I would highly, highly encourage you to read the previous books in the Shadowhunter Chronicles. Ghosts of Shadow Market had me in hysterics, tears and laughter all at once. I found it to be absolute perfection. For this book, and for all of the other Shadowhunter novels, I think the best suited age group would be 14+. I believe the time you read certain books or series influences your opinion and I delved into the fantasy world of Shadowhunters, demons and Downworlders at perhaps the perfect time.
Category: Book Reviews
Book Reviews
A review of Unlike the Heart by Nicola Redhouse
Redhouse is an exceptional science writer, and her research is extensive, making connections, incorporating anecdotes both personal and as part of her research, so that the overall effect is engaging, open-minded, informative and powerful. The hybrid effect allows for multiple perspectives that remain open-ended rather than didactic.
A review of Ghosts of the Shadow Market by Cassandra Clare
Themes I found particularly engaging were the harsh and committed life of the Silent Brothers – mysterious, powerful archivists and medics of the Nephilim and how Brother Zachariah’s past life had influenced his experience as a Silent Brother. Frequently, messages of love are communicated beautifully throughout all of Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter Chronicles, I found that this particular perspective brought a meaningful layer of depth to these concepts and notions.
A Review of All My People Are Elegies by Sean Thomas Dougherty
The writer ranges in subjects from friends long-dead to the pleasure of drinking tea, watching a sunset, or smelling your child’s hair. As Dougherty touches on these many subjects and themes, one is taken in by the compassion in his approach.
A review of Scorched Earth by Tammy Pemper
Pemper has an impressive command of language, a necessary skill for creating a sense of place in what could easily be a generic theatre of war. In a perfect analogy for the social upheaval, the wheels of Peter’s truck are seen brushing the edge of the abyss at a cliffs edge during the journey. The remnants of a destructive landslide hinder the way forward on the road they travel. Woven into the background details is this lingering sense of danger and disturbance. It feels precarious.
A review of Not What You Think by Clark Gormley
For anyone who thinks poetry needs to be experimental, difficult, overly-complex, or high-blown, Not What You Think is the antidote. Gormley’s poetry book is a pleasure to read and even more of a pleasure to read aloud. If you’re able to catch Gormley performing his work, that’s the ideal, as these are poems that are not only able to be sung, but work perfectly accompanied by acoustic guitar and a wry vernacular, but they also work beautifully on the page.
A review of Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare
The relationship, particularly those between our main characters – Will, Tessa and Jem – strengthens and grows even more through the course of Clockwork Princess, with the conclusion of this book to be one of the best I’ve read. The final scenes and chapters of this book were truly astonishing and absolutely wonderful.
A review of Stanley Park by Sapphira Olson
I like to say that Stanley Park kept me reading with enthusiasm and intrigue, not only because of the pristine imagery, the hint of mythology and fantasy, the veiled politics, the sad and happy remembrances, but also because I, being such a romantic, I wanted to know if the two women, like the cliché says: lived happy ever after Stanley Park is a book about love a book to be loved.
A review of Praise Song For My Children by Patricia Jabbeh Wesley
This book of poetry is part of Wesley’s mission to bear witness to the pain in her homeland. With her family’s good fortune to live in America, she writes of children in the poem, “This Is The Real Leaving,” that “They may never know / why I’m angry that there’s food in my fridge // while others starve.”
A review of Flowers, all sorts in blossom, figs, berries, and fruits forgotten by Oisín Breen
The 95 page book contains only three poems, but they are grand, long, and epic, taking up space and working across time. Each of the poems relates to one another and are connected through the act described in the title of the first poem:“Isn’t the act of placing flowers on a tomb a gesture of bringing a little life back to the dead?” Taken collectively, the work is an elegy; a meditation on death and time, inheritance and love.