Princess Alethea’s Magical Elixir

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 I must have enjoyed it, anyway. I certainly loved the main character’s job: Anya Kalincyzk a rare type of medium called a “Lantern”. Not only does she see dead people, but she kind of eats them too. Not a bad thing, certainly, but it’s not exactly win-win either, an intriguing dilemma for the reader… (Read more)

 

Title: WWW:Watch (audiobook)
Author: Robert J. Sawyer
Narrated by: Jessica Almasy, Marc Vietor, Oliver Wyman, Jennifer Van Dyck, Robert J. Sawyer

In my capacity as reviewer, it’s incredibly difficult when I come across an absolutely brilliant piece of literary work, because I feel compelled to rise to the challenge and pen a thorough review as complex and elegant as this work that took months — sometimes years — of an author’s life. Seriously, I actually stress out about this. Granted, I’m lucky if a book of this caliber comes across my desk once or twice a year, so I don’t need a therapist’s couch or anything. I’m just going to go ahead and say this: Robert J. Sawyer’s WWW: Watch is a masterpiece. Read it. But for an even better experience, listen to the audiobook… (Read more)

 

Title: The Perilous Prophecy of Guard and Goddess
Author: Leanna Renee Hieber
EAN: 9781428511163

I enjoyed Leanna Renee Hieber’s first two books in this series: The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker and The Darkly Luminous Fight for Persephone Parker. As a third book, Perilous Prophecy is unique in that it is technically a prequel for the series. It more closely covers the original love story of Persephone and her Phoenix, the destruction of her lover and the terrible plight set for the goddess by Darkness himself, and the initial creation of Persephone’s precious Guard.

“Five Muses ran toward [the phoenix feather]. Four ran away.” As eloquently simple as that, the Guard was formed to aid the Goddess against Darkness and fight for good, as outlined by The Grand Work. Of course, since The Grand Work is tantamount to ghostbusting, it’s a pretty sweet job to get . . . one would think… (Read more)