Kingkiller Chronicles Comes to TV, Seattle is UNESCO City of Literature, The Brightest Fell by Seanan McGuire, Saint Brigid's Bones by Philip Freeman,Magic of Wind and Mist by Cassandra Rose Clarke, and Three YA Fantasies by Lili St Crow

I adored Pat Rothfuss' Kingkiller series of fantasy novels, and I am thrilled that Miranda has decided to bring the story to TV. That said, I wish to heck Rothfuss would get the third and final book of the series out on the shelves before I turn 60. 

TV: The Kingkiller Chronicle

Showtime is developing a television series based on the Kingkiller

Chronicles

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz34705325

book series by Patrick Rothfuss that is being produced by Lionsgate,

with Lin-Manuel Miranda executive producing and John Rogers (Leverage,

The Player) as showrunner, Deadline reported. Miranda also will compose

music for the project, which is "a subversive origin story set a

generation before the events of the trilogy's first novel, The Name of

the Wind."

The Kingkiller Chronicle "is a collaborative franchise from Lionsgate

that includes a TV series adaption, a major feature film and interactive

games all being developed concurrently," Deadline noted.

Miranda said, "Pat Rothruss' Kingkiller series is some of the most

exciting storytelling I have ever read."

Hurrah! This is excellent news!

Seattle Designated a UNESCO  City of Literature

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization has

declared Seattle, Wash., a City of Literature

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz34732682.

It was one of 64 cities worldwide to join the UNESCO Creative Cities

Network, which now includes 180 cities in 72 countries highlighted for

their creativity within seven fields: Crafts and Folk Art, Design, Film,

Gastronomy, Literature, Media Arts and Music. Other newly named Cities

of Literature were Bucheon (Republic of Korea), Durban (South Africa),

Lillehammer (Norway), Manchester (U.K.), Milan (Italy), Québec

City (Canada) and Utrecht (Netherlands).

Noting that this decision is "the culmination of a years-long process

http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz34732683,"

the Seattle Review of Books reported that "the bid for Seattle as a City

of Literature began in 2013 and it has seen wholesale staffing changes,

survived four different mayors, and the U.S.'s withdrawal from UNESCO in

the intervening years.... Through the whole process, Seattle City of

Literature has been promoting the bid." 

Bob Redmond, Seattle City of Literature http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz34732684

board president, told SRB: "We all know that Seattle is a world-class

city, but this underlines it in a new way--especially for people who

care about the arts, or books, or words. It matters to everybody here

that the world is looking at Seattle as a cultural leader. That should

make us feel good.... I feel a mixture of justification and joy. I feel

justification because I don't think that the mission of UNESCO and this

organization could be more relevant than it is right now: to build

understanding through the literary arts."

The Brightest Fell by Seanan McGuire is the 11th book in the October Daye series, and the first that has been published in hardback, as far as I know. I have something of a love/dislike (nothing as strong as hate, really) with McGuire's changeling series. On the one hand, her prose is slick and buttery, riding along on plots that are like roller coasters with twists and turns that will leave you breathless. There's a sea witch and a king of Cats and all manner of interesting fae in every installment of the series that will fascinate readers, because McGuire has an Irishwoman's way with a story. On the other hand, Toby, for all her friends and guards and fae royalty loyal to her as she is to them, always ends up holding the crap side of the stick, and always has to to save herself and everyone else, because, once again, someone has abducted or kidnapped her friends, or children, or lover and is holding them hostage until she completes some task or kills the bad guys, even if they're supposedly immortal. And there is always lots of blood and gore, and Toby usually barfs a lot, which seems to be a badge of honor for her, rather than signs of bulimia, a horrific eating disorder.  This gets tiresome after nearly a dozen books, and I wish that Toby's mother (and so many other people in her world) and sister weren't such evil selfish bitches who inevitably blame her for their problems, while at the same time reminding her that she's beneath them and worthless and should be put to death, if they could be certain they wouldn't break a nail doing so. Toby has cobbled together a "family" group of her lesbian fetch, her fetches lover, her fiance the king of Cats and his heir, her guardian/apprentice who can't seem to actually guard her or do much of anything right, ever, and her troll friend who drives a cab. Oh, and the sea witch, who can only help her by extracting a price, and sometimes can't help her at all due to a geas. She also has a friend who runs another kingdom, and some other peripheral characters, but again, these people's only role seems to be getting abducted or getting someone they love abducted or in trouble, and only Toby is able to retrieve these people, with little to no help from any of them. Why are all of her friends so ineffectual and clumsy and just plain stupid? Here's the blurb:

Things are slow, and October “Toby” Daye couldn’t be happier about that.  The elf-shot cure has been approved, Arden Windermere is settling into her position as Queen in the Mists, and Toby doesn’t have anything demanding her attention except for wedding planning and spending time with her family.
Maybe she should have realized that it was too good to last.               
When Toby’s mother, Amandine, appears on her doorstep with a demand for help, refusing her seems like the right thing to do…until Amandine starts taking hostages, and everything changes.  Now Toby doesn’t have a choice about whether or not she does as her mother asks.  Not with Jazz and Tybalt’s lives hanging in the balance.  But who could possibly help her find a pureblood she’s never met, one who’s been missing for over a hundred years?               
Enter Simon Torquill, elf-shot enemy turned awakened, uneasy ally.  Together, the two of them must try to solve one of the greatest mysteries in the Mists: what happened to Amandine’s oldest daughter, August, who disappeared in 1906.               
This is one missing person case Toby can’t afford to get wrong.

Unsurprisingly, once August is found, she's a horrible snob, mean and vicious, and of course, she hates Toby as much as their mother does. August's father, Simon, makes a great sacrifice for her of his own free will, and instead of being happy about it, and about being reunited with her vile mother, she immediately snarls about losing her father to Toby, and insists that Toby find him. Heaven forfend Toby get a break long enough to get married and have a chance at a normal life. She gets blamed for everything, is used constantly and seems to live on coffee and pain. I find this exasperating, but I still will read the next book in the series, because McGuire's such a fine storyteller. I'd give this book a B+, and recommend it to anyone who has read the other books in the series. 

Saint Brigid's Bones by Philip Freeman is subtitled "A Celtic Adventure" and is actually a mystery novel set in ancient Ireland of I'm assuming the 12th century. Someone who knows I adored visiting Ireland at the turn of the last century thought that I might enjoy this novel, and I did, to a certain extent. It's obvious that the author has been researching Irish history for a long time, because the world building within the novel is excellent. Readers will feel like they're there, breathing in the beauty of the unspoiled Irish landscape. Our crime-solving nun, sister Deirdre, is reminiscent of the crime solving monk in The Name of the Rose, Umberto Ecco's famous novel about an ancient British monastery. Most mystery novels give away the perp by around the third chapter, but this book keeps you guessing until you are 3/4 of the way through the book. The prose is crisp and clean, but the plot is  a bit slow in places, and while the daily activities of those in service to the church of that time are interesting in passing, there was often too much historical detail to keep regular readers from becoming bored. Here's the blurb: In an evocative Celtic novel set in a time when druids roamed the land, lively young sister Deirdre embarks on a mission to find the stolen bones of her convent’s patron saint. In ancient Ireland, an island ruled by kings and druids, the nuns of Saint Brigid are fighting to keep their monastery alive. When the bones of Brigid go missing from their church, the theft threatens to destroy all they have worked for. No one knows the danger they face better than Sister Deirdre, a young nun torn between two worlds.
Trained as a bard and raised by a druid grandmother, she must draw upon all of her skills, both as a bard and as a nun, to find the bones before the convent begins to lose faith. 

It's always surprising to remember how important and powerful the Catholic church was to people in ancient times. It is also weird to remember that illiteracy was common for centuries. Anyway, I liked Sister Deirdre, and the story itself was fairly told. I'd give it a B, and recommend it to Celtic history and mystery buffs.

Magic of Wind and Mist by Cassandra Rose Clarke is the sequel omnibus to Clarke's Magic of Blood and Sea, which I loved. Unfortunately, these two books are not actually a continuation of the story of the characters from the first books, these are the voyages of the daughter of the protagonist of the first books, Hanna, who is a sullen and somewhat stupid teenager who is, of course, bored with her life on her family's farm, and longs for adventure on the high seas, which she's heard about from her mother. Yet when Hanna is abducted by the fisherman she's apprenticed to, all she can do is whine and moan about wanting to go home ASAP. For that reason, and a few others, these books reminded me of The Wizard of Oz movie, based on the novels by L Frank Baum. Unfortunately, Hanna's companions on her adventure aren't as colorful or fun as the witches and the munchkins, or the scarecrow and tin man. Here's the blurb: Taking place in the world of Cassandra Rose Clarke’s Magic of Blood and Sea, this is the story of a would-be witch who embarks on an adventure filled with intrigue, mystery, mermaids, and magic.
Hanna has spent her life hearing about the adventures of her namesake Ananna, the lady pirate, and assassin Naji, and dreams to have some adventures of her own.
One day when Hanna is with her apprentice—a taciturn fisherman called Kolur—the boat is swept wildly off course during a day of storms and darkness. In this strange new land, Kolur hires a stranger to join the crew and, rather than heading home, sets a course for the dangerous island of Jadanvar. As Hanna meets a secretive merboy—and learns that Kolur has a deadly past—she soon realizes that wishing for adventures can be deadly…because those wishes might come true.

The first book is extremely slow-moving, and not much gets done, (except for Hanna whining and complaining) which is frustrating. The second book finally moves the plot along, and Hanna is able to use her wind witch skills to help defeat the evil Lord Foxhollow. Unfortunately, Hanna's companion and friend throughout the book is a creature who embodies the North Wind, and though he's a coward and weak and not too bright, the two are in love by the end of the book, which makes no sense to me, because they're not even the same species! Even while in human guise, Isofr is still just a magical wind, and how, exactly, the two would even have a real relationship is never explained. Could a wind creature "make love" to a human and engender human children?  Clarke never answers this question, and I was also disappointed that Hanna seemed so whiny and ineffectual most of the time, and only stepped up because her boyfriend the wind was such a coward, and the other people who she was shipping out with had no morals and were not terribly bright or brave. That left Hanna to do the magical dirty work, which she constantly complained about and then did anyway. I disliked her sullen and rude attitude and her unhappiness with everything and nearly everyone. For that reason I'd give this book a C+, and only recommend it to those who must read an entire series.

Betrayals, Jealousy and Defiance by Lili St. Crow (Lilith Saintcrow's pen name for her YA titles) are books 2, 3 and 4 of the Strange Angels YA series of urban fantasy novels. I've read several of Saintcrow's other series, and while I like the fact that she has strong female protagonists in place, and they are always handy with the kick-butt and the snarky attitude, for some reason, this series seems to be following a YA tropes "bible" of some type, so that the books seem formulaic and predictable. There's the inevitable love triangle, between the female protagonist and two very "different" types of boys, (in this case, it's the gorgeous European half vampire vs the handsome American goth boy werewulf or loup garou whom she knows and trusts) there's the showdown with an evil and powerful overlord figure, (in this case, there's also a showdown with a female half vampire who is jealous of our heroine's youth and beauty and attention of the European half vamp, whom she wanted for her own, and who, shudder, had a thing for the protagonist's mother), and there's the body issues that the protagonist kvetches about, though all the other male characters find her stunningly beautiful. Dru Anderson, the heroine, also constantly slips away from the authority figures/school/her guards and gets into trouble, and she also must rescue her loup garou love interest because no one else is as brave as she is, or as stupid, as the case may be. Oh, and like all good heroines, she's an orphan, with survivor guilt and daddy issues. Here's the blurbs: 

Poor Dru Anderson. Her parents are long gone, her best friend is a werewolf, and she’s just learned that the blood flowing through her veins isn’t entirely human. (So what else is new?)
Now Dru is stuck at a secret New England School for other teens like her, and there’s a big problem— she’s the only girl in the place. A school full of cute boys wouldn’t be so bad, but Dru’s killer instinct says that one of them wants her dead. And with all eyes on her, discovering a traitor within the Order could mean a lot more than social suicide. . .
Can Dru survive long enough to find out who has betrayed her trust—and maybe even her heart?
It's a good thing Dru Anderson is fast. Because the sucker chasing her isn't slowing down and he won?t rest until he has tasted her blood and silenced her heart . . . Dru?s best friend, Graves, and her strange and handsome savior, Christophe, are ready to help her take on the ultimate evil. But will their battle for Dru's heart get in the way of her survival? Now that sixteen-year-old Dru's worst fears have come true and Sergej has kidnapped her best friend Graves, she'll have to go on a suicidal rescue mission to bring him back in one piece.
That is, if she can put all of Christophe's training to good use, defeat her mother's traitor, Anna, once and for all, and manage to survive another day...

The other thing that bugged the crap out of me while reading these books is that Saintcrow took a page from one of the worst YA series ever written, Twilight, and described what Christophe and Graves smelled like every single time they appeared. Bella was so annoying with her "strawberry scented hair" in the Twilight books that I assume the author was hoping that you'd overlook the terrible prose and the heinous plot and paper thin characters because you were reminded, constantly, that she smelled good and that there were no pretty girls in Fall City, WA, so all the boys were wild for California girl Bella, who had the personality of a doorknob. Saintcrow is an excellent prose stylist who knows how to tell a good, original story, however, so I was truly disappointed in her phoning this one in with the apple-pie scented Christophe and the "boy sweat and moonlight" scent of Graves. And Dru's knees and legs are constantly turning rubbery like noodles, and she is always crying and clinging to the nearest friendly man after a crisis, because, you know, girl hormones and all of that makes a girl so weak. Ugh. And just in case you're not aware of how immature  teenage girls are, she can't seem to stop blushing whenever she's kissed, darn it, and she calls her breasts,"breasticles." Isn't that just adorable? No, it's not.

I was embarrassed for Saintcrow, who should know better, but seems to be okay with putting this cliche riddled prose on the shelves. Just to complete the series, I will read book 5, but I doubt it will be any better than the previous novels. I'd give the series a B-, which is generous grading, and only recommend it to fans of the Hunger Games and Twilight. Don't expect Saintcrow to cover new ground here, because you won't find any.