Ice by Sarah Beth Durst Cassie doesn’t believe in fairy tales. Sure, Gram used to tell her that bedtime story about how Cassie’s mother was stolen away by the North Wind and imprisoned by trolls. But Cassie, who lives with her scientist father at a research station in the Arctic, has every intention of following […]
Read MoreKelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Sarah Beth Durst | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | | 2 comments |
Enchanted Ivy by Sara Beth Durst One problem I often have with contemporary fantasy is its tendency to ignore the magic of the world around us in its longing for something Other. Enchanted Ivy avoids this problem by striking a nice balance. There’s certainly a great deal of otherworldly magic, as evidenced by the dragons […]
Read MoreBeth Johnson Sonderby (guest)´s rating: 4.5 | Sarah Beth Durst | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | | 5 comments |
Drink, Slay, Love by Sarah Beth Durst Drink, Slay, Love is a good example of what young adult urban fantasy can be. It’s funny, it’s light, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and most importantly, there is actually more to the story than just how handsome everyone is. Sarah Beth Durst strikes a good balance […]
Read MoreJohn Hulet´s rating: 3.5 | Sarah Beth Durst | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | | 3 comments |
Vessel by Sarah Beth Durst Once every hundred years, the desert clans’ gods come to walk among them. One young man or woman from each clan is chosen to serve as the vessel for that clan’s deity. The human soul dies and returns to the Dreaming, while the god takes over the body. Now incarnate in […]
Read MoreKelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Sarah Beth Durst | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | | 1 comment |
Conjured by Sarah Beth Durst I want to live in Sarah Beth Durst’s brain. Every time I turn around, she has a new book out, and it’s completely different from the last one. Her imagination is seemingly boundless. Another thing I appreciate about her books is that they stand alone. Don’t get me wrong, I […]
Read MoreKelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Sarah Beth Durst | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | | 1 comment |
The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst You never know what Sarah Beth Durst is going to do next. Fairy tales mixed with science? Vampires and unicorns? Gods taking over human bodies? Creepy carnivals? She’s done all of that and more, and with The Lost, Durst begins another story that, just like her previous novels, is […]
Read MoreKelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Sarah Beth Durst | SFF Reviews | | 3 comments |
The Girl Who Could Not Dream by Sarah Beth Durst Monsters, glittery flying ponies, ninja bunnies and other fantastical creatures inhabit the pages of The Girl Who Could Not Dream, Sarah Beth Durst’s enchanting new middle grade fantasy adventure novel. Sophie’s parents own a secretive dream shop, where you can buy bottled dreams or ― […]
Read MoreTadiana Jones´s rating: 5 | Sarah Beth Durst | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | | 8 comments |
The Queen of Blood by Sarah Beth Durst The Queen of Blood (2016) is the first book in an epic fantasy series by Sarah Beth Durst, THE QUEENS OF RENTHIA. Durst seems to be able to write whatever she sets her mind to: YA, urban fantasy, or dark fairy tales. The Queen of Blood is a […]
Read MoreMarion Deeds, Tadiana Jones and Jana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Sarah Beth Durst | SFF Reviews | | 6 comments |
The Reluctant Queen by Sarah Beth Durst The Reluctant Queen (2017), the second in Sarah Beth Durst’s QUEENS OF RENTHIA trilogy, follows quite closely on the heels of The Queen of Blood and reveals the consequences of Daleina’s unexpected rise to power as the Queen of Aratay. This series is meant to be read in […]
Read MoreJana Nyman and Tadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Sarah Beth Durst | SFF Reviews | | 2 comments |
The Queen of Sorrow by Sarah Beth Durst The Queen of Sorrow (2018) is the third volume in Sarah Beth Durst’s THE QUEENS OF RENTHIA series, appearing to conclude the storylines of Queens Daleina, Naelin, and Merecot which began in The Queen of Blood and were explored further The Reluctant Queen. Renthia is a world […]
Read MoreJana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Sarah Beth Durst | SFF Reviews | | 9 comments |
The Deepest Blue by Sarah Beth Durst Readers who have been anxiously awaiting more tales set within the lands of Renthia (and I am loudly, proudly one of them) are sure to be pleased by The Deepest Blue (2019), the latest from Sarah Beth Durst, which is billed as a stand-alone TALES OF RENTHIA novel […]
Read MoreJana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Sarah Beth Durst | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
Journey Across the Hidden Islands by Sarah Beth Durst Seika and Ji-Lin are the twelve year old princesses of the Hidden Islands, a group of a hundred islands cut off from the rest of the world by a magical barrier created by an ancient volcano dragon. Seika is the heir to the throne, while Ji-Lin […]
Read MoreTadiana Jones´s rating: 4 | Sarah Beth Durst | Children | SFF Reviews | | 2 comments |
The Stone Girl’s Story by Sarah Beth Durst High up in the mountains, in a marble house, live a stone girl and her animal friends, who are also carved from stone. In this world, magical symbols and marks carved into stone make the stone come alive, giving it the power to move above, see, speak […]
Read MoreTadiana Jones´s rating: 4.5 | Sarah Beth Durst | Children | SFF Reviews | | 3 comments |
Fire & Heist by Sarah Beth Durst I’d only previously read Sarah Beth Durst’s QUEENS OF RENTHIA series, so I was excited to have the chance to read Fire & Heist (2018), her latest YA novel. I never know whether an author whose adult work is enjoyable will write well for a young adult audience […]
Read MoreJana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Sarah Beth Durst | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | | 2 comments |
Catalyst by Sarah Beth Durst Just before her twelfth birthday, Zoe finds an impossibly small, breathtakingly cute kitten hiding behind her parents’ garage. Having been forbidden from bringing home any more animal rescues — and there have been many — the obvious course of action is for Zoe to sneak the kitten into her bedroom, […]
Read MoreJana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Sarah Beth Durst | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | | 4 comments |
Reposting to include Jana’s new review. The Bone Maker by Sarah Beth Durst There’s a point almost exactly halfway through Sarah Beth Durst’s latest novel, The Bone Maker (2021), where the author teases us that the book we’ve been reading just might go in a completely different direction, prompting me to write in my notes, […]
Read MoreBill Capossere and Jana Nyman´s rating: 3, 4 | Sarah Beth Durst | Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | | 1 comment |
Even and Odd by Sarah Beth Durst Even and Odd are pre-teen sisters living in Stony Haven, Connecticut, where their parents operate a border shop carrying “supplies for the mundane world, as well as imports from the magic world — anything a magical customer might need for their visit here.” Those imports and magically-inclined customers […]
Read MoreJana Nyman´s rating: 4.5 | Sarah Beth Durst | Children, Stand-Alone | SFF Reviews | | no comments |
The 48th Annual Nebula Awards weekend was held by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America at the San Jose Convention Center in northern California from May 17 through 19, 2013. Terry Weyna and I, who both live in Northern California and both are aspiring writers, decided to see what a bunch of published […]
Read MoreMarion Deeds | Aliette De-Bodard, Connie Willis, E.C. Myers, Gene Wolfe, Joe Haldeman, John Scalzi, Ken Liu, Kim Stanley Robinson, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Rachel Swirsky, Robert Silverberg, Saladin Ahmed, Sarah Beth Durst, Steven Gould, Terry Bisson, William C. Dietz | Nebula Award | Convention | | 4 comments |
We’ve got Sarah Beth Durst with us today, author of several books we love. I’m currently enjoying her new book, Conjured, which will be released next week. Sarah’s got a fundamentally important question for you. So here’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately… Why do people read? I have my big-picture generic answer, of […]
Read More Fantasy Literature welcomes back Sarah Beth Durst, whose new novel, The Lost, is out this week. I’m currently reading The Lost and really enjoying it — it’s eerie, and filled with mysteries. In the spirit of The Lost, Sarah has a question for you. One commenter (U.S. address) will win a signed copy of The […]
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Welcome to another Expanded Universe column where I feature essays from authors and editors of fiction, poetry, and non-fiction, as well as from established readers and reviewers. My guest today is Sarah Beth Durst. Durst is the author of nine fantasy novels for children, teens, and adults, including (click link to read our reviews) Conjured, Vessel, and Ice. Her new middle-grade […]
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