Book Review: Dream a Little Dream

By Cheshire

Wow, it has been a while since our last post, huh? Well, I’ve been on a book binge, so guess what blog is going to be suddenly and ridiculously flooded with book reviews! (If you didn’t guess, I meant ours. I mean, I’ll be writing reviews at least. Can’t make any guarantees for sweet old Blue.) Also, thanks to the Red Balloon bookstore for the opportunity to read this ARC. It was great!

Summary: Mysterious doors with lizard-head knobs. Talking stone statues. A crazy girl with a hatchet. Yep, Liv’s dreams have been pretty weird lately. Especially this one where she’s in a graveyard at night, watching four boys perform dark magic rituals.

The really weird thing is that Liv recognizes the boys in her dream. They’re classmates from her new school in London, the school where’s she’s starting over because her mom has moved them to a new country (again). But they seem to know things about her in real life that they couldn’t possibly know, which is mystifying. Then again, Liv could never resist a good mystery. . . .  

My Rating: FIVE STARS!

Book Review: Paper Magician

By Cheshire

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy of this book! 🙂 It’s an honor to be able to review it.

Summary: Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she’s bonded to paper, that will be her only magic…forever.

Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined—animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.

An Excisioner—a practitioner of dark, flesh magic—invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.

My Rating: TWO AND A HALF STARS

Book Review: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

By Cheshire

So what do y’all think of the new theme? Pretty snazzy, eh? Unless you don’t like it in which case… you know, please tell us! I’m pretty sure Blue doesn’t know about the change yet so boy is she going to be surprised. *cackles evilly* Here goes.

Summary: When a passenger check-in desk at London’s Heathrow Airport disappears in a ball of orange flame, the explosion is deemed an act of God. But which god, wonders holistic detective Dirk Gently? What god would be hanging around Heathrow trying to catch the 3:37 to Oslo? And what has this to do with Dirk’s latest–and late– client, found only this morning with his head revolving atop the hit record “Hot Potato”? Amid the hostile attentions of a stray eagle and the trauma of a very dirty refrigerator, super-sleuth Dirk Gently will once again solve the mysteries of the universe…

My Rating: FOUR STARS

Book Review: Neverwhere

By Cheshire

Okay, so I never even realized when I was starting this book that this awesome cast is on the BBC radio version of Gaiman’s wonderful, dark Alice in Wonderland-type epic:

And not only them, but Anthony Head voices either Mr. Croup or Mr. Vandemar (I couldn’t really tell) and the guy who plays Wilf from Dr. Who is Old Bailey. *squeals of delight* I must now purchase the CDs on Amazon. This makes me so happy. 🙂 Now you are all probably wondering what I am talking about. So here goes.

Summary: Under the streets of London there’s a world most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, knights in armour and pale girls in black velvet. This is the city of the people who have fallen between the cracks.

Richard Mayhew, a young businessman, is going to find out more than enough about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his workday existence and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and utterly bizarre. And a strange destiny awaits him down here, beneath his native city: Neverwhere.

My Rating: FIVE STARS

Book Review: The Remains of the Day

By Cheshire

So Blue should be coming out with a review soon… Yeah, that’s right, I’m talking to you, Blue. She’s not been very on top of things, but she’s a busy person so I don’t blame her. Much. 🙂 Either way, here’s the review that has been so long in the workshop. Here goes.

Summary: It is the summer of 1956, and Stevens- an impeccable but aging butler- has embarked on a rare holiday: a motoring trip reluctantly undertaken at the urging of his new employer, the American businessman who has recently purchased Darlington Hall. Stevens surprises himself when he feels the “flush of anticipation” setting out across the green and (he must admit) quite pleasant countryside. But there is also something else at work in him, and as his journey unfolds- he describes it in his perfect Butler’s English- his newfound pleasure is gradually undermined. His life irrevocably changed after thirty years of service to the same man, and facing his own old age, Stevens is brought face to face as well with the realities of that life as his memories begin to rise out of a deep well of self-deception.

Now, the sterling images he has nurtured of the late Lord Darlington- a figure in the dark and hidden area of British between-the-wars compromise politics- begin to take on the tarnish of doubt. His recollections of his friendship with the former housekeeper, Miss Kenton, grow more haunting as he nears the moment when he may see her again after twenty years. And, for the first time in his life, he finds himself compelled to question his profoundly held belief that in serving “a great gentleman,” he has done nothing less than serve all humanity.

My Rating: FOUR STARS

Book Review: The Name of the Wind

By Blue

I give up on matching the number of Cheshire’s reviews. It’s impossible. I’ll just stick to slowly and steadily cranking out a review once in a while, continuing with The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Here goes.

Summary: My name is Kvothe.

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.

So begins the tale of Kvothe—from his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, to years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-riddled city, to his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a difficult and dangerous school of magic. In these pages you will come to know Kvothe as a notorious magician, an accomplished thief, a masterful musician, and an infamous assassin. But The Name of the Wind is so much more—for the story it tells reveals the truth behind Kvothe’s legend.

My Rating: FIVE STARS

Because Tumblr (Week One)

We’ve decided to start doing weekly fandom updates from Tumblr because Tumblr is a delightful and wonderful place (it’s also terrifying, but I prefer to reflect on the positives). This week: a cosplay that I personally found entertaining and Blue will probably sigh at my enthusiasm for, a mini dinosaur who thinks he’s a turtle who I just love, and another “imagine your favorite character” post that I found hilarious to even think about.

Prepare yourselves.

Book Review: Unseen Academicals

By Cheshire

Before we even start, I have to give you all a heads-up. Pratchett is one of my all-time favorite authors, so I might be a little biased in my rating. Just sayin’. But I personally thought this book was pretty good so… Here goes.

Summary: The wizards are Ankh-Morpork’s Unseen University are renowned for many things- wisdom, magic, and their love of teatime- but athletics is most assuredly not on the list. And so when Lord Ventinari, the city’s benevolent tyrant, strongly suggests to Archchancellor Mustrum Ridcully that the university revive an erstwhile tradition and once again put forth a football team composed of faculty, students, and staff, the wizards of UU find themselves in a quandry. To begin with, they have to figure out just what it is that makes this sport- soccer with a bit of rugby thrown in- so popular with Ankh-Morporkians of all ages and social strata. Then they have to learn how to play it. Oh, and on top of that, they must win a football match without using magic.

Meanwhile, Trev (a handsome street urchin and a right good kicker) falls hard for kitchen maid Juliet (beautiful, dim, and perhaps the greatest fashion model there ever was), and Juliet’s best pal, UU night cook Glenda (homely, sensible, and a baker of jolly good pies) befriends the mysterious Mr. Nutt (about whom no one knows very much, including Mr. Nutt, which is worrisome…). As the big match approaches, these four lives are entangled and changed forever. Because the thing about football- the most important thing about football- is that it is never just about football.

My Rating: FOUR AND A HALF STARS

Leigh Bardugo: The Dregs News

Leigh Bardugo: The Dregs News

In her latest response to an anonymous question on Tumblr, Leigh Bardugo says that The Dregs will take place after the events of Ruin and Rising and that we’ll be hearing a lot in way of her past characters.

Ravka’s new king, perhaps? 😉

I suppose it would go without saying that I’m super psyched for The Dregs. Brace yourself, Blue. The feels are approaching.

 

 

Book Review: Sabriel (Blue)

By Blue

As Cheshire stated in her previous review, we’re now writing separate reviews on some of the books that we’ve both read and loved, thanks to a genius suggestion from our new guest author, March Hare. This way, we can see the same books from different angles, providing different sides of each story. So, for the second time, we have a review of Sabriel by Garth Nix. Here goes!

Summary (THIS IS THE SAME AS CHESHIRE’S, SO SKIP IF YOU HAVE ALREADY READ IT): Sent to a boarding school in Ancelstierre as a young child, Sabriel has had little experience with the random power of Free Magic or the Dead who refuse to stay dead in the Old Kingdom. But during her final semester, her father, the Abhorsen, goes missing, and Sabriel knows she must enter the Old Kingdom to find him. She soon finds companions in Mogget, a cat whose aloof manner barely conceals its malevolent spirit, and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage long imprisoned by magic, now free in body but still trapped by painful memories. As the three travel deep into the Old Kingdom, threats mount on all sides. And every step brings them closer to a battle that will pit them against the true forces of life and death—and bring Sabriel face-to-face with her own destiny.

My Rating: FIVE STARS!