All posts tagged Ireland

Brenna Morgan and the Iron Key

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment
Brenna Morgan and the Iron Key cover

Recently, I read Brenna Morgan and the Iron Key.

Last summer, I was on Twitter and there was a discussion about things that it would be really cool to happen to you as a writer. Katie Masters (who is really nice) wrote that it would be really cool if someone wrote fanfiction of her work. So I said “I’ll write a fanfic for you.” Because that’s one of the things that I do. Write fanfiction.

I didn’t know that she already had a book out until months later! So that’s how I happened to end up picking up Brenna Morgan and the Iron Key. It was a good book, and I’m looking forward to reading more stories from her.

Brenna’s family moves around a lot. Her parents are writers and she’s homeschooled. When they stop by Ireland for four months, she’s immediately drawn into an adventure involving fairies… both good and bad. She has to protect a girl, but she doesn’t know who she is or where she’s located. And there’s this cute boy, Patrick, that is her closest neighbor that she discovers also sees fairies.

There were a lot of things I liked about the story. We don’t get too many stories set in Ireland, so I really liked that. There’s a wee little bit of Irish in this book… Irish is the second-most difficult language that I’ve ever tried learning (Hebrew is slightly more difficult for me) but I thought it was cool to see it here. And no, you don’t have to speak any Irish to enjoy this book.

The fairies in this book share many similarities, although they are slightly different from, the fairies you might find in The Cruel Prince or The Shadowhunter’s books. These fairies are tricky, but they could potentially lie.

I liked the adventure in this book. After Brenna agrees to protect the girl, she has to find out who the girl is, where she is, and how to protect her. With the help of Patrick and some new fairy friends, she discovers the answers and even gets into a couple of fights. This propels the story forward.

The relationships in this story are good too. Brenna is close to her mom, and she seems to share a typical mother-daughter relationship with her. Mom threatens to share embarrassing baby pictures with her, cajoles her into going to school on time (they decide that she’ll attend school while she’s in Ireland), and is upset when her adventures take her out too late at night. She has a slow-blossoming love relationship with Patrick, a fairy that might be taking an interest in her, and a friendship that she develops at school.

It’s not the perfect book. It has the feel of a debut at times. There were a few places where it should have said “breathe” but said “breath” instead, but I’ve seen minor things like that in books from more established authors as well. Overall, the book was good.

I did write that fanfic too, if you’re interested. “Brenna Morgan and the Silver Portal” is a crossover fanfic that occurs after this book, where Brenna is in college, Patrick is visiting her, and they just happen to run into Jace and Clary and get portaled into Erenya (my world from the book I’m writing) and have to go on a quest in order to get back.

The Wren Hunt Sings

By Brookelorren on 3 Comments

The Wren Hunt coverI recently read The Wren Hunt by Mary Watson (thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury YA for an Advanced Review Copy in exchange for an honest review).  It is a magical book in a fairly unique setting that made me want to keep reading.

The Wren Hunt is set in modern-day Ireland.  The story starts out with some excitement: every year after Christmas, some boys chase Wren (our heroine) until they catch her, and demand some sort of trinket for her.  Wren doesn’t find this chase amusing, but for some reason, they continue to bully her year after year.

Soon, we find out that the boys that chase her are part of a group of people that her family has been feuding with for generations.  Like in Romeo and Juliet or The Weight of Feathers, Wren’s family is part of the augurs, and the boys that bully her are the judges.  Both judges and augurs have a sort of druidic magic to them.  Wren’s gift allows her to have visions of the future, although sometimes it is difficult to interpret what they mean.

The augur’s magic appears to be fading, and they blame the judges for it.  Wren is sent to take an internship at a business run by the judges, in order to spy on them.  The judges there don’t know that she’s an augur, and if she is found out, it wouldn’t do well for her.

Over the course of this book, she falls in love, finds out some shocking truths about herself, and has to make difficult decisions about her life.  There’s betrayal, and twists, and things aren’t always exactly as they seem.  It all makes for a great story.

Setting

I love how Ireland was used as the setting for this book.  It makes an excellent backdrop for the druidic magic.  The Wren Hunt transports you to a small village in this country.  The town has this small-town feel of a place that kids grow up in and don’t really escape from.  It’s unlike a lot of fantasy book settings, which made it interesting.

Characters

I really liked the characters and relationships portrayed in this book as well.  Although she lost her parents when she was young, Wren is close to the family members she lives with, as well as her childhood friend.  In this book, Wren is growing apart from her family, and I love how Ms. Watson tackles this.  There are also enemies, a growing but sometimes awkward attraction to a boy, and coworkers.

Overall

Will The Wren Hunt make my list of Top Ten Books I Read in 2018?  No, but I’ve read a lot of books this year, and a lot of good books aren’t going to make it onto the list.  This book is a unique book that kept my attention from the beginning until the end.  I definitely recommend it.

The Wren Hunt won’t be available until November 6th, but you can pre-order it now.