Book recs: THE GRIMM LEGACY by Polly Shulman; FROST HOLLOW HALL by Emma Carroll

 

I need a night not mostly moaning about my stupid life.*  So let’s have a couple of book recs.**

I have tended to avoid books for the younger end of YA;  I’m missing the gene.  I can engage with picture books and I can engage with YA, but there are vast swathes in the middle that are to me in a foreign language.  Especially that extra-confusing subcategory of young-adult characters written for a slightly younger than young-adult audience.   But I’m a sucker for a Kindle promo bargain*** and I have bought several over the last few months telling myself that I’m broadening my horizons.  That’s a good thing, right?†

Here are two books that will amuse, divert and cheer you up as you lie on the sofa covered in hellcritters and suffering from germs, rivers where there used to be roads, or, possibly, aggravated carlessness.

Elizabeth’s favourite teacher sees her being kind to a homeless woman and shortly after suggests that she apply for a job at the New York Circulating Material Repository.  Which is like a library.  Sort of.  The interview is a little bizarre . . . but not nearly as bizarre as finding out that the Grimm Legacy, which is held on one of the mysteriously locked floors of the Repository, contains items like worn-out dancing slippers, seven-league boots, invisible cloaks and nasty-tempered talking mirrors.  So far so enchanted.  And certain carefully vetted customers are allowed to borrow these things–the Repository is, after all, Circulating.  But someone is stealing some of the most valuable objects—or draining them of their magic.

It’s Sunday afternoon and Tilly is fidgeting around the house because her Pa is due home from working on the railroads—it’s 1881—and she’s eager to see him, as well as eager for the wages he’ll be bringing, so there will be enough food again, and they can pay their back rent.  But there’s a knock on the door and it’s not Pa, but Will the butcher’s son who seems to be sweet on Tilly—she doesn’t like him at all, no she doesn’t—and dares her to come ice-skating with him.  Her mother and sister nearly push her out the door but she’s piqued by the dare.  But Will is taking her to Frost Hollow Hall, where the young heir died by drowning ten years ago—and where, when Tilly falls through the too-thin ice, she is saved by—a ghost?

Both of these books are page-turners in their different ways.  Who can Elizabeth trust?  Is the thievery an inside job?  And what (or possibly who) is the gigantic bird she keeps catching terrifying glimpses of?  Tilly gets a job as a maid at Frost Hollow Hall, where they have trouble keeping servants because of the peculiar goings-on since Kit’s death, because her family needs the wages;  but also because she dreams of Kit, who looks at her so sadly:  Now it’s your turn to save me, he says.

Oh, and PS:  One of my pet peeves about way too many books written for the frelling girlie market is that it’s all about the romance, the Hot Guy or Guys, and there’s way too much flirting and swooning and obsessing and smooching.   I know I’m old and everything, but I’ve always been like this:  smooching is great but I WANT THE STORY.  Both these books have very nice understated romances and while Will is pretty hot, Tilly is not the moony type—and the scene where Elizabeth proves (by satisfyingly magical means) she is not in love with the obvious Hot Guy is one of my favourite bits of the book.  Hee hee hee hee hee.

* * *

* I am still a car-free zone and am beginning to suffer existential/automotive despair.  They’re now saying Saturday.  I’ve emailed Alfrick that assuming I pick Wolfgang up at the end of their working day I can probably still JUST ABOUT make it to my appointment with him.  But that’s assuming Wolfgang is ready to be picked up.  In the twenty-three years I’ve been using this garage they have consistently done rather better than their forecasts and I’m just not dealing with the current situation because it’s so unexpected.  Yes, I should have hired a car—but so much of my Car Life involves hellcritters in the back seat that I’m very reluctant to waste all that money on a car I can’t haul critters in.  I was 95% sure hellhounds and I would be hurtling out to Warm Upford today and coming home in Wolfgang.  I had my shoes on when I rang up.  And the world has been Dark and Tragic ever since I heard the dread word ‘Saturday’.

Also—just by the way—Feebledweeb came round again this morning.

On the other hand . . . Shiny New Carrier Company came through.  I checked ‘track your parcel’ at mmph o’clock this morning.  Nothing.  I checked it again at seven and at 8:30^.  Still nothing.^^  Then at 9:30—lo, there was a little pop-up box telling me that my parcel was on the road and due to arrive between 10:53 and 11:53 [sic].  And it DID.

I was all chirpy and delighted till I opened the parcel.  And discovered they’d screwed up my order. . . .

^ I may have mentioned that I am Not A Good Sleeper?

^^ And that I take Astarte the iPad to bed with me?

** People.  It is pathetic how (not) often I post book recs.  Nag me.  If I could get it through my tiny frantic mind that I’m not writing reviews^ I’m just saying this is a good read I might be able to bring myself to do it more often.

^ And risking SAYING THE WRONG THING.

*** And doesn’t frelling amazon know it.  ‘Other customers with your browsing history have bought . . . [HOT LINK WITH ADDED PHEROMONES]’

† Not when it involves finding excuses to buy more books.  Even cheap buy-it-FAST-before-we-put-the-price-back-up ones.