📖It’s one of the wisest stories for young minds that never cease to surprise me. This book stole my heart many years ago, turning me into a reader. It significantly contributed to my childhood, fostering my love for reading and gnomes. Now, my son wants to read it on his own, and my daughter smiles when she sees me opening the first page of these incredible adventures.
Cat Josef also enjoyed reading it with us 🌟📖🐈⬛
🪿The Plot: We follow a little boy named Nils Holgeson. He was a sweet little boy, but still, he was nasty a bit. He played tricks on farm animals and misbehaved sometimes. One day, he played a trick on a gnome. The fairy creature decided to give a lesson to a naughty boy. The gnome used one of his spells and turned Nils to the size of a thumb. Together with a farmer gander named Martin, who appeared Nil’s single friend and agreed to help him, they started their adventurous journey across Sweden. Whether Nils learns the lesson and the gnome’s spell dissolves? Will Nils and gander Martin come back home?
🦆The Writing Style: The translation by Joan Tate remains my favorite, as do the illustrations by Lars Klinting. This fairytale is action-packed, twisty, and wise. It is full of hilarious moments and heart-breaking scenes. Packed with numerous life lessons, morals, and thoughts, it will stay with a reader long after finishing the book. Moreover, readers get the chance to have a brilliant virtual guide around Sweden on the wings of a kind and friendly gander, Martin.
🪿The Characters: There are many characters in this glorious book. But how adorable they are! Selma Lagerlöf portrayed them all so masterfully and solidly. Each of them possesses features and traits that will stick in the memory and evoke feelings and emotions in the reader’s soul. All these participants in the book are multilayered, deep, and memorable.
☀️The Fave Quote: Truth be told, this book was, is, and will be one big wise quote for me. I just can’t define the one.
⭐️My humble rating is: 5.5/5
I gave my highest humble rating to this book just because it still takes the lead and remains one of my favorite books ever. Moreover, this book managed to make my son an avid reader and my daughter – an avid listener. “The Wonderful Adventures of Nils” by Selma Lagerlog contributed to my kids’ childhood and their personalities hugely, as it did to mine. And it feels priceless.
I hope this book will leave as significant and touching a trace in your heart as it did in mine and my kids.
Thank you for dropping by and reading this review!
“People scold intuition, because it is silent when it is needed; people endlessly blame themselves for having silenced intuition when it spoke too loudly”
“The Everlasting Dance”, Ellen Khodakivska
🤓My intuition is one of my best inner radars. I regretted so much at those rare moments when I skipped it off and didn’t listen.
If you want to plunge into the excellent, dangerous, unpredictable world of werewolves and vampires, I would definitely recommend you to read “Scottish Alliance” serial by gorgeous storyteller Jennifer Shepard!
Here is my review on Book 1; in case you’re interested, the review on the Book 2 is on GoodReads. I do hope you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I did!
BOOK REVIEW / “Scottish Alliance”/ Jennifer Shepard
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 30
Language: English
Release date: 2020
Reading this book was like sitting near a bonfire with a couple of vampires and werewolves. Your role is a sort of parliamentary. But one wrong word can cost you life.
The Plot: This is my first book by this author, and I’m so happy I bought two at once. It is written as a serial, so having finished reading the first one in one sitting, I definitely got hooked and wanted to read what would happen next to stunning, brave, and fearless Lara McLeish. She is a fighter who works for the New Bloods – werewolf clan in New York. The clan’s boss charges Lara to go to Scotland to sign an alliance of two clans that is supposed to help them in a big upcoming fight with vampires. Meanwhile, being an envoy to an unfamiliar place brings many dangerous surprises and reveals the things Lara doesn’t expect at all.
The Writing Style: I can describe the writing style of this author in one word – BRILLIANT! Still, I have to be more specific to make you interested in. Well, it’s written masterfully at a galloping pace with a lot of intense episodes and sarcastic humor. I’ve not read two stories in one sitting recently. But this once was so addictive and intriguing that having put down the first one, I opened the second one immediately.
The Characters: The number of lead and minor characters isn’t numerous. All of them were depicted so detailed and perfectly in all the senses that I felt myself in a skin of a werewolf that can’t wait for night to turn into a wolf and to hunt in the woods, and, like a starving vampire that feels lust for the blood.
Would I read other books by this author: Absolutely yes!
⚓️Reading this book was as if I was invited to a feast under the sea. Suddenly, a vigorous dispute breaks out among the sea residents. Their emotions go high, and a disagreement turns into a fight. The only way to escape is to catch an anchor of the merchant vessel that passes by. But there a controversial surprise waits for me there.
🚢The Plot: In this splendid YA fantasy novel, a reader follows 16 y.o. Shaylin. She is fearless and smart, kind, and helpful. She lives on board of merchant vessel run by Captain Trell since her early childhood and considers the crew to be her family. She enjoys her work onboard, despite the fact it is pretty dangerous for such a young girl. Meanwhile, she involuntarily gets involved in something riskier when the Headmaster from Torr University of Magic starts seeking Talented people who are supposed to help in the upcoming war.
⚓️The Writing Style: This is my first book by this author, and I can say without any hesitation that I enjoy his writing style to the fullest. The world-building is done perfectly. There are many intense twists, heartbreaking moments, and details that made me feel like to be on board of the vessel with all the crew. The most fave element in this novel is the existence of magic that can be a gift and curse simultaneously. Probably, this topic is so close and familiar for me, but I did like how the author infiltrated this idea into the novel.
🚢The Characters: The number of lead and sub-characters is super numerous. But at the same time, all of them are logically and strongly connected with each other. All of them are depicted well enough to stay emotionally connected to heroes and villains.
💛Reading this book was like riding a golden horse through a marsh full of deadly bugs. The only way to reach the safe land and stay alive is to ride as fast as you can.
💛The Plot: The glorious western novel tells us a story about a local rancher named Jimmy Burkman, whose father searched for gold in 1842 before the California Gold Rush. The ‘gold search stuff’ gnaws at some outlaws, who desperately want their share of the treasure, having not even imagined that search for gold appears to be deeper and trickier than it might seem at first sight. Many years later, Jimmy Burkman, in an interview, unveils the truth about his father and all the secrets of his own adventures that were full of danger, life risks, and legendary ‘blaze of glory’ that actually urged the main characters to break into a journey that will leave a long trace in many lives afterward.
💛The Writing Style: It’s my second book by this author. And I enjoyed reading it. The writing style in this one differs considerably from the first one I read, but only in a positive way. The writer managed to prove that he is a brilliant multi-genre author. He can grab a reader’s attention from the first chapters both in psychological thrillers full of science fiction elements and in an amazingly dynamic western full of dangerous twists that immediately cause goosebumps. I enjoyed how the book was structured: at the beginning of some episodes, I inhale, I held my breath while tension grew, and I exhaled when episodes came to a pre-end point.
💛The Characters: The number of lead and minor characters is numerous. But as I’ve already mentioned, the whole novel is structured perfectly, and every character appears in the book at the right time and place. I stayed emotionally connected to the main ones and worried about them automatically. One more thing that I adored about this fantastic western is that how the author succeeded in showing a human’s attitude towards horses – touching and thrilling.
🌻Reading this book was like walking along a field of sunflowers that turning their ‘heads’ to the sun and show you a way to meet the Spring.
🌻ThePlot: The collection of beautiful poems and touching lyrics consists of 9 sections that reflect numerous aspects of life. Childhood sweet memories, loss, love, loneliness, hope, achieving success, little life joys, and many other feelings gather together in one marvelous book “One Warm Spring”, waiting to be shared with the world.
🌻TheWritingStyle: I read novels by this writer and loved them; that’s why I didn’t hesitate a second to read his collection of poems and lyrics. The light-hearted, touching, thrilling, vivid poems and lyrics are beautifully written in an unhurried and enjoyable way.
🐶Once upon a time I was running with my doggie in a park. Accidentally, I met an elderly man, who managed to turn my writing career upside down. I’m not talkative person, but I’m a good listener. That was the key point then. As the man told me this meeting was fateful for both of us. For me – it was a turning point in writing path. For him – it was a crucial moment before crossing the line.
It doesn’t matter how my writing career will go on, but I’ll be grateful forever to Marcus Castillo (that’s his character’s name in the book) for numerous life lessons. One of them – try to peer out of your comfort zone even for a while. You’ll be surprised how many miracles wait for you out there.
If I hadn’t listened to his story I would have never known how formidable and enlightening “The Everlasting Dance” of his life had been.
👻 If you ask me what’s one of my favorite parts in each of my books, I would probably give you the following answer:
“The Everlasting Dance”:
“The Green Dog” cafe in Leipzig, where the main characters fated to meet each other.
Marcus Castillo (that’s his character’s name in the book) told me so thrillingly about this place that I still have a feeling that I was there with them that night.
Gnomes and gnome hunting. Matilda Pietraszek (that’s her name in the book) showed and told me about these fairy creatures so passionately that I fell in love with them at first sight.
Dominic Donelli (that’s his character’s name in the book) managed to convince me otherwise. One of his stories related to these beautiful feathered friends dispelled this myth and made me believe that these creatures’ eye can be full of tiny tears.
✍🏼All of my books are based on the true stories. I do hope that if you happen to be in Leipzig, you’ll look around trying to find “The Green Dog” cafe; if you happen to be in Wrocław , you won’t miss a chance to take part in gnomes hunting; if you happen to be in Campobasso, you’ll definitely visit the post office that has a reach feathered mystic story.
Ellen Khodakivska 