Eccentric Circles by Rebecca Lickiss
The fantasy book Eccentric Circles is one I can really recommend. The author – Rebecca Lickiss – is relatively new. I only know of one other book by her. It’s called Never After. They’re both fun, interesting and well written, but I think Eccentric Circles is a little better.
That might be because it’s about a girl who has a bit in common with me. Not the funny, but totally weird hippie family, but her situation in general. She’s a single girl, who is also an unpublished writer. Unfortunately, that’s where the likeness ends. Or maybe I shouldn’t saying unfortunately. All kinds of things happen to her that I wouldn’t want happening in my life.
At the beginning of the book, her great-grandmother (I think it’s the greatgreandmother, but when I reread the book, I got the impression it was her grandmother, but I think she’s three generations older, she was over a hundred years old). Piper (that’s the name of the main character) inherits her relative’s house, because she’s so good at books…
Her job will be to clean out the house and categorize all the books her older relative has collected. While doing that, her wacky family, who is driving her crazy – personally I don’t get why, they seem like a lot of fun – get her a job in a bookstore. Lucky girl!
While she’s getting the house in order, she finds out a few odd things about it. For one, there’s far more space behind the house than there should be, more specifically the world of Faerie. She also meets an incredibly gorgeous elf – who’s a bard or something – he calls himself a wordsmith. There’s also a genuine dwarf, who has his own cave where he mines jems and a grumpy old wizard, who lives in a tower, and several really irritating pixies who fly around playing tricks on people, sometimes quite nasty ones.
Soon Piper learns that her grandmother (or greatgrandmother) was murdered and she has to find out who did it. But the plot is a bit more complex than that. Besides the murder, it’s about how our literature affects and changes Faerie.
One example is that an elf used to be considered a little goblin, who could be found squatting on a toadstool. After Tolkien monumental work, the elves are now considered to be tall, beautiful and poetic.
This is quite a unique concept in fantasy literature.
In any case, Piper falls in love with Aelveron (the sexy elf) but isn’t sure if she can trust him. After a while, she uncovers clues that seem to indicate he seduced and murdered her greatgrandmother. To make things even more confusing, Piper also finds clues that point to other Faerie creatures. On top of that, the pixies keept terrorizing her and as always, her family irritates her enormously.
For instance, it seems that while I (and most readers, I assume) find it amusing, it drives her crazy that her family accepts Aelveron without any surprise. When Piper protests a family member points out that at least he has more reason than most to believe himself to be an elf – he looks like one. Piper’s younger brother hisses that she has to keep that hot guy far away from his girlfriend.
In the end, Piper solves the murder, saves Faerie and her own world and manages to exorcise her grandmother’s ghost. Not bad for an unemployed writer! And after all that, she still has access to Faerie through her own backyard, and her job in the bookstore.
Read the book, you’ll like it. It’s funny, exciting, interesting and romantic.
New story
Late last night, I finished an original story I’d been working on. Actually, I finished the translation so now it’s in both languages. It turned out well, I think, but then I guess I’m partial. LOL
When I began to write stories
I don’t even remember exactly how old I was, but it was pretty soon after learning to read – at the age of three. I had these little note pads, where I was constantly writing little stories, based on the kind of books I liked to read, or had read to me. They’re all gone now, and that’s just as well. From what little I remember, those stories were really simple.
After that, I kept writing, but I don’t think there’s anything left from the time before I was ten or so. I wrote essays in school, but that’s hardly the same thing. One of them made my teacher ask my mom to come in and talk to her. Apparently I’d written something about how school was like a prison…
Several years later, I wrote another story about how I felt about school. It was about a little ant who was kept prisoner by her enemies…
Did I have any role models? Some, at least. Not counting the writers I read as a child (some of which I still return to) I didn’t have that many role models, but I did have my parents.
Mom used to tell me really great stories. I wish she’d written them down. In the past couple of years, mom has begun to write really cool children’s stories – many of them are about respecting animals, as well as people.
My dad used to write when he was a kid, mainly stuff for his school paper, but also some poetry. He once won a contest on his school for that poetry. I’ve been told that he also wrote some adventure stories, probably about space travel. His older sister was called in to help him with illustrations. She was a very kind sister. Even if she’d been out until late the night before, she’d always help her little brother out.
