Heart's Blood by Juliet Marillier

Heart's Blood is Juliet Marillier's newest fairy tale retelling, and she's turned out a masterful Beauty and the Beast, keeping the bones of the story while bypassing the cliches of one of the most frequently retold tales there is. Honestly, this may be my new favorite Marillier book (although Daughter of the Forest, as my first book of hers, will always hold a special place in my heart). With her usual graceful prose, she's created an original and strange telling of the familiar story. I don't want to give too much away, but I REALLY loved the concept behind this one. So as far as plot goes, all I want to say is: Juliet Marillier's Beauty and the Beast. (Of coures you can discover more from the amazon.com reviews, but that's up to you. :) As far as the writing goes, well, I'm completely in love with Marillier's style, and this one was more quick paced than some of hers -- while I love her writing I do occasionally find parts of the story to drag a little, not so in this one. She brought in a lot of unexpected elements, was really creative with the story in a way I haven't seen in other versions. I think a lot of retellings like to really focus on character development while keeping an old story absolutely in it's original frame. This version is just... more creative -- which is not to say she shortchanged her character development at all. Agh! Just go read it! You won't regret it!

--richlayers

Writing Magic

I'm reading a great book -- writers, pay attention! It's called Writing Magic: Creating Stories That Fly, by Gail Carson Levine, author of award winning Ella Enchanted. She developed this book after running a writing program for children in her area, and while it's clearly marketed to the very young writers among us, I'm finding that it's very inspirational, fun, and full of helpful tips. (Even at my advanced age, har har.)

Levine's Rules:

1. The best way to write better is to write more.

2. The best way to write better is to write more.

3. The best way to write better is to write more.

4. The best way to write more is to write whenever you have five minutes and wherever you find a chair and a pen and paper or your computer.

5. Read! Most likely you don't need this rule. If you enjoy writing, you probably enjoy reading. The payoff for this pleasure is that reading books shows you how to write them.

6. Reread! There's nothing wrong with reading a book you love over and over. When you do, the words get inside you, become part of you, in a way that words in a book you've read only once can't.

7. Save everything you write, even if you don't like it, even if you hate it. Save it for a minimum of fifteen years. I'm serious. At that time, if you want to, you can throw it out, but even then don't discard your writing lightly.

If that's not enough to convince you, there's more information here at her website, http://www.gailcarsonlevinebooks.com/.
Enjoy!

--RichLayers