Mad About The Hatter (ARC Review)

Mad About The Hatter | Dakota Chase

Published by: Harmony Ink Press, August 20th 2015

Genre: YA, Fantasy, Retelling

Pages: 190

Format: Ebook

Source: Harmony Ink Press, via Netgalley

This isn’t his sister’s Wonderland….

Henry never believed his older sister, Alice’s, fantastic tales about the world down the rabbit hole. When he’s whisked away to the bizarre land, his best chance for escape is to ally himself with the person called the Mad Hatter. Hatter—an odd but strangely attractive fellow—just wants to avoid execution. If that means delivering “Boy Alice” to the Queen of Hearts at her Red Castle, Hatter will do what he has to do to stay alive. It doesn’t matter if Henry and Hatter find each other intolerable. They’re stuck with each other.

Along their journey, Henry and Hatter must confront what they’ve always accepted as truth. As dislike grows into tolerance and something like friendship, the young men see the chance for a closer relationship. But Wonderland is a dangerous place, and first they have to get away with their lives. 

What is it with me and reading Alice In Wonderland retellings even though I don't overly like the original? Why do I do it to myself? I'll tell you why with this one - gay representation drew me in. Sadly I didn't like the world, the characters, the threat, the story, or the romance. This is just gonna be one of those kind of reviews.

First, I never connected with the characters. Although it was a totally new and inventive thing to tell this story from Alice's brothers POV, he was just pretty uninteresting. I didn't particularly like Hatter either, after a while. At first I enjoyed his wit and humour but either that dropped off towards the middle or I got tired of it. And when you put those two characters together ... well, no sparks whatsoever. Even though Hatted had 'feelings' for Henry after a day.

The rest of Mad About The Hatter will be better for most people than it was for me. As with the original the world was just ... weird, and not in a good way for me personally. The author did a very good job world building, with enough detail to make everything fleshed out (and I can't say how much was of their own creation because I barely remember the gist of the original.) The story was bizarre, but not interestingly bizarre, just plain wacky. Not a fan of that. When they left Wonderland I thought I might enjoy the story more but I still wasn't that interested, sadly. The threat ... well, it's the same old same old, nothing new brought to the Red Queen, and it never felt dangerous. It felt like there were no true stakes, like nothing bad was ever going to happen to the main characters despite threats of beheading getting thrown about all over the place. I can't explain it.

So not a good choice for me, and despite its LGBT representation, I wasn't a fan. Maybe you'll get along better if you're a fan of the original.

DNF at 58%

(Apologies for the spate of negative reviews lately. Hopefully I can get back on track with my reading and write some proper reviews! I don't like being so down on everything!
~Saruuh)

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The Casquette Girls Review + Blog Tour

 

The Casquette Girls by Alys Arden 

Published November 17th, 2015 

Published by Skyscape 

Genre: YA Paranormal/Fantasy 

Goodreads Website Amazon 

Find out more about signed copies HERE!

Seven girls tied by time. Five powers that bind. One curse to lock the horror away. One attic to keep the monsters at bay. 

After the storm of the century rips apart New Orleans, sixteen-year-old Adele Le Moyne wants nothing more than her now silent city to return to normal. But with home resembling a war zone, a parish-wide curfew, and mysterious new faces lurking in the abandoned French Quarter, normalneeds a new definition. As the city murder rate soars, Adele finds herself tangled in a web of magic that weaves back to her own ancestors. Caught in a hurricane of myths and monsters, who can she trust when everyone has a secret and keeping them can mean life or death? Unless . . . you’re immortal.  

About the Author

Alys Arden was raised by the street performers, tea leaf-readers, and glittering drag queens of the New Orleans, French Quarter. She cut her teeth on the streets of New York and has worked all around the world since. She either talks too much or not at all. She obsessively documents things. Her hair ranges from eggplant to cotton-candy-colored. One dreary day in London, while dreaming of running away with the circus, she started writing The Casquette Girls. Her debut novel garnered over one million reads online before being acquired by Skyscape in a two book deal. Rep’d by ICM. Website Twitter: @alysarden Facebook Blog

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The Casquette Girls: The Casquette Girls | Alys Arden

Published by: Skyscape, November 17th 2015

Genre: YA, Gothic, Paranormal, Witches, Vampires

Pages: 565

Format: Ebook

Source: Skyscape, via Netgalley

Seven girls tied by time.
Five powers that bind.
One curse to lock the horror away.
One attic to keep the monsters at bay.

**

After the storm of the century rips apart New Orleans, sixteen-year-old Adele Le Moyne wants nothing more than her now silent city to return to normal. But with home resembling a war zone, a parish-wide curfew, and mysterious new faces lurking in the abandoned French Quarter, normalneeds a new definition. 

As the city murder rate soars, Adele finds herself tangled in a web of magic that weaves back to her own ancestors. Caught in a hurricane of myths and monsters, who can she trust when everyone has a secret and keeping them can mean life or death? Unless . . . you’re immortal.

This book WAY exceeded my expectations. I thought it'd be a pretty cool gothic story but it's so much more. You need to add this to your to-read list immediately.

The first thing I loved about The Casquette Girls was the amazing writing, and how detailed the world building is. You can literally feel the author's love for New Orleans when you read this, and it made me fall in love with the city too (It's now added of my list of places to visit!) Along with the setting, the rich gothic tone of this book sucked me in. Plus there's a guy described as part James Dean part Italian Vogue and that always helps.

The book only got better the more I read it, and while I could have done without the love triangle (I still don't trust or like Isaac...) I ADORED Nicco, my precious Italian child. I actually loved most of the characters, both past and present, and instead of just being implanted in a setting and reacting to it like in most books I read, these characters felt like they were part of the city, like they'd truly lived there their whole lives. They were as strange and wonderful as all the part of New Orleans I loved. AND the minor characters were as vibrant and interesting as some of the main characters! AND the romance is sweet and dangerous and everything I ever wanted (Nicolo, my love!!) AND the plot is tense and suspenseful and mysterious, and there's betrayal and plot twists (that I totally called way earlier!) and witches and girls being amazing friends. This book is perf. 
(EXCEPT FOR THE ENDING. DO NOT READ THAT EVER.)

If you're looking for a YA gothic that literally feels like you're reading Dracula in places, this is the book for you. If you're not looking for that, read it anyway.

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world-building ★★★★★

Writing ★★★★☆

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Cover reveal: The Requiem Red

The Requiem Red | Brynn Chapman

Publication date: 2016

Publisher: Month9Books, LLC.

Patient Twenty-nine.

A monster roams the halls of Soothing Hills Asylum. Three girls dead. 29 is endowed with the curse…or gift of perception. She hears messages in music, sees lyrics in paintings. And the corn. A lifetime asylum resident, the orchestral corn music is the only constant in her life.

Mason, a new, kind orderly, sees 29 as a woman, not a lunatic. And as his belief in her grows, so does her self- confidence. That perhaps she might escape, might see the outside world.

But the monster has other plans. The missing girl's share one common thread...each was twenty-nine's cell mate.

Will she be next?

Brynn Chapman is published in Historical and Historical Fantasy Romance for adult books. She also writes under R.R. Smythe for Young Adult Historical Fantasy. 

Website- www.brynnchapmanauthor.com 

She also blogs with the wonderful authors, Grace Burrowes, Hope Ramsay, Alix Rickloff and many others at http://blameitonthemuse.com

Connect:  Website | @rrsmythe | Facebook | Goodreads | Pinterest

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·         One (1) winner will receive a digital copy of The Requiem Red by Brynn Chapman (INT)

·         Title will be sent to the winner upon it’s release.

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The Seventh Bride (ARC Review)

The Seventh Bride | T. Kingfisher

Published by: 47North, November 24th 2015

Genre: YA/Adult, Fantasy

Pages: 226

Format: Ebook

Source: 47North, via Netgalley

Young Rhea is a miller’s daughter of low birth, so she is understandably surprised when a mysterious nobleman, Lord Crevan, shows up on her doorstep and proposes marriage. Since commoners don’t turn down lords—no matter how sinister they may seem—Rhea is forced to agree to the engagement.

Lord Crevan demands that Rhea visit his remote manor before their wedding. Upon arrival, she discovers that not only was her betrothed married six times before, but his previous wives are all imprisoned in his enchanted castle. Determined not to share their same fate, Rhea asserts her desire for freedom. In answer, Lord Crevan gives Rhea a series of magical tasks to complete, with the threat “Come back before dawn, or else I’ll marry you.”

With time running out and each task more dangerous and bizarre than the last, Rhea must use her resourcefulness, compassion, and bravery to rally the other wives and defeat the sorcerer before he binds her to him forever.

I don't know if you got it from the last hundred or so times I mentioned it, but Bluebeard is my favourite fairy tale. Ever. So you can imagine my joy when I got halfway through reading this and went 'wait ... is this a Bluebeard retelling?' AND IT WAS! Is. Whatever, tenses are hard. The Seventh Bride isn't a 100% retelling but it has enough strains of it and it feels like Bluebeard and it was awesome. From the first page it had heart and humour and something I'd never felt before in a book that I can't exactly place. It was different, and it was fun, and it was sad all at once.

Rhea, a miller's daughter, is promised to marry Lord Crevan, super mysterious, supremely evil guy - but she doesn't know that until she's invited to his manor house, turns up, and finds a bunch of his other wives in the house too. And the wives aren't exactly right, either, and there's something very off about the house and the whole thing. Not to mention the fact Crevan has more than one wife and yet he's engaged to Rhea. What follows is a series of tasks Rhea has to pass; if she fails, Crevan threatens to marry her. There's so much packed into this book that it had me turning pages and flying through it. It felt less like reading the book than living the story.

This is a true fairy tale, and it has everything you'd expect: a plucky heroine, a diabolical villain, awesome supporting characters, a wife stuffed into a clock, a floor that collapses every day at midnight, and a hedgehog. It sounds weird but the hedgehog is my favourite character.

I haven't done much in this review except ramble and sum up the book but basically: it was brilliant and heartfelt and magical and I loved it.

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★☆

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The Astrologer's Daughter (ARC Review)

The Astrologer's Daughter | Rebecca Lim

Published by: Text Publishing, June 9th 2015

Genre: YA, Mystery, Paranormal, Psychics

Pages: 321

Format: Ebook

Source: Text Publishing, via Netgalley

“It’s going to happen,” she would tell me calmly. ”I even know when. It’s a twist in my stars. It’s written there, and we have to accept it.”

Avicenna Crowe’s mother, Joanne, is an astrologer with uncanny predictive powers and a history of being stalked.

Now she is missing.

The police are called, but they’re not asking the right questions. Like why Joanne lied about her past, and what she saw in her stars that made her so afraid.

But Avicenna has inherited her mother’s gift. Finding an unlikely ally in the brooding Simon Thorn, she begins to piece together the mystery.

And when she uncovers a link between Joanne’s disappearance and a cold-case murder, Avicenna is led deep into the city’s dark and seedy underbelly, unaware of how far she is placing her own life in danger.

Pulse-racing and terrifyingly real, The Astrologer’s Daughter will test your belief in destiny and the endurance of love.

The first 50% of this book is pretty darn awesome. The second half? Trainwreck. The Astrologer's Daughter set me up for an awesome mystery, and yeah it's pretty cool, but as soon as the book hit 60% there were ableist slurs, utter bullshit and this line: "The way he's looking at me actually makes me want to cover my body in a burqa" I MEAN???? This girl is Chinese, not any nationality where wearing a burqa is traditional, which makes it NOT OKAY. Cultural appropriation with a side note of potential racism. Plus throw in a use of the word "retarded" for kicks and everything I lived about this book fizzled.

But I'll say some things about what I liked. There's a POC main character. It's a missing person mystery. It's set in Australia, which was a nice change to the US-centric norm. The missing persons guy Wurbick was awesome, and my favourite - he acted like an overprotective father when he was just Avicenna's Liaison. Also - the name Avicenna, pretty cool. Plus, I really REALLY liked the extensive astrology in this book ... until I didn't. After the ninth rambling (an impossible to understand) explanation of planets and words I'd never heard of, it got kinda old and I was skipping pages. My favourite thing is how it could be read as a contemporary mystery or a paranormal mystery depending on your own personal beliefs.

And the things I didn't like: the overuse of technical waffle. I thought the MC was smart in the beginning but she got into cars with strangers and let them into her home, which is so dumb. Plus I expected better so the slurs and disrespect really disappointed me. Was gonna be a four star rating but after this crap, it's seriously dropped.

Characters ★★☆☆☆

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★☆☆☆☆

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The Infinite (ARC Review)

Gates of Thread and Stone: The Infinite | Lori M. Lee

Published by: Skyscape, March 10th 2015

Genre: YA, High Fantasy, Magic

Pages: 378

Format: Ebook

Source: Skyscape, via Netgalley

The walls of Ninurta keep its citizens safe.

Kai always believed the only danger to the city came from within. Now, with a rebel force threatening the fragile government, the walls have become more of a prison than ever.

To make matters worse, as Avan explores his new identity as an Infinite, Kai struggles to remind him what it means to be human. And she fears her brother, Reev, is involved with the rebels. With the two people she cares about most on opposite sides of a brewing war, Kai will do whatever it takes to bring peace. But she’s lost her power to manipulate the threads of time, and she learns that a civil war might be the beginning of something far worse that will crumble not only Ninurta’s walls but also the entire city.

In this thrilling sequel to Gates of Thread and Stone, Kai must decide how much of her humanity she’s willing to lose to protect the only family she’s ever known.

I wasn't overly impressed with the first book, but there was enough things I liked for me to enjoy it. Not so much with this book. The first 10% wasn't so bad, but I just got more and more disillusioned. I didn't like Avan anymore, the world was expanding and I wasn't that fussed on it even though I should have loved it (underground cave city!) and I just lost interest in the story. The issue I had in the first book where I didn't care overmuch about the characters became worse in this, and by 25% I had stopped caring about literally everything, reading for reading's sake. Unlike the first book, I couldn't get into this at all and I didn't enjoy it.

DNF at 41%.

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Gates of Thread and Stone (Review)

Gates of Thread and Stone: Gates of Thread and Stone | Lori M. Lee

Published by: Skyscape, August 5th 2014

Genre: YA, High Fantasy, Magic

Pages: 355

Format: Ebook

Source: Skyscape, via Netgalley

In the Labyrinth, we had a saying: keep silent, keep still, keep safe.
In a city of walls and secrets, where only one man is supposed to possess magic, seventeen-year-old Kai struggles to keep hidden her own secret—she can manipulate the threads of time. When Kai was eight, she was found by Reev on the riverbank, and her “brother” has taken care of her ever since. Kai doesn’t know where her ability comes from—or where she came from. All that matters is that she and Reev stay together, and maybe one day move out of the freight container they call home, away from the metal walls of the Labyrinth. Kai’s only friend is Avan, the shopkeeper’s son with the scandalous reputation that both frightens and intrigues her.

Then Reev disappears. When keeping silent and safe means losing him forever, Kai vows to do whatever it takes to find him. She will leave the only home she’s ever known and risk getting caught up in a revolution centuries in the making. But to save Reev, Kai must unravel the threads of her past and face shocking truths about her brother, her friendship with Avan, and her unique power.

First off I don't understand the title. I mean, it's hella cool and I love it, but apart from 'thread' I don't get the rest. What stone? What'd I miss? And what gates???

Anyway, confusion over. I quite liked this book. Didn't love it, and got bored in some parts, but overall it's a good book. I was quite happy to find a pansexual love interest (though I'm certainly expecting pan erasure in book two! joy!) and the world and magic system is pretty darn cool.

First off what I liked: how Kai could alter time, slow it's procession, by manipulating threads. I thought that was by far the coolest time-related ability I've ever read. And I liked Kai, and Reev, and especially their sibling relationship. I liked them even more, and appreciated their relationship more, when I found out they were non-biological siblings. I'm all for that. Now the other characters were hit or miss. Avan I really liked in the beginning and grew bored of, so the romance kinda went dull for me; it lost its spark. Irra, immortal, eccentric Infinite (aka immortal) was probably my favourite character in the whole thing. LOVED him, and hope we see more of him in the sequel. Another character to mention is Mason, and while he's fairly alright he isn't particularly memorable to me, even though it looks like he's a second love interest for Kai. SO characters were good overall, and since I'm a character driven reader, that was a great thing. But honestly, it was the world and the magic that kept me reading, along with the immortals and wanting to know more about them. Don't know if I've mentioned before but I LOVE love love incarnations, and Irra was the incarnation of Pestilence (not a rider of the apocalypse as I first hoped but still cool) and there's others like Death, Strife, Time, etc.

So that's what I liked. What I didn't like was more of just a feeling - something felt off. After a while I stopped trusting Avan and stopped liking him altogether. I got a bit bored at a part where the story changes and revolves around a tournament (tired of seeing this in YA tbh), and the fake swear word 'drek' grated on me after a while. It made the writing all stilted and unnatural. Plus the end seemed too neat, to happy ending-y, although maybe I was just happy to see the back of Avan at that point. 

But I didn't mind this book, I just expected to like it a lot more ...

Characters ★★★☆☆

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★☆☆

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The Here And Now (Review)

The Here And Now | Ann Brashares

Published by: Hodder Children's Books, January 1st 2015

Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Romance, Time Travel

Pages: 303

Format: Ebook

Source: Hodder Children's Books, via Netgalley

TIME TRAVEL AND FORBIDDEN ROMANCE FROM THE BEST SELLING AUTHOR OF THE SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELLING PANTS


Thrilling, exhilarating, haunting and heartbreaking, The Here and Now is a twenty-first-century take of an impossible romance. 

There are rules.
Never reveal where you’re from.Never be intimate with anyone outside the community.And never interfere with history. 
Seventeen-year-old Prenna James emigrated to New York when she was twelve. But Prenna didn't come from a different country, she came from a different time - a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins. 
Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules. Prenna does as she's told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth and take the lives of her younger brothers. But everything changes when she falls for Ethan. 
She might be able to save the world ... if she lets go of the one thing she's found to hold on to.

This book wasn't terrible but the trouble was I just never cared about any of it at any point. I wasn't bothered about the characters, never connected to them, and because the book skips the 2 years where the main characters fall in love, the romance just felt flimsy, and I as a reader never fell for Ethan because I never read through Prenna doing the same. Another thing was this book had no real sense of urgency - there were less than 24 hours until the world went to crap, but they were out buying bathing suits and lounging on beaches and playing cards. It all felt distant, not dangerous or thrilling. But overall it's not a bad book - some parts are exciting, the time travel parts aren't bad, and I liked the whole controlling higher powers of Prenna's community thing, and kinda wish we saw more of this. That danger felt really vital and threatening at that point, until it suddenly petered off and didn't. The book went downhill from there, and concluded with a really un-fulfilling ending.

Like I said, it's not a bad book, but I wasn't impressed in the least.

Characters ★☆☆☆☆

Setting/world ★★☆☆☆

Writing ★★★☆☆

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