FALL OF OSSARD: COLIN TABER

Ossard is falling... Juvela is different. Growing up in a city of Merchant Princes, she discovers that she can see what others can't: The very currents of the celestial are open to her, and that includes the dark truths they hide. Has Juvela been cursed with Witches' Kiss - or perhaps something worse? Yet, more is to come, for Juvela is about to become forsaken, and that's before she learns the real truth of not just the crimes plaguing Ossard's bloody streets, but the wider world. Ossard is falling - falling into the realm of Death. Doom is coming.


This book is currently available at Amazon.com and in Australia. It is a fantasy novel by a chap I came to know on Sara Douglass' Bulletin Board. When he started writing this story he would send me first drafts to read and comment on. Well he's turned what I at first found confusing into a very readable story that moves along at a nice pace. Now I just have to wait to find out what happens next.




THE FORGOTTEN GARDEN: KATE MORTON

A tiny girl is abandoned on a ship headed for Australia in 1913. She arrives completely alone with nothing but a small suitcase containing a few clothes and a single book -- a beautiful volume of fairy tales. She is taken in by the dockmaster and his wife and raised as their own. On her twenty-first birthday they tell her the truth, and with her sense of self shattered and with very little to go on, "Nell" sets out on a journey to England to try to trace her story, to find her real identity. Her quest leads her to Blackhurst Manor on the Cornish coast and the secrets of the doomed Mountrachet family. But it is not until her granddaughter, Cassandra, takes up the search after Nell's death that all the pieces of the puzzle are assembled. At Cliff Cottage, on the grounds of Blackhurst Manor, Cassandra discovers the forgotten garden of the book's title and is able to unlock the secrets of the beautiful book of fairy tales.

I preferred the story in The House at Riverton ( see March 28th review). I did like the main characters and I did like the story idea but I thought it wondered away from the main focus at times. Morton does handle her time shifts well and I will be keeping an eye open for any further titles.


2 books

Month end: 15
To date:45

April DVDs: (12)
Night in Rodanthe, Son of Rambo, Twilight, Journey to the Centre of the Earth

Passchendaele, Rent, Quantum of Solace, Slumdog Millionaire

The Tale of Despereaux, The Day the Earth Stood Still, War Inc., Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont