Cursing Cats

Apologies for the late blog post. I assumed incorrectly that I would have time to keep up with this because we weren't having many people over. Man, some people are a pain, you know who you are. Just kidding, Thanksgiving was lots of fun and I am now very sleep deprived.

The Curse Workers:

White Cat

By Holly Black

Cassel comes from a family of Curse Workers - people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists. But not Cassel. He hasn't got magic, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail - he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Cassel has carefully built up a facade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his facade starts to crumble when he finds himself sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find out the truth, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen

I have to admit that I predicted several things that happened later in the book, but that didn't keep it from being an interesting read and there were a couple of key points that took me by surprise.

At first glance the world of White Cat doesn't seem very different from ours, but as the book went on there were all these little details that gave it a different twist. It's our world if there just happened to be magic.

One detail that I really liked was that everyone wears gloves. Because Curse Workers can do so much with their bare hands and there's no way to tell who is one just by looking, it's considered as essential to being dressed appropriately as wearing pants.

The idea of Curse Workers reminded me in some ways of the Contractors in the anime Darker Than Black. They have these incredibly powerful abilities, but they pay for it every time they work a curse in ways that they can't control. This provides a very reasonable way to keep Curse Workers in check as the more powerful the Curse the more painful the payment.

I doubt I will read the second book in the series because I had a hard time liking one of the main characters and was completely neutral about the other. I think the two things I liked the most was the mystery about what had really happened in the past (I was only half-right) and the world itself. The world fascinated me more than the characters which is not very conducive to reading more in the series.

One of the things I didn't like about this book was that all the characters in this book had a rather skewed moral compass. There were spots were I had difficulty seeing how the actions of the protagonist were any more morally correct than the villians. It was more like they were all just rivals in the mob.

Overall, I liked the book enough to finish reading it, but that's about all. I've found that I tend to only like about a third of Holly Black's books, but they always sound interesting and make me want to try them.

Two for the Price of One

Today I'm writing about two books by the same author, yay, hence the title of the post.

I love this author's name, Vivian Vande Velde. It sounds so fantastical. I'm sure that it's a pen name but still. Okay, I just wanted to get that out there before I started to talk about the books.

Dragon's Bait

By Vivian Vande Velde

Accused of being a witch by a greedy neighbor Aly is left as an appeasement to a dragon that has recently moved into the area.

The dragon isn't interested and would have passed by but Aly herself unwittingly draws his attention. 

Now Aly is faced with the decision of whether or not to take the dragon, Selendrile, up on his offer of revenge, and is that really what she wants?

Dragon's Bait is a very short book, only 196 pages. It was the first book by this author that I ever read and it was a good representation of the kind of books she writes. Quirky, yet it seems like a straightforward story at first glance. It's probably most suited for 10-15 years old but its an entertaining simple story anyway.

There are many classic fantasy elements to this story: A falsely accused main character, a young female left as an offering to a dragon, a quest of revenge, disguises that may or may not work in real life.

There are some twists as well, dragons can speak any language but only when they have taken on that shape which uses that language.

I have to confess I hate books that seem to have an obvious moral to the story. It always makes me feel like the author just created a story for the sake of rubbing a moral in my face. But someone else pointed out to me that there is a small moral at the end of this book. And I'm not telling you what it is so you have to go read it yourself.

Heir Apparent

By Vivian Vande Velde

At an unspecified point in the future, technology will have progressed to the point that you can go to gaming centers and be completely immersed in a variety of games. 

You are the character and the character is you. Your thoughts are your character's thoughts and your character's pain is your pain.

For Giannine's birthday her father's secretary sends her a gift card to Rasmussen Gaming Center and she's determined to make the most of it even braving a protest to get into the center.

Heir Apparent is a game with many ways to win. All you have to do is survive long enough to be crowned king. Unfortunately Giannine isn't as good at this as she would like and she keeps dying. 

Then something happens. It's different this time and she receives a message from outside the game. The equipment she's connected to has been damaged and they can't pull her out because of her immersion. The only way to get out is for her to win the game, but she only has a few hours left before permanent brain damage occurs. 

Now Giannine is stuck in a court full of deceivers with no idea of who to trust and time is running out.

I found Giannine a little annoying at first but I kept reading because I found the premise of the book to be so intriguing.

This is a little longer than Dragon's Bait, about 250 pages I would guess. It's perfect for 12 and up.

The Enchanted Chocolate Pot

Sorcery & Cecelia

or

The Enchanted Chocolate Pot:

being the correspondence of two Young Ladies of Quality

regarding various magical scandals in London and the Country

By Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

It's 1817 and magic is an everywhere. Kate is in London to be presented to society. But she's perfectly hopeless and the only reason she's there at all is because Kate's younger sister Georgina can't have a season before her. While in London Kate is mistaken for someone else by a particularly nasty magic user, who keeps calling her "Thomas", before Kate is saved by the mysterious Marquis.

 Cecy is stuck in Essex and things seem very dull indeed. Until of course Lady Tarleton's niece Dorothea comes to stay and all the young men seem to be falling over themselves in love with her.  Cecy wouldn't think anything of it but she finds a charm hidden in her brother Oliver's room and she can't help but wonder what it's for and who put it there.

Everything seems to revolve around a shockingly blue chocolate pot. A story is told through letters sent between these two cousins.

I have to tell you Patricia Wrede is a favorite author of mine. I read her Enchanted Forest Chronicles multiple times growing up and this was a wonderful step up into a slightly older age category.

I have not read anything else by Caroline Stevermer but I would very much like too.

This book is dedicated to Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Ellen Kushner and you can definitely feel their influences in various aspects of it. It's a regency story full of authentic feeling characters and slang of the time, that are very reminiscent of Jane Austen and Georgette Heyer's style of characters.

It's not a huge book, it's about 330 pages and it's a very entertaining read. I've actually read this book aloud a few times because that's something I love doing.

There are two books that come after this one, and while I think The Grand Tour is just so-so, The Mislaid Magician is as good or better then The Enchanted Chocolate Pot.

Now the next book I post about will most likely be about Life as We Knew It by Susan Pfeffer and also in the next week I will have a guest post. So look out for that.