Weekend Reads: By Darkness Hid by Jill Williamson (Heather)

Hey there Weekend Warriors Readers!

If you live in the south, like me, you might be avoiding the heat by staying indoors and reading your little heart out! Are you running out of material? Heaven forbid!

Well, to be on the safe side, I'm popping in to give you a fabulous, bookish recommendation. 😎 Award winning fantasy author Jill Williamson just released her book By Darkness Hid (Book 1 in her Blood of Kings series) as an audiobook! The only problem is, I am ready to start book 2, By Darkness Fled, but it's not on audio yet. 😒

Narrated by fellow fantasy author Gillian Bronte Adams, (author of The Songkeeper Chronicles), I enjoyed every moment of this story (which deservedly won a Christy Award). Bravo to Gillian for bringing it to life so vividly. Her grasp of accents was impressive and her narration made for an intriguing and easy listen. How can one person be so multi-talented?!

By Darkness Hid follows Achan, an orphaned "stray" who works in the kitchens of a lord in the land of  Er'Rets. He senses things about people, and, on occasion, can even hear the thoughts of others. When a knight in the Kingsguard takes notice of Achan and begins to train him as a squire, Achan is suddenly the target of other powerful people who mean to do him harm.

Like Achan, Vrell Sparrow can hear what others are thinking. Though the gift of "bloodvoicing" is common among royals, she must keep both her royal identity and her gift a secret. Disguised as a stray boy in order to avoid wedding an awful prince, she succeeds in her deception for a time. But when she senses the voice of a young man in peril, she is drawn to help him. The problem is, other, treacherous men with the bloodvoicing gift have heard and taken notice of her and the young man as well. Now they're both in danger!

As they both learn to control their newfound ability, while trying to protect one another and the kingdom, a different kind of voice calls them to Himself. Will they learn to trust and obey this other voice or will evil have its way in the kingdom?

To find out, snag your copy of By Darkness Hid and enjoy the adventure for yourself! Full of castles and sword fights, conspiracies and deceptions, and all the medieval feels that fantasy fans adore, Jill Williamson does not disappoint!

Heartless by Marissa Meyer (What We're Reading: Lauricia)

Hello everyone and happy summer! I hope you’re indulging in copious amounts of down-time and an abundance of good books. Today, I’m blogging about Heartless by Marissa Meyer. For those of you in a hurry, today’s content can be summed up in four words:

This. book. DEVASTATED. me.

After finishing this story, it was almost a whole week before I felt recovered enough to start something new. That’s how much this story stayed with me.

Lady Catherine Pinkerton, daughter of the Marquess of Hearts, truly desires only one thing: to open the best confectioner’s shop in the whole kingdom. Her mother, however, has other plans. When Catherine’s exceptional baking skills capture the affection of the King, her mother pushes Catherine into a courtship she doesn’t want, especially since she’s falling in love with another man. Every attempt Catherine makes to avoid the King’s imminent proposal only strengthens the King’s desire, pushing Catherine to more desperate measures as she fights to master her destiny and spend her life with a man of her own choosing.

Set in the world of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, Heartless is the origin story of the Queen of Hearts. While remaining true to Carroll’s original version of Wonderland, Meyers develops a world that is richly drawn and peopled with characters so real that readers will miss them when the story ends.

I originally read this book because one of my students recommended it to me. I honestly wasn’t looking forward to it, but I try to read everything my students love enough to recommend because it gives me insight into each student’s personality. It also gives us common ground for discussion, providing a way to connect, and it exposes me to some pretty good stories I might not have picked up otherwise.

This is exactly what happened with Heartless. In this story, Meyers has created an actual, believable person to flesh out the caricature of Lewis Carroll’s Queen of Hearts. Every detail from Carroll’s stories is present and is believably incorporated. Meyer’s characters are richly drawn and believable, even the minor characters, and their motives are relatable. Moreover, Catherine’s transition from enjoyable daughter of a domineering mother to the Queen of Hearts is understandable and genuine, and her reasons for doing so are reasons any one of us might act on ourselves. The truth of Catherine’s story is what makes Heartless so powerful, believable, and ruinous.

I hope you enjoy this book. If you do, let me know what you think. Also, I'm always looking for a good read. Let me know what you're reading in the comments below.