Thursdays with the Crown by Jessica Day George
Thursdays with the Crown is the delightful concluding half of a two-part story begun in Wednesdays in the Tower, which is necessary to read first. Hence, this review will necessarily contain some spoilers for Wednesdays.
In this third installment in Jessica Day George’s middle grade CASTLE GLOWER series, Princess Celie, her brother Rolf, sister Lilah, and friends Pogue and Prince Lulath,
April 20th, 2016. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Jessica Day George | Children | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Here are a few of the short stories we read this week, all of which are free to read online.
“The Summer People” by Kelly Link (February 2015, free online at Wall Street Journal, also included in her anthology Get in Trouble)
“The Summer People” is the first story in Kelly Link’s new story collection Get in Trouble. Fran is a teenager living in a rural part of the American southeast. Her mother is gone,
April 18th, 2016. Marion Deeds, Katie Burton and Tadiana Jones | Elizabeth Hand, Kelly Link, Marie Brennan, Melissa Marr, T. Kingfisher | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
Wednesdays in the Tower by Jessica Day George
The adventures of Princess Celie, who lives in a magical castle where rooms appear, shift around and disappear again, continue in Wednesdays in the Tower, Jessica Day George’s lively sequel to Tuesdays at the Castle. Normally Castle Glower only moves its rooms around on Tuesdays, but one Wednesday Celie, heading up the stairs to go to the schoolroom for lessons, finds herself in a passageway leading to a tower room she has never seen before.
April 18th, 2016. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Jessica Day George | Children | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
There is so much free or inexpensive short fiction available on the internet these days. Here are a few stories we read this week that we wanted you to know about.
“The Cage” by A.M. Dellamonica (2010, free online at Tor.com or purchase Kindle version)
“The Cage,” a stand-alone short story by A.M. Dellamonica, was published a few years ago on Tor.com; I read it a while ago, re-read it recently, and am happy to report that it was just as enjoyable the second time around.
April 11th, 2016. Jana Nyman, Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper | A.M. Dellamonica, Carolyn Ives Gilman, Carrie Vaughn, Kameron Hurley | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Shifting Shadows by Patricia Briggs
Shifting Shadows is a collection of urban fantasy stories from Patricia Briggs’s MERCY THOMPSON universe, along with a couple of outtakes or brief scenes from recent novels in the series. Several different characters, who will already be familiar to readers of this series as secondary and minor characters, are given the protagonist role in these short stories, along with at least one new character that I believe is completely new to the series, Elyna in “Gray.” Like the novels in these series,
April 1st, 2016. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Patricia Briggs | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Jennifer L. Armentrout’s Obsidian is one of a slew of young adult paranormal romances that were published in the aftermath of the runaway success of Twilight. The plot, therefore, will sound familiar, though some of the details are different: a teenage girl, Katy Swartz, moves to a small town in West Virginia with her widowed mother to make a new start. Katy is a 4.0 GPA student and book review blogger who’s never caused her family trouble and considers herself a reserved and practical girl.
March 30th, 2016. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 1.5 | Jennifer L Armentrout | SFF Reviews | 9 comments |
Here are some of the short fiction works we read this week that we wanted to share with you.
“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe (1843, free online at Poe Stories, Kindle version)
I recently stumbled upon PoeStories.com and am pleased with the find. A Poe a day may well keep boredom at bay. The website helpfully gives descriptions of each story. I chose this one for the enticing simplicity of the summary: “a horror story about a cat”.
This is indeed a horror story about a cat,
March 21st, 2016. Katie Burton, Tadiana Jones and Kat Hooper | George MacDonald | Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 5 comments |
Silver in the Blood by Jessica Day George
In 1897, seventeen year old, Louisa (Lou) and Dacia, cousins, close friends, and high society debutantes, are excitedly traveling from New York City to Bucharest, Romania for an extended stay with their Florescu family relatives, on their mothers’ sides. Dacia is traveling with her mother’s sister, Aunt Kate, while Lou is traveling along a separate route to Romania with both of her parents.
But their eagerly anticipated trip starts to go wrong. Dacia made the mistake of flirting too much with a young man in London,
March 18th, 2016. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3.5 | Jessica Day George | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Here are some of the stories we read this week that we wanted you to know about, most of which are free to read online. This week we continue focusing on 2015 Nebula-nominated short fiction, along with some other stories that caught our attention.
“Everybody Loves Charles” by Bao Shu, trans. Ken Liu (2016, free at Clarkesworld magazine; Kindle magazine issue).
I listened to this novella in the car on the way to WriteFest in Houston,
March 14th, 2016. Kate Lechler, Tadiana Jones, Kat Hooper and Jana Nyman | R.A. Salvatore, Ray Bradbury, Sarah Pinsker | Nebula Award, Short Fiction | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
Jeweled Fire is the third book in Sharon Shinn’s ELEMENTAL BLESSINGS fantasy series, each one of which focuses on a different young woman. Corene, a secondary character in the previous books, is a strong-willed and fiery young woman (purely sweela, or fire, for those readers who recall the elemental influences that are presumed to govern personalities in Welce), one of four princesses of Welce who were in contention for the throne. Due to events that occurred in the second book,
March 11th, 2016. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Sharon Shinn | SFF Reviews | 3 comments |
Do it! One of the best things I've read in recent years.
This reminds me. I want to read Addie LaRue.
We’re in total agreement David!
I felt just the same. The prose and character work was excellent. The larger story was unsatisfying, especially compared to…
Hmmm. I think I'll pass.