The royal prince offers an imprisoned assassin the one thing she wants most—freedom—at a heavy cost. She must compete for the honor of serving the king who imprisoned her as his champion. At first Celaena is only determined to bide her time until she can escape. The competition begins with a chilling event. Competitors are found murdered, their bodies mutilated. Celaena fears the murders may be tied to dark rituals, but no one else will believe her. As she investigates further, she finds herself caught deeper in a web that would keep her from running away. As romance blooms between Celaena and the prince, she begins to realize she doesn’t want to run. She might have a chance at freedom and the possibility of a life wholly her own. But only if she can win the contest and stop the killer before she becomes his next victim.
This is the first novel by Sarah J. Maas that I’ve read. I’m not sure what I was expecting from this novel. I like the idea of a young girl as a famous assassin in a country where almost no one really believes it. She’s so young and it’s so unexpected. I guess I had a hard time really buying into the idea that she’s that good and yet the king welcomes her to the palace, totally within reach of everyone who has made the last year of her life completely miserable. It seemed like a really big risk. But I was willing to overlook that because other parts of the story sounded really intriguing.
I liked Celaena’s friendships with the Princess Nehemia and with the captain of the guard, Chaol Westfall. I think he actually might have been my favorite character. Prince Dorian was hit and miss with me, though. Sometimes I liked him a lot, and other times he felt inconsistent to me. One moment, he acted sort of the cliché misunderstood prince. In other scenes, he seemed confident, comfortable in his role, so I couldn’t always reconcile those differences.
The competition itself felt a little bit choppy, though sometimes that’s because other more important parts of the story overshadowed the competition. I guess I wanted that part to feel more like those scenes from The Hunger Games when the tributes are practicing and then performing for the game makers, and this didn’t have that same power. But in fairness, it also didn’t have the same weight to the story as the larger conflict emerged and becoming the champion became a less important goal.
Overall, I enjoyed the story. There are more than enough potential conflicts introduced throughout the entire novel to interest readers in subsequent books. Readers who liked The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard and Snow Like Ashes by Sara Raasch will probably also like this book.
Cultural Elements An oppressive king rules multiple peoples, and some struggle to organize a revolution. The cultural or racial differences between each group are vague, but the story world does give the indication that each group have cultures and customs. Celaena respects others, and often wonders what it’s like for people like Nehemia and Chaol, who have loyalty to family and homes oppressed by the king.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.
Romance/Sexual Content Captain Westfall worries that Prince Dorian will attempt to seduce Celaena. He references the prince’s reputation for such behavior, and Dorian himself makes a couple of vague comments. A young woman has come to the court by promising an unappealing older man that she’ll marry him. She secretly hopes to secure Prince Dorian’s affections instead, and dreads and worries about the man she promised herself to making romantic advances. A man and woman kiss several times, once lying in her bed, clothed.
Spiritual Content The king outlawed magic and its use long ago. Celaena discovers evidence of dark rituals and demonic creatures. The spirit of a queen long dead offers aid and protection to a warrior.
Violent Content None.
Drug Content
A young woman smokes opium. A team of warriors must identify wine laced with poisons.
Tara St. Pierre, author of Just a Few Inches joines me today to talk about inspiration and some behind-the-scenes information about her book.
Hi Tara. Thanks for taking time to answer my questions about Just a Few Inches. 🙂
You’re welcome! It’s a pleasure to be here, Kasey.
I find that a story was often inspired by a question. Was there a question that inspired you to write Just a Few Inches?
What if one of those checkout-counter magazine headlines that claimed a diet could “shrink inches from your waist” caused a person to shrink in height instead? I realize that it’s a somewhat odd question to pose, but it’s the one that crossed my mind while I stood in line at a drugstore when I first came up with the idea for this story. The usage of the word “shrink” in that context is what really jumped out at me, and my imagination went to movies like The Incredible Shrinking Woman and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I figured I could make this into a story about body image but in a much different way than had been done before. Rather than Carrie (my protagonist) battle with an existing eating disorder—and risk the book being too heavy-handed or worse, inaccurate or insensitive—I chose to show weight loss in the most outlandish way possible with this sci-fi/fantasy twist. There are claims that fashion dolls cause young girls to develop body image insecurity, and though I don’t know if that’s true, it became a much more interesting question to posit while Carrie was literally the size of a fashion doll. By employing the speculative element of Carrie shrinking, I could still tackle the issues I wanted but integrate them into a unique, gripping, entertaining plot.
Very cool stuff. As I was reading, I definitely had a few moments where I thought about those movies, too. I liked that you had that moment about fashion dolls, too. I think you’re right– the way you chose to tell the story did explore the issue in a really unique way.
Do you have a favorite character? Were there things about your favorite character which couldn’t be included in the novel?
I think my favorite character would have to be Carrie’s mother. Imagine watching your own daughter shrink smaller and smaller with possibly no end in sight. A chilling thought, isn’t it? She’s brave and supportive because she has to maintain that face for her daughter, but inside, she’s terrified and angry and trying her hardest no to be completely devastated. Because the story is told from Carrie’s point of view, I can’t just tell the reader how her mother feels; I can only show her mother’s emotions during her interactions with Carrie. There’s an entire perspective there that I couldn’t include as much as I would’ve liked. Also, in the first draft, I went into more detail about the legal matters between Carrie’s parents and the manufacturers of the diet pills, but my advance readers, which included some teens, didn’t respond to these scenes as positively as other parts of the book. They would have shown Carrie’s mother fighting the external conflict for her daughter. But no matter how much of her mother’s story that I had to keep out of the book, Carrie is extremely grateful for all the love and support her mother provided—and I have what I think is a neat way of symbolizing that in the final chapter.
As a mom myself, I totally identified with Carrie’s mom, so I hear you. Kudos to you for trusting those advance readers. I’m sure it wasn’t easy to make some of those changes.
Is there a scene or moment in your novel that really sticks with you? Can you tell us a little bit about it?
There’s a chapter about halfway through the book where Carrie and her younger stepsister Amy have a significant confrontation. I don’t want to spoil it with details, but their relationship had been bubbling to this point, and it was exhilarating and frightening and draining to write about when it reached its boiling point. I had a handful of advance readers who were reading chapters every few days after I’d draft them, and I vividly remember their reactions to this chapter above all others. The consensus was that in the first few paragraphs, they dreaded what could conceivably happen in the chapter. Then that dread developed into full-scale panic. But in the end, they were surprised with where I went with it, and it was the confirmation I needed to know that I had achieved what I set out to do in that chapter. I’d love to tell more, but I want readers to really feel that chapter—and they’ll surely know which one it is when they get there.
I remember the scene you’re talking about. Yes! It’s really intense. What a great scene. 🙂
What do you most hope that readers take away from your novel?
We should not be a hostage to our shape and/or size because what’s inside is what really makes each of us incredible. Carrie wanted to be smaller, and she got smaller in ways she could never have imagined, but did she really need to be smaller? Even as she shrinks, she never lets it fully stop her from doing what she wants, and her family, friends, and school find ways to accommodate her growing disability. In the end, I would like readers to think about their own inner strength and confidence, about respecting and helping out others, and about being true to themselves.
That’s a great message. I liked that her changing size made her reevaluate those things and challenged her to see herself in a different way. It also challenged her friends in some unexpected ways, too.
What is one question about your novel you are often asked by readers?
A question I’m often asked is: “How did you make Carrie’s experience seem so real?” It all starts with the decision to tell the story from her first-person point of view. Doing so allows the reader to always be inside her head and see through her eyes, especially as her perspective changes—the world seemingly grows around her. To make it seem real, I measured everything in my house—countertops, windowsills, doorknobs, pillows, phones, you name it. Then I’d walk around the house on my knees or lie down on the floor and look up, trying to imagine myself at Carrie’s varying size. To an outside observer, I’m sure I would have looked a little strange, but hey, it was all research necessary to make the journey believable!
Funny the things writers do to really get inside those characters, huh? 🙂
What are you most looking forward to reading next? How to Hang a Witch by Adriana Mather. I grew up close to Salem, Massachusetts, and I was involved with a production of The Crucible when I was in high school. The Witch Trials have always fascinated me, particularly how hysteria prevailing over rational thought can have serious consequences. That theme can be applied to many eras in history as well as the present. The author is a descendant of someone involved with the Trials, and so is the main character of the book. A retelling of sorts with a modern Mean Girls kind of vibe? What’s not to be excited about with that?
Oh man. I remember reading The Crucible in high school, too. I like the idea of marrying that with a Mean Girls vibe. I can totally see that!
Kasey, thank you so much for featuring me and my book in your Sanctuary. It has been an absolute pleasure to answer your questions! As Carrie would blog, I hope you and your readers are always looking up!
Tara St. Pierre has been writing for over two decades, but her muse only sporadically provides inspiration. Her laptop is filled with incomplete manuscripts and other plot outlines, and she feels blessed when one finally pushes its way through to completion–no matter how long it takes!
She enjoys classic science fiction movies and television shows. When driving, she sings along with the radio loudly and off key. She prefers tea over coffee, spring over autumn, vanilla ice cream over chocolate, and caramel over hot fudge. Though she lives by herself, one of her two cats enjoys cuddling with her.
To fit into the perfect dress for the Valentine’s Day Dance. To look beautiful for her boyfriend, the school’s star basketball player. To keep his jealous ex-girlfriend, a rival cheerleader, away from him. And to be noticed by her classmates. Exercising and dieting don’t work, but an advertisement for weight loss pills promises a quicker solution to her problem. As time runs out, she takes more than the recommended dose until she’s just a few inches slimmer... Getting everything she once wanted has created new problems—problems that are growing more terrifying every day.
After Wren’s father unexpectedly dies, her mother rips her away from her only home. Move after move takes Wren further and further across the country, and Wren can’t help but wonder what her mom is running from. Then Wren finds a beautiful pond to secret herself away to watch birds the way she and her father used to do. When Wren discovers the local landfill owner plans to demolish her sacred place, Wren vows to stop him.
The birdwatching elements felt very natural to me. I’m not an experienced birdwatcher by any means, but my daughter and I kept a journal for about a year of birds we saw behind our house in a canal (a surprising number and variety, actually.) So I enjoyed that part of the story, and it definitely resonated with me.
Wren and her mom deal with the grief over losing her dad in very different ways. For a time it becomes a wedge between them. Wren meets a boy in school who also lost a parent, and they bond over those losses and how they’ve changed their surviving parents. It’s a really healing experience for Wren. So is her campaign to save the pond. I think the emotional journey of grief and the outward journey to save the pond balanced the story in a great way.
There is one part where Wren’s mom reveals a secret about her father that’s very hurtful. I really struggled with that decision. It didn’t feel like the right call to me, so that kind of took me out of the story a bit as I wrestled with why it bothered me so much. More details in the spoiler section.
Other than that, though, I enjoyed the story a lot. Both grief and love for our environment are really worthy topics for a novel, and Be Light Like a Bird handles both very well.
Cultural Elements
Wren speaks with a man who purchased her dad’s old car. He has some Native American ancestry. The story briefly talks about the importance of respecting Native American burial grounds and what items might be found there.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content See spoiler section. There’s nothing sexually graphic, but Wren does learn something traumatic about her parents’ relationship.
Spiritual Content None.
Violent Content None.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
SPOILER Wren’s mom tells her that her father was having an affair. She mentions having found romantic letters and states that he planned to leave Wren and her mom. Wren is, of course, devastated. It does explain her mom’s anger and impulsive behaviors, but I couldn’t help wishing that Wren hadn’t had to deal with that information, especially so close to losing her dad.
Haven unexpectedly ascends to the throne of her kingdom after her family members are killed by a ruthless queen. As neighboring kingdoms fall to the evil queen Kadia’s attacks, Haven realizes she must rally her few remaining allies and help her people escape the coming destruction. But Kadia wants more than just the land and power. She has her sights set on Haven herself, and the power of the mysterious gift Haven possesses. When Haven learns that others have inexplicable abilities, she realizes she’ll have to find them, for only together can they stop Kadia.
Haven definitely had some great Girl Power moments. I loved that her personal guards were fierce women, and that later, she earns the allegiance of other fierce female warriors. I love that she took her ability to heal, which doesn’t seem much like a warrior-gift, and turned that into a huge asset for herself as a fighter. She wasn’t afraid to step out and face her enemies head-on. I had to admire that about her.
I struggled a bit with some of the plot elements. Sometimes Haven would make these decisions that left me scratching my head or feeling frustrated because they didn’t seem to make a lot of logical sense, or the reactions of her companions didn’t seem to make a lot of sense. At one point she learns a critical ally has been working with the evil queen. Instead of outing him, she keeps his betrayal a secret because she feels afraid the other allies will kill him if they find out.
I kept thinking about the giant risk to security and her people that he continued to pose as someone who’d already betrayed them once. She didn’t seem at all concerned about the possibility that he might betray her again, or honestly all that affected by his betrayal which cost many lives and gave her enemy control of a lot of additional resources. At one point she vehemently opposes sending her own troops to fight Kadia, and soon after, she becomes upset that a neighboring king refuses to send his troops to her aid. I totally get that circumstances had changed, but I wanted her to at least stop and reflect, like, oh, that’s how it feels to wear this shoe, and I didn’t feel like I got to have that moment.
Ultimately, her love for her people definitely made her a character I could sympathize with. I totally rooted for her to take down Kadia, and I loved that she found an unexpected ally– I thought the way the final battle went down was really engaging and cool.
I think readers who enjoyed The Key by Jennifer Anne Davis would really like Haven. It’s got a lot of great girl power moments and a big fantasy setting, and an ultimately enjoyable romantic arc.
Cultural Elements
Feels like a pretty Western European-type cast of characters. Culturally it felt pretty homogenous across various kingdoms.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content – Trigger Warning A man professes his love and forces kisses on the girl he loves. An evil queen commands a man to rape a captor. He pins her down, she struggles. It’s pretty intense. Later, a male soldier is caught beginning to assault a female soldier. The attacker states that this is the way things are done (ie, the way prisoners are treated). Others free the woman and other prisoners, but obviously lots of damage has already been done.
Brief kisses between a (willing) man and woman.
Even though the descriptions of the assaults were brief and included intent to rape without actually showing rape, I struggled with them. I think it was just the fact that it came up more than once—which I get from a plot perspective. The first attack gives the character reason to be that much more upset by the second situation.
Also, part of the healing afterward includes sharing the experience with a twelve year old girl who has special abilities to bring mental healing. As the parent of a kid about that age, I had a really tough time with that idea. I wished that character had been older. Not a lot of story time was devoted to that process, though.
Spiritual Content The evil queen Kadia uses shadows to fight her enemies. She can also sense others with gifts like Haven’s ability to heal. Kadia can also paint the future, and at one point has guards strip a captor so she can pain the girl’s future on her body. It’s traumatic to the captor.
Violent Content An assassin attacks Haven. She learns to fight, and at one point she injures herself in practice combat. She fights and slays enemies. Descriptions are brief.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
When Carrie finds the perfect dress for the Valentine’s Day dance, she buys it, even though it’s a size too small. Though she only has days to prepare for the dance, she radically changes her food intake and begins taking diet pills, more than the recommended dose. She slims down just in time for the dance. The dress, the night with her boyfriend, everything is perfect. Until Carrie realizes it isn’t only her waist that’s smaller. It’s her. She’s shrinking. Doctors scramble to find a cure while Carrie grows ever smaller. As she shrinks, she loses social status, but even worse, her independence. As she gets smaller each day, she begins to wonder if doctors will find a cure in time, or if she’ll shrink until she disappears.
When I first saw this book, I thought it was going to be about anorexia. And certainly at first, Carrie’s dangerous foray into diet pills and extreme dieting seem to be part of behaviors and ideas that lead to anorexia. But she quits the pills and dieting once the dance is over. And then the real trouble begins. Carrie starts out at more than five and a half feet tall. Before the story ends, she shrinks several feet. So it was really more about how her change in height affects her relationships at school and home. Her parents begin to treat her like a much younger child. Her boyfriend finds it difficult to continue their romance. It also changes her role on the cheer squad and eventually her ability to attend school.
So it was definitely different than I expected. I liked that it was a fresh, different story. Some of the descriptions of things Carrie experiences related to her height changes were really vivid and interesting. In other ways, I was left wondering what things were like for her. I couldn’t always tell if she was literally shrinking with all of her physical proportions remaining the same, or if she was shrinking like growing in reverse order, so that proportionally she’d be more like a toddler as she shrank that small?
Though the real story is Carrie’s emotional journey in realizing her value doesn’t come from her height, some of that gets undercut by her parents’ treatment of her. Then, the resolution of her medical issues happens in a quick montage at the end, and I felt like those moments didn’t get the emphasis they deserved.
Her relationship with her friends on the cheer squad is a high point in the story. Readers looking for stories about friendship and self-image may find this one scratches those itches.
Cultural Elements
The characters are pretty homogenous. Everyone seems to be white middle class.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
None.
Romance/Sexual Content Carrie and her boyfriend kiss in the back seat of his car. She lets him touch her breasts. Later, they go up to his room and she reports that they have sex. No details. When her medical troubles start, her doctor asks if she’s sexually active, and because her mom is present, Carrie lies. She feels ashamed about lying.
Spiritual Content None.
Violent Content None.
Drug Content
Carrie takes diet pills and doesn’t follow the instructions. She takes much more than the dosage she should.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
When twelve princesses of Caelan refuse to dance as commanded by their father, he imprisons them in their pavilion and offers a challenge. Anyone who discovers the princesses’ secret will marry his pick among them and choose the fate of the others. Anyone who tries and fails will be stripped of land and title or life. But it’s the forgotten thirteenth princess who holds the key to the princesses’ rebellion. Ilani may be crippled, but she is by no means powerless.
Into this standoff comes Lord Kyril Seagrave and his companions from Andar. They hunt an exiled, dangerous prince and the truth about whether Caelan means to invade their home. Kyril is supposed to lead the expedition, but near as he can tell, everyone else is more qualified for the job, and he begins to wonder if Prince Ramsey sent him simply to get him out of the way for a while. When Kyril meets Ilani, he feels a pull toward the girl he can’t explain, and he vows to right the grave injustice done when she was crippled at seven years old. But to right the wrongs of the past, the princesses’ secret must be revealed, and before exiled Prince Rowan can turn the situation to Andar’s ruin.
Political intrigue and fairytales might seem like an odd pairing, but in the Andari Chronicles, it really works. I love the way Davidson takes familiar stories and jazzes them up with new elements. I’m less familiar with the story of the “Twelve Dancing Princesses” by the Brothers Grimm than I am with the other two stories in the Andari Chronicles. This version still centers around a contest established by a king to learn the secret of his daughters, but this time instead of learning why the girls’ dance slippers are worn through each morning, the contestant must learn why the girls have refused to dance for their father. And, instead of three days and nights, each hopeful contestant has only one night to learn the secret.
Kyril plays a role in the first book in the series, Traitor’s Masque, as Prince Ramsey’s best friend and confidante. Since Ramsey’s marriage to Trystan, Kyril feels displaced and useless. The trip to Caelan at first seems like an opportunity to prove his true worth to the court. I liked Kyril a lot in Traitor’s Masque, and his motives made perfect sense to me throughout Pirouette. He and another team member, Brenna, spar frequently over an old grudge Brenna carries but refuses to name openly. The friction between those two definitely kept tension in the tale. Brenna herself is a pretty significant character, too.
Overall I enjoyed this story. I think I liked the first two books in the series a little bit better than this one. I love the characters, but there’s one moment in the climax where I felt like Kyril gets kind of sidelined and doesn’t really contribute. After all of his struggles over feeling useless and valueless, I felt a little sad for him that he kind of had to sit back and wait while others did some key things. I would have liked to see him in a more active role during that big moment.
At the same time, I liked that the climax had a less traditional resolution. I won’t spoil what happened, but it was cleverly done, and definitely gave a nod to girl power and solidarity, which I have to appreciate.
I’d still recommend the whole series to readers who like fairytale retellings. You can read my reviews of the first book, Traiter’s Masque, and the second book, Goldheart, too.
Cultural Elements
While Andar feels more like Western Europe to me, Caelan feels more Middle Eastern with the descriptions of clothing, culture, and architecture.
Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.
Kyril spends the sea voyage sick and miserable. There are several descriptions saying he smells horrible and has vomit-stained clothes, etc.
Romance/Sexual Content Brenna hassles Kyril about his reputation as a shameless flirt. Kyril later explains the reasons for his behavior. Brief kissing between a man and woman.
Spiritual Content Some Caelani bear an ability to perform magic. Their gifts are usually limited to one thing, like the ability to control water or fire. Anyone who can perform magic is made a slave and forced to wear silver.
Violent Content Ilani bears multiple scars and damage to her leg after a man ordered her brutally maimed as a child. She does not recount her torture vividly, but her leg still pains her and she must walk with a cane. Her mother and brother were ordered to be executed after she was discovered to have magical abilities.
Some Caelani want to see the slaves freed and magic embraced by the people. Others fear the outcome of magic users without restraint. A girl uses her magic to kill a man.
A wild animal attacks and severely mauls a man. The attack isn’t described, but his injuries are briefly related later.
Drug Content
None.
Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
