ego, is fed up with being jerked around and Jekyll not letting him out to play. And he’s just discovered a new trick that will allow him to take the driver’s seat of their shared body. With Hyde behind the wheel, it’s not just the impeding exhibition and the future of the society in jeopardy. The ruffian threatens to destroy something that’s even more dear to Jekyll: his relationship with Robert. Will Jekyll be able to regain control of his mind, body, and life, or will he lose everything he has been fighting for?
Volume Two collects Chapters 8-12 of this beloved webcomic, which is available in print for the first time ever. It also features loads of exclusive bonus content including a brand-new prequel story (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Meet Dracula!!!), a behind-the-scenes look at the comic’s origins, and more!
RELEASING: September 24th
In his continuing quest to earn college recommendation letters from the gods, Percy has to pet sit the goddess Hecate’s polecat and giant mastiff during Halloween week. What could go wrong?
Rick Riordan’s newest Percy Jackson adventure is full of hilarious set pieces, a diverse cast of gods and monsters, and many other delightful tricks and treats.
Percy Jackson, now a high school senior, needs three recommendation letters from the Greek gods in order to get into New Rome University. He earned his first one by retrieving Ganymede’s chalice. Now the goddess Hecate has offered Percy another “opportunity”—all he has to do is pet sit her polecat, Gale, and mastiff, Hecuba, over Halloween week while she is away. Piece of cake, right?
Percy, Annabeth, and Grover settle into Hecate’s seemingly endless mansion and start getting acquainted with the fussy, terrifying animals. The trio has been warned not to touch anything, but while Percy and Annabeth are out at school, Grover can’t resist drinking a strawberry-flavored potion in the laboratory. It turns him into a giant frenzied goat, and after he rampages through the house, damaging everything in sight, and passes out, Gale and Hecuba escape. Now the friends have to find Hecate’s pets and somehow restore the house, all before Hecate gets back on Saturday. It’s going to take luck, demigod wiles, and some old and new friends to hunt down the animals and set things right again.
So yeah, these are all of the books coming out in the next three months that I’m interested in possibly reading. What books are coming out soon that you’re looking forward to? Do we share some of the same ones?
(Also, if you ever have trouble finding a good list of new releases to scour for new books to read (and this includes genres beyond sci-fi and fantasy), I usually check this website called Book Birds. It typically has a pretty complete list and is frequently where I find at least a few things to add to my TBR and for my Most Anticipated Reads posts.)
Thank you all so much for reading, and I hope you have an amazing day/night!
In the long-awaited sequel to Fablehaven, the dragons who have been kept at the dragon sanctuaries no longer consider them safe havens, but prisons and they want their freedom. The dragons are no longer our allies….
In the hidden dragon sanctuary of Wyrmroost, Celebrant the Just, King of the Dragons, plots his revenge. He has long seen the sanctuaries as prisons, and he wants nothing more than to overthrow his captors and return the world to the Age of Dragons, when he and his kind ruled and reigned without borders. The time has come to break free and reclaim his power.
No one person is capable of stopping Celebrant and his dragon horde. It will take the ancient order of Dragonwatch to gather again if there is any chance of saving the world from destruction. In ancient times, Dragonwatch was a group of wizards, enchantresses, dragon slayers, and others who originally confined the majority of dragons into sanctuaries. But nearly all of the original Dragonwatch members are gone, and so the wizard Agad reaches out to Grandpa Sorenson for help.
As Kendra and Seth confront this new danger, they must draw upon all their skills, talents, and knowledge as only they have the ability to function together as a powerful dragon tamer. Together they must battle against forces with superior supernatural powers and breathtaking magical abilities.
How will the epic dragon showdown end? Will dragons overthrow humans and change the world as we know it?
My Review
Writing a novel is like climbing a mountain that does not yet exist, reaching for handholds that become tangible only as you curl your fingers around them, yearning for a tower- ing summit that must be willed into reality before you can stand on it.
Brandon Mull, author of Fablehaven and Dragonwatch
So, I finally got around to reading the final Dragonwatch book. And honestly, I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Especially after how subpar books three and four felt at times while reading.
Though not as good as Fablehaven – and I’ll talk about why that is in a bit – Dragonwatch is a very solid middle grade fantasy series. And just a solid fantasy in general, if we’re being honest here. It was a wonderful, yet completely unexpected continuation of a series that I thought was over. Many writers return to their biggest successes years later, or never stop to begin with and just keep milking the cow, and so often it overstays its welcome or sours the earlier installments. But Dragonwatch didn’t do that – it continues a story from beyond its original ending in a way that feels very natural. (Not to mention the lack of sequel bait at the end of The Keys to the Demon Prison was wonderful, even if finally reaching the end of Fablehaven book five felt bittersweet.)
As this is a sequel series – and is considered to be the second half of a story by the author himself – it would be impossible to discuss Dragonwatch without talking about Fablehaven. At least a little bit. (Don’t worry – I’m not gonna get too much into it.)
Creating an entire series is an even grander and more daunting expedition. Writing the Fablehaven and Dragonwatch series has been quite a climb. I spent ten years of my life producing these books, and now I’m finally done. I believe these were mountains worth climbing, and I am happy to leave them as part of the landscape so others can explore them.
Brandon Mull
But anyway. Fablehaven. It’s a series from the ’00s that I feel got a little bit lost in the shuffle ’cause of certain other big fantasy books at the time that were targeted towards YA and middle grade. But I really enjoyed it when I first discovered it around 2008. I thought that the individual plots of each book were each engaging and stood on their own very well. I adored the characters, particularly Seth and Kendra, and loved their character growth. And I loved the dialogue and the writing and the execution of Mull’s ideas. Not to mention the pacing of each novel was incredible, I don’t think I was ever bored or felt like any of the books suffered from Middle Book Syndrome.
And this is why I feel that though it’s a great series, Dragonwatch doesn’t quite hit the same for me as Fablehaven did. And yeah, I’m sure that nostalgia is definitely at least a little involved here, but I just don’t think that Dragonwatch is quite as good. For one: books three and four – Master of the Phantom Isle and Champion of the Titan Games – definitely feel a little bit middle book syndrome-y. There’s just something about the pacing of them for me, I dunno.
Second of all: Seth is incredibly annoying in these same two books, and I hated following his chapters at times (sometimes I just DESPISE amnesia plots if they’re done certain ways). It felt like I was following a different character at times, which kind of irritated me during a few parts. Like, I get it I know how an amnesia plot works, but at the same time it was a bit frustrating.
And last of all: there were just so many more new characters introduced and other miscellaneous stuff that felt a bit unnecessary and usually disappeared after a while. I also wasn’t too keen on Kendra’s and Seth’s younger cousins for much of the series either. They were introduced in the first Dragonwatch book, yet they felt unnecessary for much of the story of the series. Sure, they fulfilled their character arcs at the end of the books, but they just annoyed me for whatever reason.
I’m sure that you can tell by now that I felt that the third and fourth books were the weakest of the series. And you’d be correct – I definitely think that. But I also felt that it had a strong start as well as a strong finish. And my grievances with the series are honestly very few; as I’ve said – this is an absolutely solid fantasy series.
I didn’t want to write Dragonwatch unless it would build upon what Fablehaven started in a way that felt important. Now that I’m done, I feel like Dragonwatch is the second half of a single sweeping story, and that without these five books, the adventures of Kendra and Seth would be incomplete.
Brandon Mull
Let me just make a little list of some of my favorite things about Dragonwatch (Note – The Return of the Dragon Slayers was the most recent book I’ve read – it’s been well over a year since I read any of the others – so my points will basically be about this book in particular or the series as a whole):
The way the entire series – Fablehaven and Dragonwatch – came full circle in a few different ways.
Muriel, the witch antagonist from the first Fablehaven book, appears and has a significant part to play in book five of Dragonwatch.
Kendra and Seth have a moment in the room they originally stayed in during Fablehaven.
Themes from the first series return and circle back in a satisfying way.
Kendra and Bracken have another touching moment at the end of the Dragonwatch series that builds on the moment they had five books earlier at the end of the Fablehaven half of the series. I adored it.
I loved seeing many of the characters return from the Fablehaven part of the series. So many books come back years later and ditch much of the original cast, but this one doesn’t do that, which I appreciated.
Seeing new magical places was awesome. Moving beyond the magical preserves was awesome. I just love the Fablehaven world building and universe in general.
Brandon Mull managed not only to stick a series ending with Fablehaven not once but twice. So many series struggle with this aspect of writing, but neither half of the series does. Both Fablehaven’s and Dragonwatch’s endings are satisfying and feel earned.
So yeah, I liked a lot of stuff about the Dragonwatch series. But this review is already getting super long so I can’t talk about everything I enjoyed. I definitely recommend this series to anyone who enjoys middle grade fantasy, and especially kids in middle school. As someone who read half of this series in middle school when it was still just Fablehaven, I think that kids this age will find it to be a great series and will enjoy it.
Because of this, my median star rating for the entire Dragonwatch part of the series is:
Anyways, as always, thank you to everyone so much for reading, and I hope you all have a fantastic day/night!
Also, if you celebrate it, 🇺🇸🎇 Happy4thofJuly!! 🇺🇸🎇
See ya ~Mar
I have many other books and series to write. Some of my fa- vorite ideas have yet to be written. I can’t wait to share them in the years to come.
Sooo… It’s been a few weeks since I participated in First Line Fridays. Not to mention my posting has been pretty spotty this month as well. Sorry about that…
Anyway, First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words, but I saw it over at One Book More.
What if instead of judging a book by the cover, author or most everything else, we judged it by its content? Its first lines?
If you want to join in, all you gotta do is:
📚 Take a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open it to the first page 📝 Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first 📙 Finally… reveal the book!
Here’s the first lines:
For the first time since he had arrived at the Museum of Gigantic Achievement, Knox heard no sounds of dragons wreaking havoc above.
Any ideas on the book? Here’s another hint or two if you still can’t figure it out…
Still not quite sure yet? Here are some lovely photos of books to admire while you think about it…
Annnd the book is… 🥁🥁 Return of the Dragon Slayers by Brandon Mull!!
The magical world teeters on the brink of collapse. The Dragon King, Celebrant, has united the dragons into a vengeful army, and only a final artifact stands in the way of them unleashing their fury against humankind. With established allegiances shifting under the strain, Seth and Kendra find themselves in desperate need of new allies.
Seth must face his most dangerous quest–the fulfillment of his pledge to the Singing Sisters. With only Calvin the Tiny Hero at his side, Seth needs to collect the pieces of the Ethergem, including the stones from the crowns of the Dragon King, the Giant Queen, and the Demon King.
Halfway across the world, Kendra finds herself torn between her duty to Dragonwatch and her desire to rescue Bracken. Can she challenge Ronodin’s control of the fairy realm without leaving the five legendary dragon slayers to be hunted by Celebrant and his sons?
Left behind at Titan Valley, Knox and Tess must survive the aftermath of the Giant Queen’s fall. Will the secret crown in Knox’s possession prove too much for him to handle?
In this fifth and final volume of Dragonwatch, our heroes make their last stand at the hidden Kingdom of Selona. For the defenders of light to stand a chance, the legendary dragon slayers must arise, lost secrets must be uncovered, and ancient powers must awaken. Get ready for the gripping, revelatory, and unforeseen conclusion to the epic ten-volume New York Times best-selling Fablehaven and Dragonwatch series.
What books have you been reading lately? What’s on your TBR that you’re currently the most excited about?
As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you have an great day/night!
A sharp-witted, debut high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, evil wizards and a garlic festival – all at once. Perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, K. J. Parker and Travis Baldree.
It’s bad enough waking up in a half-destroyed evil wizard’s workshop with no eyebrows, no memories, and no idea how long you have before the Dread Lord Whomever shows up to murder you horribly and then turn your skull into a goblet or something.
It’s a lot worse when you realize that Dread Lord Whomever is… you.
Gav isn’t really sure how he ended up with a castle full of goblins, or why he has a princess locked in a cell. All he can do is play along with his own evil plan in hopes of getting his memories back before he gets himself killed.
But as he realizes that nothing – from the incredibly tasteless cloak adorned with flames to the aforementioned princess – is quite what it seems, Gav must face up to all the things the Dread Lord Gavrax has done. And he’ll have to answer the hardest question of all – who does he want to be?
A high fantasy farce featuring killer moat squid, toxic masculinity, an evil wizard convocation, and a garlic festival. All at once. All in all, Dread Lord Gavrax has had better weeks.
My Review
He woke up with no eyebrows and no idea how he’d gotten into such a position.
I was really looking forward to Dreadful. And I didn’t dislike it, but it didn’t end up being as much of a gem as I’d hoped it would be. Like, I still really liked certain parts of it, but on the whole I just felt very meh about it.
The concept of this novel was something I found extremely interesting and was all it took for me to hype myself up for it. But, I dunno, I just felt like it was a bit bland for me. I’ve heard it compared to Legends & Lattes, because they’re both kind of slow-burns, and I agree with that. I think that that might be part of the reason that Dreadful didn’t gel with me as much as I’d hoped.
First off: the stuff I liked. I really enjoyed the characters; I feel that they were the strongest part of the book. Gav was both amusing and interesting to me because I’m a sucker for amnesia plots (if they’re done right), and the circumstances and framing of the novel made the whole thing funny to me. Eliasha was also a brilliant inversion of the princess archetype. I loved her personality and how she wasn’t conventionally attractive and that her interests weren’t conventional either. Gav and Eliasha also had great platonic banter, and their friendship was fun to follow. I also really liked the side characters, like the goblins and the villagers. The garlic festival was hilarious!
The plot was okay. It wasn’t anything super unique, as it’s purposely riffing on fantasy tropes, and is inspired by one of Rozakis’ husband’s D&D campaigns from a few years ago. I like it when books get a bit meta sometimes though, or are self aware, so a lot of it was fun.
I did find stuff to be kind of predictable, however, but that’s not always a bad thing. It did make a couple of parts kind of boring though, and the climax was not very exciting (for me) to read. The book also got a bit too self aware and preachy at some points.
The writing was mostly okay. I thought that the dialogue and point of view came across pretty naturally. I did find some of the descriptions to be overused and annoying, though. The amount of times the author used stuff like “the saturnine face” made me want to throw my tablet across the couch. It really irritated me.
But yeah, overall this was a pretty okay book and a decent debut. It may not have been my cup of tea exactly, but I think that lots of other people will enjoy it. Especially if you like more slow paced and light-hearted stuff.
A Few Quotes I Liked
So, this was shock. It seemed terribly inconvenient that the brain’s reaction to being placed in mortal jeopardy was to become much stupider.
“Do you want to get fireballed by mistake?”
She shrugged fatalistically. “Will get fireballed eventually.”
If he hurried out, it was because he had very important research to do. It was not a retreat.
“Your good sense. Your common sense can inspire me to another way of life. To goodness.”
“You could start with letting me go.”
“Something smaller.”
“How about not being a complete asshole to everyone you meet?” she said acidly.
As always, thanks so much to everyone for reading, and I hope you have a not-dreadful day/night!
Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial.
Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail.
All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him.
So he tries his best to do his worst – and fails at failing.
Now the Magisterium awaits him. It’s a place that’s both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future.
The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come…
From the remarkable imaginations of bestselling authors Holly Black and Cassandra Clare comes a heart-stopping, mind-blowing, pulse-pounding plunge into the magical unknown.
My Review
All elements have a counterweight. Fire is the counterweight of water. Air is the counterweight of earth. The counterweight of chaos is the soul.
The Iron Trial
So, I’ve been doing a lot of reading this past week. Someone I follow on Instagram gave a great five star review for the Magisterium. And, though they were middle grade and I don’t read that as often, it sounded up my alley so I gave the books a shot.
…And discovered a pretty solid middle grade fantasy series in the process. If you enjoy Percy Jackson and Harry Potter and want more, then these might be for you – these are the two series that the Magisterium is usually compared to, though I felt the writing style was also similar to the Summoner Trilogy by Taran Matharu. They aren’t quite as well written as those other series (there are a couple glaring plot holes as well as stuff just put into the books to make you follow red herrings and stuff but are otherwise there for unexplained reasons), but I thought that the rest of the story and characters were good enough to give those a pass.
I preferred the first half of the series to the second half – which is something I didn’t expect – but I still rated all of the books pretty highly. I’ll write my thoughts on the series as a whole spoiler free right here, but I’m also going to talk about some spoilers below it in a collapsible section.
The Characters
The characters were a definite highlight. I found our protagonist, Callum Hunt, to be pretty likeable and interesting. He’s a bit edgier than Harry or even Percy since I’ve already compared them. (All three of them are a bit sassy though.) I really liked the twist with Call and his character arc throughout the books. For the most part. (I’ll get to that in the spoilers section.)
I also liked his buds Tamara and Aaron. Tamara is smart and loyal and fiercely kind. She’s not a Hermione or Annabeth ripoff (since I’m still making comparisons) if you were worried though. She’s more hot blooded and has a completely different backstory. I also found their personalities to be pretty different from one another. Aaron, I found kind of difficult to pin down though, personality-wise. He was described as a little like Captain America in the first book, so I guess I’ll go with that. I liked him well enough, but he didn’t really have as distinct of traits as the other two in the protagonist triangle.
There are a few other characters I gotta talk about before I get into other stuff – Call’s dad: Alistair, Call’s rival: Jasper, and the trio’s teacher: Rufus. Alistair is a good, if very awkward, dad. I loved the intricacies of his father-son relationship with Callum. (I had a few issues with some stuff at the beginning though.) Jasper was a typical rival trope, but he had some of the best dialogue in the series, and I honestly found him to be a more compelling character than Aaron. He also ended up being a lot more involved with the main characters and the plot than most rivals are in middle grade and YA that I’ve read. And finally, Rufus. He was an okay mentor character that I liked well enough.
The Plot
The twists and turns of the story kept me reading. I couldn’t put this series down – I ended up reading the entirety of the five books in just over a day. It starts off a bit slow, but the authors have to build the world and establish stuff. I honestly didn’t even notice the pacing. I liked the twist of the MC initially not wanting to go to Special School, as that’s not something usually in academia set books. (Usually the kid wants to go to Special School and be Super Special.)
The big twist in the climax of The Iron Trial is one of my favorite parts of the series. It’s huge and strongly affects all of the rest of the books, and is very interesting. I actually ended up calling it by the prologue and was pleasantly surprised to be correct. Don’t worry – I don’t think it’s actually something most people would guess that easily or that quickly! I’m just really weird and my brain has been ruined by videogame, anime and fanfiction tropes and this was kind of that kind of twist. (It’s literally out of Xenoblade Chronicles – read the prologue of The Iron Trial and then look up the Monado Expedition cutscene and see if anything looks familiar. Then read the rest of the book and look up the cutscene after the Apocrypha battle. Then read the rest of the Magisterium and watch the two cutscenes again.)
The plots in each book were also very engaging, and I always found myself wanting to know what happened next. The magic system was also pretty good; I always like reading stuff based on alchemy. Though I kind of didn’t understand how they could do some things, like clairvoyance. With air magic? I don’t know – that didn’t really seem like it fell under the four elements (and sometimes five) stuff the books had going on.
The Other Stuff
I also really liked most of the other stuff the Magisterium had going on. The little romances were cute and they made sense. They also didn’t show up out of nowhere or anything either, which was nice. I hate random insta-love stuff. The narration and dialogue were also pretty good, though there was some clunkiness in book one.
There were some things that I didn’t like about the Magisterium, though. I won’t be talking about a lot of them here because they’re spoilers, but I will mention a couple. Firstly, there were a couple very noticeable plot holes, or things inserted into the plot that have no other purpose but to support red herrings, but have no actual explanation for existing except for plot convenience. Secondly, Alistair is a little inconsistent as a character the first couple of books, and he and Callum repeatedly have the exact same conversation a couple different times in the books. (I’ll talk about these more in a second.) The last book was also kind of not the best finale, and I found the final villain to be very weak and uninteresting.
Anyway, on to the spoiler section!
❗ Spoiler-y Thoughts Section ❗
The Iron Trial
Regarding book one of the Magisterium, The Iron Trial, I think it has the least amount of plot holes and stuff. It also has one of the best climaxes in the series. I got chills during Call and Joseph’s conversation where Joseph revealed that Call is the Enemy of Death (which is a stupid name by the way, especially for your bad guy), and that he transferred his soul into Callum’s body as an infant, killing the original Call. I like darker stuff like that. And Call has to grapple with being an “Evil Overlord” and the terrible things that he’s done and doesn’t remember fir the rest of the series.
The Copper Gauntlet
For The Copper Gauntlet, I do have a few issues with it. Alistair (Call’s dad), has these child-sized magical iron chains in his basement. They’re only there so that Call (and the reader) are led to believe that Alistair wants to bring harm to Call. Which is something he doesn’t want to do, by the way, and when this is revealed the chains and the reason they were in the basement never come up again. Um Alistair, why do you have them in your basement, exactly? (I never fell for any of this, by the way. The “evil parent” red herring has never been something that I’ve ever fallen for – even growing up. Yet another twist I predicted.)
The Bronze Key
I felt that The Bronze Key suffered a bit from Middle Book Syndrome. I just wasn’t as into it as I expected to be. Probably because I’d called that Alex Strike was evil in book one. (There was no indication at all he was evil – my brain just fixates on the wildest guesses sometimes.) So it was just kind of boring for me to read them trying to figure out who the spy was when I already knew.
Also, I figured how the climax would go down to Aaron dying by book two, so waiting for that to happen was kind of a slog too. (Again, not something too obvious, especially for tweens. I’ve just read a lot of books in my time and predicted it by the way that a three act structure would behave in a five book series.)
The Silver Mask
The Silver Mask started out very promising. I thought that it was gonna be my favorite one of the bunch, actually, before I actually read it, just because of what I assumed would happen. But I didn’t like the direction that the novel ended up going in.
I didn’t like how Master Joseph was killed off and Alex was primed as the final villain instead, mostly because I thought that Alex wasn’t a good antagonist at all. I also thought that Call would get his memories back from being Constantine Madden and that didn’t happen, so I was a bit disappointed in that. (Again, because of how story structure works – I thought that he’d get the memories back and then have to grapple with his remembered past of being an Evil Overlord, before ultimately accepting himself in the final book.)
The Golden Tower
The Golden Tower was kind of a bit of a meh ending, though I liked the rest of the book leading up to it, which is why I rated it highly. Callum actually does get the memories back, which I had kind of given up on after it didn’t happen in the last book. And the memories revealed that he wasn’t actually the soul of Evil Overlord Constantine Madden, but in fact the Evilest of Evil Overlords, Maugris, a guy who’d been transferring bodies since forever and was most of the Evil Overlords in Magisterium mage history. I actually really enjoyed this section of the book, though because Call got these memories back so late there wasn’t time for him to accept his past the way I’d hoped he would.
I didn’t like the climax itself though. As I said above, I don’t think that Alex is a very effective villain, and he kind of annoyed me throughout this book and the last. I also don’t think that Aaron should’ve been brought back to life in Alex’s body; I feel that it negatively detracts from some of Call’s character development – as well as Tamara’s and Aaron’s to some degree – and felt that he should have passed on instead with Callum finally accepting his death. I feel that it would’ve been a much more poignant thing than what we got, and would’ve made it feel like he’d finally accepted death as a whole more than. The actual ending ending was sweet though, and I did enjoy it and it’s callback to the end of The Iron Trial.
Out of Context Quotes I Liked
“Some people have stuffed animals,” Aaron said with a shrug. “Other people have knives.”
The Iron Trial
“Warren knows the best way. Sometimes the bear way isn’t the fastest.”
“Warren shouldn’t talk about himself in third person,” Call said.
The Iron Trial
Just then, a lizard dropped down from the ceiling onto the stone beside Call.
“Augh!” Call yelled, jumping to his feet. “What are you doing here?”
“Live here,” said Warren, tongue flicking out to lick an eyeball. “Watch you.” Because that wasn’t creepy at all.”
The Copper Gauntlet
Suddenly, they were blotted out. A slender figure rose up in front of them, smirking.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Jasper said.
“That is such a tired villain line, Jasper, and you know it,” said Call.
The Copper Gauntlet
“Come on,” said Aaron. “I don’t have a dad in prison for nothing. I think I can hotwire one of those.” He strode off toward the field of cars with a confident set to his shoulders.
“That’s our Makar,” said Jasper. “Chaos magic and grand theft auto.”
The Copper Gauntlet
“Wait!” Tamara said, running up to them, pulling Jasper behind her like a tugboat. Her parents were still where she’d left them; they’d detached Alex from Kimiya and were comforting their daughter themselves. “I’m coming with you. We both are.”
“What?” Jasper said. “No! I didn’t think you were serious. Your hot sister needs a shoulder to cry on. I volunteer myself. I would be much better at that than staying in whatever hovel Call and his weird dad-” Tamara kicked him savagely and he lapsed into a sullen silence.
The Bronze Key
“Call,” Rufus said darkly. Call had the feeling Master Rufus still thought he knew something he wasn’t saying. “Please restrain your commentary on the furniture; this is a meeting.”
The Bronze Key
“You’re the only one I can talk to, Call,” said Jasper.
“You mean because I’m chained to this floor and can’t get away?”
The Silver Mask
He had to say something. He wasn’t sure when they would be alone next.
“Um,” he said, because his conversational skills were amazing.
The Silver Mask
He stopped worrying and started hoping Warren, a weird lizard that lived in the caves, would lead them into a crevasse.
That would definitely earn you some of those Evil Overlord points, Aaron said.
“Stop poking around in my brain,” Call muttered under his breath.
The Golden Tower
“When fear rules us, we forget who we truly are. We forget the good we are capable of.”
The Golden Tower
“So this is how it happens with you guys?” Gwenda demanded. “Some weird lizard shows up and all of a sudden everything goes sideways and you’re fighting a massive elemental or some Chaos-ridden army or whatever? Well, let me tell you, I am not in for any of that.”
The Golden Tower
Individual Star Ratings
Final Thoughts
So yeah, despite its issues, I really enjoyed the Magisterium as a whole and I think it’s a pretty solid middle grade fantasy series. I thought the characters were great, the story engaging, and some of the dialogue and narrative was really funny. The books were kind of short though, and I wish they were each a little longer – a lot of them were around 250 pages and I think they could’ve easily added some character interactions to develop the cast a little more and bump them up to around 300 pages.
I think that kids and teens who like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson and other like fantasy series will enjoy this. I think adults who are fans of those series and looking for more might enjoy this series as well. As a whole, I’m personally rating the Magisterium:
What books have you been reading lately? What’s the last series that you finished? How did you feel about them?
As always, thank you to everyone so much for reading, and I hope that you have an awesome day/night!
First Line Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers (formerly) hosted by Wandering Words, but I saw it over at One Book More.
What if instead of judging a book by the cover, author or most everything else, we judged it by its content? Its first lines?
If you want to join in, all you gotta do is:
📚 Take a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open it to the first page 📝 Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first 📙 Finally… reveal the book!
Here’s the first lines:
From a distance, the man struggling up the white face of the glacier might have looked like an ant crawling slowly up the side of a dinner plate. The shantytown of La Rinconada was a collection of scattered specks far below him, the wind increasing as his elevation did, blowing powdery gusts of snow into his face and freezing the damp tendrils of his black hair. Despite his amber goggles, he winced at the brightness of the reflected sunset.
Know the book yet? Here’s a second hint if you don’t know…
Still no idea? Here are some beautiful pictures of books to admire while you think about it…
Annnd the book is… 🥁🥁 The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare!!
Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial.
Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail.
All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him.
So he tries his best to do his worst – and fails at failing.
Now the Magisterium awaits him. It’s a place that’s both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future.
The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come…
From the remarkable imaginations of bestselling authors Holly Black and Cassandra Clare comes a heart-stopping, mind-blowing, pulse-pounding plunge into the magical unknown.
What books have you been reading lately? What’s on your TBR that you’re currently the most excited about?
As always, thank you for reading, and I hope you have an great day/night!
