Review | Sweep in Peace by Ilona Andrews

Sweep in Peace by Ilona Andrews (The Innkeeper Chronicles #2)
Published November 13, 2015 by NYLA, 315 pp.
Summary:

Dina DeMille doesn’t run your typical Bed and Breakfast. Her inn defies laws of physics, her fluffy dog is secretly a monster, and the only paying guest is a former Galactic tyrant with a price on her head. But the inn needs guests to thrive, and guests have been scarce, so when an Arbitrator shows up at Dina’s door and asks her to host a peace summit between three warring species, she jumps on the chance.

Unfortunately, for Dina, keeping the peace between Space Vampires, the Hope-Crushing Horde, and the devious Merchants of Baha-char is much easier said than done. On top of keeping her guests from murdering each other, she must find a chef, remodel the inn…and risk everything, even her life, to save the man she might fall in love with. But then it’s all in the day’s work for an Innkeeper…

---

Now I remember why I didn’t want to read Sweep in Peace last year. It’s because if the current trend continues we’ll be getting the next book in 2017. Basically, what will I do until then?? What Ilona Andrews book should I read in the meantime??

If you’ve read Clean Sweep, I think you’ll find this a wee bit predictable but it definitely does not diminish the fun of reading this. My only question is, Dina, why won’t you give Armand a chance??

Review | Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley

Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley (Magonia #1)
Published April 28, 2015 by HarperCollins, 320 pp.
Summary:

Maria Dahvana Headley’s soaring YA debut is a fiercely intelligent, multilayered fantasy where Neil Gaiman’s Stardust meets John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars in a story about a girl caught between two worlds . . . two races . . . and two destinies.

Aza Ray Boyle is drowning in thin air. Since she was a baby, Aza has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live. So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn’t think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name.

Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who’s always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world—and found, by another. Magonia.

Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—but as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war between Magonia and Earth is coming. In Aza’s hands lies fate of the whole of humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?

---

You know, I actually find this quite messy and all over the place, like there’s so much going on you don’t know where to focus. Kind of like a sensory overload, but put into words. Oddly enough, I do like this – it’s unique, richly imagined, and transports you to a whole different world. Well, not really – just one above our own that we have no idea exists.

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

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)
Published May 5, 2015 by Bloomsbury, 432 pp.
Summary:

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow over the faerie lands is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

 

---

If I had to pick one word for this book it would be sexy. Or great. Most likely it would be sexy.

I actually started reading this in its ebook form, but I lost interest in that quickly last year. But I picked up the physical versions a month ago since everyone loved ACOMAF so much and I though, mannnnn I’ll have to read ACOTAR to get to this one. So I did. Now I know that the format the book comes in does actually matter, lol. To me, at least.

True to the usual Sarah J. Maas style, the last hundred pages of this is where all the action comes in; most of the book is spent with Tamlin and his court with a few interesting interludes (hello, Suriel! Hello, Rhysand!).

Review | Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen

Stolen Songbird by Danielle L. Jensen (Malediction Trilogy, #1)
Published April 1, 2014 by Angry Robot, 469 pp.
Summary:

For five centuries, a witch’s curse has bound the trolls to their city beneath the mountain. When Cécile de Troyes is kidnapped and taken beneath the mountain, she realises that the trolls are relying on her to break the curse.

Cécile has only one thing on her mind: escape. But the trolls are clever, fast, and inhumanly strong. She will have to bide her time…

But the more time she spends with the trolls, the more she understands their plight. There is a rebellion brewing. And she just might be the one the trolls were looking for…

---

The only thing that can heal a broken heart is another love, I remember reading somewhere today, which is why I dove right into A Court of Thorns and Roses right after finishing this. Anything, really, to get my mind off what happened in Stolen Songbird.

I can’t even call Tristan a noble idiot because I really do see the logic of his actions – I just wish he didn’t have to go down that road. Though I really do love that this book put my emotions through the wringer, and that along the way it was creating a unique, engrossing world.

Review | The Bird and the Sword by Amy Harmon

The Bird and the Sword by Amy Harmon
Published May 10, 2016, 352 pp.
Summary:

Swallow, daughter, pull them in, those words that sit upon your lips. Lock them deep inside your soul, hide them ‘til they’ve time to grow. Close your mouth upon the power, curse not, cure not, ‘til the hour. You won’t speak and you won’t tell, you won’t call on heaven or hell. You will learn and you will thrive. Silence, daughter. Stay alive.

The day my mother was killed, she told my father I wouldn’t speak again, and she told him if I died, he would die too. Then she predicted the king would sell his soul and lose his son to the sky.
My father has a claim to the throne, and he is waiting in the shadows for all of my mother’s words to come to pass. He wants desperately to be king, and I just want to be free.
But freedom will require escape, and I’m a prisoner of my mother’s curse and my father’s greed. I can’t speak or make a sound, and I can’t wield a sword or beguile a king. In a land purged of enchantment, love might be the only magic left, and who could ever love . . . a bird?

How goes it?

Ack, skip the summary. Just read the quote, and dive right into the book. Because this isn’t just about romance, not just about court politics – it’s about a girl who learns who she is, and what she can do.

This is my first book by the author, and Amy Harmon has a way with words. Most of the time, our heroine doesn’t even have an inner dialogue, because words have power – especially for someone like her – and she learned early on that a careless slip, an exclamation, can have far-reaching consequences. Somehow though, Amy Harmon manages to draw us into Lark’s story, and by the end I didn’t want to leave Jeru.

The Falconer by Elizabeth May

The Falconer by Elizabeth May (The Falconer #1)
Published May 6, 2014 by Chronicle Books, 378 pp.
Summary:

One girl’s nightmare is this girl’s faery tale

She’s a stunner.
Edinburgh, 1844. Eighteen-year-old Lady Aileana Kameron, the only daughter of the Marquess of Douglas, has everything a girl could dream of: brains, charm, wealth, a title—and drop-dead beauty.

She’s a liar.
But Aileana only looks the part of an aristocratic young lady. she’s leading a double life: She has a rare ability to sense the sìthíchean—the faery race obsessed with slaughtering humans—and, with the aid of a mysterious mentor, has spent the year since her mother died learning how to kill them.

She’s a murderer.
Now Aileana is dedicated to slaying the fae before they take innocent lives. With her knack for inventing ingenious tools and weapons—from flying machines to detonators to lightning pistols—ruthless Aileana has one goal: Destroy the faery who destroyed her mother.

She’s a Falconer.
The last in a line of female warriors born with a gift for hunting and killing the fae, Aileana is the sole hope of preventing a powerful faery population from massacring all of humanity. Suddenly, her quest is a lot more complicated. She still longs to avenge her mother’s murder—but she’ll have to save the world first.

How goes it?

The Falconer is part historical fiction, part fantasy, and part steampunk, and if you feel like that’s a barrage of information – it actually is. The setting is certainly unique, and the action is definitely one of my favourite things about this. I’m not sure how I feel about Aileana apart from her Falconer persona, but the girl as a Falconer does manage to kick fae butt pretty well.

The Midnight Sea by Kat Ross

The Midnight Sea by Kat Ross (The Fourth Element #1)
Published May 10, 2016 by Acorn Publishing, 261 pp.
Summary:

They are the light against the darkness.

The steel against the necromancy of the Druj.

And they use demons to hunt demons….

Nazafareen lives for revenge. A girl of the isolated Four-Legs Clan, all she knows about the King’s elite Water Dogs is that they bind wicked creatures called daevas to protect the empire from the Undead. But when scouts arrive to recruit young people with the gift, she leaps at the chance to join their ranks. To hunt the monsters that killed her sister.

Scarred by grief, she’s willing to pay any price, even if it requires linking with a daeva named Darius. Human in body, he’s possessed of a terrifying power, one that Nazafareen controls. But the golden cuffs that join them have an unwanted side effect. Each experiences the other’s emotions, and human and daeva start to grow dangerously close.

As they pursue a deadly foe across the arid waste of the Great Salt Plain to the glittering capital of Persepolae, unearthing the secrets of Darius’s past along the way, Nazafareen is forced to question his slavery—and her own loyalty to the empire. But with an ancient evil stirring in the north, and a young conqueror sweeping in from the west, the fate of an entire civilization may be at stake…

How goes it?

The Midnight Sea may have started out a bit hazy for me, but damn was the last half so great. The elements of this are familiar – girl suddenly becomes a central figure in a conflict she had no idea existed, a demon pair, warring kingdoms – but I think Kat Ross does a good job of putting her own spin on these that this makes for an interesting read! Also is not the cover gorgeous!

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton (Rebel of the Sands #1)
Published March 8, 2016 by Viking Books for Young Readers, 320 pp.
Summary:

She’s more gunpowder than girl—and the fate of the desert lies in her hands.

Mortals rule the desert nation of Miraji, but mystical beasts still roam the wild and barren wastes, and rumor has it that somewhere, djinni still practice their magic. But there’s nothing mystical or magical about Dustwalk, the dead-end town that Amani can’t wait to escape from.

Destined to wind up “wed or dead,” Amani’s counting on her sharpshooting skills to get her out of Dustwalk. When she meets Jin, a mysterious and devastatingly handsome foreigner, in a shooting contest, she figures he’s the perfect escape route. But in all her years spent dreaming of leaving home, she never imagined she’d gallop away on a mythical horse, fleeing the murderous Sultan’s army, with a fugitive who’s wanted for treason. And she’d never have predicted she’d fall in love with him…or that he’d help her unlock the powerful truth of who she really is.

How goes it?

As much as I like romance, I do enjoy a strong heroine who can hold her own! I flew through this read, thanks to the action and everything happening fast, but not too fast.

The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen (The Queen of the Tearling #2)
Published June 9, 2015 by Harper, 515 pp.
Summary:

With each passing day, Kelsea Glynn is growing into her new responsibilities as Queen of the Tearling. By stopping the shipments of slaves to the neighboring kingdom of Mortmesne, she crossed the Red Queen, a brutal ruler whose power derives from dark magic, who is sending her fearsome army into the Tearling to take what is hers. And nothing can stop the invasion.

But as the Mort army draws ever closer, Kelsea develops a mysterious connection to a time before the Crossing, and she finds herself relying on a strange and possibly dangerous ally: a woman named Lily, fighting for her life in a world where being female can feel like a crime. The fate of the Tearling —and that of Kelsea’s own soul—may rest with Lily and her story, but Kelsea may not have enough time to find out.

How goes it?

“A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.” – William Styron

What a great way to sum up how I felt after finishing this book; I will probably use this quote whenever reading a book taxes me out. This is basically me after finishing the Invasion of the Tearling, not the least because we have several POVs again; we all knew Kelsea wouldn’t have it easy after what she did in the Queen of the Tearling, but somehow even I forgot that this girl is just 19 years old. With her queenly duties, a whole kingdom relying on her to save them, and an invading army on their door, it doesn’t make being a teenager any easier.

True Born by L.E. Sterling

True Born by L.E. Sterling (True Born Trilogy, #1)
Published May 3, 2016 by Entangled: Teen, 304 pp.
Copy provided by Entangled: Teen at NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:

Welcome to Dominion City.

After the great Plague descended, the world population was decimated…and their genetics damaged beyond repair.

The Lasters wait hopelessly for their genes to self-destruct. The Splicers pay for expensive treatments that might prolong their life. The plague-resistant True Borns are as mysterious as they are feared…

And then there’s Lucy Fox and her identical twin sister, Margot. After endless tests, no one wants to reveal what they are.

When Margot disappears, a desperate Lucy has no choice but to put her faith in the True Borns, led by the charismatic Nolan Storm and the beautiful but deadly Jared Price. As Lucy and the True Borns set out to rescue her sister, they stumble upon a vast conspiracy stretching from Dominion’s street preachers to shady Russian tycoons. But why target the Fox sisters?

As they say in Dominion, it’s in the blood.

How goes it?

Oooohh I like this. It’s dark, and with mythology, science, and a bit of religious fanaticism thrown in, it makes for an interesting read. It took a while for me to get into the book’s groove, but I did, and I think this ended on a really good note.