Val Muller

It was a pleasure to re-read this book in anticipation of the film’s release at the end of the week. This is a must-read for fantasy lovers. Tolkien is the quintessential fantasy author. So many subsequent works have been inspired by or derived from elements of Tolkien’s world. His works allow you to taste it undiluted, from the source. Though it’s not a kids’ book, it would be a good read for a middle-grade reader (as an introduction to fantasy) as well as a book for adults and fantasy lovers of all ages.

The novel follows the adventure of a hobbit named Bilbo. Like most hobbits (small humanoids—smaller than dwarves), Bilbo prefers a quiet life tucked away in his well-provisioned hobbit hole. Hobbits prefer to live by routine. They like comfort and food. But it’s thought that Bilbo’s mother’s side of the family has an adventurous streak (something frowned upon by hobbits in general), and Gandalf the wizard knows it. Gandalf, also a main character in The Lord of the Rings, organizes a quest for Thorin, a high-ranking dwarf, and his twelve companions. But they don’t want unlucky thirteen, and they need a burglar: they’re marching across the Misty Mountains to the Lonely Mountain where lives Smaug the Dragon. Smaug has stolen treasure that Thorin wants to reclaim, and he and his dwarves intend to steal it back.

Along the way, the group encounters many adventures. I won’t ruin the surprises—if you’ve read the book, you already know them, and if you haven’t, you’ll enjoy them. To name a few, these adventuers involve elves, goblins, trolls, and other creepy things. Though some of the obstacles require physical prowess to solve, most of them require wit and bravery—and much luck. You’ll find lots of riddles in the book reminiscent of Oedipus and the Sphinx. There are maps with secret encoding. There’s plenty of action scenes, too. For fans of The Lord of the Rings, we encounter “the one ring” for the first time in this tale! And although this quest is not Gandalf’s, he plays an important role throughout, the rock of the party.

The imagery of Tolkien’s world is amazing. As a kid, I re-read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings many times, each time building upon the imagery of my imagination. I especially enjoy the fact that Tolkien has an entire world in his mind. When telling the tale of Bilbo Baggins, he lets slip a detail here and there that suggests a much larger, darker tale lurks just below the surface (and indeed, if you read all of Tolkien’s works, you’ll probably come across it!). I feel confident that I, as a reader, am in good hands—that the author is not wasting my time, but rather, is regaling me with countless tales that promise to deliver. One of my favorite parts of the book is the inclusion of songs from the dwarves, elves, etc. They help to build Tolkien’s world and the culture of all the groups.

Still, even if you haven’t read Tolkien’s other works (or don’t plan on doing so), The Hobbit satisfies as a stand-alone novel. The first time I read The Hobbit I was young, and I hadn’t yet read anything else by Tolkien. I have a beat-up copy from the 1960s, and something about the age of the book and the well-loved condition of the cover fits well with Tolkien’s tale. Each time I opened that cover, I felt like I was entering a magical world. If you haven’t read the book, I encourage you to do so. For an adult, it’s a fast read. For a child, it’s a book that will foster the imagination.

I mentioned that I’m excited for the movie release: While I normally say that books are much better than their movie counterparts, I thought Peter Jackson did an excellent job transposing The Lord of the Rings into a movie trilogy. While there are details that necessarily must be left out of a movie version, the film trilogy keeps the flavor of the novels. My parents always joke that if it were humanly possible to walk into a television screen and live forever in the world contained therein, I would have done so long ago with one of Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. I have great hopes for the first film in The Hobbit series, and now that I’ve re-read The Hobbit, I’m ready to watch it!

This book is the first in the Draconi Series. It follows a young woman named Leito, daughter of a dragon hunter. Her mother was killed by a dragon, but at a young age, Leito rescued a young dragon, exchanging a lock of her hair for one of his scales as a gesture of friendship. She learns a secret about dragons that no one else seems to know: dragons can take human form. When Leito grows up, the dragons are angry about her father’s actions, and the village acquiesces to the dragons’ demands: Leito will be sacrificed for them. A partial spoiler follows in the next paragraph.

Leito makes her way to the cave where she will meet her fate, but when she arrives she realizes she knows the dragon who intends to kill her: she had saved his life years earlier. As it turns out Leito and the dragon, Aiden, fall in love; but things get muddied when the dragon’s intended mate becomes jealous, demanding either Leito’s death, or her Aiden’s captivity. I won’t give away any more of the plot because this book will make you flip through the pages quickly, and I don’t want to spoil it.

I enjoyed the tension developed between Leito and Aiden. There was sexual tension, love, mystery, and fear mixed in. I turned the pages quickly until I was about 70 percent through. After that, I thought things happened too quickly. I was enjoying the story so much, I actually wanted more details (no, not more racy stuff—there is sex, but it isn’t graphic, and that’s fine with me): I wanted more interactions and examples to justify character actions. I thought that once they decided on a relationship, Leito and Aiden made decisions too quickly. I wanted less movement around the room (making food, cleaning up, choosing a dress) and more details that would bring me into the strange and intriguing world in which dragons take human form—smells, sights, etc.

The best part of the story is the plot. It was an intriguing plot that kept me awake longer than I should have been! The ending is very abrupt, ending at a high point to transition right into the second book—so don’t expect a resolution, but do expect to want to run out and read the next book immediately!

One minor picky point: there were grammatical errors repeated throughout—dialogue tags being inconsistently punctuated and comma splices throughout. But they weren’t generally enough to distract from the reading.

I received a review copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

This is the second book in the Before Happily Ever After Series. You can read my review of Book 1 here.

In this book, Val and Sam are back together, and they’re hoping they can find a way back into the world of Fairy Tales. The mirror (which had formerly allowed them entry) now hangs in Val’s house, but it hasn’t let them back to see their friends. That all changes when one of Val’s mother’s animals, a horse, becomes sick. The horse is going blind, and he’ll be limited in his activities from now on. Of course, not if Val has anything to say about it. The girls receive communications from “the other side” (the world of fairy tales) in the form of clues they must solve. Eventually, they find their way back, and their quest to help their horse turns into a series of sub-quests related to saving Rapunzel from the clutches of the evil witch. It turns out that the girls need to find a unicorn, which will be the key to saving Val’s horse.

As we learned in Book 1, one of Val’s friends in the world of fairy tales is one of the brothers Grimm. Val and Sam constantly wonder, after they experience the tales for themselves, why the Grimm version is so dark. It’s interesting to experience the girls’ adventures in the world and compare them to the stereotypical (as well as the Grimm) versions of the tales. I enjoyed being asked to solve the riddles along with the girls at the beginning of the book. It helped engage me as the reader. The book was fast-paced. It’s a middle-grade read that would appeal more to girls than to boys, and for a “grown-up,” it can be read in one or two sittings if you have the time. If you like fairy tales, you’ll like the imagery and characters. If you like the dark, violent Grimm tales, this book might be a little PG for you. As I mentioned before with this series, I would have loved it as a young reader.

I plan to review Book 3 soon, so be sure to follow my blog for updates!

I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion as part of the following blog tour. Click on the picture for author links, and use the Rafflecopter link for a chance to win a copy of all thee books!

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