Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold!

I read the first five Magic Kingdom of Landover novels a long, long time ago (I think around 30 years ago!! I think it was in late elementary school) I remember really liking them, but I don't really remember them. So I decided I would reread them all, see what I think of them now, and finally read the final book for the first time. This is also my first time reading them in order; I originally read books 4 and 5 first, then went back to read 1, 2, and 3.

So first up is Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold!, which tells the story of Ben Holiday buying the Kingdom of Landover for $1,000,000 and becoming the King the fairy kingdom needs. I originally gave this book 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads.

Ben Holiday sees the ad to buy Landover's kingship in a reputable magazine that his wife used to get. His wife, Annie, along with their unborn daughter, had passed away in an accident two years previously. Ben, a partner in a law firm, had mostly withdrawn from everyone, choosing instead to throw himself into his work. But his work is no longer challenging, and he feels he is losing himself; while quite likely a scam, he feels being King of a magic kingdom might be his ticket to start living again. 

I'd like to mention that, reading this now, I didn't like how Ben's grief was portrayed. I especially didn't like the insistence of his friend and fellow partner, Miles, that after two years Ben should be moving on. Grief doesn't work like that, and people need to grieve and feel their emotions at their own pace, not at the pace that society so often demands. 

I'd also like to note that when I read this when I was younger, I probably would have glossed over that part of the story. It seems reasonable when you haven't really experienced grief, especially from an unexpected loss. But now, years later, I was uncomfortable with this part of the story. 

So anyway, Ben Holiday meets with Meeks, the man responsible for selling the Kingship of Landover. Meeks deems him a suitable candidate precisely because he doesn't have any close ties to people (and, of course, because he is capable of paying the $1,000,000 fee). When Ben accepts, he is granted 10 days to experience the Kingdom and decide if he will stay, afterwhich the sale is final. Should he remain, he must also stay for one full year or else his purchase is forfeit.

But once he arrives, Ben discovers that the Kingdom is in shambles. There is a blight destroying the land, the magic castle, Sterling Silver, that he is to live in, is tarnishing and dying. The coffers are empty, and the various people of the land are fighting. But even after losing most of his ten day grace period due to the magical mishaps of Questor Thews, the court magician, Ben decides to stay for the challenge, and to prove he is more than the play-King many people accuse him of being. But his time is limited: the demon lord known as the Mark will challenge him for the throne by Midwinter. Will Ben be able to reunite the people in time to stop the demon, especially when the conditions they give for their pledges of fealty are impossible?

I honestly didn't remember a lot of the plot. I remembered a few bits and pieces here and there, but lots felt new: the stuff with the Mark, the people of the Greensward, how Ben met Willow at the Irrylyn. I remembered that Ben did something to make both Nightshade and Strabo hate him, but not the specifics of what happened between them (and I did find it funny that they got mad at him for tricking him, but they both intended to either trick him, kill him, or both). I remembered the truth of the Paladin, but not what it took for Ben to discover it (basically accepting that Landover was his home). I also didn't remember that he went into the Fairy Mists (I remember Willow getting help from the Fairy People in later books and traveling through thr Mists, and maybe Ben returning to Earth in a later book, too. But not his foray here at Nightshade's insistence). 

I did remember the main characters (Ben, Willow, Questor, Abernathy, Nightshade, Strabo, and sort of the River Master), but not some of the lesser characters like the kobolds Bunion and Parsnip. Or the G'home Gnomes, Filip and Sot (but when they were introduced, I did remember the name G'home Gnomes and where it came from). 

I also had a harder time liking Ben Holiday in this book. At times I liked him: he was clever and loyal to his new friends. But at other times I didn't, like when he would get mad and kick the gnomes for no reason; it felt like there were two versions of Ben Holiday and they were often at odds. I also didn't like Willow. She was very flat in this book. I remember her being a lot more active, and hopefully that will be the case in later books. Even her introduction was weird - I know she's a fairy creature, but her falling in love with Ben (and completely abandoning her home and people) just because he happened to be the man who saw her on a certain night at the Irrylyn felt contrived. And I'm not really sure how old she was supposed to be, but Ben was supposed to be about 40, and the book kept calling her a girl....so yeah, that felt uncomfortable. Again, these are things I noticed now that would have gone right over my head when I originally read the book.

So when I finished rereading Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold!, I felt that it didn't deserve the 4 stars that I gave it when I was younger. I downgraded it to a 3 (it would have been a 2.5/5 book I think, but you can't give half stars on Goodreads): I still liked parts of it, but there are other parts that, 30 years later, didn't really sit well with me. I'm interested to see what I will think of the rest of the series!

Three Bags Full

The movie The Sheep Detectives looked cute, so when I saw Leonie Swann's book at work, I had to read it! Unfortunately I returned the book before writing here, so I'm just going to write something brief since I don't have the book to refer back to.

Three Bags Full tells the story of a flock of sheep trying to solve their shepherd's murder. While I had a hard time getting into the book originally (there are a lot of characters, and the dramatis personae only helps with the sheep, not the humans), once I got through that, I thought the book was a lot of fun! The sheep were all so quirky and different, but most importantly, they felt like legitimate sheep who were mostly doing sheep things (and not really understanding human things) for most of the book.

I also really liked the ending, and how the sheep solved the murder (and communicated it to the humans). I didn't really see the solution coming, which is always a plus in a mystery (I suspected the character who was involved, but wasn't really sure). And the sheep logic was fun - they kind of got to the answer but through the wrong logic (because it was their understanding of things, not how the humans actually did things).

 There is a sequel to Three Bags Full, but I don't think I'm going to read it. While I enjoyed reading the book, I felt like it was self-contained and didn't really need a second part; I'm going to leave things there for now. If I change my mind in the future, I can always get the second book then.  

The Urban Monk: Eastern Wisdome and Modern Hacks to Stop Time and Find Success, Happiness, and Peace

I found The Urban Monk: Eastern Wisdome and Modern Hacks to Stop Time and Find Success, Happiness, and Peace by Pedram Shojai at the perfect time. Life has been incredibly stressful these last few years, throwing one thing after another at me (most recently: wildfires). So I welcomed a nonfiction book that I don't even remember putting on hold showing up to hopefully help me with stress management.

The Urban Monk looks at nine common areas that cause people in the modern world problems, including stress, time management, sleep, and money. Shojai examines each problem and uses his views as both a trained monk and a doctor of Chinese medicine to offer solutions. He then further provides "modern hacks" - things that people in the modern Western World can do now to help break the cycle of each problem. Each chapter also starts and ends with a case study, which is based off of real people that Shojai has helped.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading through The Urban Monk. I found Shojai's suggestions helpful and would really like to try them at length. I thought the book was good for a beginner like me (while I'm familiar with some of the things Shojai talks about, I've never really practiced them in real depth or for long). But at times the book does get a little repetitive-sounding. He doesn't so much repeat himself, as offer similar suggestions for different problems (he provides different meditations to try, or suggests different herbs that are helpful). The structure of each chapter is the same as well, so that adds to the repetition (and might turn you off of reading it if you don't like structural repetition like that). His word choice was also a little off-putting at times in that he uses a lot of colloquial language and swears, which seem at odds with the subject matter (but he definitely wasn't as off-putting as I found Chris Crowley in Younger Next Year). I think The Urban Monk is definitely worth the read if you are stressed out by modern life and looking for a new way of thinking about and approaching what life can be like instead.

Stay for a Spell

I absolutely loved Amy Coombe's Stay for a Spell! I saw it at work and the premise sounded like so much fun: a princess gets cursed to never leave a bookshop until she can find her heart's desire. Her parents decide to send all of the princes of the realm to try to help because as everyone knows, love's kiss from a prince is sure to break the spell. And so Princess Tanadelle (or Tandy, as we get to know her as), is trying to live her life in the bookshop while every so often she's interrupted by the arrival of another prince.

While sometime a bit predictable (I knew what the pirate Bash had left in Tandy's shop when he stole all her books on curses fairly early on), Stay for a Spell is such a fun read. I liked all the characters. It was super fun seeing all of the princes different spell-breaking attempts. And I was really rooting for Tandy to succeed: with her bookshop, with her curse, and with learning how to do things on her own. I also liked the direction the book went with Tandy's curse: her heart's desire wasn't something cliche. :)

 Stay for a Spell was the perfect cozy fantasy read. I'll definitely keep my eye out for more by Coombe!

Pirate Latitudes

I found Michael Crichton's Pirate Latitudes at a little free library recently. I remember really liking Timeline (which I believe I read before starting this blog). And it sounded interesting, so I decided to give it a read.

Pirate Latitudes is the story of the privateer Captain Charles Hunter, who, with the unofficial blessing of England's Governor of Jamaica, Sir James Almont, leaves Port Royal with a crew of "loggers" with the intention of attacking the Spanish port of Matanceros and stealing a treasure-laden Spanish ship. 

The narrative was a little all-over the place. At first the book seemed to be following Almont, but once Hunter was introduced, he quickly became the central character. I wish things had gone back and forth between the two characters though - stuff was happening with Almont at Port Royal with his new secretary, Robert Hacklett, that we didn't get to see.

 At face value, the story is interesting enough. Attacking Matanceros is a difficult proposition, and it was interesting how Hunter went about it. The stakes were also consistently high: his crew was captured early, narrowly escaping death. And even the aftermath of the raid against Matanceros was fraught with danger at every turn.

But this book is full of very unsavory and altogether unlikable characters. While in the end I didn't mind Hunter, I spent a lot of the book not caring what happened to him and his crew. Pretty much everyone was a terrible person doing terrible things. I know that this is a historical fiction book, so it's quite possible that there's some truth to the way everyone was acting. But I honestly didn't want to read about it. 

As someone on Goodreads said, Pirate Latitudes "comes across as a [. . .] project never intended to see the light of day." And I can believe that. In a lot of ways, it felt like the book wasn't polished - it was most likely still a draft that Crichton was working on, or something that he never intended to share with others. 

While I did make it through the whole story, Pirate Latitudes definitely was one of my least favourite Crichton books I've read (I honestly think I enjoyed Jurassic Park better, and I wasn't overly fond of that either). Unless you're a huge fan of his, or really enjoy historical novels about pirates, I'd recommend giving this one a miss.

Isles of the Emberdark

I was so excited to hear that Brandon Sanderson was writing more of his Secret Projects! I asked my partner for the newest one, Isles of the Emberdark, for my birthday and couldn't wait to start reading it!

Isles of the Emberdark is a sequel to a novella Sanderson wrote some time ago. But rather than asking readers to go track down said novella, he incorporated it into the first part of Isles. I absolutely loved the first part of the book! It introduced the protagonist, Sixth of the Dusk, and went back and forth between his present day, where he is struggling to find purpose in his life, and what happened five years ago that led to his current predicament. Dusk was a Trapper, working on the most dangerous island on his world. But the world has changed, and no longer has need of Trappers. Plus with the arrival of people from other worlds, Dusk's people are struggling to navigate through the politics, trying desperately to hold onto their independence. It falls to Dusk to make one last treacherous journey to try to find a solution to his people's struggles.

Unfortunately, after the first part ended, the second part switched narratives to a different character, Starling. While she and her crew were interesting, they weren't who I wanted to be following, and I had a hard time getting myself to continue reading (even knowing that they were going to meet up with Dusk eventually). But I did, and I made it through, and was eventually rewarded with reconnecting with Dusk. And once that happened, I did enjoy the story a lot more. Though I did find myself wondering at times why Starling was there (other than to explain stuff to Dusk) - most of his story could have happened without her.

In the end, I enjoyed Isles of the Emberdark, though not as much as the other Secret Project books I've read. That said, I would very much like a sequel of some sort to see what would happen next! :)

The Faraway Inn

Continuing my quest for cozy fantasy novels, I came across Sarah Beth Durst's The Faraway Inn. I didn't realize it was a young adult book, so I was originally a bit surprised to find the main character, Calisa, was still in high-school. After a bad breakup with her boyfriend, Calisa decides, at the encouragement of her moms, to go and spend the summer helping her great aunt, Auntie Zee, at her bed and breakfast. But Zee isnt interested in her help, originally telling Calisa to go home, but then relenting and letting her stay for a few days. So Calisa takes it upon herself, with the help of Zee's absent landlord's son, Jack, to start cleaning and fixing up the place, hoping to get into Zee's good graces and be allowed to stay for the rest of the summer. 

Of course, not all is at it first seems. The guests are odd, and there's magic afoot. But with Zee's two rules (don't ask questions, and don't open any doors without permission), how will Calisa figure out what's going on?

...Quite easily, actually. She'll just break the rules every chance she gets. This was my biggest pet peeve of the story. I hoped Calisa might be able to figure out what was going on through some other means. Maybe she would start piecing things together as she was cleaning, or discover things in the library (with the help of the very-helpful library ladder). But nope. She just kept asking questions every chance she got (mostly of Jack), and opening doors (and even stealing her aunt's master key to get into some of the guest rooms) to figure out what was happening.

My other peeve of the story was how over the top Calisa was whenever she so much as glanced at Jack. Yes, he's very handsome. I get it. I don't need to be reminded of it with like every thought you have when you're speaking with him. Thankfully this calmed down a bit by about the midpoint of the book. 

That's also when the book started to get a little more interesting. Auntie Zee disappears while going to get supplies, and after trying to hold the fort, so to speak, for a bit, Calisa and Jack start looking for her. Their adventures take them into some pretty interesting places and they meet some really interesting people. Plus they end up getting to know the few guests at the inn a bit better and helping them out.

Most of the characters were quite good, too. I really liked Jack, and how earnest he was. He was so good-natured and dependable, even though he was obviously struggling trying to maintain everything with his father missing that you just couldn't help but like him. Mulligan was a rather odd guest, but I quite liked him because he was so different (and like Calisa, I had fun trying to figure out if he was something like a vampire or not). The mirror was pretty funny. And I really liked Melidor, the dryad, and her story of taking the time she needed to decide what she wanted for herself, rather than just giving in to the demands of her family.  

Also: Steve, the obviously-he's-a-dragon lizard that Calisa finds in a linen closet. He's very much like a cat, hanging out with Calisa and wanting to be involved in whatever she's doing. I enjoyed him just hanging out and tagging along with her and Jack wherever they went.

 While I had some issues with this book (and Calisa in particular), overall I did enjoy reading The Faraway Inn. :)