A mind-bending new take on djinnis (genies)

From the moment I read the premise of The Binding Stone, by Lisa Gail Green, I knew I wanted to read this book,  because y'all know how I love:

Mythical creatures! Check - not just one, but three djinnis (genies)

Trickery and entrapment! Plenty of it here.

Betrayed love! ouch, but oh so intriguing.

And true love... happily, that too, plus a wild ride as Leela and Taj, my favorite djinnis, figure out how to evade commands from their masters, twisting interpretations of the commands and using clever tricks. There's some serious genius that went into this story!

So I tracked down this serious genius (turns out she has a lighter side, too) and interviewed her. Welcome, Lisa Gail Green:

Describe your book in seven words. Hah!

Betrayed Djinni rediscovers love and trust. HA! Did it in six. Sort of. That doesn't really do all the action justice, but what can I say?

What would be the first thing you'd wish for if you had a djinn like Leela?

I used to think of all sorts of things, including having a best-seller! But after writing this book? The first thought in my head was, 'I would never be able to ask a genie for anything.'

Is there a message in The Binding Stone that you want readers to grasp?

Yes. But is it cheating to say it? It's really about control. That no matter how bad the situation you are dealt, no matter how unfair, you can still be YOU.

Are the experiences in the Binding Stone based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Yes. I am a Djinni. Ha! No. BUT I do have a fear of losing control, which manifests in many ways. So I guess I was putting some part of myself in the worst situation.

One thing I've always remembered from your blog posts on writing is how you've said we need to go places where we are afraid to go. Where were you afraid to go with the Binding Stone?

I was afraid to go to the dark place. To let Leela be tortured and mistreated the way she was. This is for kids after all! But I also think teens can handle it. Many have to handle it for real unfortunately. And for those that haven't, a book is the safest place to learn about other situations and explore differences whatever they may be. I think in the end I struck a good balance between what was spelled out and what wasn't. 

If you could be any character in fiction, who would you pick and why?

Oooh. I know I've seen it used a LOT, but I have to say Hermione. She's smart, talented, magical, and just all around awesome!

Oh my yes, a girl who can be dangerous holding a book, she's my choice too!

Leela's already been interviewed here, but I did manage to corner Taj, another Djinni, and ask him a  couple questions:

I see Leela worked for Mozart for a while. If you could pick any master in the world (famous person), who would you pick and why?

Honey, that's like me asking how you'd prefer to die. But if I MUST pick… I do like Brad Pitt. He's a hotty. Or maybe Lady Gaga - she looks like she'd be tons of fun. Unpredictable is less boring. Don't look at me like that. I wasn't going to pick Mother Teresa. I'd hate to have been responsible for her falling from grace. *winks*

Funny you should mention Brad Pitt,  Taj, because as I was reading this story, your character kinda reminded me of him a few times. Indulge me for a moment:

You've known Leela for centuries. In this latest escapade with her, did you learn anything new about her? Did you learn anything new about yourself?

Lee? She's so emo. I hope she finally realizes how strong she is and that some things are out of her control. Women. Me? I already know everything worth knowing, the rest as they say is excess baggage. Apple? *pulls fruit from air* *chews and thinks* I suppose I did learn that even I can still be surprised by a human now and then.

Thank you, Lisa and Taj!  Here's the official blurb on The Binding Stone:

Tricked into slavery by the man she loved, the Djinni Leela has an eternity to regret her choices.

Awakened in the prison of her adolescent body, she finds a new master in possession of the opal that binds her. But seventeen-year-old Jered is unlike any she’s seen. His kindness makes Leela yearn to trust again, to allow herself a glimmer of hope.

Could Jered be strong enough to free her from the curse of the Binding Stone?

"I dream of Lisa Gail Green! The Binding Stone is magical in so many ways. My Djinn asks for my third wish? The sequel, of course!" - NYT bestselling author Nancy Holder

"Genies like you’ve never seen them, THE BINDING STONE is a wild ride of treachery and deception. For my first wish, I’d like a sequel, please." - PERSONAL DEMONS author Lisa Desrochers

And, I have a little excerpt from my Goodreads review here to tempt you even further: 

I love how with all her centuries of experience with human masters, Leela's completely perplexed by Jered, her new master. His nature is so different from anything she’s encountered before, though there are things about him that also worry her:  "His eyes remind me of Achan’s, dark as oil. Enough years have passed, yet still my throat clenches at the thought."

This first mention of Achan immediately intrigued me. I wanted to know more about this bit of Leela’s history, and I was thrilled to discover that the chapters in present time are paralleled with chapters from a thousand years earlier, when Leela fell [spoiler removed].

I love present-time and past-time threaded stories. Love, love, love! The Binding Stone weaves the past and present together delicately and relentlessly. 

If you'd like a chance to win The Binding Stone, plus some other goodies, head over to Lisa Gail Green's giveaway here.

My Top Ten Favorite Book Covers

I don't judge books by their covers. I'm more likely to pick up a book by its title than by its cover, and even a cover that takes my breath away won't make me take a book home unless its premise intrigues me, too. But I do appreciate a beautiful cover and it was an interesting exercise, scrolling through my Goodreads lists looking just at covers for today's Top Ten listing.

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish blog with a different top ten list theme (all related to books) every Tuesday (see the full list here).

1. A Million Suns, by Beth Revis. There are so many things about this cover that I love: the stars, colors, the shimmer, the curve of the window, the body language, the question of whether or not they're holding hands. Why have I not read this book yet?? I loved Across the Universe and this is definitely a sequel I'm planning to read.

2. Pegasus, by Robin McKinley. The winged horse, the light, the clouds, the girl looking up, so so so dreamy. And I love that the pegasus is black and not white as you usually think of them. This book I've read, parts of it twice, and it's on my short absolute favorites list.

3. Starcrossed, by Josephine Angelini. The stormy sky and the light water, the girl's blowing white robes with the violet shading and the girl's darkly shadowed skin. Also love the title font and embellishments. The book is pretty good to read, too.

4. The Binding Stone, by Lisa Gail Green. The blue-red-orange color scheme; the desert background; the overlaid lacy pattern; the light trailing off the opal; the Djinn's red silky wrap; love, love, love. I just read this book and  I'll be sharing my review tomorrow and probably raving more about this book in the future, too.

5. For Darkness Shows the Stars, by Diana Peterfreund. Okay, maybe a pattern here: stars! It's star pattern overlaid on the dress that really made me fall in love with this one, what a cool idea. Also, this is the prettiest title font I've ever seen, complete with those lovely encircling touches and shifting colors.

6. Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvator. I love all the shades of blue with intertwining branches, the odd-shaped leaves, and the wolf half-hidden in the background. All of this juxtaposed with a brilliant red drop of blood. Such a good book, too, my favorite of the series.

7. The Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnson.  This book sort of has a starry effect going on too and I love the green and gold shimmer fading out to black. The glowing tree pattern on the girl's arm; the pattern on the back of her dress; the subtle lighting on her hair make a perfect combination. This book had amazing world building and difficult, challenging, hard-to-forget characters.

8. The Clockwork Princess, by Cassandra Clare. The shining book - it looks almost ethereal in the girl's hands. The architecture is breathtaking, too - that bridge! The dome! All the background details overlaid with subtle clockwork patterns. I do love an old-fashioned dress, and it has such a pretty color and texture. Alas, I haven't read this book yet, but I certainly plan to.

9. Firelight, by Sophie Jordan. I don't usually like close-ups of faces, but the girl's unusual but not overstated pupils, and the subtle scales around her eyes have made the cover stick in my mind even several years after I read it. Not to mention I think that's the prettiest hair I've ever seen, and a Mona Lisa kind of secret smile. It's an entertaining, fast-paced book, too, with some interesting twin sister dynamics.

10. Ride a Wild Dream, by Lynn Hall (1982). Sorry this is the best picture I could find of this cover, but it doesn't do it justice!  This was a childhood favorite of mine - I had to include it for sentimental reasons because I spent hours as a kid looking at the ethereal golden horse on this cover (I was insanely horse crazy as a kid) and daydreaming about having a horse like that. I probably read the book at least 5 times, like all of Lynn Hall's wonderful horse and dog books.

There was one more cover I searched long and hard for to include here; I wished I'd added it to my Goodreads lists because in addition to the gorgeous cover, it also had an interesting premise. It's a recent YA, dystopian I think, and the cover has a skyscraper city background with a sort of shimmery waterfall effect superimposed over it. If that rings any bells, please let me know!!!

Do you have a favorite book cover? 

Zenn Scarlett (review)

Did you grow up loving animals? Not just pets, but were you curious about exotic animals, creatures in the pages of books that existed in far away countries,  but had unbelievable and almost mythical qualities about them? Like singing whales and snow leopards and oryx and platypus and lemurs? 

Maybe if you loved animals, like me, you wanted to grow up to be a vet or a zoo-keeper or a wildlife biologist.

Or maybe computers and chemistry sets and gadgets and science fiction were more your thing.  Maybe you wanted to grow up to be an astronaut or the first engineer to figure out how to fly beyond light speed. 

Or maybe, just maybe, you were BOTH of these - animal friend and star dreamer.  That was so me. It's still me. 

So the premise of Zenn Scarlett, by Christian Schoon, about a veterinary school on Mars for alien animals, oh my gosh just made me all kinds of excited. And even better, hints that the main character has a special type of communication with the animals/aliens. I dreamed about this kind of stuff when I was a kid! Living on another world; check. Communicating with animals; check. This author brilliantly thought to put these two ideas together. 

I loved the first chapter. Especially the introduction to the first alien creature: the Indra. And what the Indra can do, and how space travelers have partnered with it, is so... sooo....alakshgsdhdgouncldg. Yep, words fail me. I want to say "cool" but that is too lame of a word. Awesome, too overused of a word. Back to lsknxsaqhyejlsd. I'll spare you the exclamation marks. 

I didn't finish reading this novel, but that might just be me. If the premise grabs you like it did me, TRY IT!!! Maybe you'll love it (other reviewers did). Certainly the first four chapters I read had a lot of potential. I just couldn't click with the main character or the particular style of this book. 

But the reasons why I encourage you to try the book if you like the premise:  there's this character called Hamish who is fascinating. After I got over my first reaction of utter disbelief (a giant and kindly alien beetle? really? okay - I guess that works), I was very impressed by him, because his voice immediately rang true. There's also some really inventive things, like the mobile virt-screens "hovering before his face like butterflies", and how Mars was made suitable for humans to live on, and some of the medical devices used for entering and ah, exiting large alien creatures. No vet book, alien or not, would be complete without some potty humor. I have a feeling the author, Christian Schoon and James Herriot are kindred spirits. 

And also, there were some places where the writing was very impressive:

Her father's entire being was like a fresh wound.

....Sometimes, she thought she understood what made him go, that he had no choice, that he couldn't survive both his own pain and hers. At other times, she simply lost sight of this sort of understanding; as if heavy fog had rolled in, obscuring the landmarks that had guided her at first.

Beautiful.

Thank you Strange Chemistry and Net Galley for giving me the opportunity to try out this book.

My Top Ten Books Dealing With Tough Subjects

A good book will always deal with tough subjects, in my opinion.  Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish blog with a different top ten list theme (all related to books) every Tuesday (see the full list here).

1. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett - prejudice and racism.

2. To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee - prejudice, racism, misunderstanding

3. Code Name Verity - war, Nazis

4. The Scarlet Thread  by Francine Rivers

-affair, separation

5. Wonder by RJ Palacio - deformed appearance

6. I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade, by  Diane Lee Wilson  - physical handicap

7. Right Behind You by Gail Giles - guilt

8. Speak  by Laurie Halse Anderson - rape, high school "branding"

9. Never Gone, Laurel Garver - death of a loved one.

10. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini - abuse, repression

Honorable mentions:

A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheehan - parental neglect, abuse

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell- animal abuse

Nineteen Minutes - school massacre. Jodi Piccoult writes issues in a very gripping if borderline sensationalized way.

What tough issue book(s) resonated the most with you?