So when SB Sarah writes:

One, the hero, Tom Aikens, is adorable. He’s horse-mad, awkward, extremely active, and as unlike Mary as could be. She likes to sit and read; he can barely sit still let alone focus on a story. Yet he likes Mary, and swears his horse, Hyperion, whom he takes incredibly good care of, likes Mary, too. Mr. Aikens is not always wise in his actions, though, and can lose his temper – at one point he snaps at Lizzy that she doesn’t know Mary at all, and her understanding of her sister is sadly wrong.

I did a little happy chair dance, because she likes him! She really likes him! Also, Mr. Bennet made her laugh.

Oh, and also? Charlaine Harris read The Unexpected Miss Bennet and she liked it too.

* It was my crush before the review. Seriously. Just like Lizzy revised her opinion of Darcy before she saw Pemberley.

An excerpt:

What an engaging and endearing tale about Mary Bennet! I love when authors write about the forgotten and neglected characters of Jane Austen! I truly loved this closer look into the heart and mind of Mary Bennet. She captured my interest from page one. I loved witnessing her gradual transformation, her realization that she can never be something she isn’t, and her newfound understanding of men and relationships. Yes, there is romance in this story! And the hero is just as unexpectedly charming as Mary Bennet!

Click here to read the rest.

And merrily, nay, shamelessly, I write, therefore I must promote. As the reviewer points out, The Unexpected Miss Bennet would make a lovely Christmas gift. Or Hannukah. Or birthday present any time of year, actually. In the UK you can purchase a lovely hardcover right now, and for those who have a better handle on delayed gratification, the US edition comes out Dec. 6.

To purchase The Unexpected Miss Bennet:

From Robert Hale Publishing

From The Book Depository

From Amazon UK

That is what makes this book so good; the small however substantial deviations from conventional Fantasy. No great heroes with impressive talents, no hyperpowerful magicians, no superbad antagonists, no generation-spanning prophecies, no sly yet love-worthy thieves, no superhuman assassins, no soul-related wolves, kites, dwarves or other races. Simply only: ….realistic, intelligent (and nevertheless exciting) Fantasy.

Was für eine Überraschung!, 19. Oktober 2009

Das Cover ist abschreckend, ich weiß (oder auch nicht), aber in jedem Fall vollkommen irreführend.

Das ist weder eine wilde Liebesgeschichte zwischen Pferd und Frau noch geht es um eine plüschige Pferdefreundschaft.

Zur Geschichte:
Als Lynn ihr Pferd nach einer Show durch den Gordath Wald nach Hause reitet, landet sie unversehens in einer mittelalterlichen Parallelwelt, mitten in die Anfänge eines neuen Krieges. Auslöser für diesen Krieg sind die plötzlich auftauchende Schusswaffen, die der herrschende Lord von einem anderen Weltenwanderer vorgestellt bekommt.

In der hiesigen Welt wird unterdessen erfolglos nach Lynn gefahndet. Eine ihrer Schülerinnen, die 16jährige Kate, macht sich schließlich allein (ja, mit ihrem Pferd) auf die Suche nach ihr und verschwindet ebenfalls. Aber Kate bekommt Lynn nie zu Gesicht. Statt dessen landet sie auf der Gegenseite in einer Armee, in der Frauen nur als Prostituierte einen Platz haben.

Während die beiden Frauen versuchen, mit ihrem Los klarzukommen, wird deutlich, dass die Öffnung des Portals schwerwiegende Konsequenzen für beide Welten hat. Erdbeben erschüttern Dörfer und stürzen Burgen. Und der Wächter, der den Gordath geschlossen halten sollte, ist spurlos verschwunden.

—-

Ja, wieder eine Weltenportalsgeschichte. Aber diesmal eine gute. Denn hier spielt unsere eigene Welt im Verlauf der Geschichte auch noch weiter eine Rolle. (Also keine Flucht-Fantasy!) Lynn und Kate entpuppen sich auch nicht als die lange gesuchten Helden, die als einzige die Welt retten können. Die beiden Frauen haben genug damit zu tun, unbeschadet zu überleben, und nicht einmal das gelingt ihnen immer. Der Krieg, in den sie beide stolpern wird nicht gegen irgendeinen wagen aber bösen Lord/Gott geführt, sondern findet schon von Anfang an praktisch nicht mehr Rechtfertigung als die Launen eines gekränkten Lord Thards auf der einen Seite und dem Siegesdurst General Marthens auf der anderen Seite. Unschuldige werden nicht geschont, und es ist klar, dass die Lords absolut herrschen. Sarath suhlt sich aber nicht im Dreck und in der Gewalt einer überzogen brutalen Zeit, ihr Mittelalterkrieg ist so, wie ich ihn mir immer vorgestellt habe.

Das ist es auch, was dieses Buch so gut macht: die kleinen aber wesentlichen Abweichungen von herkömmlicher Fantasy. Keine großartigen Helden mit beeindruckenden Talenten, keine hypermächtige Magie, keine superbösen Antagonisten, keine generationenumspannenden Prophezeihungen, keine gefinkelten aber trotzdem liebenswerten Diebe, keine übermenschlichen Assasine, keine seelenverwandten Wölfe, Drachen, Zwerge oder sonstiges Getier. Einfach nur: was wäre, wenn … Für alle, die mal wieder realistische, intelligente (und trotzdem spannende) Fantasy lesen wollen, genau das Richtige.

This is one of those stories where each major character has their own storyline, which gradually begin to intermingle as the book continues, although for the most part, these stories work perfectly well independently. If Lynn didn’t feature in the book at all, Kate’s story would make just as much sense, and vice versa. They don’t need or build on each other, and interconnect only in the loosest sense.

And:

I was really enjoying Crae’s tale, with his struggles to make his marriage and his lordship real, which involved a rather sweet and slow love story that would have stood very nicely on its own outside the rest of the book.

The reviewer had valid criticisms of the book, but I will let you click through and discover them for yourselves. ;  -)

This was a fascinating tale straddling two worlds that switched from character to character so flawlessly that it was barely a blip on the radar. Wonderful, flawed characters, awesome settings and a great storyline make for a story not to be missed. I didn’t read the first book, but this book had enough back story that it was easy to keep up. I enjoyed this story so much that I am now on the look out for a copy of the first book, Gordath Wood.

The RED GOLD BRIDGE by Patrice Sarath is written as the conclusion to GORDATH WOOD. It ties up the story very nicely, the multiple point of views work well with each other, and has a piercing plot. Although I recommend reading the first book, GORDATH WOOD, to fully enjoy this novel, RED GOLD BRIDGE is a suspenseful fantasy you don’t want to miss.

Read the whole review here.

Once again, Patrice Sarath has woven a tale of love, mystery with a bit of fantasy thrown in with the sequel to Gordath Wood.

Read the rest of the review:

I hope that this is nominated for a World Fantasy award, as well as an O’Henry and any other literary award out there. I wish that the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror were still being published, because this story would have pride of place. Thankfully there are other Year’s Best fantasies. David Hartwell and Katherine Cramer, are you listening? Please read this story and reprint it. Please.

I usually flip past the stories in the New Yorker, because of their unbearable plotless dullness, as if slice-of-life vignettes with clever lit’ry tricks make up for an actual story. I have no idea why modern Irish writers, for example, who have a rich heritage of storytelling, should write such dull, lifeless stuff. Ditto for the Russians and the Chinese they were publishing in spates in years past. Naturalism ruined the short story in mainstream literature. Ruined it. Yes, I’m bitter.

And I almost flipped past this story because it was a fantasy, and it was written by an “outsider” and I just didn’t want to see fantasy butchered by people who think they are being oh so clever and isn’t this easy to write? Adrian isn’t an outsider, it turns out. His fiction bridges the modern and the fantastic, and he has a well-deserved following. So there!

Find a copy. Read it. Love it.

Here’s the first line of The Thrall’s Tale, by Judith Lindbergh:

Einar owns me, the runes at my collarbone speak from the carved stone, smooth with wear. The amulet belonged to another  before me, another thrall whose name is lost.

Ohhhhhhh.

The Thrall’s Tale tells the story of Katla, a slave who along with her master’s household travels from Iceland to Greenland with Eric the Red, or Eirik Raude in the novel. Lindbergh’s a scholar of the Norse culture and the book is a fascinating account of the Greenland settlement, the coming of Christianity and clash of religions, and the effects of the plague (known as the rake and the broom, the rake where some live, the broom where a holding is swept clean of life).

The book pulls no punches. Katla’s life as a thrall is horrifying; she is raped, disfigured, and bears a child she cannot love. The story also tells her daughter’s tale as well as the story of their mistress, the seeress Thorbjorg. The book is written like an Icelandic saga, in that nothing good comes of anything. The rape is the precipitating event and sets the seeds for the destruction of the Greenland settlement. Nothing can beat the sagas if you have a fascination with fatal decisions that result in catastrophe; The Thrall’s Tale reminded me of Njall’s Saga, also known as Burning Njall, in which an entire family is burned to death for some slight or another. Before there were trains, the Vikings knew how to ride a runaway train to its fiery conclusion. If Sigrid Undset were still writing today, she would have written something similar (except in four or five volumes, each about 1000 pages).

So okay, a downer. But a downer in a good way. The character of the unloved and unlovable Bibrau is a trainwreck of her own, and thank you Judith Lindbergh for not writing Bibrau’s voice as that of a lisping child. Even as a four year old, this is an old soul, and we are given the full effect of her precocious behavior.

My quibbles were minor, mostly of the “okay, we get it!” variety when the point gets hammered home a bit too much. Some of the word choices were a little precious. Otherwise, a splendid read.

Read the source material.

Don’t have a huge emotional stake in the outcome.

 It was fine, much better than I expected The backstory that played out over the credits was moving and poignant, even if Dylan is an obvious choice, and the movie captured the nuances of the characters, even making Rorschach sympathetic.

The two teens I went with had a fine time dissecting its shortcomings on the way home, so a fine time was had by all.