Scifi/Fantasy

Book Review | The Sins on Their Bones | Laura R. Samotin

Book Review | The Sins on Their Bones | Laura R. Samotin

The Sins on Their Bones is about two lovers. One is a former ruler in hiding. The other is a ruler who stole the throne. And though there’s an entire fantasy world with heaven and hell, the real story is the love the two characters have for each other. It shapes their decisions and sets the stage. It’s the wants and the drive. And it’s probably the reason that you got sucked in, in the first place.

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Book Review | The Glass Scientists Vol 1 | S. H. Cotugno

Book Review | The Glass Scientists Vol 1 | S. H. Cotugno

In a world where the monsters are real, Dr. Henry Jekyll is trying to bring the arcane science back to life. That is… if he can get the funding to keep his community of scientists alive. He hopes the community’s outlook will change with his upcoming exhibition, but after bringing a new scientist into the fold, things go very wrong. First, Mr. Hyde wants to take a spin in the real world. Then Dr. Frankenstein turns out to be very much alive, bringing with her a very real Mad scientist that might just happen to set the city on fire… with a little help from Mr. Hyde. Now Jekyll is left trying to right what’s been wronged while keeping his dark secret to himself.

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Book Review | Fourth Wing | Rebecca Yarros

Book Review | Fourth Wing | Rebecca Yarros

Violet was never supposed to be a dragon rider. Her future was meant for the words, to live in the archives as a scribe. But then her father dies and she’s left to the will of her mother — the Commanding General – who sends her to the dragon riding academy instead. The problem is, you either graduate or you die. Violet isn’t ready for the first challenge just to enter the school, the boy that calls her Violence, or the physical strain put on her already fragile body. Violet takes it one day at a time, surprising herself until the dreaded moment when the dragons get to pick their riders. Will they see her as the weak person she is, or give her a chance?

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Book Review | The Darkest Part of the Forest | Holly Black

Book Review | The Darkest Part of the Forest | Holly Black

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.
Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.
At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.
Until one day, he does…
As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

Goodreads

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Book Review | A Court of Thorns and Roses | Sarah J. Maas

Book Review | A Court of Thorns and Roses | Sarah J. Maas

Feyre’s one job is to keep her family alive during the harsh winter, but when she kills a wolf to get the prey that they’re both after, she finds out that she killed no ordinary wolf but a Faery. Her punishment… either forfeit her life or spend the rest of it in the faery realm. What she doesn’t expect to find there though, is a caring faery who plans to let her live out her life in peace. A faery that has provided for her family while she’s gone. And a faery trying to keep the faery realm together. Now Feyre, a mere human, might be the last chance at saving what’s about to be destroyed.

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Book Review | Graves for Drifters and Thieves | Sophia Minetos

Book Review | Graves for Drifters and Thieves | Sophia Minetos

Jae is a girl on her own. A girl trying to find her father. Taken by ghosts, Jae thinks he’ll be in the Outlands. One problem… the Rangers are the only ones allowed access. Working as a bounty hunter in hopes of gaining the notoriety to become a Ranger herself, Jae stumbles on her biggest bounty when members from the Harney gang sit in her booth at a bar one night. She doubts her luck could be this great. Jae agrees to join them on their next heist in hopes that she can thwart their plan and drag them to the sheriff instead. However, nothing is as the bounty paints it and she learns the deadly gang is on their own hunt. A hunt that could possibly help her reach her father. But getting their help would be to become the very people that she hunts.

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Book Series | Daughter of Smoke and Bone | Laini Taylor

Book Series | Daughter of Smoke and Bone | Laini Taylor

Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.
When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself? - Goodreads

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Book Review | The Year of the Witching | Alexis Henderson

Book Review | The Year of the Witching | Alexis Henderson

Living in the shadow of her mother’s past, Immanuelle tries her best to abide by the rules of her society. But as the other girls grow into themselves and are marked as brides, Immanuelle still feels different. Then one day, walking home from town with her goat, the worst happens. She goes into the forbidden Darkwood where she stumbles onto the very thing that haunts it - the witches. And these witches have a gift for her. The diary of her dead mother. A diary that spells out a curse. When the first curse is bestowed upon her home, Immanuelle tries to find a fix that just ends up leading her down to a path of questioning the society she was born into.

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Book Review | The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue | V. E. Schwab

Book Review | The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue | V. E. Schwab

Addie Larue just wants to live. To live beyond the borders of her little town. She can’t imagine living and dying in the same few square miles that her family and friends have done for generations. So when the night of her wedding arrives, she makes a deal with a god from the dark. A god that promises her life, but with a twist. She will never be remembered. For 300 years, Addie walks through life, always having a first meeting, but never being remembered beyond leaving the room. She steals and lies and fights to leave the tiniest impression of herself in the world until the day that she’s finally remembered by a boy in a bookshop.

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Book Review | Slay | Brittney Morris

Book Review | Slay | Brittney Morris

No one knows what Kiera does with her free time. They don’t know that she’s created an online video game that’s over 500,000 strong. They don’t know that she’s created a safe gaming environment for black people. And they don’t know that she’s scared when one of the gamers winds up dead over a dispute about the game. As the news travels the world, bringing awareness to the very real fact that her game may be discriminating, Kiera struggles to show that she’s just wanting black people to feel like themselves for once. But then an unknown entity threatens to bring down everything that Kiera and the game stand for.

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Book Review | The Savior's Sister | Jenna Moreci

Book Review | The Savior's Sister | Jenna Moreci

Leila Tūs Salvatíraas, Savior of Thessen and magical Queen of Her realm, is worshiped by all. Except Her father. He wants Her dead. The Sovereign’s Tournament—a centuries-long tradition designed to select The Savior’s husband—is days away, but Brontes’s plan to overthrow his daughter ignites, shifting the objective of the competition from marriage to murder. With the help of Her sisters and some unexpected allies, Leila must unravel Brontes’s network and prevent Her own assassination. But as the body count rises, She learns the deception runs far deeper than She imagined. When She finds Herself falling for one of the tournament competitors, Her father finds himself another target for murder.
Can Leila save Herself and Her beloved, or is their untimely end—and the corruption of Her realm—inevitable?
TRIGGER WARNINGS: This book contains graphic violence, sexual situations, physical abuse, adult language, and references to suicide. - Goodreads

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Book Review | Scavenge the Stars | Tara Sims

Book Review | Scavenge the Stars | Tara Sims

Sold to a debtor’s ship to pay off her family’s debt, Amaya is almost free when she makes the decision to defy her captain and save a man from drowning. That act of rebellion costs her her ticket off the ship. Jumping overboard to escape her debtor’s life, the man she saves offers her the one thing she wants more than freedom - revenge. The pair team up together with plans to take down the same man that has ruined both of their lives. Disguising herself as a Countess in hopes of becoming friends with the man’s son, the son soon discovers his own secrets, ones that he hopes he can use to save his sick sister. That is until Amaya and his world tangle together in a spectacular fashion.

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Book Review | An Enchantment of Ravens | Margaret Rogerson

Book Review | An Enchantment of Ravens | Margaret Rogerson

Painting may seem like the best career for an extremely talented artist like Isobel, but not when your clients are the dangerous faerie who will try anything to trick you. Still, they need humans to do craft. Isobel takes great care with each of her clients, making sure to use their payment to protect her family. That is, until she angers one of her most important clients, Rook, by painting him as she sees him. Rook will not have it. Kidnapping her in the middle of the night to stand trial for her crimes, they end up far from their intended destination, realizing that the very thing Isobel painted, is the truth that lies beneath Rook’s glamored skin.

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Book Review | Fable | Adrienne Young

Book Review | Fable | Adrienne Young

Four years…. It’s been four years of Fable scraping together whatever she could with her own two hands, trying to survive since she was dumped on the shores of Jeval with nothing but a wicked scare down her arm and a plan to find the man that put it there, her dad. All she needs to do is survive a little longer while she dives for gems that can bring her the coin she needs to buy passage off the island. It looks like she might do just that until the men on the island stop ignoring her and want what she scrounged together. Being chased off the island, Fable runs to the one ship she knows, a ship that’s always traded with her, begging for passage to finally start the search for what’s owed to her - a place on her father’s ship, the most notorious trader. A man with a reputation that follows him everywhere.

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Book Review | The Name of the Wind | Patrick Rothfuss

Book Review | The Name of the Wind | Patrick Rothfuss

Told in Kvothe's own voice, this is the tale of the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen.
The intimate narrative of his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, his years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-ridden city, his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a legendary school of magic, and his life as a fugitive after the murder of a king form a gripping coming-of-age story unrivaled in recent literature.
A high-action story written with a poet's hand, The Name of the Wind is a masterpiece that will transport readers into the body and mind of a wizard. - Goodreads

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Book Review | The Tiger at Midnight and The Archer at Dawn | Swati Teerdhala

Book Review | The Tiger at Midnight and The Archer at Dawn | Swati Teerdhala

Esha is a legend, but no one knows. It’s only in the shadows that she moonlights as the Viper, the rebels’ highly skilled assassin. She’s devoted her life to avenging what she lost in the royal coup, and now she’s been tasked with her most important mission to date: taking down the ruthless General Hotha. Kunal has been a soldier since childhood, training morning and night to uphold the power of King Vardaan. His uncle, the general, has ensured that Kunal never strays from the path—even as a part of Kunal longs to join the outside world, which has been growing only more volatile. Then Esha’s and Kunal’s paths cross—and an unimaginable chain of events unfolds. Both the Viper and the soldier think they’re calling the shots, but they’re not the only players moving the pieces. As the bonds that hold their land in order break down and the sins of the past meet the promise of a new future, both rebel and soldier must make unforgivable choices. - Goodreads

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Book Review | Riot Baby | Tochi Onyebuchi

Book Review | Riot Baby | Tochi Onyebuchi

This isn’t a story just rooted in science fiction. It’s a story about the anger of an entire race. About how they’ve been mistreated and used. It’s about one young boy’s struggle with falling into the system, never to know if he’ll really make it out. It’s a narrative of emotions beautifully written as a way to see the world through a black person’s eyes.

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Book Review | Bent Heavens | Daniel Kraus

Book Review | Bent Heavens | Daniel Kraus

It’s been two years since Liv’s dad disappeared. He didn’t just walk out of the door, leaving her and her mom to try and survive. He disappeared after being abducted by aliens. At least, that's what he said during the year he was back. A year he spent building the crazy traps that Liv and her friend Doug still check every Sunday. Liv just wants to survive her last year of high school in a town where everyone knows the story. Where she walks a thin line as a normal girl. A thin line that’s cut when she finds an alien in the traps that her dad built. Her dad was right all along. But what does one do with the alien? How does one use it to help her find her lost father? How does she finally prove that her dad was right this whole time?

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