As an amateur scholar who is passionate about classical literature, I approached this book with a combination of interest and trepidation. Since Lavinia is basically a non-entity in Vergil's Aeneid, a retelling of the story from her perspective could go any number of directions, many of them not particularly appealing. But far from being disappointed, I discovered an astonishing book, a novel that is both a fitting tribute to the Aeneid itself and a beautiful work of craft and scholarship.

Lucy is seventeen when she discovers that the women of her family have been suffering for generations under a curse laid by a mysterious faerie being. Each of Lucy's maternal ancestors has had a daughter at age 18, then gone insane. The curse can only be broken by completing a trio of impossible tasks, as laid down in the folk ballad "Scarborough Fair". Lucy is determined to save her unborn daughter by completing the tasks...but how do you make a shirt without seams or needlework?

Twenty years after the War with Faerie that devastated the world, and fifteen years after Liza was born, she and her town live in constant fear. Fear that magic will destroy the living they have slowly rebuilt for themselves. Fear that magic will come into their midst again. So whenever a child is born showing the signs of infection with magic, they expose it on the hillside. And Liza's father is clear about what he believes should happen to anyone older who shows signs of developing magical powers: a quick death.

I had high hopes for this book after being delighted by Gail Carson Levine's previous fluffy YA fantasy stories, Ella Enchanted and Fairest. Alas, I was doomed to disappointment, since this book features neither the well-drawn and likable heroines nor the uplifting thematic content of those two books.

John Perry is a war hero who signed up to fight for the Colonial Defense Force when he was eighty years old--and received a new body to do it in. His wife, Jane Sagan, is a genetically-engineered Special Forces soldier; and their adopted daughter, Zoe, is the child of a mad scientist and is something like a goddess to an entire alien race. But now they're living quietly on the colony world of Huckleberry, where John has nothing more to worry about than disputes over goats. Then one day an old friend of John turns up and recruits them to lead a new colony.

At the start of this fresh, fast-paced YA fantasy, middle-schooler Julie thinks life is pretty tough. She's just not seeing eye-to-eye with her mother Rapunzel (yes, that Rapunzel -- she runs a hair salon in our world), and she's never known her father...or why her mother won't speak of him. Plus, she has to contend with the Wild, an ominous mass of greenery which is confined to the space under her bed. But then Julie's problems get a whole lot worse -- the Wild escapes Julie and Rapunzel's control, and starts to take over the city.

In the near future on Earth, a second message has been received from aliens on Sigma Draconis, in a system only 19 light-years away. Dr. Sarah Halifax, who decrypted the aliens' first message 38 years ago, is asked to work on decoding this second message as well. Only problem is, she's 87 years old.

Henry York is a timid, sheltered 12-year-old who finds himself uprooted and transplanted to a small Kansas town in the middle of nowhere to live with his aunt, uncle, and three girl cousins. Then Henry discovers 99 small and mysterious cupboards under a layer of plaster on the wall of his new bedroom. And following good, old-fashioned fantasy tradition, the cupboards each appear to lead to a different place...places which range from mundane to terrifying.

When I first started reading books by Jim Butcher last summer, I told myself that his books were good bad fantasy -- you know, cheesy brain-candy that's just well-written enough that it's a lot of fun to read. But midway through Cursor's Fury, when I found myself tensely turning pages in order to find out whether a certain secondary character was going to survive to the end of the book, and realizing that I was going to be upset if he didn't make it, I suddenly began to wonder: could it be? Is this book in fact good good fantasy?