[Review] House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1) by Sarah J. Maas

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Series: Crescent City Trilogy

Release Date: 3 March, 2020

Publisher: Audible Studios/ Bloomsbury Publishing

Genre: New Adult/Science Fiction/Post-Apocalyptic/Action and Adventure

ASIN: B082YHJS14

Edition: Audiobook (also available in Kindle and Hardback)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 19 June, 2020

Summary: Half-Fae, half-human Bryce Quinlan loves her life. By day, she works for an antiquities dealer, selling barely legal magical artifacts, and by night, she parties with her friends, savouring every pleasure Lunathion—otherwise known as Crescent City— has to offer. But it all comes crumbling down when a ruthless murder shakes the very foundations of the city—and Bryce’s world. Two years later, her job has become a dead end, and she now seeks only blissful oblivion in the city’s most notorious nightclubs. But when the murderer attacks again, Bryce finds herself dragged into the investigation and paired with an infamous Fallen angel whose own brutal past haunts his every step. Hunt Athalar, personal assassin for the Archangels, wants nothing to do with Bryce Quinlan, despite being ordered to protect her. She stands for everything he once rebelled against and seems more interested in partying than solving the murder, no matter how close to home it might hit. But Hunt soon realizes there’s far more to Bryce than meets the eye—and that he’s going to have to find a way to work with her if they want to solve this case. As Bryce and Hunt race to untangle the mystery, they have no way of knowing the threads they tug ripple through the underbelly of the city, across warring continents, and down to the darkest levels of Hel, where things that have been sleeping for millennia are beginning to stir... 

See more by Sarah J. Maas at her Website.

[Review] Don't Call the Wolf by Aleksandra Ross

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Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone

Release Date: 28 April, 2020

Publisher: Harper Teen

Genre: Fantasy/Eastern European Fairy Tales/Romance/Action & Adventure/Folk Lore

ISBN: 9780062877970

Edition: Hardcover (available in eBook and audiobook)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 22 June, 2020
Warnings: Death

Summary:  

A fierce young queen, neither human nor lynx, who fights to protect a forest humans have long abandoned.

An exhausted young soldier, last of his name, who searches for the brother who disappeared beneath those trees without a trace.

A Golden Dragon, fearsome and vengeful, whose wingbeats haunt their nightmares and their steps.

When these three paths cross at the fringes of a war between monsters and men, shapeshifter queen and reluctant hero strike a deal that may finally turn the tide against the rising hordes of darkness. Ren will help Lukasz find his brother…if Lukasz promises to slay the Dragon.

But promises are all too easily broken.

See more by Aleksandra Ross at her website.

[Review] The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

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Series: Stand Alone

Release Date: 9 October, 2019

Publisher: Macmillan Audio/Wednesday Publishing

Genre: Young Adult Fiction/Dystopian Fiction/Girls & Women Fiction/Fantasy Romance/Thiller

ISBN: 9781250623225

Edition: Audiobook/Hardback (also available on Kindle)

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

Review Written: 12 June, 2020

Summary: A speculative thriller in the vein of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Power. Optioned by Universal and Elizabeth Banks to be a major motion picture! Survive the year. No one speaks of the grace year. It’s forbidden. In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their 16th year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive. Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life - a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make their fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other. With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.

See more by Kim Liggett at her Website.

[Review] Ember Queen by Laura Sebastian

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Series: Ash Princess Trilogy

Release Date: 4 February, 2020

Publisher: Listening Library/Delacourte Press

Genre: Young Adult Fiction/Epic Fantasy/Girls & Women Fiction/Fantasy Romance

ISBN: 9781524767143

Edition: Audiobook (also available in Kindle and Hardback)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 29 April, 2020

Summary: Princess Theodosia was a prisoner in her own country for a decade. Renamed the Ash Princess, she endured relentless abuse and ridicule from the Kaiser and his court. But though she wore a crown of ashes, there is fire in Theo's blood. As the rightful heir to the Astrean crown, it runs in her veins. And if she learned nothing else from her mother, she learned that a Queen never cowers. Now free, with a misfit army of rebels to back her, Theo must liberate her enslaved people and face a terrifying new enemy: the new Kaiserin, imbued with a magic no one understands, the Kaiserin is determined to burn down anyone and everything in her way. The Kaiserin's strange power is growing stronger, and with Prinz Søren as her hostage, there is more at stake than ever. Theo must learn to embrace her own power if she has any hope of standing against the girl she once called her heart's sister.

See more by Laura Sebastian at her Website.

[Review] Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor

  
Cover images from the goodreads website.

Series: Strange the Dreamer Duology (#2)

Release Date: 2 October, 2018

Publisher: Little, Brown Young Readers (Hatchette Audio)

Genre: Young Adult Fiction/Epic Fantasy/Friendship/Romance/Mystery

ISBN: 9781549122774

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

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 2 March, 2020

Summary: The highly anticipated, thrilling sequel to the New York Times bestseller, Strange the Dreamer, from National Book Award finalist Laini Taylor, author of the bestselling Daughter of Smoke & Bone trilogy.

Sarai has lived and breathed nightmares since she was six years old.She believed she knew every horror, and was beyond surprise. She was wrong. In the wake of tragedy, neither Lazlo nor Sarai are who they were before. One a god, the other a ghost, they struggle to grasp the new boundaries of their selves as dark-minded Minya holds them hostage, intent on vengeance against Weep. Lazlo faces an unthinkable choice--save the woman he loves, or everyone else?--while Sarai feels more helpless than ever. But is she? Sometimes, only the direst need can teach us our own depths, and Sarai, the muse of nightmares, has not yet discovered what she's capable of.

As humans and godspawn reel in the aftermath of the citadel's near fall, a new foe shatters their fragile hopes, and the mysteries of the Mesarthim are resurrected: Where did the gods come from, and why? What was done with thousands of children born in the citadel nursery? And most important of all, as forgotten doors are opened and new worlds revealed: Must heroes always slay monsters, or is it possible to save them instead? Love and hate, revenge and redemption, destruction and salvation all clash in this gorgeous sequel to the New York Times bestseller, Strange the Dreamer.

See more by Laini Taylor at her Website.

[Review] Neuromancer by William Gibson

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Sprawl #1

Release Date: 11 June, 2011 (originally published in July of 1984)

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Genre: Science Fiction/Adult Fiction/Cyberpunk/Technothriller/High-Tech Science Fiction

ISBN: 9780307969941

Edition: Audiobook (available in paperback, ebook, and hard cover)

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Review Written: 2 March, 2020
Warnings: A lot of technobabble, scenes of torture, a lot of NSFW content

Summary:  

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards

Case was the sharpest data thief in the Matrix, until an ex-employer crippled his nervous system. Now a new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run against an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a mirror-eyed girl street-samurai riding shotgun, he's ready for the silicon-quick, bleakly prophetic adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction.

See more by William Gibson at his Website.

[Review] Cats are a Liquid by Rebecca Donnelly

Cover image from the goodreads website.

Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone

Release Date: 8 October, 2019

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company

Genre: Children's Fiction/Science/Picture Book/Humor

ISBN: 9781250206596

Edition: Hardcover Picture Book

Rating: ★★★★★

Review Written: 10 February, 2020
Warnings: None

Summary:  

Cats fill./ Cats spill./ Cats flow downhill./ Cats tip./ Cats drip./ Cats grip, snip, rip./ Cats are a liquid/ Except when they’re not.

Celebrate cats in all their flowing, furry glory! This charming picture book examines the unusual physical properties of felines. Inspired by an Ig Nobel Prize–winning investigation of how cats behave like liquids, it introduces some of the physical properties of liquids—they adapt to fit a container, they flow like fluids—and is just pure fun. Like its inspiration, it makes you laugh, then think. Back matter includes a brief introduction to the different physical states: solid, liquid, gas.

See more by Rebecca Donnelly at her goodreads Website.