Seeking a fiction novel. Book was from elementary school library, may be start of series. Burning tree on the cover. Kid learning to use magic but can't cast spells, he isn't good at it. Turns out he is a spell creator/breaker.
I read a fiction series in 2006 while I was pregnant with my daughter. The author was male. It seems there were at least 9 books in the series…maybe as many as 15. I checked them out in hard cover from the public library in Boise Idaho.
I remember the series beginning in a land where Vampire masters harvest from herds of worker slave humans. Humans are basically chattel to the masters. The masters transform the bodies of live slaves into buildings. The stuff of body parts are re-purposed for architectural functions…..tall, complex buildings where slave lungs and hearts are pumping water and fresh air throughout the layers of the buildings.
The vampires called their homes “eyries” like eagle nests. Tall buildings.
The series moved forward being quite political as Vampire masters battled amongst themselves to destroy each other. Alliances, betrayals, etc…
As the story developed, it turns out that the vampire land is an alternate plane of Earth. Some characters from modern Earth cross over, get themselves into trouble, then return to Earth. Eventually, guns get introduced to the vampire kingdom. During the final (?) book, a battle is happening between a handful of characters and Nazi soldiers who are jumping back and forth across the dimensions. Absolutely crazy stuff…
I realize this isn’t a whole lot to go by. Thank you for any help you can provide. My brain has residue of the images of the breathing, living buildings. Amazingly creepy and awe inspiring.
When I was a teenager in the 80’s I read a book called “Elizabeth”. The book was about a teenage girl who either had magical powers or magic was somehow insinuated. The cover was black and I believe it had a broken mirror on the cover. In the story she had a red mark on her upper thigh that she received from a spider bite maybe but it was identical to another character in the book, like an aunt or something. She would remark in the book how older men were attracted to her and she enjoyed it. I have looked everywhere online for the book and even called my local library. I guarantee the book is not about Queen Elizabeth or Elizabeth Taylor because that is all that I find out there. Please help!!
Elementary School book read between 1962-1967. A Prince from a kingdom where everyone has the same color of hair, climbs a mountain to the enemy kingdom where everyone has the same, but different color hair from the Valley Kingdom people. He meets the Mountain Princess, and falls in love with her. Together they must overcome the prejudice against different looking people that is held by their two kingdoms. Fairytale style color illustrations with simple narrative. I think the Prince’s hair was brown and the Princess’ hair was silver.
Looking for a children’s book with a yellow cloth cover and a drawing of a red tree on the front. It had stories about djinns in it and a story about a tree with three different colored branches, and a story about a dress woven from spider webs and so fine it fit into a walnut shell, and a story about a prince who disguised himself with tripe on his head to pretend to be a beggar.
My friend thought the book was Arabian folktales. She saw this book when she was a child, about 20 years ago.
Thanks!!
A description of the book, with helpful details:
I’m sorry I can’t recall anything more than this, I’m going off an 11-year-old’s mind over a decade later.
Softcover book of color photographs with fairy-lore text. That is, images are actual unmanipulated photographs but the text relates these to fairies. I am confident it is a book of photographs as well as relating at least some of the photographs to fairies. Other recollections are softer.
There’s a book of fiction about a girl who lives in or near a castle- I seem to remember it won an award- I think I found it at a Scholastic book fair. This girl is somehow considered badly behaved- and she’s allowed to run wild. She is kidnapped by fairies who live in a huge underground warren (I think under a mountain) to be a servant. They’re drugged every night with the food that she discovers if she skips, she’s more alert but struggles with claustrophobia. Because of her refusal to eat the drugged food, she catches the interest of the Queen of fairies who teaches her, mostly through humiliation, how to walk and move gracefully. She’s eventually rescued and the fairies are forced into the other world, sealing their mountain.
I can’t find this book at all- My sister claims she never read it and I looked through the books at my parents house without finding it.