A Giveaway and an Announcement!

Last May I reviewed a book called The Kings of Colorado, about a young boy named William who is sent to a penitentiary ranch after a fight with his father turns violent. At the ranch, Will learns the power of loyalty and friendship amidst the brutality of the other young inmates and the staff alike. It was quite a powerful and visceral read that left a deep impression on my psyche and kept me pondering long after I had turned the final page. You can read my complete review here. Now, here’s the part that I love! I’ve been generously offered one copy of The Kings of Colorado to give away to one lucky reader. No bells and whistles, no strings. If you’re interested in winning a copy of the book for yourself, fill out the brief form below. The winner will be chosen by random.org on February 17th and notified by email and on the blog. Good luck to all of you who are entering! I think you will find this to be a very engaging and powerful read.

And now for the announcement: The 3rd Annual UCF Book Festival will be held this year on March 31st, 2012. This event has been one of the highlights of my year and I’ve had the chance to meet some wonderful authors from all over the country. I also got the chance to sit in on some of the wonderful panels that were hosted. If you’d like to see the highlights of last year’s festival, click here. This year’s roster is impressive as well, so check out the website. I’m looking forward to being there in all my nerdy glory! Stay tuned for more information as it arrives.

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Cinder by Marissa Meyer — 400 pgs

Linh Cinder is a teenage girl living in the city of New Beijing and working as a mechanic to pay the debts of her awful stepmother Adri. But Cinder is more than your typical teenager living among the masses of the city, because she is, in fact, a cyborg. After a terrible accident when she was just a child left her body irreparably broken, Cinder has been rebuilt into the ultimate mix of human and machine. With the help of her android partner, Cinder runs a fix-it shop in a hut located in the city’s crowded marketplace. When Prince Kai unexpectedly visits her shop in order to have her repair his tutor android, he’s instantly smitten with the her, not realizing that she’s half machine. But Cinder’s love life is only half the story, for a powerful plague is sweeping the planet and there seems to be no cure. With Prince Kai next in line for the throne and an evil contingent of malicious outsiders visiting the palace eager to secure a marriage alliance with the prince, New Beijing isn’t the safest place to be at the moment. As Cinder endlessly toils at the behest of her cruel stepmother, she unwittingly exposes one of her step-sisters to a danger that alters the landscape of her world. Now Cinder is in a world of trouble, and though she feels an attraction to the prince, everything changes for her when the authorities take her into custody and they begin to find out the real secrets of this cyborg. In this fast paced and highly original retelling of the Cinderella story, the shape of the fable is altered dramatically into a dystopian love story unlike any you have ever seen.

I’ve been really excited about reading this book from the moment I saw its cover. Cinderella as a cyborg, you say? Why, yes, I think I will! I haven’t read very many fairytale retellings, but there was just so much of interest to me about this book, and the buzz has been pretty good too. When I read Jill’s review, I knew I needed to move this book up on the stack and give it a go, and what I found was not only original but full of the kind of intrigue and conspiracy that is easy to relish. It was a fun book to say the least, and my only real complaint is that I have to wait so long to find out where this series is headed.

Though this story keeps the bones of the fairytale intact, its innards and skin are of a very different construction. There are several elements going on throughout the novel, and even the less urgent story lines are worked with fluidity and a cohesiveness that I can see will set the stage for books to come. The main difference between this tale and the original is that the love story, as it were, isn’t the main plot element vying for the reader’s attention. In Cinder, the love story takes a back seat to political and social intrigue, guaranteeing that readers are kept dancing to Meyer’s delicious tune of discord, disease and redemption. There’s no page space wasted in this tale, and though the book is long, it blows by in a whirlwind of secrets, intrigue and plot twists. I also liked that the writing was fast paced and graceful without being overly embellished, which worked well for this type of story.

Some of the twists were not all that hard to figure out and I deciphered one of them very early on, but such was the creativity and ingenuity of this book that I wasn’t displeased by this at all. In fact, as I raced through the pages, I was waiting for the big reveal in order to see how it would be shaped and twisted to fit the narrative. The worldbuilding was done on a small scale, and I’m eager to see how this is amplified in the next installment and the repercussions it will have on all the major players. The idea that this series will be a quartet doesn’t really bother me because there’s a lot about Cinder and her cohorts that remains shrouded and unclear to me, and I would relish the chance to see a more advanced look into the world they populate. With each thread of this story, I can see infinite possibilities for drama and pathos on a large scale, and it’s plain to see that several interesting developments are in the process of being uncovered.

I also liked the cleverness and insatiable evilness of the antagonists in this tale. As outsiders to the planet, they are focused on total domination, and their particular brand of magic is not only enticing, but devious. Queen Levana, the leader of this nefarious race called the Lunars, has the ability to wield superior mind control skills and can keep even her own subjects from seeing her true appearance, which she masks with a powerful glamour that none can deny. She also has the ability to make people do whatever she wills them to do, which in this situation is a rather terrifying prospect. It’s not only these character embellishments that make for intriguing reading, but her total lack of compassion or decency that make her the baddest of the bad. Cinder certainly has her work cut out for her with this evil witch! As the story closes, Queen Levana has yet to be fully dealt with but there are signs that this problem will be solved in future installments, though there is slight closure to this book in terms of a few plot lines.

If you’re looking for a fairytale retelling that’s markedly different from anything that has yet been published, this is the one to go for. It’s perfect for teens and adults alike and has the added benefit of packing a powerful punch of a main character who is spunky, clever and has a lot of heart. It was a great read for me and I'm eager to discover what’s in store for this cyber-Cinderella. Recommended!

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear — 320 pgs

Maisie Dobbs is just beginning to organize her own private investigation service in the city when she receives her first client. This distinguished gentleman requests that Maisie tail his wife, who he thinks may be deceiving and cuckolding him. What Maisie discovers will involve a group of seriously injured soldiers from the Great War and a secret facility designed to hide these men from the world. But this isn't just a straightforward mystery, for as Maisie reaches back into the past for the answers to her investigation, she also reflects upon the singular circumstances that have brought her to this time and place in her life. When Maisie was only fourteen, her mother took seriously ill and died, leaving her coaster-monger father to raise her alone with only a pittance to feed and clothe her. Maisie's father, Frank, seeks to rectify this situation by engaging Maisie as a housemaid in the the estate of Lady Compton, a well do to woman who feels the tug of social reform in her blood. When Maisie is discovered using the library in the middle of the night, Lady Compton gets an inkling that this girl may not be the typical run of the mill housemaid. She immediately sets up a situation whereby Maisie can be instructed and mentored, eventually earning herself a place at Cambridge University. Though Maisie longs for the intellectual life, her conscience eventually leads her to the front lines of the Great War as a combat nurse. Working tirelessly to save the lives of the young men she is faced with, Maisie finds herself in the arms of the handsome and intelligent Simon, a privileged and skilled doctor. But Maisie and Simon's future is far from assured, and as they struggle forward together into the present, Maisie must face one of the most difficult choices of her life. Working backwards from the past, this first book in the Maisie Dobbs mystery series weaves the aspects of a mystery novel and a historical fiction novel seamlessly together to form this singularly unique tale of one young woman's ambition and her desire to fly in the face of expectations.

I'm not normally a reader of mysteries, so when my book club chose this book, I felt a few minutes of panic. Would I be able to get into the story and characters? What if the mystery was too cheesy and didn't hold my attention? What if I figured out the crux of the mystery too early and the book began to drag? I was so worked up about the fact that this might not be a good read for me that I kept putting it off and shoving it down in the pile for weeks and weeks. When I did finally get to it I was really surprised to discover that this wasn't your typical mystery, and the fact that it had a lot of historical elements made it a really good choice for me.

Though this book ostensibly starts with a mystery, very early on the story takes a turn into historical fiction. I learned where Maisie came from and how she became a scholar, nurse, lover and detective. These sections of the story were very well written. It wasn't hard for me to empathize with Maisie, and it was interesting to see the proverbial rags to riches story told in a very different way. Though Maisie doesn't become rich, she becomes accomplished, respected and very comfortable in her chosen profession, though she does have to inch her way through some very difficult and demanding situations. I think one of the reasons I liked her so much was because she seemed at times vulnerable but never powerless. I liked that she demonstrated such fortitude and that she never let anything stop her from accomplishing her goals. Though I probably wouldn't have made the same choices that she did, I respected her value system. She changed a lot throughout the book, but her changes never felt forced and the fact that she remained steadfast to her beliefs really made me cheer for her. As the historical section winds down, another mystery is added to the mix, and this time it's a mystery of Maisie's past.

Though I really liked the book, I felt that the mystery aspects of the story were a little less than impressive. I'm not sure if this is because I sometimes quickly lose interest in mysteries or if the mystery in this story was somewhat simple and less nuanced. It seemed that the mystery aspects were a little forced at times and I wasn't really convinced that I should care all that much about it. Also, as Nymeth mentions in her wonderful review of this book, some of Maisie's crime solving behavior seemed a little disingenuous. By this I mean that she often mimicked people's postures and inflections, and by doing this, she was immediately struck with revelations about the criminal and crime. I just didn't buy this at all. It was just too easy and lacked the creative flair that I had been expecting. I also thought that the denouement of the mystery wasn't all that satisfying. It all seemed very simple, and I had been hoping for something a little more sophisticated.

One of the things that made this book so interesting was the sections that dealt with the Great War. The war affected not only Maisie and her contemporaries but all of the general population. Many men were killed, injured and disfigured. Mothers lost both sons and daughters as they were either shipped out to become soldiers or medics, and there was a huge gap left in society that was unable to be filled. One of the things that this book addresses is the injuries, both spiritual and physical, that some of these young men suffered. It wasn't enough for them to have given their capabilities in battle, for more often than not, these same men came home utterly changed in so many ways that society couldn't deal with. The basis for the main mystery of this book focuses on this subject in great detail and paints a picture of a generation of men who came home to a family that couldn't recognize or cope with them. I found all this rather sad, and because it was based on historical fact, it spurred me on to search out more information regarding the war and it's effects.

Though this book was met with mixed success, I did really enjoy various parts of it. I think if the book had been infused with a little more historical flashback, it probably would have been a better read for me. I also think that if the mystery was a little more involved and complex it might have been more of a hit. I think the main problem was that this book combined two very different types of storytelling and the effect for me was that of a little lopsidedness. I'm not sure if I will be continuing on with this series, but I am glad that I gave this book a chance.