My father and I just finished The Last Bookwanderer, the Sixth and final Book of Anna James' Pages & Co. series.

My father and I just finished The Last Bookwanderer, the Sixth and final book of Anna James' Pages & Co. series.

When we first began, many months ago, the unspoken acknowledgement was that neither Dad nor I expected to read the whole thing. The first book, certainly, and maybe the second, but we never meant to read all six. Yet like the best of stories and with a subtle grace and tug so skillful and insistent as to be insidious, Pages & Co. grew like a tree within out, wrapping our souls like the Midgard Serpent Jörmungandr around the world. For we are readers, we are librarians, and this work by Anna James is a triumphant celebration of both to the extent that it could be the mascot of bookstores and libraries the world over. A treatise on the wonder, power, freedom, and choice that is Story and the power of imaginations; and what happens when obey the stricture “be brave, be curious, be kind.”

From Green Gables and Wonderland with Anne and Alice, Fairy Tales with Jack and Rapunzel (who does not need or want rescue). To the British and French Underlibraries to deep in Story finding a certain playwright in the Archive. To the magical train the Quip and Venice, the Emerald City and the Treehouse Library all the way to Sherwood Forest and the Jabberwock by the Tumtum tree. To Asgard, Olympus, and a London that never was. Plus many other places besides in the fight to protect their families, books and imagination from those who see power only as a means to control, as freedom as something to curtail.

May you all live happily ever after Tilly, Oskar, Alessia, Milo, Archie, Elsie, Bea, Amelia, Rosa, Artemis, and even Horatio. This is not the end, because nothing ends in Story, but Dad and I have to other books to wander into now. Until next time our brave, curious, kind and dear friends.

“Books can change minds and change worlds, open doors and open minds, and plant seeds that can grow into magical or even terrifying things. Stories are things to be loved and respected at the same time; never underestimate the power of them.”

“Some people see a bookshop as an archive, or a shrine, or even a time machine. But I think a bookshop is like a map of the world. There are infinite paths you can take through it and none of them are right or wrong. Here in a bookshop we give readers landmarks to help them find their way, but every reader has to learn to set their own compass.”

“The books we love when we’re growing up shape us in a special way, Tilly. The characters in the books we read help us decide who we want to be.”

“Are the things in your imagination less real than the things in front of you? Is this rose more real than you? Do the books you've read mean less to you because they haven't really happened to you? Do daydreams at midday or nightdreams at midnight mean nothing?”

“…because stories last much longer than we do. Our stories are how we will be remembered – so we’ve got to make sure they are worth telling.”

“You know when you walk into a bookshop and you see all those thousands of books lined up in front of you? That intoxicating feeling of knowing that behind each cover is a different world to explore, like thousands of tiny portals? That adrenaline rush just before you open a new book? The thrill of being surrounded by fellow book lovers? That is what fuels bookwandering, and it comes to life in bookshops.”

I have started Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, book one of Song of the Last Kingdom by Amélie Wen Zhao

I have started Song of Silver, Flame Like Night, book one of Song of the Last Kingdom by Amélie Wen Zhao.

Years ago I often said to myself and family that Epic Fantasy could do itself a big favor by embracing, by writing worlds built around, Asian culture and lore. Now such book are wonderfully common but, they tend to be Romantasy (as Romantic Fantasy is being called now) retellings of myths; or just plain Romantasy. Not that their is anything wrong with that but, with the notable exception of Axie Oh's The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, such tales are not my cup of tea.

But an Epic Fantasy rich in deep lore, a conquered land, forbidden magic, and a scar burned onto a girl's arm by her murdered mother that only she can see? I will take two cups of that and hope more is on the way. Speaking of way, I hope Lan, or Lian'er, and Zen find theirs without to much trouble. A vain hope, no doubt, as conquers regimes are by nature difficult to conquer in turn, but I have faith in the Four Gods even if Lan does not.

Official Book Review: The Rivers Brothers and the Prince of Shadows by R. Antoine

I have finished The Rivers Brothers and the Prince of Shadows by R. Antoine and, as the author requested, now give it an Official Book Review.

Unexpected parentage and parental mysteries, an enchanted city, a school of magic, and stirring rebellion amid ethnic tensions that go back at least a couple generations. An improvement on living with a deranged and desperate uncle? Technically yes, but Krys and Kide could not have chosen a messier pot to land in – not that choices have been a big part of lives – and, better yet (or worse), it seems they are the key ingredients for several different recipes of trouble. The real question moving forward still being whether, and for how long, can family loyalty can survive rebellion and prejudice. And of course what recipe for the future Rivers Brothers themselves want to make.

(P.S. If you, dear reader, are an author/publisher and reading this review makes you want to ask me for a review too then PLEASE read my Contact Me? page. Do not bother now, though, as I intend to start a long series within day, so if any reading this are thinking I am becoming a Reviewer then you had better think again.)

Strange dream

Despite my vocation in life, I rarely dream about Fantasy (or dream much at all, for that matter). So dreaming of about a fleet of longships getting attacked by an undead leviathan was rather startling. Worse, my alarm clock rang just as the battle began.

My father and I just finished The Treehouse Library, Book Five of Anna James' Pages & Co. series.

My father and I just finished The Treehouse Library, Book Five of Anna James' Pages & Co. series.

It is Milo and Alessia's story now, and when botany and bookwandering blend in a hunt for the cure to an evil supergenius' imagination-based alchemical poison you sure go to some interesting and odd places, both on and off-board the Sesquipedalian (and that has got to be one the strangest sentences I have ever written). From Rosa the Botanist's Treehouse Library which also houses a rather amoral grandmother, tis off to sort of rob Robin Hood, seek in the Secret Garden, pluck a strange spoon off a swooning owl and cat, and jab the Jabberwock by the Tumtum tree. "'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy." Only the joy did not last as now all of bookwandering, imagination itself, and their families lives is at stake – for nothing and no one is safe against the Alchemist's ambition. Which means tis time for Tilly, Oskar, Alessia, Milo, and Rosa to find the Book that holds the key and the myth-made man, man-made myth, who guards it in a place that feels very, very fitting.

I have started The Rivers Brothers and the Prince of Shadows by R. Antoine.

I have at the author's request started The Rivers Brothers and the Prince of Shadows by R. Antoine.

Unique Fantasies are definitely a draw, and while orphans with magical secrets getting sent to a crazed uncle is hardly new, spit fire that turns into half moons and shadows rebelling against fae is – and I am fairly certain the crazed uncle situation is temporary as well. My chief concern is whether family loyalty can survive that rebellion.

(Naturally the Official Book Review will come after I finish the book. And I intend to start a long series after this, so if any reading this are thinking I am becoming a Reviewer then you had best think again.)

Official Book Review: Kingdom Society: The Black Hood by Nathan Helm

I have finished Kingdom Society: The Black Hood by Nathan Helm and, as the author requested, now give it an Official Book Review. (And if  it seems like I read it surprisingly swiftly well, that is what a week of unexpectedly free evenings and a three-day weekend will do.)

Will somebody tell me how to write a review for something when almost everything one can think of writing would constitute a not insignificant spoiler? So I shall focus on what makes this book special: its uniqueness.

Every author has things they do best, and Nathan Helm's is a very fast plot and flashy – very visual – magical battles so well described that it is like watching an anime (which comes as no surprise since the book was partially inspired off such). Add that to merging Sci-Fi with Fantasy, time-travel, Eight Kingdoms instead of the stereotypical Seven, and a startlingly talkative and very hard to kill enemy in the Black Hood Lord Zallrahn or whatever the fiend chooses to call himself, and one has a book which you literally never know where the next page will take you. In short, Kingdom Society: The Black Hood bends and blends genre tropes and tricks into a most unexpected knot. Goodness knows I do not envy Alyeth, Cindril, the rest of House Zane plus Xylock trying to untie it.

(P.S. If you, dear reader, are an author/publisher and reading this review makes you want to ask me for a review too then PLEASE read my Contact Me? page.)