A Discovery of Witches

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A Discovery of Witches (All Souls Trilogy #1)

Deborah Harkness

Viking Penguin: 2011, 579 pages

Audiobook length: 24 hours and 2 minutes

Read by Jennifer Ikeda

Reviewed by Jessie Park

Diana Bishop comes from a long line of witches (think back to Salem, Massachusetts) but refuses to give into her magical heritage.  She focuses instead on her work as a historian, spending the year in Oxford for her latest research.  When she unknowingly comes across a magical manuscript thought long lost for centuries, the creature world becomes abuzz with excitement.  Soon there are witches, vampires, and daemons coming into the Bodleian Library in droves, including one Matthew Clairmont, a very old and very intense vampire.  They all believe Diana holds the key in unlocking the bewitched manuscript but Diana doesn't want to be a part of it, at all.  Soon events bind Diana and Matthew to work together while facing increasingly dangerous enemies.  Audiobook narrator Jennifer Ikeda does an excellent job creating a soothing voice in Diana while also managing a wide variety of accents.

A Great and Terrible Beauty

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A Great and Terrible Beauty 

Libba Bray

Simon and Schuster: 2003, 403 pages

Reviewed by Jessie Park

Sixteen year old Gemma Doyle lives in India with her mother and father, miffed at not being able to go back to London for her first season.  Suddenly there is a horrible family tragedy and she is sent not only back to England but straight to Spence's Academy for Girls.  It's the quintessential Victorian boarding school, focused on educating girls on how to be great wives, hostesses, and mothers.  But Gemma isn't like the other girls; she has a secret, a power that she doesn't understand and doesn't know how to control.  She tries to ignore it while she learns to navigate her new surroundings.  Gemma tricks her way into the mean-girl clique consisting of power-hungry Felicity and Pippa, the most beautiful girl in the whole school, bringing along her roommate, Ann, the scholarship student who is constantly picked on.  When the girls find a hidden diary of a long-ago student who shares the same powers that Gemma is experiencing, the foursome decides to try their hand at this new and unusual magic.  Are they just having some fun they wouldn't ever be allowed to have in the real world or are they acting beyond their control?  What is the price to pay for such pleasure?  Readers should be aware that this is the first book in Bray's trilogy.

Carry On

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Carry On

Rainbow Rowell

St. Martin's Griffin: 2015, 522 pages

Reviewed by Jessie Park

Rainbow Rowell first wrote about Simon Snow and Baz in her novel Fangirl.  In Carry On, Rowell has devoted a full novel to the characters that were only briefly mentioned in Fangirl.  Simon Snow is "the chosen one," the one who will stop the dark force that threatens the world of magic.  Except that he's pretty sure he's not really "the chosen one" since he's terrible at magic and is more focused on why his nemesis for the past seven years is missing from their last year at the Watford School of Magicks.  Baz has his own reasons for missing so much school but he won't share it with Simon.  After all, Baz likes seeing Simon squirm.  There is magic, teen angst, friendship, and relationship drama; after all, they are in high school, even if they have to deal with monsters on occasion.

The Wrath and the Dawn

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The Wrath and the Dawn (The Wrath and the Dawn #1)

Renee Ahdieh

G.P. Putnam's Sons: 2015, 388 pages

Reviewed by Jessie Park

The Wrath and the Dawn is the first in Ahdieh's series that is based off the story of Scheherazade and One Thousand and One Nights.  While the author uses a few stories from the collection, the book does a good job of creating its own unique story.  Khalid is the young Caliph of Khorasan and each night he takes a bride and each morning he has her killed.  Sixteen year old Shahrzad volunteers in order to take revenge for the killing of her best friend.  Slowly, Shahrzad starts to fall in love with the Caliph and realizes that things are not all they seem and wonders what secrets her new husband is trying to hid from her.  The Wrath and the Dawn weaves magic, mystery, romance, and suspense in this wonderful retelling of a classic story.  Readers should be aware that the second book in the series will not be available until May 2016.

An Ember in the Ashes

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An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes #1)

Sabaa Tahir

Razorbill: 2015, 446 pages

Reviewed by Jessie Park

An Ember in the Ashes is the first of Sabaa Tahir's epic series.  The author switches each chapter into the point of view of Laia, a slave, or Elias, a soldier, who live under the rule of the brutal Martial Empire (which was inspired by Ancient Rome).  Laia just wants to survive, living simply with her grandparents and brother.  But when her brother is arrested for treason against the Empire, Laia agrees to spy on the Empire at the military academy for the rebels in return for her brother's rescue.  

Elias just wants to graduate from the military academy and run away from the cruelty he's been surrounded by since he was six years old.  His plans of desertion are put on the back burner as he is chosen to compete in the Trials, a brutal series of test in which the winner not only lives but is either crowned the new Emperor or his right hand man.  It is during this time that he meets Laia and their stories begin to intertwine.  Readers should be aware that the second book in the series will not be available until the end of April 2016.

Dead Witch Walking

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Dead Witch Walking 

Kim Harrison

HarperTorch: 2004, 416 pages

Audiobook published by Tantor Audio

13 hours and 14 minutes

Reviewed by Jessie Park

In an alternate reality, humans live side-by-side with the paranormal entities (called Inderlanders) such as witches, vampire, werewolves, and pixies after a terrible bio-disease wiped out half the human population.  Rachel Morgan is a witch bounty hunter with the Inderland Runner Services but she's stuck in a rut.  She decides to quit and somehow ends up starting her own runner business and partnering with the Service's best runner, Ivy, a living vampire.  But the IRS does not like it when employees break their contracts and Rachel soon discovers that there's a bounty on her head!  The hunter becomes the hunted in this delightfully entertaining and funny first book of the Hollows Series.  Narrator Marguerite Gavin does a great job creating unique voices for each character.

Uprooted

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Uprooted
Naomi Novik
Del Rey: 2015, 435 pages
Reviewed by Salina Bush

Agnieszka and her village live on the edge of the corrupted Wood.  They rely in the powers of the wizard called the Dragon to keep it at bay.  In return he demands one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years.  Everyone expects Agnieszka's best friend, Kasia, the best and brightest among them to be chosen, but no one is more surprised than Agnieszka when she is chosen.  I really enjoyed reading this book.  I went into it thinking that it would be another beauty and the beast retelling but I was pleasantly surprised with where the story went.  It was fast paced without feeling rushed, the characters felt like real people and not tropes from a fairy tale, and I really enjoyed the dark atmosphere that was much more Grimm than Disney.  This was a great story about growing up, finding your place in the world, and learning that maybe the conventional way of doing things doesn't always work for you.