Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame- Smith

Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."

"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.

Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

(Goodreads)

Genre: horror; historical fantasy

Rating: 4/5

The bad:

• The premise is a bit to get over. If you can separate yourself from the fact that one of the best known presidents is being presented as a hunter of evil vampires, you're better off.
• Abraham Lincoln isn't always a very dynamic character. You understand that the Great Emancipator hates the undead, but you don't always connect with him. He does a lot of unwarranted moping.

The good:

• Believe it or not, the history is pretty accurate, save for the vampire hunting part. Grahame-Smith has obviously done some research here. So much so that when I went to catalog the book for the library, it wanted to put it in nonfiction, to which I laughed as I adamantly replaced the tag with fiction.
• The book is suitably gory and won't disappoint horror fans. Lincoln doesn't always win and the vampires are actually very believably integrated into history. 
• It's an easy read. The action keeps up and there are doctored pictures that make the book look more authentic. 

Verdict: For a piece of speculative fiction, this was fun and a good horror story. Honest Abe made a surprisingly good action hero. 

Snow by Tracy Lynn

Jessica is pale, lonely, and headstrong, and quick to learn that she has an enemy in her stepmother. "Snow," as she comes to be known, flees the estate to London and finds herself embraced by a band of urban outcasts. But her stepmother isn't finished with her, and the wicked witch threatens her very life.

(Goodreads)

Genre: historical fantasy; fairy tale

Rating: 3.5/5

Challenges: European Reading Challenge 


A retelling of Snow White with a slight steampunk flair, Jessica is the unloved daughter of a duke in Wales who wants nothing more than to be accepted by her father and new stepmother. Unfortunately her father wants nothing to do with her and her stepmother is evil. Running off to London when she finds that her stepmother wants her heart for a youth potion, Jessica sets up camp with a group of half-human, half-animals and comes to see them as her new family. Suddenly her stepmother shows back up professing goodwill and it is up to her new friends to save her. 


This isn't bad for a fairy tale retelling. It's something different and the stepmother's reasoning is never clearly explained though there does seem to be something more to her as the argument of a woman being in a man's world is thrown out especially dealing with science. The duke is notably unrealistic in his neglect of his daughter and literally allowing the stepmother to do whatever and the Lost Ones are never properly explained other than a sort of rush at the end, but the book wasn't predictable, which is saying something for a novel based on a fairy tale. It's a nice introduction to light steampunk for girls as there is an element of that thrown in and I think the thinner appearance would tempt some reluctant readers. Of course it's marketed specifically to girls, something I found all the Snow White retellings to be, but the pretty cover and short length might tempt some readers other books wouldn't. 

The Red Necklace by Sally Gardner

The story of a remarkable boy called Yann Margoza; Tetu the dwarf, his friend and mentor; Sido, unloved daughter of a foolish Marquis; and Count Kalliovski, Grand Master of a secret society, who has half the aristocracy in thrall to him, and wants Yann dead. Yann is spirited away to London but three years later, when Paris is gripped by the bloody horrors of the Revolution, he returns, charged with two missions: to find out Kalliovski's darkest deeds and to save Sido from the guillotine. 

(Goodreads)

Genre: historical fantasy

Rating: 4/5

Reading Challenges: European Reading Challenge 

 As an adventure novel, this harkened back to the likes of The Scarlet Pimpernel, with the French Revolution being used as the backdrop for daring-do. The lovely Sido is at the mercy of not only her hateful father, but also the truly menacing Count Kalliovski, who wants her and her fortune for himself. That being said, when the action is going the book is very good. The weakness is that sometimes the action seems rushed while some of the more unimportant scenes seem drawn out. The other weakness is that Sido just isn't a very engaging female lead. She really doesn't show enough personality to explain Yann's fascination with her. She's basically there as a plot device, but for a plot device she's given a lot of scenes. Which get boring. 


The villain is threatening though and his machinations and everyone working against them are the best parts. He's deadly and hateful and nearly gets away with it all in spite of everyone's efforts. The fantasy element is a little out there sometimes, but is at least useful. The book on the whole is a nice little adventure. Nothing earth shattering, but something that teenagers would enjoy as an exciting read, especially with the fascination with the French Revolution that I've always encountered with my students.

Changeling by Philippa Gregory

Italy, 1453. Seventeen-year-old Luca Vero is brilliant, gorgeous—and accused of heresy. Cast out of his religious order for using the new science to question old superstitious beliefs, Luca is recruited into a secret sect: The Order of the Dragon, commissioned by Pope Nicholas V to investigate evil and danger in its many forms, and strange occurrences across Europe, in this year—the end of days. Isolde is a seventeen-year-old girl shut up in a nunnery so she can’t inherit any of her father’s estate. As the nuns walk in their sleep and see strange visions, Isolde is accused of witchcraft—and Luca is sent to investigate her, but finds himself plotting her escape 


(From Goodreads)


Genre: historic fantasy


Rating: 3/5


This wasn't a bad book, just sort of disjointed. First off, we have a pretty, almost romance novel-esque cover going on here. And the placing of the female into the forefront is oddly appropriate as the main hero Luca is really fairly one dimensional. He tends to not be forceful and allows everyone around him to seemingly push him one way or the other in his investigations, possibly because if he didn't there'd be nothing for the minor characters to do and the mysteries as they are would be wrapped up too quickly. As it was, there are actually two separate plots of mystery in this book, short though it may be, the first one involving Isolde, the second a werewolf. In both cases it was the secondary characters who seem to actually know what's going on. Luca and Isolde seem rather doomed to wander around being pretty and not actually doing all that much. There's some underlying nonsense about Luca actually being a supernatural creature since he's so pretty and accused of being a "changeling", but it never really goes anywhere. There's also an unexplained indication that Isolde or her servant Ishraq (who we are reminded is not a slave every three paragraphs) can actually use magic. 


Any way around it, the book is harmless and unoffensive but forgettable, which is a shame considering the premise and the fact that there is a definite undercurrent that the author knows something about the time period, or at least enough that the book could have had a Tudor-esque historical fantasy flair.