A review of ‘White Horse’ by Alex Adams

Posted on June 24, 2014 by Emma @ The Stacked Shelf

I bought ‘White Horse’ as I’d loved books like Justin Cronin’s ‘The Passage’, Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam series. From the description, this book seemed to combine aspects of all of the above, so it seemed like a safe bet.

White Horse flits back and forth between times, revealing Zoe’s story before and after the outbreak of a deadly disease that kills off a large amount of the population and causes random and extreme genetic mutations in others. Together, these two narratives weave together to build up a greater picture of events and Zoe’s role in them.

In the past, we follow Zoe’s everyday life in the run-up to the outbreak. In her therapy sessions, she obsesses over a sealed jar, unable to decide whether or not to open it. This jar comes to represent a sort of Pandora’s Box – and the pervading question left hanging for most of the novel of whether this jar truly represents something evil, or whether this is all simply in Zoe’s mind? Continue reading →

A detective story with a difference

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Emma @ The Stacked Shelf

When PC Peter Grant stumbles across a key witness with a first-hand account of a violent crime, he sees it as an opportunity to save himself from the tedium of a career in paperwork. The only problem – his witness is a ghost.

As a result of this encounter with the supernatural, Peter is swiftly recruited into a special unit within the Met police – designed to help solve the cases where fact and reason have failed. He soon discovers a whole new side of London policing, complete with rivers that walk on two feet and ghosts that steal people’s faces.

Ben Aaronovitch’s creation has all the lure of the paranormal combined with the mystery, suspense and action of the crime novel. Continue reading →

John Connolly’s ‘The Book of Lost Things’

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Emma @ The Stacked Shelf

It’s this middle of World War II, and confined to a country house with his new stepmother and even newer younger brother, David is full of hurt, anger and jealousy. In his attic room, he seeks comfort in a collection of old books. As he becomes consumed with the world between their pages, David starts to feel a strange affinity to the boy who lived in his room before.

When the events of one fateful day conspire, David finds himself in a place where nothing is as it seems, struggling to find a way to get home in a strange, threatening kingdom of twisted fairytales. His path is peppered with obstacles, and he is forced to face his innermost fears, overcome death and battle his nightmares before he can finally come face to face with an aging king who seems destined to lead the kingdom into ruin.

The Book of Lost Things is essentially a fairytale – but it’s certainly not a fairytale you’d want to read to small children at night. Bringing in elements of a whole host of different stories, Connolly twists and manipulates narratives for his own purposes, spinning motives and intentions and traditional plotlines into an intricate web of characters and incidents.

In fact, the author builds a whole new world with such rich detail and flair that I almost started to believe in its existence myself. The Crooked Man really was scary, a truly brilliant villain with wicked intentions. The truth, when it was finally revealed, was as terrifying as any nightmare come to life in the darkness. This is not a book where everyone has a happy ending. All of the characters we come across, from the Woodcutter to Snow White, have been given their own jaded and fractured back-stories that have been woven perfectly into the fabric of the narrative.

Ultimately, it’s the perfect book for anyone looking for a dose of escapism or pure fantasy with a twist. It’s spooky and mesmerising, and it takes a completely different direction to anything else out there.

Andrew Fukada’s ‘The Hunt’

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Emma @ The Stacked Shelf

I’ve been struggling to put this book into words. I suppose it could be described as a sort of warped version of The Hunger Games. Except in this case we have a world dominated by vampires embarking on a once-in-a-decade human hunt, with the lucky hunters drawn from the population by lottery.

However, one such hunter is actually a human, or a heper as they call them, living in disguise amongst the vampires. Knowing that he will be exposed as soon as the hunt starts by his inability to keep up with the pack and his unwillingness to tear their prey apart with his fake vampire fangs, he is rapidly running out of time to come up with a way out. With the help of some unexpected allies, his world is changed forever as he uncovers hidden secrets that go against everything that he’s been taught.

I have to start by saying that The Hunt is written really well – it had a great pace, plenty of action and it was quite addictively readable. However, while the concept was interesting, there were some gaping holes in the plotline that managed to completely distract me from the main story on several occasions throughout the book.

There are numerous points that I just cannot get my head around. Whether that’s because the author has failed to think things through or because he simply hasn’t bothered to explain them, I’m not sure.

My first gripe is how our main protagonist has managed to attend vampire school for years without detection. I don’t know how he’s managed to get hold of fake fangs or contraband razors in the first place, but those basic difficulties aside, I don’t see how it is possible to have never coughed, sneezed, sweated, blushed or spilled a single drop of blood in the presence of vampires (who never show a shred of emotion and scratch their wrists instead of laughing).

Secondly, vampires are under the impression that humans are totally extinct outside of government activity. But since there are several secret humans revealed throughout the book, from a relatively low pool of characters, you have to assume that there are lots of fake vampires running around unnoticed. Despite this, there’s no testing of any kind?!

And then there are the things that are just plain weird. The vampires in this book don’t kiss, they rub armpits. And nowhere does it explain how they are able to reproduce, if they do so in the same way as humans, and if not, how fake vampire humans/manage to have babies without shedding any blood at all (as this can apparently be smelt from miles away).

There are plenty more, but I don’t want to reveal any spoilers. If anyone can offer up an explanation for any of the above, I’d love to hear it!

A review of ‘The Daughter of Smoke and Bone’ by Laini Taylor

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Emma @ The Stacked Shelf

(Hodder, September 2011)

Recently, I’ve read a few Y/A fantasy fiction novels, some of which I’ve loved and some of which have been distinctly underwhelming (see here for more). Since its publication, The Daughter of Smoke and Bone has received rave reviews from Y/A bloggers, so when I was casting my eye around for something new to read, it naturally made the list.

Karou has grown up between worlds, her childhood was spent in the back of a mysterious shop owned by Brimstone, a dealer in teeth and wishes and Karou’s guardian for as long as she can remember. Now Karou is old enough to fend for herself, and she has gradually begun to forge a life in the human world, but she’s increasingly torn between normality and the exciting, dangerous and macabre duties that she carries out on Brimstone’s behalf. She is also desperately searching for answers regarding her identity and how she came to be in Brimstone’s care. Then one day, she comes into contact with one cold-hearted and extremely powerful angel, Akiva, who might just hold the answers she needs.

As with most Y/A fantasy novels, there is a strong love story at the heart of ‘The Daughter of Smoke and Bones’, the true extent of which becomes clear as the novel progresses. That said, the author has really tried to approach this in a different way and break free of the traditional stereotypes. There’s no escaping the fact that all the clichéd elements are there, but it was interesting and different, with a bit of a twist, and the way the novel was written kept me turning the pages.

My main criticism of this novel is that I felt it was wholly focussed on building up to a sequel. There’s a lot of time dedicated to explaining Karou’s background and history of her world, but the action was just about to kick off when the book ended, which was frustrating to say the least. I’m all for sequels, and I think they can work really well, but The Daughter of Smoke and Bones needed more of a story of its own. Now my big debate is whether this annoyed me too much to read the next in the series – or whether my curiosity as to what happens next will win out?!

The good and the bad of Y/A fantasy fiction

Posted on April 21, 2013 by Emma @ The Stacked Shelf

As some of you might know, a few weeks ago I wrote a post on Y/A fiction and how I was struggling to find a really good fantasy series to get my teeth into (see more here). Since then, having followed some suggestions and done a little research of my own, I’ve read the first few books of a couple of major young adult series. One of these I really enjoyed – despite the fact that on paper it may not have seemed like my kind of book – and the other I think could definitely have been done better. With this in mind, I thought I’d do a quick comparison of the two.

First off, I took on the first three books of the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare – City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass. These books were originally intended as a trilogy, with a complete story that reaches a resolution at the end of the third novel, so this was a natural place to stop. Next, I moved on to the first two books of a planned trilogy by Rae Carson, The Girl of Fire and Thorns and The Crown of Embers.

In terms of storylines, the Mortal Instruments story was the one that appealed the most on paper. It follows sixteen-year-old Clary Fray, a normal girl living in New York. One night, her mother disappears and she’s plunged into a world of demons, Shadowhunters, vampires and warlocks. I won’t go into too much detail on the specifics to avoid spoilers, but there’s a brooding male lead, forbidden love, an arch nemesis and some complicated family dynamics.

While the author’s storylines are fairly imaginative, I felt that the characters were really underdeveloped. Jace, Clary’s complicated love interest, was incredibly stereotypical. He’s arrogant and good looking with some serious issues to be resolved but so inexplicably drawn to the main character that she’s the only one that can really ‘reach’ him. The other male in the love triangle, Simon, is a typical boy-who-is-just-a-friend that turns into more, and I didn’t think he was particularly likeable. Clary herself is supposed to be likeable but I just couldn’t connect with her as a character.

One of my main criticisms of Y/A fiction is that I feel the writing can let them down. The Mortal Instruments is a case in point. I may not have been quite so overly critical of the character development if the writing had not also been stilted and slightly wooden. The dialogue didn’t flow, the descriptions were clichéd and the relationships unbelievable. Written with a bit more care, I think this series could have had some real potential, but as it is, I won’t be buying the next three books in the series.

The Girl of Fire and Thorns, on the other hand was an example of a book I felt was written really well, so much so that even though I didn’t particularly enjoy the central premise of the novels, I went on to read the second book in the series. I read these on a recommendation, without researching them too heavily beforehand. However, fairly soon after starting the first book I realised that despite the fact it’s a fantasy novel set in a fantasy world, it’s heavily religious in its theme.

It’s not something I’d usually buy but I persevered – and I’m glad I did. On her sixteenth birthday, Elisa is married to a prince of a neighbouring kingdom. She is also named in an ancient prophecy that marks out one person a century for life of greatness. But this prophecy also makes her a target, and with the realm facing increasing tension and civil war, Elisa is unwillingly drawn into the heart of the action.

Like any good protagonist, Elisa undergoes a personal, and in this case a physical, transformation over the course of the book. However, this transformation was woven into the fabric of the book and it didn’t feel forced. There was also a great cast of supporting characters, and although I didn’t relate to some of them, this was purely because of the nature of their personalities rather than a lack of one.

Both books have a strong fantasy and magical element as well as an intricate central love story. The difference, however, was in how they engaged me as a reader. While I’ll definitely be reading the last in Rae Carson’s trilogy, I won’t be taking on the next books in the Mortal Instruments series any time soon.

Searching for Y/A gold

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Emma @ The Stacked Shelf

Over the past few years, Y/A fantasy fiction has exploded. The massive and unprecedented success of authors such as J. K. Rowling, Stephanie Meyer and Suzanne Collins has meant that the genre has become increasingly mainstream, appealing to both adults and teenagers alike.

Walk into any bookshop and you’ll find shelf upon shelf of books filled with vampires, werewolves, witches and the like, usually with a plucky human heroine thrown in there for good measure. But this begs the question, how far can you capitalise on the success of a genre before it becomes saturated?

For me, this is an issue that’s becoming more and more frustrating. Recently, I’ve been looking for a new series to read, but on several occasions I’ve picked up novels only to find them poorly written and full of stilted dialogue, underdeveloped, implausible characters and unconvincing love stories. I’ve been thinking about why this might be the case, and maybe it’s being caused precisely because of the success of books like the Twilight series. Massively popular even before they were adapted for our cinema screens, the films catapulted its actors into stardom and inspired a whole generation of devoted fans (myself included I might add!).

But now, people continue to search relentlessly for the new Twilight, or the new Harry Potter. And where there’s a demand, there will always be a supply. And although there are some really great books out there, there are equally a whole plethora of books that just don’t make the grade. In my opinion, the Y/A fantasy genre as a whole needs a refresh. I don’t know what the next big thing will be, but I do think that we need to see some new ideas that haven’t been done before. And most importantly, the readers need to want this too.

In the meantime, if anyone can recommend a really great series, please let me know!