The Winter Freak Show

The Winter Freak Show: A Penny Dreadful Review

            A boy called Toby escapes the cruelties of the Workhouse and nearly freezes to death on the December streets of London. He is rescued by the proprieter of a Freak Show so fantastical that is must be magic. Every year, the Winter Freak Show travels the world, entertaining children and families with incredible feats. They end their tour in London. This year, though, something is different. Someone is kidnapping children, and suspicion falls on the freak show’s proprietor, Nicko.

            The Winter Freak Show is a fun little Christmas adventure by Daniel Parsons. It’s an excellent choice for readers of chapter books, though I wish it had some illustrations. Some parts of the adventure I felt needed some elaboration, and some parts were so sweet and poignant I almost cried.

            Overall, I would give The Winter Freak Show three gears out of five and a round of applause. According to the cover, it is the first in a series entitled Twisted Christmas. I would love to find out what happens to Toby in book two!

            The Winter Freak Show is put out by the whimsically named Onion Custard Publishing and is available in select stores and online (of course).

Your Correspondent From The Bookstore,

Penny J. Merriweather

Peter And The Shadow Thieves

Peter And The Shadow Thieves: A Penny Dreadful Review

            Starstuff is the source of legends. It is an extremely powerful substance, and it… changes those that it touches. The evil Others will do anything to get their hands on it. The Starcatchers attempt to return it to the ether, where it cannot be used to harm anyone. A young orphan called Peter came into contact with the stuff in a previous novel, and now he doesn’t age and he can fly. He lives happily on a tropical island and throws mangoes at pirates for fun. Then, something comes to the island looking for the starstuff. Something that can control peoples’ minds if it touches their shadows. Something that knows the starstuff is now with Peter’s friend Molly…

            Peter journeys to London to save his friend, testing his powers against a huge, cold city that doesn’t much care if a few people die in its streets. London is more dangerous than poor Peter could have guessed in Peter And The Shadow Thieves, by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson.

            The only trouble with this book is that there is action taking place on the island Never Land as well as in London, and there’s little overlap in the groups of characters. Captain Hook, who was so formidable in the previous volume, is here diminished to a subplot. It is a little difficult to keep track of the events of the story, but there is still so much to love.

            As with the first book, Peter And The Shadow Thieves is illustrated in the expressive and impressive style of Greg Call. I very much enjoyed turning the page and finding a gorgeous interpretation of events. I also fell in love with his darling depiction of Tinker Bell.

            If you enjoyed Peter And The Starcatchers, you simply must read Peter And The Shadow Thieves. I award it four gears out of five. The canny reader will also pick out the clever cameo of a certain author named James, whose last name rhymes with ‘Perry.’

Your Correspondent From The Bookstore,

Penny J. Merriweather

Those Who Hunt The Night

Those Who Hunt The Night: A Penny Dreadful Review

            An ex-spy, a vampire, and the spy’s wife walk into a mystery. Barbara Hambly writes them out again. Those Who Hunt The Night is an old favorite of mine. I read it as a girl, before I’d heard of Steampunk or realized that this fell into that category due to the content of mad science. I was delighted to stumble upon a yellowed paperback copy to review.

            The year is 1907. Someone or something is murdering London’s vampires. Don Simon Ysidro turns to a mortal man for help. Professor James Asher, who teaches Philology at Oxford, is not what he seems. He is a retired government spy. With the assistance of his wife Lydia, a medical researcher, he untangles the web of secrets that must perforce cocoon the undead. What they find is…

            I cannot tell you why the plot is so gripping, or I would spoil it. I can tell you that these are proper vampires. They are seductive, yes, but bone-chilling and utterly inhuman. Don Simon Ysidro is what I feel vampires should be.

            Lydia is the first, perhaps the only, nearsighted protagonist I’ve encountered in all my reading. I love her scientific mind, her bravery, and her blurry vision. As a myopic teenager and as a still-more-nearsighted woman, I could relate to her.

            I give Those Who Hunt The Night four and a half gears out of five. If you want scary vampires and a well-formed mystery, Barbara Hambly is the one to read.

Your Correspondent From The Bookstore,

Penny J. Merriweather

Victorian London's Middle-Class Housewife: What She Did All Day

Victorian London’s Middle-Class Housewife: What She Did All Day, by Yaffa Claire Draznin: A Penny Dreadful Review

Steampunk is a genre of adventures and inventions, of exceptional people and exotic locales. The history books are the same way: presidents and kings scrawled over all the pages. In the background of these wild stories and world-shaking events lives an empire full of ordinary people. Occasionally, a scholar starts to wonder what the ordinary people did with their time: how they felt about adventurers tracking mud into their parlours, what that mud might be made of, who paid the grocery bills.
       Yaffa Claire Draznin wrote a book about those ordinary people entitled Victorian London’s Middle-Class Housewife: What She Did All Day. It is an excellent book. She follows the routine of a typical housewife in Victorian London between 1875 and 1900.  Her prose is easy and fun for the layperson (ie: me) to read. I learned so much from her research into the seldom thought-of world of the everyday.
        I wish there were more pictures. It would be fantastic to see more illustrations, perhaps of the interior of a typical Victorian home, or explanatory diagrams about cleaning techniques. Though, with research as scarce as it is on the subject, she may have included everything she could find!
I give this book four and a half gears out of five. I found it informative and clever, easy to read and stuffed with tidbits of usefulness. I highly recommend taking a look at what the middle-class housewife did all day in Victorian London. It’s much more interesting and difficult than you might imagine.

Your Correspondent From The Bookstore,
Penny J. Merriweather

Sherlock Ninja

Sherlock Ninja: A Penny Dreadful Review

Recently, I came into possession of a peculiar comic book by the talented and prolific artist Fred Perry.  It is the first issue of something called Sherlock Ninja. Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like. Sherlock Holmes is a ninja.
        There is a damsel in distress, threatened by an ancient eastern artifact.  There is Sherlock Holmes’s characteristic mysteriousness. There is even Watson – a young lady called Watsu-san, whom I would love to learn more about. Altogether a satisfactory story employing Fred Perry’s characteristic comedic touch of misdirection and lovely art.
I give this delightful little story four gears out of five. I enjoyed it a great deal.  I would definitely love to see more. Grab a copy the next time you run across Mr. Perry – it is well worth the three-fifty.

Your Correspondent From The Bookstore,
Penny J. Merriweather