Mackie Doyle seems like everyone else in the perfect little town of Gentry, but he is living with a fatal secret – he is a Replacement, left in the crib of a human baby sixteen years ago. Now the creatures under the hill want him back, and Mackie must decide where he really belongs and what he really wants.
A month ago, Mackie might have told them to buzz off. But now, with a budding relationship with tough, wounded, beautiful Tate, Mackie has too much to lose. Will love finally make him worthy of the human world? (goodreads.com)
Release date: September 21, 2010
This was one of the books I picked up while at BEA in May. I read it on the train home from NYC and was halfway through it before I realized the back cover listed the pub date as September 2010. Oops. This lead to my writing of the review in the Spring and my posting of it in the Fall.
On the back of the book it says that Brenna Yovanoff is one of the three Merry Sisters of Fate along with Maggie Stiefvater and Tessa Gratton. Now, I have never read anything by Tessa, but her website greets you with a peaceful image of a forest until you see the glob of blood over it (book, Blood Magic due 2011 is now added to my wishlist!). I already know that Maggie writes about homicidal, terrifying faeries and after reading The Replacement I can see why these people would be friends.
This book was one of the creepiest books I have read in a long time. And it’s not particularly the kind of creepy that you realize is happening. It’s one that seeps into your subconscious and revisits you when you least expect it. I regularly have night terrors, but this book added a sense of whimsy to them, in a creeped out way. The night I finished the book I woke up on numerous occasions thinking there was someone standing in my room (The Cutter, perhaps?) only to realize it’s just my bath robe on the back of the door. This didn’t just happen once, it happened at least 5 times that night.
The cover of the book, from the ARC I read in May (in case it changes) adds to the creepyness of the story. It’s as if I could feel the iron of the metallic-looking cover seeping into my blood and poisoning me as I read. It’s the cover that made me pick up this book, not knowing what it was at BEA. When I started reading I wasn’t sure how I would like the story as I don’t tend to favour books with male protagonists, however Mackie was very likable and his friendships and relationships were things I cared about throughout the story.
This book is set in an eerie world which likely only the town of Gentry knows. I hope I never pass through such a place on my way somewhere or end up accidentally visiting such a place because by golly are those folks messed up!
Brenna Yovanoff is one of the 2010 Debs and this book qualifies for my Debut Author Challenge for this year! Woohoo!
After siphoning her own blood magic in the showdown at Hubal, Opal Cowan has lost her powers. She can no longer create glass magic. More, she’s immune to the effects of magic. Opal is now an outsider looking in, spying through the glass on those with the powers she once had, powers that make a difference in the world.
Until spying through the glass becomes her new power. Suddenly, the beautiful pieces she makes flash in the presence of magic. And then she discovers that someone has st olen some of her blood—and that finding it might let her regain her powers. Or learn if they’re lost forever… (goodreads.com)
Here’s the thing: I love Maria V. Snyder’s writing, worlds and story lines. I love her characters and her mysteries and her relationships. What I do not love? Opal Cowan.
This was a very difficult book to get through because I just cannot stand Opal. I don’t care about her one bit. I think she’s selfish and whiny and a brat. With each book in this trilogy I have wrestled with my dislike of the main character but for the most part I was able to ignore it and move on with the story. Not so much with this book.
I didn’t hate the book though, so don’t think that, because I like everything else about it EXCEPT for Opal. Heck, I even liked her mother when her mother gave her the silent treatment for coming home with little time to prepare for her sister’s wedding. There was just something about Opal that rubbed me the wrong way. And how everyone always fawns all over her and everyone loves her and thinks she’s awesome? Gah!
Opal aside (although that’s hard to do since she’s the main character) I do like the way the story unfolded. I thought quite a bit happened for one book, but in the end there is resolution to everything. It’s strange going from a book series where the main character tries to do things alone but accepts the help of her friends to this one where it is Opal against the world and I really think she could learn a thing or to from Nya in The Healing Wars series.
I didn’t really think twice about Opal in the Study series so I was curious as to how a trilogy about her would pan out. I just wish I found her a more likable character than I did.
One part in the last 1/3 of the story sort of confused me though. It’s a scene in the mines and concerns a particular character and I had to go back and reread a few pages to figure out what the heck was just revealed and just happened. Even with the rereads I am still baffled but rather than dwell too much on it I continued on because I really wanted to finish the book and see how Snyder was going to wrap things up.
I am highly anticipating Maria V Snyder’s next book however, it is the sequel to InsideOut and I think it comes out in the Spring. Even though I didn’t quite care for this main character, I love everything this woman writes it seems. She has a brilliant way with creating worlds and stories that you can fill your entire being with.
Part fugitive, part hero, fifteen-year-old Nya is barely staying ahead of the Duke of Baseer’s trackers. Wanted for a crime she didn’t mean to commit, she risks capture to protect every Taker she can find, determined to prevent the Duke from using them in his fiendish experiments. But resolve isn’t enough to protect any of them, and Nya soon realizes that the only way to keep them all out of the Duke’s clutches is to flee Geveg. Unfortunately, the Duke’s best tracker has other ideas.
Nya finds herself trapped in the last place she ever wanted to be, forced to trust the last people she ever thought she could. More is at stake than just the people of Geveg, and the closer she gets to uncovering the Duke’s plan, the more she discovers how critical she is to his victory. To save Geveg, she just might have to save Baseer—if she doesn’t destroy it first. (harpercollins.ca)
Release Date: September 24, 2010
Thanks to the awesomness that is HarperCollins Canada, I was lucky to have Blue Fire on hand as soon as I finished The Shifter. There is something about this series that I just connected with from the first pages and I devoured the two books in two days. Heck, this book isn’t even published yet and I am already desperate for the third book! (The author noted in comments that she’s currently working on book 3 now!)
In Blue Fire, Nya is forced to live and interact with people in Baseer, a country she and all Gevegians hate. There is an interesting racisim vibe that is subtly peppered through the story without preaching about how everyone is the same no matter where they come from. Fifteen-year old Nya is shocked when she realizes that some of the kids in Baseer has similar views to her and actually have compassion. Again Nya is faced with very difficult choices in order to survive and yet she still feels distressed when a Baseer child is killed outright by soldiers.
What I like about the characters in this series is that you can see them learn and grow. They learn from their mistakes and they grow as people. Also likable is the fact that even though Nya feels she has to make the tough decisions and actions alone, her friends stick by her – and she allows them to help her!
I am so tired of books where the main character is all “I have to do this alone! It’s too dangerous for you!” and then argues against help from her friends. In this case Nya feels she has to do these things alone because the thought of endangering her friends is just too much for her, too painful. She felt guilty about asking her friends to put themselves in such danger, but when they rally around her and offer their help, she accepts and knows she can’t do everything on her own.
Oddly – and this is a total tangent – this sort of “me alone vs me and my friends” mentality made me think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the later seasons. My husband and I were growing tired of Buffy’s whining ways about how it always had to be her and her alone that saved the day. Had she just accepted the help her friends offered and acknowledged the strengths they brought to the group I think the show wouldn’t have gone the way it did. Yes, Joss Whedon likes to alienate his characters, but Buffy was so unlikable by seasons 6 & 7 I just wish he had gone with the Group Help idea a little more.
Nya and her friends are close to being a well-oiled machine. They are a pack that works together and each has different strengths that they add to the group and even though their adventures might not always go well, they still work well together.
I haven’t read a series like this in a while, or ever I don’t think, at the middle grade level, I’d go so far as to say this would be a good YA novel as well. It has a similar vibe as Maria V. Snyder’s Poison Study series in that the world is original, the choices the characters have to make are difficult and yet you fall in love with the people in the books and you want to read more about them.
And most *cough* extraordinary *cough* of all – I am getting MAIL AT MY HOUSE again! You can read all about that excitement here if you are so inclined.
Nya is an orphan struggling for survival in a city crippled by war. She is also a Taker—with her touch, she can heal injuries, pulling pain from another person into her own body. But unlike her sister, Tali, and the other Takers who become Healers’ League apprentices, Nya’s skill is flawed: She can’t push that pain into pynvium, the enchanted metal used to store it. All she can do is shift it into another person, a dangerous skill that she must keep hidden from forces occupying her city. If discovered, she’d be used as a human weapon against her own people.
Rumors of another war make Nya’s life harder, forcing her to take desperate risks just to find work and food. She pushes her luck too far and exposes her secret to a pain merchant eager to use her shifting ability for his own sinister purposes. At first Nya refuses, but when Tali and other League Healers mysteriously disappear, she’s faced with some difficult choices. As her father used to say, principles are a bargain at any price; but how many will Nya have to sell to get Tali back alive? (goodreads.com)
If you’re looking for really well written and enjoyable middle grade fantasy, then look no farther than The Healing Wars series by Janice Hardy. I am so happy that the sequel to this book caught my eye in the Harper Collins catalogue earlier this year because I never would have discovered it otherwise.
Right from the first page I was caught up in Nya’s world and curious about people who could heal with a touch and take other’s pain, but have to empty it into special kind of rock (pynvium). I was telling my husband that this reads like truly well-written adult fantasy only the main characters are teens and younger. The life that Nya leads isn’t all fairy tale and whimsy. She has to make tough choices in order to keep herself, her sister and soon others alive and out of harm’s way. She feels remorse and guilt over many of the choices but she makes the choices she does to survive.
You get a real feel for how tough things are and that it’s not just a pretend tough life she and the other kids are leading. The streets of Nya’s home town are not safe and happy. People are miserable and desperate.
Even with all the negative the story is very uplifting, though Nya tries her hardest to save what’s left of her family her actions give others hope and that leads to more people joining the cause to save others. Nya becomes a reluctant hero for her actions even though she’s still hunted by the Duke’s people.
I read this 400 page book quite fast and I didn’t want to put it down. I was extremely happy that I had the sequel sitting right next to me once I got to the end of this one. I wanted to read more and spend more time with Nya, Tali, Danello and the others. I want to know why the Duke is after the Healers.
In times of war people have to make tough decisions, but there is still compassion in many of the ones Nya makes.
I highly recommend this book – and series – to middle grade lovers, especially if fantasy is your cup of tea! Don’t expect a Disney Fairy Tale though, it’s far from that, but it’s still an engaging and well-told story.
I have been so tired this week it’s taken me a while to write this post, and as it is, I don’t think I did a very good job. But I wanted to get it written so I wouldn’t forget about it. I’m stopping now so I can finish book two!
EDIT: I have just discovered that this book has a different title outside of North America! If you’re looking for it in the UK you want to look for The Pain Merchants: Healing Wars Book 1. I don’t know why the titles were changed, I think either works just fine. It also has a beautiful cover! Had I seen this book while browsing the Book Depository you can be sure that I would have added it to my wishlist. Although I do like the fire motif on the NA cover. The sequel also has the hands and fire cover. I have now finished Blue Fire but my review will be up sometime in September when there is more information to be found about the book itself!
The Replacement
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