The Dream Thief by Shana Abe

This is the second book in Abe’s Georgian-set series about a race of people who are actually dragons. It’s probably a testament to Abe’s abilities as a writer that I can take “And they turn into dragons!” seriously.

Amalia is the daughter of the clan’s Alpha, and is the only one in her family who doesn’t have the ability to change form. She does, however, have the ability to dream of possible futures, and in the future she dreams of the most often, she’s the lover of Zane, a former street thief and friend of her mother’s, who is the only human to know about the drakon and be allowed to live. When Lia’s mother, Rue, hires Zane to find a gem that has the power to enslave the drakon. He’s surprised to stumble across Lia in his search, especially since she’s supposed to be in finishing school. Lia, however, claims to be the only one who can guide Zane, and so he allows her to come with him, not knowing that Lia’s dreams have told her that he’ll either be the drakons’ ally, or use the gem to wipe them out.

I read Abe because I like her plots and love her heroines, but I typically find her heroes unbearably alpha, and things tend to work out with the hero forcing the heroine to conform to the life he’s dictated. (In an extremely weak and unenthusiastic defense, I do think that’s more a case of Abe’s impressions of how any romantic relationship of the times would work out, as opposed to what she thinks is right, but there’s almost no mileage at all to be gotten out of that.) Zane, thankfully, isn’t nearly as alpha as Abe’s other heroes, and his alpha moments tend to be of the alpha protector variety, not the alpha controller. I think this is the first Abe book where I’ve liked both leads! If she continues writing her heroes this way (her icy, isolated, desperate heroines have always been right up my alley) she could become one of my favorites. I also think she’s better at adventure and myth than at straight drama, and this one had a lot of focus on the former.

A Song of Ice and Fire casting bit

via baleanoptera :

After rumors have swirled across the internet the last few days, George R.R. Martin has confirmed that Sean Bean has been cast as Eddard Stark, the Lord of Winterfell, for HBO’s pilot of Game of Thrones that will begin shooting in Belfast, Ireland in October. GRRM mentions that the casting has gone global, with casting sessions held in New York, London, Los Angeles, Dublin, and most recently Australia.

Other roles have been cast, including Mark Addy as King Robert, a young Irish actor named Jack Gleeson as Prince Joffrey (he is about 17 or 18 years old now, for those who might wonder), Harry Lloyd (late of the BBC’s Robin Hood) as Viserys, and finally a theatrical actor, Kit Harrington, as Jon Snow.

I know most other fans are more concerned about who will play the Lannisters (well, Jaime) and all, but I'm the odd duck in that I'm far more interested in any single Stark than in all the Lannisters combined, excepting Tyrion.  Not that I'm uninterested in the Lannisters, I just prefer the Starks. 

The Mislaid Magician by Caroline Stevermer and Patricia C. Wrede

Set ten years after The Grand Tour, Kate and Cecy (and their husbands, of course, though I sometimes wonder if Thomas and James feel like third wheels when Kate and Cecy get together) have settled into respectable married lives. Or what passes as normal in an early 19th century where magic is common place. Things are not to remain peaceful, however (though I find it difficult to believe there were no adventures for ten years, given that they couldn’t escape them even on their shared honeymoon) and James is asked to investigate strange happenings on the leylines. Cecy, naturally, goes with him, and so Kate and Thomas are asked to look after their children while they’re away. Things aren’t calm there, however, as Kate’s flighty sister has come to stay with them, and strange men are seen lurking about.

I liked this more than The Grand Tour (which is not to say that I didn’t like that one), but not as much as Sorcery and Cecelia. Much of it, I think, is the return to letter format, but I also like seeing what they were up to years later even more than what they were up to a few months later. It was also interesting to have James and Thomas’s letters to each other (something that was made absolutely necessary for a bit by one plot point) as I think it can be easy to forget that they were also friends before they married the cousins, though I don’t think their relationship carried over as well as Kate and Cecy’s did in either book. I think, though, that that might be because the success of The Mislaid Magician depends on Sorcery and Cecelia, and their letters seem to be a way to maintain the format but add something extra. I have no idea if what I’m trying to say here makes sense.

On the one hand, I kind of like the reversal in adventure types between the two books-in Sorcery and Cecelia, Kate and Thomas have the flashy adventure, while Cecy and James have the more “domestic” one, and it’s reversed here-but it’s rather odd to see Kate and Thomas at home. Partly because they just seem more likely to go on adventures to me, but also because they seemed more reactive than proactive for the most part. Though I did enjoy how the letters-especially Thomas’s-indicated that they were both going completely stir-crazy. I think it’s also worth noting that I was entertained by people talking about their children! Ok, so it was their children having magic and being abducted by gypsies and finding stalkery people in the bushes, but still!

And this is why 12 year old girls start reading romance novels under the covers with a flashlight.

Says the librarian to the publisher:

5. More boy books.

I'm afraid this won't be popular, but I need more books for boys—as do most librarians who work with young people. I've noticed that lots of books with female characters aren't really about being female. In fact, in many cases, the main characters could just as easily have been males—and that would make my job a lot easier. Our young guys love Anthony Horowitz's “Alex Rider” series (Philomel), Dav Pilkey's stuff, and Jonathan London and Frank Remkiewicz's “Froggy” books (Viking). But a novel like Ann Halam's Siberia (Random House, 2005) could have included a male protagonist. (Sorry, Ann, but it's true.) And Gloria Whelan's The Impossible Journey (HarperCollins, 2003) could have featured an older brother and a younger sister—instead of 13-year-old Marya and her younger brother, Georgi. Am I being silly? Probably, but some of our boys have never read a complete book in their lives. It's important to offer them good, appealing stories, and, sad to say, that means stories with prominent male characters.

I distinctly recall that, between the ages of 10-15, I read virtually every Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, Sweet Valley and Babysitter's Club book that I could discover in existence because the only other books for my age group that I couldn't devour in an hour (I could devour those fast, too, but when there's about 100 of each...) that weren't about boys.  And most of the single-title books were about boys too.  (Actually, I started reading "adult" books at 12-13 because they took longer to read, but that's another story.)