Review: Charmed Vengeance

Charmed Vengeance
by Suzanne Lazear
The Aether Chronicles, book two

Book Description: 

When her true love, Steven, is forced to break their magical bond, Noli Braddock decides to join her brother on the crew of the Vixen’s Revenge.

With its gleaming brass, dark wood, and spotless clockwork gears, the Vixen’s Revenge is a beautiful airship. But Noli discovers a dangerous secret beneath its polished exterior—the crew has been hired to steal dozens of priceless Otherworld artifacts. Desperate to keep her past Otherworld experiences hidden from the airship crew, Noli fears that if she doesn’t risk telling her own secrets, the stolen artifacts will be used to destroy both of the worlds she loves.

Review:
I loved diving back into this charming blend of steampunk and faerie lore. Lazear does a brilliant job blending traditional faerie legends and affectations into an alternate history of the US. This particular book spans the country, too, which made for a lot of interesting scene changes. With the faerie realm underlayed, though, the country almost felt small, and the amazing airships made traveling a breeze.

In some ways this book truly was a bridge between the first and what will be coming in the third. There's a lot of set up for the next portion of Noli's story and characters were introduced or brought back in ways that lead directly to how they'll play a part in the next tale, yet it still felt as though it had its own legs to stand on. *NOT* to say that I wasn't immediately left wanting the next book, but I'm also happy with where things were left...for now.

A lot of that contentment with this book derives from seeing how Noli progresses as a character. Having to deal with her new...situation...bridging the gap between the mortal and faerie realms. Seeing how the people in her world help those two realms collide...there were a lot of feelings in this book...

Readers who love romance, faeries, adventure, steampunk, and alternate histories should check out book one in the series, Innocent Darkness!

Review: Tiger Lily

Tiger Lily

by Jodi Lynn Anderson

 

Book Description:
Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

 

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

 

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

 

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart. 

Review:
Though I LOVED the concept for this book and found the way that Anderson twisted the story to be really interesting, I had a really hard time connecting to the characters.  This story is actually told by Tinker Bell and so you are watching Tiger Lily, Peter Pan, and the lost boys from a distance. It makes it easy to see everything that's happening, but it made it hard to really understand everything that Tiger Lily was feeling. 

If you are a Peter Pan fan, I would recommend giving this a try.  See if it works for you, or if you have the same problem I did... This reimagining of Neverland is worth reading anyway.

Review: Where I Belong

Where I Belong

by Gillian Cross

Book Description:

In the hot desert of Somalia, Mahmoud is kidnapped and held for a ten thousand-dollar ransom. His older sister, Khadija, is in London, thousands of miles away; and yet Mahmoud s life is in her hands. Someone has discovered her identity, that she is Qarsoon the Hidden One the face of famous fashion designer Sandy Dexter s newest collection. Who can Khadija trust to help her? She now must appear as planned on the Fashion Week runway. Only then can she possibly earn the money to save Mahmoud s life. Also involved is Abdi, a fourteen-year-old boy coming to terms with the mysterious disappearance of his father, and Freya, the totally unfashionable daughter of Sandy Dexter, trying to find her place in her mother s world of haute couture.

Review:

I thought that this was an interesting way to learn a lot about Somalian culture.  I hadn't really known anything about it before.  Khadija, Abdi, and Freya each brought a totally different viewpoint to the story and it was intriguing to read how they interacted with each other and the adults around them. I had trouble sometimes keeping track of who was the narrator of the different chapters, though. 

There was a lot of exciting stuff in this book and it had short, easy to read chapters.  While I thought the storyline was really interesting, it didn't completely capture my interest. I'm glad I read it, but it's not my favorite new book.