All posts tagged magic

Remember Fawkes on the Fifth of November!

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

Fawkes coverRemember, remember, the fifth of November!  In 1605, Guy Fawkes tried to blow up parliament with a bunch of gunpowder located underneath the House of Lords.  When he was caught guarding the gunpowder, he ended up becoming associated with treason (and later fighting against the government) forever.  Fawkes is a story based on the Gunpowder Plot, with magic and a bit of romance thrown in.

The story starts with a great line: “I wasn’t ready to turn to stone.”  As a writer, I’ve started to pay attention to the first lines of books, and I love this one.

In the early 17th century, the England of Fawkes is troubled by a plague where people will turn to stone.  Thomas Fawkes has that plague.  His absentee father chooses not to give him his mask (your mask is the source of your color magic).  This effectively kicks him out of school, so he heads off to London to track down his father — and discovers that his father is in a plot to destroy parliament and install a new government.

In the world of Fawkes, the people are divided into two groups: Keepers, who will only listen to one type of color magic, and Igniters, who practice all kinds of color magic.  Both groups blame the other for the plague going on in the city.  It seems a lot like today, where there’s a lot of division (particularly in the United States); it seems like there are two main sides that want to blame the other.

Over the course of this story, Thomas Fawkes needs to figure out where he stands on the whole color magic situation.  It might even mean that he disagrees with his father.  He also reluctantly falls in love with Emma, who has a secret of her own (which I really like).

I agree with some of the other reviews on this book that it starts out slow.  I’m not sure what makes it seem that way.  Perhaps it’s because we’re still getting to know the characters at that point, and Thomas is still indecisive about the direction that he wants his life to head in.  Either way, the story really takes off towards the end.  It makes up for the slowness at the beginning.

There is a lot of actual history in this book, which the history buff in me loves.  Fawkes is a great story in itself though.  If you love both history and magic, I highly recommend it.  It might start slow in the beginning, but the book ends with a bang.  Not exactly literally.  The gunpowder plot was foiled, after all.  But it does end spectacularly.

Books with Dark Magic and/or Darkness

By Brookelorren on 22 Comments

Today’s Top Ten Tuesday Topic is a Halloween/Creepy Freebie (hosted, as usual, by That Artsy Reader Girl).  I’ve decided to write about books with dark magic and/or darkness in them.  I don’t celebrate Halloween, so I had to alter the topic a bit.

So a little bit about my Halloween story.  Back when I was in college, I went to Knott’s Scary Farm with my future husband, a couple of his friends, and his future fiancée (perhaps you notice that this is already getting weird).  So my husband had broken up with his future fiancée, then we went out for a while, and then he went out with her again.  And we were all at Knott’s Scary Farm together.  Needless to say, it didn’t really go all that well.  But I was at this Beetlejuice show, and this fake Beetlejuice character was telling jokes about death and I was just thinking “this really isn’t funny.  Death isn’t really funny.”  I’m sure that being there with my future husband and his then-girlfriend didn’t help anything, but I haven’t really been into Halloween since.

But I digress.  Back to our Top Ten List:

slasher girls and monster boys coverSlasher Girls and Monster Boys – This will probably be the closest thing that I get to a “Halloween” read this year.  It’s an anthology with several stories from various authors.  Like most anthologies, some stories are better than others.  It has a lot of stories where bad boys and girls get the justice that they deserve.  And there’s creepiness and in many of these stories, a little bit of magic.  If you’re looking for something to read tomorrow while you’re handing out candy, maybe this is your book.

Enchantée coverEnchantée ~ Gita Trelease – Enchantée is not a creepy book at all, but there is a creepy villain in this book that uses his magic for evil and not for good.  There has to be some force that works against the heroine of a story or it’s not a good book, right?

Give the Dark My Love CoverGive the Dark My Love ~ Beth Revis – In Give the Dark My Love, our main character is literally practicing necromancy.  If I was going to put “necromancy” under a dark magic or a light magic umbrella, it would definitely go under dark magic.

Frequency CoverFrequency ~ Christopher Krovatin – At first glance, Frequency seems to be a contemporary novel about high school students that are into music and use a few too many drugs.  This book has it’s own kind of magic in it: music.  Maybe you’ve gotten so into a song that you feel like the beat is controlling you (I know I have).  In this book, the magic of music takes that feeling a step farther and is actually controlling people.

Young Elites coverThe Young Elites ~ Marie Lu – Not everybody in The Young Elites is dark: just our main character, Adelina Amouteru.  Maybe she could have been a good person if life had treated her a little differently.  At any rate, the main character in this series does some pretty evil things and her powers granted from the gods are pretty magical.

An Ember in the Ashes CoverEmber in the Ashes ~ Sabaa Tahir – While the main characters in the Ember in the Ashes series are neither evil or magical, there is some evil magic afoot in this story.  And there are evil characters.  Plus, this series is pretty darned good.

Ever the Hunted CoverEver the Hunted ~ Erin Summerill – Ever the Hunted (and its sequel, Ever the Brave) is not one of those stories that feels creepy, but there is definitely some dark magic in this story.  Our main characters are amazingly sweet, but there are some mind-controllers out there, and they’re not so sweet.

Throne of Glass coverThrone of Glass ~ Sarah J. Maas – The Throne of Glass series has some pretty dark and creepy magic in it (although the first book doesn’t have a lot of magic in it).  Our main character is also a pretty wicked assassin.  I still have to read the last three books in the series (it’s really long) but it’s definitely worth reading.

Ace of Shades CoverAce of Shades ~ Amanda Foody – The setting of Ace of Shades is very much like Las Vegas with a little bit of magic.  It’s dark and gritty and dangerous.  Definitely not a place that you’d want to be wandering alone in after dark.

City of Bones CoverThe Mortal Instruments series ~ Cassandra Clare – This series has all the creepy crawlies in it: demons, werewolves, vampires, and the like.  Yet, I don’t really feel like these are creepy books at all.  Nevertheless, since I’m writing about books that contain dark magic or darkness in them, these books qualify.  And they are probably going to make my list of Top Ten Books I Read for the First Time in 2018 (I lump all books in series together) so they should make it to today’s list.

Well, that’s today’s Top Ten List.  Next week, I’ll list ten older books that I still want to read.

What books have you read that have dark magic or darkness in them?

An Ember in the Ashes Has that Spark

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

An Ember in the Ashes CoverAn Ember in the Ashes is the first book in Sabaa Tahir’s Ember in the Ashes tetralogy, and it is excellent.  If you haven’t read it yet, you want to add this to your TBR list.  Be warned, however, once you start reading this series, you’re going to want to get your hands on the next two books so you won’t have to wait for the next book.

I was originally planning on reviewing Marie Lu’s Legend series today, but since the third book in this series, A Reaper at the Gates, just came out, I will be reviewing the three books in this series over the next several days instead.  I plan on reviewing A Torch Against the Night on Saturday, and A Reaper at the Gates on Monday.  As I am writing this, I’m only 120 pages into the second book, but I already know that I’ll be spending most of my free time reading these books until the series is done.  It’s that good.

An Ember in the Ashes is set in a fictional world that is based on the ancient Roman Empire.  In the beginning of the story, it’s a normal world with stories of magical creatures, but as the story progresses, it turns out that these stories are real.  The story is told from the point of view of our two protagonists, Laia and Elias.

Laia is a lower (maybe lower-middle) class girl living under the oppressive Empire.  Elias is about to graduate from 14 years of grueling training that have turned him into an elite soldier.  After Laia’s life is turned upside down in one horrific night, she undergoes a quest to try to save her brother, voluntarily becoming a slave.  This is where she meets Elias, who is not like most of the other trained killers in his profession.  Elias doesn’t want to be a killer – he wants to be free to be something else.  Over the course of the book, they develop an unlikely relationship and realize that they both can help each other.

The book is well-done.  The characters are interesting, the plot is intricate but not confusing, and the world is well-built.  Before I was even halfway done with this book, I made plans on obtaining the next two books.  I didn’t go to bed until I had finished the book, and I’m sure that I will finish the second book tonight.

I couldn’t find anything that I didn’t like about this book.  It seems appropriate for most teens.  There is a lot of violence and some threatened sexual violence, but there is nothing explicit and there is no cursing (when the characters “curse” they say things like “ten hells” or expressions that we don’t consider to be obscene).

This book seems to have positive messages.  Don’t beat yourself up for protecting yourself.  As long as there’s life, there’s hope.  I liked that about this story.

If you like young adult stories with a little bit of magic, check out An Ember in the Ashes, and the followup books.  I’m loving it so far.

Other books in this series I have reviewed: