Wayward Bookshelf

Into the Nightfell Wood by Kristin Bailey This book is a sequel, and admittedly, I did not read the first. That said, I didn't have any trouble picking up the thread of the story and following along as Wynn and Elric try to navigate life in the fairy realm. The sibling relationship between Wynn & Elric is lovely. They take care of each other, each in their own way, and they understand the other's abilities and reactions really well (perhaps this means it's not an entirely accurate representation of all sibling relationships, but it's much more enjoyable to read than squabbling would be). When Wynn is lured out of the safety of the fairy realm and into the Nightfell Wood, Elric knows he must go after her. The darkling creatures in the Nightfell Wood are frightening, the elves are feisty and the 'witch' is an unexpected surprise. In their adventures there, they befriend some they otherwise wouldn't have - Wynn especially has that knack for making fr

The Assassins of Tamurin by S.D. Tower One of my lovely friends sent me a copy of this book for Christmas this year, and so I began reading in hopes of discovering a new world and new adventures, and I was definitely not disappointed. When Lale, as a baby, washes up on the banks of a teeny, tiny poor village called Riversong and the people take her in, they do it grudgingly. They hardly have enough to eat themselves, and are not excited about one more person dependent on their meager resources. So, when she, as a child, makes a mistake that costs the village a valuable resource, they cast her out of their community, and she decides to try and make her way. Before long she is found by a woman who goes simply by Mother who offers to take Lale back to her school and teach her as one of her daughters. And so begins the grooming process. I felt at its simplest, this was a story about community, and about how important it is to provide good community for the vulnerable. Lale is

Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides In reading this book, I took a step out of the fantasy genre for a minute, and entered into the realm of realistic fiction. I found Cal to be a multi-faceted, relatable character, and was very interested in how the story unfolded. I appreciated the author's use of his personal experiences of using a Greek family, and the setting the story in Detroit. These both were painted very vividly and gave the story some real shape and texture for Cal to emerge from. And some of my favorite parts were the glimpses into Cal's current life, and seeing how the experiences of his youth both shaped and paralleled what he was experiencing as an adult was a great storytelling device. Parts were unexpectedly funny, others were unexpectedly sad or upsetting, and because of this the book felt like a truly human story. We are not all good, bad, happy or sad, but a mix. And our main character's ability to stay authentic to himself while continuing to s