The Serpent's Shadow

By Mercedes Lackey

Book One of the Elemental Masters Series


Maya Witherspoon has lived for most of her life in India where she was born, until the deaths of her parents. Before her death, Maya's mother warned her to beware "the serpent's shadow". Now, to avoid her parent's fate, Maya has traveled to England and become a doctor. She lives with a family of Indian servants who used to take care of her mother, and a menagerie of preternaturally intelligent pets she also inherited from her mother. Maya has powerful magic, but so does what she's hiding from, and she has never been trained. She has Western elemental magic, unlike that of her mother's people, and her father didn't believe in magic! Peter Scott, an Elemental Master, has offered to teach her, but will it be too late? The owner of the hospital is the uncle of an idiot, vindictive man who hates her for being smarter than him, many male doctors hate her fro being female and a better doctor then them, and Shivasani (the serpents shadows mistress, an Indian priestess, Maya's aunt, insane and evil) is searching for Maya and coming ever closer. With enemies closing in, magical and non-magical, Maya's time is running out. Will the help of her friends, her magic, and her pets(really, they belong in both of the other categories, but hey) be enough?
OK, I am like totally in love with Mercedes Lackey! She is one of my favorite authors now, or at least what I've read of her. This book is no exception, with humor, suspense, and action in just the right places. A beautifully detailed fantasy world just a couple of universes over from ours, with what is probably historically accurate details, mixed with brilliantly original magics and writing. Not an action novel, or humor, but an awesome fantasy novel, the first in a series that I am dying to finish. Absolutely fantastic. I know i say that about every book on here, but i put them on because o loved them, so that is to be expected.

Chime

By Franny Billingsley

"I've confessed to everything and I'd like to be hanged. Now, if you please." These are the words that begin the story of eighteen year old Briony Larkin, wicked witch. Since Briony was seven her stepmother told her that she is a witch, that everything bad that happens to them is her fault: that her sister's mind is shattered, the fires and the floods that destroyed the stories she used to write, the wave that injured her stepmother before she died. And she must never tell or she will be hanged. Then Eldric shows up.  Lion-eyed, fidget-fingered, self-proclaimed bad boy, who can make a crown out of paper clips, a wolf-girl out of wire and pearls. Briony is a wolf-girl in the swamp, her mouth a cavern of stars, howling at the blood-red moon, snatching lightening from the gods, dancing her fists with Eldric's as she learns boxing. But the Boggy Mun is angry. The men are draining the swamp, and so the Boggy Mun sends the swamp cough, the ghost children tell Briony the day the girl who was thought to be a witch but wasn't was hung. Now Briony's sister Rose has the swamp cough, and the Boggy Mun will kill her if the swamp is drained. Briony must save her sister, but if she tell people how she knows that the swamp must be drained she will be hung. A wicked witch doesn't want to die, even to save people. A wicked witch would know that when she is jealous or angry bad things happen to people. A wicked witch would cause her sister to get the swamp cough on purpose. And Briony is wicked. Right?
Okay, so despite how morbid it is due to the fact that the person telling it is uttely conviced that she's evil, this was a really great book. I realized after I read it that this author had also written another book I love, about selkies. So it's not just a fluke. Great book! And I know I say that about every book on her, but seriously, this was an amazingly well written book. Magic, absolute magic. And despite what it may sound like, there is a happy ending. Great story, great characters, great magical creatures and such, and great writing. READ IT!

Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie

By Maggie Stiefvater

Sequel to Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception


After the events of last summer, James Morgan was really hoping not to have to deal with faeries again. He thought all that mess would stop once he got to Thornking-Ash School of Music. Fat chance of that happening. Now he has Nuala, a "faerie muse [with] vaguely psychic vampire tendencies" as he puts it hanging around, insulting him and trying to lure him to his death, the king of the dead singing in the hills outside the school  every night, someone killing solitary faeries for some unknown reason, and Dee falling apart completely. Oh, and anyone with half a brain can tell that James and Nuala are going to wind up in love. Which is a bit of a problem, seeing as every sixteen years she burns to death on Halloween and then comes back with complete amnesia (and she needs to suck the life out of someone to survive anyway, but the burning thing is the main problem). And guess what this Halloween is?
Alternating between James and Nuala's points of view, with some of Dee's unsent text messages, this is seriously one of my all time favorite books EVER. Seriously. James is so snarky and clever and FUNNY! Maybe not the most action-packed book, but when it's this well written, who cares? It's gripping and awesome anyway. LOVE IT LOVE IT LOVE IT! I only read Lament once or twice, but I have read Ballad like five times already. Probably more, actually. Purr, purr, purr. YEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!

The Stepsister Scheme

By Jim C. Hines

The Princess series, Book One



In all the old fairy tales, after the scary things are over and the good guys have won, they always end with the words "and they lived happily ever after". You know what? That's not true, as Danielle Whiteshore, also known as Cinderella, could tell you. A few months after her "happily ever after", everything goes to pieces. Teeny, tiny, very interesting, really COOL pieces. One of her stepsisters comes to the palace to kill Danielle, somehow has magic, and before escaping reveals that Charlotte and Stacia (the stepsisters) have kidnapped Prince Armand. One of the servants, Talia, saves Danielle, and turns out to be not only Sleeping Beauty and an extremely good fighter, but one of Queen Beatrice's secret agents, the other being Snow (White, as I'm sure you guessed). Snow knows magic, although she doesn't like being called a witch, and is a incorrigible flirt. After a few more revelations (Danielle is pregnant, her mother's spirit lives in a tree, Snow calls the queen Queen Bea, Snow's real name is Princess Ermillina Curtana, and Armand is probably in Fairytown) they set off to rescue the prince. As Danielle says "Well, it was my turn."
I LOVE LOVE LOVE this book! Seriously, this is one of the most original fairy tale mash-ups I have ever read. SO INCREDIBLY AWSOME! I loved the translation of Fairytown's real name, and here I will quote Snow: "The fairies name means something like 'Home away from home, trapped between two big rocks and surrounded by tasty mushrooms that make you feel like you're turning into a puddle.' But 'Fairytown' is shorter."  LOVE SNOW LOVE TALIA LOVE DANIELLE! Do not love Charlotte or Stacia, although Queen Rose is a cool villain. Anyway, it's a really good book that you should read.

Kitty Kitty

By Michele Jaffe

Sequel to Bad Kitty



Jas Callihan is once again trying to be a Model Daughter. Remember the LAST time she tried that? Yep, nothing good can come of this. This is how it came about.
Apparently, after the whole Las Vegas episode (you know, the whole almost-getting-killed thing?), her dad (who has recently upgraded his super-villain persona in Jas's head from the Thwarter to Dadzilla, snacking on her dreams rather than just thwarting them) didn't like the idea of her roaming around LA, and decided to move. To Venice, Italy. The day before her senior year of high school started. Which is so totally unfair. I mean, she DIDN'T get killed that time, and the police departments of two states had THANKED her,  and it TOTALLY wasn't her fault, and her friends and her boyfriend are all STILL IN LA!!
So, Jas figures, if they moved because she got into the TINIEST little bit of trouble, if she proved she could stay OUT of trouble, they could go home. Simple, right? Not for Jasmine Callihan, trouble magnet and crime scene just waiting to happen!
Instead, several very strange and worrying things happen: Her only friend in Venice, Arabella, says someone is following her and is going to kill her, the Evil Hench Twins Alyson and Veronique show up and ask to be called by their faerie names, and Jas decides to turn into Bad Jas, who later breaks off into a separate personality inside Jas's head. After she informs her friends of this fact and also refuses to stop associating with Arabella (like Polly told her to), her friends..... can you guess what they do? FLY TO VENICE FOR AN INTERVENTION INVOLVING MIND CONTROL GOGGLES, JAS'S DELTA WAVES, AND TEDDY GRAHAMS!! THAT'S WHAT THEY DO!! Oh, and by that point Arabella has been murdered, but the police think it's suicide and refuse to help. Read the book to find out about the soul-stealing glass kitty, Mutant Ninja Turtles, water wings, pizza, goldfish, and fully weaponized, mangy squirrel costume. Oh, and the Hench Twins latest Crimes Against Fashion.
THIS IS SUCH A GOOD BOOK! As with the previous book, hysterically funny, well written, and super cool! SO FUNNY! Jas's friends are nuts, but considering how often she gets into really weird trouble, that's probably a good thing.

Deep Magic

By Diane Duane

Book Two of the Young Wizards Series


Nita and Kit were SUPPOSED to be on summer vacation. Nita's family rented a beach house for a few weeks and she managed to convince them that Kit should come. Of course, magic never goes on vacation. When they help a fellow wizard--a whale--they agree to help a group of the underwater wizards perform an ancient ritual, a reenactment of when the Lone power offered death to the undersea peoples and was bound beneath the seafloor. The consequences if this ceremony fails? The Lone Power will break free. The catch? Whoever is singing the Silent Lord will die. You get one guess as to who agreed to sing that part, BEFORE finding out about that tiny snag. Here's a hint: Kit is upset and isn't singing, and Peach told Nita to read the fine print before she signed. Peach is Nita and Kit's local Seniors psychic macaw, and can tell the future. For those who are a bit confused as to how the Lone Power can be wreaking havoc in the universe (snuffing stars, convincing new species to take its"gift" of death, plotting the destruction of the universe, and so on) AND be bound on the bottom of the ocean, well, that's the usual confusion about time. All the Great Powers just dip into the time flow we live in. THEY live outside of it, in a place where things don't have to happen one after the other. Anyway, this is a really good book. I LOVE THIS SERIES! There are nine or so so far, and I am pretty sure there will be another one. They still haven't figured out what happened to Roshaun, although they are pretty sure he isn't dead.

Dragonhaven

By Robin Mckinley

Fourteen year old Jake Mendzoa has never had what could be called a normal life--not that he wants one--due to the fact that he lives in Smokehill National Park. Which, by the way, is a dragon preserve. Draco Australiensis, eighty feet long plus tail, flies, breaths fire, may or may not be intelligent, extinct in the wild, raises its kids in a pouch, nobody knows anything much about them, and nobody can agree on whether or not it's really a dragon. On his first solo overnight hike into the park, Jake comes upon a dead dragon, and a dead poacher. And the dragon's one surviving baby. Now, there is only one thing more illegal than killing a dragon, and that's saving its life. So what does Jake do? Picks up the weeny little squidgy bruise colored fetal baby dragon that really should spend a year or so in its moms pouch right about now except its mom is DEAD and sticks it down his shirt, is what. It really should have only lived a day or so outside of it's moms pouch, but somehow it survives down his shirt drinking deer broth or sheep broth or whatever. And since Smokehill is HERE to keep dragons from going extinct, now they have a hugely secret baby dragon that thinks Jake is its mom and won't stay with anyone else, AND a dead poacher killed by a dragon when supposedly their fancy high tech fence keeps poachers out and dragons are safe and don't kill humans mostly. So basically everyone is stressing out in their little (huge) crises and Jake is going nuts trying to keep Lois (the baby dragon) alive and healthy and a secret AND keep the social worker and home school checker-uppers off his back.
Sorry about all the run on sentences. I do that even whenever i talk about books. Anyway, this is a really awesome book. I love Jake, Lois, and ROBIN MCKINLEY!! this is one of my all-time favorite books. Funny, original, and really well written. Now go get it from the library or the bookstore or something and read it.

The Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

By Douglas Adams

The entire Hitchikers series in one big book. Yay!


Arthur Dent is really not having the best day. The city council has decided to demolish his house to build a bypass, and as his friend Ford Prefect tells him, the world is about to be demolished to make way for a hyperspatial expressway. Ford is a researcher for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and is actually from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. The Guide is probably the most remarkable book to ever come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor, and is regarded by some civilizations as the standard repository of all knowledge. It will tell you, for instance, how to mix a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster (the effect of drinking which is described as having your brains bashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick,) and it has the words DON'T PANIC across the front in large, friendly letters. Anyways, Ford rescues Arthur from earth seconds before it is destroyed, and they embark on a completely insane journey across the Galaxy, including, if you read the entire series, a visit to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, highly intelligent mice, the Babel fish (you put it in your ear and it translates for you), towels, very bad poetry, and a very depressed robot called Marvin. This is REALLY good book. I actually only have the Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, so I regard the entire series as one book. Very well written, hysterically funny, and with really, really interesting characters. Read it, it's funny.

Good Night, Mr. Holmes

By Caroline Nelson Douglas

Book One of the Irene Adler Adventures

 

After losing her job and being turned out of her lodgings, prim, proper, parson's daughter Penelope Huxleigh is wandering the streets of London wondering what to do next when a street urchin attempts to steal her carpetbag. The beautiful, well-dressed Irene Adler rescues her, takes her for tea, and after stealing the leftover pastries invites Penelope to stay with her. Thus begins Nell's (as Irene decides to call her) friendship with Irene Adler, opera singer and private detective. Irene, who supplements her opera career by taking care of other people's business, watches people as a hobby, has no known past, occasionally dresses as a man, has an ever so slightly skewed, but nonetheless firmly in place set of morals, shocks Nell quite often but nevertheless soon becomes her best friend. Nell's diaries are occasionally supplemented with Dr. Watson's unpublished notes and resound with Nell's refrain of "Irene, no!". Irene always been one of my favorite characters from the Holmes lore as one of the few people, the only woman, to defeat the infamous Sherlock Holmes, and in this book she is utterly in her element. Loved it, loved the sequel, loved the whole wonderful series! While this may not be my favorite version of Holmes, the well written and sometimes hysterically funny characters of  Irene, Nell, Casanova (Nell's foul-mouthed second or third-hand parrot, but that's another story), "Willie" a.k.a the King of Bohemia, and Godfrey Norton more than make up for it.

The Lightening Thief

By Rick Riordan

Percy Jackson and the Olympians, book one


Percy Jackson would really like to forget about his last school trip, during which he was attacked by his math teacher (who then disappears, and whom no one seems to know ever existed), saved by his Latin teacher tossing him a magic pen (or is it a sword?), and thrown out of yet another school (his sixth in as many years, I think.) Unfortunately, that won't be possible. As soon as he gets home, his mom takes him on a trip to the beach, during which his best friend, Grover, shows up (minus pants, plus furry goat legs) pursued by the Minotaur (a half bull, half human monster, for those who aren't familiar with Greek mythology), who is actually looking for Percy. After fighting the Minotaur, who kills Percy's mother, Percy winds up unconscious and when he wakes up, he is at Camp Half-Blood. Turns out, Percy is a demigod: half human, half Greek god. Yup, you heard right, his dad is a Greek god. Unfortunatly, any chance of normality, even for a half-blood, is pretty much out of the question. Zeus's thunderbolt has been stolen, and Percy is the main suspect. Now Percy and his new friends have ten days to find the thunderbolt, solve a mysterious prophecy that warns of betrayal, and uncover an evil plot that threatens the gods themselves, and the rest of the world with them. I don't usually do very popular books like this on here, for some reason, but this was just such a good book. Exciting, exasperating (Is Percy stupid, unlucky, or does he just have a death-wish?), and funny, this is a simply wonderful book. Seriously, read the book. READ IT OR I WILL UNLEASH MRS. DODDS AND THE OTHER KINDLY ONES ON YOU!!!!! MUAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!