Category Reviews

Princeps’ Fury—buy it
by Jim Butcher—his website
Recommended Ages: 14+

In Book 5 of the Codex Alera series, young Tavi of Calderon, recently outed as Gaius Octavian—the grandson of Alera’s ruling First Lord Gaius Sextus, and thereby Princeps of the realm—faces a crisis in which the antagonistic races that populate his world must either come together or perish separately. At the same time, the question of who will succeed Gaius Sextus reaches a crucial climax that will only be resolved in Book 6, First Lord’s Fury.

In the previous books, we have seen Tavi grow from a spirited apprentice shepherd, through being a resourceful student and a daring secret agent, up to a gifted military leader with a knack for turning enemies into allies...

The Madness Underneath - buy it
by Maureen Johnson – her website
Recommended Ages: 13+

Part two of Maureen Johnson’s ‘Shades of London’ series. The series follows the troubles of Aurora ‘Rory’ Devereaux as she finds herself transplanted from Louisiana into the middle of London boarding school life. There the dangerous exploits of a ghostly killer rattles the neighbourhood and Rory finds herself caught up with a secret crime fighting squad. After the jaw dropping conclusion of The Name of the Star, the story opens with Rory supposedly in recovery, reluctantly attending therapy sessions to help her deal with the chilling events at the end of part one. But how do you recover from something when you can’t tell anyone what really happened?

At once bitingly funny and creepily haunting, Johnson’s prose catches you up and pulls you along like an English boarding school girl seriously late to an important study session.

Rory’s scarred and scared, and finds herself unable to focu...

Tethers – buy it
by Jack Croxall – His Website
Recommended Ages: 12+

This Victorian fantasy adventure from author Jack Croxall brings excitement into a quiet Northern town with murder and mystery. Despite the promise of a steady career apprenticing to be a teacher, 13 year old Karl Scheffer has wanderlust, itching to explore beyond the quiet limits of his home town, rural Shraye. Together with his good friend Esther Emerson, Karl has his keen eyes on sighting out adventures to be had. With his one blue eye and his one brown, he’s prone to appreciating things that stand out from the ordinary.

But as the plot progresses Karl may begin to start regretting his wish to escape the quiet life. After the story begins with a break away from home that is reminiscent of the exploration stories of Enid Blyton and Arthur Ransome, the kids find themselves on a metaphorical rollercoaster cart racing down the tracks. And the brakes are off...

Hunters of the Dusk—buy it
by Darren Shan
Recommended Ages: 12+

“Vampire War,” the third trilogy within the 12-book “Saga of Darren Shan,” begins with this book. More like the previous “Book 1″ than the first book in the overall series, it does not so much tell a free-standing story as set the gears in motion for a new chapter in the career of Darren Shan, half-vampire, magician’s assistant, and (increasingly now) warrior prince. It promises to be a chapter filled with savage conflicts, creepy magics, strange surprises, and the dread of a sinister destiny.

Speaking of destiny, Mr. Desmond Tiny (Des for short) shows up at the Vampire Mountain one day, some six years after Darren established himself as a vampire prince. In the middle of a costly war with their vampaneze cousins (who, unlike vampires, actually kill the people whose blood they drink), the vampires are hardly in a mood to hear more bad news from the ancient mage and meddler in fate. But Mr...

Agent Colt Shore: Domino 29—buy it
by Axel Avian—his website
Recommended Ages: 13+

Aimee at Arundel Publishing kindly sent me a pre-release copy of this first book in what promises to be a cool series. I went into this eyes-wide-open, even though I feared it was going to be a rip-off of Anthony Horowitz’s Alex Rider series—both series featuring a type of teenage James Bond. I was also a little wary of it being as unreadably horrible as the last book I accepted from a little-known publisher and a first-time author. You won’t find my review of that book, because I didn’t write one. I only review books I feel that I can positively recommend. So the fact that you are reading this review means that I liked this book. In fact, I really, really liked it.

Colt Shore is like Alex Rider in about the same way that Percy Jackson is like Harry Potter...

Captain’s Fury—buy it
by Jim Butcher—his website
Recommended Ages: 14+

Face it, you’re going to be confused about the titles of the “Codex Alera” books. Book 3 was titled Cursor’s Fury, though after about the first quarter of it, the young furyless cursor Tavi had risen to the rank of Captain of the First Aleran Legion. To be sure, he was still an undercover agent (cursor) of the First Lord of Alera, reporting to his lord about the loyalties of the legion’s officers under the made-up name Rufus Scipio, as they stood off against the wolflike Canim invaders. But his mission as crown cursor went on hold from the moment the magic of the Canim ritualists wiped out his superior officers, forcing “Scipio” to take command and hold the city of Elinarch. Now, two years later, Captain’s Fury picks up the plot-line just in time for Tavi to be relieved from his command and move beyond his role as captain. And though Book 5 is titled Princeps’ Fury, it is in this book that Tavi is first recogniz...

The Vampire Prince—buy it
by Darren Shan—wiki him—his website
Recommended Ages: 12+

Book 6 of “The Saga of Darren Shan,” also known in some markets as the “Cirque du Freak” series, begins where the previous book left young half-vampire Darren—in a damp, dark place deep within Vampire Mountain, hurtling down a subterranean river toward all but certain death. Even after he (barely) survives his tumble out of the mountain, Darren faces odds stacked mightily against him. He has failed the trials that were to decide whether he is to be accepted by the vampire clan or executed. He has run away from a death sentence, which also carries a death sentence. And a vampire he counted on to help him, turns out to be a murderer and a traitor working with those enemy bloodsuckers, the Vampaneze.

As Darren slowly recovers from his injuries, naked in a winter wilderness and surviving only by the help of a pack of wolves, he faces some tough choices...

Red Ink – Buy It
by Julie Mayhew – her website
Recommended ages – 13+

Fifteen year old Melon Fouraki hates her name. Teased at school by her peers, she blames her mother for inflicting her with the perfect device for social persecution. It doesn’t matter to Melon that her name is part of The Story, the family fairy tale that brought her mother Maria to London from Crete when she was Melon’s age and pregnant with her. But when Maria is killed in an accident, Melon must unravel fact from fiction and rediscover her roots, plagued by the superstitions and traditions of a family she barely knew. But how can you begin to do that when all you feel is numb?

This novel from Julie Mayhew explores anger, grief, coming of age and identity in an astute emotional tale. Darkly funny, with a barbed tongue and simmering with anger, Melon’s path to self-discovery is tangled and filled with internal and external conflict...

Shades of Grey—buy it
by Jasper Fforde—his website
Recommended Ages: 12+

Thanks to an audiobook expertly read by John Lee, I finally found the courage to bite into this woolly, dystopian, world-building type fantasy by the author of the “Thursday Next” novels. I admit, I had held paper copies of the book in my hands a few times, and considered buying or borrowing it, but my heart always failed me. I remembered what heavy going it was, breaking through into The Eyre Affair—an effort that included reading Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre for my first time—though since I did, the rewards have been rich indeed. And now that I’ve successfully penetrated another daringly original world out of Fforde’s imagining, I am glad to find out that this book is also the start of a series. Now that two more novels are projected in what is currently a “Shades of Grey” trilogy, this first book has been retroactively retitled The Road to High Saffron. Or so Wikipedia told me, when I went to check the spe...

The Woman Who Died a Lot—buy it
by Jasper Fforde—his website
Recommended Ages: 14+

In book 3 of the second quartet of “Thursday Next” novels, we find Swindon U.K.’s greatest literary detective facing a vast array of mid-life challenges, such as controlling the residual pain in the leg she broke in her previous adventure, not being bitter when command of the newly re-organized Spec Ops literary division is handed to a younger agent, settling into a new career as director of the Wessex All You Can Eat at Fatso’s (Drink Not Included) Library Service, and having trouble remembering to visit the body-art parlor to ask why she got a tattoo reminding her that her daughter Jenny is a mind worm created by a super-villain able to tamper with people’s memories...