Harry Potter Insteads...

I'm sure most everyone who was interested has read or is reading the new Harry Potter. After my disappointment in the latest movie, I was not particularly overwhelmed with anxiety about getting my copy. (Okay, it's been a few days since I first wrote this and I've listened to it all and I'm not saying a word.) I was thinking it was going to be just more of the same old same old. For heaven sake, how many time can Harry come to the edge of death without going over. Yes, I'll read it, but there are others I will get to first. (I read "Golden" by Cameron Dokey and [blush] a romance first.)

If you don't want to be just another Harry Potter sheep (baa). Here are a few suggestions.



The Alchemyst by Michael Scott He holds the secret that can end the world. The truth: Nicholas Flamel was born in Paris on September 28, 1330. Nearly 700 years later, he is acknowledged as the greatest Alchemyst of his day. It is said that he discovered the secret of eternal life. The records show that he died in 1418. But his tomb is empty. (I am reading this now - it is excellent.)

This is a series I have enjoyed reading more than once and also enjoyed listening to it on CD.)
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman In a landmark epic of fantasy and storytelling, Philip Pullman invites readers into a world as convincing and thoroughly realized as Narnia, Earthsea, or Redwall. Here lives an orphaned ward named Lyra Belacqua, whose carefree life among the scholars at Oxford's Jordan College is shattered by the arrival of two powerful visitors...read more
Subtle Knife by

Philip Pullman Lyra finds herself in a shimmering, haunted underworld—Cittàgazze, where soul-eating Specters stalk the streets and wingbeats of distant angels sound against the sky...read more
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullm

an The Amber Spyglass brings the intrigue of The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife to a heart-stopping end, marking the final volume of His Dark Materials as the most powerful of the trilogy...read more


Beka Cooper: Terrier by Tamora Pierce
The Prophet of Yonwood by Jeanne DuPrau
The Fetch by Chris Humphreys


(Book and site information courtesy of Strange Lands; Random House Science Fiction and Fantasy Newsletter) comments are my own. Connie