City of Secrets

City of Secrets by Mary Hoffman is the fourth in the Stravaganza sequence. If you scan back through my blog you will see that I’ve read the other three over the past year and I must say that it was a treat to return to Talia and pick up the story from where it left off after City of Flowers. This series is a real treat for those who like their fantasy stories to have richly painted settings and well developed characters. Mary seasons her stories with historical facts and period technology that never ceases to fascinate me. This time the story centres around a scriptorium - a medieval printing press and the people who operate it. Her knowledge (doubtless gained from the meticulous research that I know she does) of such detail gives her writing voice a feeling of authority that is often missing from the more typical hack and slash sword and sorcery novels. The series boasts swords and sorcery, but dealt with a sense of reality that makes the reader feel as if they know the setting intimately.

This is a series for book lovers, rather than readers who are looking for the sort of plot driven action/adventures that I write. That said, for those of you who do enjoy my books, I would urge you to give one of this series a go. This is one of my favourite series for YA readers to be released in recent years. Mary has written them so they do stand alone, but I would suggest that you start at the beginning with City of Masks if you want to read the story in chronological order.