A Fairytale retelling

The Twelve Dancing Princesses is one of my favorite fairytales and you don't really see it retold. I love that this version, A Branch of Silver, a Branch of Gold, went the old fashioned route with the cover. I had books that looked like this when I was a child; they'd been my mother's and they were frayed on the bindings, the fabric worn away at the corners and showing the boards beneath.the author, Anne Elisabeth Stengl, has rewritten other fairytales. She has a story in Five Enchanted Roses (a collection of Beauty and the Beast stories) and another in Five Golden Slippers (five Cinderella stories.)

She has also created her own fanciful world, Goldstone Woods," and there are a number of books in that series with "please read me" titles like Moonblood and Dragonwitch. I can't wait to explore that landscape, which she describes as "an ever-growing world of knights and dragons, mystical forests and hidden demesnes, unspeakable evil and boundless grace."You can read more about the series on her website.

Cover Reveal...Beauty Sleep

Yet another entry into my "Modern Magic" series of fairytale retellings. I saw this pre-made cover by Sarah Beard on the Book Cover Designer and snatched it up over the weekend. It is, as you might be able to tell from the cover, a retelling of the classic story "Sleeping Beauty." This one is longer than the other entries in the series, which are mostly novelettes. I really love this cover and have not seen the model on a bazillion other covers.  I also love the color palette.

Aixa and the Shark

Part two of my three-part La Bruja Roja series is free for the next five days. Check it out here.  It's urban fantasy about a witch who lives in a border town that's not just on the border between Texas and Mexico, it's on the border between life and death. The final story, Aixa and the Spider, will be out next month. I'm fond of the Aixa stories.  Maybe you'll like them too.

Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson

This smart book about a young protagonist taking on dark forces owes a lot to the Harry Potter series.  She’s an orphan whose father and mother perished under peculiar circumstances and she now lives with a woman who may or may not be her aunt, but who is certainly rather abusive.  Mrs. Rokaby is bad enough but her evil rabbit Bigamist is a real villain! 

The characters are rooted in the real world, which makes the time tornados and time traps really work.  They’re more magical fantastical than science fiction, and we are very interested in how things are going to play out.  (That opening is really tasty and very visual.)

In some ways, we can see the derivation of a lot of the ideas here.  In particular, the story reminds us of John Bellairs’ trilogy of books that begins with The House with the Clock in its Walls.  The young protagonist of that book (a chubby ten year old) has to track down the clock by solving a mystery, and saves the world thereby.  This book is just as complex and just as satisfying, and young Silver (named after her father’s favorite pirate, Long John Silver) is a kid we can really sympathize with and really like.  She is just little (sort of like a hobbit) but she has to do a brave thing because it’s the thing to do. 

The Devil in the White City

If you love true crime, you've probably read this by now; if you haven't read it, you should. Erik Larson is a terrific writer and from the first book of his I read, Isaac's Storm, about the devastating Galveston hurricane at the turn of the last century, I was hooked. I haven't read his most recent book, Dead Wake, about the crossing of the Lusitania, but ... it's on my TBR list.

Here's my review of The Devil in the White City, still Larson's most famous work:

The true story of two great events that occurred simultaneously in Chicago—the extravagant World’s Fair honoring the 400^th anniversary of the discovery of America; and a series of heinous murders.

This is a tremendously entertaining book for fans of 19^th century architecture, the city of Chicago, and true crime.  Larson has taken on a couple of interesting stories and interwoven them in a way that’s not quite totally successful, but which always engages us. His non-fiction prose style is so graceful that it’s a pure pleasure to read.

Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Giveaway

Who doesn't like the opportunity to win some goodies? Books. Gift cards. And the opportunity to encounter new writers and new books. I'll be interested in reading the Dragon  Born Awakening series from Ella Summers that's part of the package. You can enter here.

Where have all the women gone?

One of the things I hear a lot is that women don't write epic fantasy.  Kameron Hurley (a double Hugo Award-winner) talks about that and many other topics in this new book, due out next week. Tor.com has posted an excerpt. you can read it here.