Elijah David

I've been doing a chunk of reading in the last few weeks, along with finishing "Paper and Thorns" (if you need a refresher on this fairy tale novella, click here for all the snippets and behind-the-scenes posts). If you're interested in being a beta reader for "Paper and Thorns," leave a comment with your email (all comments are moderated, so if you don't wish to have it be public, just say so and I'll delete the comment after sending the story your way). On to the reviews! Bridge of Clay The long-awaited next book from the author who wrote  The Book Thief , Bridge of Clay  is the story of the five Dunbar boys following the return of their estranged father, Michael. He wants them to build a bridge with him, and all of them refuse, except for Clay. As Clay and his father work on the bridge, the oldest Dunbar boy, Matthew, narrates the stories of Michael, Penny (their mother), and their family. We're given insight into the histories of in...

Today we're doing two smaller reviews of recent reads: Rosemary Sutcliff's The Eagle of the Ninth  and Jonathan Stroud's The Hollow Boy  (third in the Lockwood and Co. series). I picked up The Eagle of the Ninth  because Megan Whalen Turner has mentioned it multiple times as an influence on the Attolia/Queen's Thief series. Marcus's early injury in the story directly inspired Eugenides's story in The Queen of Attolia , and Turner has even said she wrote Thick as Thieves  partially as a reversal of Eagle ; rather than the soldier, it is the slave who tells the story. The quest feel of the latter half of Eagle  also feels very similar to Turner's The Thief . But enough about influences. Eagle  isn't a seat-of-your-pants thriller or even a typical quest narrative. While the seeds for the quest are planted early, the mission to retrieve the lost eagle isn't even introduced until nearly halfway through the book. Instead, we're treated to Ma...