Many have noted that the ancient Greek gods acted like a bunch of rowdy teenagers. Most days it seems Olympus closely resembled a middle school at lunch time. J. B. Dennis has capitalized on this and made the metaphor the reality for his novel. You see, the gods have grown tired of their occupation and…
Tag: YA Fantasy
REVIEW
“The Secrets of Hawthorne House” by Donald Firesmith
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
The secret in this novel is a dream every school child must have at some time: a magical way to deal with bullies. Of course, the problem is to use the magic without letting anyone, especially your new best friend, know you’re using magic. This theme of the problems of “otherness” adds depth to the…
REVIEW
“Edge of Death” by Joni Parker
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
All fiction reading requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. As a genre, Fantasy requires the most, because we must believe in a whole new world, usually with magic. However, there are limits to what a given reader will accept. Fortunately for this book, Young Adult readers are pretty forgiving. Most of them…
REVIEW
“Absence 1: Whispers and Shadows” by J. B. Forsyth
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
I find this book difficult to review because while I really enjoyed the story, I found the writing frustrating. Let me explain. This is not a standalone book nor one of a series. It is a continuing serial laid out like a series of short stories with different main characters, all moving together through the same…
REVIEW
“Screamcatcher: Webworld” by Christy J. Breedlove
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
Yet another YA Fantasy where our heroes are torn from their everyday world and tossed into a nasty reality where they must survive or die. This novel is stark in its simplicity: four characters, a straight-line quest, most of the conflict against the nature of the land they end up in. The tension is fleshed…
REVIEW
“Across the Fourwinds” by Shane Trusz and Darryl Frayne
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
I don’t like to start a review with a negative, but the story begins with a problem, so here goes. This novel has a standard YA Fantasy plotline in which a pair of teenagers are transported into a magical world where they have extraordinary powers and must use them to save both worlds from…
REVIEW
“Taking Wing” by Clemency Crow
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
“Taking Wing” is of the “Alice in Wonderland” sub-genre that takes a modern child/teenager out of her everyday life and drops her into a fantasy world where she is transformed into someone who can make a difference in a big way. In this story, the modern world plays very little part, and we get…
REVIEW
“The Claiming: The Witches of Hollow Hill Book One” by Glenn Williams
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
This is an unusual book, simply because I don’t often find myself telling an author that the action starts too soon. Because most books that start off wrong never manage to fix it. Let me explain. When you are writing a book in the “hero’s journey” format, there are certain conventions that work. The first…
REVIEW
“Drake Peters Book 1: One Minute to Midnight” by Kingsley Benjamin
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
This book is a “British Public School Gone Magical” story in the Harry Potter tradition. It involves a gifted young man who is given the chance to study at a top-secret elite school for special students. The main conflicts in the book have to do with surviving the challenges of his first year there, while…
REVIEW
“Picket Town” by Chris von Halle
by renaissanceadmin • • 0 Comments
Picket Town is a simple story with a tight plotline. It involves the adventures of only two heroes with few peripheral characters. The setting is a small town in the woods, isolated from any other humans, immediately rousing our suspicions that Something is Going On. Amanda and Sam discover early in the story that their…