An entertaining, comfy fantasy.

BADGERBLOOD

AWAKENING

The tale of a tyrant king, a princess, and a young man whose dormant powers may change the course of history.

In the kingdom of Perabon, Kor is a young forester who lives with his foster father, Peter, a woodsman who found Kor as a youngling missing most of his memories. Kor, Peter, and their trained pet badger, Spart, share a secluded and peaceful life, but Kor has a price on his head for tax evasion and murder (although there is a very good explanation for the latter). From his previous life, whatever that was, Kor retains only an old bone pendant, frequent nightmares, and a voice that tells him, “Remember your blood, remember me.” Lady Allinor of Tilldor finds herself in trouble when she briefly leaves the palace on a dangerous trip into the forest to seek a rare flower. A beast attacks her, and Kor saves her life. Their entwining paths send the youths on a life-changing journey of discovery: Something looms under Kor’s skin alongside his unwanted memories, and Allinor’s inheritance comes with a side of mythical magic thought to be lost. Peter, Kor, and Allinor share the stage in Monson’s slow-moving but engaging YA fantasy. The first in a series, this quiet entry introduces a world of shifters and magic as it explores the ways old myths and lost stories affect the lives of the protagonists. Kor’s arc is the richest as he experiences the guilt and fear connected to the suppressed memories without realizing what it all means until very late in the novel. The plot itself is standard fantasy fare, but the cast is endearing, and the story is rather diverting: Who knew that badgers could be heroes too?

An entertaining, comfy fantasy.

Pub Date: April 13, 2021

ISBN: 979-8-707160-24-0

Page Count: 338

Publisher: Self

Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2021

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021

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Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.

TRESS OF THE EMERALD SEA

A fantasy adventure with a sometimes-biting wit.

Tress is an ordinary girl with no thirst to see the world. Charlie is the son of the local duke, but he likes stories more than fencing. When the duke realizes the two teenagers are falling in love, he takes Charlie away to find a suitable wife—and returns with a different young man as his heir. Charlie, meanwhile, has been captured by the mysterious Sorceress who rules the Midnight Sea, which leaves Tress with no choice but to go rescue him. To do that, she’ll have to get off the barren island she’s forbidden to leave, cross the dangerous Verdant Sea, the even more dangerous Crimson Sea, and the totally deadly Midnight Sea, and somehow defeat the unbeatable Sorceress. The seas on Tress’ world are dangerous because they’re not made of water—they’re made of colorful spores that pour down from the world’s 12 stationary moons. Verdant spores explode into fast-growing vines if they get wet, which means inhaling them can be deadly. Crimson and midnight spores are worse. Ships protected by spore-killing silver sail these seas, and it’s Tress’ quest to find a ship and somehow persuade its crew to carry her to a place no ships want to go, to rescue a person nobody cares about but her. Luckily, Tress is kindhearted, resourceful, and curious—which also makes her an appealing heroine. Along her journey, Tress encounters a talking rat, a crew of reluctant pirates, and plenty of danger. Her story is narrated by an unusual cabin boy with a sharp wit. (About one duke, he says, “He’d apparently been quite heroic during those wars; you could tell because a great number of his troops had died, while he lived.”) The overall effect is not unlike The Princess Bride, which Sanderson cites as an inspiration.

Engrossing worldbuilding, appealing characters, and a sense of humor make this a winning entry in the Sanderson canon.

Pub Date: April 4, 2023

ISBN: 9781250899651

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Tor

Review Posted Online: April 11, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023

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A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.

THE SWALLOWED MAN

A retelling of Pinocchio from Geppetto's point of view.

The novel purports to be the memoirs of Geppetto, a carpenter from the town of Collodi, written in the belly of a vast fish that has swallowed him. Fortunately for Geppetto, the fish has also engulfed a ship, and its supplies—fresh water, candles, hardtack, captain’s logbook, ink—are what keep the Swallowed Man going. (Collodi is, of course, the name of the author of the original Pinocchio.) A misfit whose loneliness is equaled only by his drive to make art, Geppetto scours his surroundings for supplies, crafting sculptures out of pieces of the ship’s wood, softened hardtack, mussel shells, and his own hair, half hoping and half fearing to create a companion once again that will come to life. He befriends a crab that lives all too briefly in his beard, then mourns when “she” dies. Alone in the dark, he broods over his past, reflecting on his strained relationship with his father and his harsh treatment of his own “son”—Pinocchio, the wooden puppet that somehow came to life. In true Carey fashion, the author illustrates the novel with his own images of his protagonist’s art: sketches of Pinocchio, of woodworking tools, of the women Geppetto loved; photos of driftwood, of tintypes, of a sculpted self-portrait with seaweed hair. For all its humor, the novel is dark and claustrophobic, and its true subject is the responsibilities of creators. Remembering the first time he heard of the sea monster that was to swallow him, Geppetto wonders if the monster is somehow connected to Pinocchio: “The unnatural child had so thrown the world off-balance that it must be righted at any cost, and perhaps the only thing with the power to right it was a gigantic sea monster, born—I began to suppose this—just after I cracked the world by making a wooden person.” Later, contemplating his self-portrait bust, Geppetto asks, “Monster of the deep. Am I, then, the monster? Do I nightmare myself?”

A deep and grimly whimsical exploration of what it means to be a son, a father, and an artist.

Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2021

ISBN: 978-0-593-18887-3

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020

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