The Tarot Café

The Tarot Café

By Sang-Sun Park

Pamela runs the Tarot Café, where she uses her Tarot deck to help guide those who seek her counsel. Her clients include vampires and fairies, and other fantastical creatures, such as a Wish-fulfilling Cat. Each comes to Pamela for help, with Pamela’s cards assisting to prompt more information, and to reveal hidden truths and wisdom.

There’s beautiful artwork here, with lots of gorgeously drawn characters, and detailed attention to costumes and backgrounds. The first volume has four episodes, each self-contained, though with Pamela’s continuing story linking them. The tarot cards are lovely, and are accompanied by little snippets of explanation so their relevance to the story is transparent.

A fun, dramatic and romantic manga series, with wonderful artwork.

Into the Wild

Into the Wild

By Sarah Beth Durst

The Wild is the world of fairytales, where every tale must play itself out to its predetermined conclusion, over and over again. The fairytale characters are caught in their roles, forever reliving the same story, over and over again. Until Repunzel makes a daring escape, and imprisons the Wild. In doing so, she brings freedom to her fairytale friends, giving them the chance to make their own decisions and choose freely their own futures.

But the Wild breaks free and works to reclaim all that it lost. Julie, Repunzel’s daughter, must journey deep into the Wild to rescue her mother, her brother (Puss-in-Boots) and all her mother’s friends. Julie soon realizes how much danger she is in, especially when she is threatened with becoming entrapped within a never-ending fairytale loop.

Julie’s journey, and her meetings with many fairytale characters provides for a fun, entertaining and thoughtful story - a pleasure to read.

Blood Brothers

Blood Brothers

By Peter Corris

Jack and Bart are best mates, whose friendship seems all but over. While Bart is recovering from a broken leg, he is also coping with his new girlfriend, his single-parent mum and her boyfriend, and his need to know more about his father who he has never met. Jack on the other hand, has lost himself to anger – lashing out at his mate, dabbling in drugs and alcohol, and crashing a car that kills another friend.

While the bond of friendship means so much to Bart that he is willing to track down his criminal father in the search of answers, we don’t actually get to see any of that friendship in the story – the book starting when the friends are already estranged – and so it’s a bit difficult to understand why Bart clings to the friendship so loyally. Otherwise though, it’s an interesting read with strong themes of mateship, fitting in, and growing up in a contemporary Australian setting.

The Last of the High Kings

The Last of the High Kings

By Kate Thompson

Although this book is a sequel to Thompson’s award winning novel The New Policeman, it can just as easily be read as a stand-alone story. It’s a fabulous mix of Irish folklore, Celtic mythology, and faerie tales, as well as more contemporary issues such as environmentalism and the importance of family and social connections.

Jenny is eleven years old, and would rather wander the Irish hillsides, talking with a ghost and a puca, than attend her classes at school. She seems out-of-place with her family, feels disconnected from the everyday humdrum, and must work hard to understand her connection to the legendary world of Tir na n’Og.

Though the themes and characters are complex, the story unfolds with ease, helped along by lovely language, witty dialogue, and lots of humour. Highly recommended!

The Portal

The Portal

By Andrew Norriss

William, aged 13, and his brother Daniel, aged 8, live a fairly ordinary life with their parents. But one day their parents disappear, and the two brothers learn very extraordinary things about their home, their parents and themselves.

This a very enjoyable book – Norriss writes with such humour and understanding of his young characters, and the story’s plot has touches of science-fiction, mystery, adventure and family drama.

William struggles to understand the disappearance of his parents, and is confused about how to help his younger brother cope. Friends of his parents offer him help and advice, but it is William himself who eventually solves the mystery. Mixed with this is the discovery that William’s dad was the Station Master for an intergalactic portal, and that he is expected to take over the role while his dad is missing, meeting and greeting visitors from other worlds.

A fun book, with an exciting story and interesting characters.

Scrapped Princess

Scrapped Princess
Volume 1 – A Tale of destiny

Scrapped Princess
Volume 2 – Song of the forgiven

By Ichiro Sakaki

These are the novels that inspired the Scrapped Princess anime series. There are 14 Volumes planned.

Fourteen years ago, in the kingdom of Linevan, the queen gave birth to twins – a boy and a girl. However, a prophecy foretold that the girl would, on her 16th birthday, destroy the world, and therefore should be executed immediately. Heartbroken, the queen could not kill her daughter, but instead arranged for her to be adopted by local friends.

Pacifica grows up with her new siblings, Shannon and Raquel, unaware of her true fate. However, when it is revealed that she is the Scrapped Princess, the trio decide to avenge the murder of their father and to test the truth of the prophecy. Fast-paced adventure and action ensues, as the three journey across the kingdom, hunted by fierce warriors intent on killing the Princess before she destroys their world.

An fun series, though a bit slow in some spots, and clearly missing the visual details of the manga and anime. An interesting blend of a manga and a novel – it’s more an illustrated novel really - with several manga-style illustrations.

Fearless

Fearless

By Tim Lott

Little Fearless is taken from her home, and sent to the City Community Faith School for Retraining, Opportunity and Hope. The school in no way lives up to its name – it is instead a dark, dismal prison, where the girls are worked hard doing the city’s laundry. Little Fearless is the bravest girl in the school, telling stories to the others in an effort to keep their hopes up. Angry about the injustice of the school, Little Fearless plans to escape – sure that once the people outside are made aware of the true conditions inside the school, the girls will be saved.

It’s a challenging story – a dystopian world, where children are betrayed so badly by the adults around them. It’s also quite a depressing tale – about the stripping away of identity and the loss of individualism, the power of sacrifice, and the importance of standing up for one’s beliefs.

Due to the heavy dependence on fairytale and fable elements, the structure of the story seems quite formulaic at times, and some sections are a bit over-written. Nonetheless, it’s a good read, with the tension lasting right till the very end.

Blood beast

Blood Beast

By Darren Shan

Book Five in The Demonata Series. Previous titles, in order:

Lord Loss
Demon Thief
Slawter
Bec

Brilliant series - lots of horror, demons, fights, death, and interesting characters.

Grubbs is back, haunted by his nightmares, and battling demons again. But this time, his greatest challenge is his internal struggle against the family curse. The full moon brings agonizing symptoms, and Grubbs must fight against his emerging werewolf.

Shan keeps the pace frantic, the horror scary, and the characters true to their uniqueness. Grubbs’s inner dialogues are touching and revealing, filled with his self-doubt and his fierce protectiveness for his friends and what’s left of his family. Shan’s writing is crisp and abrupt – characterized by his short sentences and brisk dialogue. It works perfectly for this story, and for the voice of his narrator, Grubbs.

It finishes on a doozy of a cliffhanger – can’t wait for the next one!

Eggs

Eggs

By Jerry Spinelli

David’s mum dies in a freak accident, and he is sent to stay with his grandmother. He acts out his grief in anger, and makes life very hard for his grandmother, punishing her for not being the mother he loves. Primrose’s mother is a fortune-teller who marches to the beat of a different drum. Her dad is nothing more than a framed picture. Primrose’s anger comes from her mum being ‘different’ and for not loving her as Primrose thinks a mother should.

These two angry children meet up, become angry at each other, themselves, the people around them, and finally forge between them a strong friendship where they each find within the other a little of the something that’s missing in their own lives.

While the plot is deep and the characters are complicated and themes of loss and recovery are confronting – the prose is inviting and Spinelli writes with confidence and clarity. A thought-provoking and challenging book.

Vampire Knight

Vampire Knight

By Matsuri Hino

Fabulous manga series – a gothic romance full of danger and suspense – with beautiful artwork and lots of angst!

Yuki attends the Cross Academy, where the humans of the Day Class are protected from the Vampires of the Night Class. It is one of Yuki’s tasks to foster understanding and tolerance between the two Classes. Complicating matters is her attraction to two of the gorgeous boys attending the Academy – Kaname, a pure blood Vampire; and Zero, her partner who hates Vampires. Zero’s story is also very complicated, and adds much emotion and tension to the story.

The artwork is lovely – and the story is full of angsty plot, great humour and blood-sucking attacks!

The declaration

The Declaration

By Gemma Malley

An interesting story set in a future time where overpopulation has depleted the world’s resources to the point of scarcity. Added to this is the invention of revolutionary drugs that act to prevent aging. To protect their ability to survive, the old have legislated against the rising birth-rate by banning children, except those very few allowed to be born under very strict controls. Children born outside the law are labeled ‘surpluses’ and are sent to draconian institutions to be trained as servants to atone for their illegal existence.

Anna is a Surplus, who, though well-brainwashed to know her place, nurtures a small amount of self-determination. When Peter arrives at Grange Hall, he brings with him disturbing news from the Outside and the hope that Anna’s real parents are still alive. Peter’s beliefs challenge everything that Anna believes. And Anna’s life is thrown into chaos.

Malley’s dystopian world is cruel and harsh, and the premise of the story is timely. A compelling and poignant story, with themes of death, aging, nature, and social and personal responsibility – a challenging read.