Gwydion and Taran find Hen Wen’s tracks on the banks of the Great Avren river, and Gwydion gives Gurgi props for having given them good info. They start to cross the river, but Taran nearly drowns as Melyngar pulls him forward and then collides with …
Read MoreThe Book of Three, Chapter 3 – Gurgi
As dawn breaks, Taran wakes to find that every joint in his body aches from sleeping on the ground. Far from glamorizing the adventure, Alexander makes sleeping in the woods sound so awful that I suspect my lifelong aversion to camping stemmed from reading this …
Read MoreThe Book of Three, Chapter 2 – The Mask of the King
Taran runs deep into the woods after Hen Wen, but soon loses her, of course, and before long realizes he is lost himself. The atmosphere of the woods changes and becomes cold and scary. And then! In a sequence that gave me serious chills as …
Read MoreThe Book of Three, Chapter 1 – The Assistant Pig-Keeper
The first book in the Prydain series is titled The Book of Three, but it’s not the actual Book of Three – that’s another book that shows up briefly in the story and is sort of like the Bible, or the History of the World. …
Read MoreRecapping Prydain
I recently started a new full-time work contract, which hasn’t left me much time for writing – or reading, for that matter. Given (or despite?) my limited amounts of free time, I’ve decided to try something a little different on this blog – recapping books …
Read MoreWhat I’m Reading: Never Too Late
I just finished reading “Never Too Late: Your Roadmap to Reinvention (Without Getting Lost Along the Way),” which I bought after hearing the author speak at an Atlanta Writers Club meeting last month. As I’m approaching my 40th birthday and starting to come to terms …
Read MoreWhat it means to be a writer
You know how sometimes you’re online and follow a random link, and end up reading something that speaks to you in a profound way that feels like you were meant to read it? I was just browsing through YA and middle-grade books on Amazon, as …
Read MoreWhy I Love YA
As those of you familiar with my blog already know, for someone with a master’s degree in English, I’ve read appallingly few of what the world considers important books, or Great Books. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is simply: I …
Read MoreWhat I’m Reading: The Magician’s Land
The concluding volume in Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy, “The Magician’s Land” is best enjoyed after re-reading “The Magicians” and “The Magician King,” since this third book jumps right into the action, expecting the reader to be familiar not only with its hero, Quentin Coldwater, but …
Read MoreA year in the life (and then some…)
It’s been one year today since I started this blog, so I thought I’d share the story of how it came to be and my writing life up to this point. My rebirth as a writer really began three years ago, when my sister gave …
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