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.