Andrea's Reviews

Fans of Fables or Once Upon a Time will devour this splendid graphic novel. Linda Medley's memorable cast of characters, some of whom you may recognize as side figures in well-known myths, get a chance to tell their own intricate backstories. Ironic, funny, charming, and bursting with detail in both illustration and prose, Castle Waiting is an irresistible treat for fairy tale fans. 

If To Kill a Mockingbird were a murder mystery, it would look a lot like The Little Friend. Deeply atmospheric, with rich language that will make you laugh on one page and set your skin crawling on the next, Donna Tartt's novel about a 12-year-old Mississippi girl's search for her brother's killer is the perfect slow-burning thriller to start off your summer. 

There are books that evoke nostalgia of a certain place or time, and then there's This One Summer. Cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki have created a gorgeous graphic novel which perfectly encapsulates that age between kid and teenager, that feeling of wanting to be swept away in something bigger than yourself, and everything wonderful and terrible about having to grow up. 

Two narratives run parallel to each other in this elegant debut novel: a treasure hunt against time and an extraordinary romance. Tristan has been given a few weeks to claim a vast fortune left to his great-grandmother by her lover, a climber who perished on Mount Everest. Spanning 80 years and two continents, from the streets of Berlin to the World War I battlefields of Somme, this breathtaking novel filled me with wanderlust and awe.  

Emily is picked up off the street and trained at an elite school to manipulate her targets’ thoughts and actions through language. Wil is kidnapped in an airport by two strangers who want to know what destroyed Broken Hill, Australia. You know that Emily and Wil have got to be connected somehow, but I bet you won’t foresee the big twist in this smart, fast, fun thriller about the power of language. 

It’s so hard for me to talk about this book without giving anything away. A thoughtful poet moves to London, finds romance in an unexpected way, and has an excellent time being young and in love until he encounters an exclusive, mysterious club of ageless men who subsist on blood. Told in both compelling narratives and intriguing journal entries, Lauren Owen’s debut is a beautifully written love letter to the genre.