It looks like Max and Leon are really dead. (Well, Leon is alive in another universe.) Without the primary protagonists a fourth book doesn’t look all that interesting. I’m just not in the mood to really care about some other St. Mary’s people. But wait . . . Max was flung by the muse of history into Leon’s carpet in his universe. A second chance for happily ever after. A chance for a nice, quiet life. Hah! As if anyone connected with St. Mary’s could live a nice quiet life. Before long they were being chased through the timeline by the Time Police.
This series revolves around St. Mary’s Institute of Historical Research where historians investigate major historical events in contemporary time. Meaning that they travel through time. And mostly they come home in one piece. The books are full or British humor, but there is also death and destruction. Often I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. The books need to be read in order, for there is too much missing background information to do otherwise.
eGalley review Publication date 11.1.16
Shelby can’t forgive herself. After all, she was driving. She was the one who slid on the ice and wrecked the car. She was the one who should be in a coma instead of her best friend. Shelby was in the ER for only one night, but she was in the psych hospital for three months. Shelby withdrew from the world, shaved her head, and stayed high on pot. The only person she could talk to was Ben, who supplied the pot.
Yael’s story continues in this alternate history with Germany and Japan the victors of WWII. Yael was the subject of medical experiments as a young girl in the Nazi concentration camps. As a result, she can skin-shift, physically change her appearance. In 
The little match girl goes pyrotechnic, while the princess on the glass hill has a female companion, and don’t even ask about the big, bad, wolf. This is another out-of-the-box collection of reimagined fairy tales written by multiple award winning authors. Garth Nix, Charlie Jane Anders, Margo Lanagan, and Jeffrey Ford, are among the long and impressive list of contributing authors. The eighteen tales range from hilarious to horrific, from sci-fi to fantasy to western to traditional fairy tale, most of which are definitely for adults. Even if I didn’t quite understand some of them, I enjoyed all.
This third adventure in the TodHunter Moon series opens with the reveal of a huge problem because the world’s magic source is drying, turning to powder, and poof – gone. Magyk comes from lapis lazuli beneath the wizard tower and other parts of the world and begins to disintegrate after the removal of the Orm Egg that was the keystone holding the Magyk together. After the Orm Egg was rescued from Oraton Marr, the egg hatched and has become a rather wild pet of sorts. Tod has plans to find a new Keystone (more eggs) and discovers the mystery surrounding the Pathfinders and their Ancestors. To further complicate matters, Tod must dodge the murderous intentions of her Aunt Mitza. Excellent adventure and brilliant characters. My all-time favorite series!
Imprisoned by her father, the King of Serubel, Sepora escapes with the intention of hiding among the laborers in the nearby kingdom of Theoria. She is the last of the Forgers and has a skill sometimes inherited through the royal line that produces a buildup of energy and is expelled as spectorium. It is so rare, that Serubel has built their economy around the trade of spectorium. Her father has been forcing her to produce spectorium and plans to use this to conquer neighboring countries. By escaping, she hopes to prevent war. Soon after fleeing the lush and mountainous Serubel, Sepora is captured in the arid desert of Theoria and sold in the slave market. She is bought as a gift to the new king of Theoria, Tarik, to be the most recent addition to his harem. This does not sit well with Sepora, who gains the attention of Tarik. The late king of Theoria died quite suddenly of a strange plague that is beginning to spread and Tarik enlists Sepora’s help without knowing her royal lineage. Healers have determined that injecting victims with a bit of spectorium will fight the plague, but there is a massive shortage of spectorium.
One day when Betsy Balcombe was thirteen, her accustomed life changed forever. That was the day she learned that the Great Ogre of Europe, England’s enemy, Napoleon himself, would be residing on their island, St. Helena, forever. And in the immediate future he would be residing in their summer house while his house was being built. Thus began the friendship between Betsy and the Emperor. Betsy was a headstrong girl, not one to be in awe of anyone and they developed a playful, childlike relationship that showed a side of Napoleon rarely seen.
George, short for Georgina, is left hurriedly with relatives when her parents must resume the search for her missing brother. Her uncle, Constantine, tells her a curious bedtime story about a catastrophic meteor shower and The Council of Seven that was created to prevent the destruction of the world. George barely gets to know these kind but eccentric relations when Constantine departs on an urgent business and her aunt is abducted. This is after a skeleton delivers George a cryptic message from Constantine that sends her on a mission. Following hasty instructions from her aunt to always turn left at decision points, she meets two boys busy digging a grave in a cemetery. They decide to join her on her adventure that turns into a quest to save the world. The trio travel to quirky worlds and meet a talking map, a distraught monster, a flameless dragon, and much more. Students new to this genre and looking for a book that takes them on an imaginative journey should enjoy this adventure that is filled with heart.
A strange, mystical island is torn by three rival factions: Elementalists, Naturalists, Poisoners. For generations, the queen gives birth to triplets. Each child has the abilities of one of the three factions. The queen mother leaves the island and her daughters to fight for the throne. Around age 6, the triplets are taken from each other and sent to the faction of their ability and raised until they come of age and are expected to fight to the death for the crown. Only one will rule. The triplets, once close in childhood, are now expected to kill each other. The Poisoners have been the ruling faction for many years, but triplet, Katherine does not appear to be very strong and capable of withstanding poisons. Naturalists have a familiar, an animal to share their bond. But triplet, Arsinoe, has not been successful in calling a familiar. This generation, it appears the strongest triplet is Mirabella. Mirabella is an Elementalist controlling fire, wind and water. However, Mirabella is kind-hearted and remembers her sisters with such love that she could never kill them. This tenderness does not sit well with the powers that be, so they come up with another plan to kill the weaker queens.
Set in an alternate Victorian England ravaged by Ancients, Henrietta is now a teacher at a charity boarding school where she was abandoned years before. Around the time she was born, witches opened the portals to allow the Ancients to terrorize citizens with all manner of horror and death. Sorcerers killed all known witches as punishment. A sorcerer comes to the school seeking a rumored fire witch. It’s Henrietta, who can create fires and fireballs at will, especially when upset, that they seek. She is discovered and certain she will be killed but the sorcerer takes her into his home in London to train with his other protégés in the fight against the Ancients.
Books are no longer used or even known about by most folks. At a very early age, Sefia’s mother secretly plays alphabet blocks with Sefia, attempting to teach her the dangerous skill of reading. Her mother is killed and she is lovingly raised by her father and Aunt Nin. She is taught to hide in a safe room if trouble ever comes. It came. Her father is murdered and her Aunt Nin is captured. Sefia discovered a thick object, a book, in the safe room. She tucks it into her pack and heads out to rescue Aunt Nin. She lives in the forest for a long time, tracking Nin’s captors and honing her survival skills. She rescues Archer, who is mute and held captive and routinely forced to fight to the death to ensure his own survival. All this time, Sefia is teaching herself to read the mysterious book that people have died protecting. It is a book full of stories. Stories of the famous pirate who sails to the end of the world and much much more. Meanwhile the story shifts to an elite school, training those in special skills. Training assassins. Assassins determined to kill Sefia. The characters from the different story threads meet, help, and hinder each other.
There were false identity papers for all of the children, but some of them needed more. They needed to be more Polish, less Jewish, needed golden curls, needed to stop speaking Yiddish, needed to forget their real families. Only Irena knew their real names and she guarded that secret with her life. Irena Sendler, a public health specialist, was allowed into the Warsaw ghetto in 1942, mainly to keep diseases from spreading into the rest of the population. But when she saw the dreadful conditions, she had to do something. She began smuggling food and medicines in, and soon began smuggling children out. They came out in the sewers, in suitcases and bags, even in coffins, and 2,500 children were saved from certain death.
Every twelve years, the citizens of the walled-in city of Canaan lose their memories. Parents have no memory of their children. Relatives and friends forget they ever knew each other. After the first Forgetting, the citizens were required to keep a journal, tied to their waist and write the events of the day in preparation for the next Forgetting. After the Forgetting, they read their volumes of journals to pick up their lives as best they can. But what if a person uses the Forgetting to construct a new life on a fake past? What if someone is immune to the Forgetting? Nadia is perhaps the only one who does not forget. She was around five at the time of the last Forgetting and she knows so many secrets. During the day, she goes exploring outside the wall seeking answers. She stumbles upon more than she ever imagined. The Forgetting is as brilliantly captivating as all Sharon Cameron’s books are. Thought provoking. We are made of our memories. Highly recommend.
Betty MacDonald wrote a series of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books in the 1940s. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle helped children overcome bad habits and correct misbehaviors employing ingenious cures. She lived in a crazy upside-down house full of animals and charm. The series is now reimagined when Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is off to search for her pirate husband and enlists her great-niece, Missy to take care of her house and animals while she is away.
Poppy Pearson is a young maid in service to the aristocratic de Vere family during the outbreak of World War I. Poppy is urged by a former teacher to take advantage of the expanding opportunities to women due to the war so she leaves her comfortable position to become a VAD nurse. The Volunteer Aid Detachment was comprised of mostly women to aid nurses in tending the wounded soldiers shipped back to England and in the field hospitals. Poppy is assigned to a hospital receiving wounded shipped back to England from the front. She sees the physical and mental damages of war – faces destroyed, missing limbs, massive infections. Poppy tends to the soldiers with patience and kindness. The atmosphere in the hospital wards is as positive as can be with the “Tommies” doing their best to have a cheerful attitude despite the horrific wounds.
YA Lit Ramblings 
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