Review: City of Strife

City of Spires: City of Strife | Claudie Arseneault

Published: February 22nd 2017

Genre: Fantasy, LGBTQ+

Pages: 458

Format: Ebook

Source: Author

Isandor, City of Spires.

A hundred and thirty years have passed since Arathiel last set foot in his home city. Isandor hasn’t changed—bickering merchant families still vie for power through eccentric shows of wealth—but he has. His family is long dead, a magical trap has dulled his senses, and he returns seeking a sense of belonging now long lost.

Arathiel hides in the Lower City, piecing together a new life among in a shelter dedicated to the homeless and the poor, befriending an uncommon trio: the Shelter’s rageful owner, Larryn, his dark elven friend Hasryan, and Cal the cheese-loving halfling. When Hasryan is accused of Isandor's most infamous assassination of the last decade, what little peace Arathiel has managed to find for himself is shattered. Hasryan is innocent… he thinks. In order to save him, Arathiel may have to shatter the shreds of home he’d managed to build for himself.

Arathiel could appeal to the Dathirii—a noble elven family who knew him before he disappeared—but he would have to stop hiding, and they have battles of their own to fight. The idealistic Lord Dathirii is waging a battle of honour and justice against the cruel Myrian Empire, objecting to their slavery, their magics, and inhumane treatment of their apprentices. One he could win, if only he could convince Isandor’s rulers to stop courting Myrian’s favours for profit.

In the ripples that follow Diel’s opposition, friendships shatter and alliances crumble. Arathiel, the Dathirii, and everyone in Isandor fights to preserve their homes, even if the struggle changes them irrevocably.

I thought this book would be pretty damn cool, but I seriously underestimated how much I'd 100% LOVE it.  - So so original world that I just loved - Super tense politics and alliances that were just fascinating and compelling, and different houses of power that are really awesome and make this book stand out. -It's sad and hopeful and full of love - both romantic and platonic. It gave me a whole lot of feelings. - My #1 complaint? Not enough Diel and Jaeger!! They're so cute and endearing and I loved reading about them and the ease of their relationship. I want more of them. I'd happily read a whole book about them! - Every character is expertly written and each one stood out in their own way. - It also has a chilling portrayal of abuse that's very well done. -City of Strife is superbly well written, tense, detailed in all the best ways, and full of emotion. 100% recommend.

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★☆

Review: One Blood Ruby

Seven Black Diamonds: One Blood Ruby | Melissa Marr

Published by: Harper Collins, February 28th 2017

Genre: YA, Fantasy, Fae

Pages: 368

Format: Ebook

Source: Harper Collins, via Edelweiss

Now that Lilywhite Abernathy is the heir to the Hidden Lands, everything is about to change.

The Queen of Blood and Rage wants Lily to help broker peace with the human world, but Lily knows that harmony won’t come easily. After decades of waging war on the humans, who cost the queen her firstborn daughter, the fae are struggling to accept Lily, a half-human monarch. And the humans, while no match against faery affinities, will hardly agree to the queen’s détente without resistance.

Lily wants to be a fair ruler but fears having to abandon the life she’s known to do so. Now that she and Creed are more than just fellow Black Diamonds—operatives for the queen—her priorities have shifted. But her worries about assuming the throne are derailed when it becomes clear that someone—or some fae—is masterminding violent attacks to discourage peace.

In this gripping follow-up to Melissa Marr’s lush Seven Black Diamonds, Lily and her friends are forced to reckon with the truth of their own parentage and to protect one of their own, no matter what—or who—comes between them.

I liked this, but I wouldn't go much further than liked. There were elements I loved - Creed and Lily, Roan and Will, seeing more of Erik, and Lily's dad - but the rest was flat compared to the dark, exciting Seven Black Diamonds.

I'm left with so many unanswered questions. What happened to the fae world, and did Lily ever become queen? Was Eilidh meant to be queen, since the land chose her? What the hell HAPPENED to Eilidh? Did she and Torquil ever get to be together after that ending? Did Vi give Erik a chance? Did Zephyr ever heal from losing Alkamy? What were the consequences of Will coming out to the press? Was it Nacton doing the terrorist attacks or Eilidh???

It was an ending that didn't feel at all like an ending. It feels ... unfinished, like there's still more story to tell. I'm a bit frustrated I didn't get to see Creed and Lily ruling the fae world, or the peace settling between them and humans. I'm invested in this world and these characters, and I'd really appreciate an epilogue or follow up of some kind to give me a satisfying conclusion to their stories. 

As always the faerie lore and details of the writing and world were stunning, but the story itself let me down.

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★☆☆

Review: Things We Have In Common

Things We Have In Common | Tasha Kavanaugh

Published by: MIRA, January 31st 2017

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Pages: 304

Format: Ebook

Source: MIRA, via Netgalley

Fifteen-year-old Yasmin Doner is a social misfit—obese, obsessive and deemed a freak by her peers at school. With her father dead and her mother in a new relationship, Yasmin yearns for a sense of belonging, finding comfort only in food and the fantasy of being close to Alice Taylor, a girl at school. Yasmin will do anything to become friends with pretty and popular Alice—even if Alice, like everyone else, thinks she's a freak. 

When Yasmin notices a sinister-looking man watching Alice from the school fence, she sees a way of finally winning Alice's affection—because how this stranger is staring is far more than just looking, it's wanting. Because this stranger, Yasmin believes, is going to take Alice. Yasmin decides to find out more about this man so that when he does take Alice, Yasmin will be the only one who knows his name and where he lives…the only one who can save her. 

But as Yasmin discovers more about him, her affections begin to shift. Perhaps she was wrong about him. Perhaps she doesn't need Alice after all. 

And then Alice vanishes.

What this book should have been: highly disturbing, upsetting, icky. What this book somehow managed to be: captivating, thrilling, oddly romantic. I'm so confused that I like this book. Well maybe not that I DO like it, but WHY I like it. I like the relationship between Yasmin and Samuel. I love how close you get to Yasmin's thoughts, feelings, and desires. I know they're massively messed up, and wrong, but somehow I understood why she did everything she did. What this book very cleverly does is explain from near the beginning that Yasmin has an obsessive personality - without that, this book would be odd. It'd be like 'why are you talking to a strange older guy, are you crazy, do you want to be murdered????' but instead, she's fascinated by him and obsessed and utterly consumed. It makes total sense. And because she's consumed, I got consumed too. I ended up thinking this potential kidnapper was a pretty great guy? How? I don't know. This book is subtle and clever and trapped me without me ever noticing. You know how people say you can't look away from a car crash? This book is like that. I know it's wrong, and I should stop reading, but I was glued to the page. I loved it. Every minute of it. I would happily read more of Yasmin and Samuel (is it wrong that I kinda want them to become a serial killer couple??)

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world ★★★☆☆

Writing ★★★★★

Review: A Madness So Discreet

A Madness So Discreet | Mindy McGinnis

Published by: Katherine Tegen, October 6th 2015

Genre: YA, Mystery, Historical

Pages: 376

Format: Ebook

Source: Katherine Tegen, via Edelweiss

Grace Mae knows madness.
She keeps it locked away, along with her voice, trapped deep inside a brilliant mind that cannot forget horrific family secrets. Those secrets, along with the bulge in her belly, land her in a Boston insane asylum.

When her voice returns in a burst of violence, Grace is banished to the dark cellars, where her mind is discovered by a visiting doctor who dabbles in the new study of criminal psychology. With her keen eyes and sharp memory, Grace will make the perfect assistant at crime scenes. Escaping from Boston to the safety of an ethical Ohio asylum, Grace finds friendship and hope, hints of a life she should have had. But gruesome nights bring Grace and the doctor into the circle of a killer who stalks young women. Grace, continuing to operate under the cloak of madness, must hunt a murderer while she confronts the demons in her own past.

In this beautifully twisted historical thriller, Mindy McGinnis, acclaimed author of Not a Drop to Drink and In a Handful of Dust, explores the fine line between sanity and insanity, good and evil—and the madness that exists in all of us.

For such a dark, harrowing book, A Madness So Discreet was surprisingly hopeful. Loved everything about it!

This book has: historical mental illness, a girl recovering from abuse, a serial killer who poses his victims like dolls, and friendships between girls that are healthy and hopeful and healing. I just love friendships, and this book does them so well. This book will scare you, hurt you, and heal you, and you'll love every bit of it. It is slow, pace wise, but it's so worth it. This book is wonderful despite its grimness and despairing and darkness, and I so needed it.

Sherlock Holmes meets Jack the Ripper with a troubled female lead. Literally everything on my bookish wishlist. 

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★☆

Review: False Hearts

False Hearts: False Hearts | Laura Lam

Published by: Macmillan, June 16th 2016

Genre: Science Fiction, Thriller

Pages: 366

Format: Ebook

Source: Macmillan, via Netgalley

Orphan Black meets Inception: Two formerly conjoined sisters are ensnared in a murderous plot involving psychoactive drugs, shared dreaming, organized crime, and a sinister cult. 

One night Tila stumbles home, terrified and covered in blood.

She’s arrested for murder, the first by a civilian in decades. The San Francisco police suspect involvement with Verve, a powerful drug, and offer her twin sister Taema a chilling deal. Taema must assume Tila’s identity and gather information – then if she brings down the drug syndicate, the police may let her sister live. But Taema’s investigation raises ghosts from the twins’ past.

The sisters were raised by a cult, which banned modern medicine. But as conjoined twins, they needed surgery to divide their shared heart – and escaped. Taema now finds Tila discovered links between the cult and the city’s underground. Once unable to keep secrets, the sisters will discover the true cost of lies.

This book really throws everything into the mix, but instead of that being really confusing, it's just awesome. Formerly conjoined twins keeping secrets, a criminal organisation, a woman going undercover as her twin in said criminal organisation. Add to that technology that downloads information straight into your HEAD, a drug that is seriously dangerous, and a super sweet romance, and this book has everything you could possibly want. It even has a cult for Christ's sake. Plus it's so well written, packed with tension and thrills and threats, and its underlying drive is the love of one sister for another. There's nothing I didn't love. Gimme the sequel!

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★☆

Review: The Darkest Lie

The Darkest Lie | Pintip Dunn

Published by: Kensington Books, June 28th 2016

Genre: YA, Mystery, Contemporary

Pages: 256

Format: Ebook

Source: Kensington Books, via Netgalley

“The mother I knew would never do those things.
But maybe I never knew her after all.”

Clothes, jokes, coded messages…Cecilia Brooks and her mom shared everything. At least, CeCe thought they did. Six months ago, her mom killed herself after accusations of having sex with a student, and CeCe’s been the subject of whispers and taunts ever since. Now, at the start of her high school senior year, between dealing with her grieving, distracted father, and the social nightmare that has become her life, CeCe just wants to fly under the radar. Instead, she’s volunteering at the school’s crisis hotline—the same place her mother worked.

As she counsels troubled strangers, CeCe’s lingering suspicions about her mom’s death surface. With the help of Sam, a new student and newspaper intern, she starts to piece together fragmented clues that point to a twisted secret at the heart of her community. Soon, finding the truth isn’t just a matter of restoring her mother’s reputation, it’s about saving lives—including CeCe’s own…

Wow this book seems way longer than 250 pages. Partly because by the midway point I got SO CONFUSED by the amount of victims (were there just two? or four? Is Lil from 20 years ago, or recent?) and suspects, but partly because it's kinda slow. I wasn't interested in the romance with Sam, who screamed dodgy from the beginning in every kind of way (but turned out to not be?) and the actual killer seemed pretty nice. I liked him. I guess that was the point - master manipulator and all that, but by the end with the big reveal it seemed so ... unlikely. Too unlikely. The explanation of his motive was just weird and not believable. I don't GET IT. But hey, people do murdery things for any reason.

I'm just disappointed, I guess. I really liked this in the beginning, and there's still a lot about it I do like, but it's overshadowed by confusion about the victims, the murder, the sexual predator-ness, and EVERYTHING. I still don't know why the MC's mum's hair was all cut off, and how the crime in the past led to all this. But it's a different mystery, and it's unique in its story.

Characters ★★★☆☆

Setting/world ★★★☆☆

Writing ★★★☆☆

Review: The Last of August

Charlotte Holmes: The Last of August | Brittany Cavallaro

Published by: Katherine Tegen, February 14th 2017

Genre: YA, Mystery, Thriller

Pages: 336

Format: Ebook

Source: Katherine Tegen, via Edelweiss

In the second brilliant, action-packed book in the Charlotte Holmes trilogy, Jamie and Charlotte are in a chase across Europe to untangle a web of shocking truths about the Holmes and Moriarty families.

Jamie Watson and Charlotte Holmes are looking for a winter break reprieve in Sussex after a fall semester that almost got them killed. But nothing about their time off is proving simple, including Holmes and Watson’s growing feelings for each other. When Charlotte’s beloved uncle Leander goes missing from the Holmes estate—after being oddly private about his latest assignment in a German art forgery ring—the game is afoot once again, and Charlotte throws herself into a search for answers.

So begins a dangerous race through the gritty underground scene in Berlin and glittering art houses in Prague, where Holmes and Watson discover that this complicated case might change everything they know about their families, themselves, and each other. 

Oh yeah, the last of August. REAL FUNNY TITLE THERE. 

Aside from tricking me into thinking August was safe and tricking me into liking him, this book is pretty great. Not as good as the first book, but I like how it takes place away from the school. I thought they'd all be set in the school so it was fun to mix it up with Europe.

The plot is interesting, and has a tonne of different elements, but I didn't connect with it in a way I did the first book. It didn't really feel urgent, or important, even with Leander being in danger and Charlotte's mum poisoned. But I liked the relationships between everyone, and it had enough of that Charlotte Holmes spark (genuis and inventive and destructive all at once) that I read it quickly, and it didn't bore me once. Plus it wraps up nicely and cleverly and feels a lot like the ending of a Sherlock Holmes story.

Just as smart and thoughtful and moving as book one - I just didn't love it quite as much. Still can't wait to see what happens to Charlotte and Jamie next! Just hope it involves less emotional turmoil!

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★☆

Review: Dreamology

Dreamology | Lucy Keating

Published by: HarperTeen, April 12th 2016

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Science Fiction

Pages: 336

Format: Ebook

Source: HarperTeen, via Edelweiss

Vibrantly offbeat and utterly original, Lucy Keating’s debut novel combines the unconventional romance of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with the sweetness and heart of Jenny Han.

For as long as Alice can remember, she has dreamed of Max. Together, they have traveled the world and fallen deliriously, hopelessly in love. Max is the boy of her dreams—and only her dreams. Because he doesn’t exist.

But when Alice walks into class on her first day at a new school, there he is. Real Max is nothing like Dream Max. He’s stubborn and complicated. And he has a whole life Alice isn’t a part of. Getting to know each other in reality isn’t as perfect as Alice always hoped.

Alarmingly, when their dreams start to bleed into their waking hours, the pair realize that they might have to put an end to a lifetime of dreaming about each other. But when you fall in love in your dreams, can reality ever be enough?

This book is SO CUTE. Sure, it'll crush your heart and make you wanna cry in parts but it's so sweet. I love the relationships (friendship and romantic), I love the dreaming and how strange but fun it is, how the plot is all wrapped up in science and mystery. It was the MOST pleasant surprise to find this not a contemporary with a slight hint of magical realism, but rather contemporary with a hint of science fiction. I loved the research center, the scientists (head scientist's freaking awesome wife - I love you, lady!), and all the explanations involved in that. It's so sad, when you get down to it - they were given to each other's dreams because they'd been through trauma as kids and needed a safety blanket, so they became each other's safety blanket. Sad, but lovely. I kinda want a dream partner (though could do without the downward slide of sanity...)

Adorable in parts, heartbreaking in others, this perfect blend of teenage love and extraordinary dreams shocked me with how good it was. Truly loved it!

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★☆

Review: Dare You

Nikki Kill: Dare You | Jennifer Brown

Published by: Katherine Tegen, February 14th 2017

Genre: YA, Mystery, Thriller

Pages: 480

Format: Ebook

Source: Katherine Tegen, via Edelweiss

In the second book of the suspenseful Shade Me trilogy, Nikki Kill becomes embroiled in another mystery where only her synesthesia can help her unravel the dark truth.

Nikki Kill didn’t realize that trying to find out who killed Peyton Hollis would tangle her in a web of dangerous family secrets that would rock her identity to the core. But now that Nikki knows the truth, the all-powerful Hollises want to frame her for Peyton’s murder.

And now Nikki’s only chance at escaping the cold black bars of prison or the crimson grip of death is teaming up with the enigmatic Detective Martinez and relying on an ever-shifting kaleidoscope of clues.... 

Mark this down as my favourite mystery/thriller series - even if it treats me cruelly and hurts my favourite characters.

I wasn't sure if this would be as high octane or high impact at the first book, but it SO was. I wasn't sure if Nikki wouldn't continue to grow, but she grew SO MUCH. (She's still a crappy person and I still love her so, so much for it.) I wasn't sure if Nikki would ever have a thing with the bae, Martinez, but it looks hopeful on the romance front ... even if every other front is 100% hopeless.

Basically - epic action, thrilling mystery, twists and awesome reveals, a really unique set of antagonists, a beating sarcastic heart, and just enough kissing to make my happy. Love this series. Dying to read the next one!

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★☆