Read This!: THE GIRL WHO FELL by Shannon M. Parker

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The Girl Who FellThe Girl Who Fell by Shannon M. Parker

Summary: Zephyr is focused. Focused on leading her team to the field hockey state championship and leaving her small town for her dream school, Boston College. But love has a way of changing things.  Enter the new boy in school: the hockey team’s starting goaltender, Alec. He’s cute, charming, and most important, Alec doesn’t judge Zephyr. He understands her fears and insecurities—he even shares them. Soon, their relationship becomes something bigger than Zephyr, something she can’t control, something she doesn’t want to control.  Zephyr swears it must be love. Because love is powerful, and overwhelming, and…terrifying?  But love shouldn’t make you abandon your dreams, or push your friends away. And love shouldn’t make you feel guilty—or worse, ashamed. 
So when Zephyr finally begins to see Alec for who he really is, she knows it’s time to take back control of her life. If she waits any longer, it may be too late.

This story begins with a snippet of the end – the dark place where Zephyr’s relationship with handsome, brooding hockey star Alec will lead. And then we go back and see how it all started. That disturbing prologue is a necessary and brilliant touch, as it primes readers to see the oh-so-small warning signs that the relationship is not the paradise it seems. And that, of course, is the point: an abusive relationship often looks like any other in the beginning, and Zephyr, a strong-willed field hockey player who dreams of attending Boston College, gets swept up in the romance. Her friends grow concerned when Zephyr’s relationship with Alec isolates her from them, and her own insecurities about her talents and her father’s abandonment of her push her to see Alec as the only one who understands. Alec’s manipulations pull her in ever more deeply, until he goes so far that Zephyr can’t explain his behavior away anymore. But Alec, of course, can’t let go, and his obsession crosses into physical abuse.

This story is honestly painful, and painfully honest. It’s riveting stuff – I read the last third of the book with my heart in my throat, pulling for Zephyr to get out of the pit of abuse. Zephyr is no weakling, and this book is a powerful statement about the many forces in our society that limit girls’ choices. (An early scene in which Zephyr chooses not to eat even though she’s starving, because Alec isn’t hungry, made my stomach clench with its verisimilitude.) It’s easy to see, through this story, how anyone, no matter how strong-willed, could end up drawn into an abusive relationship. Alec is all the more frightening because of how fully realized he is as a character; he believes that he is working for Zephyr’s good when he’s “teaching her a lesson”.

An important book that will launch many discussions about abuse, consent, and female empowerment. Don’t miss it.

THE GIRL WHO FELL is out now.

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Read This!: A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE by Brittany Cavallaro

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A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes, #1)A Study in Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro

Summary:  The last thing sixteen-year-old Jamie Watson–writer and great-great-grandson of the John Watson–wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that’s not the only complication: Sherringford is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective’s enigmatic, fiercely independent great-great-granddaughter, who’s inherited not just his genius but also his vices, volatile temperament, and expertly hidden vulnerability. Charlotte has been the object of his fascination for as long as he can remember–but from the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else.  Then a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Holmes stories, and Jamie and Charlotte become the prime suspects. Convinced they’re being framed, they must race against the police to conduct their own investigation. As danger mounts, it becomes clear that nowhere is safe and the only people they can trust are each other.

 

This is going to sound hyperbolic, but 5 stars aren’t really enough to explain how much I loved this book. I’ve never been a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes – I mean, he was okay and all – but this book just grabbed me and held me spellbound all the way through.

Before I opened this book, all I knew about it was that it was about Holmes and Watson’s great-great-something-grandchildren, and I assumed that it would be something like “Young Sherlock Holmes” where a pair of lads at a boarding school solve a mystery while rescuing an intriguing girl named Charlotte. (Guess that says something about what previous Sherlock Holmes adaptations have taught me to expect…)

This book is not anything like that. No swooning heroines here.

The first thing you need to know about A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE is that, in the world of the book, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson were 100% real. (Arthur Conan Doyle was Watson’s literary agent.) Now, with the aid of some well-meaning family meddling, their descendants Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson are students at the same Connecticut boarding school. And where a Holmes and Watson go, mystery is sure to follow.

Moody and mercurial are defining Holmes characteristics – HOW has the great detective not been reimagined before as a teenage girl? It’s beyond right. The characters here are fantastic – I want to hang out with them the way I want to hang out with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Charlotte is brilliant, flawed, and utterly, agonizingly human, and Jamie is a wry, appealing, gold-hearted narrator (who, by the way, is also no slouch in the brains department). Together they are incandescent. Sure, there is sexual tension, but it’s so, so much more than that. One of my favorite quotes:
“I wanted the two of us to be complicated together, to be difficult and engrossing and blindingly brilliant. Sex was a commonplace kind of complicated. And nothing about Charlotte Holmes was commonplace.”

Just read it. You won’t regret it.

A STUDY IN CHARLOTTE is out now.
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The Bells of Qilara

Extras, Sword and Verse

Many readers have asked for more information about how the timekeeping system of bells in Qilara works.  Here’s a breakdown:

Each bell period represents about 3 of our hours.  The time varies because it is based on the position of the sun and moon (called Gyotia’s Lamp) rather than a set period of time, and so the lengths of time between various bells are different depending on the season.  In the City of Kings, the bells ring at the palace and the temples.  In more remote areas, the nearest temple will generally serve as the source of bells for the surrounding countryside, or occasionally an ambitious Scholar will construct his own belltower.

The Bells:

1st bell, AKA sunrise bells (the time for morning invocations) – approximately 6 AM

2nd bell, AKA midmorning bells – approximately 9 AM

3rd bell, AKA luncheon bells – approximately noon

4th bell, AKA midday bells – approximately 3 PM

5th bell, AKA dinner bells – approximately 6 PM

6th bell, AKA sunset bells (the time for evening invocations) – approximately 9 PM

7th bell, AKA lamp bells (moonrise) – approximately midnight

8th bell – AKA final bells (muted) – approximately 3 am

 

 

Read This!: THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF CHARLIE PRICE by Jennifer Maschari

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The Remarkable Journey of Charlie PriceThe Remarkable Journey of Charlie Price by Jennifer Maschari

Summary: Ever since twelve-year-old Charlie Price’s mom died, he feels like his world has been split into two parts. Before included stargazing and Mathletes and Saturday scavenger hunts with his family. After means a dad who’s completely checked out, comically bad dinners, and grief group that’s anything but helpful. It seems like losing Mom meant losing everything else he loved, too.  Just when Charlie thinks things can’t get any worse, his sister, Imogen, starts acting erratically—missing school and making up lies about their mother. But everything changes when one day he follows her down a secret passageway in the middle of her bedroom and sees for himself.  Imogen has found a parallel world where Mom is alive!  There’s hot cocoa and Scrabble and scavenger hunts again and everything is perfect . . . at first. But something doesn’t feel right. Whenever Charlie returns to the real world, things are different, and not in a good way. And Imogen wants to spend more and more time on the other side. It’s almost as if she wants to leave the real world for good. If Charlie doesn’t uncover the truth, he could lose himself, the true memory of their mother, and Imogen . . . forever.

This book is heartfelt and earnest, and I sobbed through the last 30 pages. Charlie is a 12 year old boy who loves math and his friends and his family, and he and his sister are both reeling from the death of their mother. When his sister finds a portal to a world where their mother is still alive, at first it seems like a miracle. But as Charlie soon learns, there is no joy without loss, no way to enjoy the good things in life without also accepting the bad. Charlie and his friends are a brave and loyal group, and readers will enjoy getting to know them.

THE REMARKABLE JOURNEY OF CHARLIE PRICE is out now.

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