Pythias has been fortunate enough to grow up under the tutelage of one of the greatest minds of her time, her father, Aristotle.  Encouraged by her father to learn, read, and explore, Pythias does not have the average life of a young woman growing up in 4th Century BC Athens.  Her favorite activity is collecting wildlife specimens and placing their skeletons back together.  When Aristotle's once student, now King, Alexander the Great dies, resentment against Macedonians, including Aristotle and his family, grows.  Aristotle moves the family to Chalcis and a new chapter begins for Pythias.

This is a coming of age story for Pythias.  Seeing that this took place in ancient Greece, the story and characters could have been very difficult to relate to.  Luckily, Pythias was a wonderful character, she was very easy to relate to for me; it's great to have a female character who was encouraged to learn her entire life, even in this time period. Annabel Lyon's writing style transformed life in ancient Greece seamlessly, I enjoyed reading about daily life, rituals and customs of families at the time.  As Pythias' character grows, she has different issues to face, and while there may be no grand adventure, Pythias must overcome several trials for a younger women in Greece and who is alone; she uses her strengths wisely and carves out a life for herself.  Parts of Pythias' journey surprised me a bit, as well as the ending, but it is true to history.  
This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

A re-telling of the little known fairy tale The Twelve Dancing Princesses by the Brothers Grimm that has been set during Prohibition in New York City.  Twelve sisters have been held hostage by a wealthy, business minded father who cared only to have a male heir.  Disappointed by his multitude of daughters, he has kept them practically locked up in their large house, not even bothering to learn all of their names or see their faces.  After their mother dies, the eldest sister, Jo is placed in charge of the girls.  In order to keep the girls satisfied, Jo sneaks them out at night to go dancing at select speakeasies.  Known only as the princesses, the sisters revel in the anonymity and freedom of the dance until their father becomes suspicious and wants to marry them off. 

I enjoyed this story, although I had a hard time relating to the characters.  The Jazz age in New York City was a wonderful setting, the different underground bars, dresses, dancing shoes and the variety of dances created a magical atmosphere that made the twelve sisters disappearing into the night very believable. The story focused mainly on Jo, but was written in the third person and bounced around to all the characters (it also had a ton of parenthesized thoughts from the characters, which was something different then I'm used to).  This didn't really bother me, but I didn't feel like I really connected to anyone, even near the end when there were a lot of emotions. Overall, I did enjoy this fairy tale retold as historical fiction, but the point of view didn't work for me. 

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

"My mother was not one to say oh dear or oh my.  She was one to say fuck.  And often."

A hauntingly beautiful story that brings to life the story of Jessie Hickman, a woman who made her way through life in the Australian wilderness in the 1920's by traveling with a circus and then stealing horses. Jessie lands in prison and is released to Fitz Henry as a horse trainer, but Fitz has other ideas.  Forced into marriage and worse, Jessie takes matters with Fitz into her own hands and becomes an outlaw once again. 

The choice of narrator for the story was the most compelling aspect for me.  From the perspective of Jessie's dead and buried child, Jessie's character is built in a magical light from the person who loves her the most.  The writing is in a beautiful prose that made for easy reading and there were many phrases that made me stop and think.
" That is how we differ, my mother and I: I do not know death as a river.  I know it as a magic hall of mirrors and within it there is a door and the door opens both ways."

While Jessie's story is captivating and her exploits could easily hold on their own, I actually wanted to know more about the buried child.  It's story in death begins, but we don't really hear any more about it.  A lot of interesting things were happening in the dirt!  The secondary characters of Jack Brown and Andrew Barlow add another layer of mystery that I really did not see coming in the end!  Overall, a unique and expertly written story of an Australian folk hero.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.