AletheaKontis.com

Also on my to-do list: New Princess Alethea reviews are up over at IGMS! (It *says* October, but they really mean November.)   Title: The False Princess Author: Eilis O’Neal EAN: 9781606840795 As a Princess, I am always drawn to books with the word “Princess” in the title. I’m usually disappointed when I read the [...]

New reviews are up at Intergalactic Medicine Show! (Actually, they’ve been up for a while, but every time I’ve tried to post about it, my site has been down. We’ve moved to a new server now, so all should be well.) Title: Enclave Author: Ann Aguirre EAN: 9780312650087 When a publisher puts a Publisher’s Weekly [...]

Reviews of a different sort — from the movie that became my second credit on IMDB. (Not only is my name in the opening credits of Blood Oath…it’s even SPELLED CORRECTLY!) Before you read any–or all–of these, just keep one thing in mind: we didn’t set out to produce Shakespeare. We were a bunch of [...]

I tell people I don’t read reviews. That’s not *totally* true. It is true that I don’t hunt them down–usually my editor will send me the important ones. I have Google Alerts out for things like “Alethea Kontis” and “AlphaOops” in case someone invokes my name and it’s appropriate for me to share a little [...]

My new Intergalactic Medicine Show reviews are up! Title: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Author: Ransom Riggs EAN: 1594744769 “I slammed out of the Priest Hole and started walking, heading nowhere in particular. Sometimes you just need to go through a door.” -Jacob Portman I almost feel bad writing a review of Miss Peregrine’s [...]

I finished Maureen Johnson’s The Last Little Blue Envelope this morning at the bookstore. The premise of the book is this: Virginia (the main character) spent all last summer hopping around Europe (starting in England), following the instructions in thirteen little blue envelopes her artistic Aunt Peg left her before she died of cancer. Only [...]

New reviews are up at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! Title: Rejiggering the Thingamajig Author: Eric James Stone EAN: 0979534992 I absolutely loved reading this book. For me, Rejiggering the Thingamajig wasn’t just a collection of brilliant stories by an author so funny and clever it makes me angry sometimes, it was a trip [...]

New reviews are up at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! Title: Sparks Author: Laura Bickle EAN: 9781439167687 It’s funny . . . I read this book a few weeks ago, and I’m still not quite sure whether or not I liked it. I finished it, which is certainly something for the plus column these days. So [...]

New reviews are up at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! Title: Fuzzy Nation Author: John Scalzi EAN: 9780765328540 Admit it: it’s a strange title. I figured it was about animals (a lot of animals), or a bunch of fetishists, or a country of very hirsute folk. Regardless of the title, I am a pretty [...]

New reviews are up at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! Title: The Desert of Souls Author: Howard Andrew Jones EAN: 9780312646745 I loved this book. This could possibly be the shortest review I ever write, because I don’t know how to say it any other way: I loved this book. I wish it had [...]

New reviews are up at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactc Medicine Show! Title: The Winds of Khalakovo Author: Bradley P. Beaulieu EAN: 978-1-59780-218-5 If your reading habits are anything like mine, difficult pronunciation in a book can be a real turn off. If I scan down a book’s jacket and find that the main characters’ names [...]

My new reviews are up at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! Title: Pegasus Author: Robin McKinley EAN: 9780399246777 Ask me who my favorite authors are and — hard pressed as I am to narrow it down to less than twenty — Robin McKinley is always at the top of the list. She has remained [...]

New reviews are up at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! Title: In Dreams Begin Author: Skyler White EAN: 9780425236956 Three things instantly struck me when I started Skyler White’s In Dreams Begin. The first was the gorgeous fluidity of the prose. Skyler has obviously studied poets and is also one herself; she writes in [...]

New reviews are up in my column at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! Title: Warrior Wisewoman 3 Editor: Roby James EAN: 9781607620617 I’ll admit, when I first received this book and looked at the title, I was slightly concerned that I was getting into part three of a Conan-style fantasy that I hadn’t dived [...]

I had some of the most fun I’d had in a long time last night. It was a veritable MST3K SharktopusCon on Twitter. Up-to-the-minute popcorn passing up and down the Eastern seaboard as we all tried to outdo each other’s cleverness and summarily died in fits of giggles. My favorite part might have been when [...]

New reviews are up! Title: The Immortals Author: J.T. Ellison EAN: 9780778327639 The cool thing about J.T Ellison is not that her Taylor Jackson novels could easily be converted into CSI: Nashville (and more well done, at that), it’s that she’s lived in a lot of the same places I’ve lived, so her novels always [...]

New reviews! Author C. C. Finlay and I were Tweeting the other day about Jane Austen — he had just read Pride & Prejudice for the first time and was essentially wondering how he’d lived his whole life thus far without it. Like any Austenite worth her salt, I then advised him to seek out [...]

In the last run to the comics shop, I caught up with The Guild (they’re up to issue 3, guilty pleasure) and the run of IDW’s graphic novelization of Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn. You’d think I probably had enough The Last Unicorn stuff (I’d probably own more merchandise if Hot Topic licensed it), [...]

Prime time Monday night, I’m hanging out with one of my fairy goddaughters. We’re watching reruns of Bones, and she’s messing around on the laptop. Out of the blue, she says, “Can you change it to ABC Family?” This news was surprising, as we’re normally one of those close-knit “What do you want to watch?” [...]

If you’re new to an area, one of the first things you discover is the local dining scene (sometimes not by choice, if you don’t happen to have things like groceries or pots and pans yet). I’m still shiny to this Northern Virginia/DC area, and I’ve been both exploring the area and asking for ideas [...]

New reviews! Title: Swords & Dark Magic: The New Swords & Sorcery Editors: Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan EAN: 9780061723810 Ah, Summertime. The time for cookouts and beach balls and lemonade. For bibliophiles, it’s the time of mass-market paperbacks and anthologies. Why lug Umbert Eco into your hammock when you could have a relaxing love [...]

Iron Man was fun, albeit a little long. Go see it. You’ll enjoy it. I only had two peeves: 1.) Dear Gwyneth — if you really didn’t want to be in the movie, you shouldn’t have. It was painfully obvious you weren’t a team player. As one performer to another: when you’re not having fun, [...]

New reviews! Title: The Iron King Author: Julie Kagawa EAN: 978-0373210084 Julie Kagawa is one seriously fantastic panel moderator. The first time I did that, I was voted moderator by default since I was the last one to show up to the panel (and the other guests were EVIL). Julie’s first time was also at [...]

Princess Alethea’s new reviews are now up at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! This month I discuss: Title: The Girl Who Chased the Moon Author: Sarah Addison Allen EAN: 9780553807219 I fell in love with Sarah Addison Allen over a crotchety old woman and an apple tree. The woman was named Evanelle, and if [...]

Title: The Man Who Took the Indoors Out Author: Arnold Lobel Pub Date: 1974 Status: Out of Print Number nine on the list of My 21 Most Influential Books, The Man Who Took the Indoors Out is incredibly difficult to find, and is not even listed on Caldecott Medal winner Arnold Lobel’s Wikipedia page. This [...]

(Books on the Bed: Novels and stories I read as a child that still remain in my collection. Recommended reading for all ages. If you can find them.) The first box I packed during my half-move from Tennessee was for my friend Ariell. She was the first person on Awesome Porch who I ever saw [...]

Princess Alethea’s new book reviews are now up at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. This month I discuss: Title: Quatrain Author: Sharon Shinn EAN: 9780441017584 My friend Gayle held this book tight to her chest on the day she gave it to me. “I know you really like Sharon Shinn,” she said, “but I [...]

The new Princess Alethea’s Magical Elixir reviews are up over at Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show! This month I discuss: Title: Rogue Angel: Destiny (audiobook) Author: Alex Archer Publisher: GraphicAudio EAN: 9781599502052 Title: Bad Moon Rising Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon Publisher: St. Martin’s Press EAN: 9780312369491 Title: Ophelia Joins the Group Maidens Who Don’t Float: [...]

I was thinking about it the other day — I can’t actually remember a time when I didn’t know how to read. I knew the alphabet at eighteen months. At three, I was reading the TV Guide. Mom got me into Kindergarten at four, where a teacher’s assistant told my father, “Alethea can spell words [...]