Miist by Kamilla Reid and A Keeper’s Tale by JA Andrews

Miist: Even though Root, a bright young vagrant girl can use her magical tracking ability to find anything, the last thing she wants to find is the sinister Guardian's Miist. But when he holds a noose rope at her back and shoves a bunch of rag tag rivals in her face, she soon realizes she better find that Miist or most indubitably lose everything else. Including her life! A Keeper's Tale: Tomkin Thornhewn, youngest son of the Duke of Marshwell, has a problem: he's not heroic. Regardless of his aspirations, the bookish, untrained young man is better suited to recording the deeds of heroes than being one himself. Which becomes an obvious problem when he finds himself clinging to a ledge above a sleeping dragon. And instead of wielding his family's great sword with valor and skill, he drops it-onto the dragon.
It took me a long time to even open them up and try them, because I couldn't tell what they were like from their covers. The problem grows immeasurably worse when Tomkin himself falls off the ledge-also onto the dragon. And his problem reaches its peak when Tomkin, after being captured, discovers a maiden locked in a tower. But this is no sweet damsel. Not only does she refuse to be rescued, she refuses to even admit she's in distress. It's too bad for the people of Marshwell that Tomkin is the only thing standing - or falling - in the dragon's way. Ha! As you well know, we do that all the time (with books, not people. Of course.) I was afraid that Miist and A Keeper's Tale might be too high fantasy for me, especially since Miist has two i's in it. That's a clear sign (usually) of highbrow fantasy peoples, don't you know. But once I cracked those virtual pages, I was surprised and delighted with how much I liked these two very different tales.

We often get books offered to us in our email. Sometimes they are great, but sometimes they are so very much NOT great. We've learned to be wary of these offerings, but we still look at every one because occasionally we will get books like Miist and A Keeper's Tale. Great YA novels we totally would have missed out on ever knowing about if they hadn't randomly shown up in our inbox.

Miist does have a quest in it, like many fantasy stories, but the world Kamilla Reid builds and the types of magic are new and interesting. Root's back story is so filled with hardships, yet she is so likeable. I immediately wanted to "root" for Root. There are some darker characters and difficult situations that make Miist not as fluffy as some YA fantasy novels but how Root deals with each challenge with great scrappy feisty-ness makes her all the more endearing. There are four books in the Bone Grit Historeum series, and all are available on Kindle Unlimited right now. I really enjoyed book one and am ready to dive into the unique and gritty magicality of Root's world again.

You're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, you know.

Well now that you've said everything there is to say about the storyline, I will endeavor to extract some nugget of thought out of my brain to add to this review. The most enjoyable thing about A Keeper's Tale is the clever dialogue. I loved it for all the reasons Bubby long-windedly stated above. For this reason, I will entreat J.A. Andrews to write MORE! After I read this book and fell completely in love with the anti-hero Tomkin, I wished with all my heart that someone who could write so well would write like six books a year. Is that possible? Unfortunately, there's only one more right now - A Threat of Shadows, which is the first book in the Keeper Chronicles series. A Keeper's Tale is a standalone story in the same universe. No matter, it is a keeper (ha ha). Read it! It is also available on Kindle Unlimited right now.

I think that you need to stop judging the creative spelling of us "highbrow fantasy people". Maybe I'll change the spelling of my name to "Byubbyy" to lend a more fantastical air to my moniker. Just because you can't hang with the erudite ones, don't be a hater! Back to the books now. I loved the originality of both these stories. There is a tried and true (and often boring) recipe for a fantasy novel. Neither of these books followed it. Miist is designed for a slightly younger audience, as its protagonist Root is only 11 or 12, but it is great for readers of any age. The characters are so intriguing and I felt strongly about them immediately. If I could have reached through the pages and strangled a few of them, especially The Guardian and Root's "foster mothers", I would have. But her friends, old and new, are amazing.

Our other email surprise book is A Keeper's Tale by J.A. Andrews. I was expecting another younger protagonist, questing adventure sort of book, complete with dragon when I first saw A Keeper's Tale. Boy was I wrong. Our hero is a young man who is perfectly happy to stay at the castle and take care of the books and the realm's complaints while his dashing knight of an elder brother and his father the king are off saving the world. Unfortunately, adventure comes to him in a fairly unavoidable manner. This book is full of sharp-witted repartee between Tomkin, the maiden and even the dragon. There is mayhem and disaster galore, much of it brought about by Tomkin himself. Oh, and the ending? So good. Just perfectly satisfying.

Click HERE to buy Miist by Kamilla Reid