TURNING PAGES: SERIOUSLY WICKED, by TINA CONNOLLY

After being seriously blown away by Tina Connolly's alternate history as depicted in her Ironskin trilogy, I was a bit surprised to see this lighthearted-looking book in my mailbox. Stripey tights and a magic book? Huh. I shouldn't have been surprised that the author used lighter fare to still explore issues of self-discovery and choice. I picked the novel up during lunch, and finished it in just under a couple of hours. The protagonist in this novel is fifteen, which makes this a perfect novel for older junior high readers. Those who loved Justine Larbalestier's HOW TO DITCH YOUR FAIRY and enjoyed the SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES but who aren't quite yet old enough for Terry Pratchett's WINTERSMITH (though the previous Aching novels aren't quite as gritty) or Rachel Hawkins' HEX HALL will get a kick out of the lighter fare in this novel.

Summary: Camellia is pissed. The Witch is at it again, with another impossibly long list of stupid chores to do - and with a new and completely deranged plan to rule the city. I mean, seriously: they have a mayor, they don't need the Witch. But, if your name is as witchy as "Saramine Scarambouche, apparently magically-related chores are what you demand. Sadly, if your name is Cam - or your initials are CASH, which is an awful, terrible "joke" The Witch played on Camellia's real parents when she stole Camellia from them -- you're stuck mucking out dragon cages, walking and feeding werewolf pups, sourcing goats blood and pig's ears, and trying desperately to stop the witch from wreaking the seriously high-level havoc that's going to end with someone's soul being eaten and a phoenix exploding at the Halloween Dance. Camellia is definitively NOT a witch - Not. Even. Close. But, when the stakes get high enough, she's willing to crack a spell book. Because sometimes even ordinary mortal girls have to fight fire with fire.

Peaks: In two words: normalized inclusivity. Even among the seriously wicked, the world isn't all one culture, ethnicity or background, which is lovely and right.

Power struggles between adults and teens aren't written about creatively often enough in YA lit, especially power dynamics among females. Cam's detailed observations of people - her best friend, the girl she loathes, the high school choir teacher, herself and - and her "aunt," all provide a lot of amusement and food for thought. There are truths that are clear in the novel which don't come across as lessons; primarily that true friends always have your back, no matter how entirely bizarre things get; real affection is true to itself; and you can choose to be yourself, no matter who - or what - your parents are. Choice and identity are key in this novel, though with a somewhat frothy and fast-paced plot, readers will be amused and not necessarily realize they're taking in that message with everything else. They'll just rejoice that Cam comes to her own conclusions in the end.

Valleys: Though marketed as YA, this novel will appeal to 7th grade readers - so it might be disappointing to older readers. Some readers may find the "work" portion of the novel slows the pacing, while others may not notice it -- once I was interested in the characters, it was easy to keep going.

Conclusion: A complete departure from her earlier work, this novel may surprise Connolly fans, but it's a nice introduction to her for younger readers who will hopefully find her other books later. It's light and charming, and there's a pet dragon and a boy band. Yes. A boy band AND a dragon. You know you need to read it now.

Know any magic fans who live in Oregon? If you're in the Beaverton area, you can attend the book-launch for this very fun book at the Cedar Hill Crossing Powell's bookstore on May 5th. Wear your stripey socks and -- seriously, Tina Connolly is going to teach a spell... Be there, or be a solar panel salesperson, which has to be the worst punishment, ever.

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I received my copy of this book courtesy of Tor Teen publicity assistant Desirae Friesen. After 5th May, you can find SERIOUSLY WICKED by Tina Connolly at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

TURNING PAGES: SILVERBLIND, by TINA CONNOLLY

I absolutely adored Ironskin by Tina Connolly, found Copperhead a mite disturbing, with its inhabited faces and blindly privileged ladies, and wasn't sure where I'd stand with this last book in the trilogy, which, though a conclusions of sorts, actually stands on its own. (You will enjoy it more if you read the other two books first, as minor characters in this last novel have their stories fleshed out there, but it is NOT necessary.) I was pleasantly surprised by this trilogy conclusion, though I don't think this is "the end" of this world just yet. Because our first look at this world is in the wake of a terrible war, I'm fairly sure the author has a few war stories up her sleeve. But, for now, the tale is finished. And it's another story which is by turns familiar and strange - much like the fey themselves...

Summary:Adora "Dorie" Rochart, whom we first met as an eerie child in Ironskin, is now a young college graduate, struggling through the parallel 1930's British world of avant garde bohemian artists, sexism, and struggling social idealism, keeping her half-fey side under wraps. She's a starving idealist herself - got a degree in cryptozoology and letters of recommendation, but no one's hiring girls, not for field work, not while women can still be kept from certain pubs. It's still a brave new world, though, the new world they all fought for, right? The fey are gone, and it's safe to ignore and condescend to women again. In desperate straits - and well out of rent money - Dorie dips deeply into her fey and becomes Dorian, a rugged boy scientist. After finding a gig to hunt wyvern eggs for a notoriously awful man, Dorian is saved from the job by saving a hapless scientist in the field -- Tam Grimsby, her childhood friend, whom she betrayed so hideously so many years ago. A girl named Dorie is Tam's nemesis, but a guy called Dorian... can love Tam from afar, and work with him every day, with him never the wiser. Too bad about that icy cold Annika, though. These things never end well, and Dorian knows it, but ...

Soon, everyone's searching for wyvern eggs, risking life and limb in field work, but why? Finding out what the Queen's Lab wants with the wyvern eggs puts Dorie into a spin. It's already not right to be hunting wyvern and imbalancing the natural ecology, but for that!? Horrified and determined to undermine the Lab and change the fate of the fey, Dorie drags Tam into her plans - plans which could have them imprisoned, as the Crown steps in to arrest those social idealists who protest and publicly speak out against a tightening royal regime. Eyes are everywhere, and time is running out on Dorie's disguise, too. When a paralyzing choice - in more ways than one - stands before her, Dorie has no choice but to strip away what she is to keep who is important to her.

Peaks: People talk a great deal about "strong female characters," and though the cover model (with the very wrong hair - those are not ringlets!) wearing trousers is meant to evoke the gender-swapping which goes on in the novel, it's also an ironic twist on the facts of the novel: that it's about an unattainably beautiful girl -- beautified through fey magic, just as cover models are beautified via Photoshoppery. I appreciate so much that there are consequences to Dorie donning trousers - it's not an easy shift, it's not flawless and she doesn't have entirely all of the advantages of the male sex. She examines herself and her gender from the other side of the fence, and finds that there are benefits to being herself - this is a rare conclusion in novels where the woman dresses like a man; usually she's just found out and succumbs to the man and puts on pants again. Where's the fun in that? There were multiple strong women in this novel - Jack and Stella are amazing co-stars in this tour de force, as they make their way through whatever means they can into the adult world. They find ways to be true to themselves that work.

The tale of Tam Lim is the tale of a woman rescuing her true love from the queen of the fairies by holding onto him, no matter what form he took. The author hints at this symbolism with the climax of this story, as Dorie finally makes a major choice -- with her whole heart, she holds onto her humanity, and her beloved Tam, and lets all else go. The kind of choices we make when we don't know the outcome are the ones which say who we really are, and in the end, Dorie chose love over gifts.

The strengths of this series have been the subtle way in which the author uses fairytales and classic literature to reframe the conversation about sexism, women's rights, identity, and gender roles. Though there are matters of the heart in this novel, romance is the least important part of the plot -- forgiveness and friendship and owning who you really are come higher in the ranking, which is a pleasant surprise. Dorie's friends are bohemian and diverse - mixed with fey blood or dwarven in race; fully human and lesbian, ironskinned and surviving - and each is someone trusted and held dear. They all struggle in various ways against the "man's world" in which they find themselves, whether "the man" in this case is the increasingly intolerant government or actual men - and find that the best way to be free is to be true to themselves -- though, sometimes there are consequences young idealists haven't imagined.

Valleys: I found myself as taken by this book as I was the first in this series -- I preferred the "romance" here much more than the one in Copperhead, since Dorian's choices mean that the reader doesn't lose a strong woman. Though it might begin slowly for some readers and become a little plot-heavy, while for others who have read the entire trilogy, the timeline jump from the early 1900's all the way to the 1930's might be hard to swallow, there are no real valleys here.

Conclusion: A thought-provoking final novel in the Ironskin trilogy where it's not always the boys who have all the fun, this novel is a good read for a warm early autumn afternoon.

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I received my copy of this book courtesy of Tor. After October 7th, you can find SILVERBLIND by Tina Connolly at an online e-tailer, or at a real life, independent bookstore near you!

TURNING PAGES: IRONSKIN, by Tina Connolly

Oh, my GOODNESS, I got sick of Jane. Post-grad school, I packed away anything with a hint of Eyre in its affairs, and turned my back. As an English major and an English and creative writing MFA'er, I'd had SIX years of that woman and her mad attic-dwelling predecessor, and I was OVER HER. DONE. Finito.

Okay, yeah, some of my favorite books had hints of Eyre, and when, a few years ago, there was a big move to recover classic novels, I almost thought, "Yeah, I could almost read that again.

But, no.

And then, last winter, I found myself reading JENNA STARBORN, by Sharon Shinn, and realized I was, yet again, reading JANE EYRE. It was too late to put down by then. It was equally too late by the time I was nearly through IRONSKIN...

Reader Gut Reaction: Well, it didn't FEEL like another Jane book. This girl was HEARTY - no puling orphan types here. Though scarred and orphaned after The Great War, she shouldered her burden - or burdens, plural, and screwed her courage to the sticking point, and every other English-language cliché you can come up with, and she did what she had to do. She went where people might think her odd and deformed, and asked to have a job -- in order to help one who might be more deformed than she herself. Jane didn't get stupid or vain or confused until three quarters of the way through, when there were simply too many choices with potentially bad outcomes. And the outcomes were REALLY bad... sometimes you have to stay OUT of the woods, to keep away from the fey. And other times, you have to go IN to the woods, to save your soul...

Concerning Character: I mentioned no puling, yes? (How I love that word.) Jane is a survivor. She lost her father. She lost her brother. She lost her beauty -- and she knows she is never going to get back her innocence, either. Jane's sister, Helen, plays at innocence in a way both disingenuous and exhausting. Jane's charge, Dorrie, has never had innocence, in spite of her few years on earth. Despite the machinations around her, Jane remains untouched ... even her breathless adoration for her employer is tempered for a very long time with good sense, and, predictably, rage. The rage both defines and defeats her time after time after time... until she accepts it.

She's wry, self-observant, stubborn, scared, and very, very angry. Her name is Jane Eliot, and what you see is what you get. That's kind of what I like about her.

Recommended for Fans Of...: JENNA STARBORN, by Sharon Shinn, THE PECULIARS, by Maureen Doyle McQuerry, JANE_E, FRIENDLESS ORPHAN by Erin McCole-Cupp; JANE, by April Lindner, JANE AIRHEAD, by Kay Woodward, and WIDE SARGASSO SEA, by Jean Rhys

Themes & Things: Revealing no spoilers, I will say that one of the themes of this book is inner and outer worlds, revelations and secrets. Going masked and veiled, Jane attempts to contain herself before the outer world - keeping herself and her emotions under wraps, as it were. The necessity of this -- when so many other people in society are unwrapped, uncontained, and uncensored -- especially Mr. Rochart's clients -- creates a good foil for some other issues. Despite the evidence of her curse from the scars of the Fey Wars, Mr. Rochart wants Jane unveiled -- eventually, this theme of revelation and openness twines together with Jane's eventual discoveries and decisions about her past in the war, and the truth of Mr. Rochart's art and skill. There are even truths - and secrets - revealed about the fey... which change EVERYTHING. (And, which will mean a sequel.)

Cover Chatter: Let's see, let's see, we've got the requisite Gothic pile of stone, check; dark, stabby looking branches, like the bony eldritch fingers of the fey, check; evocative atmospheric mists, check; one iron mask, check, one... sleeveless dress and pair of strappy heels that simply everyone wears in England at night outdoors in the wet? Er... fail, on that one. That girl needs to cover up, it's cold! In all seriousness, except for the fact that she looks like she's vamping, and our Jane is a bastion of humility, self-consciousness and resentful modesty, the cover does go with the story fairly well.

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FTC: This ARC e-galley courtesy of NetGalley and Tor; the unsolicited review opinions are my own.

You can find IRONSKIN by Tina Connolly everywhere, including at an independent bookstore near you!

"Hasn't _ Been Nominated YET?" A Cybils Post

Greetings, Cybils SpecFic Fans,

Throughout the blogging year, I run across books, hear about books, and see catalogue titles roll by that I think, "Hm, I'll see that again during the Cybils." I'm always surprised when what I read doesn't end up on the list. What, I think to myself, have I been reading all year? Clearly, SpecFic is a deep, wide, and vast category, in which there are lots and lots and lots and lots and lots and LOTS of books. Of all the genre categories under the umbrella of YA lit, science fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction are some of the most prolific goers.

I am not as organized and awesome as Charlotte, with her dual list of MG Speculative Fiction books yet to be nominated, but I sat down and tried to think just off the cuff of all the fab books published within the last year which I *expected* to see on the Cybils list. The ones from the Big 6 Publishers, the ones that had a lot of PR money and a lot of buzz behind them, the special indies I'd noted....

And, then I ran my list through the fancy-shiny new Cybils database (it ROCKS, Sheila. Seriously.) and wondered at how few of them were represented on Already Nominated list. Maybe I have some dates wrong - granted, it's a full-time and annoying job to make sure that all nominations fall within the right dates - but there are only eighty books nominated as of today (I'm typing this Monday afternoon), and I find myself a little surprised. Either the speculative fiction category this year has too many fab books from which to choose, or there's been a lot of buzz, and not a lot of belief from the reading public.

What say you?

(Last update 10/15.

Books already nominated show up in BOLD.

The Holders, Julianna Scott, Angry Robot
Zenn Scarlett, Christian Schoon
Etiquette & Espionage, by Gail Carriger
Pantomime, Laura Lam
Battlemagic, Tamora Pierce
The Woken Gods, Gwenda Bond
Killer of Enemies, Joseph Bruchac
The Clockwork Scarab, Colleen Gleason
Princess of the Silver Woods, Jessica Day George
Carrie Jones, ENDURE
Orleans, Sherri L. Smith
Ink, Amanda Sun
The Girl with the Iron Touch, Kady Cross
Scorched, Mari Mancusi
Weather Witch, Shannon Delaney
When We Wake, Karen Healey
The Different Girl, Gordon Dahlquist
A.G. Gaughen, Scarlet
Relativity, by Cristin Bishara - fell beyond date
Hero, Alethea Kontis
Texting the Underworld, Ellen Booraem - Middle Grade!
Inhuman, Kat Falls
Frozen, Melissa de la Cruz
Allegiant, by Vernoica Roth - release date falls after cutoff
Ghost Hand, Ripley Patton
Ironskin, Tina Connolly
Far, Far Away, Tom McNeal
Clockwork Princess, Cassandra Clare
The Shade of the Moon, Susan Beth Pfeffer
Requiem, Lauren Oliver
Inheritance, Malinda Lo
The Lord of Opium, Nancy Farmer
UNTOLD, Sarah Rees Brennan
Prodigy, Marie Lu
Shadowborn, Moira Katson - MG!
Blythewood, Carol Goodman
STUNG, Bethany Wiggins
The Beautiful and the Damned, Jessica Verday
The Elite, Ciera Cass
SHADES OF EARTH, Beth Revis
Scarlet, Marissa Meyer
Siege & Storm, Leigh Bardugo
Dark Triumph, R.L. LaFevers
THE DREAM THIEVES, M. Stiefvater
The Bitter Kingdom, Rae Carson
Antigoddess, Kendare Blake
Horde, Ann Aguire
Crown of Midnight, Sarah J. Mass
Underneath, Sarah J. Stevenson
Invisibility, by Andrea Cremer
Paper Valentine, Brenna Yoanoff YA Genre Fic
The Summer Prince, Alayna Dawn Johnson
School Spirits, Rachel Hawkins
The Color of Rain, Cor McCarthy
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, Holly Black
The Runaway King, Jennifer A. Nielsen - MG
The Nightmare Affair, Mindee Arnett
Mila 2.0, by Debra Driza
Prophesy, Ellen Oh
Not A Drop to Drink, Mindy McGinnis
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, April Tucholke
Poison, Bridget Zinn

Edited to Add, from Sheila
Fire & Ash by Jonathan Maberry,
The Final Descent (Monstrumologist) by Rick Yancey
SYLO by D.J. MacHale.

This is not to say that there isn't a NICE grab bag of books already nominated. Especially if you're an Indie Author, check it out. It's okay to nominate yourself or a friend if the book falls between the right dates, and is in the right genre. As for the rest of us, who tend to wait until the last possible moment... I hope this list provides some help and direction? Some memory nudges? SEVEN DAYS until nominations close!