YA Fantasy fiction
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The colors solidified to form a tiled mosaic of jewel-tone flowers, fruit, birds, and butterflies. In the center of the mosaic was an arched doorway with a heavy wood door painted blue.The blue door then slowly opened, and a very athletic man with the head of a small elephant walked through.
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The Mermaid’s Apprentice is a young adult novel that follows Mabel Sinclair as she tries to rescue her brother and follows Antonio Cortez as he tries to finish his required time in the navy before opening his tailor shop. It is a fun story about mermaids and pirates that is part of Palmer’s world of…
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When my dad bought me a hardback version of this novel and had it signed by Brandon Sanderson at a Comic Con, I squealed like a little girl. The hardback edition of this novel is gorgeous! I love the color illustrations, the beautiful flourishes, the font, and the lovely bed sheets.
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Gryphendale, the first book in the Legends of Gryphendale series, was published in 2016. Since then, I have had many people try to correct the spelling of that title, which is also the name of the fairy world in my book. I have stubbornly fought back against this “correction.”
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The most common question I get at my live events is “how do you publish a book?“ This is a more complicated question than it seems on the surface and deserves a long answer.
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The Last Unicorn is another one of those older fantasy fiction books that are considered classics. I have been intentionally reading through these greats of the genre to improve my own writing. This one really surprised me with the pureness and lack of many of the modern-day conventions.
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“No one knows what they really want. Only the few who have power and education can rule competently and fairly,” Lord Mao stated to the young Undine woman walking next to him. The older man with almond eyes and dark black hair had the chiseled features of a general and the mannerisms of a king.
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She found a chair and took a glass of wine from a tray. “You’re quite a dancer,” said a deep familiar voice. Cin turned to see the old charlatan wizard sitting a couple of chairs down from her. The dark-haired wizard with prominent gray streaks in his slicked back hair stared at her with emerald
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A Wizard of Earth Sea is one of those novels that always comes up when people list their all-time favorite fantasy books. This was written at a time when people were not so concerned with breaking away from the tropes of the genre, and yet it still pushed boundaries in subtle ways.
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Silver on the Tree is the last book in Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising Series. As with most of the books in this series, my review is mixed, but I still recommend it as a high-quality middle school and up book.
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“On Fairy Stories” is actually more of an essay about a genre of literature rather than a book about how to write. Even so, as a writer of young adult fantasy fiction, this essay is incredibly important for shaping my writing career.
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Many fantasy fiction stories depict extremely unhealthy and even abusive relationships as being romantic. Why is this a problem?
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The Hobbit is a classic book for good reason. It was originally marketed for children, and it often still is, but this novel is great for any age. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a sequel to The Hobbit and is more epic.
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The Gray King by Susan Cooper is the fourth book in The Dark is Rising Sequence. There is only one more book after this that concludes the series.
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Greenwitch is the third book in The Dark is Rising Sequence. This novel brings back Simon, Jane, and Barney from Over Sea, Under Stone and also Will Stanton from The Dark is Rising. It returns to more of the feel of the first novel, which has less overtly magical elements and odd magic rules.
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The Dark is Rising is the second book in The Dark is Rising Series by Susan Cooper. It follows Over Sea Under Stone, but it has a very different feel and a different main character child who discovers his identity as an Old One.
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Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper is the first book in The Dark is Rising Series. Some times I review a whole series at a time, but these classic young adult fantasy fiction books have been around since the 1960s and are often recommended individually, especially the first two in the series.
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A Wrinkle in Time is about three kids, Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace, who go meet three magical women, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which. These women help the kids travel through space to rescue Meg and Charles Wallace’s missing father.
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People often ask me what led me to start writing. My answer is I ran away from it. Here’s how it happened.
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The Guardian of Ajalon by Joan Campbell is the third and final book in “The Poison Tree Path Chronicles”. I had not read the previous two books but decided to read the blurbs for them before starting this book. I am glad I did. Even though the author does well to catch up the reader
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“If the jewels in the backside of the earth’s crust could sparkle down on us any brighter, they would still pale to her inexhaustible beauty,” said Sage, the sixteen-year-old Huldra.
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The Paper Magician Series is a traditionally published young adult fantasy fiction trilogy, sort of. The Plastic Magician is part of the series and world, but not part of the trilogy.
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I decided to review both of these books at the same time because they take place in the same fantasy world, but really, they have two very different tones.
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I am back reviewing some young adult fantasy fiction, this one fits the category perfectly. The Nameless Soldier by Annie Douglass Lima checks all the boxes for me as being the perfect summer book for young adults ages 12 through the young at heart adults.
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Hi! My name is C. S. (Chris) Wachter and I’d like to talk to you about Christian Fantasy and my four-book series The Seven Words.
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Thanks for stopping by! Take a look at this brand-new fantasy adventure story with a hint of romance by author Annie Douglass Lima.
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Today is the day of my execution. I, Puck Alexander Capernaum III, will die by hanging when the sun sets this evening. My former student, Maldamien, Warlock dictator of the faerie world of Gryphendale, has planned a sweet revenge to celebrate his 150th birthday.
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The Finding by R.E. Joyce is a young adult epic fantasy novel very much in the fashion of Tolkien. The story starts with Ariah, an adopted speaking horse who transforms into the unicorn she had always been but had not come to age yet.
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Tropes. This evil word used in writing circles describes all the types of stories that are old and overdone. I honestly think that we need to stop worrying about tropes for the most part.
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Astray by J.F. Rogers is a young adult Christian fantasy fiction book. The main character, Fallon, is an orphan who receives an amulet on her seventeenth birthday from a neglectful and abusive grandmother. The artifact leads her through a portal to a mythical realm in which she learns that her mother is still alive and…
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Heart Song is a well-written teen science fiction novel about space colonization. The protagonist is a thirteen-year-old orphan girl who is part of a space colonization program to build the first base on a planet outside our solar system.
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All Things Now Living by Rondi Bauer Olson is a young adult science fiction novel. Amy is a sixteen-year-old girl whose father shoves her into the dome-locked world of New Lithisle with coding to stop the dome from collapsing.
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Fantasy fiction is a direct descendant of fairy tales and myths. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and George MacDonald were creators of some of the earliest fantasy fiction novels with the specific intention of creating modern fairy tales and myths.
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Even though I have a very long list of favorite writers, my inspiration usually returns to Jane Austin, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien.
