Recommended Reading: Julie Kagawa

Julie Kagawa has firmly cemented herself as one of best young adult fantasy writers.

First came The Iron Fey series. We follow Meghan Chase, a half-human teenage girl pulled into the Faery realms and trapped in between the clashes of the Winter and Summer Fey against a terrifying new kind of faery, the Iron Fey. She also battles her way through a love triangle that rivals Twilight's Team Edward/Team Jacob. 

Then The Blood of Eden trilogy. These vampires definitely don't sparkle. In the dark days since the insidious Red Lung virus decimated the human population, vampires have risen to rule the crumbling cities. Outside city walls: a vast wilderness, stalked by terrifying creatures called rabids. Created when humans and vampires attempted to cure Red Lung, rabids prowl by night, mindless and ravenous for human blood. Allison Sekemoto is a life-long Fringer: always hunted, always hungry. But when forced to choose between agonizing death and becoming what she hates…Allie takes immortality.

And now Kagawa is launching a new fantasy series all about dragons. Talon, released in 2014, revolves around dragons with the ability to disguise themselves as humans and an order of warriors sworn to eradicate them. The dragons of TALON and the Order of St. George have been at war with each other for centuries. The fabled creatures, whose existence is unknown by the general public, are determined to rule the world. Their foes, a legendary society of dragon slayers, are equally bent on driving the fabled beasts into extinction. However, when a young dragon and a hardened slayer unknowingly befriend each other, it has severe repercussions for both organizations.

Rogue, book two in the series, will be hitting selves in April 2015. 

You can check all of these excellent fantasy titles out from the library! 

Stop by and see us soon.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was our February bookclub book. There was only a couple in the group that completely disliked the book. Most of us agree that we struggled through about half of it because of the excess of philosophical musings in the characters ruminations, which severely hampered the plot. However, once Mr. Ozu was introduced, things picked up.

We discussed a lot about our "invisible self" or instances where we know someone isn't revealing everything about themselves to the world at large. This book really is about every person's invisible part. Renee was hiding how smart she was because she was just a lowly concierge in an uptown building and it would upset the class structure if people knew she read Tolstoy and other great literature. Paloma had to hide how intelligent she was and eventually was going to "show them all" by committing suicide. Then Mr. Ozu moves into the building and can see right through their charade, befriends both of them heedless of society's class system.

The book was also difficult to read for some of us, because we kept stopping to copy lines. It is full of metaphors and witty observations of life and the people in it, you just eat it up. I recommend reading it twice. The 1st time to absorb it all and the 2nd to enjoy. Most of us agreed we would read it again.

A few great lines:
Paloma describing her sister - "...a hostile lesion of a sister" pg. 85

Renee - "We are good primates, so we spend most of our time maintaining and defending our territory, so that it will protect and gratify us; climbing - or trying not to slide down the tribes hierarchical ladder." pg. 97

Renee - "I press the start button, sip my jasmine tea. From time to time I rewind, thanks to this secular rosary known as the remote control." pg 99

Each member had there own favorites, too many to put here. We recommend.

View all my reviews

Recommended Reading: Green Rider

Green Rider is an admirable beginning to a fantasy series that Kristen Britain continues to write to this day. Karigan G’ladahon, the novel’s protagonist, provides the reader with a strong female lead, a rarity in fantasy literature, and journeys throughout the world of Sacoridia in unexpected ways. The plot is well thought out, and the prose is generally seamless in its description of events.

The novel falters in its description of certain battle scenes, leaving the reader wanting more, and its lack of a map of Sacoridia, hindering the reader’s immersion into the world.  Despite these detriments Green Rider remains an enjoyable read for all ages and is recommended from a longtime, heroic fantasy bibliophile.

Book Discription:

Karigan G'ladahon has fled from school following a fight which would surely lead to her expulsion. As she makes her way through the deep forest, a galloping horse pounds up to her, its rider impaled by two black-shafted arrows. With his dying breath, he tells her he is a Green Rider, one of the legendary magical messengers of the King, and makes Karigan swear to deliver their message he's carrying, giving her his green coat, with its symbolic broach of office. This promise given to a dying man changes Karigan's life forever. Pursued by unknown assassins, following a path only her horse seems to know, she unwittingly finds herself in a world of deadly danger and complex magic, compelled by forces she cannot understand.

Daniel Tackett

Young Adult Librarian

Recommended Reading: The Secret History of the Pink Carnation

I adored this book. The characters were brave, witty, humorous and intelligent (even *gasp* the female characters). The plot was fast-paced and engaging. The setting was painted with careful attention but not so detailed you start skimming for the next section of dialogue. This is a great read for anyone who enjoys light-hearted historical romances with plenty of humorous banter.

Book Description: 
Deciding that true romantic heroes are a thing of the past, Eloise Kelly, an intelligent American who always manages to wear her Jimmy Choo suede boots on the day it rains, leaves Harvard's Widener Library bound for England to finish her dissertation on the dashing pair of spies the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian. What she discovers is something the finest historians have missed: a secret history that begins with a letter dated 1803. Eloise has found the secret history of the Pink Carnation the most elusive spy of all time, the spy who single-handedly saved England from Napoleon's invasion.

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, a wildly imaginative and highly adventurous debut, opens with the story of a modern-day heroine but soon becomes a book within a book. Eloise Kelly settles in to read the secret history hoping to unmask the Pink Carnation's identity, but before she can make this discovery, she uncovers a passionate romance within the pages of the secret history that almost threw off the course of world events. How did the Pink Carnation save England? What became of the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian? And will Eloise Kelly find a hero of her own?

North Shelby has copies of this book in print and audio book. Stop by the library to pick up a copy or click here to reserve a one through our catalog.

Morgan
Children's Librarian

Flat-Out Love - Book Recommendation

 Flat Out Love by Jessica Park                                                        

I read this last year, when it was just available as an ebook and absolutely loved it. I was working my way through the Beautiful Disaster read-a-likes and this title kept popping up.(which if you haven't read Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire and enjoy reading books filled with angst, featuring super possessive alpha males and the girls who love them-you have to read this) . Flat-Out Love surprised and delighted me and I'm so glad our library has now acquired some print copies available for check out now. It is labeled as a young adult novel, but adults will enjoy it as well. It is not filled w/ anxiety or super possessive males, but it has a lot of heart and might even make you tear up.

Book description: 

Something is seriously off in the Watkins home. And Julie Seagle, college freshman, small-town Ohio transplant, and the newest resident of this Boston house, is determined to get to the bottom of it.

When Julie's off-campus housing falls through, her mother's old college roommate, Erin Watkins, invites her to move in. The parents, Erin and Roger, are welcoming, but emotionally distant and academically driven to eccentric extremes. The middle child, Matt, is an MIT tech geek with a sweet side ... and the social skills of a spool of USB cable. The youngest, Celeste, is a frighteningly bright but freakishly fastidious 13-year-old who hauls around a life-sized cardboard cutout of her oldest brother almost everywhere she goes.

And there's that oldest brother, Finn: funny, gorgeous, smart, sensitive, almost emotionally available. Geographically? Definitely unavailable. That's because Finn is traveling the world and surfacing only for random Facebook chats, e-mails, and status updates. Before long, through late-night exchanges of disembodied text, he begins to stir something tender and silly and maybe even a little bit sexy in Julie's suddenly lonesome soul.

To Julie, the emotionally scrambled members of the Watkins family add up to something that ... well ... doesn't quite add up. Not until she forces a buried secret to the surface, eliciting a dramatic confrontation that threatens to tear the fragile Watkins family apart, does she get her answer.

Flat-Out Love comes complete with emails, Facebook status updates, and instant messages

Michelyn

Reference Librarian

Dee's Dee-va Dish

This week Dee would like to recommend:
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah/Click here to request.
Killing Floor by Lee Child/Click here to request




Watch Dee-va Dish below to hear her review: