Secrets of the Crown

by Adam Jay Epstein & Andrew Jacobson

{ 2011 | HarperCollins | 384 pgs }

I read The Familiars at the end of last year, and it turned out to be much better than I expected. I found it purely by chance: I was trying to read one book per letter of the alphabet, by author’s last name, and was searching the Kindle store for an E author. I also needed J – so a book coauthored by Epstein and Jacobson was too hard to pass up.

Secrets of the Crown is book 2 in the Familiars series. (I don’t know if it will be a trilogy or continue past three books.) Since it’s been over a year since I read The Familiars, I had a little trouble remembering where the story left off. I suppose it’s a challenge for an author – how to catch readers up without spending too much time revisiting the previous parts of the story. I started reading Secrets of the Crown a few months ago, but it didn’t hold my attention for very long and I left it after a few chapters. On a long train ride, though, I was more than happy to pick it up again.

Overall, the story seemed less original than The Familiars. It was still enjoyable, but I don’t feel any urgency for the next book. I definitely recommend reading The Familiars – and, once the series is complete, I think you should read them all.

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Pathfinder

by Orson Scott Card

{ 2010 | Simon Pulse | 672 pgs }

Maybe my standards are too high, but I feel like every book should be amazing. If I put my time into reading, I want to be blown away. Or at least impressed. I was fortunate to read 2 books this year that amazed me: Beyonders and Pathfinder.

Only a few pages into Pathfinder, I could tell that it was the type of book I’d been waiting for. Very basically, it’s the story of Rigg, who can see the paths taken by living things, even long after the people or animals have gone or died. And it was absolutely fabulous. It doesn’t matter if you’ve read Ender’s Game or not (why on earth not?!), you simply must read Pathfinder.

Oh, and by the way, it’s To Be Continued. Just so you don’t expect a complete ending to the plot.

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Many Waters

by Madeleine L’Engle

{ 1986 | Farrar, Straus & Giroux | 320 pgs }

So, I thought this was part of the Time Quartet, but it turns out to be the Time Quintet? I missed a book?

Anyway. I read A Wrinkle in Time in sixth grade, and it was instantly a favorite. Except for the cover art. But, given the subject matter, I can see how decent illustration is a challenge. Later I read A Swiftly Tilting Planet when it mysteriously turned up in our house, and liked it a lot. A Wind in the Door, one of the other Time Quartet/Quintet books, was the last I read, and while the writing was good, the story didn’t captivate me quite as much as the others.

So I never bothered to read Many Waters, even though I knew it existed. Several others of L’Engle’s books are near-favorites, and it didn’t seem worth the effort to read what I expected to be a mediocre book.

Well…I was sort of right. The writing was amazing, as it should be, but the story was just…hmm. Part of the problem may have been the main characters, who weren’t bad but lacked the ability to really draw me in. Interestingly, the story is about Noah and the ark, and is quite non-religious. At any rate, I didn’t quite feel like the book fit well with the others.

If you’re compelled to read the complete set, then by all means, go ahead and read Many Waters. It’s certainly better than a lot of books I’ve read in the past!

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