When I set out to read this book I didn’t know it would qualify for the “And So It Begins” square on the CBR10 bingo card. Happily for me that is a box now checked off, as this is book one in The Tales of Valdur series. The header of The Guns of Ivrea page on Clifford Beal’s site says, “Historical Fiction with a Twist of Lime”. Historical fiction implies to me that you are taking historical people and events and writing your own interpretation of said events. […]
Here, There Be a Lot of Info Dump
One of my students suggested this book to me last year, and I finally got around to getting it from the library. If I was twelve years old again, I would have absolutely loved this book and been hooked for the duration of the series. It was fanciful, had a cute ending, and hit all the correct markers for decent kids’ fantasy, but the older I get, the harder a time I have sinking into YA fantasies, and this book was no exception. Our three […]
Revisiting Cormoran and Robin (CBR10Bingo)
I don’t scorn rereading (see please, my Harry Potter reread), it just isn’t something I do all that much since I joined up with the Cannonball crowd back in 2012. It is sometimes very difficult to find new words to express a reaction to a book, and now that writing a review is part of my reading process I cannot skip a review. If I read a book… I’m reviewing it (with the exception of one book back in CBRV). So, why did I dive […]


