Tag: Historical Fantasy

Review: “She Who Became the Sun” by Shelley Parker-Chan

~ Alex Brown ~ Leave a comment

Release Date: July 20, 2021
Series: The Radiant Emperor #1
Publisher: Tor Books
Genre: Historical Fantasy

Description

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.

After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother’s abandoned greatness.

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Review: “The Fourth Island” by Sarah Tolmie

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Release Date: October 20, 2020
Publisher: Tordotcom Publishing
Genre: Historical Fantasy

Description

Huddled in the sea off the coast of Ireland is a fourth Aran Island, a secret island peopled by the lost, findable only in moments of despair. Whether drowned at sea, trampled by the counter-reformation, or exiled for clinging to the dead, no outsiders reach the island without giving in to dark emotion.

Time and again, The Fourth Island weaves a hypnotic pattern with its prose, presaging doom before walking back through the sweet and sour moments of lives not yet lost. It beautifully melds the certainty of loss with the joys of living, drawing readers under like the tide.

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A Greater Gatsby: The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo

~ Alex Brown ~ Leave a comment

Release Date: June 1, 2021
Publisher: Tor.com Publishing
Genre: Historical Fantasy

Description

Immigrant. Socialite. Magician.

Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society—she has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer, Asian, adopted, and treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her.

But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.

Nghi Vo’s debut novel The Chosen and the Beautiful reinvents this classic of the American canon as a coming-of-age story full of magic, mystery, and glittering excess, and introduces a major new literary voice.

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YA Book Bundles – Romance

~ Alex Brown ~ Leave a comment

Libraries – especially public libraries – are gearing up for reopening or are rethinking what and how services might work in the future. One of those options we should be considering are book boxes or bundles. Many libraries are already offering them or, as in the case with my system, in development. With patron access to our buildings restricted or limited, now is the perfect time to implement or expand this service.

Since many libraries don’t have staff who specialize in teen services or aren’t able to carve out the time to design reader’s advisory lists, I figured I’d help my professional colleagues out. Each set of recommendations contain five YA books that are either already published as of summer 2020. Preference given to #ownvoices, marginalized authors and characters, and books teens are unlikely to read for school. Feel free to borrow or build on these sets.

Click here to see other bundles.

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YA Book Bundles – Historical

~ Alex Brown ~ 1 Comment

Libraries – especially public libraries – are gearing up for reopening or are rethinking what and how services might work in the future. One of those options we should be considering are book boxes or bundles. Many libraries are already offering them or, as in the case with my system, in development. With patron access to our buildings restricted or limited, now is the perfect time to implement or expand this service.

Since many libraries don’t have staff who specialize in teen services or aren’t able to carve out the time to design reader’s advisory lists, I figured I’d help my professional colleagues out. Each set of recommendations contain five YA books that are either already published as of summer 2020. Preference given to #ownvoices, marginalized authors and characters, and books teens are unlikely to read for school. Feel free to borrow or build on these sets.

Click here to see other bundles.

Continue reading “YA Book Bundles – Historical” →