American Gods by Neil Gaiman

When immigrants traveled to the new world, they brought with them the foods, traditions, and beliefs of their homelands. Unfortunately, America as a land is not kind to gods and goddesses.

In this sweeping saga, a newly released felon gets hired to act as driver and bodyguard for a mysterious older businessman. Things are odd from the start, and pretty quickly Shadow discovers that gods live among us - but many are worn down at the heels by a lack of belief and waning worship.

It's basically a roadtrip book, although there are periods of inaction, along with side trips into another realm. Shadow's a guy with a heart of gold and a huge capacity to believe the unlikely.

The more old-world gods and goddess stories you know, the more this book will entertain. That said, Gaiman connects legends of Egypt, Romania, Norse, Native American and more - you'll inevitably want to step away to look up a new character's backstory.

I love everything Gaiman produces, and this is no exception. Exceptionally good!

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

Charles Nancy has built a good (but boring) life for himself: accounting job, a beautiful fiance, and a quiet, uneventful London existence almost completely free from embarrassment. That is, until his long-estranged father in Florida dies and Charlie discovers the fun, fantastic, and completely unabashed brother he never knew. Charlie's life quickly becomes anything BUT boring.

It's a wonderful Neil Gaiman story of ancient gods and timeless grudges, acted out on several planes of existence. It turns out Charlie's dad was actually the trickster god Anansi, and this long-lost brother has inherited Dad's old embarrassing, supernatural tendencies.

I picked up this audiobook because I read an article with another author, Joe Hill, about his favorite audiobooks - he says this is the best he's ever heard. That's a recommendation I couldn't pass up - turns out, I wholeheartedly agree! Narrator Lenny Henry does a truly stellar job with accents, inflections, and characterizations that range from a 104-year-old woman, to an animated clay spider, to island men and women, to London executives, to ancient animal gods and goddesses, and much, much more.

Ask Me by Kimberly Pauley

When a high school girl goes missing and then turns up dead, there are bound to be questions - but not everybody wants to hear the truth, and certainly not the whole, gory, unvarnished truth. With a mystical truth-teller in their presence though, the town might get a lot more than they bargained for when pondering what happened to Jade Price.

Aria is trying to keep quiet the fact she's an oracle - a descendant of the mythological prognosticators - who is compelled to truthfully answer every question overheard in her presence. She cannot stop the words when even inadvertent questions are asked, but they're not always clear-cut answers (sometimes its a riddle, a poem, or some obscured truth).

Aria tempers the truth by using her headphones to drown out the questions and by mumbling in public. But neither of those solutions are making high school easy for the 17 year old as questions fly fast and furious. When both of Jade's "boyfriends" start paying attention to Aria, the killer will have to be revealed eventually, right? But again, the truth isn't always crystal clear.

They mystery element is well done, and I changed my mind several times as I tried to predict where the story was going. This was a fun book, and it also made me spend some time thinking about how awful life would be if you couldn't lie or even control your own mouth. (yes - I see you laughing. shut up)

The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde

In a near-distant future, magic exists. While it's been relegated to performing boring tasks like delivering pizza and rewiring houses without tearing up the walls, it does exist and is in use - and teen orphan Jennifer Strange is the girl who schedules the work and fills out the forms to make it legal.

But it seems there are bigger jobs for Jennifer to perform - this coming Sunday at noon, for example, she's supposed to kill the last dragon in existence. Not that she WANTS to, or even necessarily WILL ...  but Big Magic is afoot, and abundant soothsayers agree the visions include both Jennifer and dragon death.

The comedy is decidedly British (like Fforde's other books, and in the vein of Douglas Adams or Monty Python), and the setting is the Ununited Kingdoms. It's fairly obvious Fforde plans to make this a series - there are a lot of characters introduced here that could have a rich life down the line in another tale. And while there's a satisfactory ending to the tale, the climax of this story is almost an after-thought in the larger scheme of establishing mythology for another story.

While the main character is 16 years old (in two weeks), this story would easily be of interest to younger readers or adult readers too. Jennifer is a teen slightly wise for her years - but not dissimilar from anther magical orphan embraced by young and old alike (*cough*Harry*cough*).

The Wise Fool by Shahrukh Husain & Micha Archer

While most of the fairy tales and morality stories in America are based on European folk tales, the rest of the world also is rich with these type of stories. This bright, vivid book tells a series of Mulla stories, as have been handed down all across the Middle East.

The stories all center on Mulla Nasruddin, a man of great wisdom and humor. In the stories he uses his brain to maneuver sticky social situations. It's a kind of manners or ethics lesson told through brief encounters, a trickster tale like Br'er Rabbit or Loki or even Bugs Bunny.

The artwork in this book is astounding, a colorful papercraft that truly brings the Islamic world to life on the pages. Each story is less than 2 pages long, which leaves plenty of room for large, bright illustrations.

Demon Song by Cat Adams

In this third installment of the Blood Singer series, bodyguard Celia Graves must help save the world by figuring out how to close a rift between the demon dimension and ours.

Along the way she'll learn more about her siren ancestry, perhaps figure out some of the mystery of her friend's strange last-will-and-testament, and fall in love/out of love/into lust with a bevy of hunky dudes.

Entertaining escapism, but you have to read the series to enjoy each book - they're not really stand-alone books. And this one ends with Celia getting dragged away for another task. Guess we'll find out soon enough ...