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Sunday, May 05, 2013

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cover of "By Darkness Hid" by Jill Williamson

In the kingdom of Er'Rets, being a stray, with unknown parentage, means that you are lower than a peasant or a slave. Strays are forced to wear orange, branded, and given a last name from an animal. Such is the fate of Achan Cham-- he serves Poril, the cook in the house of Lord Nathak until Sir Gavin the Great Whitewolf takes an interest in him and begins to train him as a squire. At the same time, another is in hiding as a stray under the name of Vrell Sparrow-- a young girl of nobility, hiding as a boy in the lowest of places (a plan devised by her mother) in order to avoid being forced to marry Prince Gidon. Both of them are also discovering they have the gift of "blood-voicing," a kind of mind-to-mind communication that can take place even over long distances. Vrell knows at least a little bit about it from her mother, but not how to control it; Achan thinks it's a myth, but he doesn't know he's been given a tonic every day to suppress the ability. The story really starts to pick up when their paths cross. Achan has now been forced to serve as squire to the selfish and vindictive Prince Gidon, and they travel to Mahanaim where the Council will ratify Gidon as king. Vrell has been summoned by Macoun Hadar, an old, conniving master of blood-voicing who sensed her presence and ability in the coastal town where she was hiding with a friend of her mother's and summoned her to be his apprentice. Eventually the Achan and Vrell meet and become acquainted when Achan is held in prison for (supposedly) endangering the Prince's life while fighting off an attack from the Darkness, and Vrell tends to his wounds with the medicines and salves she has learned to make while apprenticing to an apothecary. It seems everyone has an agenda: Gidon wants to kill Achan and claim the throne; Macoun Hadar wants Achan for an apprentice because his blood-voicing gift is so strong; and Vrell must continue to hide her true identity for fear of discovery or being forced to marry.

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Saturday, May 04, 2013

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cover of Tera Lynn Childs' "Forgive My Fins"

Lily Sanderson is a high school pining for the school jock, Brody-- but unlike most normal high school girls, Lily is half-mermaid. Her father only told her a few years ago that her mother was huma, and gave her the option to live with her aunt Rachel and attend high school to get some experience with the human world and the other half of her heritage. Lily has been plotting with her best friend Shannen how to ask Brody out to the spring dance, but she can't quite get up the nerve. Then, for some reason, her neighbor Quince Fletcher-- whom she hates because he is always teasing her and giving her a hard time-- decides to help her out. Naturally, things don't go quite as planned; when Quince goes to check on Lily he ends up kissing her (because, of course, he likes her). But what he doesn't know is that she's a mermaid, and merfolk have a magical mate-bond which is triggered by a kiss. Lily has to take Quince to her home, Thalassinia (where of course she is a princess) and present him to her father the king in order to ask for a ritual separation that will dissolve the bond between them. But that doesn't go quite the way she planned it, either.

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