HALO
Zizou Corder
Penguin, $25, pbk
Having read and loved the Lionboy trilogy, I jumped at the chance to read Zizou Corder's Halo.
Set in Ancient Greece, it follows the life of Halo, who as a baby was washed ashore.
She is found and adopted by Centaurs, mythical half-man half-horse creatures.
However, when she is about 10 she is captured by fishermen and sold as a slave.
Thus begins her epic journey to reunite with her centaur family.
Along the way she begins to unravel the mystery of where she came from.
I really loved this book.
Zizou Corder has mastered the art of changing the pace and feeling of the story as it goes along.
You get a real feel for whatever community Halo is currently in, whether it is the peaceful centaur village, the fierce Sparta or the cultured Athens.
And as her surroundings change, so does Halo.
By the end of the book I definitely felt attached to her and was filled with a warm sense of fulfilment at the end of the novel.
And that is really what you want at the end of a novel.
I would recommend this book to any teenager, especially those who enjoy action and historical settings.
- Dannielle Hall
L. M. Fuge
Random, $22.99, pbk
I was intrigued to read When Courage Came to Call as I am the type who loves an exciting adventure novel.
Not long after, I found out that the author, L. M. Fuge, finished the book when she was 14.
Wow! I thought, this book must be good if someone published it with an author that young.
And it was good.
The story follows Imm and Saxon, twin brothers, after their city, the fantasy city of Zamascus, is bombed and captured by another country.
They join a resistance led by a man who appears to be too good to be true.
Of course he is and therefore turns out to be totally evil.
That is one of the things I didn't enjoy: the book is predictable.
I felt no surprise anywhere through the novel.
For some books that is OK, but when it comes to hard action I want to feel as the character does when something shocking happens.
In this book I didn't.
My inability to truly connect with the character is what really ruined the book for me.
However, I believe that a much younger audience of pre-teens may be at a level of reading that would still enjoy the book.
- Dannielle Hall
Tim Wynne-Jones
Walker Books, $17.05, pbk
I was enticed to read The Uninvited, by Tim Wynne-Jones, as the cover depicts an idyllic lake scene, yet the title suggested something more sinister.
Hoping this was not going to be yet another teen-fiction horror, I started reading.
The story follows the flight of Mimi Shapiro from inner-city New York to rural Canada.
She arrives at her father's old homestead and instead of the space she expected, discovers someone else has been living there - Jay, a young musician with a link to Mimi and her family.
The house itself has been visited by an unwelcome guest who has been leaving unpleasant gifts.
As the story progresses, we begin to see that Mimi's leaving is not so much a burning desire to go back to her roots but rather to escape an unpleasant situation, while the plot thickens around the intruder who is revealed early on, to the reader, as being Cramer, the local simpleton.
I enjoyed the setting of the book.
It was well-described and really put the reader into the beauty that surrounded the characters.
However, I felt there was a lack of flow in the narrative that did not do justice to what was otherwise a good story.
Some sections were brilliant, while others I found difficult to read.
Had it not been for the plot, I don't think this book would have been worth the time.
- Imogen Davis
Beth Fantaskey
Penguin Books,$21.99, pbk
Love. Monsters. Murder. And chemistry?
In Jekel Loves Hyde, Beth Fantaskey manages to weave all elements into a captivating and intriguing romance that I couldn't put down.
After her father's murder and the discovery her college funds are missing, Jill Jekel needs to win a chemistry scholarship.
To do so she teams up with Tristen Hyde to re-create their namesake's experiments.
But not only is it a competition of chemistry, it is a race to find a cure for the Hyde curse.
While romance is the main idea - the title is Jekel Loves Hyde - Fantaskey weaves the unique history of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to create a well-balanced mixture of love and mystery.
To be honest, while Tristen was a great anti-hero, his similarity to Edward Cullen got on my nerves.
He is the classic moody, dark, protective teenager who has a bleak outlook on his problem.
Nonetheless, Fantaskey skilfully holds attention, with quiet simmering punctuated by the occasional bang before the grand explosion.
- Annie Welvaert
Maryrose Wood
HarperCollins, $22.99, pbk
The blurb to The Poison Diaries described the plot as a 16-year-old girl who falls in love with a strange young man with special gifts.
Admittedly, I did hope for the book to not be another Twilight remake, but I was disappointed.
Luckily the déjà vu of the situation wears off and the plot is allowed to continue in its own course.
In theory, the book should have been fantastic - it was written to fit my tastes exactly.
Set in the remains of a deserted abbey, a romance blossoms between the mysterious orphan boy with magical powers and the daughter of a renounced apothecary.
The two characters, Jessamine and Weed (I love how Maryrose Wood manages to create such a beautiful name for the female lead, yet such a sad name for her lover) are twisted together by murder, unusual magical powers, poison gardens and princes of evil.
However, somewhere between the above-average writing talent and the book's page-turning ability I managed to feel extremely dissatisfied on finishing the novel.
This may have been because the ending left me wanting more for the characters.
A true romanticist at heart, I like the characters either married or dead by the novel's end, not separating paths with love still in their hearts.
If you like the Twilight saga you may enjoy the The Poison Diaries' poetic clichés and the magical twists of plot, but this book wasn't for me.
Nevertheless, I must admit that Maryrose Wood didn't disappoint as an author; watch out for her books in the future.
- Danielle Browne
Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
Random House, $32.99, pbk
Although at first doubtful of the oversized dragon splayed across the cover, I quickly came to love Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell's WyrmeWeald: Returner's Wealth.
A triumph of good over evil, with dashes of save the ecosystem and friendship before money themes sprinkled throughout, WyrmeWeald is a book I'm glad to have read.
The novel starts exceedingly slowly, with confusing and abrupt scene changes, but these thankfully diminish by the 10th chapter to reveal a very special story.
The novel also had small illustrations dotted throughout.
The art of an illustration complementary to a novel is hard: it must not be so overpowering that we lose our image of the character, yet it must be large enough to add to the reading experience; WyrmeWeald: Returner's Wealth has illustrations that did just that.
Filled with physical and mental trials, action scenes and mystical creatures (such as the great Whitewyrme dragon) you become submerged in a world you long to be real.
I confess that I did go to bed after reading the novel plotting how to become a dragon rider and get into Thrace and Micah's world.
The novel ends on a heart-warming note of a moral lesson I loved, despite one character's happiness being at the expense of another.
I strongly recommend you pick up a copy; it doesn't disappoint.
- Danielle Browne
