One good thing about being sick and hurt is that you have a lot of reading time on your hands!
THE CHARMED SPHERE by Catherine Asaro is the first fantasy novel by this former rocket scientist and current science fiction writer. Aronsdale is a little country without particular wealth or renown, but where the people lead peaceful lives with plenty to eat and comfortable places to live, as well as holding gainful employment from agriculture and crafts. It is a quiet and very pleasant place to live. But it is a land facing the greatest challenge in decades as a neighboring country views it with conquest in mind following the death of its long time king. Both royal princes feel truly unfit to rule - and they both have good reason for their crippling self doubts. In the tradition of the land, the royal family members marry the most powerful appropriate age/sex mages that can be found - and both of the young princesses (though showing great promise) are country girls, just learning their magecraft, and very inexperienced. They each also feel unfit to be leaders! Even the army is inexperienced and in need of training, not having seen a real battle in decades. But somehow the two young royal couples and their advisors must find a way to defend this precious, peaceful, and endangered place from an ambitious neighboring king who views Aronsdale as a first step towards building an empire, and from his mad and very powerful mage.
THE HORSE GODDESS by Morgan Llywelyn tells the story of a Celtic girl who lived in the Austrian Alps at about the time of the rise of Athens. Epona is the daughter of a Chief and can reach out to the tribe's ponies with her mind. But she hates and fears the tribe's Druid, and does not wish to be trained as a Druid herself. When she is about to be forced to begin the Druid training against her will, she takes the opportunity to run away with some traders belonging to the Scythian people, and is taken to the steppes of Asia. There, among the horse people, her horse magic begins a legend that will result with her being identified as a goddess of horses. Well written and interesting historical fantasy.
THE PRINCE OF ILL LUCK by Susan Dexter is the first book of The Warhorse of Esdragon Trilogy. The favorite mare of a horse crazy Duke will not allow any stallion to mate with her. A wizard coaxes the winds to take on the form of a stallion and impregnate the mare. The resulting foal is named Valadan - a coal black immortal stallion with the speed and endurance of the wind, the intelligence of a human, and the ability to mind speak with his bonded riders. The colt is stolen from the Duke, and ends up running with the deer in the wilds. There he is found by a shipwrecked young Prince of the Isles named Leith. Leith is famed for having the worst luck in the world, and for bringing that luck with him to his companions wherever he goes. The story tells of how Leith, with the help of Valadan, wins the hand of a princess and tries to get the bad luck curse on his life lifted. Unfortunately, the story, while fun, was sort of ruined for me with the character of the princess - the worst example of the stereotyped headstrong and bitchy fantasy princess I have ever run into. Yuck. I still liked Valadan and Leith quite a bit, though!
THE WIND WITCH by Susan Dexter is the second book in The Warhorse of Esdragon Trilogy. It is two generations following Prince Leith and his mean wife, the Duchess Kess. Their granddaughter, a younger daughter of a younger son, has spent her life being a dutiful daughter and a dutiful wife (though her barrenness runs like an open sore through her heart). The one joy of her life is the black stallion Valadan, who bonded to her when she was a child. Now the widow of a landed farmer, Druyan wishes only to free hold her late husband's farm for a year and a day so that she can own it in her own name and not be forced to remarry by her family. But the land of Esdragon is under attack from Viking-like raiders from the sea, and in the lack of leadership from an incompetent and foolish Duke, Esdragon needs a hero - even if that hero is a widowed and barren weather working witch who does not feel capable of being a hero!
THE TRUE KNIGHT by Susan Dexter is the third book in the Warhorse of Esdragon Trilogy. Titch has trained his entire life in hopes of being a knight like his late father. In his first challenge, he meets a wondrous black stallion who he immediately knows he cannot live without. Wren is a mage's apprentice, without any memories of her life before the point where the mage pulled an otter out of his fish trap - an otter who became a girl when she tumbled out on dry land. The two young people are forced to go on a dangerous quest by a mad queen - to find that queen's son, enscorcelled into the shape of a swan. But finding theenchanted prince in the huge flocks of wild swans will prove to be the easiest and least dangerous of their challenges...
HORSE PASSAGES by Jennifer Macaire is a young adult science fiction novel. Travelers from Earth long ago found a haven world in the galaxy, complete with herds of horses which have the ability to open gates between worlds. A society grows up with hereditary herders who tend to the herds of horses, who map the new worlds the horses open up for mankind. But humans are not alone in this galaxy - there is a species of pirate-like Raiders who carry off horses and herders alike, who are never seen again. Twin herders Carl and Meegan Cadet travel with their herd of gray horses through the worlds. They lost the rest of their family to Raiders long ago, and both still carry emotional damage from that great loss. When further tragedy strikes the Cadets, they will be sorely tested. Beautifully written novel that I will pass on to my younger son - I think he will love it!
THE CAT WHO HAD 60 WHISKERS by Lilian Jackson Braun is the latest in her Cat Who mystery series, which has something like thirty books in it now. The author of this series is now in her mid-nineties, and still producing a novel a year - which is completely amazing! Her age does show a bit, in that the plot is not quite as tightly woven as in books past, but still! I also give this author credit in that she never minds eliminating an important character (as she does in this book) or making a huge change (as she does in this book) in locale or setting. A couple of big surprises will be in store for long time readers in this installment.
THE BOOKSELLER OF KABUL by Asne Seierstad is a book written by a Norwegian journalist who was allowed to live with a family in Afghanistan for some months and given permission to write about the lives of the family members. As a woman, she was allowed to see a side of life in that very war torn country that not many get a glimpse of - that of the daily lives of Afghani women. She both accompanied the patriarch on business trips and the women to the markets (dressed in a burka). The result is a fascinating look at a family which has one foot in the modern world - the patriarch values books more than anything in the world and kept books available in Kabul, despite both the Communists and Taliban burning his stock. But at the same time, it is a very traditional family, where the women are held in little value, and where father's word is law. The plight of the women is heartbreaking.
BY SLANDROUS TONGUES by Mercedes Lackey and Roberta Gellis is the third book in a fantasy series which began with This Scepter'd Isle and Ill Met by Moonlight. The elves of Britain have seen various futures following the death of Henry VIII - most of them involving a time of absolute misery under his daughter Mary and a time of great joy under his daughter Elizabeth. The dark elves, who feed from hatred and pain and fear, cannot wait for Mary to rule, and want to stop Elizabeth from ever ruling. The bright elves, who feed from love and joy, wish to protect Elizabeth. Henry VIII has passed away now, and his young son is on the throne. The visions of Mary and Elizabeth remain, as well as a new vision - a flickering view of a sad and tragic young girl briefly taking the throne. The dark Court, forbidden by King Oberon to harm Elizabeth directly, decide to take a new path - killing her Bright Court protectors, and destroying her with gossip and slander in the human world. But her protectors might not be so easy to slay - and Elizabeth does not prove to be easy prey for the enspelled ladies' man (and her stepfather) - Thomas Seymour.
THE AMERICAN PLAGUE by Molly Caldwell Crosby tells of Yellow Fever, and how it has formed American history. The first section of the book tells of a great epidemic in the Mississippi Valley in 1878 which made some 200,000 people sick and killed so many people in Memphis alone that only that city's death toll was greater than that of the San Francisco Earthquake, the Chicago Fire, and the Johnstown Flood combined. The slow Federal response infuriated many, and caused confidence in the government and its ability to handle a crisis to plunge. The epidemic was the Katrina of its day - a natural horror compounded by bungling and slow bureaucracy. The second section of the book tells of Walter Reed and the brave medical crew he led in their efforts to find the source of transmission of the dreaded disease, which is thought to have killed some 500,000 Americans alone from the time the slave ships brought it from Africa to the year 1900. Interesting, though very grim, stuff.
HORSE OF A DIFFERENT COLOR by Jim Squires is the story of Kentucky Derby winner Monarchos, by the man who bred him. Race horse breeding is both fascinating - in that even a very small farm like Two Bucks can breed a champion - and heart breaking with events like the death of a long awaited and prized foal or in the forced sale of a cherished horse in order to keep the rest of the horses in feed for another year.
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