The Engines of God, Jack McDevitt

The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt

This is the first book in the Priscilla Hutchins or the Academy series. I came upon Deepsix, which I believe is the third in the series, and started out with that, not realizing it was a series. Deepsix was really enjoyable, made me want to read more. So I went on Paperbackswap.com and found the others in the series. This first book in the series did not disappoint, and I look forward to reading the others in order!

These are set in the not too distant future, where space travel has become a common thing, and the people of earth have started exploring other planets, looking for those that might be able to hold life and be terraformed, because the Earth is becoming volatile, with wars, famines, massive storms destroying everything. They have found one planet with intelligent life, but it is not advanced beyond Earth's 19th century. Other planets have been found with life, but not intelligent. But there are a few planets that have been found where there were once civilizations, but they have been extinct for thousands of years, and what's interesting is that each one has some kind of geometric structure on a moon, and on the planet itself, a sculpture of some being, which is the same sculpture and same being, placed on each planet. 

So the Academy has set up archeologists and scientists on these planets to try and solve the mystery of who these beings are and what has happened on the planets. 

Priscilla Hutchins, or Hutch, is a pilot transporting people and supplies to and from these places, and she is called to one where a large temple has been found with plenty of artifacts. The scientists are sure they are about to discover something big, like a Rosetta stone, which will make it easier to translate the writing, but this planet will begin terraforming very soon, with large chunks of ice being dropped in from the sky to raise the water levels. Everyone needs to be evacuated before it begins, because everything will soon be underwater. 

What happens next, I won't say, just in case you want to read it, but be sure, nothing goes according to plan, and it's up to Hutch and her team to solve the mystery and perhaps even save the Earth.

 

The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst

The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst

This book was recommended to me by my daughter, Elizabeth, one of the many books she has recently read. This is a cozy romantasy, I guess you might call it. It's clean, and by that I mean no sex scenes or coarse language. It's the story of a young woman with purple skin, Terlu, an extrovert who needs connection with other people, who takes a job as a librarian in the city of Alyssium. She ends up working in a section of the library where she gets very little connection with others, and she is extremely lonely, so she finds a spellbook, and uses a spell to make a spider plant sentient, so she can have someone to talk to. (In this world, magic is only allowed to be used by sorcerers, and it's a punishable crime to cast a spell if you are not a sorcerer). She and her plant, Caz, get along well, and then someone turns her in. She goes to court and is punished by being turned into a statue as an example to others.

Years pass, she drifts in and out of consciousness as a statue, and wakes up in the snow, someplace she doesn't recognize, and she is no longer a statue. Confused, she tries to get her bearings and discovers a giant greenhouse, made of smaller greenhouses. She meets a winged cat named Emeral, and eventually a young man with golden skin and black and gold hair, named Yarrow, the gardener in charge of taking care of the greenhouses.

She learns that the greenhouses, which are magic, are dying, and Yarrow believes she can save them. She doesn't believe in herself enough to think she can do that, and is fearful that the authorities will find out if she does, and turn her into a statue again. So will she do what she believes is lawful, or will she do what she must to save the wondrous greenhouses?

I enjoyed this book, it's on a world very different from our own, yet many similarities. The author chose to make many of the plants and foods earth foods, so for instance, they cook with garlic and tomatoes, or make honey cakes. 

This is a love story between an extrovert needing connection with people while on an almost uninhabited island, and an introvert who prefers to be alone but not totally alone. It's about embracing what makes us unique and celebrating it, not just in ourselves, but in others as well, about not trying to change others to be like us but just accepting them as they are. 

This author has written many other books, and I have not read any of them, but apparently this is part of a series, the first being "The Spellshop" so I will probably read that as soon as I get a copy of it. 

 

The Little Paris Bookshop, Nina George

 The Little Paris Bookshop, Nina George

This book tells the adventure of a grieving man who owns a floating bookshop (boat turned bookshop) and his journey into letting go of a loved one lost, and learning to love again. 

Jean is a man in his 50s who is able to prescribe just the right book to help a reader's soul. He has incredible insight into what others need to read to help them heal or grow. He is an avid reader, and has turned a boat into a floating bookshop. One day, a tenant in the apartment building is in need of help--she just left her husband and is starting over with literally nothing---and he gives her a table from a room in his apartment that he has boarded up and forgotten about for 20 years. 

The neighbor discovers a letter inside a drawer in the table and returns it to him, which opens up a raw wound caused by the woman he loved with all his soul leaving him abruptly 20  years ago. He never read the letter, just hid it away because he was so angry being abandoned by her without even a goodbye. But when he finally opens the letter, he learns the truth---she was dying, and was leaving him to go spend her last months with her husband. She asked him to come. Her husband knew about him and would be expecting him.

20 years gone, and she must have died waiting for him to show up, and he was clueless to what was going on. He decides to lift anchor and head down the river, to find her husband and finally get some closure. 

A famous author quickly climbs aboard as he is setting out and goes with him. They have adventures along the way and meet some new friends, while learning about themselves, about life, death, grief, acceptance, and love.

This book was a little different from what I normally read. There was some  sexual language in it, but I was glad that there was not a lot of it. There was a lot of very vivid, colorful, poetic prose which did make the book more enjoyable. I liked how Jean, a loner without anyone in his life to love or even like, learned how to make friends, find love, and create his own unlikely family. 

A Forgery of Fate by Elizabeth Lim

A Forgery of Fate, Elizabeth Lim

I picked up this book from a rummage sale for two dollars. It has to be the most beautiful modern made book I have ever had in my possession. The full color illustrated dust cover has illustrations on the inside and outside, with gold accents. The illustrations inside the cover are front and back, full cover, and different from each other. And sprayed edges! This was an autographed Owl Crate exclusive, and if you can ever get your hands on one, it's glorious.

sprayed edges and gorgeous cover

front inside illustration

back inside illustration

This is inspired by Beauty and the Beast, The Magic Paintbrush, and Asian folklore about the Dragon King and his undersea kingdom.

This is the story of Truyan Saigas, the daughter of a merchant. She is a gifted artist, and when her father goes missing, she must take care of her family, and she does this by forging art and selling it for high prices. This leads her to the Dragon Prince, who is under a curse put on him by the Dragon King. He convinces her to marry him (an arranged marriage for one month), and create a magic portrait of the Dragon King who is destroying his own Kingdom and its people, and this portrait will be his undoing, but we don't learn how until later in the book. 

Tru must travel to the undersea kingdom and learn to paint the Dragon King perfectly in order for the plan to work, but he has spies everywhere, and he seeks to destroy the Prince and his plans. Will Tru be able to pull off this painting? Will she and the prince fall in love, or will their marriage end with the contract? Will the prince be saved from his curse?

I really enjoyed this book, visually, and the writing was easy to read and follow, the story, inspired by other folklore, easy to recognize, but the author made it her own story. I loved it, and if you love fantasy, or books where love conquers all, this is a good one to read.

 

The Young Elites, by Marie Lu

The Young Elites, Marie Lu

I pulled this one out of a Little Free Library. It's the story of a young girl in an Italian renaissance-era type fantasy land, Adelina, who survived a deadly fever ten years earlier as a child, but this fever, as it swept through the realms, marked its victims, and some of them developed supernatural powers. Kind of like the Powerless series I read. But in this one, the Inquisition is out to destroy all of these marked ones. 

Adelina and her younger sister live with their widowed father, who is controlling and cruel. He has plans to marry off his beautiful youngest daughter, and he is going to sell off Adelina to be a concubine, since she is plague marked. She doesn't seem to have a power, but he tries over and over to induce situations that will awaken a power, because it might make her more valuable to sell. But it never happens, until one night, she hears he is going to sell her into sex slavery, and she runs away from home. He catches her, and in her panic to flee, a power emerges. 

This begins her journey into escaping the Inquisition, joining a group known as the Young Elites, and trying to learn to control her power, while also trying to figure out who she can really trust, and seeking unconditional love and acceptance.

I did enjoy this book, It was darker than I expected, but it left me wanting to read the next book in the series, which I will need to search for!

 

The Field Third Reader, by Walter Taylor Field

 The Field Third Reader

Walter Taylor Field

This is a lovely little third level reader, published in 1924, with gorgeous illustrations by Blanche Fisher Laite. It was written by Walter Taylor Field and published by Ginn and Company. It's pretty beat up as it was used in a school, although I am not sure where it came from, it's one I picked up undoubtedly from an estate sale. It is an interesting mix of Native American folklore, historical stories, Bible stories, fantasy, and other everyday life stories, mixed in with poems, and there are vocabulary words listed at the end of each story. I enjoyed reading this, I always feel inspired after reading old readers, to come up with a new reader in the style of the old ones. Maybe someday, who knows. This will be going into my collection of vintage and antique readers.

Fearful, Lauren Roberts

Fearful

Lauren Roberts

This is another novella from the Powerless series, and this one focuses on what happens in the last full novel, with Kitt and Mara, and also Lenny and Blair. We get a look into why Kitt made the choices he made and also a deeper look into Blair, painted as a villain and killer in the other books, but forced into a life she never wanted, information withheld from her causing her to make a choice she thought was correct, but haunts her now that she knows the truth. All this as witnessed by Mara, mysterious reaper of the underworld.

I thought it was written well, and we even get hints as to how Mara came about, although not fully disclosed in this little book. I look forward to finding out more about this little universe that Lauren Roberts is building. This series has been hard to put down, easy to consume and enjoy, and I always hope for another book in the series.