Django Wexler’s THE FORBIDDEN LIBRARY and Sophia McDougall’s MARS EVACUEES

I read Django Wexler’s The Forbidden Library back-to-back with Sophia McDougall’s Mars Evacuees. They’re very different books, albeit aimed at the same age-group (9-12).

The Forbidden Library is a fantasy novel set in a version of Earth around the turn of the 20th century. Alice Creighton overhears her father having an argument with a fairy. Soon after, her father leaves on a journey, his ship sinks, and Alice is brought under the guardianship of a man called Geryon, who almost certainly doesn’t have her best interests at heart. She learns that she has magical powers in a dangerous and forbidding library, and struggles to learn the truth about what really happened to her father.

Mars Evacuees is a novel set in a near-future Earth that’s been invaded by aliens, the Morrors. Alice Dare, daughter of ace pilot Stephanie Dare, is evacuated to not-properly-terraformed-yet Mars with a group of other young adolescents. But things go wrong on Mars, and Alice and a small group of others must make a dangerous journey alone across the planet to seek help.

Both of these books are an awful lot of fun, although Mars Evacuees is really more My Thing. I recommend them both.

(Some) books received for review since last I took a picture

I’m a bit like a bus-stop in winter when it comes to posts this evening, I’m afraid. None all last week, while I was attempting to finish up some work, and now several posts (buses, in this metaphor) come along on each others’ heels.

Not shown: two novels by Deborah J. Ross, which I have already read and shelved, and MIRROR SIGHT by Kristen Britain, which has been misplaced during shelving triage and may be under my bed.

In no particular order, Sophia McDougall’s MARS EVACUEES, Karen Healey’s WHILE WE RUN, Julie E. Czerneda’s A TURN OF LIGHT, Mur Lafferty’s THE SHAMBLING GUIDE TO NEW YORK CITY and GHOST TRAIN TO NEW ORLEANS, debut author Susan Klaus’s FLIGHT OF THE GOLDEN HARPY, E.C. Blake’s MASKS, and Irene Radford’s THE SILENT DRAGON.

There are also a couple more electronic ARCs in my inbox. I’m most excited about P.C. Hodgell’s THE SEA OF TIME.