The Blue Fairy's Bookshelf

A Deadly Education (The Scholomance, Book 1) Naomi Novik, 2020 Premise : El attends a school for magic-users. Only the school is probably trying to kill them, and it'll take more than dedication to learning to survive. Despite having enjoyed many of Novik's other books, I avoided this one for a few years. Anything where the opening pitch is "school of sorcerers" is getting some serious side-eye from me, and I figured it was YA-ish, and I find YA tedious or disappointing 90% of the time.  In this case, I ran across some more info about the protagonist on Tumblr that piqued my interest. El's name is really Galadriel because her mom is a hippie witch. She has a talent for dark and deadly magic so strong that it basically amounts to a curse. (As in, it's very difficult for her to, say, cast a spell to help a flower grow, but she would find it incredibly easy to poison an entire countryside.) She's trying to keep both these facts (her mom and her power) from be

Crossposted on Mainlining Christmas Christmas Holiday William Somerset Maugham, 1939 I had been reading a number of brand new holiday books that feel as though the authors hope they'll be turned into movies, so I felt like switching gears to try a much older book that was actually adapted for film. If you read our review of the movie , you may remember that Erin mentioned that a lot of aspects were changed in the adaptation. The largest is that in the movie, the main female character gets the most emotional development, and her story, told mostly in flashback to the ostensible point-of-view lead, gets the most screen time.  The novel, on the other hand, actually has a main character. Charley Mason is not an American GI with anger issues, but a British dilettante. His wealthy parents have pretensions of being knowledgeable about art, and at one time he wanted to be an artist himself. At the time of the novel, he's been talked out of that, and instead, he has been preparing to ta

Crossposted from MainliningChristmas.com   Three Holidays and a Wedding Uzma Jalaluddin and Marissa Stapley, 2023 New Release! A copy of this book was provided by Netgalley for the purpose of review.  I joke sometimes about how modern romance novels of a certain type are more movie pitches than books. This one definitely started out that way, but by the end, it was at least a corny movie I think I'd enjoy. I guess the authors know what they're doing there, both have had projects optioned for film or TV according to the bios in the back.  In the first chapter, we meet Anna. Anna is ready for her perfect Christmas with her boyfriend's perfect family, she has to be. Otherwise her perfect boyfriend's perfect family won't be happy if everything doesn't go perfectly.  If you guessed that Anna's boyfriend is like a parody of "the guy who is bad for our heroine," you'd be right. But after a whole scene of me wincing at everything he says, he leaves ah

Crossposted from MainliningChristmas.com.  The Christmas Swap Talia Samuels, 2023 New Release! A copy of this book was provided by Netgalley for the purpose of review.  Margot and Ben are driving to Ben's family home for the holidays. So far, so normal. Except Margot and Ben met through work a week ago and aren't actually dating, but are planning to lie to Ben's family so his parents will stop making him feel bad for being single. The story gets even wackier once Margot starts to actually fall for Ben's sister Ellie. Meanwhile, Ellie can tell something is weird about Margot and Ben's supposed relationship, but she jumps to a lot of downright farcical conclusions.  This new holiday romance was quite good, although not exceptional. The characters do a few very dumb things that cause some painful miscommunications and misunderstandings, and those made me cringe. I've described the premise, and you need to be ready to suspend your disbelief a lot early on to get on

Nettle & Bone T. Kingfisher (aka Ursula Vernon), 2022 Hugo winner - 2023 Premise: Marra was a mediocre princess and an average nun, why does she think she can rescue her sister from a prince?  Of course I grabbed this from the library as soon as it won the Hugo (this review may be delayed). I was a little unsure when I got it. I knew the author also writes children's books, and I had the impression her other work was more YA. This isn't YA. At all. It's not inappropriate for kids, but it's a fairy tale for grownups, for people still finding themselves in their 30s, for adults struggling in a society set against them.  In short, it's spectacular, absolutely worth picking up if you have any love for fairy-tale-inspired fantasy.  I loved all the characters, I loved Marra's narrative voice, and I loved the magic. I loved how dreamy everything felt while also seeming completely grounded and tangible.  The writing is gorgeous. Lovely, creative descriptions that te

This Is How You Lose the Time War Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, 2019 Premise: Red and Blue are enemies - agents working for opposite sides of a war spanning throughout a complex timeline. Until one of them reaches out, first as a dare, but soon their correspondence changes into something more.  I understand why this was on so many people's favorites list and won so many awards, but it didn't completely work for me. It was an enjoyable read, but I found it both too long and too short.  It's part-epistolary: each chapter/section includes a mission that Red or Blue is on and how she finds a message from the other, and then the text of the message follows. The complicated, bizarre pasts and futures that Red and Blue contend with are really cool and interesting to read about, and they were probably my favorite part. I liked learning bits about the organizations they work for, although these are kept somewhat vague throughout.  The writing is poetic and emotional and lovely,