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Review: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Magge Stiefvater Review

I am really burning through The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater! I’ve already downloaded The Raven King and as soon as I finish listening to Nevernight by Jay Kristoff I’ll be getting stuck into the series finale.

If you haven’t read the first two books in the series, you can check out my no spoiler reviews here: The Raven Boys and The Dream Thieves.

TL;DR Gansey is still looking for Glendower, Adam is still proud, Ronan is still angry, and Blue is still independent. Maura is missing, the Grey Man is back and his boss, Greenmantle, is on the hunt for the Greywarren (now aware that it is a who and not a what).

At the end of The Dream Thieves, Maura left a note for Blue to say she was going looking for Artemus – Blue’s father, who disappeared while Maura was pregnant and hasn’t been seen since. Now Maura is missing too, underground in the caves beneath Cabeswater.

Persephone is still helping Adam to master his powers and strengthen the ley line. His bargain with Cabeswater is effecting him more and more, making him darker and moodier, although he has learnt how to interpret its attempts at communication, which are often terrifying manifestations and visions.

“For so long, he’d wanted Gansey to see him as an equal, but it was possible that all this time, the only person who needed to see that was Adam.”

Ronan is still trying to figure out a way to save his mother, and all the other dream things that fell to sleep when his father died. He’s getting closer, his mother is now living in Cabeswater, where she seems to function again. Unfortunately, his dreams are encroaching more and more on his daily life, forcing him to sleep in his car rather than endanger Gansey by dreaming up a hornets’ nest inside Monmouth.

“Ronan was angry-every one of his emotions that wasn’t happiness was anger.”

Ronan and Adam spend a lot more time together in this book, working together on secret plans and using their connections to Cabeswater to try and fix the problems that the gang are battling – namely Greenmantle and his obsession with the Greywarren.

“They regarded each other. Adam fair and cautious, Ronan dark and incendiary. This was Ronan at his most truthful.”

Blue and Gansey’s relationship develops really nicely in this book, they continue to grow closer despite the obvious barriers – the fact that Gansey will die within twelve months and Blue will kill her true love if she kisses him. So, small, surmountable obstacles then.

“Blue was perfectly aware that it was possible to have a friendship that wasn’t all-encompassing, that wasn’t blinding, deafening, maddening, quickening. It was just that now that she’d had this kind, she didn’t want the other.”

Colin Greenmantle and his wife, Piper, are absolutely brilliant villains – funny, snarky and completely immoral. Colin replaces the baddie from book one, Barrington Whelk, as the boys’ Latin teacher at Aglionby, which leads to some hilarious exchanges between Colin and Ronan in Latin. Piper is a fabulously self-serving, sharp-tongued, blonde bombshell with a seriously dysfunctional moral compass. Their relationship is just fascinating, I don’t think I’ve ever loved a couple of villains as much as the Greenmantles.

“She drifted towards the bedroom, on her way to have a bath or take a nap or start a war.”

The other star of this book is Jesse Dittley, a man who’s family farmhouse sits on top of a cave they suspect Glendower might be buried in. As it turns out, the caves are cursed and eventually kill every member of Dittley’s family, including his father and grandfather. He finds Blue’s short stature fascinating and seems to be permanently shouting.

“I AM JESSE DITTLEY. DID YOU NEVER EAT YOUR GREENS?”

We also get to know Malory, Gansey’s British friend, much more in this book. He travels over to Henrietta, accompanied by his emotional support dog, and helps the gang find the caves where the believe Glendower to be hidden.

“Malory, unhopeful: “I don’t suppose you have any tea?”

Jesse: “DO YOU WANT EARL GREY OR DARJEELING?”

Malory: “Oh, sweet heavens!””

I listened to Blue Lily, Lily Blue in two days (I was doing a lot of decorating and gardening due to us moving house next month) and I enjoyed it slightly more than The Dream Thieves. There are a couple of songs in this book, one being the moody and traditional Blue Lily, Lily Blue, the other being the catchy and annoying Murder Squash. I love the layers of art in these books, Maggie Stiefvater is a musician as well as a writer and always creates music for her books – one of the treats of listening to the audio books is not only hearing these songs aloud, but hearing Maggie playing her own music at the beginning and end of each book.

One of my favourite things about The Raven Cycle is the slow development of romantic relationships. The obvious one is Blue and Gansey, who aren’t able to be together because of the aforementioned curses, but also because they don’t want to hurt Adam, who liked Blue first. In this book we finally start to see some hint of romance between Ronan and Adam (that might be a spoiler if you know literally nothing about The Raven Cycle, but if you spend any time at all online – especially Tumblr – then you’ll already know, as I did, that they get together).

It’s been hinted at very subtly throughout the series that Ronan is gay – by subtly, I mean it’s not openly stated and he isn’t constantly eyeing up guys, it is suggested that he feels something stronger than friendship for Gansey in the beginning, but that feeling is obviously not reciprocated. It isn’t at any point (that I noticed) suggested that Adam is gay, or bisexual, until this book, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how their relationship develops in The Raven King.

I gave Blue Lily, Lily Blue 4.5 stars, because it was a more gripping read than The Dream Thieves and had less elements I wasn’t a fan of – if anything, the only thing I didn’t love was Malory, I’m not sure his presence really added anything to the story. The tension and suspense is still present in this book, and I am dying to seeing how it all pans out in the final book.

Have you read The Raven Cycle? Which of the four books was your favourite? I’ve seen online that a lot of readers weren’t happy with the finale so I’m slightly apprehensive, but I really need to see what happens to these characters now, I’m so invested!

Lyndsey

I am a member of the Book Depository affiliate program, so if you click through and buy any of the books mentioned in this blog I might make a little commission, but I am not paid to review books and all reviews are my own opinions!

Beautiful People – June edition

Welcome back to another edition of Beautiful People! This is a monthly meme hosted by the lovely Cait @ Paper Fury and Sky @ Further up and further in. Basically, the ladies come up with ten fabulous questions to help us delve into the hearts, minds and souls of our characters, and we answer them. Simple as that.

If you’ve been here before, you might know I recently finished my WIP The Fair Queen and sent it off to beta readers to get some feedback. I’m also planning to take part in Camp Nano next month, so I’ve been plotting and outlining a new novel idea loosely based on The Secret Garden. Today I’m going to treat you to your first glimpse of my new WIP! Exciting, no?

My new MC is called Marie – Em for short – and she’s 18 and, sadly, an orphan. At the moment I’m imagining her with waist length jet black hair and bright blue eyes. Shall we dive into the questions?

What’s their favourite place they’ve ever visited?

Em grew up in Aix-en-Provence in Southern France, her parents were British and met while working over there. Her father was a University lecturer and her mother was a ballerina. Every summer they would travel to Barcelona for a couple of weeks when school finished, and Em absolutely loved the city – the architecture, the food, the atmosphere.

What’s one mistake they made that they learned from?

When she was eight, her parents were killed in a car crash and she was flown back to England to live with her great uncle Archie. Since then, Em has been pretty much alone. She was home-schooled because Archie’s farmhouse was so remote and miles from any local schools. She didn’t have any real friends, spending most of her time reading in her room, posting on her Tumblr account, and hanging out with the farm animals. Basically, it wasn’t her fault, but she learned at a young age that the things you care about can be snatched away in a moment, so she stopped caring about people and things. She learns from that mistake over the course of the book!

What was their favourite subject in school? Or favourite thing to learn about?

Em loves to read, her favourite part of being home-schooled was choosing books to study for English Literature. She particularly enjoys classics like Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre – living in North Yorkshire it was pretty much like living in a Bronte novel.

What’s their favourite flower/growing thing?

Em’s favourite plant is lavender. There were great fields full of it in Provence, and it grows all over the North Yorkshire moors as well. The colour and pretty scent remind her of home.

Have they ever made someone cry? What happened?

She sometimes heard uncle Archie crying at night when she first came to live with him, but not because she had upset him.

Would you consider them a reliable or unreliable narrator?

Mainly reliable, but a bit of both. She has a very specific frame for how she sees the world, after everything she’s been through, and it’s not always accurate. She tends to see the negatives rather than the positives, and always assumes the worst. But she isn’t a liar, she would never deliberately deceive anyone.

What do they dream about at night?

She has frequent nightmares about the day her parents died, and wakes up in a cold sweat, expecting to get a call about something else bad happening, someone else she loves being taken from her. Like uncle Archie.

They’ve gone out for a “special meal.” What would they eat?

Moules frites, probably. Or some other kind of fish or shellfish. She doesn’t eat meat after living on the farm and spending time with the animals, the first time Archie killed a pig she’d become friends with she cried for a week and vowed never to eat meat.

What’s at least one thing they want to do before they die?

She would love to go back to France, but she’s terrified. She really wants to be brave and go back one day, see where they used to live and spend time in the city where her parents fell in love. After that, she’d like to travel and see the world.

Do they have any distinguishing or unique talents?

She has a way with animals, she can calm them, and almost communicate with them. She wanted to be a vet as a little girl, until she realised that would mean putting animals to sleep when they were too sick or injured to survive. She couldn’t bear that, so she never applied to veterinary college. She has her mother’s figure, a dancer’s figure, but she never learned how – she does have natural grace though, so maybe one day she’ll do something with that.

That was fun! I haven’t done character bios for my new novel yet, but I feel really inspired now, so I’ll have to get right on that!

What do you think to my new WIP and my MC, Em? Let me know in the comments, I can’t wait to see all your answers to this month’s questions!

Lyndsey

My writing progress

After almost a year of thinking, planning, plotting, outlining, drafting, editing, revising and a whole lot of procrastinating, I finally finished my first novel.

In case you were wondering, those pterodactyl screams are coming from me.

I wrote the first draft of The Fair Queen between September and January, I rewrote it between February and May, and I completed my final edits a few days ago and sent my MS out to a handful of beta readers to read and give me feedback.

Excuse me while I curl up in a ball of utter dread waiting for my beta readers to finish reading and tell me how terrible it is.

I’m exaggerating. I hope. One of my betas has been sending me regular messages about how much she loves it and hopes I’m already working on a sequel (I’m not, just in case editors and publishers alter it beyond recognition and the sequel in my mind doesn’t match anymore, but the ideas are there!).

For those of you who are new around here, I took part in my first ever NaNoWriMo in November last year. If you’re REALLY new around here, Nano is a month long writing camp where writers from all over the world get together online and sometimes in person (your local chapter will have meet-ups but you don’t have to go), and try to write 50k words in 30 days. I discovered it on Twitter at just the right time, by October I’d written about 15k words, so I worked on my outline, created a list of 30 scenes I needed to draft for my WIP, and joined in.

I managed a solid 35k words in November, which I am really proud of, it’s the most I’ve ever written and even though I didn’t “win” I felt so much satisfaction and motivation to finish my first draft, which I did in early January, with around 70k words total.

I took a couple of weeks off to refresh and recharge my mental batteries, before getting stuck into draft two in February. Then I discovered Camp Nano, a branch of NaNoWriMo that takes part in April and allows you to choose your own targets, but gives the same sense of community and support as the November version.

I set my target at 35k words for April, thinking I’d managed as much in Nov and this was just rewriting and editing. Well, do not underestimate the work it takes to turn a first draft into a neat and structured manuscript! I also had a week’s holiday in Turkey booked during April so I basically had to rewrite 35k words in 21 days. I managed about 32k words, which I was really pleased with, although I would have loved to win this time.

I spent May finishing my second draft, and completely rewriting the ending as I had realised it wouldn’t work the way I’d originally planned it. I was going to leave the book on a huge cliffhanger, with the intention of writing a sequel, but I found out that debut authors should always tie up their endings as they may not get a sequel if the first book isn’t a huge hit. So, the cliffhanger had to go, and I pretty much pantsed my way to an ending I’m happy with – one that ties up the story line of the book and brings the characters full circle, but still leaves a couple of questions and plot lines open for a follow up, without being too frustrating for readers (I hope!).

After I finished draft two I immediately started my third and final read through, formatting the MS and correcting any spelling mistakes I spotted, amending a few word choices, and probably delaying the next step to some extent. Then I sent it out to my beta readers. And that is where we currently are. Waiting for feedback. Watching the clock and biting my fingernails. I’ll let you know what they thought of it!

Almost as soon as my MS was winging its way to betas, I saw an email ping into my inbox about Camp Nano July. I really find NaNoWriMo to be the most motivating and inspiring experience, I wouldn’t be where I am today, with a completed MS and a real sense of achievement, if I hadn’t come across Nano. So of course I’m going to take part in July!

I decided, instead of hoping my betas all have their feedback in by then so I could do a final round of edits before querying agents, I’m going to start working on a new novel idea. It’ll help me to get some distance from The Fair Queen before that final round of editing, hopefully making me more objective to any faults and flaws in the book. And if TFQ doesn’t sell and get me my first book deal, I’ll need something else to work on and submit! So, as of July, I’ll be working on a sort of modern retelling of The Secret Garden in YA fantasy style.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to in my writing life, I’m feeling pretty proud of myself right now for finishing what I started, and I actually really enjoyed reading my novel back through to check for spelling errors etc. I really hope my beta readers enjoy it too, but more than that I hope they give me honest feedback about the plot and characters and pacing and whatever else they have thoughts and feelings on. I definitely need a fresh pair of eyes to tell me what’s working and what isn’t, so I can make this MS the best it can possibly be before submitting it to agents.

What have you been working on lately? Will you be taking part in Camp Nano next month? Tell me all about your current WIPs and story ideas in the comments.

Lyndsey