[Review] The Night Country (Hazel Wood #2) and The Boy Who Didn't come Home (Hazel Wood #1.5) by Melissa Albert

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Series or Stand Alone: The Hazel Wood

Release Date: 7 January, 2020

Publisher: MacMillan Audio

Genre: Fantasy/Folklore/Fairy Tale retellings/action/adventure/romance

ISBN: 9781250246240

Edition: Audiobook (available in eBook and hardback)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 9 July, 2020
Warnings: Death

Summary:  

Can you ever truly escape the Hazel Wood?

In the sequel to her New York Times bestselling, literary/commercial breakout, The Hazel Wood, Melissa Albert dives back into the menacing, mesmerizing world that captivated readers of the first book. Follow Alice Proserpine and Ellery Finch as they come to learn that The Hazel Wood was just the beginning of worlds beyond, “a place where stories and real life convene, where magic contains truth, and the world as it appears false, and where just about anything can happen, particularly in the pages of a good book” (The New York Times).

See more by Melissa Albert at her website.

[Review] Sea Witch (Sea Witch #1) by Sarah Henning

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Series or Stand Alone: Sea Witch series

Release Date: 31 July, 2018

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale Retellings/Fairy Tales/Romance

ISBN: 9780062438805

Edition: Paperback (available in Hardback, eBook, and audiobook)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 9 July, 2020
Warnings: Death

Summary:  

Wicked meets "The Little Mermaid" in the captivating origin story of the sea's most iconic villainess, perfect for fans of Heartless and Dorothy Must Die.

Ever since her best friend Anna died, Evie has been an outcast in her small fishing town. Hiding her talents, mourning her loss, drowning in her guilt.

Then a girl with an uncanny resemblance to Anna appears on the shore, and the two girls catch the eyes of two charming princes. Suddenly Evie feels like she might finally have a chance at her own happily ever after.

But magic isn’t kind, and her new friend harbors secrets of her own. She can’t stay in Havnestad—or on two legs—without Evie’s help. And when Evie reaches deep into the power of her magic to save her friend’s humanity—and her prince’s heart—she discovers, too late, what she’s bargained away.

See more by Sarah Henning at her website.

[Review] Seven Endless Forests by April Genevieve Tucholke

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Series or Stand Alone: Stand Alone

Release Date: 28 April, 2020

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Genre: Fantasy/Norse Mythology/Arthurian Legend/Action & Adventure/Folk Lore

ISBN: 9780374307097

Edition: Hardcover (available in eBook and audiobook)

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 9 July, 2020
Warnings: Death

Summary:  

In this gorgeous standalone companion to the critically acclaimed fantasy, The Boneless Mercies, April Tucholke spins a bold and blood-hungry retelling of the King Arthur legend that is perfect for fans of Naomi Novik, Garth Nix, and Laini Taylor.

On the heels of a devastating plague, Torvi’s sister, Morgunn, is stolen from the family farm by Uther, a flame-loving Fremish wolf-priest who leads a pack of ragged, starving girls. Torvi leaves the only home she’s ever known, and joins a shaven-skulled druid and a band of roaming Elsh artists known as the Butcher Bards. They set out on a quest to rescue Torvi’s sister, and find a mythical sword.

On their travels, Torvi and her companions will encounter magical night wilds and mystical Drakes who trade in young men. They will sing rowdy Elshland ballads in a tree-town tavern, and find a mysterious black tower in an Endless Forest. They will fight alongside famous Vorseland archers and barter with Fremish wizards. They will feast with rogue Jade Fell children in a Skal Mountain cave, and seek the help of a Pig Witch. They will face wild, dangerous magic that leads to love, joy, tragedy, and death.

Torvi set out to rescue a sister, but she may find it’s merely the first step toward a life that is grander and more glorious than anything she could have imagined.

See more by April Genevieve Tucholke at her website.

[Review] Old Man's War (Old Man's War #1) by John Scalzi

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Series: Old Man's War

Release Date: 15 January, 2007

Publisher: Listening Library/Tor Publishing

Genre: Adult Fiction/Science Fiction

ISBN: 9781524767105

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

Rating: ★★★★☆

Review Written: 9 July, 2019
Warnings: War, medical science fiction, a lot of pointless killing

Summary: John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wife's grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets. John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.

See more by John Scalzi at his Website.

[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.