In the land of the Seven Kingdoms, some babies are born with eyes that are both the same color, but by the time they are toddlers, their eyes change to be two different colors, such as blue and green or silver and gold. If so, they are said to have a ‘Grace,’ to be possessed of some sort of gift. It may be as innocuous as being able to make the best bread ever–in which case they will probably go work for the kitchens in the royal castle–or it may be like Katsa’s: killing. Katsa is the niece of one of the kings of the Seven Kingdoms, and she has been used as an assassin many times over the years. This is the story of Katsa coming to terms with, well, being gifted at killing.

Well. Sort of. It’s also about politics and it’s a love story and a tale of survival and rescue and all sorts of other things. But at its heart, it’s Katsa’s coming-of-age story.

The politics are because, well, there are seven kingdoms and of course there are going to be power struggles, especially when there’s a particularly evil king sitting on one of the thrones with a particularly evil Grace. The love story is between Katsa and Po, who is Graced with fighting (maybe), and who is the youngest son of another king. He’s a suitable mate for her–not just politically but by temperament and Grace–but Katsa isn’t particularly interested for various reasons. At least, not at first. The survival and rescue, well, I’m not going to tell you about that because it would give away more of the plot than I’m willing to do.

Katsa is a strong, multi-faceted character; readers looking for strong, multi-faceted female characters will not be disappointed. Readers who enjoy richly-described fantasy worlds with interesting geography and a strange new form of magic will definitely be interested in this story. The male characters are pretty interesting, as well; not just Po but the other people in Katsa’s household, especially Prince Raffin. The pacing of the plot is fairly good as well, although the adventure part of the story stretched on a bit longer than I wanted. Readers more invested in the action than the romance will probably be happy, though.

The problem I had with Graceling is that I felt that the interpersonal conflict was pretty much all manufactured by the heroine herself and I have very little patience for, well, that. Essentially to me it felt like Katsa was saying, “Oh, woe is me! For I am a freak and shall never, ever find a man who will accept me as I am, the kind of woman who doesn’t really like to wear skirts and likes to kill things! All men want to change me and make me into the kind of woman who has to stay home and not kill things!” And standing right next to her was Po, saying also the entire time, “Um, hi. I’m Po. Right here. Hey. Standing here. Oh, what the hell–you’ll come around someday.” Now, I’m a fan of self-discovery and not necessarily falling madly in love with the first guy to come by who seems not to be the world’s biggest jerk, but I think I would have preferred the story where she realized that he appeared to be the kind of man who wouldn’t expect her to change but was still suspicious and wanted to hold out judgment, rather than flat-out denying to herself that that man could even exist.

Then again, I’m twenty-eight and Katsa is eighteen, and perhaps I’m expecting her to act more like me. But I spent half the book mad at her because of this–and she seemed to be pretty decent at all other times–so I’d like to note it here. Younger readers, or those who are better at accepting characters at face value, will probably not notice it, or be less annoyed.

Honestly, this was a good read, and an excellent addition to the oeuvre, and it’s possible I’ve just got the strangest set of biases on the planet. I’d recommend it to pretty much anyone who’s interested in the genre, frankly; it’s got a little bit of everything and it does it all awfully well. 4/5 stars.

Anyway, Counterfeit Magic is narrated by Paige Winterbourne, the main character of Dime Store Magic and Industrial Magic. It features her and Savannah Levine, the daughter of Eve Levine, narrator and star of both Haunted and Angelic (the latter also a Sub Press book). Savannah is also the narrator of books 11-13 of the series, apparently. Paige and her husband run a private investigation business, and Savannah works for them as well. They receive an invitation to investigate a case that involves the existence of underground supernatural fight clubs, and Paige and Savannah have to infiltrate them.

Because it’s a Sub Press book, I have an ARC, and it’s got some drawings in it which may not be in final format. That may be wishful thinking, though, as I really don’t like the drawings. They’re very well-done, but the tone seems a little out of place with the actual themes of the book. They’re very . . . well, frankly, they’re bordering on soft-core porn in some cases. Again, they’re well-done and actually look like some of the characters and scenes in the book, which is much better than I can say about some illustrations or covers, but I wasn’t that enamored of them as an addendum to the book.

Paige is married to Lucas Cortez, a sorcerer and the heir to a very powerful family. Unfortunately, his very powerful family is also very male and is having a lot of trouble accepting her as an equal. She is also reluctant to ask Lucas for help, as she wants to be his equal and that doesn’t include asking for help. Because of this, they’re having some minor relationship trouble. Honestly, though, this trouble threads in and out of the entire book, and it’s a mature, feminist/equality-minded view on the whole situation–which is why I really don’t think the pictures fit with the book. Having explained that, though, I’ll deal with the story on its own.

The supernatural fight clubs were pretty dang cool. I’m not really sure there’s much more I need to say about them; they’re pretty much what one would guess, although both men and women are allowed to fight (usually against the same sex). Demon powers, as well as spells and other sorts of gifts, make the fights much more interesting–limited teleportation, for example, as well as knock-back spells and the sort.

The plot is rather convoluted for being only 144 pages long, in the best Kelley Armstrong sort of way–politics of her world plus twists only possible through her forms of magic plus several threads of actual human interest. I think she even sets up one major plot thread that will be picked up in books 11-13. However, she did use a rather common trope from romance novels and romantic comedies, so longtime romance readers may look at that part of the plot and shrug or be gleeful, depending. (It’s not my favorite trope.)

Anyway, readers who have continued with the series may enjoy this; it appears to fit in before book 11. Although I don’t think it particularly stands on its own or makes a good entry into the series, it’s not intended to do either. Ignoring the artwork, it’s a solid 4/5 stars and, as it’s a Sub Press edition, I can safely assume it’ll be a lovely physical object as well.

The Enchantment Emporium is set in a new universe, just a bit removed from our own (or maybe it IS our own) where there’s a family of powerful women, surnamed Gale, who nudge the universe around by immense personal ability. Alysha Catherine Gale (Allie), our heroine, is twenty-four, jobless, and single when her grandmother (the family’s black sheep) gives her a store to run — the eponymous Enchantment Emporium. However, that means moving away from the family, out to Calgary. Obviously they can come visit, but apparently everyone is too busy actually to come with her. And then the strange things start happening — a tabloid reporter (very attractive, by the way) comes by, dragons start flying over the store, and faerie beings start showing up. What has Gran gotten Allie into?

The print on this book is different from most of the previous Tanya Huff books I’ve read — it’s finer and situated differently. I don’t know why this caused me to go into the book with a bit of trepidation, but it did. I wasn’t expecting it to be, well, so precisely Tanya Huff, but fortunately, it was. The magic structure reminded me a bit of the Keeper books, what with Aunts and Cousins all over the place, but other than similar terminology (and ontology), it was (I believe) distinct. Here we have a single family, albeit incredibly extensive (everyone seems to have tons of siblings) that, well, tends to intermarry (although the aunts make sure that they’re second cousins or more) and keep the same surname. In the Keeper books, none of that was necessarily true — I think there were many different families.

Once we get past the family and its first wacky set of family members, we get to Calgary and its wacky set of inhabitants. There’s a leprechaun (a bit tall for one, really), a few Faeries (one who lives in the river), some incredibly attractive and incredibly dangerous dragons, a wizard or two (all wizards are evil, by the way), and a tabloid reporter. Believe me when I say that the tabloid reporter isn’t quite the most normal member of the batch. Tanya Huff has always been good at creating believable but
entirely unbelievable characters, if that makes any sense. Perhaps it’s more that I wish I lived in a world where the Aunties exist, where ritual magic can change the world, and where there are shapeshifting dragons who may or may not eat people.

Overall, the book is definitely going to appeal to fans of Tanya Huff’s work, and probably fans of other funny urban/contemporary fantasy authors. Those who like, obviously, strong characters and exciting magical showdowns will like this; those who are really invested in complicated mystery plots probably will figure out what’s happening well before the end, but the ride is great. The ending is somewhat deus ex machina-esque — okay, very deus ex machina-esque — but it’s forgivable, given the circumstances that precede it. I’m looking forward to see if Ms. Huff ever writes more in this world, although the volume
definitely stands alone. 4/5 stars.

Here’s the general setup of the series: We have Anita Blake, the short, assertive, overly-weaponed necromancer (zombie-raiser)/vampire hunter. More under the cut, actually, in case there’s a person left in the world who hasn’t read these books who wants to. Anyway, Anita’s up to something like five or six permanent boyfriends and another dozen rotating ones. The permanent ones include Jean-Claude, Master of the City of St. Louis (i.e., head vampire); Micah, the other head of the wereleopard pack; Nathaniel, another wereleopard; Asher, Jean-Claude’s second-in-command (another vampire); Damian, Anita’s pet vampire (a long story, found in another volume), and, maybe, Richard, the head of the werewolf pack. She now carries about five different strains of lycanthropy, even though she doesn’t shift shapes, and in addition to being the lupa (sort of) of the werewolf pack (and the Bolverk), she’s the queen of the leopards. She’s also arguably got some vampire powers, being that she has managed to ‘inherit’ Jean-Claude’s ardeur, the need to/ability to feed off of sex the way that most vampires feed off of blood. (i.e., she’s arguably a succubus, but not as cool as Georgina.) Because of that, she can make men become addicted to her. She still occasionally hunts things.

So in the current volume, Anita has decided to pretend to be Jason’s girlfriend while Jason goes to visit his dying father. (Jason is one of the rotating boyfriends; also generally just a friend of Anita’s since book 3.) Jason’s family is dead convinced that he’s gay, despite legions of ex-girlfriends, and apparently the presence of a girlfriend might ease the father’s passing. However, everything goes pear-shaped because Jason looks almost exactly like the governor’s son — who is getting married this weekend. Apparently the idea that said governor’s son (named Keith) could be spending time with a pretty brunette instead of his blond fiancee isn’t too far off of reality, and the media gets involved . . . and then Marmee Noir, the biggest, baddest, oldest vampire of ‘em all gets involved . . .

The disputed volume in the series is Micah, which came between volumes 12 and 13. At one point, Ms. Hamilton was going to write shorter novels, exploring the relationships between Anita and each of the individual males she’s shacking up with. I think the genesis of this plot was actually Jason’s volume, because, well, she does all she can to get Anita and Jason isolated — in North Carolina, even. (I’ve been there; it really is that pretty, but I don’t remember it being quite that messed up.) She may have changed the ending in order to get in stuff that’s relevant to the overarching plot of the series (such as it is), but basically, this is Jason and Anita and some talk therapy.

It’s sort of become the fashion to bash the Anita Blake books for having too much sex and too little plot, and while there wasn’t much plot in this volume, there really wasn’t much sex, either. Oh, enough, certainly, in terms of number of sex acts had over the course of the three or four days the book spans (I lost count), but most of them are barely described. Nothing like the 14-page epic sex scenes dating as far back as The Killing Dance (vol. 6). I like the mysteries, when they’re real mysteries, and Anita really didn’t have any investigating to do in this book. There was a moderate amount of danger, but if the book has almost no mystery plot and barely any sex, what’s left? Anita chatting with Jason about their respective screwed-up childhoods?

Another flaw of the last few volumes is Ms. Hamilton’s need to find greater and greater dangers. In the third volume (Circus of the Damned), we met and killed the world’s oldest vampire. Apparently she didn’t think about that one too hard, because now we’ve got the Mother of All Vampires, who may or may not be older than the previous guy, but is definitely scarier. This need to find something scarier and scarier in each book is causing her world-building to get more and more unwieldy, as she stretches certain points in order to put Anita in more and more danger. Of course, the more danger Anita gets into, the greater her powers have to be in order to handle that danger, and that’s why Anita apparently joined the Power of the Month club. (No, I didn’t originate that phrase. I can’t remember who did, though. Sorry.) In this book, she grabbed another animal to call and discovered that because of a combination of powers she already had, she’s even more powerful. I’d yawn, but it’s too tedious even for that.

Also, and this is a comparatively tiny nitpick, there’s a really, really simple explanation as to why Jason’s family thinks he’s gay, but she never used it. She did tell us that his sister swore she saw him having sex with another man, but he tells us he was somewhere else. So who did the sister see? Oh, well, the answer’s sort of there between the lines, but she never states it. It sort of felt like a loose end to me.

Why do I keep reading these books? Heck, until Blood Noir, I was BUYING them, in nice expensive hardbacks. Well, it’s because they’re addicting. Anita’s love life, and frankly even her professional life, is a trainwreck, but you can’t look away. Ms. Hamilton’s somewhat choppy writing style just sucks readers in, as if they haven’t left the world for over a year (as I did). The sex, when it’s present and Ms. Hamilton is writing in full form, is hot. It really is. It’s almost as euphemistic as romance novels and sometimes involves numbers and combinations and scenarios that might push the boundaries for some readers, but it’s still hot. Her characters are compulsively interesting, even if they’re all unnaturally beautiful and their flaws are of the sort that make you think they’re even more perfect. Anita has a thing for hurt/comfort sort of scenarios, and all the men in her flock seem to be broodingly gorgeous with deep pools of pain in their souls. They almost make me want to write bad emo-goth poetry, but fortunately I’m not fourteen, the way I was when I read the first of these. But they’re still hot.

Anyway, if you’re sort of insanely addicted, this might provide a decent hit until you can get a copy of the latest volume, which I’ve heard has a real plot and investigating and all that stuff, but it’s absolutely not worth it if you aren’t already hooked. I’m not sure the book even deserves a rating. The series overall started at 4/5 and has devolved to maybe in the 2.5 or 3-star range. I will say, though, that the first few volumes are pretty good, but I caution against reading them because it may make you compulsively want to read the rest of them, and then you’ll smack up against Micah, for which I’d like that hour of my life and $7 back, and Incubus Dreams, which may have had a plot but I’ve forgotten in between all the sex, and this one, which, as I’ve noted above, isn’t quite plotty enough to be decent and doesn’t have enough sex to be interesting in that way.

Nick and Alan are brothers and have been on the run from a coven of evil magicians (all magicians are evil; they feed people to demons) for a very long time now. When a classmate of Nick’s (named Jamie) gets into some possibly supernatural trouble, his sister Mae asks around and finds out that Nick and Alan are the ones to talk to. Unfortunately, of course, Nick and Alan have problems of their own; the coven is about to find them. Unfortunately, Jamie and Mae end up caught up in their drama. Just why are these magicians after Nick and Alan? And why does it seem like Alan is hiding things from his brother?

The Demon’s Lexicon is a fast-moving, exciting story; our main quartet of characters are being hunted by scary and/or unknown people for nearly the entire course of the story. There’s violence, with cars and guns and a possessed unkindness of ravens; there’s magic flying around all over the place, including a Goblin Market (no actual goblins, as far as I could tell), demon-raising via dancing, and magical pendants; and there’s a bit of romance, or perhaps just physical attraction. While most of the main characters are male, the female characters who appear are strong and feisty, but not in a stereotypical sort of way, and I especially enjoyed Mae’s “Romeo and Juliet Wouldn’t Have Lasted” t-shirt.

What I liked the most about this story was the twist. Yes. There’s a twist. I’m not going to give it away, but I have to say that it’s one of the best twists I’ve read in a while. Most of the books I’ve read recently with Big Surprise Twists at the end have either had really silly, really insulting, or really ‘where did that come from?’ twists. Obviously not everyone agrees with me, especially on Evernight, but if there’s going to be a Big Surprise Twist at the end, I don’t want one that makes me slap my forehead and say, “That was it?!” I’d like one that respects my intelligence and makes me laugh with delight, even if it’s sort of a big change to the whole world and possibly moves a book into darker territory than it had been in before. Ms. Brennan’s twist was a good one.

The characters and their interactions were another draw of the volume. Jamie’s nervous banter and Mae’s responses were priceless, and Alan’s and Nick’s combination of trying to protect the other were also quite interesting to watch. Alan has a crush on Mae, just to complicate things, but Mae is a bit more attracted to Nick than Alan (Nick has that bad-boy air, while Alan seems more like an intellectual). Jamie, of course, watches the whole triangle from the outside, and seems to find it a bit amusing. There are a few other characters — a dancer named Sin, for one — who fill in the edges, and I am looking forward to reading more about all of them in the next volume. My only complaint is that it’s too long until then. 4.5/5 stars.

Georgia O’Grady, a twenty-first-century fifteen-year-old English schoolgirl, is more likely to be mistaken for an English schoolboy, with her short, spiky hair, indifferent manner of dressing, and pre-adolescent figure. She’s also horse-mad, and when she finds a winged horse figurine in an antiques store, she saves up for and buys it. Of course, it turns out to be a Stravagating talisman, and she falls asleep and finds herself in Talia. She ends up in a stable in Remora, an analogue for Siena, and they mistake her for a boy, renaming her Giorgio Gredi. There, she finds herself swept up in the annual horse race, to be held shortly. Of course, though, because she is a Stravagante and this is Talia, there’s more going on than just a simple horse race . . .

Georgia doesn’t have the most pleasant life. Her stepbrother, Russell, makes her life very difficult, and although her stepfather isn’t actually a bad person, he and Georgia’s mother don’t really believe the extent of Russell’s abuse. At school, her life isn’t much better; she’s not one of the pretty, popular girls, and doesn’t have many friends. Her main afterhours pursuit — horseback riding — is generally a solitary affair (until she meets Alice, who is also horse-mad), and she’s not particularly interested in having a boyfriend just for the social cachet. However, in Talia (Remora), she has friends (Lucien, from the previous book, with whom she went to school, appears), she has horses, and she is, as a matter of fact, significantly happier.

While the horse-racing is the main point of the book, there’s a secondary plot with a young member of the Di Chimici family, Falco, who was injured in a riding accident some years back. Due to the limits of sixteenth-century medicine, he is now unable to walk unaided and has no chance of ever riding a horse again. Between him and his next-older brother, Gaetano, we are shown a softer, more human side of the Di Chimici family. Clearly, of course, they are still the nemesis in the book, but things become a lot more complicated when we see that they are not nearly so different from the Duchessa and her family as might have been believed.

This book also has hard choices and deaths; it isn’t exactly a sequel, as shown by my un-cut description, but it definitely seems to be tied firmly to the previous volume. I don’t think much of this book would make sense — especially the stravagating (traveling from 21st-century England to 16th-century Talia) — without what we learned in the previous volume. Somehow the travel seems less hokey the second time around, and the story is longer and richer, with a grander cast of characters and more questions about one’s role in life. I am still definitely looking forward to the next books in the series. 4/5 stars.

This is a book 2, so I’ll cut here. Lia Langford is the youngest daughter of Kit and Rue from the previous book, and she’s . . . different. She doesn’t have the magical abilities of her siblings, and she chafes at the restrictions placed upon her. However, she also has these dreams, wherein a man — one she knows, as a matter of fact: Zane, Rue’s companion in the previous volume — is asking her questions to which she knows the answer, although she doesn’t in real life. He and she are also lovers in these dreams, despite the fact that in real life, she is significantly younger than he is. On top of that, she hears something calling to her, even outside of the dreams. So when her parents hire Zane to go find a fabled diamond that is the drakon’s greatest fear and greatest treasure, Lia must find a way to go along, despite the danger.

This book had everything of the last book, only moreso. The opening epic-ness trails through the book; the love story is more intense for various reasons; the historical setting is actually justified. It’s also got a few things that the previous volume didn’t have, and I’d be remiss in mentioning that there are overtones of underage sexuality all over the place. For one thing, the dreams start when Lia is something like thirteen or fourteen and she barely understands what’s going on. For another, there is a man with a ten- or eleven-year-old wife floating around, and another reviewer (Jayne (?) at Dear Author) definitely got the idea that the man was raping the child. I didn’t actually get that feeling; there was a line wherein the girl mentioned that the man would have to wait for children. It’s definitely ambiguous, though and readers sensitive to such issues may choose to avoid this story.

In between the chapters is a first-person recounting of a legend (the aforementioned opening epic-ness) that I didn’t feel particularly added to the tale. It does, however, give a different perspective on everything, and there is a twist at the end. I became frustrated with it while reading and skimmed over various portions, and I do feel like many readers will do the same thing. On the other hand, the legend does add to the fated-lovers idea (although they are fated for a different reason than the last book) and interacts with the setting — Eastern Europe — in an organic fashion. Others may enjoy the legend; I thought it interrupted the flow of the story.

I felt like the plot was much stronger in this volume, but it isn’t nearly so gentle a love story. In fact, it’s downright dangerous at times, and those expecting something with exactly the same tone as the first volume aren’t going to find it. The main character, Lia, is a lot more passive than her mother, and although I’m willing to give the author that she’s demonstrated her ability to write different kinds of characters, I didn’t like her quite as much or quite as quickly as I did Rue. Zane is, instead of the Overbearing Landowner of Kit, a different kind of romance-novel hero: the Bad Boy. He’s a thief on the best of days, and while he has a significant amount of honor, he’s also got the air of danger and everything but the leather jacket and motorcycle (both of which would obviously be anachronistic).

This was another interesting story and highly lauded by the press, but not necessarily without flaws; I’d recommend it to those who enjoyed the previous volume (although it could probably stand on its own), barring those who might react problematically to the issues mentioned above. 3.5/5 stars.

Ewen Young is a painter by day and a kung fu master by night. His uncle Jimmy is his teacher, and one night, after an art show, several thugs jump him outside as a ‘message’ to said uncle. Soon thereafter, he goes to the kung fu studio and finds Jimmy shot in the head; the man who did it is still there and shoots Ewen in the heart. The next thing he knows, he’s in the hospital, on morphine. But every so often, he — isn’t there. Or particularly anywhere. The nurses accuse him of pulling out his IV, despite the fact that it’s out cleanly. Where is he going? And what’s going on?

This is a really short book — 98 pages — and it reads fairly quickly, as one might expect. It feels like a prequel; like this book was all the setup to explain why Ewen Young will be important in the next volume in which one encounters him. There were so many ideas contained in this book that feel like they should be expanded, from Ewen’s bamboo issues, to his relationship with his sister, and the mere presence of his brother-in-law. Actually, the bamboo and a related bonsai tree only appear in a few scenes but they were appreciated touches of humor in a story that, well, contains a fair amount of death and pain otherwise.

Ms. MacAvoy even admits that Ewen was based on Jet Li, and the story was highly influenced by kung fu films. Readers familiar with the genre will almost be supplying the narration and music on their own. Other than relatively few fight scenes, this would make an excellent movie. Her combination of humor, action, and Zen Buddhism make for a thrilling ride, and the fantastic elements (mostly related to the aforementioned Buddhism) add an otherworldly spice to an otherwise straightforward narration. The adaptation, of course, would require Ewen to heal from his gunshot wound a lot more quickly, in order to flip and kick his way to an appropriate conclusion.

I cannot, unfortunately, find any indication that there will be more in the series. Ms. MacAvoy’s productivity has slowed down over the last ten years, and she does not appear to have her own website. Although it is a complete story in and of itself, I do so wish that we would see Ewen and his family more. As a lead character, I enjoyed him — the seeming conflict between his painting career and his kung fu calling kept me interested, and now that he seems to have some extra powers, I definitely feel that he could sustain an entire full-length novel on his own. 4.5/5 stars.

Lucy Scarborough is a normal twenty-first-century girl, living in Massachusetts. Well, a normal girl with a crazy mother who is a bag lady in town, but she’s got a wonderful set of foster parents, Soledad and Leo Markowitz, some good friends, and a date to the junior/senior prom coming up shortly. Until an unfortunate event occurs at the prom, she turns up pregnant, and she finds her mother’s diary. In the diary, she finds out that all of the women in her family, as far back as anyone can remember, are under a curse; they all become pregnant at seventeen and when they give birth at eighteen, if they haven’t completed three impossible tasks (as detailed in a variant of “Scarborough Faire”), they go crazy. Fortunately, she has help, but not much time. Can she accomplish these things and stay sane?

Apparently Ms. Werlin realized at some point that the so-called ‘impossible’ tasks in the ballad “Scarborough Faire” (most know the Simon & Garfunkel version, but it predates them by a few hundred years) were made less impossible by modern technology, but that doesn’t mean that they’re exactly easy. However, it provided the basis for the book, and a decidedly interesting retelling of a ballad that, well, generally isn’t retold. I generally like ballad tales — see this for my favorite example — and Ms. Werlin makes a story that absolutely retains the human, personal element, while still keeping the historical and universal context of a song that has remained in the popular knowledge for so long.

I find it necessary to warn readers that the aforementioned “unfortunate event” is rape. Although it’s described in less-than-detailed terms, Ms. Werlin leaves absolutely no room for interpretation otherwise (as well she shouldn’t) and readers who are sensitive to such subjects should consider themselves forewarned. I didn’t know it was coming, and it was a bit of a shock. The aftermath is surprisingly believable, as is Lucy’s nearly supernatural determination to continue the pregnancy, once she knows it’s happening. Her foster mother, Soledad, is a midwife, so they both know what’s coming, and they know that life will be difficult.

Lucy’s life is made simultaneously easier and more complicated by the presence of Zach Greenfield, a longtime neighbor who is staying with the Markowitzes for the summer. Easier, of course, because he is just a couple years older than Lucy and has volunteered to stay around and help her with the tasks, as well as providing emotional support, but more complicated, being that there is an emotional connection and emerging relationship. Lucy and Zach’s struggle with this, especially in the aftermath of her rape, is somewhat condensed, but read as convincing to me, based on their history. Of course, the ballad and the story are about true love, so it is necessary for Lucy to have a real love interest, but I liked Zach on his own merits.

Overall, it’s definitely a book for somewhat older readers (probably age 14 or 15 and older), but even adults will find the story warm and the characters interesting. There’s a strong theme on families — what makes one, and that the family you choose (or who chooses you) is just as much yours as the one you’re born into. The good guys are obviously good and the bad guys obviously bad, and the end is satisfying. Those who like romantic tales will certainly be satisfied, and the preternatural/fantastic elements should be enough for urban/contemporary-set fantasy readers. 4.5/5 stars.

Lucien Mulholland is a fifteen-year-old twenty-first-century English boy, who is unfortunately dying from a brain tumor. Arianna is a fifteen-year-old sixteenth-century Talian girl living in an alternate universe where Remus founded Italy instead of Romulus. The connection? A journal, that allows Lucien to travel in his sleep from England, where he is doing poorly, to Talia, specifically Bellezza (an alternate Venice), where he is hale and healthy. Arianna wants nothing so much as to be a mandolier (gondolier), despite her gender, so she sneaks into town for the trials. There, she meets Lucien, recently traveled and confused, and they get caught up in the politics and plotting of the time. The Di Chimici (Medici) family wants nothing so much as to kill Bellezza’s Duchessa — can two teenagers help stop that from happening?

Ms. Hoffman’s alternate Italy is a very detailed and fascinating place. Those who are more intimately familiar with alternate-universe theory will have to suppress their disbelief that all the same locations and personages would have evolved, in remarkably similar fashion, with such an early (pre-Roman empire, obviously) split. Those who are more familiar with more science-fictiony time- and space-travel will also have to suspend that knowledge; yes, Lucien is simultaneously traveling back some six hundred years and over a distance of some miles. However, if one can set these concerns aside and go with the flow of the story, it’s captivating.

Lucien is perhaps not the most fascinating character; he really seems to have no traits that distinguish him from many other fictional English schoolboys, but his role as a sort of Everyman cast into a strange situation fits. The cast, primarily Talians, surrounding him is wonderful. Arianna is strong-willed, independent, and intelligent; Rodolfo is enigmatic but warm; the Duchessa herself is rich and complex. Another favorite character of mine is Dr. William Dethridge; he speaks in a form of Shakespearean English, and it’s quite amusing to have to sound things out through his eccentric (and historically accurate, in that way where English spelling wasn’t standardized until much later) spelling. Lucien’s parents are quite sympathetic, too; they perhaps have the hardest lot in the story, with a dying son.

The tale didn’t go exactly where I expected. The characters make some hard choices, and there are on-screen deaths (more than one) of sympathetic characters. It’s actually, despite the somewhat hokey setup, a great story about leadership, choices, politics, and life. There are a few twists and turns that I didn’t even see coming. In short, Ms. Hoffman has set up an interesting world, with interesting characters and a surprisingly refreshing plot. Her research into the standard-universe Italy shows, although not irksomely so, and the details about mask-making, the lagoon, and lace were a welcome addition. I am very much looking forward to reading more books in this series. 4/5 stars.