The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi (ARC)

The Gilded Wolves is set in a dark and glamorous part of Paris in 1889. It follows Séverin, a treasure hunter and wealthy hotelier, and his crew of specialists as they are enlisted by a powerful organization to find an ancient artifact.

Oh, holy mother of books! I LOVED The Gilded Wolves! It has a bit of everything that I’m drawn towards in a book: love, humor, intrigue, action and mythology/history. It has a group of characters with a dynamic that I always fall for – the one where a group of misfits becomes a family in both friendship and hardship. They fit each other in any combination therein, despite or perhaps because of their respective personality flaws. The worldbuilding is phenomenal and sucks you in just as much as the character dynamics. The plot reads like an Indiana Jones adventure with puzzles, clues and a heist with traps along the way.

The whole thing was awesome, and I can’t recommend it enough! So, if you like Six of Crows or The Raven Boys, I highly recommend this book.

 

Published by Wednesday Books.

Granted through Netgalley.

Release date: 2019-01-15

Rating: 5 stars

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Big thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for this e-arc!

Empress Unveiled by Jenna Morland (ARC)

Now this was a nice surprise. I knew that I would most likely like or love this book since it was an Oftomes release and they have very talented authors already and seem to have an eye for finding new great ones, but I still wasn’t expecting the original-ness of this story. Especially the mythology and world-building intrigued the heck out of me. (And that Empress tree really made me envious. Where can I get one?!)

Empress Unveiled is about a 17-year-old girl named Swayzi with a mysterious terminal illness. Nobody knows the cause of her sickness, and the doctors are stumped. Supporting her she has her youthful mom and two best friends Tyler and Penelope. One day she meets an electrically intriguing boy who seems to be a miracle cure for her illness, but this meet will unearth a whole lot of other things. Like other realms, beings, magic and what she’s actually capable of herself. All of a sudden, she’s got a destiny and a path to follow, but will she be able to leave her mom and friends to follow it?

I love how Jenna Morland has twisted and created elements and beings that most of us has met in other settings before but giving those elements new context and rules. I don’t want to spoil too much, because I really enjoyed reading about it without knowing too much myself BUT I loved it. Just so you know. There’s also a love triangle in this, but it’s not an obnoxious or a mean one. It’s actually one of those where I don’t know which one I think she should pick. By the end of a book I usually know what I feel about the love interest and if there’s two – which one I would pick. Not this time. I almost hope that some irredeemable quality in one or the other character appears in book 2 so I can choose. 😉

So, if you’re looking for your next YA fantasy read I highly recommend checking this out! 🙂

Published by Oftomes Publishing.

Release date: 2018-09-04

Rating: 4 stars

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Saving Death by R. L. Endean (arc)

This book took me a while to get into, but about halfway through everything came into focus and I sailed through the pages. At first, it was mostly character driven and it was very interesting to follow Ava’s character development when she struggles with grief while also trying to bond with her love interest. Despite this, I would still have welcomed some more worldbuilding or “plot roots” to give the story more bulk in the beginning, but once the plot was revealed it was well worth the wait; being intriguing, filled with smart twists and suffused with the kind of mythos that you wish you’d been the one to think of first. This debut was full of potential and gives an exciting promise of an even better sequel. I highly recommend this gothic romance for anyone looking for an atmospheric YA read!

Published by Oftomes Publishing.

Release date: 2018-11-05

Rating: 4 stars

You can find here: Amazon, Book Depository, Adlibris and on Goodreads.

The Witches of the Glass Castle by Gabriella Lepore (ARC)

This was such a delight! Witches, mystery and darkness, what more can you ask for? And it was easily devoured, which is a very attractive quality that shouldn’t be undervalued. I love the satisfaction of it, to get so carried away with a story… It’s happiness.

The story follows Mia and her brother Dino who discovers that they are witches. Their whole family are witches (well, at least on their mother’s side) and all it takes is one small incantation, even said by mistake, to awaken the magic within. Because of their awakening powers, they are sent away to a place that can help the siblings learn control and nurture whatever power they may have. At the Glass Castle, they meet frightening but handsome warrior witches with feral instincts called Hunters and witches called Arcana that can read peoples thoughts and have visions of the future. It’s a strange but colorful new world where Mia and Dino must both come to terms with who they are and as events begins spiraling out of control they must choose what they think is right and where their allegiances lie in the end.

There’s some really good twists and turns in this book. It kept the story and my interest peaked through the whole thing. I’m also very fond of how the author portrayed her characters (and their dynamic). It was just the right amount of goof, cuteness and realness to make the relationships work.

I really recommend this book to anyone who love YA fantasy, and witch lore. A fascination with witches should be existent when picking this up. Just saying… 😉

I give this book 4 out of 5 stars! Witches of the Glass Castle is the first book in a duology, where the Witches of the Dark Power is the second book and they both releases today the 18th. So, Happy Book Birthday to Gabriella Lepore!

Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine (ARC)

This wasn’t a book that made me feel highly excitable, where I was left feeling like the story was almost going too fast for me to keep up. This was a steady influx of tense adrenaline in the pit of my stomach. You know the feeling, the feeling of wondering when the other shoe will drop and there’s bound to be trouble afoot. Don’t mistake my description for a dull read, because believe me when I say that there’s plenty of action in this story. It’s the way it’s told that make you feel all anticipatory. There’s a sense of danger through the whole thing and the characters are well cemented to further strengthen it all. They are well thought through and oh so clever. I loved the whole thing from start to finish, though I do warn you of the prologue. It can seem a little dry, but you’ll need that backdrop to get familiar with the world of the Great Library. It’s worth every word of academic style dryness, as it gives you an overall perspective for when you meet the main character Jess and the other players in this story.

This is a different setting than Caine’s other books but her storytelling is as good as her Weather Warden series. It pulls you in and stays with you during the day when not reading. You’ll not be sorry to pick this up!

Jess Brightwell is the son of a black market dealer who specializes in acquiring and selling books in a world where books have been outlawed for the safety of both the humankind and the books themselves.

It’s about a world obsessed with words, with books, with knowledge. It’s a world where these things are strictly controlled by an organization named the Library who believes that the wrong kind of information can corrupt the denizens of the world and that humans thus need to be protected against themselves. Though no one may own a real book, it’s thought of as a sin to deprive the masses of the wisdom of the written word and so when the discovery of alchemy produced the mirrored tablet, the Library enabled everyone, even the lowest of the low, to have access to all the great (approved) works that’s ever been written. It’s a time of enlightenment where everyone can read and write, and to be chosen by the Library to preserve and protect the written word is an honor and a privilege.

For Jess, this means a life of constant danger. As his father’s son he’s meant to spy for the family business of black market dealings and no things are as valuable as original books in a world where they are the rarest item out there. And the best and worst place to acquire these rare books? The Library’s HQ of course, in Alexandria.

I’m really looking forward to read about how Jess and his friends fare in the next installment of the Great Library series, Paper and Fire. 🙂

I received this copy from the publisher (Berkley Publishing Group) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. To see the beautiful cover for this book, check it out on Goodreads or Amazon. It’s amazing!

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

First of all, Maggie Stiefvater nailed it with this series. I love Blue, Gansey, Adam and Ronan to pieces. Henry was a surprise and I really liked that he got a bigger part in their final story. I loved the creepy goosebumps-inducing name and the insight of their Enemy. Let’s just stamp the whole thing with a I LOVED THIS and move on shall we?

The only thing I can think of that might have brought it down a notch in the Raven King, for me, was this: I liked the way that she built up the storyline by inviting other perspectives, BUT it was also a bit confusing at times. One, two or three of the “new” characters (that until now has been a peripheral influence at best) were to me a bit confusing when they were introduced in a couple of chapters like they were the main characters to this story. Or that the characters themselves at least thought so. Not a big deal to be sure, but it left me a bit unbalanced and wondering if I’ve missed something in the earlier storyline. Are there bits of the story that I’ve forgotten from the previous books or are there novellas I haven’t read yet?

Anyway, overall this book (this series really) was awesome. Such a great adventure!

If you haven’t read this series yet, I really recommend that you read them in order as the Raven King is the conclusion to the Raven Cycle. The first book is called The Raven Boys and it’s there that you’ll first meet our dynamic group of main characters.

Blue lives with her mom and family at 300 Fox Way, a house filled with psychic women. For sixteen years she’s been told that she will kill her true love by a kiss. The longest standing prediction in 300 Fox Way. So when Blue, who has no psychic powers herself other than being an amplifier for such gifts, sees a spirit of a boy on the corpse road for the first time – there can only be one explanation. Either he’s her true love or she’s killed him. Or rather she will, within a year.

As fate would have it, she meets this boy named Gansey shortly after her vision of him on the corpse road. Even though she can’t imagine falling in love with Gansey, she’s determined to find out the truth and to prevent his death. So when she gets the chance to be involved in his search for the legendary king Glendower alongside his two friends Adam and Ronan, she takes it.

Amber Smoke by Kristin Cast (ARC)

Spontaneous reaction upon finishing this book? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! That ending was the major of cliffhangers with some author-snark thrown in at the end. “The End…For Now.” I mean, come on! First she gets me invested in the characters, builds up the drama and basically uses the epilogue as a cliffhanger of evil? Genius! The gauntlet has been thrown and I must get my hands on the sequel pronto.

So, to move on and summarize… I loved Amber Smoke!

It’s about Eva and Alek finding their way to each other, their destinies being intertwined with that of the ailing Tartarus. In the realm of the Underworld the prison Tartarus is failing under a curse and tormented souls of the damned are escaping to the mortal realm, wreaking havoc and heralding an apocalypse. Alek, warrior son of the Furies, is sent on a mission by his mothers to find Eva, the descendant of Pythia, who is not yet aware of her ancestry or destiny, before everything falls apart. Though finding this lost daughter of the Oracle proves harder than Alek thought.

The whole story, characters and feel of the world is (not the same but) precisely what I was expecting after having read the first 3 books in the House of Night series which Cast co-authored. I did feel as though the story could have used a bit more something to solidify the relationships and given the whole thing more fluidity. Like a couple of more events to give the characters (and reader) a chance to feel the connection between both them and the plot. To get a more solid grip on everything. Or maybe that’s just me being greedy for more and not ready to let go of the story about Eva and Alek.

If you’ve read The House of Night series, or The Black Jewels series by Anne Bishop, that may not have anything in common other than being built on the premises of other mythological dimensions, the characters that move between and their impact on one another plus the general feeling of them, I think you’ll really like Amber Smoke.

I received this copy from the publisher (Diversion Books) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Girl in the Shadows by Gwenda Bond (ARC)

I haven’t read that many books with a circus as a backdrop and having read this I don’t understand why, because this book was entertainment of the highest trapeze. Suspenseful with a hint of darkness, but an easy read and quite lovely all together. I loved every minute of this!

It’s about a girl named Moira who dreams of becoming a great magician, performing intricate showy illusions in Las Vegas like her father. There’s one small hitch though. Her father is not keen on the idea of his beloved daughter following in his footsteps, in fact, he won’t even give her a chance to show her skills and shuts her down every time she tries. So, when an invitation to the great Cirque American lands by her feet by accident she takes her chance and who could blame her?

The Miraculous Moira gets a shot at her dream. Little does she know there might be a reason her father was so adamant about keeping her away from magic all these years. Any magic at all…

This book is a stand-alone, though technically Girl in the Shadows is the second book set in this world. The first book published was Girl on a Wire. In retrospect I would have read Girl on a Wire first, because this story’s somewhat based on the first one and both revolve around the same artefact. It made me very curious about Jules, Remy and Dita from Girl on a Wire who Moira befriends upon arriving to the Cirque American, and their adventure.

BUT! This does not diminish Girl in the Shadows at all! So, if you have a chance to read Girl in the Shadows? Take it! 🙂

I received this copy from the publisher (Amazon Skyscape) via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. To see the beautiful cover for this book, check it out on Goodreads or Amazon. It’s gorgeous!

The Lux series by Jennifer L. Armentrout

I had my doubts about this series. I’ve read part of a trilogy by Jennifer L. Armentrout a couple of years ago where I LOVED the first book, was a bit put off by the second and couldn’t stomach the third. Then, at this year’s book sale in February I found the first book in the Lux series in the bargain section. I’m glad I did decide to pick up something by this author again.

The Lux series is delightfully well-balanced with action, romance and moral conundrums. The big plus being the consistency in writing and story through book 1-4 and they’re a solid 4 stars so far. I find that sometimes the first couple of books in a series is usually the best and the rest just kind of…degrades. Rarely to the extent that the books are unreadable, but they’re often not as interesting as the first one(s). For example, the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, the Anita Blake series by Laurell K Hamilton and the Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling. I freaking love these three, but the first books in either series is just genius compared to the ones that came later.

The first book introduces Kat who’s just moved to West Virginia with her mother. Kat’s life so far revolves around books and blogging about them (bonus points, right there). Having lost her father to cancer and with a mother that’s trying to stay afloat, she’s learned to take care of herself in her everyday life. She’s basically do an infusion of tumult, of the infuriating but hot neighbor variety. It’s just her luck the disturbed neighbor and his friendly sister are aliens. With baggage. Suspicious, two-faced government baggage.

There are five books in total and I have the Kindle version of Opposition waiting for me to read. 🙂

April Wrap Up

It’s unbelievable how fast time flies, it’s already the end of April. Or rather the beginning of May. And I’m not sure if I’ve come to terms with that just yet… Oh well, this month I actually manage to (mostly) stick to my TBR. I haven’t read Winter yet, but I think I’ll save that special nugget until my vacation week this summer. Plus, it’s a little on the heavy side (which makes me one extremely happy camper), so the more time I have the better I’ll be able to savor it.

I’ve read 5 and a half books this month. I still haven’t figured out how to count the one that I started reading one month and finish the next. How do you, my fellow bookworms, count that one? Is it one half in either month or does it counts as one in the month that I finish it? Take for example this month, have I read 5,5 or 6 books? I know, I know, it’s a problem that’s not really a problem, but I can’t decide and it annoys me. 😉

1. Opal (Lux #3) by Jennifer L. Armentrout – 4/5 stars
2. Origin (Lux #4) by Jennifer L. Armentrout – 4/5 stars
3. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab – 5/5 stars
4. The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken – 4/5 stars
5. Carry On by Rainbow Rowell – 5/5 stars
6. Some Girls Bite by Chloe Neill – 4/5 stars

Monthly summary: it’s been a good month. Reviews will be up soon. 🙂