“As a glassmaker and a magician-in-training, Opal Cowen understands trial by fire. Now it’s time to test her mettle. Someone has sabotaged the Stormdancer clan’s glass orbs, killing their most powerful magicians. The Stormdancers—particularly the mysterious and mercurial Kade—require Opal’s unique talents to prevent it happening again. But when the mission goes awry, Opal must tap in to a new kind of magic as stunningly potent as it is frightening. And the further she delves into the intrigue behind the glass and magic, the more distorted things appear. With lives hanging in the balance—including her own—Opal must control powers she hadn’t known she possessed… powers that might lead to disaster beyond anything she’s ever known.” Shelfari

What I Thought

This is Maria V. Snyder’s second series in the same world and the characters from the first series are well established and some continue on in this series – so be aware! Start with her Study Series then move to this one – that’s a fantastic series and why I even decided to start on this series.

I actually really liked this book even thought I guessed what was going to happen most of the way through the book. The setting of this story are the kingdoms of Sitia and Ixia – naturally two polar opposites when it comes to magic use. Sitia embraces it and Ixia loathes it. The characters and how they were portrayed was decent if not a little frustrating. At times they seems a little flat or slow.

Even with the minimal funkiness the rest was really good. The theme of grief and loss play heavy into most of this book and Snyder manages to not have it be melancholy.  My favorite quote from the book is actually about grief:

Everyone grieves in different ways. For some, it could take longer or shorter. I do know it never disappears. An ember still smolders inside me. Most days, I don’t notice it, but, out of the blue, it’ll flare to life. — Opal Cowan

I think that another centeral theme to this story was confidence and trusting in your abilities. The protagonist, Opal, spends most of the book hemming and hawing about how she’s only a one note magician and that she’s not special at all while every other character in the book is telling her that she’s something special. It does get old quick but I think that it was necessary and I think that theme will continue on into the next book in the series.

Rating:

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DE has a whole new look and feel now! After much debate and much layout testing I decided to go with a writing themed blog layout from xoSarah. I am using a layout from her Etsy shop and I love it! The install was super easy and it looks great. I am happy to see that it’s fully widgetized. The last few layouts on here have been lacking in that department. She got me this within only a few short days and I got it up and running in minutes. I’m happy to be supporting handmade layouts as well. I hope that she continues to make more wordpress layouts as well! I really love the fonts, woodgrain and widgetized side bar. I also love that there are no layout specific codes I need to worry about!

I’ve also gone through all of the old posts and updated them as well as getting a new Archive working properly, updating my About page and adding in a Quote page with some of my favorite lines from the books I read.

This week on DE expect:

• Book reviews!
• Recipe post
• Plus more MPM posts!

What do you think?

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Via The Stone Soup

It’s already been a week apparently! A new Menu Plan Monday is here! Just note that I’m a pescatarian and my boyfriend/partner in mischief is vegan preferred. We’re not going full slow carb yet but we are doing really well with omitting carbs where we can. This week there’s only noodles 1 night  and we’re upping our bean intake. We’re both pretty happy with this menu and I think that we’re both excited for the lemon cake. We haven’t had a homemade treat in a long while [since baking and I seem to fight] but this is a pretty easy cake and since it’s winter lemons are cheap and easy to come by. I’ll probably serve the cake with coconut ice cream, whip cream or soy whip. It should really help us out since I know that we’ll be missing the carbs. I am also happy that our greens intake is upped this week as well. We’re doing much better with getting in those leafy greens and it helps we both love them. He’s more of a fan of cooked greens and I prefer them raw so it’s a good mix of the two this week.

This week’s dinner plans include

• Buffalo Tofu + Simple Green Salad - Buffalo tofu is his favorite meal – forever.
• 2 Minute Noodles with Bok Choy & Oyster Sauce
• Chorizo with Chickpeas & Tomato - Our favorite vegan chorizo is from Trader Joe’s – it’s crumbly and not meant for slicing but delicious. We’ve had a lot of terrible vegan chorizo and this stuff is amazing.
• Warming Onion & White Bean Bake + Simple Green Salad
• Homebaked Beans + Wilted Greens with Parmesan - I’ll have real parmesan and he’ll have vegan parmesan.
• Black Pepper Cauliflower with Tofu

This week’s breakfast, lunch & treat plans include

• Tomato Tofu Scramble + tortillas – for him!
• Chickpea & Rosemary Baked Fritatta - for me!
• Pumpkin Seeds, Walnut & Cherry Muesli with almond or coconut milk if we want something sweet
• Butter Bean & Salmon Salad – like this recipe only with salmon instead of tuna
• Super Light Slaw with Salmon
• He’ll be eating leftovers for his lunches – he’s a better sport than I am [unless it's a soup or salad!]
• The treat this week is this super simple lemon cake.

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