Want to Read

Dayven hates wizards, believing the rumors that they are sly and dishonest, but he is required to take the Wizard Test to find out if he has any magical ability. When Dayven passes the test and the magic inside him is revealed, he must choose where his loyalties lie, and discover the true meaning of destiny.I enjoyed reading this book, and loved the magic system! Nothing and no one is quite what you expect, because we see the world through Dayven's eyes, and he has only known rumors and propaganda. He believes the enemies of his nation are stupid barbarians, and we are just as amazed as he is to observe that they have an elegant and vibrant culture. He believes that all wizards are selfish deceivers, and we are just as astonished as he is to realize that the wizards are compassionate champions of justice. I loved going on this journey of discovery with Dayven as he explores the truth of his world.I loved the characters, and how they are described in just a few words that gives you a rich picture of who they are. I immediately connected with the main characters, and was pulled along in their emotional story.I felt like the plot was a little too simple, and I wanted more of a conclusion at the end. Dayven makes his big decision about where his loyalties lie and what path his destiny will take, but there is great deal of the plot line that is left to the imagination. I like more closure at the end of a story, and it could have been neatly wrapped up in a short epilogue, but we're left hanging.

Anna Comnena has every reason to feel entitled. She's a princess, her father's firstborn and his chosen successor. Someday she expects to sit on the throne and rule the vast Byzantine Empire. So the birth of a baby brother doesn't perturb her. Nor do the "barbarians" from foreign lands, who think only a son should ascend to power. Anna is as dismissive of them as are her father and his most trusted adviser--his mother, a manipulative woman with whom Anna studies the art of diplomacy. Anna relishes her lessons, proving adept at checkmating opponents in swift moves of mental chess. But as she matures into a young woman, her arrogance and intelligence threaten her grandmother. Anna will be no one's puppet. Almost overnight, Anna sees her dreams of power wrenched from her and bestowed on her little brother. Bitter at the betrayal, Anna waits to avenge herself, and to seize what is rightfully hers.Book Details: \ Format: Paperback \ Publication Date: 10/10/2000 \ Pages: 224 \ Reading Level: Age 12 and Up

I gave The DarkAngel (of The DarkAngel Trilogy) by Meredith Ann Pierce three stars when I read it in early 2009. Absence made my heart grow fonder, or something, and I later upgraded it to a fox force five. I would tell my sister about it and that made it a different kind of reading experience. Something like loving something because it meant something to you when you're young. Images that stuck out in my mind, what represented wistfulness and longing. It's something, I think, how reading a book that's telling in a confidential way can have a feeling of, "Man, I wish I had had this when I was young!", or "It's not the same now..." and sharing secrets doesn't make it feel bigger, just same-sized and somehow emptier for being same-sized. It's different if you read it as a kid or teenager kind of story. If you're young and everyone you know talks to you like you're TOO young, you know? Someone to share with... There are talking quietly to the person you're most yourself around kinds of telling that make you wish you always had that young book. I'm sure that I retold it in the way that I'd talk to myself and that made it feel more intimate... Or I'm sometimes young and that's the secret for getting special always-been-there-for-me childhood favorites. The something might be feeling as if someone is talking to you. Too old? I loved the idea of the unwilling nursemaid who gives up her helpless charge to a witch. Not everyone wants to be a mother. The vampiric wraiths, twisting pity into guilt. The gargoyles and biting hands that feed. I know the next two books had weaker parts too (a lot of fantasy I've read is oddly reminiscent of the other). You don't have to have youthful memories to feel that bittersweet nostalgia. So... What the hell is the deal here? I was done being cynical and "Come on and be different" and stopped thinking "This part reminds me of Sharon Shinn. This reminds me of Robin McKinley" (also totally unfair because Pierce wrote her books before Shinn's books or Garth Nix's Sabriel). (Maybe I talk to myself too much!) It felt like I HAD read it when I was young and I felt wistful. "Remember when that happened..." Sigh.Blah, blah, blah. I get the feeling that I'm not going to feel anything more for The Woman Who Loved Reindeer. It did not talk to me in a "Hey, Mariel". It talked to me like I should already know. "Hey, you person." It talked too much. It was trying too hard and doing the wrong thing to feel good again.But just in case, I'll retell it right now. (In my head I pronounced it like Cara-boo and this song was in my head for two whole hours. My mind never shuts up. The Pixies not good enough for you, Mariel? I liked Caribou the band a lot in 2010.)Caribou is a witchy sort of girl who lives in isolation despite being a mere thirteen years of age. For a moment I thought it was going to be like Monica Furlong's Wise Child (a book that I admired more for the principles than actually enjoyed). The Karate Kid meets witch craft and learning from daily toil you don't think about until it's in your blood. Nope. Why do that when you can tell the reader what to think?Caribou is shunned and mistrusted because she has dreams and knows shit. Homeopathic remedies type shit and pop psych before there was pop psych. She understands people even though she has little to no contact with other people, or seems to understand anything about herself on a personal level. But hey, dreams! It worked for Agent Cooper on Twin Peaks. Mountains are wonderous places. I have a shark's jaw mounted on my wall (one of three things I got from my grandfather when he died. A live cat [not stuffed!], a shark's jaw and a table we made together when I was 10). If only it had been a deer! I'd be shamanistic and shit. (It's pretty much only good for looking scary and my birds like to sit in it.)Orphans have it so bad! Her brother didn't take her in because his new wife (gasp! a foriegner! Caribou obviously never heard the saying about people who live in primitive housing shouldn't throw sticks at other primitive houses in different villages because she's mistrustful of the gal for this. Not one of US, you know) didn't want her around. That doesn't stop the wife from coming by to drop her son beget by another man on the girl. Infidelity?! We knew we didn't like her, didn't we, Caribou? She vaguely understands things like that her brother would forgive the sex outside the marriage because the knowledge appears in her head. But the wife doesn't want the kid because its father has promised to come back for it. The father isn't one of us either and that's not a good thing. Caribou gets the kid and wants it even as she doesn't admit she wants it. In a blink of pages the brother and father get killed. The father is a reindeer! Even though Caribou KNOWS THINGS she doesn't figure it out. Thirteen years go by and Caribou suckles (this word is used more than a few times in the book!) the boy as if he were her own son. There's not a whole lot of dashing, dancing, prancing, or blitzing going on. The "You're all I have and that makes you mine" phase. Cupid must've descended on a comet and gone hunting because he accidentally shot her instead of a deer. In another blink of pages and suckling it must be love (like that. "It must be" and not really knowing or feeling much of anything). The vixen! He's like your son! You SUCKLED him! What a donderhead. He leaves her to run with the other reindeer as if she hadn't suckled him to her breast. Don't worry! He'll be back. The reindeer is damned horny too. It must be love if you don't know what you feel. (I'm all out of reindeer jokes. Shit. This review is in deep trouble.)What I don't get is that Caribou feels lonely and detached from society. She and her golden reindeer boy are not on the same wave length because he supposedly doesn't have a human heart. Okay, since when do all humans feel the same, and understand the same? Why would Caribou? They would not have keys to hearts in hand if he WAS made of her flesh. Sure, she has the dreams and mystical shit (which preclude her boy. She could have used this as a chance to relate like other people do, with him). But she's lived alone. She supposedly feels apart. She reminds me of a Morrissey fan who finally found the voice in the dark that spoke to their soul. She felt restless in the world? And then found someone she wanted to hear? And then never bothered to look for any other voices and horded it to themselves, in the dark (and made bitchy comments about me at a Morrissey concert and stepped on my foot) and stopped listening because she was too busy trying to hear what she wanted to hear. "I don't understand you! You don't understand me!" They don't progress beyond this point until some pat cliche about if you love the thing and it lets you go...So the reindeer comes back because he's horny and his race fuck human girls because that's how they have kids. Historically, they take the kids and don't give a stag's ass if she misses the babe. But he kinda misses his mama/love interest. Hey, he already knows she'd make a good mom. She suckles like nobody's business. But oh no! Her people are in trouble. The people who shunned her now need her to help them because she's got dreams of midgets and backwards talking. Caribou is such a rednoser (yes!) that she talks him into leading her people (although it was forbidden before it suddenly isn't now) to his land for help against natural disasters like earthquakes. There's more stuff I didn't buy like winning them over by being useful and needed. Maybe she just needs to suckle to get it off? So there's lots of that and various magical beings who refuse to help or agree to help the people who I didn't care anything about at all.She's also dependent on her reindeer and wishes he'd go to his "man-shape". Yay co-dependency AND manipulation. He does return to his man-shape and they have sex. I'm putting this in my bestiality shelf anyway (and lemonincest, although they are not blood) because I want to. That's the best thing about reading a book like this. (I made two new shelves too.)Maybe I'll grow to like the vague ideas about how love isn't something you can name? They weren't really mother and son. They didn't know what they were to each other. That COULD have been good... But she just says stuff like she learned she can't bind him and love is free will. Says! It's like the dreams. I want to know, or feel like they know it and are confiding in me. He lets her stay to help "her people" and will come back for sex and to see their kid (better watch out for any suckling) until the day she's ready to be with him. That's nice... But, um, where in all of that did they stop trying to label and assume that everyone has to feel the same things? I can't tell myself they did. He found other reindeer. She found people who needed her more than they were afraid. I still don't know what love is!Hot!P.s. Early in the book Caribou eats the flesh of the reindeer's reindeer papa. It tastes like butter and as if it were cooked, by magic. I was waiting for her to get hungry again. (There are mentions of eating caribou. They use the non-magical kind as their animal slaves. They named HER Caribou. How disgustingly cutesy! When they are finally together I bet they whittle that on all their stuff.)If they were stranded in a life boat would he let her eat him? That could be an even truer test of love than the letting things go and come back test. Or she could feed him by suckling him.P.s.s. Since she wears the tribal hipstery headband on the cover... and has prophetic dreams... and loves four legged mammals... I had this song in my head.P.s.s.s. Ten peckered owls and toads should form a coalition with reindeers to get more paranormal romances made in their honor. Why are wolves and cats supposedly so much better in bed? Enquiring minds (not mine! It is busy singing Xanadu) want to know.

First she is Brown Hannah, a drab healer living in the enchanted Tanglewood. Then, when she challenges the magician who holds her captive, she becomes Green Hannah. Next, she is Golden Hannah traveling through the land, with talking animals and birds by her side. And, finally, Russet Hannah, when she makes the long journey back to where she first grew, and learns her true story. This eagerly anticipated novel, Meredith Ann Pierce's first in five years, is well worth the wait.

At age six Anaxandra is taken by King Nicander to be a companion to his crippled daughter on the island of Siphnos. Anaxandra has adjusted to her new life when, six years later, Siphnos is sacked by pirates, and she is the sole survivor. When a fleet of ships stops on the island to investigate, she assumes the identity of Princess Callisto to survive. The ships belong to Menelaus, king of Sparta, and he takes her back to Sparta with him. But Helen, wife ofMenelaus, does not believe that this child is Princess Callisto. Anaxandra manages to stay out of harm’s way—until Paris and Aeneas arrive. When Menelaus and his men depart to attend his grandfather’s funeral, Paris and Helen’s passionate affair plunges Sparta and Troy into war.

"That talent of mine that in my country turns to sorcery, in yours turns to this making up." (italics mine).Essentially, this and the Secret Country should have been one book. I would have still been furious with it for being desperately and deliciously subtle, but the jarring feeling of the beginning where the pov is a little less coherent wouldn't have happened. Also, they are entirely unsatisfying apart. Not that they are entirely satisfying together. But a lot of that has to do with, well, the reality of it, where a bitterly real world is regardless tempting to stay in. And closed worlds, where you grow up twice and never get to go back, are the worst and the best of them all.Like Narnia. Without gods or second chances. And with so many disappointments... I want a sequel for each of the characters. I want to know what happens next, and what happened there, and what the ceremonies of the green caves were like, and what Ellen felt, and I want to be with Patrick as he works out the answers to all his questions - because I'm Patrick. It is not nearly enough. And yet there is so much already.

An adventure worthy of legend, for fans of Game of Thrones and Rangers Apprentice.When fifteen-year-old Æthelflæd is suddenly and reluctantly betrothed to an ally of her father, the king, her world will never be the same. For as a noblewoman in the late 800s, she will be expected to be meek and unlearned-and Flæd is anything but meek and unlearned. Her marriage will bring peace to her land, but while her royal blood makes her a valuable asset, she is also a vulnerable target. And when enemies attack, Flæd must draw upon her skills and fight to lead her people to safety and prove her worth as a princess-and as a warrior.

It is two hundred thousand years ago. A small group of children are cut off from their Kin, the Moonhawks, when they are driven from their "Good Place" by violent strangers. While searching for a new Good Place, they face the parched desert, an active volcano, a canyon flood, man-eating lions, and other Kins they've never seen before. Told from four points of view, with tales of the Kins' creation interspersed throughout, this epic novel humanizes early man and illuminates the beginning of language, the development of skills, and the organization of society. It is a triumphant book from one of the genre's most revered authors.

It began with the chiming of the tiny copper bell on the mantel, warning them someone was passing the ward stone her mother had placed on the path to their house ...One terrible day, Makenna, a young hedgewitch, witnesses her mother's murder at the hands of their own neighbors. Striken with grief and rage, Makenna flees the village that has been her home. In the wilds of the forest, she forms an unexpected alliance. Leading an army of clever goblins, Makenna skillfully attacks the humans, now their shared enemy.What she doesn't realize is that the ruling Hierarchy is determined to rid the land of all magical creatures, and they believe Makenna is their ultimate threat - so they have sent a young knight named Tobin into the Goblin Wood to entrap her.In this captivating fantasy adventure, the difference between Bright and Dark magic is as deceptive as our memories, hopes, and fears -- and the light of loyalty and friendship has a magic all of its own.A young Hedgewitch, an idealistic knight, and an army of clever goblins fight against the ruling hierarchy that is trying to rid the land of all magical creatures.

This was not horrible, but it was not what the first book was to me. Mind you, I get it. I get it. I understand everything the story did. And I didn't hate the characters either. In fact, I think the characters are still the strongest part of this book. What you had to go through was a bunch of bollocks, but I understand entirely why we went through it all. It made sense. And I have definitely not been put off from this book even though it was not spectacular. There is a love in my heart even for this book, because it took the path that no one else wanted to travel. And I am glad I walked that path with Tanaquil. I truly am.

»Hüte dich vor dem Engel der Nacht, er wird dein Blut trinken und deine Seele rauben.« Als die junge Aeriel sich an diese Worte der Dorfältesten erinnert, ist es bereits zu spät: Der dunkle Engel, ein Wesen von grausamer Schönheit mit nachtschwarzen Flügeln und schneeweißer Haut, entführt ihre Herrin Eoduin und macht sie zu einer seiner dreizehn seelenlosen Bräute. Auch Aeriel gerät in die Gewalt des finsteren Wesens. Sie weiß, sie kann die jungen Frauen nur retten, wenn sie den Engel der Nacht tötet. Doch je mehr Zeit sie mit ihm verbringt, umso mehr verfällt sie seiner tragischen Schönheit und umso tiefere Gefühle erweckt er in ihr ..

When Natalie finds a strange candy wrapper floating in a parking-lot puddle, an ominous yellow-eyed man informs her it's a spell -- and a bewitching tale of kidnapping and sorcery unfolds.This mysterious encounter leads Natalie to an enchanted world called Earthaven, where spells hang from giant soul trees and magical Spell Lords can cast them. Natalie is astonished to discover that she belongs to this world -- and that now she has to save it. The sinister Lord Hawk, exiled to the human world, is planning his revenge against the Spell Lords. Only Natalie suspects he's developed a poison to kill the soul trees -- and only Natalie can stop him.With the help of a loyal magehound, a herd of unicorns, and the spirit of her dead mother, Natalie must do battle with an evil force determined to spread its power across both worlds.

The four books included in this omnibus are listed below. I've read this before, but it has been quite a while, and as I recall it's not a real fast read (maybe because the book is heavy!) Cart and CwidderClennen the singer, his wife and 4 children are traveling through Dalemark. They pick up Kialan as a passenger, but he acts very strange. Clennen's son Moril inherits his cwidder, a musical instrument that has strange powers which Moril must learn to use to save Kialan.Drowned AmmetMitt is a young boy in the slums of Holand, who dreams of being a revolutionary and putting down the oppressive rule of the earls in the south of Dalemark. When his part of an uprising goes wrong, he must flee - and he ends up on a boat owned by two children of one of the hated earls, Hildy and Ynen, the children of Navis. They go to the Holy Islands with the help of Old Ammet and Libby Beer, avatars of the Undying. The story ends when the three children and Navis are helped by the islanders to get away and sail to the north.The SpellcoatsI realized too late that this one should be read first - it deals with happenings in prehistoric Dalemark, well before the times of the previous two books. The five children of Closti the Clam live near the River. The story is told by the fourth youngest, Tanaqui, who is weaving their story into rugcoats. Their father and eldest brother Gull have to go away to fight the Heathens, leaving the children behind. The people of the village hate them, except for their uncle Kestrel, because they are blond-haired instead of brown and look like the people the villagers call the Heathens. Their father does not return, but Gull returns a shattered man. When the river rises unexpectedly and floods them out, they load everything into a boat and go off down the river to escape the villagers, taking the statues of their 'Undying' gods, with them - the One, the Lady, and the Young One. When they reach the sea, they meet the evil Kankredin, a sorcerer, and get involved in a war against him. The River and their gods help them, but the book ends just before the final battle, with Tanaqui struggling to finish her final weaving.The Crown of DalemarkThe first section of the book begins somewhere after Drowned Ammet left off, with Mitt now in the service of Countess of Aberath. He is told that Ynen will be killed unless Mitt agrees to kill a girl called Noreth, who is looking for the crown of Dalemark to unite the north and south. Then the second book switches to modern times 200 years later, and a girl called Maewen, who is traveling by train to Kernsberg to visit her father who is the curator at the Tannoreth Palace. The palace contains a lot of portraits and artifacts from olden days. When Wend, her father's secretary, hands Maewen a golden statue of the One, she is suddenly sent back in time to take Noreth's place. Wend is with her, and Mitt and Navis are there, as is Moril the singer from Cart and Cwidder. She is supposed to find the ring, the cup, and the sword of the true king which will lead to an uprising that eventually will unite the north and south. But the remnants of the evil mage Kankredin are reassembling themselves, and he is doing his best to steer Maewen into the wrong paths. The rest of the story tells what she overcomes to find the three artifacts and eventually get back to her own time. I felt this was the most exciting book of the four, but it ends with Maewen determined to find the witch Cennoreth and find Mitt again. So it was a rather unsatisfying ending - I felt as if there should be a fifth book to wrap everything up.

Once upon a time there was a very nice but very plain princess named Jennifer, who, following proper fairy-tale protocol, fell for a very handsome but very conceited prince named Alexander. When Alexander offends a powerful witch, it falls to Jennifer to save him. In the course of doing so, she meets a wizard and soon wonders if she’s such a proper fairy-tale princess after all—a good little princess would love Alexander, but does she?

The Third and Final book of the Secret Country Trilogy!   Three things have the power to destroy the Secret Country: the Border Magic, the Crystal of Earth, and the whim of the dragon. The cousins Ted, Laura, Ruth, Patrick, and Ellen have faced the first two; now, summoned back to the Secret Country, they must face the third. The Country's most trusted counselors now know that the five are impostors, somehow thrust into the roles of royalty, but no one knows who has been playing with their destinies. The truth lies with only Chryse, the unicorn, and Belaparthalion, the dragon. But getting to them, and speaking with them, is more complex and dangerous than it seems….   “Pamela Dean’s Secret Country books are required reading for anyone who loves fantasy. Get them!”—Will Shetterly, author of Dogland

\ There are some who say that the Lady Fortune has a wheel, and all men are fixed upon it. The wheel turns, and the men rise, or fall, with the turning of the wheel.\ \ Birle has agreed to be wed to the huntsman Muir as an escape from the drudgery of life at her father's inn -- but the moment she looks into the bellflower blue eyes of the man she comes upon stealing one of her father's boats, Birle knows she cannot marry Muir. Even after she discovers the mysterious stranger is Orien, a Lord and as unreachable to an innkeeper's daughter as a star, Birle is determined to travel with him as far as he will allow. Their travels take Birle to a world far from home, a world where Lords may become slaves, where Princes rule by fear, and where Fortune's Wheel turns more swiftly and dangerously than Birle could have imagined. Newberry Medalist Cynthia Voigt's second novel of the Kingdom, set two generations later than Jackaroo, is a memorable combination of thrilling adventure and heart-stopping romance.

In the tradition of Lois Lowry's The Giver, Susan Butler's futuristic first novel tells the triumphant story of Leora's refusal to conform to the rigid rules set forth by a tyrannical government.Leora has a gift, and a secret. She can see things no one else can, but can only draw them with her one webbed hand. Several generations have passed since North America was struck by a meteor that changed life forever. Now, Leora lives safely locked inside the walls of Village Three. Only the guards and croptenders are allowed out, where the world is said to be undeveloped and dangerous. Leora's heard stories of the ferocious birmbas -- half bear, half gorilla -- that resulted from the meteor. Mutants cannot be trusted.But Leora herself is considered a "defective" with her hidden hand and gift. When she risks her life to free a baby birmba, she finds the courage to escape beyond the tyrannical walls without knowing what she may find.

Poor Henry. It’s not enough that his mother has sent him away from home to learn magic. It’s not enough that everyone at his new school calls him Thornmallow because he’s “prickly on the outside, squishy within.” It’s not enough that the only talent he shows at Wizard’s Hall is an ability to make messes of even the simplest spells. Now, when Wizard’s Hall is threatened by a cruel sorcerer’s fearsome beast, it is up to Henry--er, Thornmallow--to figure out how to save not only his new friends but also the entire school for wizards.