Top 3 Books with Maps and New Book Map Reveal (Lizzie)

Maps are fun. I still look at them when going on road trips and look for them at the beginning of books. I've seen books with treasure maps, maps of houses, maps of villages, and maps of a large part of the story world.

I can't talk about books with maps and not talk about Tolkien's The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, or Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, but I want to mention other books as well, so I'll just say these are the top books with maps after the classics.

Books with Maps

1) The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom by Christopher Healy

 2) The Dreamhouse Kings series by Robert Liparulo

This is a fun map because it is of a house instead of a continent, but if you know the story (which I review here) you'll understand how important a map of this particular house is. I also got to meet Robert Liparulo recently at the Realm Makers conference in St. Louis!

 

3) The Sword of Lyric series by Sharon Hinck

There are a lot of other great books with maps, but these are three that came to mind. Do you have a favorite map or favorite book with a map? 

I am a part of author Patrick Carr's street team and just saw the map to go with his upcoming release The End of the Magi and am excited to share it! I never thought much about the magi beyond Christmas songs until seeing a magus return to look for Jesus in the story of Ben Hur. I'm curious as to what Patrick Carr, a fantastic world builder and character writer, will do with the story of the magi. You can check out the book (available for pre-order) here.

Top 3 Time Travel Stories (Lizzie)

Hi, everybody! I’m Lizzie (or, if you want to be proper, Elizabeth Jane Kitchens). I’m excited to be part of Lands Uncharted and look forward to getting to know you through the comments section. A little about me: I live in Alabama with Phoebe, my large, fluffy, white Great Pyrenees, and I write YA fantasy fiction.

Now that we’ve settled the important matter of introductions, on to today’s post: Time Travel Stories. To the future, to the past. To here, to there.

 1. Dreamhouse Kings by Robert Liparulo

This YA fantasy adventure series begins with House of Dark Shadows and continues for another five action-packed books. I loved this series—the characters, the action, the history—and read it in record time.

Teens Xander, David, and Toria King move with their parents from L.A. to a creepy Victorian fixer-upper in the middle of the woods. Strange things soon begin happening, like odd sounds with nothing to make them and giant footprints in dust. Then there’s the episode where David hides in the linen closet and ends up in locker 119 at school.

If that was the worst, then the old house would be just creepy enough to be cool, but the siblings soon find a hidden hallway with portals to different times and places in history—but only to the wars, to the invasions, to the doomed cities. And it’s to those places their mom gets kidnapped, stuck in a time travel loop. Can they choose the right portal at the right time to save their mom—if they can survive the war zones they much search? 

2. Shadow Hand (Tales of Goldstone Wood) by Anne Elisabeth Stengl

“Oh, Shadow Hand of Here and There
The Stone of ancients kills
To free his fiery, fickle Fair
From death beneath the Hills!”

I love the Tales of Goldstone Wood. I read the first six books, and then re-read them. Anne Elisabeth Stengl has a beautiful, old fashioned voice that’s perfect for the fairy tale adventures she writes. The characters, the legends, the story world, are all marvelous.

Shadow Hand is book 6 in the series, so I wouldn’t recommend starting there (Heartless in the first book). However, I couldn’t resist mentioning it.

Every human knows that to enter the Goldstone Wood is to perish. There are the sylphs (who can, if you survive their dance, spit you back out of the Woods at any time or in any world), the Black Dogs (who might drag you down to Death), an enchanted river, and who knows what else. Yet to the Woods Princess Daylily flees on her wedding day, and to there the jilted groom—none other than the dandy Prince Foxbrush—must go to save her. Or to try to save her—Foxbrush is no hero.

Marrying Daylily was one part of Foxbrush’s plan to save his struggling kingdom, but when he’s sent from the Woods by a strange and beautiful creature straight from his childhood nursery rhymes (and who claims he’s the nursery rhyme hero King Shadow Hand of Here and There), he emerges at the right place but the wrong time. Foxbrush soon he realizes that his kingdom needs saving as much in the past (where he’s stuck wearing animal hide and sleeping in a hut) as in the future. Can he become the hero his kingdom and his reluctant bride need him to be?


3. A Kid in King Arthur’s Court

I loved this Disney movie growing up. Teenager Calvin Fuller (who cringes every time he’s forced to go up to bat in a baseball game) is pulled into Camelot by Merlin. 

Calvin must help save King Arthur’s city and restore the aged king’s confidence. He also has to train as a knight, defeat a villainous lord, and save King Arthur’s lovely daughter. 

When he’s not learning to be a hero, he’s introducing Princess Katey to the Big Mac (and explaining that the Poisonous Love Apple is, despite its name, fabulous on a hamburger) and teaching people how to roller blade. 

Of course, I can't discuss time travel without at least mentioning the beloved standards: H. G. Well’s The Time Machine, the Dr. Who series (I grew up watching the old series with doctors one–eight, but haven’t watched the new), and, of course, the Back to the Future movies. 

What are your favorite time travel stories? Have you seen or read any mentioned here? Have any to recommend?