Julia Gray

Ada Byron has a disreputable genius of a father and a restrictive mother. Her father lives abroad and dies when she is young but Ada inherits some of his instability as well as her mother's skill for mathematics. Ada longs to break free of society and become that new thing, a scientist, but she has a path mapped out for her by society. When she meets an inventor called Babbage, Ada is inspired and then realises that she can improve his ideas.
I was asked to read this book with a view for it to be taken up in a school reading programme and I do intend to recommend it. The language is age appropriate and the story very much appealing to the 'Bridgerton' fans with added science. Gray is unable to avoid the scandal associated with Byron himself but it is handled sensitively.… (mais)

It's got princes, a good wizard, a prophecy, a feisty princess, a mystical sword, outlaws, and an evil sorceress who takes over the kingdom.
Need I say more?
It's a quick read, fairly inoffensive, even mildly entertaining. But there are absolutely no original twists to the basic 'fantasy' story here. And the authors' (Wylie is a pseudonym for a husband/wife team) insistence on being relentlessly lighthearted in tone is occasionally disturbing. (Normally, people don't keep on merrily trucking along, cracking jokes and saying, "well, we've got to move on" directly after their betrothed/brother/friend/etc is killed.) The characters have no depth of emotional involvement - and neither will the reader. I probably won't remember anything that happened in this book shortly.… (mais)

While I thought the first book in this trilogy was rather extraordinarily bad, in this sequel, the team-that-is-Jonathan-Wylie is back in stride. While certainly not exceptional literature, this is a perfectly acceptable fantasy adventure.
In the island nation of Ark, it's a generation later. The evil sorceress Amarino was defeated by King Mark, but now her daughters are coming of age, and a long-term plan of evil magic may come to fruition. It's Prince Luke's turn to save the land... but he seems to have fallen in love with one of Amarino's daughters...
Nothing too deep or challenging here, and a lot of the plot elements could be better thought-out or explained, but an entertaining-enough book.… (mais)