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Synopsis: The Queen of Blood, which comes out TOMORROW, is a foray into YA crossover fantasy by Sarah Beth Durst, author of numerous wonderful, whimsical, fantastical MG and YA fantasy titles such as (most recently) The Girl Who Could Not Dream... Read the rest of this post

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Welcome to another session of Turning Pages!According to the PEW Research peeps, about 70% of people consider themselves religious in some fashion, whether through traditional Jewish, Muslim or Christian denominations or other neopagan practices... Read the rest of this post

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Welcome to another session of Turning Pages! Synopsis: Privileged and perfect is how life could be described for fifteen-year-old Kambili and her brother, Jaja. In Nigeria, where so many deal with fuel shortages, power outages, strikes at hospitals... Read the rest of this post

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This is my favorite book so far this year. Seriously.Though this novel isn't marketed to YA or as YA, this is a crossover I need you to read. If you like Regency novels, tales of the fey, Jane Austen, or 19th century anything, you want this. Buy it... Read the rest of this post

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Another Western with a youthful protagonist, Laura Anne Gilman's novel is the first in a sweeping new series. I read it -- passed it along to Tech Boy who also read it and said, "Wow, it just... worked." What's harder to say is... why. And we aren't... Read the rest of this post

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To begin with, this isn't a YA novel. It's a crossover adult novel, recommended for older YA readers due to some violence and disturbing interactions and attitudes. Lila Bowen is a pseudonym for Delilah Dawson, a familiar YA author. If you like... Read the rest of this post

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I don't often get a chance to read a book before my librarian friends hit it. True fact: they are some voracious people with a book. I saw a couple reviews for this going by in my blog and Twitter feeds, and did my best to not see them until I had... Read the rest of this post

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While this adventure isn't technically YA nor marketed as such, the protagonist is a young man in a magical "university," but given the sort of Olde English wording in some spots and the kind of feel of the story, I think "university" might be a... Read the rest of this post

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Announced today at Marvel’s annual SDCC “Cup O’ Joe” Panel featuring Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada, the Marvel Star Wars comic franchise will mark its first anniversary by releasing its first line-wide crossover event, Star Wars: Vader Down.

Co-written by flagship title author Jason Aaron and Darth Vader writer Kieron Gillen, Vader Down will see the titular Sith lord at his most vulnerable and most powerful.  When his ship crash lands on an unspecified planet, the Rebel Fleet will “risk everything” for the opportunity to take down their most powerful enemy.  They’ll throw everything they have against Vader, and the series will throw the kitchen sink at you.

Vader Down will feature appearances from Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, Aphra, and more.  The six-part miniseries will begin in November 2015 and will feature Mike Deodato and Salvador Larroca on art with covers by Mark Brooks.  The crossover will begin in Vader Down #1 and spill into Star Wars and Darth Vader.

 

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Summary: This graphic novel isn't technically a YA book, but since it's about a 22-year-old young woman trying to muddle along in early adulthood, it makes a great crossover title. And because I loved it so much I want to hug it, I'm going to review... Read the rest of this post

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Summary: A collaboration by French comics and animation luminaries Balak, Bastien Vivès, and Michaël Sanlaville, Last Man 1: The Stranger is the first installment in a series that's been popular in France and is now being released in the U.S. by... Read the rest of this post

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out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each otherdoesn’t make any sense. - RumiThere's a... Read the rest of this post

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My first novel in several years is out this week – Like Hybrids it's still YA, it's still set in the future, but it's very different in subject matter. I thought it might be interesting to talk about why I wanted to write it.

I lived in mid-Wales, where Stormteller is set, for nearly 20 years. After separating from my first wife I eventually landed up in Taliesin, partly because I was attracted to a place named after Wales' legendary bard.

I know the landscape almost as well as I know my back garden now, having walked over much of it. I always felt when I moved to this edge of the British Isles from London that here, unlike most places, the skin of the present is thin: you can feel the vibrations from the past still reverberating down the centuries like thunder beneath your feet.

Just inland from Taliesin village is a collapsed dolmen that is given the name 'Taliesin's grave' – though it is much older than that.



Between my house at that time and the sea, lies Borth bog: you may remember the images in the media last winter when flames were leaping across it from burning peat despite the snow: spooky.


And then Borth itself: a long sliver of a town that shouldn't be there, streamed onto a spur of land against the glint of the sea, on a section of coast that is the most vulnerable in the whole of Wales to storm surges. Again, it was in the media last winter when it was attacked by giant waves.


The spur continues to Ynys Las, a nature reserve of sand dunes opposite the Dyfi estuary from Aberdyfi – a colony of English retirees and yachting people largely immune to the influence of the past.

Above it, however, by the Bearded Lake, is allegedly a footprint left by King Arthur when he passed this way, and north of there the mountain Cader Idris, Welsh for Seat of Arthur.

But the real stories that come from this area are older than Arthur's: the birth of Taliesin and Cantr'er Gwaelod, which is the tale of how the land that now lies beneath Cardigan Bay was drowned by the sea.

It's these, and the beautiful, wild and dramatic landscape, that sparked my imagination to write this novel.

Let me tell you the beginning of the first story: a mother had two children – a beautiful girl and a hideous boy with a hunched back. The girl wasn't a problem, she's not even part of the story, probably got married off to a Prince.

But the boy... the mother felt sorry for him. Perhaps the gift of wit and wisdom might make him popular so she could get him off her hands. So she laboured a year and a day to make a magic potion for him, but on the last day she left the servant boy, Gwion, in charge while she popped out. "Just stir: don't taste," she told him.

You can probably guess what happened next. The long and the short of it is that Gwion got to sample the potion and he received all the gifts intended for the son. He was the one who became Taliesin.

Nowadays, Taliesin is revered in Wales and beyond for his poetic and shamanic genius. But his talents should have belonged to someone else – the son, whose name is Afagddu. No one remembers him now, but Taliesin has a village and even an arts centre named after him.

So I thought: how would Afagddu feel? What would he want?

And this is a starting point for Stormteller.

As a rebirthed baby, Gwion floated down the Dyfi river to Ynyslas where he was found by a local prince, who named him Taliesin. That leads into the second story....

...with a tragic ending – the flooding of the land – that it seemed to me has echoes of the threat that Borth and the whole coast of Britain faces now and in the future: rising sea levels, more storms and extreme weather caused by climate change.

We all feel threatened by climate change. We feel powerless to do anything about it. So I wanted the novel partly to be about giving some degree of optimism. It's trying to look at the question of rewriting the endings of stories: ours – about climate change – and these two old legends.

It's easy to give into a sense of fatalism. I believe that we can all rewrite our stories, we at least have the power to do that. And this is true for the teenagers Tomos and Eira in the novel. But, as in life, there are always sacrifices to be made...

You can find out more about the background to the novel here.

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Not gonna lie; we've been the bemused and bedazzled fans of Ysabeau Wilce since waaaaaay back in the day and the advent of her first book of Western fantasy, packed with rangers, skirted men, hummingbird gods, and plain craziness. We invited her by... Read the rest of this post

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This is necessarily going to be a shorter review, since this is a psychological thriller and there is virtually not much other than the barest of plot summaries I can share with you without providing spoilers and clues that you don't need. What I... Read the rest of this post

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I received this book courtesy of New South Books, a small press based in Montgomery, Alabama. After skimming the initial description of the book - that it was about a preacher's granddaughter - I assumed it was a novel about an African American... Read the rest of this post

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Click to embiggen. Totally worth it.Two things to get out there right away: 1. I received a review copy of this book from First Second, and 2. I'd definitely recommend this one for an older YA/crossover audience, due to some fright/violence/swearing... Read the rest of this post

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I'll admit that I'm not familiar with this author's more popular work in the historical romance genre. I ran across this book on NetGalley and didn't realize it was a prequel, either. This is another example of an author independently publishing a... Read the rest of this post

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I make a pretty solid effort not to over-feature self-published and indie published books which are SOLELY ebook offerings, because I'm still a fan of the pages-cover-artwork-words experience that comprised books for me for most of my life. However,... Read the rest of this post

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We are in the final lap of summer, but this is one book you'll be able to savor on into autumn. It's a perfect book to take you into October Country; bittersweet, funny, very sharp and smart. It's a book about grief - grieving - holding it together... Read the rest of this post

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We at Wonderland are big fans of SF Signal. They've been a go-to site for all things SpecFic, "Skiffy" and other wise SF/Fantasy for years. They're knowledgeable and have a vast readership -- and for good reason. Their interviews, guest editorials,... Read the rest of this post

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Rarely do I get something as absolutely delightful in the mailbox as the unexpected package I received all the way from Halifax this week. It brought news -- big news: There are still PIRATES in the backwoods of Nova Scotia. Pirates -- and get this... Read the rest of this post

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It's bits of ephemera -- a favorite song that popped into your head like a mini-book soundtrack, who you think would be best as the lead if they ever turned it into a movie, your fervent hope that they never, ever, turn it into a movie -- things... Read the rest of this post

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Readers familiar with Charlie Fletcher's STONEHEART trilogy will be unsurprised that his new novel, THE OVERSIGHT, is a crossover. Marketed to all general audiences, - i.e., adults - but enjoyable for everyone, this first book in the series has a... Read the rest of this post

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This novel reminds me of Lois Lowry's THE GIVER, Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE and, peripherally, BUMPED by Megan McCafferty. It has echoes of the style of AMONG THE HIDDEN by Margaret Peterson Haddix and Jeanne DePrau's THE CITY OF EMBER as... Read the rest of this post

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