I love throwing short, easy-to-read books in my rotation, especially after the doozy that was Ann Rule’s Ted Bundy biography. My young adult book club had the solution – Mary E. Pearson’s The Adoration of Jenna Fox. Jenna Fox has awoken from a really long coma with no memory of who she is or the accident that caused it. Her parents are incredibly attentive and protective. Her grandmother is oddly distant. And Jenna is incredibly isolated and alone. She begins to wonder what happened to […]
“I used to be someone.”
Dramatic irony — simply, the idea that the audience knows something that the character doesn’t — is a common tension-building storytelling device. From the point of view of the audience, it’s oppositional from the “plot twist,” where the character(s) and the audience are both in the dark and they figure out the crucial, shocking bit of information at the same time, and it completely transforms the story, both moving forward and retroactively. There are the stories that play both sides. They don’t explicitly inform the […]
Stranger in a strange land
3.5 stars This is the second book in the Remnant Chronicles, following directly on from The Kiss of Deception. It is impossible for me to review this without spoilers for the first book, hence, skip this if you’re not caught up. Princess Lia is a prisoner in Venda, surrounded by what she has been taught are violent and backward barbarians. Having accepted her feelings for Rafe, she may never have a proper chance to act on them, as they are both captives and the Komizar, […]
A runaway princess, a jilted prince and an assassin walk into a tavern…
3.5 stars I finished this book nearly two weeks ago, and will therefore use the summary from Goodreads to explain the plot. Getting old and senile here, peeps. In a society steeped in tradition, Princess Lia’s life follows a preordained course. As First Daughter, she is expected to have the revered gift of sight – but she doesn’t – and she knows her parents are perpetrating a sham when they arrange her marriage to secure an alliance with a neighbouring kingdom – to a prince […]