Recommend Me (5)

Recommend me is hosted by Kate @ The Neverending Shelf

Recommend Me is a weekly event in which you pick one of your all time favorite reads to share. This could be a book that you read as a child or even finished yesterday.

To play along, grab a favorite read and tell us about it. You can include

-- your thoughts about the novel
-- its summary,
-- your favorite memory related to the novel... the possibilities are limitless.
-- If you are up for a challenge, you can also include: your review of the novel, links to others' reviews of the novel or you can recommend the book to a general group of readers or if you want to be extra daring, to specific reader friends

Read more about this meme at http://www.theneverendingshelf.com/

This week I recommend:

Spell Hunter (Faery Rebels#1) by R.J. Anderson
Published by HarperCollins Children's Books on April 28, 2009

Summary from Goodreads:  Forget everything you think you know about faeries. . . . Creatures full of magic and whimsy? Not in the Oakenwyld. Not anymore.


Deep inside the great Oak lies a dying faery realm, bursting with secrets instead of magic. Long ago the faeries mysteriously lost their magic. Robbed of their powers, they have become selfish and dull-witted. Now their numbers are dwindling and their very survival is at stake.

Only one young faery—Knife—is determined to find out where her people's magic has gone and try to get it back. Unlike her sisters, Knife is fierce and independent. She's not afraid of anything—not the vicious crows, the strict Faery Queen, or the fascinating humans living nearby. But when Knife disobeys the Faery Queen and befriends a human named Paul, her quest becomes more dangerous than she realizes. Can Knife trust Paul to help, or has she brought the faeries even closer to the brink of destruction?

Talented newcomer R. J. Anderson creates an extraordinary new fantasy world and weaves a gripping tale of lost magic, high adventure, and surprising friendship in which the fate of an entire realm rests on the shoulders of one brave faery rebel.

I couldn't participate last Friday, due to the snow we got in New York.  My internet decided not to work and I wasn't able to be online at all.  So this week, I'm cheating and using the book I was going to recommend last week. 

I love Spell Hunter by R. J. Anderson (it is known as Knife in the U.K., so I have included both covers). It is a book that made me really think while I was reading it. I had to go back and re-read at certain points to make sure that I really understood what was going on.  But, that made reading Spell Hunter even better. 

I love how R. J. Anderson created such a complete world inside the great Oak and then a completely different world outside of it.  Then the two worlds came together, when Knife left the Oak and met Paul.  And speaking of Paul, his relationship with Knife was so sweet.  They were really well matched and suited for each other.  All the little details really add to the richness of the setting and make for a great reading experience. 

Spell Hunter was recommended to me by someone who knows R.J. Anderson, so I was slightly skeptical at first.  But, once I read the book, I was blown away by how good it is!  I am very much looking forward to reading Wayfarer (Rebel in the UK) and the third book, Swift (this is the UK title, I haven't been able to find the US title). 

I would definitely recommend Spell Hunter to anyone who likes to read stories about faeries.  You will definitely enjoy this book if you liked Wings by Aprilynne Pike.

Happy Reading!