Let's Bust a Recap : The Wingfeather Saga

So at the beginning of the month, I gave a little series update detailing books in series I'm reading that can stand alone. But today, we're going to talk about the other kind, the kind you can't stop reading until you get to the end. Cody and I read this quartet of books aloud together last year, and we both give it an enthusiastic two thumbs up. 

The Wingfeather Saga by singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson consists of four books: On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness published in 2008, North! Or Be Eaten published in 2009, The Monster in the Hollows published in 2011, and The Warden and the Wolf King published in 2014. The books chronicle the adventures and transformations of the Igiby family in the fantasy world of Aerwiar as they discover secrets of their family history, flee the evil Fangs of Dang who are occupying their country, seek their place and identity in the world, and make a stand against the mysterious ruler Gnag the Nameless. The principal characters are the three Igiby siblings—Janner, Tink, and Leeli—but the series is peppered with other lovable personalities like Podo Helmer, Peet the Sock-Man, Sara Cobbler, the Florid Sword, Maraly Weaver, and Oskar N. Reteep to name a few. 

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, the first book in the series, starts off very whimsical and playful, introducing the world of Aerwiar and the Igiby family with lots of footnotes giving you quite a bit of history. (And don't miss those footnotes throughout all four books—they're a riot!) As the books progress and Peterson narrows in on the crux of the plot, however, each book matures until, by the end, I would classify this story as a new All-Time Favorite. I loved discovering this beautiful story along with Cody, and it is one I will come back to. 

We had several friends continue to recommend this series to us, until one of them finally just bought them for us (thanks Greg!) which was the final nudge we needed to actually pick them up and start reading. The Wingfeather Saga has been compared to The Chronicles of Narnia which, I'll be honest, was a bit off-putting to me. In my opinion, The Chronicles of Narnia are in a class of their own and my friends were not doing Wingfeather any favors in my eyes by trying to put them in that class. To be entirely transparent with you: I still think Narnia is in its own class, but I would put Wingfeather in the same class with The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Fantastic in every sense of the word. 

For the sake of my friend Sheree over at Keeping Up With the Penguins, I do just have to warn you that there is a devastating dog death in this series, and Cody and I majorly stalled when we hit it. When I tell you I bawled my eyes out and berated every friend that had recommended Wingfeather to me, I tell you the truth. But ultimately, The Wingfeather Saga proved its worth, and my dad is reading the first book now on my wholehearted recommendation. 

All the stars for Andrew Peterson and his magnificent Wingfeather Saga. We loved it.

Let's Bust a Recap : Series Update

Over the past few years, I have started reading through several of the series I've accumulated. Some series are tailor-made to be binged like your favorite TV show on Netflix. Finish one book, pick the next one up till you've reached the satisfying, final conclusion. (I'm lookin' at you Harry Potter, Lunar Chronicles, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Penderwicks.) I love a good immersive, unputdownable series. But then there are others. Books that feature the same spunky protagonist(s), but that don't necessarily need to be read in order. Each book can stand on its own. And when you come to the end of one, you can wait a while before you visit with that character again. These are the series I want to look at today. I kept putting this post off hoping to finish another Flavia and/or Jeeves book by the end of the year, but it didn't happen and what with 2024 being the year of the TBR Jar, I'm ready to put these books back on the shelf and see where the winds take me.

First up: Flavia de Luce. I picked up the first Flavia book back in March of 2021 right as we were in the thick of selling our house in Florida and packing up to move to North Carolina. I loved this little mischievous 11 year old right off the bat, and I ended up reading the second installment in her series in November of 2022. The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag (pictured above) was published in 2010, a year after the debut The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. In this episode of Flavia's exploits, a famous puppeteer turns up dead at the end of his own puppet show, and Flavia figures out that his murder is somehow connected to the suspicious death of a little boy from several years before. Can our feisty, poison-loving protagonist solve both cases? Of course she can, and Flavia was just as charming in this second novel as she was in the first, but I'll admit it took me a bit longer to get into this one. Because one of the cases involves the hanging of a five year old little boy, The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag was decidedly darker than The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. But even so, I'm still a fan of the series and looking forward to continuing it. I wasn't able to get to the third book—A Red Herring Without Mustard—last year, but we'll see if the TBR Jar turns it up in 2024. 

Next up, we have the fourth installment in the Maisie Dobbs series. I first started Maisie Dobbs right after the world shut down in 2020. My parents have since read all seventeen books in the series, but I've steadily read one a year and am thoroughly enjoying them as they come. Messenger of Truth was published in 2006. Jacqueline Winspear has done a pretty admirable job of cranking a new one out almost every year since she started writing them and the final novel is set to be published this year. In this fourth chapter, if you will, Maisie is approached by an artist's twin sister after he falls to his death from some scaffolding on the eve of his major art exhibit. The police have ruled his death as an accident, but given the fact that the masterpiece of his show is missing, and no one knows what it even is, his sister is convinced there is more to his death. Here's the thing I'm coming to realize about the Maisie Dobbs books: they are set after the Great War and so far all of the mysteries that Maisie has been commissioned to solve are closely connected to the war. Without exception, these first four books have all made me deeply sad when I reach the end of them. I can't imagine that changing as we get closer and closer to the second world war. But despite the melancholy I feel when I read Maisie Dobbs—or perhaps even because of it—I think it's a phenomenal series, and taking it one book per year is the perfect pace for me. 

Finally, I read the first book in The Mysterious Benedict Society series this year. This first book in what is now a series of five was published in 2007 and remained on the New York Times Best Seller list for over a year. I saw these books all over the place and finally added them to my wishlist after my sister Caroline recommended them after reading the first two aloud with my niece and nephews. My other sister Lyndsey promptly got them for me for my birthday, and Bob's your uncle, I was reading the first one last year. The Mysterious Benedict Society chronicles the adventures of four clever children who are brought together by the eccentric Mr. Benedict and given a top-secret mission which basically amounts to them saving the known world. While I did really enjoy this middle-grade novel and all the fun riddles the kids have to solve in their audition to join the Society, it took me a while to get into it and ultimately took me over two months to read. There was definitely a turning point where I had to know what happens but it took a while to get there. 

All in all, I'd recommend any of these series and I'd love to see any of these come out of the TBR Jar this year. 

How do you approach book series? Do you like to binge them as fast as possible? Or stretch it out as long as you can?