This summer I decided I would read any classics that I've somehow missed as they came across my path and were affordable. So when our local Borders in downtown Long Beach was replaced by a $1 bookstore I began keeping an eye out. Here's what I've found and recommend:

Fire & Hemlock* - Diana Wynne Jones

*The link I've provided is for a newly released version of this book which is coming out in March of 2012 and being introduced by Garth Nix (whose Abhorsen trilogy is one of my very favorites series ever). This is now one of my all time favorite fantasy books with a romantic twist. I cannot say enough for this book. It's a little slow and dreamy in the beginning but it picks right up. And I love it's slow reveal. You can find the old version online if you need it now but I warn you the cover is not appealing. I only picked it up because I knew I wanted to delve into the worlds of Diana Wynne Jones and it was a $1.

Sadly Wynne Jones passed away of cancer this past March. I am so delighted this book is being brought out again. It's such a treasure, and so deserves a new audience.

Conrad's Fate - Diana Wynne Jones

I finished this just last night. I am now a die hard Wynne Jones fan and can't wait to read more. This book stands on its own but is also consider a "Chrestomanci Book."

A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleleine L'Engle

How I never read this book as a child, or young adult, is beyond me. What I adore about this book is the family relationship, the kindness and the love and the respect for differences. I belive we lost L'Engle last year, another amazingly talented and original thinker is gone. How fortunate we are to still have her books to treasure. I'm looking forward to reading more.

Newer Discoveries

The Chathrand Voyage Books by Robert V.S. Redick - including The Red Wolf Conspirancy, The Ruling Sea & The River of Shadows (4th book coming in 2012). This series has such a marvelous tough spirited young heroine and such a smart brave young hero. It's not a young adult book, but certainly right for the younger reader who can handle Lord of the Rings. Rich, layered and complex. There is quite a lot going on in this series, twists in plot

Nancy Farmer's The Sea of Trolls, The Land of Silver Apples, and The Islands of the Blessed. Oh this is such a good series. How can you not love a series about a young Saxon boy and a young Viking girl off on Middle Earth adventures during an era when the old gods were fading and Christianity was coming to the fore? I don't know how I missed it before except that I found it at Barnes & Noble so maybe Border's never carried it - and for some reason it never came up as a suggestion on Amazon.



I've also been distracted doing research for my own "All Hallows Eve" which deals with the Fae. I am enjoying both Orion Foxwood's "The Faery Teachings" as well as W.B. Yeats "The Celtic Twilight," though I'm finding Foxwood a little heavy going at times as I'm delving into much new philosophy for myself regarding concepts of the spiritual realm. More on these works after I've had time to digest them a little better, but let me say I'm very grateful I'm reading them. New ideas are clicking, flowering, growing...

I'm happy with anticipation for this evening! Today I came across Orson Scott Card's new "Lost Gate" while out on my weekend haunt of my local Borders. The only other book of Card's that I've read thus far is "Enchantment" because I'm not really a sci-fi person and most of his books seem to be more sturdily in that realm.

But I loved "Enchantment," and above all I loved Card's intelligent writing style, and the ingenuity of his characters. Like "Plain Kate" the fairytale-esque "Enchantment" calls on the deep heritage of Eastern European fairy tales, and that seems to be a rich treasure trove of inspiration.

I'm not sure when I'll have a review up - by mid week I would imagine so please check back soon!

What a treasure of a book this is! I picked Erin Bow's "Plain Kate" up at the store because I loved the quality of the illustration on the cover by Juliana Kolesova, but then reading the jacket flap it felt like just the sort of "fairy tale with a twist" that I was looking for.

When Katerina Svetlana suddenly finds herself orphaned upon her beloved father Piotr the wood-carver dies she has to rely on her own wits and talent as a wood-carver to survive. To make her life even more challenging Katerina (or Plain Kate, as she's called in her small home town of Samilae), lives in a time of superstitions and fear and mysterious illnesses that the townspeople are all to eager to blame on anyone who is now homeless, poor, nearly friendless, and better at wood carving than any young person ought to be.

This is a simply but richly told tale of coming of age using the format of a fairy tale (this one with Eastern European influences) to remind us of how easily in challenging times our search for the cause of the problems can lead us to blaming those whose only crime is being a little different.

Bow is a sophisticated writer, sure of her pen, and her prose is a pleasure. Our heroine Plain Kate is smart and scrappy, but when she sells her soul to a stranger in trade for the much needed means to escape her hometown (whose citizens have decided they want to burn her as a witch) along with one wish of her heart, she finds out that what seemed like a simple bargain to save one's life can be complicated indeed.

Plain Kate is full of hard truths, friendship, tough choices, magic and love.  I was especially heartened by Bow's creation of a heroine who is smart and has worked hard at developing her craft of wood-carving. I enjoyed too that Kate isn't a head turning beauty, but she's not quite the ugly duckling she considers herself either...

But here is what I want to delve into more in 2011 besides the plethora of books I'm longing to read - the power of myth which still intrigues us in our modern times. One of the most popular ways people find my website is by googling "Prince Nuada" or "Nurada Airgetlam." I have read a little about Nuada online and now in "Celtic Myths and Legends" by Peter Berresford Ellis and wrote a little about Nuada as portrayed in Hell Boy II (he was the villain in the story, but for me the most interesting character).

According to myth Nuada was a leader of the Children of Goddess Danu, or "The Ever Living Ones" who (as legend has it) came to Ireland and defeated the existing people called the Children of the Goddess Domnu. The Children of Danu were in turn defeated by the Children of Mil (the Celts) and driven to live in the hills. To the Celts they became known as the aes sidhe - the people of the hills, who though they had defeated them still held them in high regard. But over the years the sidhe became diminished and became known as what we call faeries today.

I am finding the Celtic myths fascinating, particularly in the strength and courage of their women. The Children of Danu are from Celtic myth but are written about as if they are not Celts themselves - though perhaps the different waves of Celts that came West came at such different times it could seem the earlier waves were of another folk altogether. More soon, I promise!

I can't say that the four novel series of "The Sharing Knife" hits that particular book's very high mark over all, but I've enjoyed reading them quite a bit over the past couple of weeks and I do absolutely recommend them for those who like a nice dose of romance with their fantasy.

I had not considered them to be "YA" (young adult) because even though the heroine is just 18, the hero is 55, and yes, they end up a romantic item. But reading through some of the Amazon reviews I saw that many consider the books to be just that.

I'm not sure what I think about that kind of an age gap for YA (even though the hero is of a race of people who live a long time and he only looks to be in his mid 30's - that's still quite an age gap), but other than that the books offer two wonderful positive characters.

Our hero Dag is both a tremendously gifted warrior and a bit of a philosopher, but above all he is generous and kind in ways that aren't really written about much. In the beginning of the series Fawn is running away from home and runs right into bigger trouble than that which she's running from. I don't want to give the first book's plot away, but I will say that Dag's way of handling both the trouble Fawn has run into and the trouble she's running away from make him one of my most beloved heroes.

He is one of those men who just isn't freaked out about anything female, whether it be tears, or the fact that we women have the thrill (kidding) of menstrual cycles to deal with. And the way Bujold handles the sex, when it happens, is also kind and informative and positive without being explicit, which is quite a feat. I so prefer this approach rather than one kiss and the passion is such that the world moves but the readers have no real idea why. I don't think sex scenes need to be explicit, but I do think authors have such a terrific opportunity in these moments to improve communication between the sexes (or anyone really) rather than adding to the confusion that everyone was just born knowing how to do everything marvelously in bed - and really enjoy it - except you.

I was very bummed it's been rather hard to find. I should have ordered it on Amazon! I need to go to Australia and New Zealand just so I can find all of the books of their talented authors I covet so much! This is a series that will live long in my heart and that I hope hope hope will continue. Cornish seems open to it, and left Factotum at the end hanging a bit with many unanswered questions.

I was delighted to read (on Wikipedia I think) that the film rights have been bought by the Jim Henson production company. My hope, however, is that they leave the unique and charming characters shine through rather than doting on the fighting and violence scenes as paramount. Yes, it's a ripping good adventure tale, but like Harry Potter, it is at heart a tale about love, about creating family where you had none. It is about changing long held beliefs and assumptions, and how very precious life is. And like HP and LOTR before it, it can be a wonderful showcase for the many fine and talented Australian and English actors we in the U.S. don't get to see enough (sadly, I can't think of a role for the very handsome David Wenham *sigh*).

Who can play Europe? Of course many will say Angelina Jolie, and I don't doubt she would do a very fine job, but wouldn't it be marvelous to discover a new side of someone we hadn't really thought of? Actually Lena Hedley of 300 would do a crack job...

I need to get back to my own writing, my own "All Hallows Eve," but it's been a week or so of grant writing, and proposal writing and as such I haven't been in a good creative place. So of course I curled up whenever possible with Factotum and then when that was done I started on the masterful Lois McMaster BuJold's "The Sharing Knife Vol. II Legacy."

What are you reading and enjoying these days?

Anxious health news in my family last week stymied the creative juices (and that situation is of course paramount). When I found I just couldn't concentrate yesterday I took myself off to see "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I" and not only did I enjoy it immensely, I found the perfect visual for my hero! If you've never heard of him before may I introduce you to the Irish actor Domhnall Gleeson? He plays Ron's oldest brother Bill in HPDH-Part I and is actually the son of Brendan Gleeson who has so brilliantly portrays Mad-Eye Moody in all of the HP movies. I found a little more about him here online on Irishcentral.com (which has also come in handy for other research as well). He is on screen for mere moments but I am sure I'm not the only one who sat up and took notice. He is also in the critically acclaimed, "Never Let Me Go" (which I have not been brave enough to see yet because I will need so much tissue).

Years ago I took a UCLA extension novel writing course and had the most wonderful teacher. She gave us a great pithy piece of advice - don't make people up visually, use a real person. Of course there are all kinds of people who will argue, and love making people up and probably do it well, but I know for myself personally it helps with descriptive nuances to use someone real. The female protagonist in my story is based on a woman I met in a local Meet Up group for women who wanted to make female friends for book groups, dinners and such. I haven't seen her in a couple of years but I found her very striking.

I had been basing my hero's hair color and much of his appearance on a friend, and I will keep the hair color (which is less red, and more ice-tea colored than Domhnall's) but I feel more comfortable now having a stranger from afar that I can think of visually as my hero.

 Anyone else using this trick to add life to their writing?

I've been thinking a lot about the masters of seductive world building. I even spent a couple of hours discussing it with my best friend from High School the other night (who is also a passionate reader and fan of great fantasy literature).

I've written about this before, but one of the reasons I prefer fantasy to sci-fi is that I just prefer the worlds created, I can understand them more easily when they're planted on someplace close to earth. I get a little overwhelmed in space. Just to be fair and test this theory I just finished the critically acclaimed sci-fi novel by Greg Bear "City at the End of Time." There is much to celebrate in this book. Bear is a master story teller on so many levels, but I did get lost when he moved from characters that were human to higher levels of beings, as as I started to get lost in the vernacular and comprehension of grandiosity of scale of intelligence and the enormous time span they'd been around and well, I stopped caring.

Readers must care, they must be emotionally engaged - and yet this is so easy to forget when you're creating the fascinating architecture of your story's exterior. The original Star Wars was a hit at a time when sci fi was not all the rage - and it was a hit because it had three very compelling and emotionally engaging lead characters and a terrific story.

This is also the reason why I so often choose to read YA fantasy rather than those written for the regular adult market. I love fantastical imaginings, I do, but I have to love your characters as much as I love your crazy world. I have to love your language and your way of presenting the characters, and the way they make sense of their lives more than the magic, the danger, and the trappings. Author Holly Black (Spiderwick, Tithe, and the new Curse Workers series) is superb at showing us the gritty reality of urban life for teens while at the same time enticing and enchanting us with magic that feels completely possible.

For me personally Rosamund and Threnody and the Lady Europe of the Monster Blood Tatoo series are some of the most memorable characters I've ever run across because they are so full of quirks, so human and real. And though he is in many ways a holy terror "The Man with the Thistledown Hair" from Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is so wonderfully original. For Clarke to have created a fairy so full of arrogance and conceit but to be so completely color blind in an era of slavery is just so brilliant.

And of course this blog would not be complete without mentioning Harry Potter. What I feel both Rowling and Clarke did so beautifully with the Harry Potter series and Clarke with "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" is to use a story telling style both of their own unique writing voice but also carrying some of that wry, witty observational tone of Jane Austen that is so very enjoyable to take a literary journey with.

I also, finally, posted an index of my fantasy blog posts so you can easily find a topic, author, book etc. that might interest you. You can find that to the right.

And when my neck and back just can't write anymore I've been curling up in bed this week with Seanan McGuire's latest in the October Daye series, "An Artificial Night." No, I won't give an official review here, but let me say that I am totally absorbed so far and I really think she's raised her game with this novel. I am so enjoying it.