Here are 76 books that The Cry of the Icemark fans have personally recommended if you like
The Cry of the Icemark.
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Have you ever felt this deep, internal calling, one you can’t escape from, that even as time goes by, it remains there, whispering in your inner mind, telling you, driving you, to create things that aren’t real? To make them into words that then form adventures? For as long as I can remember I have felt this, and feel it is what I was meant to do. I love, and try to incorporate in my own stories, elements that involve magic, uncommon or new creatures, extensive worlds, flawed characters, a pinch of love, and everything else (including, possibly, a kitchen sink) that can be found in a made-up universe.
This book brought adventure, magic, and a touch of romance, and I cannot wait for the second book to come out!
When the main character returned home after her first job as a messenger in the land of Ilbeor, she found her whole family had caught a deadly disease with no cure, and all she had left of them was a scarf that doesn’t burn in fire. The story of her adventure to find the truth kept me on my toes until the last page.
I cannot recommend this book enough if you are looking for a female lead that doesn’t back down when the harshest of obstacles have been thrown her way, some even from an evil sorcerer plotting from the shadows.
Messengers connect six races of the verdant and beautiful land of Ilbeor, and newly trained messenger Alanda feels the promise of her adult life as she steps into the world to find her fortune. Faithful dog Alis at her side, Alanda traverses the mountainous wilderness only to be punished by storm and sun before becoming the first elf-friend in generations. When she meets charming messenger Tostig and feels the spark of a connection unlike any she’s ever known, she believes her life has truly begun.
After being greeted by tragedy and a brother changed by primal magics she does not…
One of the questions that I’m constantly asked by other authors is how do you make characters memorable in a genre that has done it all? My criteria are twofold–the characters need to be flawed and relatable; no one can truly relate to Superman. Secondly, I believe there is strength in a group. When I write with a diverse group of characters with their own personalities, the characters tell the story for me. I find that if I can emphasize and start having fun like I’m part of the group, I become enthralled with the novel. I am passionate about characters and letting them breathe and feel real.
This is the first book in a series that I don’t think is talked about enough. There are several characters from different points of view, but the ones that stand out most are Lukien and Baron Glass. I love a redeemed villain in any media, and Baron Glass fits that mold.
Originally depicted as the villain in a warring kingdoms opening story, I loved the way that the “villain” becomes portrayed as a kindly mentor that despite age and injury can still fight. Lukien and Glass serve as perfect foils for each other, and the author uses plenty of symbolism to support that. Put together with the whole cast; you have a perfect rag-tag cast of main and supporting characters that breathe on their own with flaws and relatable goals.
A young king breaks with the past and makes peace with the kingdom his father has fought for years. To seal the bargain he is offered the hand of the kingdom's princess. And so begins a fast moving epic of madness, obsession, prejudice and sheer magic. John Marco has woven an intricate tale of personalities driven by love, hatred and ambition. Each character must, in the end, pay the price for their actions and THE EYES OF GOD is, at its core, an almost classical tragedy. Rich in its evocation of magical lands, detailed in its dissection of motive, compelling…
Have you ever felt this deep, internal calling, one you can’t escape from, that even as time goes by, it remains there, whispering in your inner mind, telling you, driving you, to create things that aren’t real? To make them into words that then form adventures? For as long as I can remember I have felt this, and feel it is what I was meant to do. I love, and try to incorporate in my own stories, elements that involve magic, uncommon or new creatures, extensive worlds, flawed characters, a pinch of love, and everything else (including, possibly, a kitchen sink) that can be found in a made-up universe.
Nothing beats a good ol’ hero saving the princess story at the end of the day. It might be cliche and old, but I still love it when two characters fall in love, destined to be together, and the male character rises to hero status, having to do everything he can to rescue the princess.
That was just one of the things that I really loved about this book, another being the evil and sadistic prince the princess, Haleine, must marry and later try and escape from. There’s always that secret pleasure of the dark, evil antagonist that, when written right, just makes the story perfect. And that’s what I found in Effigy.
The survival of a once-mighty kingdom rests in the hands of its young queen, Haleine Coileáin, as it slowly succumbs to an ancient evil fueled by her husband’s cruelty. A sadistic man with a talent for torture and a taste for murder, he is determined to burn the land and all souls within. Haleine is determined to save her kingdom and, after a chance encounter, joins forces with the leader of the people’s rebellion. She gives him her support, soon followed by her heart. Loving him is inadvertent but becomes as natural and necessary as breathing. She lies and steals…
Have you ever felt this deep, internal calling, one you can’t escape from, that even as time goes by, it remains there, whispering in your inner mind, telling you, driving you, to create things that aren’t real? To make them into words that then form adventures? For as long as I can remember I have felt this, and feel it is what I was meant to do. I love, and try to incorporate in my own stories, elements that involve magic, uncommon or new creatures, extensive worlds, flawed characters, a pinch of love, and everything else (including, possibly, a kitchen sink) that can be found in a made-up universe.
I enjoyed this book so much, I have read it three times. I first came across The Singer’s Crown when I was much younger than I am now, but I have since then read it multiple times because the love of the main character, Prince Kattanan, was so innocent, and I just couldn’t help but fall in love with him as he held secret feelings for Princess Melisande.
The story blends betrayal, a cast-out prince, magic, and secret feelings like a perfect blend of creamy chocolate and magical peanut butter. It is one of my favorites, and it keeps pulling me back to reread the story over and over; I highly recommend it.
Prince Kattanan duRhys was in direct line to the throne—until his royal family was cruelly slaughtered by a usurping uncle who spared the life of his "favorite nephew" but left the boy mutilated and incapable of claiming his birthright.Nearly a decade on, Kattanan is a harmless wanderer—a coveted prize—serving many different masters. But now the singer's simple life is threatened by chaos and dark wizardry, by his impossible secret love for the betrothed Princess Melisande . . . and by an obligation of the blood that forces Kattanan to pursue vengeance and a crown he's not certain he wants.
I am a creature of habitat. I can’t help but connect with my environment in every possible way. It’s physical, emotional. I spent the first 23 years of my life in Mexico City. Leaving was heart-wrenching, but the promise to fulfill a dream drew me to Los Angeles. During the next four decades I became a student of Los Angeles and the Latino community that populates it. I agree with Randy Newman: I love L.A.
Kate Braverman lived in Los Angeles for years and set many of her stories in this city, like Frantic Transmissions To And From Los Angeles or Palm Latitudes.In Lithium for Medea, Braverman tells the sad and dark story of Rose and her dysfunctional family, a love-hate relationship with her mother, her dying father, and drugs, lots of them. It is a disturbing, cruel, and irreverently poetic story. I survived her writing workshop in the early nineties. A harsh and not very sympathetic teacher, Kate taught me the weight of words and I thank her for that. My copies of her books are yellow from the excessive use of my highlighter. If you enjoy reading poetic prose, Kate Braverman is the master to go to.
Lithium for Medea is as much a tale of addiction—to sex, drugs, and dysfunctional family chains—as it is one of mothers and daughters, their mutual rebellion and unconscious mimicry. Here is the story according to Rose—the daughter of a narcissistic, emotionally crippled mother and a father who shadowboxes with death in hospital corridors—as she slips deeply and dangerously into the lair of a cocaine-fed artist in the bohemian squalor of Venice. Lithium for Medea sears us with Rose’s breathless, fierce, visceral flight—like a drug that leaves one’s perceptions forever altered.
I am a journalist with a background in performing arts and have spent much of my work life as a storyteller, fascinated by the process of knocking a narrative into shape, either for print or stage performance. My mother’s death prompted me to use those same skills to tell my own stories and the process has been the most satisfying of my professional life. As a memoirist of two books, my dreams have come true. My work has been shortlisted for awards, featured in national newspapers, special interest magazines, and by the BBC. I regularly speak to family history societies, book clubs, writer’s groups, and at literature festivals.
In the aftermath of a parent’s death, sifting through their possessions is a necessary but painful rite of passage. It can feel overwhelming and confrontational, especially if the relationship was difficult, as is the case here.
I loved how the author highlights specific objects from the detritus of her mother’s hoarding to piece together the hurts and distress of a woman she hardly knew. A complex mother and daughter story that comments authoritatively on the psychology behind hoarding and raises important questions about our material world and what our possessions reveal about our interior life.
I have written about some of these things in my own book and found this memoir at roughly the same period in my life. It stayed with me a long time after the final page.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shortlisted for the James Tait Black biography prize 2019
'This extraordinary, beautiful memoir gripped me from the first page.' Clover Stroud, author of The Wild Other
What do our possessions say about us? Why do we project such meaning onto them?
Only after her mother's death does Susannah Walker discover how much of a hoarder she had become. Over the following months, she has to sort through a dilapidated house filled to the brim with rubbish and treasures, in search of a woman she'd never really known or understood in life. This is her last chance to piece together…
I’ve been a history nerd all my life. Historical fiction chap books were my entrance to reading, and my copy of Little Womenfell apart from excessive re-reads. (It also taught me the word “abridged.” I was very upset to find out I hadn’t been given the full book!) I love how novels can pull you into a time on such a personal level. That immersion is part of what made me so interested in books set in lesser-known eras. I mean, I love a good Tudor court drama or WWII novel as much as the next reader. There is just something extra special about learning about a brand-new time.
Is this a children’s book? Yes. Yes, it is. Since ten-year-old me can still remember reading it, however, (particularly a paragraph about how special it was to be able to read and write in sixth-century China—which blew ten-year-old me’s mind) it’s still going on the list. Lady of Ch’iao Kuois also one of the Scholastic Royal Diaries series, which I devoured as a younger reader, and is fabulous as a whole. It includes both well-known (another Elizabeth I book? Yep) and more obscure historical figures, all written about in a way that allows children to connect to them. Highly recommended for both the young and young at heart!
Readers can embark on an extraordinary journey to Southern China in the 6th century A.D. where they will meet sixteen-year-old Ch'iao Kuo, a born leader called Red Bird, whose bravery and brilliance is unrivaled.
Hi! I'm Maxine Kaplan and I'm a writer who is also a genre magpie. My favorite thing to do as a writer is to take a background character, or non-playable characters in gamer-speak, and make them real. What’s an archetype? It’s a type. A character described by their occupation—the princess; the femme fatale; the tavern wench (ahem)—basically the tropey background players that nobody feels the need to unpack as idiosyncratic individuals, with vibrant inner lives. This list is full of books that do this sooooo well.
This one is personal to me. I found this book when I was 8 and fell in love. Like: I have a tattoo from this book. And, yes, it’s about a princess, the very antithesis of a background player, but hear me out.
The Ordinary Princess takes place in a fantasy world that exists in conversation with the classical Western notion of fairy tales and fairy tale princesses. Except in this one, the evil fairy at the christening gifts the newly born, perfectly princess Amethyst (later called Amy) not with a death sentence, but the proclamation: You shall be ordinary. The twist? Amy loves being ordinary. Wants to be ordinary. Fights for the right to be ordinary, to be herself. It is deceptively moving and lives deep within my soul.
I’m an American who was taken by his parents to live in England for a year when he was a kid of eleven. The accents? The traditions? The school uniforms? All the traffic tangled up for a day because the Queen was riding to the State Opening of Parliament? It frightened me. It repelled me. I ended up loving it. I wrote my PhD thesis on the Victorian monarchy. A substantial part of all three of my first nonfiction books are about it. My novel on the current Queen of England has been a bestseller. It’s all about setting out to master what first strikes you as incomprehensible.
This is a third book which appears to be a biographical account of Diana Spencer’s life in the royal family. It really focuses on the interaction between the monarchy and the press. The two are in a relationship that is sometimes acrimonious and sometimes symbiotic. It’s impossible to understand how the media establishment and the monarchy function without reading Brown’s book. She was herself the editor of major magazines on both continents. For a while, she ran Vanity Fair and later The Daily Beast. She was married to a prominent newspaperman who held prominent roles in London and New York. She knows what she’s talking about.
_____________________________________________ The 20th Anniversary Edition of Tina Brown's definitive behind-the-scenes insight into the life of Diana Princess of Wales, as depicted in the hit Netflix series The Crown, with a brand new introduction by Andrew Marr. _____________________________________________ More than twenty years after her death, Princess Diana remains a mystery. Was she "the people's princess," who electrified the world with her beauty and humanitarian missions? Or was she a manipulative, media-savvy neurotic who nearly brought down the monarchy?
In this commemorative edition, which includes a new introduction by Andrew Marr, The Diana Chronicles parts the curtains on Diana's troubled time in…
I struggled a lot with reading as a kid, I would not call myself a natural reader at all. When I was young, fantasy and magic stories were one of the few genres that could grip me enough to make me actually focus and attempt to read but I always hated the ones that took themselves too seriously (they always felt impossibly long to get through). Now, as a children’s author, myself, it’s my hope and passion to serve fellow young-readers-who-don’t-consider-themselves-readers with fun accessible stories. I hope you enjoy!
A heartwarming young adventure story, winner of the prestigious Newbery Medal.
A deftly crafted fairy tale adventure story from a New York Times bestselling author, twice winner of the prestigious Newbery Medal. Here, reader, is the tale of a tiny, sickly mouse with unusually large ears; a mouse who takes his fate into his own hands. It is the tale of a beautiful, flaxen-haired princess who laughs often and makes everything around her seem brighter. It is the tale of a poor, deaf serving girl who entertains foolish dreams of splendour. It is a tale of impossible love, of bravery…
