Postcard For Reader

Guest Post: Harmony (Harmony's Radiant Reads)

So every time I decide to guest post on someone’s blog, I think to myself: Write what you know. And this always leads me to guest-posting about High Fantasy and this one isn’t going to be any different!

HIGH FANTASY THAT YOU SHOULD BE READING:

1. The Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima
This one goes on the top of my list because it’s a series that’s still going on; the last book comes out October 2012 and THIS SERIES IS SO BOSS, GUYS. It has a strong, relatable heroine (which is saying something because it takes skill to have a sixteen year old to be able to relate to a princess on the run) and a cunning, charming wizard named Han and both their stories and how they end up intertwining and coming together.
It’s amazing because it’s two different story lines and even though Han and Raisa meet throughout the book at random points in time, they don’t officially met until around the middle-end of the second. Yet everything one does manages to offset something in the life of the other and the magic and the palace intrigue and the romance, oh, it’s just too much. I could write this whole blog post about my love for this series.

2. Eon and Eona by Alison Goodman
This is for the reader that doesn’t mind slow exposition and plot, so let me hit you up. Eon features a girl pretending to be a boy because she can communicate with the dragons of mythology even though girls aren’t supposed to be able to do that. Which is awesome.
Eon is the one that is slow and steady and you’ll be a little bit reluctant to press all your attention on it because it’s fat and slow BUT then you get to Eona and oh, tugging on my heartstrings.
For the romance lovers like me, there is no romance in Eon but I was able to keep pushing through because of all the dragon magic and Eona being an awesome character. But the second book definitely has romance. It actually has this sort-of, kind-of love triangle even though the other guy is totally twisted in an evil way but shares the same magic as well so you’ll have plenty of things to angst over.

3. Thief’s Covenant and False Covenant by Ari Marmell
I actually did a whole post about these books recently because so cool. They tell the story of a girl thief called Widdershins who lives in this city where every house believes in a different god and she has a dormant god basically living on her shoulder and everyone blames her for everything bad that happens. It’s epic.

4. Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken
I feel like a lot of people hear about this book but don’t recognize it as a High Fantasy because I sure didn’t when I picked it up. It’s called a girl called Sybille who goes on a reluctant journey with a wizard called North (who is like, my love) to go to the capital city for secret reasons. It’s a High Fantasy-lite, in which I mean it’s not exposition and world-building heavy like most hardcore High Fantasy, but it’s such an enjoyable and sweet book and I love it.

5. Incarnate by Jodi Meadows
Another book I feel people hear about but don’t realize it’s a high fantasy. But it is! It’s about a girl called Ana who lives in a world where everyone is reincarnated again and again – and she is a new soul, having never been reincarnated. The problem is that when she was born, she took the body of a girl who hadn’t recycled yet and that girl ended up dying so everyone shuns and is terrified of her. She runs away from home to go to the city of Heart to see why she came along and what she can do to be someone, and along the way, she meets Sam.

Such a lovely book, between the world-building and the character development and the relationship between Sam and Ana, you’ll be fist-pumping and swooning at the same time.

I have so many more (and for the people making the cry of outrage because I didn’t mention the Seven Kingdoms trilogy by Kristin Cashore – OH PLEASE. You obviously have never heard of me before because Graceling is my favorite book in the world, Fire is high up there, and Bitterblue left me crying and smiling and loving everything).

Nice talking to you guys,
happy reading!

Tada!

- Harmony