Review of Mistwood

Mistwood
by Leah Cypress
Young Adult Fantasy
Pub date May 2010

I was eager to read this book because the back says, "For fans of Kristin Cashore's Graceling and Fire, Tamora Pierce, and Megan Whalen Turner's Attolia books." As some of you know, Tamora Pierce is the author who made me a reader. I love Kristin Cashore, both as an author and as an awesome person, and I've been trying to get my hands on the Attolia books for several months. (I had one in my hand, finally, but lent it to someone and never saw it again.) So I had high hopes and expectations for Mistwood. It didn't let me down.

Isabel is the Shifter. For hundreds of years, it has been her duty to protect the king of Samorna. But this time, when the new king comes to summon her from the Mistwood, she finds that she does not have hundreds of years of memory to rely on. Her knowledge comes in flashes, disconnected bits of remembering that indicate that everything is not as it should be. And, most troubling of all, Isabel is exhibiting human characteristics that have no place within an immortal being. Can Isabel remember who she is--and how to shift--before the king's enemy strikes? Does she even want to?

You will be sucked into the land of Samorna from the very first page.

Review of The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag
by Alan Bradley
Adult/Crossover Mystery
Available now in hardcover

This is the second Flavia de Luce mystery. After I read the first one, entitled The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, you may recall that I called Flavia "my favorite character in literature." This book proved it. Even if this series was not full of murder mysteries and intrigue--even if it was just a week in the life of Flavia de Luce, riding her bike (Gladys) around the countryside and serving tea at church--I would still love it. Flavia is eleven years old. She is the youngest of the three de Luce girls, who live with their widower father on the Buckshaw estate. Flavia's sisters are the bane of her existence, and she uses her budding expertise in chemistry to play tricks on them. (For example, in the first book she extracts the poison from a batch of poison ivy, melts down Ophelia's favorite lipstick, mixes in the toxin, and reforms the lipstick into its original shape. She then makes field notes for the next week as she waits for the poison ivy to do its work.)

Inevitably, there is a murder in the nearby town of Bishop's Lacey and Flavia must put her detection skills to the test. Can she solve the mystery before the local constabulary does?