Bed with Books

Another throwback review this week! This one was posted originally in July 2009 and is still one of my favorites! Here ya go: Eyes Like Stars in the first book by Lisa Mantchev in the Theatre Illuminata trilogy. Bertie lives on a stage. Her friends are fairies from A Midsummer Night’s Dream . Her crush is Nate, a pirate from The Little Mermaid . And her childhood friend and now frenemie is Ariel, a hunky spirit from The Tempest . That’s right. On the stage Bertie lives on, all those characters from all those plays? They’re alive and bursting with drama. And not just the characters from Shakespeare. Every single play that has ever been written is represented in The Book. The Book that makes all of this possible. The Book that creates the magic. But Bertie isn’t one of these characters; the theatre has taken her in, with a rather murky explanation as to why. It is her home. The only place she knows. However, Bertie isn’t the most gracious of guests. She can’t seem to help mak...

The Unnaturalists is a YA alt-Victorian steampunk novel by Tiffany Trent. Fascinated with her father’s work in the Museum of Unnatural History, Vespa Nyx enjoys spending her days cataloging the Unnatural creatures of their world. Yet her unusual hobby is growing less and less socially acceptable as she nears seventeen and is expected to be a respectable young lady with marriage prospects. Just when Vespa is beginning to sullenly accept her tedious fate, strange accidents begin to happen at the museum and she finds herself running into a young Tinker boy that believes she has a role to play in the future of New London – as a witch. But witchcraft is the worst possible violation in New London and punishable by death… As a fan of steampunk, I was very excited to read The Unnaturalists and had been wanting to for quite some time. Tiffany Trent excellently presents a fleshed out alternative world with magical creatures, various cultures and even a legend of how New London came to be. Vespa...