REVIEW | Vengeful (Villains #2) by V.E. Schwab

Name: Vengeful (Villains #2)
Author: V.E. Schwab
Genres: Adult, Paranormal Fantasy
Publisher: Titan Books
Format: UK Hardback
Source: Waterstones Pre-Order
Rating: ★★★★★
GOODREADS | BUY

Eli Ever and Victor Vale were only medical students when their mutual discovery that near-death experiences can, under the right conditions, manifest extraordinary abilities.

They were best friends, and rivals, and then enemies. They were dead, then alive, and then—Eli killed Victor, once and for all.

Or so he thought—but Sydney Clarke felt otherwise, and used her own superpower to tip the scales. Now, a trio hides in the shadows, while another takes advantages of post-death life to take over the city of Merit.

If there can be life after death—will there be calm after vengeance, or will chaos rule?

REVIEW | The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1) by Holly Black

Name: The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1)
Author: Holly Black
Genres: YA, Fantasy
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Format: Hardback
Source: Fairyloot January 2018 Box
Rating: ★★★★★
GOODREADS | BUY

Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.
And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

REVIEW | Furyborn (Empirium #1) by Claire Legrand

Name: Furyborn (Empirium #1)
Author: Claire Legrand
Genres: YA/NA, Fantasy
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Format: Paperback ARC
Source: Fairyloot November Box 2017
Rating: ★★★★★
Release: 22nd May 2018
GOODREADS | PRE-ORDER/BUY

Follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world…or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, the crown prince, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing her ability to perform all seven kinds of elemental magic. The only people who should possess this extraordinary power are a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light and salvation and a queen of blood and destruction. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven trials to test her magic. If she fails, she will be executed…unless the trials kill her first.

A thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a mere fairy tale to bounty hunter Eliana Ferracora. When the Undying Empire conquered her kingdom, she embraced violence to keep her family alive. Now, she believes herself untouchable–until her mother vanishes without a trace, along with countless other women in their city. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain on a dangerous mission and discovers that the evil at the heart of the empire is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world–and of each other.

REVIEW | Hero at the Fall (Rebel of the Sands #3) by Alwyn Hamilton

Name: Hero at the Fall (Rebel of the Sands #3)
Author: Alwyn Hamilton
Genres: YA, Fantasy
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Format: UK Paperback
Source: Waterstones
Rating: ★★★★★
GOODREADS | BUY

Once, there was a desert under seige, and no one to defend it . . .

The rebels are crushed: most are captured, burned out or dead. Except Amani, and it’s up to her to protect the survivors.
But how can one girl save a whole rebellion?

Then foreign armies begin advancing across desert plains and the Sultan starts hunting the rebels through the streets of Izman.
Now Amani must prove that she’s not just a desert girl any more, that she’s learned a few tricks since then . . .

Here begins the final battle for the throne. Who will lead, who will triumph, who will live and who will die?
All heroes are mortal in the end . . .

REVIEW | Curiouser and Curiouser (Steampunk Fairytales #1) by Melanie Karsak

Name: Curiouser and Curiouser (Steampunk Fairytales #1)
Author: Melanie Karsak
Genres: Sci Fi, Fantasy, Retelling
Publisher: Clockpunk Press
Format: Audiobook
Source: Author
Overall Rating: ★★★☆☆
GOODREADS | BUY

To save the Hatter, Alice must work with the one man she despises so much that she might still love him.

Alice thought she’d turned over a new leaf. No more working for Jabberwocky. No more making deals with the ruthless Queen of Hearts. No more hanging around The Mushroom with tinkers, tarts, scoundrels, and thieves in London’s criminal underbelly. But she’d been bonkers to dream.

Hatter’s reckless behavior leads Alice back to the one person she never wanted to see again, Caterpillar. Pulled into Caterpillar’s mad schemes, Alice must steal a very big diamond from a very royal lady. The heist is no problem for this Bandersnatch. But protecting her heart from the man she once loved? Impossible.

Sometimes love is mad.

*This audiobook was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review*

REVIEW | The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

Name: The City of Brass
Author: S.A. Chakraborty
Genres: Adult, Fantasy
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Format: Paperback ARC
Source: Illumicrate November 2017 Box
Rating: ★★★★★
GOODREADS | BUY

Nahri has never believed in magic. Certainly, she has power; on the streets of 18th century Cairo, she’s a con woman of unsurpassed talent. But she knows better than anyone that the trade she uses to get by—palm readings, zars, healings—are all tricks, sleights of hand, learned skills; a means to the delightful end of swindling Ottoman nobles.

But when Nahri accidentally summons an equally sly, darkly mysterious djinn warrior to her side during one of her cons, she’s forced to accept that the magical world she thought only existed in childhood stories is real. For the warrior tells her a new tale: across hot, windswept sands teeming with creatures of fire, and rivers where the mythical marid sleep; past ruins of once-magnificent human metropolises, and mountains where the circling hawks are not what they seem, lies Daevabad, the legendary City of Brass? A city to which Nahri is irrevocably bound.

In that city, behind gilded brass walls laced with enchantments, behind the six gates of the six djinn tribes, old resentments are simmering. And when Nahri decides to enter this world, she learns that true power is fierce and brutal. That magic cannot shield her from the dangerous web of court politics. That even the cleverest of schemes can have deadly consequences.

After all, there is a reason they say be careful what you wish for . . .

REVIEW | To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

Name: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Author: Jenny Han
Genres: YA, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Format: Hardback
Source: Imi & James’s Monthly Book Swap
Rating: ★★★★☆
GOODREADS | BUY

What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them… all at once? 

Sixteen-year-old Lara Jean Song keeps her love letters in a hatbox her mother gave her. They aren’t love letters that anyone else wrote for her; these are ones she’s written. One for every boy she’s ever loved—five in all. When she writes, she pours out her heart and soul and says all the things she would never say in real life, because her letters are for her eyes only. Until the day her secret letters are mailed, and suddenly, Lara Jean’s love life goes from imaginary to out of control.

REVIEW | The Betrayal by Kate Furnivall

Name: The Betrayal
Author: Kate Furnivall
Genres: Historical Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley
Rating: ★★★★☆
GOODREADS | BUY

Could you kill someone? Someone you love?

Paris, 1938. This is the story of twin sisters divided by fierce loyalties and by a terrible secret. The drums of war are beating and France is poised, ready to fall. One sister is an aviatrix, the other is a socialite and they both have something to prove and something to hide.

Discover a brilliant story of love, danger, courage … and betrayal.

*An electronic advance reading copy was provided courtesy of Netgalley in exchange for an honest review*

REVIEW | Atheists Who Kneel and Pray by Tarryn Fisher

Name: Atheists Who Kneel and Pray
Author: Tarryn Fisher
Genres: New Adult, Romance
Publisher: Self-published
Format: Paperback
Source: Amazon UK
Rating: ★★★★★
GOODREADS | BUY

Yara Phillips is a wandering muse.
She dates men who need her, but always moves on to something new, never staying in one place for very long.

David Lisey is in need of a muse.
A talented musician lacking lyrical inspiration. When he first sees her, he knows he’s found what he’s been looking for.

Yara believes she can give David exactly what he needs to reach his full potential:
A broken heart.

David’s religion is love.
Yara’s religion is heartache.
Neither is willing to surrender, but religion always requires sacrifice.