Thursday 29 September 2011

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick

OMG! I'm breathless.

I would hate to over-sell this book to you, for fear that you will open this wonderful, magical, poignant book with expectations set too high and therefore feel disappointed.

My wish for you is to feel the way I do right now...like I've just finished reading the perfect book.

From page one I was drawn into the two stories that gently unfold in Selznick's book Wonderstruck.
One story is told with words and is set in 1977. The second story is set in 1927 and told entirely via Selznick's trademark black and white line drawings.

The third story is the one that happens as the two stories begin to come together...in a heart-felt moment that reduced me to tears.

I'm not going to tell you any more because I want you to discover this gem of storytelling for yourself.

But if you would like to hear Brian talk about his inspiration for Wonderstuck click here.

Wonderstruck is published by Scholastic and is due in stores on the 1st Oct in a beautiful hardback edition.

And if you haven't seen the trailers for Hugo Cabret yet click here.

Wednesday 21 September 2011

The Traitor and the Tunnel by Y S Lee

This is the third book in the Mary Quinn series - a Victorian detective series for young teens.

It is now 1860 and Mary is 17 and a full member of the Women's Detective Agency. Her first assignment takes her to Buckingham Palace where she takes on the role of domestic servant to Queen Victoria's family to uncover the thief making off with the royal trinkets.

Naturally there are complications. The young Prince of Wales is implicated in a murder in an opium den, James Easton reappears in the tunnels beneath the Palace and suddenly Mary's first assignment had become more dangerous and more personal than she would like.

Lee has written an easy to read, engaging historical mystery.

Younger readers (11+) could enjoy this series too, but there are some gentle romantic entanglements at the end of this particular book that keep it in the teen section rather than junior fiction!

Click here to view Ying Lee's webpage.

Saturday 17 September 2011

Legend by Marie Lu

Happily this book brings us back onto familiar (and much-loved) territory!

A brand new dystopian trilogy to rival The Hunger Games.
I devoured it in 2 days - the last half was truly un-put-downable!

Marie Lu has created something special with this one.

At the start I wasn't sure about the dual narration. Switching back and forth from Day to June and back to Day again with different fonts and different colours usually puts me off (think 'One Day' by David Nicholls). But Lu pulls it off.

She has two characters that you become involved with very quickly, two characters that you care about, two stories that merge and contrast seamlessly.
I don't want to give too much of this story away as half the pleasure is allowing it to unfold as you read. But if you want to know more click here to see Marie Lu's webpage and you can follow her blog, or on facebook and twitter.

Published by Penguin and due in stores 1st December - put this on your 'to read list' now!

Wednesday 14 September 2011

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

As you all know vampire-lit is not my usual thing.

All the ones I've tried to read before just leave me cold. They're either too tedious and ernest or too teenage-angsty. So I started reading the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series reluctantly.

Sookie lives in a world where vampires and shape-shifters are accepted into polite society - even the polite society of small country town America. Vampires can walk into a bar and order a pint of artificial blood and having sex with a vampire is pretty darn special...for those that survive the experience!

Sookie is also special. She can read peoples thoughts. When we first meet Sookie this special gift is a curse. She has to work very hard to keep these thoughts out of her head as they drive her crazy.
When Sookie meets her first vampire she is pleasantly surprised to discover that she can't hear him. His thoughts are blocked and for the first she can truly relax around someone.

But no sooner does the first vampire turn up in town than locals begin to mysteriously die.

Sookie is sexy, funny and sassy. There is lots of sex, lots of death and lots of laughs. Charlaine Harris doesn't take the genre seriously and as a result has written an engaging, light-hearted block-buster!

She left me wanting more.