Rating: 
Summary: Tired of the same old fantasy--here's a change of pace!
Review: Mary Brown does a masterful job in taking simple ordinarypeople/animals and making them heroes. This book is a must read for fantasy readers whoare getting a bit tired of the same ole' knights and damsels fighting the evil monsters story. This is a refreshing story that is a lot of fun to read!
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Summary: Pigs DO Fly- And So Does This Book
Review: There's one basic word you can say about this book: WOW. I began this book on a warm summer night, and didn't put it down since. I was utterly amazed at the character development, and I enjoyed the personalities of the animals greatly. There were some amazing plot twists and turns, that took me completely by surprise that I actually had to close the book, and gape at the cover for several minutes. I'll admit, some parts of the book were slow, and tedious, but the style and writing of the book make up for all that. If you want a great fantasy read, take this out of your local public library (as I did) or buy it. Truly Great.
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Summary: On Second Reading . . .
Review: This is an addendum to my original review, because there's something I need to accomplish with it. The first thing I need to do is apologize to the wonderful, thoughtful, handsome man who gave me this book for publicly writing such a negative review. I feel absolutely terrible. He had the misfortune to read what I had written, and he knew it was me. Secondly, let this be proof that if you can get to a posting, so can everyone else, including those you may not want to read your words, much less know it is you that wrote them. To the book! I did enjoy it more on the second reading (I thought I owed it to the book and the giver to try again). Perhaps because I didn't have to spend so much time trying to anticipate the plot and characters, I was more able to go along with it and pay more attention to detail. I read it about a year ago for the first time, and even though that was a while ago, I had remembered very little about the plot; I must have been busy with other things (like working myself into annoyance). Three stars still isn't a raving success, but up from two is significant for me. Although the book could have been better (I felt like it was written from a rough sketch instead of a solid plan), there was enough happening and enough thinking (at least from the heroine) to keep my attention. I thought the animals and Gill were slightly underdeveloped, but they served their purpose. I still liked the Wimperling the best, perhaps more so this time around. I enjoy reading about thinking, slightly mysterious characters, and this book could have stood more of them, because the ones that were there were well done (the Ghost, the Wimperling, Suleiman). I'd read it again, maybe even enjoy it more. Perhaps I just need to relax more and recognize & enjoy escapism when I see it.
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Summary: This was a kick-a** book
Review: this is the only book by Mary Brown that i have read..but it was a good one...lol..i've read it over about 3 times..i liked it that much..itsa must read
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Summary: Great book!
Review: Very good book, i really enjoyed it. it definitely isn't a waste of time!
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Summary: Great Find
Review: What a marvelous writer. This was a great read and I am looking for her other books. So glad to have found her work.
Rating:
Summary: one of the best of its kind I've read
Review: When I was 8 or so, my mother would go to the city every few months, (hmm..never ASKED her why, come to think of it), and she would always ask, "What do you want me to bring you back?"
And in those days before books became a disposable item purchasable by the metre at the supermarket, before bookshops became Old Curiosity Shops, my answer was always the same, "A BOOK!!"
And one post-war novel, Elizabeth Goudge's Little White Horse', conveyed back from Melbourne in this way was so entirely memorable that I can recall, vividly, to this day the feeling of cold legs and needing the toilet as I sat on the little front porch of our wintry house, but needing, more, to go further, to find out, to keep reading,to keep loving these beautiful, wonderful words!
And all the time I kept calling out to my mother, "OH MUM..It's a beaut book..Oh Mum....it's beaut!!", the 8 year old's vocabulary leaving much room for expansion and embellishment. Well, my Mum isn't around to buy books for me now...in fact I only took a volume or two from her collection, my brother having more room in HIS house, my sister having even fewer empty shelves than I in her apartment.
And I don't buy books for myself any more..Oh..okay, books for our shop and computer books for me..but not novels, not REAL books..not for myself! For the grandkids, yes, and my bookstarved son in Malaysia, but that's not for ME is it? In Australia,the public libraries are still functioning, albeit feebly, a literary shadow of their former well-endowed glory days, but they are all online, of course, even the smallest, with multimedia and BIG PRINT sections.
Our own local suburban branch library is small, not opened as often as it was, and always dusty enough to bring on my asthma, and the books seem not to be re-covered as regularly as they once were, and the paperbacks, in revolving stands rather than shelves, become shabby very quickly.
I took, `Pigs Don't Fly,But Dragons Do..' from such a stand having noticed that it carried high praise from Marion Zimmer Bradley and Anne McCaffrey...high accolades for any work of fantasy. And then I saw that the book dealt with Celtic customs, mentioned Samhain and runes and Stones of Power and Druidic rites, herbal lore and potions, a ring made from a unicorn's horn..even a dragon- and since so many of my geocities friends seem to be into this sort of thing..and with All Hallow's Eve close to hand, I thought I might find this book interesting.
Interesting? An understatement indeed. This book holds between its covers the same magic that chilled my bare legs on that long-ago front porch.
And it has a handsome knight in it, too, which is always a help! It is the story of a journey that takes a full year,from one place to another and back, and then off, again...or from girlhood to womanhood, from innocence to wisdom,..or from ugliness to beauty, the trip proving truly an odyssey well worth the travelling. And you journey in comfort, the language having a glorious melodic lilt to it, the humour wickedly mediaeval in its vulgarity, the characters and background countryside so vividly recreated that you can almost sense the seasons changing. There are smells here,not always savoury, and deeds not always noble, and the feel of rough stones underfoot..the sensation of cold, of fear, of near-despair. And always, the pushing ahead,the foraging, the slow, on-foot slog we can only imagine from our rubber-tyred distance-is-no-problem decade.
And what an assortment of characters parade, Canterbury-Tales style, through the stops and stages, through the daily life and dramas of this journey..most of them, indeed, no better than they should be, but full of life and personality aplenty.
I mean, when did you read a better opening line than:
"... My mother was the village whore and I loved her very much.... And the travelling party the heroine acquires? Five animals she can talk to, courtesy of the magic ring, and a blind Knight who'd rather not listen...this has to be the whackiest party of pilgrims ever, making Chaucer's lot seem rather dull and uninteresting!
And the flying pig. Is he a pig? If you kiss a pig does it turn into a prince?
You have to read right to the second last chapter to find out! I finished `Pigs Don't Fly' in the bright sunshine of a perfect Australian Spring day, in a garden, still beautiful despite my recent neglect. My legs stayed warm, too warm, really, and I had one ear tuned for my ICQ pager, the other alert for the beeping an an automatic washer. Times have changed greatly since I sat on that cold step to be transported to the chalk-cliffs and pebbly beaches of half-moon-shaped bays in Goudgean England. But all through THIS book, too, I've been thinking.."Hey Mum, this is a great book. Hey, Mum, this is a BEAUT book!!"
And it's nice to know that, in the end, some things never alter at all! Robin Knight.
Rating: 
Summary: Another winner from Mary Brown!
Review: While not quite as good as her previous Book, The Unlikely Ones, this book is still a fun and entertaining book about the adventures of a group of misfits and ugly ducklings.
It features an overweight heroine, Summer, who inherits a magic ring from her unknown father when her mother, the village "kept woman", dies. She is given the choice of taking over her mother's job, or leaving, so she leaves to find her own way in the world.
The mysterious ring allows her to communicate with animals and she acquires an oddball entourage of a smart mouthed, know it all dog, a broken-down horse, a crippled pigeon, a battered tortoise, and a flying pig. She rescues a blind, amnesiac knight, whom she falls for. Everyone changes greatly over the course of the story--especially that flying pig, and the end is not quite what you expect it to be. I really enjoyed reading a book that features an overweight heroine--you don't see those too often!
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