MG/YA Book Reviews by a MG/YA Author
Table of Contents
Author News
In the Garden
Author News
Just a quick reminder: Bookcase Bizarro is on hiatus until September.
I’m very happy to report that I’ve done absolutely NO WRITING this summer. None. At all.
Instead, I’ve been out of town, out in the garden, out with friends, out with my partner. I’ve put KIDLIT aside for a hefty dose of adult lit. It’s been good to let my mind and life shift and breathe. I’m gearing up to work on the next book in the Garrison Creek series in September, and will have plenty of books to blog about in the months ahead. I hope you all are having an amazing summer. Thanks so much for being a Bookcase Bizarro reader!
Just a quick reminder: Rogue Wizard is available as a free digital download for subscribers to Bookcase Bizarro. Paperback copies are also available from Amazon or Bookshop.org (or your favourite local bookstore or library).
In the Garden
August is all about the garden. Tomatoes, peppers, and squash are coming in. Pesto is plentiful. Autumn chard and lettuce sowings abound. Indoors, I’ve potted up two rescue Christmas cacti, and sown the first of two successions of greens: perpetual spinach, Improved Rhubarb Swiss Chard, Fun Jen mustard, and two types of leaf lettuce (Red Sails and Brown Goldring). Two weeks from now, I’ll sow more lettuce—all loose leaf varieties, as they do better under my fluorescent grow lights than heading lettuces like romaine and butterhead.
The Principe Borghese tomatoes went on a rampage and tried to take over the entire garden. Next year, I will cage them. This year, I followed the vines around the garden with additional support stakes and pruners. Principe Borghese tomatoes are usually grown for drying, which is what I’m doing with them. I can confirm they are absolutely delicious.
The Jimmy Nardello peppers have so far lived up to the hype. They are drier than standard bell peppers since they are thin-walled, but the flavour is stupendous, wonderfully sweet.
The Sunburst summer squash has produced only a handful of delicious fruit so far, nowhere near enough to justify the amount of space it takes up. The patio was simply too hot for it, even with the shade cloth. I’ve decided to pull the plant and sow some autumn lettuce instead.
Next year, that pot will provide a perfect home for three different varieties of callaloo, a wonderful leafy green that thrives in the heat. It was the only plant in my garden that actually languished under the shade cloth! As soon as I took it off, the callaloo joined forces with the Principe Borghese, and staged a coup I barely managed to defeat. (I suspect my hard won victory may be temporary.)
From L-R, T-B
Principe Borghese tomato plant, Principe Borghese tomatoes ready for drying, Jimmy Nardello pepper plant, Jimmy Nardello peppers, Sunburst summer squash plant, Sunburst summer squash.
Thirteen-year-old Ermin is a gifted mechanic and the worst student at St. Anselm’s Training School for Orphans. She’s just failed her exams for the third time—something nobody’s ever done. Worse, Ermin’s been running her own repair business for money—something that’s expressly forbidden. If the headmistress finds out, Ermin will go to prison. Her future will be over before it’s even begun.
But that’s not her only secret.
Her best friends, Colin and Georgie, are wizards in a world where magic is strictly controlled. Ermin worries that her friends will be captured, drained of their power, then banished. When Georgie’s caught aiding the Wizard’s Resistance, Ermin repairs a broken flying carpet so all three of them can escape.
Hesitant to join the Resistance because of her lack of magical power, Ermin steals an experimental device from a wizard hunter that could destroy every wizard in the Creek. She’s faced with a choice: either smash the device or convert it into a different kind of weapon—one that not only helps wizards but just might get her an apprenticeship at the prestigious Guild Academy.
Ermin’s got one chance to get it right. If she fails, she risks losing her two best friends… and her dreams.
Find Shadow Apprentice at your local library, bookstore, or favourite online retailer.
Do you know about ALLi: The Alliance of Independent Authors?
If not, maybe you should!
Formed in 2012 as a global non-profit organization for self-published authors, ALLi offers a comprehensive bank of educational resources on all things self-publishing, including a free blog and podcast, which de-mystified the entire book-making, publishing and marketing process for me.
While I’m a member of ALLi, I’m also an affiliate. If you’re interested in joining ALLi, please consider using my affiliate link. it will cost you nothing, and will help me offset the cost of my yearly membership fee. (You can also click on the ALLi graphic in the sidebar.)
Thanks for being a Bookcase Bizarro reader! I’ll be back next month with more author news, and more MG and YA book reviews. See you then!
Check out Greg Pattridge’s weekly MG blog hop MMGM every Monday at his website, Always in the Middle.
