The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

From the paperback:
   A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse where she once lived, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.
   A groundbreaking work as delicate as a butterfly's wing and as menacing as a knife in the dark, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is told with a rare understanding of all that makes us human, and shows the power of stories to reveal and shelter us from the darkness inside and out.

   Neil Gaiman has done it again! Captured my attention with a book I didn't want to put down. He writes so beautifully. He weaves a world where names hold power (we never learn the narrator's name) and some things just can't be explained or understood.
   The narrator is a child who has no friends. He escapes in books and stories as much has he can. He meets the Hempstock women after a startling discovery and his world continues to be rocked for the next few days. The Hempstocks aren't witches per-say, they're something else, something more. Something (Old Mrs. Hempstock calls it a "flea") hitches a ride back inside our hero and after he tries to remove it without knowing the full extent of what he does, a new nanny comes to care for him and his sister. Ursula Monkton, who everyone, but our hero, loves. He knows that the Hempstock women can help him get rid of her, if only he can get away.
   If it sounds like a lot of "somethings" are in my description of this book, it's because most of it can only be understood by reading the book. The beings described in The Ocean at the End of the Lane could be monsters but it depends on your definition of the word.
    This is a fantastic book for readers of all ages. I'd recommend it to anyone who has a love of fantasy. Or anyone who just loves to read. The narrator is easy to care for and identify with for lovers of the written word,

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

From the hardcover:
The year is 2059. Paige Mahoney is working in the criminal underworld of Scion London. Her job: to scout for information by breaking into people's minds. For Paige is a dreamwalker, a rare kind of clairvoyant - and under Scion law, she commits treason simply by breathing.
   It is raining the day her life changes forever. Attacked, kidnapped, and drugged, Paige is transported to Oxford - a city kept secret for two hundred years, governed by an otherworldly race called the Rephaim who seek to control clairvoyants for their own purposes. Paige is assigned to the care of Warden, a powerful Rephaite. He is her captor. But if she wants to regain her freedom, she will have to get close to him, to learn something of his mind and his own mysterious motives.
   The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine, a young woman discovering her powers in a world where everything has been taken from her. It also introduces an extraordinary young writer with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.

"There was no normal. There never had been. 'Normal' and 'natural' were the biggest lies we'd ever created."

The first chapter read like a different language. I thought there was no way I would make it through but I'm not one to give up that easily. You have to make it at least three chapters in before it starts to make sense. Now I can't believe I have to wait for the second book, why do I do this to myself?
   Paige is a likable heroine, she has all the qualities you should look for in any hero; special, persistent, strong moral code. I think I was more captivated by the world created than the character. She lives in a world where clairvoyance is not uncommon, though it is illegal. There are seven different types of clairvoyant, some more common than others, of course she is one of the most uncommon.
   The Rephaim use human clairvoyants as slaves. Those who pass their tests become a type of protector charged with keeping the mysterious creatures that feast on flesh out of Seoul I (Oxford.) Those who do not pass are left to live in squalor only called on to be entertainment for the Rephaim. No one can leave once they are there.
  I'm left with a lot of questions after finishing this book. There could be so much more to this world and I look forward to seeing it develop. If you like to read fantasy or books dealing with the supernatural I recommend this book.