Tag: fantasy
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Why Fantasy Heroes Have Too Much Power
I’ve recently grown tired of main characters with too much power. My husband inadvertently gave me a term for this (it’s a video game term): Overpowered. In a video game, if you have a character who is too powerful, it makes the game unfair because it’s either too easy (if your character is overpowered), or…
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Top 10 Reads of 2017
Hi all! As this is the last day of 2017, here is a highlight of my favorite reads this year. My reading goal on Goodreads for 2017 was 80 books, and I managed to read 91. Of those 91 books, all but two were in my five favorite genres: fantasy (42%), historical fiction (16%), classic literature…
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Book Review: A Million Junes
I read A Million Junes through Penguin Publishing’s First to Read program. The book comes out on May 16. Imagine a Sarah Dessen novel—filled with serious questions and teenage vulnerabilities—paired with a collection of American tall tales. Now mix it all up into the Romeo and Juliet story, and the result is A Million Junes by Emily Henry. Synopsis…
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February Bookstagram Challenge!
Welcome to the #booklovefebruary challenge! If you’re coming over from Instagram or Simona’s blog, welcome! We’re super excited to be co-hosting this February challenge together. Here are the daily prompts, along with a few ideas: February TBR: Your To Be Read list for this month—what books do you want to get through in February? Book…
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5 Fantasy Books You Should Read
Welcome to the 5×5 post series—five posts that explore five books in five different genres. Over half of the 80 books I’ve read this year have been fantasy, so we’ll start there. I’m going to skip over some of my favorite series such as Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings because most people already know about…
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Writing News
My apologies for the long silence. Am I still writing? Yep. Just not blog posts—for the moment. Here’s why: Just about a month ago, I finished writing the first draft of my fantasy novel! It clocked in at 122,000 words, which is a little longer than Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, to give you a…
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Hermione’s Homework: The Basilisk
Hermione Granger’s History of Magic essay on recordings of the Basilisk in ancient history.
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World Building: How to Bring a Reader Down the Rabbit Hole
I both read and write fantasy fiction, and one of the aspects I love the most about the genre is the world-building. The author gets to create his or her own world—come up with everything from biology and astronomy to scientific laws and the government system. There are a few different ways to introduce a…
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Is Character Development Necessary?
When we talk about a good story—whether book, movie or TV show—one of the quality criteria we often put forward is character development. What we mean by this is that the characters should grow to become better people over the course of the story arc. This makes sense. We want our heroes to learn something,…
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Odysseus Goes to Mordor
I recently read a blog post over at Fantasy Faction in which Max Freeman argues that the classic literature students have to read in school is boring and often has no character development. He suggests that schools might be better off reading newer, more interesting books such as fantasy and scifi. I like Max’s idea of introducing “new blood” into…
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Why Can’t Adults Enter Narnia?
Why is the magical world in The Chronicles of Narnia only accessible to children?
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Monthly Reads: July
August already—that means the 4th of July was almost a month ago. Time is racing away. As for the reading I did in July, there were some major highs and lows. Thankfully, the highs outweighed the lows, which made the whole experience worthwhile. Written in Red by Anne Bishop Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult My favorite part…
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Monthly Reads: June
July already. Wow; time flies. Here’s to the month of June and its reading, full of sunshine and good books. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas Genre: French Literature Talk about a long book! I loved it, but it took me over a month to listen to it on audiobook. Adventure,…
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Book Review: Gilded by Christina Farley
Sixteen-year-old Jae Hwa moves from California to Seoul, South Korea, where she discovers that she’s part of a long lineage of girls who have been abducted by a Korean demigod. And she’s next. I read Gilded as an interlude between the second and third books in Colleen Houck’s Tiger Curse series. The two stories run…
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Review: Frozen by Melissa De La Cruz
Frozen by Melissa De La Cruz and Michael Johnston, Heart of Dread Book 1 About the book here. In December, I went to see Disney’s animated Frozen with some friends. The story was characteristically Disney—happy and light-hearted, with dancing snowmen, puppy-like reindeer, and singing duos. Melissa De La Cruz and Michael Johnston’s Frozen, on the…
Victoria Van Vlear 