Off the Bookshelf: WHEN THE SEA TURNED TO SILVER, by Grace Lin

 

Audiobook

Narrated by Kim Mai Guest

Pinmei is the granddaughter of the storyteller on the mountain, who always has a tale to tell to suit every circumstance. While she knows all the stories very well, Pinmei is quiet, a little mouse, and afraid to be seen, much less speak up.

Until the cruel emperor comes to their mountain and conscripts all the men to build his great wall, and carries off her beloved grandmother. Desperate to save her, Pinmei has to find the Luminous Stone that Lights the Night to trade for her release -- and the stories her grandmother has told all her life might be the clue. Accompanied by her friend, Yishon, she leaves her mountain and learns to speak up and stand up and help others. Magic is right under her nose, within reach of her fingertips, but it takes a young girl made brave by her love for her grandmother to set it free and put it into motion.

I think I just found a new addiction. Grace Lin has other stories, set in Ancient China, and if they're all so deliciously interwoven with Chinese legends and myths, I want more! I have a book of Chinese mythology sitting in my research bookshelf, that I haven't read yet. Guess what I'm going to be opening up and studying soon!

Lovely story. Adventure and peril, and a look into another culture, another history and mythology. Yes, please -- more!

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 “So if we can get rid of the parasite and stop it poisoning the energy …” Felicity’s eyes narrowed. She tipped her head to one side, studying me. “Eventually she could walk again, and fly again?”

“Such a determination would require intensive study from those who are more qualified, with centuries more experience than I possess,” the doctor said. “But yes, in theory. Here’s the frightening aspect. I sense some inimical intelligence attached to the poison. If it was left in place long enough, it would eventually have overcome the natural defenses of heart and soul and mind, establishing a foothold for some very nasty invaders. And the smell, the taste of that power …” He sighed, and his eyes got big, sad, like he might tear up in a moment. “I am sorry, my dear, but it is another face of the ancient malevolence.”

Angela let out a soft, slow, deep breath and settled into the chair facing mine. A shaky little smile twisted her mouth.

“You know, I’m almost relieved to know that.”

“One enemy instead of several?” Hayward said.

“Exactly.”

“Okay.” I probably shouldn’t have been speaking what leaped into my head, but my brain felt clear for the first time in more than a day. “So the creeps who sent Jay and the other guys after me are the same ones who have been sucking out the energy that defends Neighborlee? And maybe they’re the same creeps who are causing my dreams? So maybe these guys are working with the snake?”

“No.” The doctor shook his head, just twice, the movement sharp enough to make his fuzzy hair whip around. “That ancient enemy is an entirely different song and aroma. What attacked you, my dear young guardian, is entirely of terrestrial origins.” He sighed and seemed to deflate about two sizes. “However …”

“It’s trying to contact the snake hiding underneath Neighborlee, isn’t it?” Felicity said, nearly on a whisper. She offered a weak little smile, and Kurt slid an arm around her shoulders. “I really hate it when I remember dreams I forgot. There’s a big, ugly … thing, trying to make contact, like Morse code, and someone heard it.”

That morning we started referring to the snake as Big Ugly. The new label reduced the squirming feeling and the mental image of Dune sandworms bursting up from the floor, with buzz saws for teeth.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

“How do you know it’s poison?”

“Oh, not to kill. No, to debilitate.” The doctor stopped, mouth open as if about to say something else. He narrowed his eyes at me, then held out both hands to me, palms up. “Indulge me?”

I hesitated, then glanced at Angela. She frowned at the doctor, but she glanced at me and nodded. I put my hands in his. Again, that singing feeling. The numb patches in my legs and my back woke up to tingles that burned for a few seconds, then faded entirely. I felt like I could walk up the stairs to Angela’s apartment without holding onto the railing.

That sporadic sense of being whole, of my legs being reliable, had been missing since fall. When the doctor asked how I felt now, I told him that.

“All right, you want to fill the rest of us in?” Kurt said.

Sometimes I really loved it when he slid into his protective big brother role.

“Angela’s theory is correct. Something has been slowly draining the defensive energy enclosing the town and supporting the wellbeing of its defenders. The same parasite, if you will permit such a crude term—the same parasite also taints the energy that remains.”

“Meaning Lanie should have been healed, but the taint is having the opposite effect?” Hayward said.

It struck me as odd, a violation of some unspoken natural laws, that this stern military man understood what I suspected came under the heading of magic.

Off the Bookshelf: ONE FINE FAE, by Molly Harper

 

A Mystic Bayou novella

Audible original, Audiobook

Narrated by Amanda Ronconi and Jonathan Davis

It's official -- I love the quirky, magical town of Mystic Bayou. So I'm in trouble!

This is my second audiobook by Molly Harper, and just as much fun as the first.

Mystic Bayou is where magical creatures live in relative harmony with ordinary mortals, and shifters fall in love with other shifters and magical folk. The resulting hybrid babies bring Charlotte McBee to town -- a faerie who is a midwife, and specializes in difficult cases. 

Leonard, an ordinary mortal who suffers from a family curse, might just keep Charlotte in town. The nastiness and pride of an ancestor brought the curse on his family line, resulting in clumsiness and embarrassing accidents, which just get worse the more nervous the victim grows. And poor Leonard wants so much for everything to go right with Charlotte. There's a huge magical spark between them the first time they meet. Can they find a cure? Will he survive the nasty competitiveness of his co-worker? Will Charlotte survive attending the birth of a phoenix/dragon hybrid in the dragon's treasure cave?

Listen and find out. Be prepared to be hooked, and come back for more. Fortunately, there are a LOT more stories set in Mystic Bayou, with lots of magic and romance and humor.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 “I received your call for assistance after some delay, my dear.” He stepped into the room. He had an enormous doctor’s bag, also in dark purple. “Is there anything I can do? I must apologize for arriving too late to handle the dirty work for you.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Angela pressed tape over the gauze, fixing the pad into place, then patted my shoulder. “I would appreciate a more experienced eye. I hope you won’t take it the wrong way, but I do pray this doesn’t fall under your expertise.”

“Not at all, not at all.” He stepped over behind me. Cool, thin fingers touched my neck, but didn’t peel up the gauze.

A silvery kind of song spun through my blood—the only way I can describe the sensation. It washed away the dregs of the itching. The throbbing in my sinuses turned into a tickling sensation, then vanished.

“You’ll be glad to know you didn’t need my help dealing with the consequences,” the doctor said after a few moments. He sniffed loudly. “Ah, I see Delphinia has graced you with some of her miraculous salve. You’re in good hands, young lady. Very wise, coming to Angela in matters of poison.”

“Poison?” Kurt yelped.

I turned to face them all. Angela was giving the doctor a scolding look. Col. Hayward’s concern became a scowl, and I felt a moment of fear for whoever got the full blast of that anger. Then I felt good, because he was angry for me.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

There was blood and Angela had to use of that scalpel, after much digging with those tweezers with needle-fine tips. She used something to numb my neck, but I felt a tingling-humming down in my bones, the longer she probed. I would have been more comfortable if Felicity hadn’t been holding my hand. She squeezed harder, the longer it took to get the dart out. That and her little flinches made me want to scream and punch someone.

The worst part was having to wait to hear what Angela and Kurt had done all Christmas day. I would have appreciated some distraction, but Angela needed to concentrate.

What she pulled from my neck was as long as the first joint of my pinkie, thinner than a hair, with a brief greenish glint, reflecting the light, as she turned it. Hayward put it in one of the wooden boxes Angela used to store things on the fourth floor.

“Ah, I’m sorry.” An unfamiliar voice came from the hallway.

A shimmering kind of sound, more felt along my skin than heard, accompanied the creaky-silvery voice. I nearly jerked, as Angela pressed a thick gauze pad cold with salve over the hole she had dug in my neck. From the corner of my eye I saw a skinny old man with a halo of white hair around his pink bald head, wearing a dark purple jogging suit. He leaned into the doorway, blinking his huge green eyes and giving us all a sheepish grin.

Off the Bookshelf: VINCENT IN WONDERLAND, by C.E. White

 

Audible, Audiobooks

Narrated by David Pickering.

What if Vincent Van Gogh met Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland, when they were children -- IN Wonderland?

Or in this case, a magical world, called Sian, where the villainous Jabberwock prowls, draining life and time from young living creatures.

There are so many delicious layers to this story, and the magical world the author has created. The "explanations" for the "real events" that happened to Alice, which she remembers as a dream and which become part of the Wonderland story, are clever and thought-provoking.

Just as interesting -- at least from an author's perspective -- are the author notes at the end of the story, discussing the inspiration for the story, and tracing how it came together. I'm quite eager to listen to the next book, Worlds Next Door, which was actually written first -- although Vincent in Wonderland comes first in the history of the world of Sian. Don't be confused, and don't worry -- you don't need to listen to the books in any particular order, because they stand alone. But I imagine it will be great fun to listen to the next book and re-visit places that first appeared in Vincent's adventures.

There's an important lesson on guarding and nurturing our gifts and not letting anyone drain away our colors and our life, but it's not heavy-handed or didactic. Bravo!

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 My woolgathering got me to the main room of the shop. Angela had assembled a little operating room, with tweezers and antiseptic, witch hazel, a pot of her herbal salve, and a few doctor’s instruments, including a scalpel. It all waited on a thick white cloth on the little bistro table where we usually sat to drink chai and discuss guardian matters. I was in no shape to either force my unsteady legs to get me up the stairs, or work with Kurt to fly me up there. Just the thought of using my telekinesis made my head throb again.

“Whoever took the Parker boy was prepared,” Hayward said, once everyone had taken seats and Angela started washing my neck before examining it. “They were ready for failure. If as you speculated the three boys broke free of their handlers, maybe they were closing in. They could have witnessed the takedown on Tuesday. One telling factor in the report I got, which was more extensive than the one your friend, Stanzer got …” He glanced at Angela, who was standing behind me.

“What?” I said, trying not to snap, when the look he gave her was full of communication. I very much hated feeling I had been made a little kid again who needed to be protected.

“Parker was itching and had red patches on his neck. Those false military walked in with their paperwork and took custody of him before the doctor arrived to examine him.”

“False military?” Kurt said. “You’re sure?”

“I have contacts in all the branches. Those people who took the boy were not military, no matter how secretive.”

“So you’re safe,” I said. “Nobody will turn you in, reveal what you’re doing here.”

“We can only hope,” Hayward said with a slight nod and a weary, thin smile.

“I think you’re right.” Angela rested two fingers on the right side of my neck. “There’s something in Lanie’s neck, and the hives are an allergic reaction, resisting the invader.”

“They shot me with what … a tracker?” My neck burned where she touched me. Hopefully just psychosomatic.

“I’m thinking drugs. Reinforcing their mind control on the boys,” Hayward said. “The question is if they intentionally shot you, or you got in the way when they were shooting Parker.”

“Can you get it out?”

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

Kurt and Col. Hayward came out to meet us. The Colonel took charge of pushing my chair and Kurt walked around my Jeep twice, scanning it with one of his gizmos. I didn’t want to know what he was looking for, any more than I wanted to know why he thought he should scan for something nasty.

“You don’t have allergies,” Hayward said, once we were all inside. He was still behind me, and I turned enough to see him frowning at the back of my neck.

“Now I do,” I said. Then I saw Angela standing in the doorway of the main room. She looked like she hadn’t slept, and she had her peacock shawl wrapped around her, over her usual blue handkerchief print dress. “I’ve had invasion dreams. All day yesterday. The snake is moving.”

“The defenses of the town are …” Angela shrugged and took a deep breath. Exhaled. “Wobbling is the closest description. Fluctuating, strong and weak, badly enough to cause discord with the music of the shop’s defenses. It was heavy Christmas Eve, faded during the day, then resumed once Ben and Bethany left. I spent most of the night bringing everything back into tune.” She held out a hand to me. “Franklin and I have been discussing your problem.”

Kurt was heading down the hall ahead of me, and he glanced back, cocked an eyebrow, met my gaze, then shifted to Hayward, who was still behind me. My brain was working slower than normal before I caught on. So that was Hayward’s first name. Franklin Hayward. Since he was also a Lost Kid, I wondered who had found him and where, and the reasons for naming him.

Off the Bookshelf: A BOY CALLED CHRISTMAS, by Matt Haig

 

Fantasy, Holiday Fiction

I want to start by thanking the lovely ladies on the Bookmarked podcast for Realm Makers, Lauren Brandenburg and Gillian Bronte Adams, for recommending this book.

Lovely, fun, quick read. Humor and suspense and danger, nasties to boo and heroes to cheer -- and special effects!

Nikolas is a poor boy who has only had two presents in his entire life. His woodcutter father doesn't make much money and they barely get by. When Dad gets a chance to go on an expedition that will pay him a lot of money, he takes it. Poor Nikolas is left in the dubious care of his nasty Aunt Carlotta, and immediately his life gets much worse. Until he finally runs away, in search of his father.

He runs into elves who are going through some pretty severe oppression of their own, and barely escapes with his life. When he finds his father, it isn't the happy reunion he hoped for, and Nikolas ends up making some pretty painful choices, and grows up way too quickly. How exactly does a boy go from being nicknamed Christmas to being Father Christmas, and learn magic, and find flying reindeer, and decide to give away toys every year? Read and find out -- I ain't telling you and spoiling the fun!

The world-building and rules for elves and the adventure -- just lovely. Great fun to read. This might just be one of those books you need to read every year. Especially when you need help getting into the holiday spirit.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 Yeah, right, like Divine’s Emporium wasn’t the safest place in the entire town, if the snake attacked?

Yet Athena and Doni had been sleeping over at Divine’s when the snake attacked them. Athena had stepped through a wall into another dimension, tricked into thinking Doni was in danger. There were weak spots, even at Divine’s. Stephanie’s death and my broken back proved the energy defending our town was weakening. Continually fading on us.

I slathered more salve on my hives, waited until it was nearly dry, got dressed, and headed for Divine’s Emporium. My dreams likely meant I had been eavesdropping on the enemy’s intentions. The guardians needed to consult with Angela. Felicity had sensed something was wrong, and she was awake and dressed and ready to go when I came outside. She met me at my Jeep. I wanted so much to hear how her Christmas with Jake went. The fact that she wasn’t shimmering with excitement meant she didn’t get that engagement ring. Instead, she made me tell her about my dreams.

Kurt’s truck was sitting in the lot next to Divine’s when we arrived. I pulled up and parked at the curb in front of the gate, behind a now-familiar sedan with a discrete military sticker in the window. A powdered sugar snow was falling as I slid out of the driver’s seat and braced myself on the door. My head throbbed when I prepared to pull my wheelchair out of the car with telekinesis. I couldn’t do it with my arms because I still ached in all my joints. Felicity told me to wait, and she came around to take care of it for me.

While she unfolded my chair, I got that shivery-creepy feeling down my back that I always equated with someone nasty watching me. I looked around, but the snow thickened and I couldn’t see anyone on the sidewalk on either side of the street. For the first time, I was not glad there were empty lots next to Divine’s and across the street. The lights from the nearest houses looked miles away. The big olive-and-gold Victorian house looked a little creepy in the growing haze of snow.

New release sample: NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF

 

I woke up late Christmas day with a splitting headache. Along with the hives that kept spreading, despite Angela’s tea, my joints ached. I spent most of Christmas day sprawled on the sofa, sipping tea and dozing. The boys got to gorge on all the goodies: shrimp, cheese ball and crackers, smokies in barbecue sauce, wings, egg rolls. My stomach did backflips just thinking about the food I was missing. Felicity and Jake elected to have a quiet, romantic Christmas day at her place, rather than joining us. I didn’t blame them. I made a bet with myself she would get a ring for Christmas.

My big mistake was combining Angela’s salve and tea with antihistamines. I spent the day in a haze, broken at irregular intervals by strange dreams that kept jerking me up out of sleep, trying to fly away from something nasty. My strongest impression through all those twisting, looping, slimy dreams was of something trying to drill or melt or pound its way through a shield around Eden. Sometimes it turned into the Wishing Ball, and Divine’s Emporium was inside it.

Friday morning, I woke up before dawn with the worst dream yet. In it, Bethany and Athena were having a sleepover at Divine’s, like they used to do when they were little. The house filled with shadows that reached out tentacles from the walls and tried to grab both girls. That frightened me, because Bethany had made it home for Christmas just before midnight. She and her father, Ben, had spent Christmas day with Angela, who was Bethany’s godmother. I was worried because we had kept her ignorant of her heritage as the daughter of a guardian. Stephanie had died defending Neighborlee from the snake trying make our town its doorway to invade Earth. We had honored her wishes that Bethany not become a guardian. What if the snake or whatever that ugly, persistent enemy really was, had made Bethany a target because she was ignorant and untrained?

Off the Bookshelf: DRAGONS IN A BAG, by Zetta Elliott

 

Audiobook

YA

In Jaxon's world, there used to be magic, but it has been fading away, so there isn't enough magic in Brooklyn, where he lives, to support magical creatures.

He doesn't know that yet -- not until his mother has to spend the day in court dealing with a nasty landlord, and leaves him in the home of a cranky old woman only known as Ma, . Jaxon is sure he's going to be miserable, and at first it looks like he's right. Then things just start happening, beginning with a mysterious package covered with foreign stamps, and a squirrel that is desperate to break into the kitchen at get at that package. Jaxon's mother raised him to be polite, but it's hard when Ma is so mean ... at least, for a while.

When Jaxon goes on a delivery errand with Ma, suddenly everything starts changing. He's full of questions, and as he learns the truth about Ma and what was in the package, his world changes around him -- and he steps into another time, and then another world. When he and Ma are separated, he is desperate to get help, to find and rescue her. Since he left her behind in a place inhabited by dinosaurs, he turns to the only dinosaur expert he knows, his friend Vikram. Unfortunately, Vikram brings along his little sister, Kavita, who goes digging into Ma's purse ... and before Jaxon knows it, they've broken the most important rules Ma told him: don't let the dragons out into the light, and don't feed them.

So very much happens, so quickly, in this lovely story about learning and growing up and needing to think fast and be smart. I hope there are more adventures for Jaxon and Ma, as he becomes her apprentice and learns about the magic that remains in the world.

New Book! NIGHT OF THE LIVING PROOF, Neighborlee Book 5

 

Night of the Living Proof 

The shadows from Lanie's past continue to haunt her and her friends as Neighborlee moves from Christmas to New Year's Eve. Something or someone is tampering with the magical defenses of the town. Things and people disappear and reappear, with no explanation, and gaps in memories and time. An age-old nemesis is gathering its strength for another attempt to shatter the door that Divine's Emporium holds shut. 

Sylvia Grandstone returns, and she's got her sights set on Daniel, Lanie's new boss. It's the same old Grandstone scheme to gain power and wealth by any means possible, including marriage. It would be easy to blame Sylvia for the new problems and mysteries, applying the Jessica Fletcher theory of crime-solving: the most famous guest artist is the murderer. However, Sylvia's years in Hollywood never got her anywhere near star status, and no one would ever believe she could be a criminal mastermind. Or so the guardians would like to believe. 

As New Year's Eve approaches at Eden, the Neighborlee community center, the disappearances and time gaps increase. Instead of trying to convince town officials to cancel the New Year's Eve party, the guardians prepare for a showdown, and brace themselves to do what they have always done: defend the people of Neighborlee from the outside world, and defend the outside world from the magic and wonder and general weirdness that is Neighborlee, Ohio.

From Ye Olde Dragon Books

www.YeOldeDragonBooks.com