Books = Happiness

 

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

While I really enjoyed this novel, I am struggling to summarize it as it is quite unusual. The first in a series, at times I was reminded of Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Twilight, Hunger Games, Beauty an the Beast, even Labyrinth, but it is still absolutely unique story itself.  

It is the story of a mortal human young woman named Fayre who is tasked with keeping her father and sisters alive in a bleak world full of misery and poverty. She has become a master huntress in order to keep her family from starving. 

One day while hunting in the woods that border her human world with the faerie, whom humans hate and fear, she encounters a deer, and while hunting it, she discovers a wolf who also has interest in the deer. Not wanting her hungry family to suffer, she kills them both, meaning they can eat and sell the pelts. 

It isn't until later, when a monstrous creature appears, furious, at her home, that she learns the wolf she killed was actually a faerie in disguise. She has broken an ancient treaty the humans had with the Fae. As retribution, the beast insists that Fayre come to his land (called Prythian) to live the rest of her life away from her family. 

Once there, she discovers that the beast is actually an immortal and magic faerie named Tamlin, one of the high lords of Prythian. Over time, she discovers that everything she has always been taught about the "evil faerie" is untrue, and that perhaps the humans are the real treacherous creatures. The more that she learns about Tamlin and Prythian, she comes to feel at home and her mistrust turns to love.

All would be perfect in her new world... except for an ancient curse that threatens all of Prythian.

A thoroughly fun and entertaining read! I think teenagers would like this book as well. Girl Power.

 

 

 

 

 

Interesting idea.

Books. Books. Books.

 

The Haunting of Brynn Wilder by Wendy Webb

This was a first for me from this author... but will certainly not be the last. 

I loved everything about this novel. The setting was wonderful (a small beach side town on Lake Superior), the theme of transformation was life affirming, the characters were well developed and so likable, the plot was original, interesting and well thought out and the dialog was laugh out loud funny in some places, thoughtful and meaningful in others. All around an A+ home run for me.

Brynn is a woman who has just survived a traumatic year, with the end of a serious relationship and nursing her beloved mother through cancer to death. 

At the urging of a friend, Brynn decides to spend the summer in a boarding house in a small town named Wharton on the shores of Lake Superior. Here, she find a cast of lovable characters in this close knit community. She meets a mysterious man covered head to toe in tattoos with a mysterious career and past, the lovable couple who run the boarding house (she is friendly and flamboyant, he is caring and loves to do the cooking for the tenants). There is the fun loving gay couple, Gil and Jason, who decide to move Jason's former fragile wife in to live with them after she is diagnosed with Alzheimer's... and many more.

Without giving too much away, I'll just say it is a mixture of love story, ghost story, a story of friendship and family, creepy but also cozy, sad and funny and suspenseful and comforting and life affirming... with a touch of time travel.

I highly recommend this one!

Books are better.

Occasionally movies come close to being as good as the books they are based on, rarely, but the book is always better!