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Tag: fairy tales

The Dollmage, Martine Leavitt

My people, lay down your stones. Before you stone this Annakey Rainsayer, you know it is the law and her right to have her story told. It is my duty as Dollmage to tell it. Each villager has the right to one stone, and no one will forbid you to throw it. But listen to me, and when I am done each of you will decide for yourselves if this Annakey is worthy of execution. That is right. Lay the stones at your feet, keep them close by if it comforts you. So few of you? The stones will get…

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Keturah and Lord Death, Martine Leavitt

“Tell me what it is like to die,” I answered. He dismounted from his horse, looking at me strangely the whole while.  “You experience something similar every day,” he said softly.  “It is as familiar to you as bread and butter.” “Yes,” I said.  “It is like every night when I fall asleep.” “No.  It is like every morning when you wake up.” Recommended by: Brooklyn Arden Oh how I liked this book.  It’s about a girl called Keturah who goes into the forest after a white hart and meets Lord Death.  She doesn’t want to die without having known…

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The Stolen Child, Keith Donohue

Don’t call me a fairy.  We don’t like to be called fairies anymore….I am a changeling – a word that describes within its own name what we are bound and intended to do.  We kidnap a human child and replace him or her with one of our own.  The hobgoblin becomes the child, and the child becomes a hobgoblin.  Not any boy or girl will do, but only those rare souls baffled by their young lives or attuned to the weeping troubles of this world.  The changelings select carefully, for such opportunities might come along only once a decade or…

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Tam Lin, Pamela Dean

Recommended by: I vaguely recall seeing the title and author of this book inside an IM window, so I’m going to go ahead and say that somebody told me about this book, but I don’t actually remember.  Anyway it’s a reread.  I’m giving it four stars because I enjoy it so much.  It maybe doesn’t deserve it.  I have lost all perspective. Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty pleasure.  If you are an intellectual snob at whatever level, this book will appeal to you; but if you feel quite guilty about being such a snob, you might find that you can’t enjoy…

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The Book of Lost Things, John Connolly

When David slept he dreamed more often of the creature he had named the Crooked Man, who walked through forests very like the one beyond David’s window.  The Crooked Man would advance to the edge of the tree line, staring out at an expanse of green lawn to where a house just like Rose’s stood.  He would speak to David in his dreams. I picked this up almost completely at random. My dad said “What else can we get Mom for Christmas?” and I said “Oh, I know. This.”, and grabbed The Book of Lost Things, which I had been…

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East, by Edith Pattou

Recommended by: http://melissasbookreviews.blogspot.com/ I say definitely yes to this.  If I had read it when I was small, it would have become one of my favorite books and I would have read it over and over again.  As it is, I liked it but I probably wouldn’t buy it. Basically it’s a retelling of “East of the Sun and West of the Moon”, which is not my favorite fairy tale at all because the girl is such a silly brat.  I always think of Fire and Hemlock (ah, Fire and Hemlock), because Polly had a rather scathing view of the…

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