Val Muller

The Electronic Wordsmith

Browsing Posts in book reviews

It’s Just Lola is the story of Lola, the author’s grandmother, as told to Lola’s daughter, and then from Lola’s daughter to the author. As the author attests, the story is based on truth, but any holes in the plot were filled with fiction. Even more intriguing is the fact that both Lola and her […]

This is a middle-grade quick read about a girl named Storee who dreams of being an author. The names are allegorical: the protagonist Storee Wryter, her cat Critique, and even her new dog Addie (who has been “added” to the family). Storee keeps writing ideas in a file in her room and is always thinking […]

I received a review copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own. The Crystal Scepter is based on the myth of Perseus and the Gorgon with many other details added. The book follows Pythius, the king of Paladya, who seeks immortal or lengthened […]

Eve Hallows and the Book of Shadows follows the adventures established in the first book of the series, Eve Hallows and the Book of Shrieks (you can read my review of Book One here). Where we left our heroes, Eve found herself a human living in Gravesville, the world of monsters, and somehow the one […]

Book 2 continues the adventures of Wirt established in Book 1 (you can read my review here). I enjoyed the second book more than the first, as I felt the characters were already established, and I was rooting for them from the start. In this book, a new student arrives, and no one seems to […]

From the start, this book reminded me of Harry Potter. The main character, an orphan named Wirt, mysteriously winds up at the Alchemists Academy. His arrival is a mystery, as the school is highly sought-after by students from many worlds and time periods and is highly competitive and even political: People don’t just “show up.” […]

It’s Christmas-themed, but this is not your typical Christmas book. The Stupidest Angel is a mystery on two fronts—it involves an actual murder, and a mysterious being, an angel, sent to earth to accomplish a mission that the reader knows little about for the majority of the book. We see the murder happen early on, […]

This book follows the life of Eve Hallows, a fourteen-year-old whose family is having a bit of a crisis. Her family is comprised of monsters—her mother is a gorgon, for example, and her father is a shape-shifter. Eve was the unlucky one born as a (gasp!) human. In Gravesville, Eve enjoys all the comforts of […]

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 […]

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 […]