Welcome to Day 1 of Guest Blogger Week!
To kick off the action this week, Elle and Kate are going to join in the fun and tell you about some of their favourite posts. There will be an AM and a PM post today, both with giveaways so keep an eye out!
___________________
Kate
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie
When I was in fifth grade, one of the boys I’d grown up spent three weeks in the hospital due to complications with asthma. I know this doesn’t sound important, or even relevant, but one day my mom greeted me when I came home from school with a bunch of things she’d gone out and bought so we could make him a care package. Amongst the debris were two thick novels (at least, thicker than I was used to reading at twelve) by Agatha Christie. She explained that, since both of us loved mystery stories, she’d figured it was high time we started reading Agatha Christie. My friend got The Seven Dials Mystery, and I kept The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
If you like mystery novels of any kind, you’ve probably run across Agatha Christie. Actually, I take that back; if you like books, you’ve probably run across Agatha Christie. And Then There Were None and Murder on the Orient Express are known pretty much the world around as some of the true foundation works of the modern murder mystery. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are some of the best-known detectives, bar none. And while I will always love Christie’s more popular novels, my absolute favorite will forever be The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.
Kate's Christie collection!
Roger Ackroyd is different from any of her other books. It’s written in first person (and I believe is the only one that is), it takes place late in Hercule Poirot’s career, and it has some of the most interesting twists that have ever been written. There is absolutely no way to dangle tantalizing plot bits in front of you without revealing too much, so I’m not going to try. Instead, I am going to say that The Murder of Roger Ackroyd completely changed the way I looked a mystery stories when I was twelve – and then again when I read it in English class at fourteen, and for fun at eighteen and twenty-three and beyond. It’s perfectly balanced, it’s witty in many places, and it is honestly exactly what people love about Agatha Christie even now.
I’ve read a lot of Christie’s books since that first one (which I finished on a hot day in the rocking chair in my parents’ room, though I will admit to having read the ending weeks before then). I’ve watched a lot of the adaptations, I’ve gone to a couple performances of her plays, I’ve played several of the video games. And despite all of this, nothing compares to The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which most people have never heard of as they’re mentally indexing Christie’s books.
I do not joke when I say that if you love mysteries, this is the book you have to read. Not a book. The book. Singular.
Sabriel by Garth Nix
I’m justifiably hard on young adult fiction. Especially these days, it’s seems that every third book has the obligatory vampire, werewolf, sixth sense, or “mysterious supernatural happening” lurking somewhere around the start of the fifth paragraph. I really never read a lot of young adult fiction when I was actually a young adult, either, because a lot of it never really resonated with me. This was even more true, I think, when it came to trying to find young adult fantasy I (an adult fantasy lover from about seventh grade on) loved. At least, until Sabriel.
Sabriel and the other two books of the trilogy – Lirael and Abhorsen – sits on that rare line between YA and contemporary adult. Sabriel, a teenager who attends a boarding school on the safer side of The Wall (a barrier that separates the mundane from the magical), receives word that her father has died and that she must take up the mantle of being a necromancer, an individual who communes with the dead and helps them cross over to the other side. Armed with the tools of the trade, namely a number of magical bells, she crosses The Wall to find out what happened to her father. And while I’m sure, right now, you’re thinking this sounds like a thousand other YA novels, Sabriel pulls no punches. It’s a book with actual consequences, no fear of the terrifying, and I promise you one thing: you will be thinking about the barrier between living and dead for a long time after reading this book. Possibly late at night, in your bed, when the lights are off.
There are really three things I ever want from a fantasy novel: at least one strong female character I can rely on, actual consequences for the characters, and a sense of newness (instead of cribbing from Tolkein’s Greatest Hits again and again). Sabriel delivers all three. There is no trilogy that I recommend as freely to people looking for good fantasy, and no series I have given as gifts as often as I have this one. I challenge you not to love and sympathize with Sabriel herself, not to be bewitched by Touchstone and Mogget, and later, to not fall in love with the Disruptable Dog and Sam. The entire trilogy just makes me happy, the whole way through, and I don’t know many other books that pull that off so well.
On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony
Book 1 – The Incarnations of Immortality
I’m clearly cheating at this one, because this isn’t a single book but a seven-book cycle. But I’m doing it anyway.
The Incarnations of Immortality begins with a premise: what if the concepts we often personify, such as Death, War, Fate, Time, Nature, Good, and Evil, are actually offices held by human beings? What if the personification stems from the fact that people – actual, normal people – are serving out their lives in these positions which will be eventually passed on to others? That’s the concept Piers Anthony considers, and does so perfectly well, I cannot even begin to describe it.
To describe the concept of On a Pale Horse in isolation just makes it sound like an acid trip gone wrong. Zane, a down-on-his luck photographer, decides to shoot himself, but when he sees the figure of Death coming towards him to claim his soul, he shoots Death instead. He discovers that, in killing Death, he is fated to become the next person to serve in that position, and must gather up the souls of the dead and send them either to heaven or to hell. Except Zane discovers that Satan is attempting to interfere in the lives of humans, and must help stop Satan from manipulating humanity in the direction he wants it to go. All of which might sound mundane unless you realize that every detail – literally every single one – in On a Pale Horse is explained, complicated, or expanded on in another of the six books in the series.
I’m often impressed on how well a story can come together, especially in the case of complicated series with any number of characters, motivations, and possible complications. But absolutely nothing compares to the way this story comes together. The ultimate conclusion and the way the threads are married will shock you in the most wonderful way. And to this day, one of my favorite quotes in the world comes from this series of books.
The Incarnations of Immortality literally changed my way of thinking about fate, religion, and the universe, and I’m only sad that more people haven’t read the series. Consider this my seal of approval. It may very well change you.
___________________
Giveaway
To win a copy of one of one of Kate’s favourite books, simply leave a comment below and then fill in this form!
* The giveaway is, as always, international but please make sure either The Book Depository or Amazon ships to your country before entering.
___________________
Be sure to pop back in a few hours for Elle’s Part 2 and another chance to win one of her favourite books!
