The Book of Blood and Shadow

I can't believe no one else has reviewed this amazing book yet. This is the book to read if , like me, you were searching for a book to fill the gap left after finishing such offerings as Rosemary Clement Moore's "splendor falls", for example. This urban fantasy at its best with a heroine who is gritty, intelligent, witty and above all real. It is so nice for a change that the protagonist hasn't swung to either a) the pretty-and-clueless-about-her-own-attractiveness-because-we-have-to-appreciate-over-humility "ordinary" girl who discovers her extrodinary destiny/ hitherto unknown secret power /magical artifact, but needs a lot of rescuing by brooding, gorgeous, probably supernatural "teenage" boys while she comes to terms with her new fate. Or B) over fiesty, unbeatable physically, scorn-the-need-for-a-man yet nevertheless look like runway models over anxsty types. I read literally hundreds of books a year and am thouroughly bored with both extremes so a novel that values intelligence and competence in a heroine without over egging the omelette and making her a "genius" is very welcome.Ok synopsis, without spoilers, - Nora's brother was killed in a car accident when she was 11. Almost 6 years later she's made the best of the changed atmosphere at home and tried to get herself away from the damage his death left behind. She's also encased herself in ice without really knowing she's even done it - no whingey always crying girl here. Instead of going off the rails she zooms along them further, her intelligence and thirst for knowledge giving her an edge and getting her into an exclusive Prep school where she makes friends with Chris, the good looking and unobtainable popular guy, and Adriane, half japanese, graceful, beautiful fiercely intelligent and just as fiercely insistant on being known as a slacker in public. She now has two best friends after being alone for so long. In her senior year, Chris, who is a freshman at college, gets her a place translating latin for Professor Hoffman to earn extra credits for school. Together with Chris's room mate, the complicated and intense Max, they set about a difficult assignment translating "the Book", which has thwarted deciphering by the best linguists and cryptogrophers of the day. Nora is initially annoyed that Professor "ageist, sexist" Hoffman gives her a pile of apparently unimportant letters to translate instead of including her on the main progect. She soon changes her mind as she is gradually drawn into the world and life of Elizabeth Weston 15th centuary noble woman and step daughter of a notorious natural philosopher who worked with Dr John Dee. In Elizabeth's letters she finds something of herself that has been missing even before she stumbles on the key that could crack The Book. One rash act born of kinship she feels for a long dead girl sets a chain of terrifying events in motion. She is due to meet Chris and Adriane on a double date with Max. Arriving 20mins late she finds Chris dead of six stab wounds, Adriane catatonic and Max ....gone. Nora is all alone again and somehow she must find a way to prove that Max didn't murder Chris, to get through to Adriane sat in her cell in the mental institute and above all to find the mysterious contraption "Lumen Dei" before the shadowy and murderous "HledaCi" (searchers) do. It could be the key to the secrets of the universe and will take all the code breaking skill she has, but both finding it and not finding it could mean the death of everyone who's left that she loves.I can't really do justice to this book without giving away some major spoilers. Nora is a great character, strong, self reliant and brilliant. No one - especially her friends and boyfriend are cardboard cut out walk on part characters. The mystery is engrossing with enough "clever" stuff thrown for those of us who don't like everything spelled out in monosyllables. The twists and turns will keep you guessing till the end, while Wasserman's prose, both lyrical and grittily down to earth, will keep you turning pages till you run out of book. I wouldn't say this was specifically a YA book. I think this is very accessible to all fantasy / mystery lovers - if you liked Dan Brown's Da Vinci code chances are you'll like this, though in my opinion this is a better story and better written. I can honestly say I've never been so glad that I bought a book based entirely on a hunch that I'd like it. Will definitely reread - high praise for me!Basically if you love language for its own sake, if you like books that make you work a bit before they yield up their secrets, if you enjoy character interactions that have the same realism (despite fantasy settings) as Laini Taylor, Holly Black, Kim Wilkins or Rosemary Clement Moore - then this is the book for you. Trust me you'll love it. I can't wait to see what this author writes next.

Maybe I wasn't in the mood for this book, I had high hopes for this, expecting to be blown away with the way the premises sounded. But honestly I felt disappointed.It follows our main character Nora, who discovers her best friend -Chris murder in cold blood and her boyfriend gone missing. He was also blamed for the death of her friend. In which she does not believe and would do anything to proof his innocent. Now our main character is a genius, she is very good at translating Latin. So when she’s given a centuries old manuscripts, it open her eyes to whole new world and discovery. Full of dark secrets and mystery, that linked to the murder of her best friend.Like I said the premises sound interesting, however, we only got into the story, i.e. finding the death of Chris around 100 pages in to the book. Which felt really long for me. Also the uses of the Latin translation and the codes, really confused me at times, only later on when the text is been rephrased that I kind of understood. The story felt really flat and majority of the time the mystery or the way the plot was going was predictable. I don’t think I felt really surprised if a certain plot line has been revealed. Which is saying something, because I don’t read many mystery book, and if I do I tend to predict wrong.The characters felt really blunt and unrealistic. They did not exactly annoy me. But at the same time I did not feel any connection to any of them. One major problem I had was the fact that many scholars and professional were desperate to try and find the ‘Luman Dei’ that they were looking for in the hundred years old Manuscripts but failed. However, was easily discovered by a high school girl in just short amount of time!The pace of this book majority of the time was quite slow, the writing style is ok. But overall I did not like this book, which is a shame…