Midnight in Austenland

When Charlotte Kinder treats herself to a two-week vacation at Austenland, she happily leaves behind her ex-husband and his delightful new wife, her ever-grateful children, and all the rest of her real life in America. She dons a bonnet and stays at a country manor house that provides an immersive Austen experience, complete with gentleman actors who cater to the guests' Austen fantasies.

Everyone at Pembrook Park is playing a role, but increasingly, Charlotte isn't sure where roles end and reality begins. And as the parlor games turn a little bit menacing, she finds she needs more than a good corset to keep herself safe. Is the brooding Mr. Mallery as sinister as he seems? What is Miss Gardenside's mysterious ailment? Was that an actual dead body in the secret attic room? And-perhaps of the most lasting importance-could the stirrings in Charlotte's heart be a sign of real-life love?

The follow-up to reader favorite Austenland provides the same perfectly plotted pleasures, with a feisty new heroine, plenty of fresh and frightening twists, and the possibility of a romance that might just go beyond the proper bounds of Austen's world. How could it not turn out right in the end?

I have waited a loooong time for a new novel from Shannon Hale (whom I adore) and Midnight in Autenland delivers! Traditionally speaking, I haven't enjoyed her adult novels quite as much as her fantasy/fiction novels, but I was in exactly the right mood for Midnight in Austenland and I loved it.

Shannon Hale's classic wit and gorgeous word-smithing are all in play here and I enjoyed every word of this ride. I laughed constantly and my heart really ached for Charlotte. Divorce (and all its accompanying heartbreak) can be a heavy subject, but Shannon Hale manages it with a deft hand. I felt Charlotte's pain, but I also grew along with her and cheered right along as she regained feelings of self-worth and confidence. And all this happens in the oh-so-fun atmosphere of Austenland - plus murder mystery!

This book is Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Jane Eyre, and about a dozen Agatha Christie novels all rolled into one...written by Shannon Hale! Come on - haven't I convinced you yet? The mystery is fun and intense with several surprises, some of which I saw coming miles away, some of which I didn't. There's just the right amount of romance here, just the right amount of heart, the perfect amount of mystery and suspense, and more than enough laughs. Go read it. (And if you live in Boise you can come borrow it from me :D)

And if you haven't heard the good news, Shannon Hale is releasing another novel later this year! A sequel to Newbery Honor-winning Princess Academy entitled....

Palace of Stone

Comes out August 21st

*cheers*

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950—and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia’s family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder. And in a police cell, during a violent thunderstorm, Colonel de Luce tells his daughter an astounding story—of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, of a priceless object that vanished in a bizarre and brazen act of thievery, of a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school’s tower thirty years before. Now Flavia is armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together, to examine new suspects, and begin a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself. Of this much the girl is sure: her father is innocent of murder—but protecting her and her sisters from something even worse….

An enthralling mystery, a piercing depiction of class and society, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a masterfully told tale of deceptions—and a rich literary delight.

Oh dear. This is one of the most delightful things I have ever encountered. Flavia de Luce, at age 11 is now officially my favorite literary detective ever. She is completely hilarious, in a slightly unhinged mad scientist kind of way. This book is witty and smart. The plot is fantastic and even though I predicted who the murderer would be about half way through I loved the whole ride. I blame my early prediction on the Agatha Christie obsession I had in my teen years; I'm now a bit of a mystery expert. The murderer is always someone you know, is always connected in some unexpected way to one of the main characters, is never the first person you suspect, and I could go on but it's unfair to Flavia de Luce for me to turn this book review into a treatise on how to spot the murderer in a mystery novel.

There are just too many good things to say about this. I love Flavia's character and how it balances the wisdom of an adult with childish sibling feuds. She's completely brilliant about some things and wholly naive on others. It's a great juxtaposition. Loved all the bits about chemistry, the history (author Alan Bradley is basing all the novels in his Flavia series on a bygone part of life in England - in this one: stamps), and Flavia's hilarious inner monologue. I laughed out loud quite a few times. There's really nothing not to love here. Recommended without hesitation.

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The Eyre Affair

Goodreads summary:
Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality, (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature. When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter the novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide.

This was the only book I ended up reading on my cruise - and most of it I read on the airplane home from NY. It's not that I didn't have time to read, but every time I tried I ended up falling asleep. Blame it on being medicated for seasickness.

I enjoyed this. Such a clever premise and so fun for book/literature lovers. I can't say that I'd want to live in Jasper Fforde's world, but it would be fun if more people were obsessed with literature. It felt a bit slow, though, which might just be my perception because it took me a whole week of reading a page here and there to finish it. It seemed like it took forever for Jane to get stolen from the novel - the thing I was expecting because it's right there in the summary. But, I thought this novel was very funny at times and ridiculously clever on occasion. There was a lot of language, though. Just putting that warning out there for those of you who may be sensitive to that (lots of "F" words). There are six novels in the Thursday series so far, and I have the second one on hold at the library now. I'm in no rush to buy it, which shows that I liked this book, but I'm not desperate to continue the series quickly. Plus, the first one wraps the plot up very neat and tidy-like. It was a fun read and I definitely recommend it to fans of classic literature. Especially fans of Jane Eyre.

Hex Hall

Summary: Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It's gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie's estranged father--an elusive European warlock--only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it's her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.

By the end of her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire student on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect.

As a series of blood-curdling mysteries starts to converge, Sophie prepares for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.

I think the reason this book is successful and has such good reviews on amazon and goodreads and such is because it's much more complicated than the blurb up there would lead you to believe. It sounds like just a teenage story - with a little magic thrown in - but the plot ended up having some very interesting and subtle layers. I enjoyed peeling them back bit by bit and found myself completely engrossed in this book. I liked the characters, particularly Sophie. And HOLY COW!!! There is a twist that really threw me. Completely unexpected. Such a shock. I'm an expert at predicting books, so when this happens I really love the feeling.

This book is also very clean, but I have to add the disclaimer that one of the main characters is gay. I was really disappointed in that, because being a Disney-Hyperion book, I thought it would be perfectly clean. It bothered me a bit, but it wasn't a huge part of the book. I plan on reading the sequel because, really, the story is so interesting!

Vespers Rising

From Goodreads:
The Cahills thought they were the most powerful family the world had ever known. They thought they were the only ones who knew about Gideon Cahill and his Clues. The Cahills were wrong.
Powerful enemies — the Vespers — have been waiting in the shadows. Now it’s their time to rise and the world will never be the same. In Vespers Rising, a brand new 39 Clues novel, bestselling authors Rick Riordan, Peter Lerangis, Gordon Korman and Jude Watson take on the hidden history of the Cahills and the Vespers, and the last, terrible legacy Grace Cahill leaves for Amy and Dan.

The 39 Clues continues! I'll admit that I've been looking forward to this, and the section written by Rick Riordan was really, very good. Emotional and heartbreaking even. All the other authors did a good job too. This is a bridge book between the last series and the new one that's starting soon. Leave it to scholastic to milk this for all it's worth. I'm pretty sure there will be another 10 books coming out for this new series. I love everything about these books: the mystery, the clues, the historical stuff, the travel, the family dynamics, all of it. I'd like to own this whole series, but for heaven's sake it would eat up my entire budget if I bought them all. Series like this make me very, very grateful for the library. :D I'll be checking out The Medusa Plot soon, hopefully! (Medusa!!! Will it have greek mythology in it?? I'm so excited!)

Across the Universe

Goodreads blurb: A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

OH.

MY.

STARS.

Yeah - this book blew me away. I finished it a couple days ago and I just can't stop thinking about it. I've even dreamed about it. Of course, I have a little corner of my heart reserved for sci-fi. I don't read much sci-fi, but I've always loved space and imagining what life would be like traveling on a spaceship. After reading Across the Universe, I can only hope that our world will never come to that. YIKES!

Beth Revis' writing is amazing. This whole book is just an incredible piece of work. It's a complete genre mix: sci-fi, dystopian, murder mystery, romance, time travel. The world is so well developed, and (unlike with so many other YA dystopian books) it is based on real science and technology. I can actually see how our world could evolve into the world in Across the Universe. This fact is both creepy and disturbing. The moral and ethical issues this book raises about our own world are seriously worth contemplating.

The characters are fantastic. I love that the story is told from both Amy and Elder's POV, because we got to know both of them - their thoughts, feelings, discoveries, and insights - so well. Their romance was also very organic (I hate when characters fall right in love for no apparent reason). There were some very natural ups and downs between Amy and Elder, but everything felt believable and true to character.

There are some incredibly intense themes in this book and one rather mature scene that Amy witnesses. Other than that, the book is actually very clean. And unpredictable. Holy cow. There are a couple big shockers in this book. One thing I loved about this book, though, is the natural ending. No massive cliff hanger, although there will be two more books in the series. I appreciated that. Let everything get messed up in the next two books - let the characters enjoy a little peace for two seconds for crying out loud!

Anyway, I've rambled on enough. I'll be buying this book and looking forward to more from Beth Revis.

The Musician's Daughter

When I found this book and read the description, I thought I'd hit the jackpot. YA musical historical fiction. Haydn is one of the main characters! Also, Susanne Dunlap's most resent book has gotten great reviews from book bloggers. Despite all that, I was a bit disappointed with The Musician's Daughter. I couldn't help but feel that the characters were a little flat and under-developed. I wanted to get to know them better. The writing was good, and the history was interesting, but I never quite got into it. The mystery was... solveable. I guessed the ending very early on. Also, there's no romance in this book. I'm not saying that every book needs romance, but I think that this one would have benefitted from some. Just my opinion. I was hoping that this would be exactly what I'm looking for, but it wasn't. Looks like if I want to find the perfect book for my interests, I'll have to write it myself. Ha! Wish me luck with that one.

Clair Poulson

I've always been a Clair Poulson fan, but I haven't read any of his books in years. After my grandma passed away, I inherited all her Clair Poulson books. Probably because everyone else already has them. See, Clair Poulson lives in the same town my mom grew up in and they all know him personally. His wife taught my mom piano lessons for years. A lot of the books I have now are signed by him too. :D In case you've never heard of him, Clair Poulson writes LDS mystery/crime novels. So, I went back and read one I remembered liking then read his two most recent. I'll Find You is pretty old (2001!) - ok not that old, but it did feel old because the characters wrote letters and didn't have cell phones and the internet was referred to once as being a bit of a novelty. Times have changed, no? I really liked both Dead Wrong and Deadline. I can tell that Poulson has improved as a writer and the plots were all very tight. A little predictable here and there, but I am a very good predictor of books. It's cause I've read too many! I especially liked Dead Wrong because a very important part of the story occurs in Boise! I don't read much LDS fiction, but I think Clair Poulson does it well. And it's always fun to have settings in Utah/Idaho, places that I really know well. Anyway, so if you like a good crime novel now and again, try something by Clair Poulson.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

I guess I was curious. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about and why so many people love this series. I went into it kind of nervous after reading a few reviews. I expected it to be a bit grittier than my usual read. I expected violence, murder, you know... stuff you find in a crime novel. I didn't expect it to be much worse than, say, a Dan Brown novel. I was anticipating intense.

I was wrong.

It was much, much, worse than I imagined. I don't think I could have imagined it, because usually such filthy things don't live in my imagination. This book was incredibly, vastly inappropriate. Every kind of vile thing that exists on this planet: in this book. So why didn't I stop 10 pages in when I realized how bad it was? Because I don't have very good self-control when it comes to reading books. I usually finish, even if I find them offensive. This is one of my main character flaws. The other problem I had was that I was so frustratingly invested in finding out what happened to the stupid missing heiress that I kept reading! Larsson kept giving me little clues that kept me hooked. Anyway, all I have to say is DON'T READ IT. I'm kind of glad I read it so I can warn all of you not to. This book is brutal, violent, sadistic, disturbing, I could go on and on. Just save yourself the trouble and don't bother. I will not be reading the other two books in the series.