Landscape Genre

The Merchant of Death is the first book in the Pendragon series about Bobby Pendragon on his time and space travelling adventures. Bobby is a normal fourteen-year-old boy with a regular crush on a girl at school and underwhelming basketball skills until he's thrust into a portal that leads to an entirely different world. Told with a mix of first-person journal entries and third-person narration, The Merchant of Death follows Bobby as he must save the entire dimension of Denduron if he ever wants to return to earth and see his family (and crush) again. With a balance of science fiction, fantasy, and a touch of historical fiction (like whether there are future consequences for righting past tragedies) this is an excellent read for any school-aged readers who like a touch of adventure.

The Book Eaters is a contemporary fantasy novel that highlights many challenges that minorities face in the real world. Book eaters are a secret group of people who consume books for food and retain their knowledge after eating them. The book revolves around the life of Devon, one of the few females in the in the book eater community. Devon is fed up with being on a limited diet a cliché fairy tales and predictable plotlines. However, her controlled diet turns into the least of her worries when she bears a mind eater child – someone who is not satisfied by books and instead craves human minds. The twisted fairy tale emphasizes that not all stories have happy endings.

This journey begins on a opens on a mythic note: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." This is largely the premise throughout Stephen King's first step into fantasy with The Dark Tower. Roland Deschaine is the last survivor of an ancient order known as the Gunslingers - think the Knights of the Round Table crossed with Clint Eastwood's character from Fistful of Dollars. As the last Gunslinger, Roland has been tasked with exacting revenge against Walter Pattick, a demonic sorcerer known as 'the man in black.' Roland pursues Walter across a 'world that's moved on,' inching closer towards the mysterious 'dark tower' and their ultimate destinies. Fusing the genres of western, fantasy, and horror - The Dark Tower begins an eight novel odyssey across the cosmos of Stephen King's writing.

After the death of her father, Lolly Willowes is sent to live with her brother and his family in London where she spends many years as a conventional maiden aunt.

When she suddenly announces that she is moving alone to the countryside her family is shocked and disapproving. In the remote village of Great Mop, Lolly’s new neighbours introduce her to a new passion : witchcraft.

The year is 1922 in Moscow, Russia, and the aristocratic Count Alexander Rostov awaits his fate at a Bolshevik tribunal. Being spared the death sentence Count Rostov is sentenced to live out the remainder of his days under house arrest in the attic of the grand Metropol Hotel across from the Kremlin. As a prisoner in the hotel, the Count must watch from the windows as Moscow descends into chaos. Turning his focuses inward, Count Rostov becomes deeply knowledgeable of the hotel’s inner workings, secrets, and infamous guests. A Gentleman in Moscow takes readers back to a critical time in Russian history and immerses them in a world of opulence that gradually descends into self-destruction and destitution. Readers who appreciate a thoughtful and elegantly imagined atmosphere will love the command of stye of author Amor Towles

Dane’s memory is hazy. For the last three years after he was pulled from a frozen canyon with a bullet in his back, he’s been on the road, equipped only with a name, his trusty Colt, and what few supplies he can carry with him. When he rides alone into the quaint Western town of Smoky River, Dane finds himself caught up in a deadly confrontation with old enemies who may hold the keys to unlocking his forgotten past. Who was he, and why are these men hunting him? With the help of the legendary Bat Masterson, can Dane and his allies solve these mysteries and save Smoky River?

The Last Grand Duchess is an historical fiction novel that shows readers the end of Imperial Russia from the perspective of Olga Romanov, the eldest of Tsar Nicholas II’s children. Behind the scenes of the glittering ballrooms and fancy gowns of some of the most photographed royals in history, we see a reclusive but loving family who will sacrifice anything to be together. This novel gives an insider perspective, based heavily off archived letters and diaries, of both the end of the 300 year dynasty and the grand duchesses’ lives, including the heomophilia of their brother Alexei, their various romances through the years, Father Grigori Rasputin’s entry into the family’s trust, the girls’ work as nurses during World War I, and the family’s imprisonment following the February Revolution. The infamous end to her story threads an underlying tension throughout this engrossing tale of a young woman’s hopes and dreams.

“Her husband, who means to kill her, either by his own hand or by his order to another, takes up the end of his napkin and dabs at his cheek with its pointed corner, as if a spot of soup on one's face is a matter of importance.” (p.40)

Meet Lucrezia de Medici- she's 16 years old, and her husband, Alfonso d'Este, the Duke of Ferrara, is going to murder her.

In The Marriage Portrait, Maggie O'Farrell intricately weaves together the stories of Lucrezia's past and present. An artist, a dreamer, and an intelligent young woman with a striking memory, Lucrezia is betrothed to the intended of her late sister. A year later, she would be dead.

Perfect for readers of C.W. Gortner and Alyssa Palombo, The Marriage Portrait immerses readers in the Italian Renaissance. Written in a clever use of tense and voice, readers will feel unsettled as they are faced with Lucrezia's impending doom.

The Greatcoats: an elite corps of skilled swordsmen and women whose duty it is to uphold the law of the land and protect the week. Specially chosen by the king, the Greatcoats were heroes throughout the land. But now the king is gone, betrayed and murdered by his corrupt followers and the Greatcoats are a relic of a bygone era. However, the king left one final mission. Falcio, the first Cantor of the Greatcoats, and his friends Brasti and Kest must travel across the kingdom following the trail of cryptic messages and secret instructions to untangle a conspiracy that is larger than they ever could have imagined. Along the way, they’ll encounter monsters, magic, assassins, and more than their fair share of swordplay. A fast paced, swashbuckling adventure, Traitor’s Blade would be an excellent choice for readers who enjoy fantasy or a good adventure.

Being the first part of the Shiva Trilogy, the ‘Immortals of Meluha’ is a piece of fantasy story set in the land of Meluha and based on the life of Lord Shiva. Shiva is known as a ‘Destroyer’ in the Hindu religion. Most of the characters in this first creation of Amish are also from the Hindu context and other characters are imaginative. When the Meluha empire is in a difficult time, Shiva arrives as their savior and fights against evil. Written at a fast pace, this book has a modern language that can connect with a general audience but it also seems a little rushed in terms of writing style. The literature and stories of Shiva are vast and this book represents one more fantasy that makes people question their beliefs about Lord Shiva.

Dr. Elwin Ransom runs into an old college acquaintance, Devine. He can remember disliking Devine but does not remember why. Soon enough Ransom will remember why he disliked Devine, but that will be the least of his problems. Ransom has realized that Devine, along with a megalomaniacal physicist, have kidnapped him and whisked him away to be a part of a human sacrifice. When looking out the window Ransom realized that he was on Mars or what he would later learn is called Malacandra. Upon landing Ransom eludes his captors, running away risking his life and chances of ever seeing Earth again. Join Ransom and become a stranger to a land that is wholly different from earth and yet not so different. Tackling the many allegorical layers on the insights of the human condition.

Escape into the realm of Roshar, a world plagued by Highstorms and Stormlight that wreak havoc on the people and continent. Once protected by the orders of the Knights Radiant and their mysterious shardblades (a sword-like weapon), Roshar has fallen into a state of constant warfare with kings and their highprinces using the powerful shardbearers to slaughter enemies. Shardblades and the shardbearers who wield them are given immense strength and power through the weapon, binding them with the sword until death. Follow the stories of Dalinar, highprince of Alethkar, Shallan, an artist, Kaladin, a slave, and Szeth, an unwilling assassin, as they attempt to navigate this magical terrain without losing their lives.

In Under the Whispering Door, Wallace finds life in death and love in a man running a haunted tea shop. Wallace is a cruel man with an uninteresting life until a strange girl calling herself a “reaper” collects him from his own funeral. She brings him to Charon’s Crossing, a tea shop and waystation for the dead where he must come to terms with the end of his life and prepare to cross over to the mysterious other side, hidden underneath a door that whispers. Not yet ready to move on, Wallace decides to spend his week at Charon’s Crossing building the life he never had when he was alive. With a lovable cast of characters and a unique setting, Under the Whispering Door is a heartfelt exploration of death, love, and really good tea.

Split into two chapters and into two separate stories, distanced by time, memory, space, and people, Minor Detail outlines two harrowing stories that echo each other over the course of multiple decades. The short novel follows the story of two women existing in the same space and under the same restrictions. First set in 1949 in Palestine, one year after the Nabka, and then in the 2010s in Palestine, we meet an unnamed women through the eyes of a commander of an army. The commander has been bitten by a snake, and moves through the few days the reader finds him with a oozing, infected, painful bite. He and his subordinates commits atrocities on to any Arabic person or group they find. The second chapter follows another unnamed narrator, a young Palestinian woman, living in a restricted area of her hometown, Zone A. She lives through bombings and checkpoints. She becomes obsessed with minor details surrounding a violent event that occurred 25 years early, in the year of the unnamed narrator’s birth.

In Depression-era New York City, Anna Kerrigan accompanies her father Eddie on the errands he runs as a bagman working in organized crime. One particular errand brings them to the mansion of Dexter Styles, a notorious gangster, where he and Eddie discuss something Anna cannot overhear. Five years later, New York is consumed with the war effort. Eddie has disappeared, and Anna works to support her mother and sister in the Naval Yard, eventually becoming an underwater diver. In her new life, Anna runs into Dexter by chance and becomes more intertwined with him and organized crime as she attempts to piece together her father's disappearance. In this book, Jennifer Egan brings the gloom and darkness of the 1930s and 40s to life through vivid language, immersing the reader in a tumultuous time of social opportunity and survival.

Set in the aftermath of World War II in an impoverished and humiliated neighborhood on the losing side of the war, Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend is part of a larger series of Neapolitan Novels following the lifelong friendship of two women from ages six to sixty-six. Lila and Lenu have big dreams but come of age in a traditional, working-class environment resistant to change. Women’s lives are dominated by men; their minds and bodies invaded through physical, sexual, and psychological abuse; their desire for autonomy and agency sabotaged. The two girl’s experiences and identities are deeply intertwined: they fall in love with the same man; raise each other's children; and even use each other’s name. Educational opportunities afford one both literal and class mobility, while the other gradually withdraws from the world before vanishing without a trace.