Ever Wish You Were a Warlock?

 

Dylan Dover: Into the Vortex by Lynne Howard

Dylan was a typical bullied teenager until one day he falls into a vortex that takes him to a whole new world.  He not only finds out that he is a warlock but that he has siblings that he never knew about.  Now with the help of his newly found brother and a wizard friend they have to solve the mysteries that surround his and his siblings birth and the prophecy that might foretell the dangers to two worlds.

Dylan is an ordinary boy.  Or so he thinks.  Then one day he finds out he is extraordinary.  It is not the most original of story starting points.  But the idea of an immortal world on the other side of a vortex is new and interesting enough to give the concept a new spin.  Dylan is a likeable enough hero that you root for him right from the start even when he is still in the human world.  And I'm glad that both Dylan and his birth parents worry about Dylan's poor adoptive parents who just lost a child.  But I think everyone is just a little too accepting of this situation.  This son that they were told didn't survive birth shows up and the parents just accept 'I don't know what happened' as an answer from the doctor who delivered them.  Dylan and his brother just settle into family life together like everything isn't extremely odd.  But the bad guy is appropriately sinister and creepy, and his minions are interesting characters because you can't really figure out whose side they are on.  And the mystery of the prophecy and what it means and how it relates to Dylan is enough of a draw that it keeps you reading.  It is a fun story and it leaves you wondering what will happen next.

I got a free copy of this book from Librarything.com, Early Reviewers.

What Do You Do With a Wounded Gryphon?

How to Heal a Gryphon by Meg Cannistra

Giada comes from a long line of magical healers.  Healers of humans that is.  She wants to be a healer too, but of animals.  But that is forbidden.  She must decide if she will risk disappointing her family to follow her heart.  And when her brother disappears she must use all her skills and talents to find him.

This is a fun book.  Giada is feisty and rebellious and you hope she can convince her family to let her follow her heart.  At the same time she can act like a brat sometimes and you have to remember that she is 13 and still growing and learning.  I like that she is a flawed hero.  She is not always right and sometimes has to be reminded by her friends (who include an equally feisty cat familiar) that being stubborn and head strong is not always the answer.  One of the things that drew me to this book is the first place was the promise of mythical creatures.  I wish there were more of them here.  I liked the gryphons and that she 'talks' the the spider in her garden, but the animals were more often used by her as a means to an end instead of viewed as friends or something needing care.  But I found myself wanting to pick the book back up every time I had to put it down.  It drew me in.  There are a few elements I'm hoping get explored further in upcoming books but this is a complete story. There is no cliff hanger ending to make you read the next book.  But I don't need one.  I want to read more about these characters and the world they live in.

I got a free copy of this book from Bookish First.

Everything but the Kitchen Sink

Jurassic Parts by Byron Frimp and Maggio Slooter

Charlemagne Caine, a slacker and part time sleuth who seems to attract trouble, is going on a pre-wedding honeymoon with his fiancé, Fallon.  Along the way they run into mobsters, fossil thieves, serial killers, vigilantes, and maybe even Bigfoot himself.

I have to say, this really isn't my cup of tea.  There are four or five plots going on at the same time.  Some of the characters and places overlap but they never actually come together to form one story.  You have a vigilante running around and serial killers and a carnival town and plots and schemes and, and, and.  It was all too much for me.  It had some funny moments and wordplay and puns that I enjoyed.  I just wish the authors had picked one or two of these story lines instead of throwing them all at me at once.  We start with some stolen fossils and then we move on to so many other things that by the time we got back to the fossils I had forgotten about them.  And there are bits that I don't understand the point of.  At one point we are reading a whole radio broadcast.  The radio host does play a part in the story, but I didn't need to read four pages of his radio show.  And there is a van full of mystery solving teens with a dog who anyone can guess who they are supposed to be, but they had no impact on the story, they were just shoved in there.  I think Charlemagne and Fallon are interesting characters.  And I did enjoy the humor for the most part.  I think I would have liked a version of this that was about 300 pages shorter.  All the stuff going on should have kept the excitement up.  But there were so many plots and so many side trips, outside the plots, that seemed to go nowhere, that the whole book dragged for me.

I got a free copy of this book from Librarything.com, Early Reviewers.

The Friday 56

  Rules:

* Grab a book, any book.

* Go to page 56.  Or 56% on your ereader. 

* Find a snippet, short and sweet.

* Post it and add the url to your post at Freda's Voice

My book this week is Serpent by Michael Cole.  Some scientists think that the  cure for all sorts of diseases lies in the DNA of an ancient sea creature.  So they bring one back.  Of course he isn't friendly and of courses he escapes.  So far it is exactly what I expected it to be.  People getting eaten and someone trying to stop people from getting eaten.  If you like monster movies you will probably like this.

My Friday 56:

So far, there were no obvious signs of the creature.  In a way that was good, as some of those signs would include wreckage and death - something he was trying hard to prevent.

You would figure by now scientists would know better.  It never turns out well when you mess with nature.   

Eggplant Anyone?

Eggplant Alley by D. Cataneo

13 year old Nicky is growing up in an apartment complex called Eggplant Alley.  Eggplant Alley, and indeed Nicky whole life, is changing.  Nicky is having a hard time understanding who is is becoming in the new circumstances he finds himself in.

In Nicky's world there is a very clear line between us and them.  And he is determined to protect his own against all comers.  You can empathize with Nicky's desire to hang onto the things that he loves: his brother Roy, stickball, and what he thinks of as the good old days when everyone was happy.  And you can understand his tendency to rant and rave against the people he thinks are taking those things from him, even though you don't agree with him.  And it becomes impossible not to like Nicky.  And I found myself rooting for him as he tried everything he could to get a game of stickball going. Cataneo does a good job of making all the characters real people and making you feel the tension and the turmoil of the time without demonizing one side or the other.  I truly enjoyed following Nicky as he tried to find his way in a world that is rapidly changing around him and as he is forced to see things from new perspectives. learning along the way that the line between us and them is often not as clear as he thought.