Days of Blood and Starlight – Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy #2)
2012, Hachette H&S Fiction
528 pages
RRP: AU$19.99
ISBN: 9781444722680
Reviewed by Kate Smith
(warning – contains spoilers for the first book in the series, Daughter of Smoke and Bone)
Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School #1) – Gail Carriger
2013, Hachette Atom
320 pages
RRP: AU$16.99
ISBN: 9781907411588
Reviewed by Liz Grzyb
Being a big fan of Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series, I was looking forward with much excitement to the release of Etiquette & Espionage, Carriger’s new young adult series focusing on the adventures of fourteen-year-old Sophronia, who is covertly introduced to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality. This finishing academy doesn’t just focus on pouring tea and flirting over a fan, but also trains young ladies to become highly accomplished spies and assassins.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone – Laini Taylor
2012, Hachette Hodder
448 pages
RRP: AU$14.95
ISBN: 9781444722659
Reviewed by Kate Smith
I hate it when this happens. While there was really no way to finish the story in a single book, and I’m really glad that Taylor didn’t try to do so, I hate having to wait for the next part of the story. However, looking on the positive side of matters, my wait for the continuing story allows me to go back and read again to see how people and events fit together having the knowledge gained by the end of the novel.
It was early morning when Sand woke up from dreaming about the ocean, the smell of brine still seeming fresh in his nose. He blinked, then wriggled under his blanket, flexing first his fingers, then his toes, then his wrists. The night had been a cold one. There was a wet, decaying odour in the air, of dead things buried beneath drifts of leaves.
Still numb, Sand threw off his blanket and dug around in his satchel for a chunk of bread, tearing off pieces with his teeth and chewing quickly. He gathered his things into the satchel, which he flung across his shoulder. Since leaving the ocean, he had crossed sparse moor-grass fields, then richer, golden plains, which now gave way to trees. Sand made his way back to the path, his sandals clapping down against hard-packed earth. According to a wheat-planter he’d met the other night, these weed-trees would give way to denser forest soon.
Up until now, it’s been cruisy, but you get the sense things are beginning to turn.
For starters, there’s the discomforting recognition that, for all the bonhomie still somehow coursing your veins, you’re not here by choice. You’ve been abducted. You, of all people. For long enough now, that your chin has started to stubble. And you notice, too, which you somehow hadn’t before, that your hosts are, to put it mildly, butt-ugly. And then some.
The Dead-Tossed Waves – Carrie Ryan
2010, Hachette Gollancz
416 pages
RRP: AU$49.95 (HB)
ISBN: 978-0575090897
Reviewed by Gillian Polack
There are two important things I need to state up front. Firstly, I have not read the book The Dead-Tossed Waves follows (The Forest of Hands and Teeth) – The Dead-Tossed Waves therefore stands alone for me, and all the knowledge I have of the world and the characters is from within the novel itself. Secondly, this is a zombie novel. For the most part it is a great deal more than a zombie novel, for the focus is on the coming of age and into the wisdom to survive of Gabry, the protagonist. While it has far more to it than zombies and while the zombies are seldom given that name, it’s still a zombie novel and it covers the bases that a zombie novel must cover: how does one kill a zombie, what happens when one is infected, what happens when one’s friends are no longer the humans they were, how does the world live through a zombie apocalypse.
Deadlocked – Charlaine Harris (Sookie Stackhouse #12)
2012, Hachette Gollancz
336 pages
RRP: AU$29.99
ISBN: 9780575096585
Reviewed by Ruza Foster
Deadlocked is the penultimate novel in the southern vampire mysteries series, and while I’m a fan of this series I think Harris has really started scraping the bottom of the barrel with this latest release. Perhaps she should have put Sookie and Eric to rest much earlier.
The Fallen Blade – Jon Courtenay Grimwood (Assassini #1)
2011, Hachette Orbit
432 pages
RRP: AU$29.99
ISBN: 9781841498454
Reviewed by Kate Smith
On picking up the book and reading the blurb on the back, I was immediately interested. The combination of what appeared to be a period political thriller combined with supernatural elements appeared very promising, and I began reading with relatively high expectations. Unfortunately, for me, this hope was not met.
I owe my life to Ginger Fred, but I can’t thank him because he’s gone.
I’m a real estate agent, and I’ve lived in Rievesport for ten years, lured by the prospect of the growing value of sea-side properties, and the increasing willingness of workers to commute the long distance to Melbourne—the Big Smoke. I used to work in the BS (as Lisa and I frequently call it) as a well-paid commercial lawyer, but the rat race got the better of me with a triple-bypass. I’m not disappointed with my sea-change; I’ve done well in my adopted town. I even have an office on the top floor of the four-storey Chamber of Commerce Building, the only structure with more than two floors in the entire town.
For all of my time in this locale I’ve been witness to a regular ritual carried out by the town’s itinerant dero, Ginger Fred. It was hard for me to miss, because his activity took place on the large cement paving area directly in front of the Rievesport Chamber of Commerce Building, in perfect view of my office window.
Habibi – Craig Thompson
2011, Allen & Unwin Faber
640 pages
RRP: AU$39.99
ISBN: 9780571241323
Reviewed by Liz Grzyb
Habibi is an incredibly detailed graphic novel, telling the story of a young girl and a young boy who grow up in a world of power, lust and punishment. The story, reminiscent of Scheherezade’s Thousand and One Nights, takes us from a seemingly exotic past to a horrifyingly familiar present.
