You’re Never Too Old for Romance or Ballads

Ah, youth! Booking’ with Sunny is very for­tunate to have reviewers who are chrono­log­i­cally closer to YA books than I will ever be. You don’t have to be a kid to read YA, but reviewing a teen romance in the fantasy range is way out of my comfort zone, or so I thought. I’ve just posted Joanne Mallari’s review of Impos­sible, the 2008 novel by award-​​winning author, Nancy Werlin. Impos­sible is a fantasy based on verses from The Elfin Knight, specif­i­cally an early version of Scar­borough Fair.

The book had been rec­om­mended to me when I was still working at Clayton Books, in Cal­i­fornia, but like so many rec­om­mended books that I’ve acquired by near-​​osmosis, it remained unread and packed away in the move to Reno. When offering Joanne books to review, I almost passed it up until she spotted it. And now that I’ve posted her enthu­si­astic review, I’m sorely tempted to read it myself when she returns it.

I know I will probably like Werlin’s book because I have already read another series of mystery/​fantasy stories based on very old ballads. These stories are The Haunted Ballad Series, written by Deborah Grabien of San Fran­cisco. Grabien is a natural when researching any­thing that has to do with music, and if it’s old and English, so much the better. The youthful romances of Grabien’s series are con­fined to the stories behind the ballads, but she is not beyond acknowl­edging the more mature romance carried on by her two main char­acters who bring the ballad spirits (and yes, I do mean spirits as in specters) to life, if only long and scary enough to right a very old and for­gotten wrong.

If you are a younger reader, please do give Impos­sible a try, but for all those others, don’t pass up the chance to read Grabien’s series: The Weaver and the Factory Maid, The Famous Flower of Serving Men, Matty Groves, Cruel Sister, and New-​​Slain Knight. –s.s.