book reviews

Book Review: Spice Box

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Spice Box by Grace Livingston Hill

Spice Box
by Grace Livingston Hill

4 out of 5 stars

Janice runs away from her evil alcoholic brother-in-law and ends up stranded in the middle of a snowstorm. Dr. Sterling finds her half-dead in a snowdrift, and takes her back to his hospital and nurses her back to health. She is terrified that her brother-in-law will find her, so she stays at the hospital to train as a nurse under a false name.
In another city, Martha Spicer has just received a large inheritance that has made her financially independent, but she is lonely in her big new house until she befriends a mischievous neighbor boy who encourages her to help those less fortunate.

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Book Review: Faster than a Jet, Bigger than a Whale

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Faster than a Jet, Bigger than a Whale by Andrea Minoglio

Faster than a Jet, Bigger than a Whale: An Illustrated Guide to Measuring Our World
by Andrea Minoglio

Have you ever wondered how high the tallest mountain in the world is… if you measure from the seabed instead of from sea level? It’s not Mount Everest! In this book we learn about the highest, the fastest, the biggest, and the smallest things in our world. How far can animals jump? How big can trees get? How far across is the biggest desert? Which city has the biggest population? We learn it all in this book!

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Book Review: Rose Daughter

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Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley

Rose Daughter
by Robin McKinley

4 out of 5 stars

When her father loses all his money, Beauty and her sisters move with him to remote Rose Cottage, where Beauty learns to cultivate the beautiful roses in the garden. Her father gets lost in the forest and meets the terrifying Beast, who demands that Beauty must come to stay in his palace in payment for a stolen rose. Beauty thinks that if she could just get the Beast’s rose garden to bloom again, the curse on the palace would be broken and she would be free. But the magic is very cunning and tricksy. Time doesn’t flow in the same manner. The space around the palace is distorted, and even the furniture and decorations in the vast rooms keep changing. Beauty must find her own inner magic before she can defeat the evil sorcery that keeps them both prisoners.

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Book Review: City of Fire

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City of Fire by Laurence Yep

City of Fire (City Trilogy, #1)
by Laurence Yep

2 out of 5 stars

Scirye vows revenge on the dragon that killed her sister, and she is joined in her quest for revenge by Leech, whose friend was also killed, and Bayang, a dragon disguised as a human. This unlikely crew start on the trail to find the evil dragon, Badik, and they end up as stowaways on a plane to Honolulu to track him down and retrieve the priceless artifacts he stole.

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Book Review: Alkrem

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Alkrem by Marta Palazzesi

Alkrem
by Marta Palazzesi, Christopher Turner (translator)

4 out of 5 stars

On his birthday Theo discovers that he was abandoned as a baby by Alkrem wizards trying to save his life from the Archemist government who imprisoned and executed all the Alkrem years before. Theo was adopted by Chimius, who raised him as an Archemist wizard in Paris. The Archemists hate the Alkrem and blame them for the constant war against Negato monsters that roam the countryside. At midnight on his birthday, Theo’s magic animal companion appears on his doorstep, confirming that he is indeed an Alkrem wizard. His animal companion is a ferocious and powerful Fire Fox, a rare animal even among Alkrem. The Archemists get wind of an Alkrem boy in the city, and Chimius is arrested after being wounded by a mysterious wizard named only the Shadow. Now Theo and his Fire Fox travel to the secret city of the Alkrem, hoping to find the only magic item that can cure Chimius’s wounds, the legendary and dangerous Alkrexa, a weapon that also has the power to heal.

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Book Review: A World without Princes

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A World Without Princes by Soman Chainani

A World Without Princes (The School for Good and Evil, #2)
by  Soman Chainani (Goodreads Author), Iacopo Bruno (Illustrator)

3 out of 5 stars

Sophie and Agatha are back at the School for Good and Evil, except now the schools are divided between boys and girls. The girls want to make the boys their slaves, and the boys want to kill Sophie because they blame her for all the changes in the fairy tale world. Agatha wished that she could have Tedros as her prince, and Sophie will do anything to keep them apart. Sophie tries so hard to be good, but will her witchy evil side come out despite Agatha’s friendship?

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Book Review: The Cloud Kingdom

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The Cloud Kingdom by Máire Zepf

The Cloud Kingdom
by Máire Zepf (Goodreads Author)

5 out of 5 stars

This circular collection of fairy stories is set in the framework of a girl who makes a deal with the fairies after they kidnap her cat. If they return her cat, she agrees to read them a story every week. Each story leads into the next, as the characters in the current story begin to tell another story which leads us into the next chapter, similar to the story structure of The Thousand and One Nights.

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Book Review: The Death of a Maven

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The Death of a Maven by Kathryn Johnson

The Death of a Maven (The Haunted Farmhouse Mysteries, #1)
by Kathryn Johnson 

3 out of 5 stars

Verity’s friends gather at her farmhouse to comfort her on the anniversary of her husband’s death. When one of them is found dead the next day, the cops say suicide, but Verity thinks it must be murder. Verity and her friends begin to look into the victim’s death, determined to find some proof that she didn’t kill herself. The victim’s family asks Verity to help go through the deceased’s possessions and Verity begins reading the old journals that could contain the secret to her death. Verity discovers that her old farmhouse is also home to two ghosts who are unable to move on after hundreds of years. They watch over Verity and the dairy farm and eagerly join in the investigation.

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Book Review: The Grey King (Dark is Rising)

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The Grey King (The Dark is Rising, #4)
by Susan Cooper

5 out of 5 stars

Will is recovering from a serious illness, and is sent for a holiday with his aunt in Wales. There he meets Bran, a mysterious albino boy with a dog who can see the Dark wind of the Grey King. Will is on a quest to find the golden harp and use its music to awaken the Sleepers to fight against the Dark. With the help of Bran and his dog, Will stands up against the menace of the Grey King and searches for the harp, but at a terrible cost.

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Book Review: Trials of Apollo The Tyrant’s Tomb

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The Tyrant’s Tomb by Rick Riordan

The Tyrant’s Tomb (The Trials of Apollo, #4)
by Rick Riordan

3 out of 5 stars

Zeus punishes Apollo by turning him into a mortal human. Apollo must complete various trials and serve a demigod named Meg, so that he can regain his godly status. In this fourth book of the series, Meg and Apollo are trying to turn back the zombie forces of the Triumvirate from attacking New Rome. A prophecy tells them that if they can capture the breath of a dying god, they could summon godly help to face Caligula’s armies.
Apollo and Meg are joined by Hazel, Frank, and Reyna in their quest. Lavinia, a lesbian with a crush on a Poison Oak dryad, breaks all the rules of the 12th Legion to help Meg and Apollo sneak in and out of New Rome on their quest.

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