Category: Fantasy
Goddess Interrupted by Aimée Carter
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Becoming immortal wasn’t supposed to be the easy part. Though Kate is about to be crowned Queen of the Underworld, she’s as isolated as ever. And despite her growing love for Henry, ruler of the Underworld, he’s becoming ever more distant and secretive. Then, in the midst of Kate’s coronation, Henry is abducted by the only being powerful enough to kill him: the King of the Titans.
As the other gods prepare for a war that could end them all, it is up to Kate to save Henry from the depths of Tartarus. But in order to navigate the endless caverns of the Underworld, Kate must enlist the help of the one person who is the greatest threat to her future.
Henry’s first wife, Persephone.
As you may or may not remember, I was sort of disappointed in The Goddess Test. It just didn’t live up to its full potential, but I saw that the sequel did have potential, so I went ahead and bought Goddess Interrupted anyway. This time I went into the novel with a completely open mind (with no expectations about how the tests would go) and I think that was what made the difference.
I found Kate a much more sympathetic character in this second book and Henry is actually trying to move on from Persephone. They actually start to *gasp* fall in love for real, not the fake teenage love that happened in the first book. The secondary characters like Ava, Kate’s mother and even Persephone herself get a lot more page time and their backgrounds are fascinating. Persephone is probably my favourite character in the novel, not because she’s especially sympathetic, but because she’s very complex.
The plot, as in the first book, was very good and the cliffhanger Aimée Carter puts at the end of the novel is brilliant. No doubt even fans who have a ‘meh’ attitude toward the book will be anxious for the last book in the trilogy, The Goddess Inheritance. Which, by the way, releases on February 19, 2013 according to Amazon.
I give this book 3.5/5 stars.
Kane Chronicles: The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan
In this exciting second installment of the three-book series, Carter and Sadie, offspring of the brilliant Egyptologist Dr. Julius Kane, embark on a worldwide search for the Book of Ra, but the House of Life and the gods of chaos are determined to stop them.
The second installment of The Kane Chronicles continues the story of Carter and Sadie Kane a few months after the events of the first book, The Red Pyramid. They have been spending their days training other young, fledgling magicians in the Brooklyn House and trying to figure out what the next step will be in saving the world from the inevitable return of Apophis.
I’ll admit that I liked this book a lot more than the first one but I think that had to do with being able to jump right into the action this time instead of needing all of the character buildup and introduction that took place in the first installment. The action as a lot more interesting and the plot seemed to be a lot more solid than before. New characters were introduced such as the dwarf god, Bes who has an entire back-story that had me very intrigued. Especially when it comes to his powers of scaring people as a means of attack/defense.
One of the best parts of The Throne of Fire was the various cameos by characters from the first book. Bast shows up here and there to help the kids out. Set, who is basically the god of evil shows up and turns out to not be quite as evil as you might think in the end, even if he is scheming behind the backs of the heroes. I also really liked some of the small touches. The things like the small glowing balls that crew the boat Ra used to ride through the Duat each night between sunset and sunrise. Rick Riordan does a really good job of sneaking in small surprises within the text that are all fairly unimportant as far as the story is concerned, but when you notice them it gives the text a little more vibrance.
I’ll be reading the third book in the series sometime soon, but there is one thing I hope the author can get away from. Sadie and Carter have done enough of the “little sister/big brother” bickering. I hope he lets them grow up and mature a little at some point because otherwise it might be a little tiring as a reader.
Grade: B
Length: 465 pages
Physik by Angie Sage
(Cover picture courtesy of HarperCollins Children’s Books.)
When Silas Heap unSeals a forgotten room in the Palace, he releases the ghost of a Queen who lived five hundred years earlier. Queen Etheldredda is as awful in death as she was in life, and she’s still up to no good. Her diabolical plan to give herself everlasting life requires Jenna’s compliance, Septimus’s disappearance, and the talents of her son, Marcellus Pye, a famous Alchemist and Physician. And if Queen Etheldredda’s plot involves Jenna and Septimus, then it will surely involve Nicko, Alther Mella, Marcia Overstrand, Beetle, Stanley, Sarah, Silas, Spit Fyre, Aunt Zelda, and all of the other wacky, wonderful characters that made magyk and flyte so memorable.
(Summary courtesy of Amazon.)
With heart-stopping action and a dash of humor, Angie Sage continues the fantastical journey of Septimus Heap.
Physik is probably my favourite book in the entire Septimus Heap series so far and I’ve read the first five of them. Why is it my favourite? Well, the characters are much better developed, Angie Sage is a bit more descriptive so we get a better idea of what the world looks like and we get to see the Castle at the height of its glory.
Jenna has matured more in this book and is more of a princess than she was in Magyk or Flyte. Septimus is also moving right along in his Apprenticeship when it gets rudely interrupted by Marcellus Pye and the horrible Queen Etheldredda. I don’t want to give too much away, but Queen Etheldredda isn’t just any ordinary ghost, which causes even more trouble for Septimus and Jenna. We also get introduced to a new character, Snorri, who is my personal favourite because of her backstory, her cat and her special Spirit Seeing abilities.
The world of Septimus Heap is also much more developed and we get to see a lot of origins of the traditions we find in the first two books. Along the way, we learn about Physik, which is this world’s version of science. In a weird reversal of our world, Magyk is looked upon as more reliable than Physik and Marcia even goes so far as to laugh at Septimus when he wants to learn more about it. There isn’t much laugh-out-loud humour in Angie Sage’s books, but they’re not completely dark and serious either, which is what makes them great for ages 9-12. The illustrations at the beginnings of every chapter also do so much to enhance the reading experience.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
The Lost Prince by Julie Kagawa
(Cover picture courtesy of Goodreads.)
Don’t look at Them. Never let Them know you can see Them.
That is Ethan Chase’s unbreakable rule. Until the fey he avoids at all costs—including his reputation—begin to disappear, and Ethan is attacked. Now he must change the rules to protect his family. To save a girl he never thought he’s dare to fall for.
Ethan thought he had protected himself from his older sister’s world—the land of Faery. His previous time in the Iron Realm left him with nothing but fear and disgust for the world Meghan Chase has made her home, a land of myths and talking cats, of magic and seductive enemies. But when destiny comes for Ethan, there is no escape from a danger long, long forgotten.
My name is Ethan Chase. And I may not live to see my eighteenth birthday.
(Summary courtesy of Goodreads.)
[Full disclosure: I received a free ebook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
Well, as of today it’s one month until the release of The Lost Prince, the first book in the new Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten Trilogy. One of the only downsides to obtaining a book on NetGalley is that you read it earlier than everyone else and as a result, have to wait even longer for the next book! I honestly can’t wait for the next book, which will be coming out in 2013. Anyway, on with the review!
You shouldn’t read this book unless you’ve read all four of the previous books in the Iron Fey series. It contains major spoilers and you will definitely be left wondering how the heck certain things happened unless you read all the previous books in the series. With that said, if you have read the rest of the series, The Lost Prince is an amazing add-on book. It focuses on Ethan Chase, Meghan’s little brother who was kidnapped by Machina in The Iron King. Only now, he’s eighteen years old and about as emotionally scarred as you would expect from his experiences with the cruel, remorseless faeries. It doesn’t help that Meghan left him at a young age to become the Iron Queen with Ash as her Prince Consort.
It also doesn’t help that Ethan has The Sight and, as a result, gets noticed by Them a lot. He’s paranoid (with good reason) and refuses to get close to anyone for fear that the faeries may hurt them to get to him. That’s why Mackenzie (Kenzie for short) St. James, a school reporter determined to dig up his past, becomes such an important character. Although she may seem one dimensional or even just plain crazy, we learn that Ethan isn’t the only one with huge secrets.
An amazing plot, reappearances of old favourite characters, three dimensional new characters and a larger picture of the fantastic world of the Nevernever…what more could you ask for? Iron Fey fans will love the fifth installment in the series, so go ahead and pre-order it if you haven’t already! It releases on October 23, 2012.
I give this book 5/5 stars.
Sapphique by Catherine Fisher
(Cover picture courtesy of It’s All About Books.)
Incarceron, the living prison, has lost one of its inmates to the outside world: Finn’s escaped, only to find that Outside is not at all what he expected. Used to the technologically advanced, if violently harsh, conditions of the prison, Finn is now forced to obey the rules of Protocol, which require all people to live without technology. To Finn, Outside is just a prison of another kind, especially when Claudia, the daughter of the prison’s warden, declares Finn the lost heir to the throne. When another claimant emerges, both Finn’s and Claudia’s very lives hang on Finn convincing the Court of something that even he doesn’t fully believe.
Meanwhile, Finn’s oathbrother Keiro and his friend Attia are still trapped inside Incarceron. They are searching for a magical glove, which legend says Sapphique used to escape. To find it, they must battle the prison itself, because Incarceron wants the glove too.
My thought process throughout the novel basically sounded like this: Okay, that’s interesting…Huh?…What’s going on?…That was random…What the heck?…I don’t get it.
It is very rare that I have absolutely no clue what’s going on in a novel, but I admit I had no idea what was going on in Sapphique half of the time. There was no real explanation for why Incarceron turned so evil, how it made those horrible creatures and the humans within it, what happened before Protocol in Claudia’s world, what the warden’s motivations were…there were so many questions that were never answered. I don’t need to have all of the answers, but some of them would be nice so I could understand the novel.
Once again, I couldn’t really connect with the characters. Claudia I sympathized with a bit in the beginning, but was utterly bored by her near the end; Finn was horrible and Attia didn’t have much depth. The only character that managed to interest me in the least was Jared and he wasn’t the greatest character I’ve ever read about. It’s like Verdi’s opera Don Carlo, in which the only remotely sympathetic character dies.
The world of Sapphique and Incarceron had so much potential, but there really was no depth to it. To me, it felt like Catherine Fisher assumed readers knew as much about the world as she did and didn’t bother with any explanations. It’s very frustrating and about halfway through the novel, I was mentally calculating how much time I had left to finish.
I give this book 1.5/5 stars.