Book Review: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

Strange the Dreamer
By Laini Taylor
Series: Strange the Dreamer #1
Hardcover: 536 pages
Publication Date: March 28, 2017
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ( 5 out of 5 Stars )

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Related Reviews: | Daughter of Smoke & Bone |
Categories: Fantasy, Mythology, High Fantasy

The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever.

What happened in Weep two hundred years ago to cut it off from the rest of the world? What exactly did the Godslayer slay that went by the name of god? And what is the mysterious problem he now seeks help in solving?

The answers await in Weep, but so do more mysteries—including the blue-skinned goddess who appears in Lazlo’s dreams. How did he dream her before he knew she existed? And if all the gods are dead, why does she seem so real?

Welcome to Weep.

Book Review: The Wheel Mages by Aimee Davis

The Wheel Mages
By Aimee Davis
Series: Changing Tides Book 1
Paperback: 329 pages
Publication Date: November 29, 2016
My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ✰ ( 4 out of 5 Stars )

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Related Reviews: | Falling Kingdoms | Heart of Betrayal |
Categories: Fantasy, Magic, Review Copy

Alena Kozlov is one of the last of a dying kind. As the first water mage to be inducted into the Sanctum in over fifty years, she has the opportunity to help the old order destroy a band of rebel mages who threaten the principles the Sanctum is founded upon.

Blinded by loyalty to the Sanctum and love for her master, Alena and three other mages set out to investigate the rebels, but the more she discovers, the less she understands.

Confronted with hard truths about the Sanctum she once believed in and the corruption she sees within it, Alena must make one of the most difficult decisions of her life: follow the path she’s trained for or leave the Sanctum behind.

Whatever the answer, she knows one thing for sure—the old Sanctum saying is true: It is a rocky road she must travel.

Book Review: Caraval by Stephanie Garber

Caraval
By Stephanie Garber
Series: Caraval #1
Hardcover: 407 pages
Publication Date: January 31, 2017
Publisher: Flatiron Books
My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ( 5 out of 5 Stars )

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Related Reviews: | Splintered | Cinder |
Categories: Dark Fantasy, New Release

Remember, it’s only a game…

Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over.

But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner.

Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. Nevertheless she becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic. And whether Caraval is real or not, Scarlett must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over or a dangerous domino effect of consequences will be set off, and her beloved sister will disappear forever.

Welcome, welcome to Caraval…beware of getting swept too far away.

Book Review: Uprooted by Naomi Novik

Uprooted
By Naomi Novik
Hardcover: 435 pages
Publication Date: May 19, 2015
Publisher: Del Rey
My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ✰ ✰ ( 3 out of 5 Stars )

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Related Reviews: | The Shadow Queen | Cinder |
Categories: Fantasy, Magic, Fairy Tale Retelling

“Our Dragon doesn’t eat the girls he takes, no matter what stories they tell outside our valley. We hear them sometimes, from travelers passing through. They talk as though we were doing human sacrifice, and he were a real dragon. Of course that’s not true: he may be a wizard and immortal, but he’s still a man, and our fathers would band together and kill him if he wanted to eat one of us every ten years. He protects us against the Wood, and we’re grateful, but not that grateful.”

Agnieszka loves her valley home, her quiet village, the forests and the bright shining river. But the corrupted Wood stands on the border, full of malevolent power, and its shadow lies over her life.

Her people rely on the cold, driven wizard known only as the Dragon to keep its powers at bay. But he demands a terrible price for his help: one young woman handed over to serve him for ten years, a fate almost as terrible as falling to the Wood.

The next choosing is fast approaching, and Agnieszka is afraid. She knows—everyone knows—that the Dragon will take Kasia: beautiful, graceful, brave Kasia, all the things Agnieszka isn’t, and her dearest friend in the world. And there is no way to save her.

But Agnieszka fears the wrong things. For when the Dragon comes, it is not Kasia he will choose.

Book Review: Beauty of the Beast by Rachel Demeter

Beauty of the Beast
By Rachel Demeter
Series: Fairy Tale Retellings Book 1
Ebook: 342
Publication Date: March 15, 2017
My Rating: ★ ✰ ✰ ✰ ✰ ( 1 out of 5 Stars )

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Related Reviews: | The Shadow Queen | Heartless |
Categories: Fairy Tale Retelling, Historical Romance

A BEAST LIVING IN THE SHADOW OF HIS PAST

Reclusive and severely scarred Prince Adam Delacroix has remained hidden inside a secluded, decrepit castle ever since he witnessed his family’s brutal massacre. Cloaked in shadow, with only the lamentations of past ghosts for company, he has abandoned all hope, allowing the world to believe he died on that tragic eve twenty-five years ago.

A BEAUTY IN PURSUIT OF A BETTER FUTURE

Caught in a fierce snowstorm, beautiful and strong-willed Isabelle Rose seeks shelter at a castle—unaware that its beastly and disfigured master is much more than he appears to be. When he imprisons her gravely ill and blind father, she bravely offers herself in his place.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

Stripped of his emotional defenses, Adam’s humanity reawakens as he encounters a kindred soul in Isabelle. Together they will wade through darkness and discover beauty and passion in the most unlikely of places. But when a monster from Isabelle’s former life threatens their new love, Demrov’s forgotten prince must emerge from his shadows and face the world once more…

Book Review: King's Cage by Victoria Aveyard

King's Cage
By Victoria Aveyard
Series: Red Queen #3
Ebook: 528 pages
Publication Date: February 7, 2017
Publisher: HarperTeen
My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ( 5 out of 5 Stars )

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Related Reviews: | Red Queen | A Torch Against the Night |
Categories: Fantasy, Dystopia, Magic

In this breathless third installment to Victoria Aveyard’s bestselling Red Queen series, allegiances are tested on every side. And when the Lightning Girl's spark is gone, who will light the way for the rebellion?

Mare Barrow is a prisoner, powerless without her lightning, tormented by her lethal mistakes. She lives at the mercy of a boy she once loved, a boy made of lies and betrayal. Now a king, Maven Calore continues weaving his dead mother's web in an attempt to maintain control over his country—and his prisoner.

As Mare bears the weight of Silent Stone in the palace, her once-ragtag band of newbloods and Reds continue organizing, training, and expanding. They prepare for war, no longer able to linger in the shadows. And Cal, the exiled prince with his own claim on Mare's heart, will stop at nothing to bring her back.

When blood turns on blood, and ability on ability, there may be no one left to put out the fire—leaving Norta as Mare knows it to burn all the way down.

Book Review: A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

A Torch Against the Night
By Sabaa Tahir
Series: An Ember in the Ashes #2
Hardcover: 452
Publication Date: August 30, 2016
Publisher: Razorbill
My Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ✰ ( 4 out of 5 Stars )

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Related Reviews: | An Ember in the Ashes | The Young Elites |
Categories: High Fantasy, Dystopian, Magic

Elias and Laia are running for their lives. After the events of the Fourth Trial, Martial soldiers hunt the two fugitives as they flee the city of Serra and undertake a perilous journey through the heart of the Empire.

Laia is determined to break into Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—to save her brother, who is the key to the Scholars’ survival. And Elias is determined to help Laia succeed, even if it means giving up his last chance at freedom.

But dark forces, human and otherworldly, work against Laia and Elias. The pair must fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.

Bound to Marcus’s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own—one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape…and kill them both.