July 2022 Doings!

 

This was SUCH a good month, y'all. It was also a very busy month, which meant I spent a fair bit of it stressed, but still, SO GOOD. Am I partially saying that because I just got back from Realm Makers and I'm still really happy about how it went? Sure. But there were plenty of other reasons to be pleased with my July as well. That said, we're going to do things a little out of order and start with the Life section, since that's where all the exciting news is.

Life!

• REALM MAKERS!
• But first . . .
• This month was kind of interesting in that I had something going on pretty much every weekend (and also that I didn't have a single full workweek all month). Oddly enough, Independence Day weekend was the quietest weekend of the month. I spent most of it working on various crafting projects in preparation for Realm Makers, though I did get a break Friday evening to watch our town's fireworks. They were being set off from the park right behind our house, so we just walked down the road until we found a spot where the treeline was a little lower and watched from there without having to deal with crowds.
• The next weekend, my grandpa came down to visit for the weekend, which was fun, and we had the first of a series of livestream-related tech issues at work, which was objectively not. (Side note, if anyone has any idea what could cause a livestreaming system to automatically start streaming with no outside input and with no stream having been scheduled, I would dearly love to know.) Still, it was a good weekend on the whole.
• Then we got down to one-week-out-from-Realm Makers, and everything kicked into high gear as I finished all my final prep, in between D&D sessions (featuring one party's inability to roll anywhere in the double-digits on persuasion) and my sister's roommate coming over for board games and ginger beer, and another set of livestreaming problem spread over the course of the week. I did not get as much sleep that week as I probably should've, but I did get everything finished, and I even managed to do some writing.
• And then.
• And then.
• REALM MAKERS!
• So, yeah. Realm Makers was such a great experience, even if there was a hiccup or two in there. I roomed with the lovely Wyn Estelle Owens, which was a pleasure, and also made part of the trip up and back with her, and I got to meet Kendra E. Ardnek and several other Arista Challenge authors and other writers who I know online in person. (Side note: Kendra in real life is pretty much exactly what you'd expect from her online persona, just slightly shorter.) Wyn and Kendra also introduced me to some of their friends, and through friends of friends I discovered that there's a group of Realmies who live near me and occasionally meet up, so that's awesome. And, of course, I was able to meet some of the authors whose work I've read and loved and who, in some respects, were part of the reason I started writing and writing the type of stories I do in the first place — people like Wayne Thomas Batson, Jill Williamson, and Gillian Bronte Adams, all three of whom were absolutely lovely and kind and just . . . I don't know how else to say it except that, talking to them, you can tell why they write what they do and specifically why they write the types of characters they do. It was all very wonderful and encouraging, and I figured out pretty fast why the first keynote speaker (Tosca Lee!) emphasized a lot the relationships you build at events like this and elsewhere. As it turns out, the real treasure really is the friends you make along the way.
• (Also, the very first night we were there, while we were eating dinner, I was watching the line at the counter and freaking out because! there's Gillian Bronte Adams! there's Jill Williamson! there's Nadine Brandes! ahhhhhhhhhh! the cool authors are here! And then I ended up in front of Gillian while waiting in line for the Awards Banquet, though by that point I'd met her a couple of times already with varying levels of excitement versus coherent intelligence on my part.)
• It wasn't just meeting people that made Realm Makers so cool, though. I very much enjoyed the actual sessions, and I feel like I learned a lot — or, at least, I learned what I needed to in order to make the stories I'm currently writing and the ones that I'm going to write better. I picked Donald Maass's The Emotional Craft of Fiction series for my Continuing Sessions track (three 2-hour sessions spread over two days), and I think that was a very good choice; his advice, combined with some of what Tosca Lee said in her talk on keeping readers reading past midnight will, I think, help me get out of the little bit of a slump I'd run into with my current draft. I also got to sit in on both of Carla Hoch's classes, which were super fun . . . though I did get a little frustrated with some of her comments related to particular historical clothing items and whether or not you could move or fight in them. She reminds me of Marisha Ray, in a good way.
• I did manage to cosplay two of the three days of the conference. We got checked in too late for me to throw on the cosplay I had planned for the first evening, which was probably just as well — it involved collapsing daggers, and I learned after arrival that the no-weapons ban was actually nothing-that-looks-like-weapons, so . . . yeah. But I spent Friday dressed as Petra from the Rizkaland Legends, and then for the Awards Banquet, I changed into my take on Ailsa from The Dark King's Curse. I was very pleased with how both of those cosplays came off, though I'm not sure anyone but their authors recognized them. Then, on Saturday, I did a very low-key cosplay of Pet from The City Between, which did get recognized by one person and commented on by a few others. I think next time I go, I'll skip the daytime cosplay and just do something for the Awards Banquet and maybe the Book Festival, but it was fun to do this year.
• Speaking of the Awards Banquet, that was very cool. It was rather loud, which made conversation hard, but I enjoyed seeing everyone in their various costumes and cosplays. And, of course, it was exciting to see the Realm Awards get presented. I was delighted when Gillian won Book of the Year, and I was also super excited that H.L. Burke won an award (especially since I'd just started reading the series that the winning book was in). And then after the Banquet, Wyn, Kendra, and I headed off to the Hospitality Suite, where I got to eat more food (though not much more — the Banquet food was fancy, but it was also quite filling), meet a couple of Texan Realmies and a UK Realmie, and discover the game of Guillotine, in which you play as executioners in the French Revolution trying to get the most high-profile executions. That was fun.
• And then, of course, Sunday came, and everyone had to head back home. That drive was a bit more tiring than the one up, for some reason — maybe because I was already tired? In any case, I was glad of my decision to take Monday off so I'd have some recovery time.
• But now things are quiet again, and I'm settling into preparations for newsletter and Stewardship and more signage stuff at work and trying to get all the lingering tech issues sorted out, and I can get my focus back on writing my stories. Speaking of . . .

Writing!

• I don't remember where I left off on Bastian Dennel, PI #4, but at the moment, I'm finishing up Chapter 8 and about to start Chapter 9. Progress is slow, but steady, and given that I've been balancing SO MUCH this month, I'm happy with that.
• I do think I'm going to have to do something more to make Bastian's life difficult, though. I thought what I had planned would be enough, but . . . honestly, he's taking it too easily. I'm not entirely sure what that's going to look like but I'll figure it out. Hopefully it won't require that I go back and rewrite all I've done, though I suppose if I'm going to scrap things, it'd be better that I do it sooner than later . . . We'll figure it out.
• On the Through a Shattered Glass side, I've received most of the feedback I was expecting, and I've gone through it and gotten an idea what I need to adjust. In general, everyone seems to like it, so that's good.
• All Realm Makers swag came out pretty well, though I didn't give away half as much as I wanted to. I'm trying to decide what I want to do with the remainder — I could send it out by mail, or I could just save it for another event. I'm not sure.

Reading!

• This was a somewhat eclectic reading month: one part mood-read, one part reading for summer reading programs, and one part reading based on particular occasions.
• The highlight of the month was the release of Castle & Key, the latest (and possibly last) of W.R. Gingell's Two Monarchies series. This one was very much in the vein of Masque, blending Gothic fiction like Jane Eyre with the tale of Bluebeard, and while I didn't love it quite as much as Masque, it was still excellent. Susan is thoroughly practical, pleasantly determined, and unrelentingly inquisitive, and I love her.
• Other bright spots: Fool Moon, the second Dresden Chronicles mystery, was a decided improvement over Storm Front, and it had less Content, though there were still a couple pages I had to skip over. My reread of Castaways of the Flying Dutchman and The Angel's Command was also fun, though I think my opinion of which I prefer has flipped — Angel used to be my favorite of the trilogy, but I think it might be Castaways now. And I finally started reading H.L. Burke's Supervillain Rehabilitation Project series because I wanted to read a Realmie book at Realm Makers, and I'm thoroughly enjoying that. It's the superhero blend of action and slice-of-life we've always wanted.
• I also read another volume of Fullmetal Alchemist, in which I got a few answers but also many more questions. (I also met a friend's second-favorite character, though, so that's cool.)
• Things I Learned from Knitting is another Stephanie Pearl-McPhee memoir. I definitely preferred Free-Range Knitter, but this one was good too.
• The disappointment of the month was The Blue Salt Road, which I picked up on a whim because of selkies and lyrical writing on the first page, but ended up frustrated with because the ending leans more bitter than sweet. It's not a bad book, and others may like it better than I, but yeah.

Watching!

• So, if I had a nickle for every time my family has spent Independence Day watching a movie about Russian or Russian-adjacent Jews that involves a pogrom and a metaphorically and/or narratively resonant fiddle, I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot, but it's kind of weird that it happened twice.
• This year's movie was Fiddler on the Roof, which was very good, but won't be making my favorites list. I'm glad I watched it once, but I don't expect I'll watch it again in the near future.
• I didn't have a lot of time to watch stuff on my own, but I did watch a bit more of Critical Role Campaign 2 (I'm two-thirds of the way through Episode 78, still enjoying it) and the Familiar Problem one-shot (because I was hoping to run my own Familiar Problem session at Realm Makers; alas, I didn't finish my prep for that in time). I also got in another couple episodes of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, and I can see why people rave about the show. (I also got to have a nice long conversation with Wyn about FMA, both anime and manga, on the way up to Realm Makers, so that was fun.)
• (Oh, and my family watched Singing in the Rain and Hello Dolly while my grandpa was here, but my thoughts haven't changed on either movie, so this note is mostly for reference by future-me.)

August Plans

• I don't have a lot of plans for August, but I hope it's a quiet month. I know that we're thinking that we'll visit some family at one point during August, but otherwise, I don't know of anything big happening.
• I know that I need to make some serious progress on both Bastian Dennel #4 and TaSG edits, so I expect that those projects will take up most of my free time. I'd also like to get back on track with exercise — that was one of the many things I kind of let slip over the last few months.
• And I want to make sure I get in at least one more game of Sentinels with my sister before she heads back to college in the second half of the month.
• But yeah. I'm also hoping and praying for no more tech issues at work — I've had my fill in July!

How was your July? Any exciting plans for August? Were you at Realm Makers (and if so, what was your favorite part)? What do you think I should do with my leftover book swag? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!

The Great Redwall Reread Reviewed (Fixed? I hope?)

(Note: If you tried to read the earlier post and it was blank, I have exactly 0% idea what happened. Hopefully this fixes it. If not, I'm going to go throw Blogger into a lake or something, or maybe just seriously consider consolidating all my blogging over to Wordpress.)

So, I've been saying for some time that I was going to do a review of or reflection on my reread of the Redwall series. And since it's been nearly a month now since I finished that reread, I figure I'd better do that review now or it'll never get done at all.

I discovered Redwall when I was twelve or thirteen, on recommendation from the same friend who introduced me to most of the fantasy books I've loved longest. I must've read the series two or three times in that first year — first in publication order, then in chronological order. I kept all the books in a great stack beside my bed and refused to return them to the library until I had to — though I usually refused to return library books sooner than necessary. After all, I never knew if I'd want to read them again the day after I took them back. I reread them a time or two after returning them as well, after I'd built up my own collection from library book sales. However, I discovered other books quickly, and Redwall got left behind — until I returned to it this year. And when I did, what did I find? Did the series hold up to the test of the time?

The Great Redwall Reread Reviewed

1. To answer the question I just asked: Yes. Yes, much of the series is as good as I remembered — some of it's even better. Not that I ever mistook Redwall for high literature. But there's a bit more artistry than I recalled, and more importantly, there's more nuance than I recalled. True, the sides are fairly black-and-white — these races are almost always good; those races are almost always evil, and nature wins over nurture in almost every case — but there's a surprising exploration of the pain left in the wake of violence and battle that feels more genuine even than some more modern, gritty stories. Perhaps because it's balanced by a great deal of light and hope and promise and a recognition of what's most important — things that are missing in a lot of stories I encounter these days. Anyway. A lot of the books that I didn't like as much when I was younger, I like much more now. These are mostly the early books, chronologically — Martin the Warrior, Mossflower, The Legend of Luke — and a few later ones, like The Long Patrol, Taggerung, and Triss. That's not to say that they've all become favorites now, but I appreciate them more now. And the books I really loved — Pearls of Lutra, Marlfox, Rakketty Tam, High Rhulain, Lord Brocktree, held up very well indeed. Some of them held up better than others (Pearls is one of the best books in the series; I will fight you on this point), but that's beside the point.
2. The stories in general are much less formulaic than I remembered. When I started the reread, I laid out five "types" for Redwall stories with the expectation that all the books would fit perfectly into at least one of those types. And a lot of them did, but many more of them didn't fit as well as I expected or only technically fit the plot type. (It was also interesting to note that one of the plot types — "Evil comes to Salamandastron (and besieges it)" — just stopped happening altogether after Salamandastron.) In addition, I had a sort of idea that the villains in Redwall books almost always went crazy by the end of the book, which was just . . . not correct? A few do. But most of them stay sane and surprisingly cunning all the way through, aside from the habit some have of killing off their minions. (Even the number who do that, though, is lower than I remembered.)
3. I'm pretty sure this is why food figures so heavily in almost all my books. Well, this and Narnia. But you cannot read a Redwall book without getting hungry at some point. And more than that, food is pretty much a plot point in some stories. I could probably write a not-insignificant essay on the role of food in Redwall as a series — not that I'm going to; I've written enough essays in the last four years. But food and types of food and its quality or lack thereof are pretty significant in these stories, and care is taken when describing food, and yeah. It's a thing, and I adopted it without really realizing it. (On a side note: part of me wants to try to cook and bake my way through the books sometime. The other part of me quite reasonably points out that I probably would just end up disappointed.)
4. The inconsistencies didn't bother me half as much as I expected. I went into the series knowing that there were inconsistencies and half-expecting to make fun of them in a loving sort of way. But that . . . didn't really happen? There are some things that still really bug me (like the fact that a plot-relevant location in Salamandastron doesn't exist until several books later, chronologically), but a lot of the other inconsistencies (most of which involve the Guosim, for some reason?) just feel like things that have shifted with the seasons. And there are a lot of actually-consistent callbacks to other books, which I had forgotten about! And finding those was quite fun!
5. The level of nomance in these books is honestly refreshing. Just under half the books involve romance of some kind. Of those eleven-ish books, only eight recognize that romance outside of an epilogue or a one-sided or short-lived flirtation. And even then, the romance is almost always, at most, a sub-subplot. Everyone seems to recognize that, romance or no, there's work to do, and relationships can be sorted out after the villain is gone for good. (And before you say that the reason for the lack of romance is that it's a middle-grade series: so are plenty of other books I've read that had much more romance in them than this.) It's really nice.

So, yes. Perhaps not as poetic or scholarly of reflections as I thought I'd do, once upon a time, but there's my honest thoughts. In addition, if you're interested in more of my observations from rereading the series, I kept track of everything in a spreadsheet available here. Y'know, if you want to know exactly how many books involve villains actually going crazy, or what I mean when I say that a lot of inconsistencies involve the Guosim, or what are the plot types I thought I'd identified.

Have you reread Redwall recently? If so, what were your thoughts? If not, what are your favorite Redwall memories? Please tell me in the comments!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

It's the 2020 MID-YEAR BOOK FREAKOUT!

THE TIME HAS COME! A bit later than usual, yes, but it's HERE: my annual MID-YEAR BOOK FREAKOUT! In which I don't actually freak out but do get really excited over the best (and worst) books I've read in the first half of the year.

As per the usual, we'll start out with some statistics. I've read 59 books and 19,709 pages so far this year, which is a bit over half of what I'd read this time last year. You would think I would've read more this year, since I was home for several months longer than usual, but nope. Oh well. I'm still ahead of schedule on my overall reading goal of 99 books in the year.

What about my other reading goals? Well, towards my goal of twelve non-speculative-fiction books this year, I have read either eight or ten such books, depending on whether or not you count a few things that I read primarily for class and/or skimmed rather than reading properly. As for my twelve books written before I was born, I am currently at ten such books, thanks to my decision to reread Cheaper by the Dozen and Belles on Their Toes (which was an excellent decision, I'd like to add). So, on the whole, I'd say I'm doing pretty well.

Mid-Year Book Freakout 2020!

1. Best book you've read so far in 2020:

Moonscript by H.S.J. Williams

I wrote a full post with my thoughts on this book a my other blog a while back, but to sum up: I love the characters, I love the focus on friendship and family relationships, and I love the overall vibe of the book. As I've said before, it's like someone took The Silmarillion, Goldstone Wood, and Orphan's Song and blended it all into one beautiful book.

Also, two runners-up:

Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson

This is a beautiful book about creation and community and faith, and ohhhhhhh, it's so good. It's poetic without being pretentious and deep without being discomforting. If you're a person who creates, you ought to read this book as soon as humanely possible. Trust me.

An Echo of the Fae by Jenelle Leanne Schmidt

I also reviewed Echo one at Light and Shadows, so go check that out for my full thoughts. But this is another very family-oriented book that's full of fae and beauty and fairy tale vibes. Also, it has selkies. How could anyone not love it?

2. Best sequel you've read so far in 2020:

Not strictly a sequel, but the closest I can come . . .

How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Real-World Problems by Randall Munroe

Basically, I love sarcastic-yet-oddly-excited science and I cannot lie. Randall Munroe's books are the perfect blend of sarcastic cynicism and eagerness to share cool knowledge, and it's just so much fun!

3. New release you haven't read yet but want to: 

There are SO MANY of these, mostly due to the fact that I haven't been able to get my usual book hauls from the library even though I've been home, plus I didn't get all the books in over Christmas break or spring break that I wanted to. But the main one is probably:

Sisters of Sword and Song by Rebecca Ross

I don't even have a good excuse; I own the book! But I got in the middle of my Great Redwall Reread, and life has been very full of good books to read, so yeah. It's still there, waiting for me.

4. Most anticipated release for the second half of the year:

We've got a tie between two books that I've been looking forward to for nearly two years in one case and a solid three or four in the other:

Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson

It's Stormlight #4!!!! Need I say more? I am SO looking forward to returning to Roshar and spending several excellent days (maybe a solid excellent week) lost in this sure-to-be-a brick of a book.

Return of the Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

EUGENIDES. I am concerned by one particular bit in the blurb ("death of the king?" Gen, nooooo!), but at the same time, I am sure that Eugenides will be in top scheming form (just as his author will be in top storytelling form), and I CANNOT WAIT. Hopefully it doesn't get pushed back again.

And then a runner-up that's actually multiple books, but is also mostly just one book:

The Tattered Slippers Group Release!

Featuring, as y'all know by now, my next book, The Midnight Show! But also featuring Russian vibes, Greek-esque secrets, Celtic fae, and more. There's so much variety in this collection, and I am HERE FOR IT! (Also: sign up for the blog tour! Or ARCs! It will be much fun!)

5. Biggest disappointment:

Libraries being closed and preventing me from reading new releases, haha. But in terms of books I actually read, I'd have to say . . .

Masters and Beginners by Daley Downing

This is a book that I really wanted to love, and that I'd heard a lot of good things about, but the execution (and the focus) just wasn't what I hoped it would be. It had a lot of elements that I did enjoy, but they were outweighed by my frustrations with the writing style, my inability to keep track of the massive cast of characters, and my issues with the visual aspects of the book.

6. Biggest surprise:

Hmm . . . This one is hard this year. In general, I liked new-to-me books either as much as I expected to or less; there were no books that I was like "Wow, I enjoyed this way more than I thought I would!" I was surprised by how much more I liked some of the Redwall books when I reread them, so I guess I'll say that.

7. Favorite new-to-you author:

I . . . don't actually have one so far this year. All the books I've loved have been by known authors; all the books by new-to-me authors have been somewhere in the area of "Ok, but not my favorite thing ever." So . . . yeah. That's unfortunate.

8. Newest fictional crush/ship:

Coren and Zizain from Moonscript for life, y'all. They're so cute together. Also, Rhen and Harper from A Curse So Dark and Lonely. Not a perfect couple, but still a good one. (Yeah, that's all I've got.)

9. Newest favorite character:

Basically the entire cast of Moonscript? Is that an acceptable answer? But in particular, Errance (Actual Disaster, slightly burnt cinnamon roll, tries so hard before realizing that trying so hard is 90% of his problem, angst but for a good reason), Coren (smuggler with a heart of gold, a fox's wit, and plenty of flair), and Tellie (mum-friend, wants adventure but also wants people to behave sensibly and not go doing stupid things).

Also, shoutout to Grey from A Curse So Dark and Lonely. He's loyal and stubborn and determined and just generally an excellent character. I actually like him and Harper and Rhen all, but Grey is my favorite.

10. A book that made you cry AND 11. A book that made you happy:

I'm combining these because the same two books apply to both, pretty much:

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness & North! Or Be Eaten by Andrew Peterson

Ok, I don't specifically remember crying, but if anything I've read this year would've made me cry (in a good way), it would've been North!, and I know that both of these books made me very, very happy. So, yeah. I love these books, and their new editions are SO pretty.

12. Favorite reread this year:

The Great Redwall Reread!

This year, as y'all have seen, I've reread the entirety of Brian Jacques's Redwall series in chronological order. It's been really fun to revisit this old favorite and see how different aspects of the series hold up after so much time away. I'm happy to say that most of the series held up very well indeed.

13. Favorite post you've done so far this year:

I feel like I missed a lot of weeks posting this year, but I do have some posts that I really enjoyed writing and think turned out very well:

• The Actually Terrible AIs You Didn't Know You Needed (in which 7 A.M. me apparently had good ideas and I got to come up with ridiculous AIs).
• If Baili Met Breen (And Related Potentialities) (in which I got to theorize about how the casts of Blood in the Snow and Mechanical Heart would get along).
• Beauty and the Bard: Tiria's Story and Ardent's Story (in which I wrote a meet-cute for two of my D&D NPCs).

14. Most beautiful book you've bought so far this year:

I have bought many beautiful books this year, surprisingly! But right now, I would like us all to take a moment to appreciate the gorgeous Abhorsen set that I found last week at McKay's.

I am super proud of it and also very happy to have a set of the core trilogy that isn't large, unwieldy, and slightly falling apart.

15. What books do you need to read by the end of the year?

Too many books. Basically, if I featured it in one of the last four seasonal releases posts and I wasn't part of the blog tour, I still need to read it. Thanks, COVID-19. (On the upside: the libraries are opening up now! So I can fix this soon! Though I may try to clear my owned-but-unread backlog a little more first.)

All right! There we have it: a summary of my last six and a half months of reading! How has your reading been this year? Best books? Biggest surprise? Biggest disappointments? Any new favorite characters? Please tell me in the comments!

Thanks for reading!

-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

So, as many of you may have noticed if you follow the book world, historical fantasy — that is, fantasy set in an actual historical setting and time period rather than a completely separate world — has been growing in popularity these last several years. And I, for one, am loving it. Much like fantasy mystery, it's a fabulous blend of my favorite genre and a genre I used to be really into — plus, y'know, I really do love history in general. And the fact that it adds some variety to the fantasy booksphere is just icing on the cake. Anyway, historical and historical-adjacent fantasy (or whatever you'd call books like Ranger's Apprentice that are basically an alternate version of Earth with some name changes) has been on my mind a bit lately, and I thought I'd share some of my favorites in the genre.

Historical Fantasy Faves!

1. The Lost Plot (and the other Invisible Library books) by Genevieve Cogman. Is anyone surprised this is the first book on the list? Hopefully not; my love for the Invisible Library books is probably old news to most everyone reading this. (Unless, of course, you're new here. In which case: this series is one of my favorite things in the world, and if you love fantasy, mystery, dragons, fae, mysteries, and magical libraries, you NEED to read it ASAP. Trust me. It's awesome.) Technically all the books in the series would qualify, but The Lost Plot is the one that feels most distinctly like historical fantasy as opposed to steampunk, as it's based in Jazz Age New York City. It's also one of my favorite books in the series, so . . . yeah. It's great.
   
   
   
2. The Jackaby books by William Ritter. These also should be no surprise to anyone reading this; while I haven't talked about Jackaby in a bit, it's another one of my favorites — the series I obsessed over until it ended and the Invisible Library books released. It's set in 1892 in an ambiguous New England state (I've always assumed it's in Massachusetts, for some reason) and features a fabulous intersection of mystery and fantastical beings and ideas, and it's just a lot of fun. I need to reread it, really.
   
   
   
3. The Wrath and the Dawn duology by Renee Ahdieh. Moving away from American history, we've got this exquisite tale set in ancient Persia. This one might technically be historical-adjacent rather than straight historical, but it's close enough, and I can't recall the details with enough confidence to say for sure. Anyway. It's beautiful, it's a fairy tale retelling (specifically the story of Shahrazad from the Thousand and One Nights), it's twisty, and it has an excellent balance of fantasy and history and tension and political stuff and all sorts of good things.
   
   
   
4. Fawkes by Nadine Brandes. Granted, it took me forever to get around to reading this book. But once I did, it was great! It's set in 17th century England and focuses on the culmination of Guy Fawkes' Gunpowder Plot. The magic system is kind of odd and confusing, but the book as a whole is great, and there's an excellent balance of the fantastical and magical. (Also, family-based plotlines. Storms yes.)
   
   
   
5. The City Beyond the Glass by Suzannah Rowntree. I actually wanted to put Death Be Not Proud here, which is a murder mystery retelling of Snow White set in Jazz Age New Zealand, but then I realized Death was straight historical, not historical fantasy. But The City Beyond the Glass is my second-favorite of Suzannah Rowntree's books; it's a Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling set in Venice, and it's beautifully dark and tense and so forth. Not my favorite-favorite Twelve Dancing Princesses retelling, but still very good and just as creepy as such a story generally ought to be. (And, to be honest, most of Rowntree's books could probably fit this list; I just haven't read as many of them as I want to yet.

I'll finish up by mentioning two runners-up that didn't quite make the list. One is Bryan Davis's latest book, Let the Ghosts Speak, a fantasy-ish murder mystery set in 1900s France. It's twisty and atmospheric and really quite excellent, but because the fantasy elements are odd, it didn't quite fit. The other is an older series: Brian Jacques's Flying Dutchman books. The fantasy element of these is more low-key and basically just shows up in the fact of Ben and Ned's existence, but they're still good books. Masterpieces of literature? No. But still good stories.

How do you feel about historical fantasy? Are there any books in this genre that you love that you'd like to recommend? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

May 2020 Doings!

Well, it's been another one of those months where the first half and the second half feel like completely separate temporal divisions. It's weird. But I'm not sure there's ever going to be another month that doesn't feel like that, at this point. So let's get on with trying to remember what happened, shall we?

Writing!

• So. As you may recall, I had two goals at the start of the month: 25,000 words on Blood in the Soil/Earth and 3 episodes and 3 episode summaries in my D&D campaign. Technically, I didn't accomplish either of them.
• As far as the D&D campaign goes: I did manage to write three episode summaries and three episodes. However, two of those episodes and summaries kind of overlap, so . . . it doesn't exactly count. Still, I have four sessions set up and ready to go, and I got to talk backstory stuff with several people, which is making me shift around my plans anyway. Soooo, I'm calling it good.
• I did pretty well on Blood in the Soil/Earth for most of the month, averaging about a thousand words per day until the 23rd or so. I got through several scenes, including some that I've been looking forward to for a long time and some that set up some unexpected but enjoyable character dynamics. However, as the month went on, the novel started fighting me more and more, and even as long as it already was, it seemed very likely that I wasn't going to be done with it by the end of the month, or even in the next two months.
• Having heard the advice multiple times that sometimes the best thing to do with a troublesome project is to work on something else (and knowing that it worked well for other types of projects), I decided to indulge in an extra side project. Initially, it helped; I was getting good writing done on both things. But then the new project (currently referred to as the Secret Project) started to take up more and more attention, and I decided to set Blood in the Soil/Earth aside for a time and focus on the Secret Project instead.
• No, you do not get to know what the Secret Project is yet. Worry not; all will be revealed in a couple weeks. But if you really want a hint, I may have posted something about it on my author Facebook page a couple weeks ago when I first started it . . .
• Anyway, my final count for the month of May was 63,665 words: 34,532 words towards my official goals (20,451 on Blood in the Soil/Earth; 13,022 on D&D) and another 29,133 on the Secret Project. Keep in mind, that number includes a solid 10K-ish words of plotting, character development, and worldbuilding. It's still a pretty solid amount of writing, especially when you consider that I wrote over half of it (roughly 42K) in 15 days.

Reading!

• If you think you're noticing a trend here, that's because there is one: the Great Redwall Reread (which I started back in January) continues in earnest! I can generally finish a Redwall book every one or two days, on average — they're addictive, and they're fast reads, even though they're mostly long enough to have some substance. So far, all my old favorites are holding up fairly well, and many of the ones that I liked less have risen in my estimation. (Notably: Martin, Mossflower, Legend of Luke, Mattimeo, and The Long Patrol. There's a trend here too, if you care to look for it, though it's not as obvious as the overall reading-lots-of-Redwall trend.) Outcast is still my least favorite, though.
• I could say more, but I'm thinking of doing a Friday 5s post with my thoughts on the series as a whole, coming back to it as a semi-adult (I may technically be an adult, but I don't feel very adult-y most of the time), and how it's influenced my writing once I finish rereading the whole series. That might actually be two posts, one for thoughts and one for influence, but we'll see what happens.
• Outside of Redwall: I had another cozy reread, All Things Bright and Beautiful, which is the second James Herriot book. We don't own the other two, so we'll see how long it takes me to reread those. I also read two Kendra E. Ardnek short stories: The Prior Quest (a Bookania retelling of Puss in Boots, not my favorite but also not my least favorite), and Misfortune (a Twist of Adventure Rapunzel retelling; I posted my full thoughts a few weeks ago).
• Finally, we have the two disappointments of the month. Masters and Beginners was one I really wanted to love because it had such a great concept: slice-of-life small-town urban fantasy about caretakers of a magical archive of stuff, featuring family focus, in-world textual "artifacts," and cat fairies. It could've been an instant hit. Unfortunately, the writing style felt unpolished, there was a lot of infodumping (including some huge name dumps, which I do not care for), and the formatting was not great. I know that last one shouldn't detract from the quality of the story, but — look. I spent four years studying design; I can't just turn that off. Anyway. Lots of potential; poor execution. The Narnia Cookbook, on the other hand, was fairly well-executed, but it just wasn't what I wanted it to be. Which is to say: there were no recipes in it that I actually felt inclined to try to make. It did have some nice behind-the-scenes and historical tidbits about different food, though, so that was kind of cool.
• Finally, here's a quick update on reading goals.
  • My total reading is at 42 books out of 99, which puts me roughly on track or a little ahead. Thank goodness for having enough time to read and short enough books that I can pack a lot of them in.
  • I read two non-speculative-fiction books this month, which puts me at six such books out of a goal of twelve. That means I'm a little ahead of the game on this goal, though we'll see how long that lasts.
  • As for books published before I was born, technically I've reached my goal through my Redwall reread. However, that feels a bit like cheating. So, we're going to count all of the pre-Sarah's-birth Redwall as one book. That and All Things Bright and Beautiful puts me at eight books out of twelve, which means I'm still ahead of the game. (And if I read Chesterton, reread The Lord of the Rings, or get back to Wheel of Time like I hope to do, I'll definitely hit my goal fairly well ahead of schedule!)

Watching!

 

• So, this month has actually been a reasonably good one for watching things, at least as months when I'm at home with limited internet go. And by "a reasonably good one", I mean that I watched multiple actual movie-length things, which pretty much never happens.
• One of those was The Great Race, a comedy-action-romance movie that my roommate loves and had recommended to me. My parents happened — mostly by coincidence — to have it out from the library, so of course I wanted to see it. It was fun, partially because it's the kind of movie that knows it's utterly ridiculous and therefore isn't going to take itself too seriously. And pretty much all the main actors were a bit overdramatic, but since everyone was doing it, it worked. So, yeah, that was good.
• The next was not a movie but rather a musical — specifically, Cats, via The Shows Must Go On, a YouTube channel that's posting legit, legal recordings of Broadway musicals every weekend. I'd been meaning to download (via YouTube Premium, don't judge me) and watch one of the shows for a while, and when I saw Cats was being posted, I figured that would be a good choice. I could find out what it was and what it was about without dealing with the weirdness of the movie . . . and then I actually watched it (with my family, no less) and discovered that however weird the movie is, it can't be that much weirder than the actual show. I mean, it's probably less weird if you see it in theaters and don't have a camera zooming in on awkward moments, but still . . . what the pumpernickel did I watch? And why the pumpernickel did anyone think a movie based on this show wouldn't be as weird as anything?
• (I would like to add that it did not help that the costumes in the musical were, for the most part, kind of, ah, skintight. And with the stage makeup and so forth, in some cases, it didn't matter that the actors were technically completely clothed; I still felt like they were mostly naked. It was not a comfortable experience.)
• The final new-to-me movie that I watched was Charade, which someone described to me as "The best Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never made," or something to that effect. It was definitely something — a treasure hunt/mystery combo, very twisty, lots of character drama and dynamics and questioning who's telling the truth and who's lying and who's killing people and so on. There was a surprising amount of comedic stuff, though, which kept it from getting too angsty. (Actually, no one really angsted about anything. It was nice.) I did guess where the money was fairly early on, but the rest of the movie made me second-guess myself multiple times, so it gets props for that.
• (I also rewatched Singing in the Rain because I needed something set in the 20s for reasons. It was just as good the second time around as the first time, though I'm still confused about the point of the whole "Gotta Dance" sequence. It's weird.)
• In addition, I finally worked my way through the first episode of Critical Role. Well, actually, I've been doing that for a couple months now. But I made significant progress this month! (I really want to try to get into it because I keep seeing animatics on YouTube and reading stuff about it on other media and so on. It's just . . . the episodes are three hours long. And sometimes I have trouble focusing in D&D sessions where I'm actually playing; focusing when it's other people playing is even harder. So I basically have to watch them in parts, but it's still a lot of time. Though having watched the animatics, I feel a little more attached to everyone and therefore feel like I have more of a stake in what's going on. So, yeah.)

Life!

• To be honest, I have very little grasp on what happened this month. Most of it was writing, reading, D&D, and job searching, and I've already talked about two of those.
• Probably the most exciting thing that happened was that some of our neighbors invited my dad and I over to take pictures of their carnivorous plants because the pitcher plants were blooming. So that was pretty cool. Everything was much smaller than I thought it would be — I imagined that Venus flytraps were the size of my palm, for example, but they're really not much bigger than my thumb. I went over twice and got some good shots the first time. The second time didn't go quite as well, sadly. (I avoided getting stung both times, though — these neighbors also keep bees, so I was a bit worried about being close to the hives.)
• On the job search front, I've had a little bit of luck. Though I've gotten several rejections, I did get a few interviews, and one of those companies hasn't rejected me yet. So, yay for that!
• The D&D campaign I run only met once in the month of May — well, technically twice, but the second time was overflow from the one real session. We finally finished the finale of the season, which was great. The fight did go super long because I overestimated my capability to run a large battle, but it worked out. And there were character revelations, which were . . .  less dramatic than I expected? But still pretty dramatic. I think everyone's pretty happy with how things ended, and they seem to be excited to start up again in the near future.
• I did end up joining a new campaign, which was good because my old campaign only managed to meet two weeks out of the whole month. I'm playing a full spellcaster (bard/wizard multiclass) for the first time, and it's . . . interesting? I am not used to having so few hit points, y'all. My character went unconscious in the first real fight of the campaign; that hasn't happened to me in months. And apparently I've been confused about how many spells you can use per turn the whole time I've been DMing. So, that's a thing. It's fun, though.
• On a related note, I have discovered that I really love multiclassing characters, to the point where if you look at my PCs and my major NPCs, there's, like, two who aren't multiclassed to some degree. And neither of those two are PCs. (My paladin recently multiclassed into Fighter so she could get the Dual Wielder fighting style and I could stop having to worry about what bonus did or did not get added to her offhand attack. It's something I've been thinking of doing for a while, but it didn't seem appropriate in terms of character development until now, when I decided that all the minor crises of faith she's had over the campaign have probably added up to a full level of not-paladin.) Plus, most of my favorite characters that I want to play in future are also multiclassed. So, yeah.
• I did get to do some baking over the course of the month. You heard in my last Doings! about my Sourdough chocolate cake. The following weekend, I made oatmeal cookies (with cranberries, pecans, and chocolate chips in them — they were supposed to be a small batch, but they ended up making nearly three dozen, so . . . not sure what's up with that) and strawberry gallettes (basically mini freeform pies). Both turned out quite delicious. I also made another two loaves of artisan bread, which, on the upside, didn't fuse this time! Unfortunately, they still didn't turn out very pretty. But it is what it is.
• I've also been playing Undertale on and off. I'm still on my first playthrough, and I'm doing Total Pacifist mode, so it's taking a while. (I also can't play every day, only a couple times a week at best.) So far, it seems like a great game, though I did have a lot of trouble navigating the menu controls. I kind of wish they have you some kind of instructions on that. But that could just be the fact that I'm not super experienced with video games in general. I'm also realizing that I was spoiled by my other gaming experiences that let you save whenever the heck you want and not just when you reach a save point. The fact that I had to keep redoing certain puzzles that were between a save point and a spot where I kept dying was part of the reason I didn't get further along faster.
• Finally, a bit of exciting news: we are finally going to get actually good internet at our house! Unfortunately, it's still going to take a while. But it's definitely coming!

June Plans

• #1 plan: finish the draft of the Secret Project and send it off to betas ASAP. This was actually supposed to have happened already, but there were delays. Should happen in the next few days, though.
• I'm also participating in the 100-4-100 challenge, despite the fact that I barely keep up with Go Teen Writers or the GTW community anymore. I'm using Blood in the Soil/Earth for that in hopes that it'll keep me from completely neglecting it while working on the Secret Project and other stuff.
• My last writing project is, of course, continuing to work on D&D and figure out how to potentially reshuffle things to include some of the backstory that my players are giving me for their characters. So I'm excited about that! Can't say too much, though, because some of the people in the campaign read this blog.
• Outside of writing, I'm still working on the getting-a-job thing, though right now that mostly looks like waiting to hear back from a few places.
• I also have a design project in the pipeline that I'm really excited about. I'll probably share something on the blog and social media about it later this month too. Can't say a whole lot, but it's the first time I've done a project of this type professionally. It's going to be great . . . as long as what I think I can do works out like it's supposed to, anyway.
• Beyond that, it's just more of the usual: baking, reading, waiting for the actually good internet to happen. Watching stuff. Hopefully finishing the first Undertale playthrough. Praying that the world finds a better new normal than this in the near future.

How was your May? Any exciting June plans? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah

February 2020 Doings!

Behold! I live! I apologize for dropping off the face of the earth, blog-wise, the last two weeks. With classes, writing, social events, and the need for decent sleep all coming in front of the need to write blog posts, blogging just didn't happen. And, fair warning, I might be a bit spotty for the next couple months as well. But for now, I'm here (and on spring break!), so let's get on with the Doings of the last month!

Writing!

• My goal for February was to write 500 words or 30 minutes a day, five days per week. I kept that goal for the first three weeks, and then I gave myself the last week as a grace week because I had a lot to get done before I left on break. Still, I wrote a total of 16,707 words, with an average of 756 words per day, so I'd say that's pretty solid.
• Most of those words were D&D-related, unsurprisingly. I wrote a one-shot, plus three campaign episodes (one of which could have been a one-shot in its own right — that one involved homebrewing my own monster villain, which was interesting), plus the Valentine's Day short stories. For anyone who missed those, they showcased the first meeting of a pair of NPCs from my campaign from each person's perspective. Ardent's perspective was on Light and Shadows, while Tiria's was on Dreams and Dragons.
• Outside of that, I did a little more work on Blood in the Earth/Soil, which mostly consisted of finishing up the scene I'd been working on and then writing the first line of the next scene. (That next scene is what I've been working on during break; it's going well. One of the sisters who hasn't been in the spotlight much gets to play a bigger role and interact with Eun-Ji, plus plot stuff is set in motion. It's great.) I also toyed with another writing project, but ended up dropping it because it conflicted with a different novel (or novella) that I plan to write in the future.

Reading!

• I did a little better with reading this month than I did last month, which is good. I finished up my reread of the Illuminae Files around the beginning of the month. Everything I said about them last month stands; they're excellent books and I anticipate coming back to them many more times. Also, can I reiterate how much I appreciate that the authors didn't give us a grimdark ending? Or grimdark anything, really? I think it's become almost a trend for endings of YA fiction to focus almost as much on what was lost as what was gained, but you really don't get that in this series.
• How To was also excellent! I think I may have enjoyed What If? just a little bit more, but I think How To is a little more helpful in certain respects. If you're a writer who tries to get some measure of scientific realism in your stories, I'd recommend picking it up; even though most of the advice is sarcastic, there is some genuinely useful information in here (especially if you tend to write dramatic, over-the-top villains).
• At the end of February and beginning of March, I did a little early celebrating of March Magics by rereading Charmed Life and The Many Lives of Christopher Chant (the first two Chrestomanci Chronicles, nicely contained in one volume) and Castle in the Air. I actually enjoyed both of the Chrestomanci books more this time around than I did the first time — which is saying something; I really like Chrestomanci. And Castle in the Air was, of course, delightful.
• Continuing the reread trend: Redwall's been on my mind on and off throughout February, so I decided to reread Lord Brocktree to see how it held up. The answer is "surprisingly well" — the prose and technical quality of the book are nothing special, but it's refreshing to read a book where the good characters are solidly good, the evil characters are truly evil, and friendship, bravery, and appreciation of life are celebrated so honestly. I'm toying with the idea of doing a Great Redwall Reread now and perhaps even blogging about it if I have time. We'll see.
• I also reread 101 Dalmatians after we watched the movie a few days ago. That one didn't hold up quite as well, but it was still fun. There are some delightful interactions that didn't make it into the movie. And, y'know, it's a fundamentally family-oriented story and we all know that I have a soft spot for those.
• In terms of nonfiction, I've spent the better part of the month slowly reading The Design of Everyday Things, which is, contrary to what I expected, not about the history behind how various ordinary items developed into their modern forms. What is it about? User-centered design, that's what. Is it giving me flashbacks to User Experience for the Web (aka my second-least-favorite PWID class)? Also yes. But it is actually a good book, and it's honestly relevant to some of what I want to do professionally, so I'm going to finish it or go down trying.
• Not reading but still bookish: I did participate in Jenelle Schmidt's February is Fantasy Month again, though not as extensively as usual. I did manage to sort of keep up with the Instagram challenge for a few weeks, which was fun.
• Finally, a quick update on how my reading goals are going! I've read twelve books so far this year, which puts me five books behind schedule, but I should be able to catch up without too much trouble, especially if I end up rereading Redwall — those aren't short books, by any means, but they go quickly. I've also only read one non-speculative-fiction book, but I'm in the middle of a second. I'm doing a bit better on reading older books — I've gotten in four of those. I mean, they're all middle grade-ish, and three of them are by Diana Wynne Jones, and pretty much all of them were published after 1956, but still. It's progress.

Watching!

• Once again, I haven't really watched much of anything this month; I've mostly been too busy. My roommate and I did watch the third episode of Avatar season 2, but that's pretty much it.
• Well, and my family rewatched 101 Dalmatians while I was home for spring break. That was quite fun. (That's why I ended up rereading the book as well.) It's kind of underrated, and if Disney tries to make a "live action" version of it like they did with Lion King and Lady and the Tramp, I shall be immensely annoyed. (I'm already annoyed about Lady and the Tramp, but there's nothing I can do about that.) Also, the art on older Disney movies? Gorgeous.
• (I also have a new appreciation for the title sequences of Disney movies after having taken graphic design classes. I know it's not exactly graphic design, but it's related, and yeah.)

Life!

• Most of this month was, to be honest, taken up by either classes, homework, or writing. As such, my main impression of most of it was of being busy and tired.
• (Not that classes and homework are bad things, of course. I actually got to design the branding for a fictional university for one of my PWID classes, and it was SO MUCH FUN. Like, yes, it was tiring and it took effort, but there's a reason I want to go into branding and marketing if at all possible.)
• My roommate and I did make it down to Orion to take advantage of their drink of the month and their Valentine's blooming tea special. So that was fun. The blooming teas look pretty cool, and they come in this adorable glass teapot and it made me quite happy. (Also quite warm, as it was snowing that day. I was distinctly displeased.)
• On an exciting note, I went to the spring career fair that Cedarville hosts and actually had several very good conversations! I'm not sure if anything will come of them, but I'm hopeful. And the companies that seem to have the highest potential would both mean I'd be spending a lot of time around engineers and scientists, which I would honestly be fine with and would probably even enjoy. (I mean, I already hang around STEM people a lot; why not continue the habit?)
• On a less exciting note, I officially stepped down as an Inklings workshop leader this month. This is a decision I've been contemplating for several months, and I finally made up my mind after the TDK Academic Integration Conference (which I'm not talking about here because it was largely frustrating for me for entirely personal reasons, but some good things did come out of it). My workshop group has only had one person regularly show up (other than me), and it's been frustrating for both of us — and workshop, in general, has been taking up more emotional and mental bandwidth than I can spare ever since the start of the school year. I feel bad about not seeing the year through, but I think that this was best for everyone (especially since the one person who did come to workshop can now move to a group with actually active people in it).
• I also spent several afternoons in Centerville so my roommate could take a series of exams that she needs to get into grad school. That wasn't great for my productivity, but it was a nice change of pace. And now she's done with that, and we celebrated with a trip to Lola's Mexican for chimichangas, which were, as always, delicious.
• And this past week, I've been home on spring break — thank goodness! I've enjoyed being able to relax and spend time with my family and not have anywhere particular to be. It's possible that I should have been more productive over break than I was, but at the same time, I've gotten a reasonable amount done, and I needed the chance to rest.
• As per the usual, being home meant trying a new sourdough recipe. This time, it was crusty sourdough rolls, and they turned out super well (as you may have seen on my Instagram). If not, behold the deliciousness:

March Plans

• I'm going back to my January writing goal of 300 words or 30 minutes of writing per day, five days per week. 500 wasn't unbearable, especially with how much I was writing D&D stuff, but I think this will be more manageable. Plus, next month is Camp NaNoWriMo, so I don't want to exhaust my writing inspiration in March and then have nothing left when April hits.
• I also have lots of books to read, especially since I've gotten ahold of ARCs for several upcoming releases: the Wingfeather Saga rereleases, Moonscript, and Let the Ghosts Speak! I think this is the most ARCs I've ever had at one time, haha. (On the downside, I'm behind on the Wingfeather Saga ones because I can't figure out how to get the ARCs from Netgalley to my Kindle. The emailing thing doesn't seem to have worked. It's a problem.) Plus, of course, I have plenty to reread, and I may try to join in with the Fellowship of Fantasy book this month. We'll see.
• More importantly than either of those: classes still exist. I want to have my Honors final project at least drafted, if not completely done, by the end of the month, and there's the usual deadlines in other classes as well.
• In terms of social activity: D&D will continue to be a thing. Also, my friend group is doing a second cheese night the night we get back to Cedarville, and I'm psyched about that. And part of the TDK Quizbowl group — myself included — is going to a tournament at the end of the month, which I'm really looking forward to. (Not just because that means I get to be back in Virginia for a weekend, but also because it's going to be fun.)

How was your February? How do you feel about rereading books you used to love? What movie do you never want to see Disney remake in "live-action"? What plans do you have for March? Please tell me in the comments!
Thanks for reading!
-Sarah Pennington

Summer Reading Plans

When I think of summer activities, there are many things that come to me: swimming, biking, writing, and most of all, reading. For as long as I can remember, I've done the summer reading program at my library every year, and if I can find others, I like to do those too. This year, however, I'm doing something I haven't done before: a summer reading list.

Most of the books on my list are ones I haven't read in a year or more and want to make sure I reread sometime relatively soon. There are some new titles on the list, however, and if anyone has suggestions of other books I should add to it, I'd be happy to hear them. I'm always on the lookout for new books to enjoy.

First on my list is The Door Within Trilogy by Wayne Thomas Batson. This was one of the first contemporary Christian fantasy series I read, and when I first started writing, it heavily influenced my stories. However, in the last year, I've been more focused on other Batson books, namely The Tide of Unmaking and his short stories. I'm very much looking forward to returning to the Realm this summer and joining Aidan, Antoinette, and Robby on their adventures once more!

Another trilogy on my list is The White Lion Chronicles by Christopher Hopper. When I first read Rise of the Dibor, I don't think I was really mature enough to appreciate these books, since they're longer and move at a slower pace than most books I was reading at the time. After they were rereleased, I gave them another try and really enjoyed them. However, until now, I never quite got around to rereading them. This is the only series on my list that I've already gotten started on rereading; I just reread Rise of the Dibor last week.

For a change from fantasy to dystopian, I'll be reading Sneak, the second book in the Swipe series by Evan Angler. Though Sneak was released some time ago, my library only recently obtained copies of it. I can hardly wait to read it and find out what in the world is going to happen to Logan, not to mention whether or not my theories about the Mark and such are true. Of course, since Storm just recently came out, and I'm pretty sure my library doesn't have it, I'll be back in the same boat again. Oh well. Such is life.

Back to fantasy! This time, however, the fantasy is a classic. It's a tradition of mine to make sure I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings at least once every year. I used to try to do this in either November or May (near either my birthday or half-birthday), since the first time I read The Lord of the Rings was shortly after my birthday some years ago. More recently, however, I decided that summer was the best time to read these books, since I'll have more time to read and therefore I'll be able to enjoy them more. 

Another classic I'll be rereading is Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I first read this book in September of last year and promptly decided that it was my new favorite non-fantasy classic. I also hope to find another Austen book to read, though I'm not sure which one. I read Sense and Sensibility in January and, though it was fairly good, didn't enjoy it nearly as much as Pride and Prejudice. I'm leaning towards Emma for this summer, but if any fans of Jane Austen's books are reading this, suggestions are more than welcome!

Two weekends ago, I did the Christian Fiction Scavenger Hunt, an online scavenger hunt hosted by thirty-two Christian fiction authors. To complete the scavenger hunt, you had to go from blog to blog and collect all the clues to put together a quote and be entered in a drawing for the prize. Along the way, I discovered a few authors I'd like to try, most notably R. J. Larson, author of Prophet and the rest of the Books of the Infinite series. Her books, which are fantasy set in a world similar to the Biblical time period, looked interesting, so I decided to give them a try. I can hardly wait to find out if they live up to my hopes.

By far the longest series on my reading list is the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. I've read these books several times each since first discovering them, but I've been too busy with other books to read them for some time. This summer, however, I intend to change that. It might take a miracle to get through all of them, however, unless I decide to listen to some of them on cd or such instead of actually reading them. There are, after all, twenty-two books in the series!

Taking second place for longest series on my list is John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice series, along with its companion series, The Brotherband Chronicles. I've actually read several of these semi-recently (within the last few months), but I decided to put them on my list anyway, since I've been thinking of rereading the two series for a few weeks now.

Cinder by Marissa Meyer is a newer book that I first noticed because two people recommending it in the same day: Jill Williamson in her ABC Reading Challenge and Emma, a friend of mine from WI. Cinder is a Cinderella remake set in a sci-fi/dystopian-type setting, which I thought sounded interesting. After asking both Emma and a lady at my church (who's recommended several other fairy-tale remakes to me) for more details, I decided to go ahead and add it to my reading list.

Another dystopian series on my list is The Cantral Chronicles by Amanda Davis. Like The White Lion Chronicles, I haven't quite gotten around to rereading the books in this series since around the time they first came out. In this case, however, that's mostly because I'd have to borrow the first book from a friend. I'm hoping she'll be ok with me borrowing it, since I remember really enjoying The Cantral Chronicles the first time I read them.

The last book or book series on my list? That's still a bit of a mystery. A friend of mine (who's pointed me towards many of my favorite authors and books) suggested that I try reading something by Shannon Hale. However, I'm not sure where to start. I know she wrote The Goose Girl, as well as the Princess Academy series and a whole lot of other books. (The library has twenty-two items by her, though some of those are books on cd, not actual paper-and-ink books.) Has anyone reading this read anything by Shannon Hale? If so, do you have any suggestions of which of her books I should read first, or any of her books I should avoid? Thank you in advance for your advice!

What about you? Do you have any summer reading plans?
Never alone!
- Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)