Someone recently asked me for a list with book recommendations so I thought I might also share it here.

Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
This is my favorite book in the Discworld series (and maybe just my favorite book). You don’t have to read the series in the right order but it might be better to read Mort, Reaper Man and Soul Music first (these are also very good and are about Death as a character). It is a Christmas book but don’t let that stop you from reading it now.
It’s very very funny:

“Real children do not go hoppity skip unless they are on drugs.”

“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Probably one of the first sci-fi books I’ve read and probably the most memorable.

Brandon Sanderson Mistborn Series
I love everything that Brandon Sanderson writes but especially the Mistborn series.

Dubliners by James Joyce
The writing in this collection of short stories is just superb!

Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman is one of my favorite author so there are a few of his books on this list. This one is about -surprise- Norse Mythology. The writing is amazing and easy to read and it’s just an interesting book even if you know most of the stories.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Another really good Neil Gaiman book, this one about London.

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
If you like books about zombies.

The Martian Andy Weir
This one reminded me about a math or physics test in school but in a good way (it sounds impossible but it’s true). It might not be for everyone but I really loved it.

A Monster Calls Patrick Ness
A really sad but also beautiful book.

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The only Sherlock Holmes book I’ve ever read but definitely not the last.

Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
Because it’s Harry Potter.

An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield
An autobiography of an astronaut. I thought it was really interesting and inspiring. It’s about Chris Hadfield’s life and not just about being an astronaut (but a lot about that as well).

Coraline by Neil Gaiman
A creepy children’s book by Neil Gaiman.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Amazing writing and a beautiful story. It is a big book but still easy to get through and hard to put down. It’s a really good epic fantasy series.

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
Another really good epic fantasy series with amazing writing and a beautiful story.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch
And another one.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman
A bit harder to get through than Neil Gaiman’s other books but definitely worth the effort.

Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
One of the books in the Discworld series. I was reading it while the author died. Death itself finds out he doesn’t have a lot of time left and it’s about how he’s trying to live with the knowledge that he will soon die.

‘Death has to happen. That’s what bein’ alive is all about. You’re alive, and then you’re dead. It can’t just stop happening.’

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
The book that got me into reading fantasy. I don’t know if I would still love it as much as I did then but it will always be one of my favorite books.

What If? By Randall Munroe
This book answers questions in a serious way like: ‘’What would happen if you made a periodic table out of cube shaped bricks, where each brick was made of the corresponding element?’’ And ‘’How long could a nuclear submarine last in space?’’.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
You’ve probably seen the movies so you know what it is about. I really loved the book, the story was better.

Change Places with Me by Lois Metzger
A very original sci-fi book. It was different than what I expected.

The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
A novella based on Lovecraft. It’s better if you’ve read some of Lovecraft’s stories before this one but not necessary.

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Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Series: Standalone
Published by Tor. 2002
Pages: 306
Format: Paperback
Source: Purchased

I loved this book. Stories of your Life and Others contains eight short stories. Each one is original, moving and mind-blowing. Even though Ted Chiang has only written short stories like these, he has won series of science fiction awards with them (several Nebula and Hugo awards for example). The movie Arrival is based one one of these short stories.
Seeing Arrival before reading this book made me curious. Could the book possibly be as good as the movie? Yes, it absolutely was.

So why did I love this book so much?

First of all, the concepts are amazing. They are original and unlike anything I have ever read before. Each of these stories was so different from the others. If this book had ten more stories I still wouldn’t be bored by the end.

The stories are about bigger issues in society and human beings. Ted Chiang manages to put so much emotion into them. In ‘Liking What You See: A Documentary’ there is a device that leaves people unable to see beauty in faces and feel attracted to it. This opens a discussion about lookism, the media and how it influences people but also a person’s freedom and whether these issues should be handled through education.

I also loved the religious aspects of the book. Which were heavier in ‘The Tower of Babylon’, ‘Hell is the Absence of God’ and even ‘Seventy-Two Letters’ especially. It added something to the stories that I haven’t read before.

I did have one problem with this book. Some of the science was a bit too complicated for me. Certain stories were harder to read than others. It felt as if there was too much information dumped on me at once. I even skipped one because of this. But for most of the stories it was worth the effort.

Days after reading this book I still find myself thinking about the stories. They were really unforgettable. I tell everybody about this book, even people who don’t like reading. So I would recommend this book to everyone.

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So far I’ve read two books by Patrick Ness. One I absolutely loved and will never ever leave my memories, the other turned out not to be so memorable at all. This man is full of surprises, and he proves nothing less in More Than This.

In More Than This we follow a young man named Seth. His story begins dramatically with his death, and wakes up in what seems like a different world. A world that is not as it should be. First of all, he wakes up in his childhood home, all the way in England, while he now lives in America. Secondly, everything is overgrown and there is no one to be seen. Seth tries to figure out what is going on, and for a while he is the only character in our story.

“You said we all want there to be more than this! Well, there’s always more than this. There’s always something you don’t know.”

I quickly noticed that though not a lot was happening during the first chapters, I was thoroughly enjoying myself. Patrick Ness manages to create a lot of suspense and action even when not a lot is going on. I believe he could let Seth pick his nose for an entire chapter and it would still not be boring. What made More Than This even more compelling were the diverse set of characters that enter the story gradually. Seth’s friendship with them offer a lot of light heartedness to the otherwise grim and dramatic story.

On Seth’s journey towards answers, every answer really gave me ten more questions in return. Oh, how many times I was deceived, how many times I thought I knew exactly what was going on and ended up terribly wrong. Many of these questions consider the philosophy of reality. Is the world he woke up in real? Or just some crazy dream? If it is real, what happened to him?

Patrick Ness never really offers a clear answer to these questions, except that maybe they’re not worth considering at all, because you may forget to live. The ending feels really anticlimactic compared to the suspense in the rest of the book. There’s a build-up towards something, but really no final answer to the millions of questions left unanswered. I believe they are up to your own interpretation, so if you’re up for that, this might be a five star rating for you. Personally, I needed a little more than this..

“But wherever I am, whatever this world is, I’ve just got to be sure I’m me and that’s what’s real.”

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Kell is Antari, one of the last of his kind, living among humans who possess a lot of magic, a little, or none at all. He lives in a city where magic thrives. A smell of rose perfume engulfs the air, where the red glowing river flows throughout. The place Kell calls ‘Red London’, because there is more than one London. In fact, there are four, living side by side in a different universe, where only some know of their existence. Red, the color of magic so pure and balanced. Grey, a bland color, where no magic is left. White, the color of a place that smells like ash, slowly falling. Black, the color of destruction, succumbed to its own power.

“There’s Dull London, Kell London, Creepy London, and Dead London,” she recited, ticking them off on her fingers. “See? I’m a fast learner.”

The Antari, or travelers, are the only ones that possess the power to travel from one London to the next. Kell services his king and queen by doing exactly that, travelling, but he cannot withstand the urge to bring trinkets from one world to the other. Even though this is extremely forbidden.. and soon, Kell finds out why. He is joined by a girl from Grey London, who is eager for adventure. Her name is Lila, and the both of them create a fun set of protagonists.

Lila has built a thick shell around her, she is morally grey and straightforward. Sometimes infuriating, mostly absolutely loveable. Kell, on the other hand, is a bit quirky. He wears a coat with many different sides, turning it inside and out, depending on what he wants to wear. Complex, layered, unique and imaginative, just like his character. He managed to charm me, without even trying.

They are not the only characters that made an impression. I actually cannot think of one character that I wasn’t interested in. Everyone had their own, selfish reasons for using or abusing magic. Their own motives, and so I was left feeling sorry for something harmful happening, even to one of the bad guys.

“What are you?” she asked. “A monster,” said Kell hoarsely. “You’d better let me go.” The girl gave a small, mocking laugh. “Monsters don’t faint in the presence of ladies.” “Ladies don’t dress like men and pick pockets,” retorted Kell. Her smile only sharpened. “What are you really?” “Tied to your bed,” said Kell matter-of-factly. “And?” His brow furrowed. “And in trouble.”

I was quickly sold by the world shown by V.E. Schwab, or well, worlds. Each had their own unique characteristics, though remaining interesting throughout. She somehow writes so expressively, breathing life into each one, bringing both beauty and ugliness to the table. Because this book is not necessarily for the faint of heart. There are some darker elements to this otherwise beautiful, intriguing tale.

Though, and I’m sure I’m not the only one, I fully see a ‘plot twist’ in part two coming, I never noticed any other form of predictability in the plot. I never once had a chance to feel something coming, because I was so captivated by everything else, preventing me from ever feeling bored.

A Darker Shade of Magic has shamefully sat on my shelf for a while now, and my wish list longer, but I am terribly glad I finally picked it up. A very fluid, fast paced but elegant fantasy novel. As Travars, to travel, to the bookstore where I will soon pick up the next!

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“If you listen long enough to the whispers, you will hear the truth. Until then, I will tell you this: the world is made safe by a woman. She bound the monster up and cast him out, and the man who was left was saved.”

A Thousand Nights was so much more than I expected it to be. It was a beautiful and original story about family, feminism and magic and I’m glad I’ve read it. The setting was simple but amazing: a dangerous court surrounded by an even more dangerous desert and a girl who has the will to survive both.

Just like the original book it’s about a king, Lo-Melkhiin, who marries a girl, only to kill her shortly after and marry another. But that is pretty much all the similarities between the two. Where the original is more a collection of middle Eastern stories, this book doesn’t even mention the heroine (every character, with the exception of Lo-Melkhiin, remains nameless) telling these type stories to the ruler. She does talk to him about her sister, whom she loves enough to sacrifice herself for when Lo-Melkhiin comes to her village to pick a wife. But the real thing that keeps her alive is the magic that is growing inside her. While our heroine lives in the castle, fearing every day for her life but also getting used to luxuries of the court, her family is left behind. They grieve their loss, especially her sister, and turn her into a sort of god. This gives her the power to fight Lo-Melkhiin and the hold he has on the palace and its people.

“I do fear him,” I said, which was close to the truth. “I fear him as I fear the desert sun and poisonous snakes. They are all part of the life I live. But the sun gives light, and snakes will feed a caravan if they are caught and cooked.”

Lately there seem to be so many retellings. The only one I’ve read about One Thousand and One Nights is The Wrath and the Dawn and that one isn’t at all like this book. This alone could have made it an original book between the dozens of Beauty and the Beast retellings. But the writing, the characters and the setting really turned this book into something totally different from anything I’ve read before. The characters are so strong and brave. The bond between the heroine and her sister is real and positive. She is not jealous of her sister’s beauty but is instead proud of her and her strengths.

“My sister is no fool and she is not tender-hearted,” I said. “My sister fights for her home, and takes what risks she must. That is why I put myself before her today—why I would not let you have her. My sister burns, and she does not burn for you.”   

The heroine isn’t afraid to address the sexism in the world she live in. This combined with the positive relationships she has with the other female characters in the story, especially her sister, add some much needed feminism to this book and the YA genre.

The writing is poetic and mesmerizing, I can understand if it’s not your thing but it’s the first thing I noticed and it drew me in. The story is told through the perspective of the heroine, but there are a few parts through Lo-Melkhiin’s eyes and she has visions about her old home. This provides the reader with enough information to understand what is going on with the king and where her own powers come from, without things becoming confusing. E.K. Johnston did this very well.

The heroine has learned to survive in the harsh desert and it has made her a stronger character for it. She is able to see the danger and the beauty in it. During the story she teaches herself to do the same in Lo-Melkhiin’s court. From the statues in the garden’s palace to the stars you can see in the desert and the sand, everything is described in such a way you almost feel as if you’re standing next to her.

One of my only issues with this book was the ending and her magic. I can’t tell you too much without spoiling the story but the way she uses her magic in the end is so simple and boring in comparison to how she gets it. Besides that, I found the lack of names to be a bit frustrating sometimes. (it also doesn’t make reviewing this book any easier). But I can see that it can add something to the writing and the feeling of the story.

While I did have some minor problems with A Thousand Nights, I thought it was great. Strong and interesting characters, a beautiful setting and original writing: it’s not a story I will forget anytime soon. It was definitely worth my time, and yours if you’re looking for something a bit different..

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It’s Valentine’s day. A day when we all yearn for a little extra romance in our lives. Whether this is through beautiful gifts or a fancy dinner, we believe books are much better company! Here are some of our favorite sci-fi/fantasy romance reads to reach a better valentine’s day feeling.
PS. Click the book covers for a goodreads link!

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

A retelling of Beauty and the Beast promises nothing less than an intense romance driven plotline. It keeps to this promise, reading it in three sittings or less should be no problem. The worldbuilding, characters and mythology/fairytale elements woven in are enthralling. Because Cruel Beauty is not only a fairytale retelling, it also uses inspiration from greek mythology. If you’re in for a dark yet wonderful story of love, castles, mazes and a twisted relationship between a defiant heroine and a witty villain; Cruel Beauty might be the book for you.

Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier

In the realm of Sevenwaters we follow the women of its family for four generations. The family has a special bond with the Fair Folk, inspired by irish mythology. They are ‘aided’ through their hardships and always find true love. The first book in the series, Daughter of the Forest, is a retelling of The Wild Swans. An evil queen turns the brothers of heroine Sorcha into swans. While lifting the curse, she has to remain silent. This series, but especially this first part, is not for the faint of heart. These books are heavy and long winded, but the effort truly pays off.

Starflight by Melissa Landers

If you’re sick of the unoriginal insta-love and are more a fan of slow romance Starflight is a surprisingly fun read. It has some interesting characters and they develop a friendship first. While their relationship gradually moves from necessity, to friendship, to romance, they are being hunted by all sorts of people: the government, space pirates and a sort of emotionless mercenaries. Starflight fails to bore and makes for a fun, quick read.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

A fairytale retelling, yet again of Beauty and the Beast, in a magical realm with steamy romance, a creepy villain, fairies and much more leaves little room to failure. A Court of Thorns and Roses isn’t a literary masterpiece, but the simplicity is so enjoyable. Reading it was a breeze. Even if you no more than liked this first part of the series, the second part is what really makes this a perfect valentine’s day read.

Kate Daniëls by Ilona Andrews

Kate Daniëls is one of the most witty, and truly badass characters. She is a blabbermouth mercenary who has no problems stepping up to her words, but knows when to call for help. Being an urban fantasy series, it wasn’t a genre that had a lot of familiarity. It was really easy to picture the world with its alternation between magic and technology. Kate ends up building a slow burning, yet sexy and gripping romance with a shapeshifter named Curran. Their relationship is wonderful and funny, making you want to read the series as fast as you can.

Every Day by David Levithan

This might not be your typical romance but it is still a beautiful story, if not a somewhat bittersweet. Every Day follows A, an entity who lives a day in a body and then moves on. A is gender-less and sexually fluid. One day he/she inhabits Justin and he/she falls in love with his girlfriend, Rhiannon. It’s a great book if you like LGBT books and sci-fi but it’s about more than just that. During A’s days he inhabits all sorts of people: a girl with depression, a very beautiful girl, a less attractive man and many more, giving you insight in their day-to-day lives in an inspiring and interesting manner.

Now, these are only some of the options towards a perfect valentine’s day, what would you add to our list?

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Quests of the Kings

Nathalie, a sixteen year old girl works hard to keep her family alive. She has many different jobs during the day, not wishing to marry to a man. Not like the other girls. In fact, she hates to be a woman because of the way they are treated by society. The life of an adventurer, the ones who take up perilous quests the king offers in exchange for gold and influence, seems very far away. Yet, somehow Nathalie manages to get on the evil adventurer Brago’s bad side. Running from this threat to her life, she finds Sir Edris. A gallant man. In his care, her life takes a whole new direction.

I felt that this book had more potential than it lived up to. Nathalie, for example, hates the divide between men and women in this society. The author makes sure you know this, especially through the first few chapters. It was a little bothersome to read every now and then.

Nathalie seems promising to stand up to this divide. Yet when it comes down to it, she whines and cries and acts like a child. She often confides in men and then hugely mistreats them for helping her. Actually, she mistreats about anyone who helps her. It often made me wonder why other characters bothered to help her in the first place. It me feel rather detached to her. I liked the secondary characters far better than I liked her. Luckily, she had a moment of clarity and finally made a change around halfway in.

When something dreadful happened, there wasn’t a lot of emotional impact. Even the ending felt rather weak. I think it has to do with the rather simplistic writing. On the other hand, the writing made it to be a quick and light read, with an almost fairy tale like feeling.

So, while Quests of the Kings was a quick and short read, I wish many things had more time to develop further.  Some of the characters were great but Nathalie, our main heroine, didn’t do it for me. I think the story can take an interesting direction in the future of this series, but I’m undecided whether I will read them or not.
Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Lady Catherine Pinkerton is a daughter of a marquess in the Kingdom of Hearts. The Kingdom we know from Alice in Wonderland with it’s terrifying monarch. In such a position certain things are to be expected of you. For example, when the king proposes to you, you shall accept and a rich, happy life for you and your family lies ahead. You shall not indulge in hobbies that are below your position in society. Such as baking, preposterous!

Sadly, Catherine loves baking and wishes to open a shop to share her pastries and confections with the Kingdom. Something a queen surely cannot do. Meeting the court’s new jester makes accepting the proposal even more impossible, for he finds a special place in her heart. Especially when she thinks the king to be a spineless and somewhat pathetic man.

Catherine wants to define her own destiny, decide who she falls in love with despite invoking her parents rage. Yet, in this land of magic and mystery, fate has other plans.

Heartless starts off rather slowly, though the descriptions of sea salted caramels, rosewater macarons and and lemon tarts were enough for my watering mouth to keep me occupied. Slowly, we are introduced to the Kingdom of Hearts with all its delightful, familiar characters. I admire Marissa Meyer’s ability to write as if her story has always been a part of Wonderland. Her writing paints colorful and whimsical scenes in my mind. She takes inspiration from the original and weaves on so naturally.

A great example of this case is the Hatter. We all know him as the Mad Hatter of course, but was he ever not mad? In Marissa Meyer’s adaptation, he is in fact afraid to become mad. He was a very enjoyable character to get to know in such a way.  There’s a scene in which he hosts a tea party (doh!) and I think it was one of my favorite scenes! And there’s of course the Cheshire Cat. Impossible not to become a favorite.

“These things do not happen in dreams, dear girl,’ he said, vanishing up to his neck. ‘They happen only in nightmares.’ His head spiralled and he was gone.”

Alice in Wonderland is not the only thing Heartless refers to, however. There’s a sub-character called the Raven, which was an obvious reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous work. He spoke in rhyme entirely, dropping a famous quote every now and then. I couldn’t help but grin a little.

Heartless doesn’t stay sweet and lovely from beginning to end, however. Catherine undergoes an important change we all know is coming. It all has to do with Jest and her will to choose who she’ll loves. They are both enjoyable characters, though I was never truly invested in their romance. This while I’m secretly a romance junkie! I didn’t feel like Catherine was fighting very hard for their relationship. Even though she was claiming to reject the king constantly.

The change in her character felt very abrupt, and not as well done as I had hoped. Marissa Meyer has written a story of a fairy tale queen gone bitter before. It’s a short story in her famous Lunar Chronicles series called Fairest. I adored that one, felt sympathy for the main character even though I never agreed with her. I never felt this way with Catherine. Fairest was severely creepy and twisted, and I was expecting Heartless to have more of that, too.

It was an enjoyable read, but I wish I was more invested in the change of the main characters. Marissa’s retelling is full of wonderful references. She lets the original Alice in Wonderland inspire her, instead of outright copying it. She even included an answer to Lewis Carroll’s famous unanswered riddle..

“Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”

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The Girl with all the Gifts

“You can’t save people from the world. There’s nowhere else to take them.”

This story takes place in a dystopian, zombie-containing future but it is mostly about Melanie. She is a very smart girl but one that is just as naive, if not more than most children. But who can blame her? Her days are either spent in her room-like prison or in a prison-like classroom. She doesn’t know it herself but she is, of course, one of the zombies. The way she is treated is especially sad because she is such a realistic child. Despite her being a zombie and her childhood notwithstanding, she seems like a very recognizable normal girl even if she is far more intelligent than most children I know. Just like all children, she needs a parent figure and finds that in miss Justineau, her teacher. This leads to an interesting group dynamic as others don’t understand this bond.

Before I started this book I wasn’t aware that it would be about zombies, though I’m not sure how I could’ve missed it. To be honest: I’m not really an expert on this subject. So I’m not sure if you can trust my opinion on this but I thought the virus itself was very original. It had a scientific explanation that (sort of) made sense and it wasn’t the simple brain-killing disease that even someone like me is familiar with. At times I almost felt the same as Caroline Caldwell (a scientist investigating the virus), wanting to know more and more about the zombies’ brains. That was probably why I found the chapters through her eyes the most interesting ones, also because she is a bit crazy.  

“The horror of the unknown is more frightening than any horror you can understand.”

Even though the action scenes in this book are amazing, The Girl with all the Gifts is more character oriented. One of my favourite things about this book is that there were no good or bad people. My opinions about them kept changing throughout the story, but I did always feel like understood their actions and motives. Unlike many dystopian books, there is a lot of information about before the outbreak. Not just about the virus, but also the characters. They are still thinking of the past and their actions in the story show us that. They have made mistakes in their past and are trying to make it right, which affects the story. Especially for miss Justineau and Caroline Caldwell.

“It’s not just Pandora who had that inescapable flaw. It seems like everyone has been built in a way that sometimes makes them do wrong and stupid things.”

The ending was bizarre. I won’t spoil anything, but days after finishing I was still trying to figure out if it was a good or bad ending. It was realistic without being predictable and it was a good conclusion to this amazing book.

Besides the amazing action-packed scenes it’s still a story about a young girl with a bitter past, trying to adapt to her new reality and her relationship with miss Justineau. All this is why I highly recommend The Girl with all the Gifts, even if like me zombies keep you up at night..

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We feel like it is a match made in heaven; Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell, author and illustrator. Their works go hand in hand, Chris’ peculiar illustrations perfectly complementing Neil’s bizarre writing. We believe each one of their cooperative works is to be cherished, and should be shared with those who yet need to discover them. Listed below are our favorites! 

Odd and the Frost Giants

Odd and the Frost Giants is a lovely little children’s tale with beautiful illustrations by Chris Riddell that perfectly fit the nordic themes. In a nordish world set in the past, Odd is the son of a viking raider. Unlike the other vikings, he is small and weak, but has the wit of many. His mother has remarried and his new stepfather cares little for the young boy.

Yet in this cold and endless winter Odd sets out to an adventure. By misfortune he breaks his leg and becomes disabled, but despite his struggle he finds a bear in the woods, trapped. An eagle and a fox join them shortly. Odd sets the bear free and finds out his newly found animal friends are actually the gods his kind believe in. Odin, Loki and Thor. Together they go on an adventure to free Asgard from the frost giant they’ve been tricked by.

The mythology in Odd and the Frost Giants was easy enough to understand by children, but fun for adults nonetheless. Especially if you like Norse Mythology. If you don’t.. honestly, why don’t you?

You might even learn a thing or two, if you don’t know much of the norse gods. The silver, black and mostly white illustrations were a perfect fit and addition to the wintery cold theme. You can almost feel the cold! They alone are worth the little effort of reading this book. It made for a perfect december read that was even somewhat inspiring, even though it broke our hearts in a couple of pages. So no matter how old you are, this little beauty is worth your reading time and little shelf space!

The Sleeper and the Spindle

The illustrations in The Sleeper and the Spindle are in similar style as those in Odd and the Frost Giants. But instead of the cold atmosphere those add to Neil’s story, the illustrations in Sleeper and the Spindle give us a real magical feeling, using gold accents instead of silver. A fairytale feeling more like a tale of Grimm rather than Disney. Dark, yet eccentric and leaving you spellbound.

The story itself is original and not your typical fairy tale.  It’s unpredictable and has a feminist focus. The Sleeper and the Spindle is a retelling of sleeping beauty, in which Snow White is the hero. There is no prince, and the villain isn’t who you think she is. The Sleeper and the Spindle has a beautiful ending with a big twist that make it an easy single sitting read.

Beside these two fantastic reads, a set of three Neil Gaiman classics have been released as a boxset, published by Bloomsbury. It contains Coraline, The Graveyard Book and Fortunately The Milk. The latter being the most light and over the top children’s read in this box. The nightmare invoking Coraline is once again freakishly beautifully complemented by its illustrations, whereas in the Graveyard Book they add a more calm form of darkness, a ghostly feeling.

Lastly, the modern classic Neverwhere has been re-released last year as an illustrated hardcover, featuring a fully illustrated extra short story. We’ve not been able to get our hands on this version, yet. But according to Charlotte, the non-illustrated version alone is worth this magical tale of London.

We certainly hope Neil Gaiman and Chris Riddell collaborations won’t end here. Have you enjoyed any of these versions as much as we have?

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