[Review] Romanov by Nadine Brandes

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone

Release Date: 20 June, 2019

Publisher: Dreamscape Media LLC.

Genre: Young Adult Romance|Magical Realism|Fantasy|Eurasian Fiction

ISBN: 9781974927258

Edition: Audiobook (available in hardback, eBook, and paperback)

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Review Written: 4 September, 2020
Warnings: Historical Death, Magic, Spellwork, Torture

Summary:  

The history books say I died.

They don’t know the half of it.

Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them . . . and he’s hunted Romanov before.

Nastya’s only chances of survival are to either release the spell, and deal with the consequences, or enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya’s never dabbled in magic before, but it doesn’t frighten her as much as her growing attraction for Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her . . .

That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad . . . and he’s on the other.

See more by Nadine Brandes at her website.

[Review] A Song of Wrath and Ruins by Roseanne A. Brown

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: A Song of Wrath and Ruins #1

Release Date: 2 June, 2020

Publisher: HarperAudio (an imprint of HarperCollins)

Genre: African Fantasy/Fantasy/Young Adult/Young Adult Romance

ASIN: B07XM8PJ9B

Edition: Audiobook (available in eBook, and hardback)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 6 August, 2020
Warnings: Death, Violence, Sexual Exploits, Magic

Summary:  

For Malik, the Solstasia festival is a chance to escape his war-stricken home and start a new life with his sisters in the prosperous desert city of Ziran. But when a vengeful spirit abducts his younger sister, Nadia, as payment to enter the city, Malik strikes a fatal deal - kill Karina, Crown Princess of Ziran, for Nadia’s freedom.

But Karina has deadly aspirations of her own. Her mother, the Sultana, has been assassinated; her court threatens mutiny; and Solstasia looms like a knife over her neck. Grief-stricken, Karina decides to resurrect her mother through ancient magic...requiring the beating heart of a king. And she knows just how to obtain one: by offering her hand in marriage to the victor of the Solstasia competition.

When Malik rigs his way into the contest, they are set on a heart-pounding course to destroy each other. But as attraction flares between them and ancient evils stir, will they be able to see their tasks to the death?

See more by Roseanne A Brown at her website.

[Review] The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Pine Cove #3 (Not necessary to read other titles in this series)

Release Date: 28 October, 2008

Publisher: Harper Audio

Genre: Adult Fiction/Holiday Fiction/Horror/Humor/American Literature

ASIN: B0006IU4W0

Edition: Audiobook (also available in Hardback, Paperback, Kindle, and Audio CD)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 2 December, 2019
Warnings: Character Death, Magic, Rude Humor, Dark Humor

Summary:  

Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit.

But not everybody is feeling the joy. Little Joshua Barker is in desperate need of a holiday miracle. No, he's not on his deathbed. But Josh is sure that he saw Santa take a shovel to the head, and now the seven-year-old has only one prayer: Please, Santa, come back from the dead.

But hold on! There's an angel waiting in the wings. (Wings, get it?) It's none other than the Archangel Raziel come to Earth seeking a small child with a wish that needs granting. Unfortunately, our angel's not sporting the brightest halo in the bunch, and before you can say "Kris Kringle" he's botched his sacred mission and sent the residents of Pine Cove headlong into Christmas chaos, culminating in the most hilarious and horrifying holiday party the town has ever seen.

See more by Christopher Moore at his Website.

[Review] Furyborn by Claire LeGrand

Series: Empirium #1

Release Date:22 May, 2018

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Genre: Young Adult/Epic Fantasy/Political Fantasy/Romance/Time Travel/Magic

ISBN: 9781492656623

Edition: Hardback

Rating: ★★★★★

Review Written: 14 July, 2018

Summary:Follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world...or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, the crown prince, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing her ability to perform all seven kinds of elemental magic. The only people who should possess this extraordinary power are a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light and salvation and a queen of blood and destruction. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven trials to test her magic. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first.

A thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a mere fairy tale to bounty hunter Eliana Ferracora. When the Undying Empire conquered her kingdom, she embraced violence to keep her family alive. Now, she believes herself untouchable--until her mother vanishes without a trace, along with countless other women in their city. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain on a dangerous mission and discovers that the evil at the heart of the empire is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world--and of each other.

See more by Claire LeGrand at her Website.

[Review] Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

Series: Children of OrÏsha #1

Release Date: 06 March, 2018

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co - Macmillan Publishers

Genre: Young Adult Fiction/Fairy Tales & Folklore / Social & Family Issues / Prejudice & Racism / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Sword & Sorcery

ISBN: 9781427295507

Edition: Audiobook

Rating: ★★★★★

Review Written: 20 March, 2018

Summary: They killed my mother.

They took our magic.

They tried to bury us.

Now we rise.

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers and her growing feelings for an enemy.

See more by Tomi Adeyemi at her Website.

[Review] The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan

Series: Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #1

Release Date: 15 October, 2015

Publisher: Disney Press

Genre: Young Adult Fiction/Fairy Tales & Folklore / Magic / Mythology

ISBN: 9781423160915

Edition: audiobook

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 18 February, 2018

Summary: Magnus Chase has always been a troubled kid. Since his mother's mysterious death, he's lived alone on the streets of Boston, surviving by his wits, keeping one step ahead of the police and the truant officers.

One day, he's tracked down by an uncle he barely knows-a man his mother claimed was dangerous. Uncle Randolph tells him an impossible secret: Magnus is the son of a Norse god.

The Viking myths are true. The gods of Asgard are preparing for war. Trolls, giants and worse monsters are stirring for doomsday. To prevent Ragnarok, Magnus must search the Nine Worlds for a weapon that has been lost for thousands of years.

When an attack by fire giants forces him to choose between his own safety and the lives of hundreds of innocents, Magnus makes a fatal decision.

Sometimes, the only way to start a new life is to die . . .

See more by Rick Riordan at his Website.

[Review] Serafina and the Twisted Staff by Robert Beatty

Series: Serafina #2

Release Date: 12 July, 2016

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Genre: Middle Grade/Historical Fiction (1800s)/Mystery

ISBN:  9780451485632

Edition: Audiobook

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 29 December, 2017

Summary: Serafina’s defeat of the Man in the Black Cloak has set new dangers in motion for both Braeden and Serafina. But at the same time, it’s made it impossible for Serafina to keep hiding in the basement of Biltmore Estate. Once the secret Chief Rat Catcher extraordinaire who explored in the shadows, now she’s thrust into the light-filled world of the upstairs, with its beautifully dressed ladies and gentlemen and their strange customs. Lacking the social graces to fit in with the Vanderbilts and uncertain about what the discovery of her catamount mother means, Serafina finds herself caught between worlds. Where does she belong, the forest or the house?

But when a sinister arrival threatens both the animal and human residents of the estate, Serafina is the only one who can fight back. A dark, gray-bearded man in search of “the Black One” uses a pack of bloodthirsty wolfhounds to attack Serafina. Is he searching for the Black Cloak she destroyed? She only escapes with the help of a strange feral boy who seems to live in the forest.

When other animals at the estate begin lashing out, Serafina learns that a terrible power is taking hold of Biltmore and the surrounding forest. As she delves into the mystery of her past and searches for where she truly belongs, Serafina must find a way to defeat this new evil before it engulfs her beloved home.

See more at Robert Beatty's Website.

[Review] Gilded Cage by Vic James

Series: Dark Gifts #1

Release Date: 14 February, 2017

Publisher: Penguin Random House 

Genre: Young Adult/Science Fiction/Political fiction/Contemporary Fantasy

ISBN:  9780425284155

Edition: Ebook

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 23 September, 2017 
Summary: In modern-day Britain, magic users control everything: wealth, politics, power—and you. If you’re not one of the ultimate one-percenters—the magical elite—you owe them ten years of service. Do those years when you’re old, and you’ll never get through them. Do them young, and you’ll never get over them.

This is the darkly decadent world of Gilded Cage. In its glittering milieu move the all-powerful Jardines and the everyday Hadleys. The families have only one thing in common: Each has three children. But their destinies entwine when one family enters the service of the other. They will all discover whether any magic is more powerful than the human spirit.

Have a quick ten years. . . .

See more at Penguin Random House's Website.

[Review] Blood Rose Rebellion by Rosalyn Eves

Series: Blood Rose Rebellion #1

Release Date: 28 March, 2017

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy/Alternative History

ISBN:  9781101935996

Edition: Ebook

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Review Written: 18 September, 2017 
Summary: Sixteen-year-old Anna Arden is barred from society by a defect of blood. Though her family is part of the Luminate, powerful users of magic, she is Barren, unable to perform the simplest spells. Anna would do anything to belong. But her fate takes another course when, after inadvertently breaking her sister’s debutante spell—an important chance for a highborn young woman to show her prowess with magic—Anna finds herself exiled to her family’s once powerful but now crumbling native Hungary.

Her life might well be over.

In Hungary, Anna discovers that nothing is quite as it seems. Not the people around her, from her aloof cousin Noémi to the fierce and handsome Romani Gábor. Not the society she’s known all her life, for discontent with the Luminate is sweeping the land. And not her lack of magic. Isolated from the only world she cares about, Anna still can’t seem to stop herself from breaking spells.

As rebellion spreads across the region, Anna’s unique ability becomes the catalyst everyone is seeking. In the company of nobles, revolutionaries, and Romanies, Anna must choose: deny her unique power and cling to the life she’s always wanted, or embrace her ability and change that world forever. 

For more information, please check out the Penguin House Publishing's website.