You searched for book_author:"Laini Taylor"
I was reading a very different, unrelated book last night before bed, in which someone says that the key to a good story is usually obsession. Laini Taylor has learned this storytelling lesson well, for her characters are distinguished by their obsessions. From Lazlo’s obsession with Weep or Thyon’s obsession with alchemy in Strange the Dreamer to Skathis’ obsession with power or a new antagonist’s obsession with revenge here in Muse of Nightmares,…
I have a soft spot for urban fantasy in which there is “another” world within our own world—Neverwhere comes to mind as a good example. I think it speaks to the reader in me; for someone who inhales escapist fiction, the prospect that any door could potentially be a portal to another place is just … intoxicating. Daughter of Smoke and Bone capitalizes on this idea. Karou is the human adopted daughter of a…
In Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor introduced us to Karou, a blue-haired seventeen-year-old girl whose origins are far more fantastic than you could believe at first glance. She is a linchpin in a war between the angelic seraphim and the demonic chimarae of Eretz, a world parallel to Earth. At the end of the first book, Karou learns the secret behind her origins and abandons her on-again/off-again angelic lover Akiva to go…
Well, here we are. Dreams of Gods and Monsters, the third book in this delightful trilogy from Laini Taylor, was coincidentally published a few weeks before I discovered the first book, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, courtesy my landlady. Two months later and I’ve read all three books. There’s always something fun about binging on a series in short succession. It definitely creates momentum and allows one to keep the characters and their…
Oddly enough I recall being worried I wouldn’t like this book as I started it. And, of course, having finished it, I don’t know whence that trepidation originated, because of course Laini Taylor has delivered another sound tapestry of rich, fantastical storytelling. Could not put down Strange the Dreamer and would have read it in a night if I had the time.
This lyrical title sounds like a play on word order or the opening…
I’m not saying I’m book-stalking Laini Taylor. I’m not not saying it either. My landlady happened to borrow Blackbringer (or Dreamdark: Blackbringer for those in favour of colon book titles) from the library while seeking the third instalment of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy. This isn’t it, incidentally—it’s actually Taylor’s debut novel, but in many ways it’s even better. How can that be? Well, it has fairies. And djinn. And dragons.
Did I…