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Legends and Lattes Book Review
From Goodreads: After a lifetime of bounties and bloodshed, Viv is hanging up her sword for the last time. The battle-weary orc aims to start fresh, opening the first ever coffee shop in the city of Thune. But old and new rivals stand in the way of success — not to mention the fact that no one has the faintest idea what coffee actually is. If Viv wants to put the blade behind her and make her plans a reality, she won’t be able to go it alone. But the true rewards of the uncharted path are the travelers you meet along the way. And whether drawn together by ancient…
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Loveless Book Review
From Goodreads: It was all sinking in. I’d never had a crush on anyone. No boys, no girls, not a single person I had ever met. What did that mean? Georgia has never been in love, never kissed anyone, never even had a crush – but as a fanfic-obsessed romantic she’s sure she’ll find her person one day. As she starts university with her best friends, Pip and Jason, in a whole new town far from home, Georgia’s ready to find romance, and with her outgoing roommate on her side and a place in the Shakespeare Society, her ‘teenage dream’ is in sight. But when her romance plan wreaks havoc…
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Legendborn Book Review
From Goodreads: After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus. A flying demon feeding on human energies. A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down. And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw. The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother…
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Kingdom of Souls Book Review
From Goodreads: A girl with no gifts must bargain for the power to fight her own mother’s dark schemes—even if the price is her life. Heir to two lines of powerful witchdoctors, Arrah yearns for magic of her own. Yet she fails at bone magic, fails to call upon her ancestors, and fails to live up to her family’s legacy. Under the disapproving eye of her mother, the Kingdom’s most powerful priestess and seer, she fears she may never be good enough. But when the Kingdom’s children begin to disappear, Arrah is desperate enough to turn to a forbidden, dangerous ritual. If she has no magic of her own, she’ll…
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Rule of Wolves Book Review
Please note, this review is SPOILER FREE for Rule of Wolves, but will include spoilers for King of Scars, as well as Six of Crows/Crooked Kingdom, and the Shadow and Bone trilogy. I know a lot of people are reading the Grishaverse books for the first time with the TV series, so I wanted to be clear! From Goodreads: The Demon King. As Fjerda’s massive army prepares to invade, Nikolai Lantsov will summon every bit of his ingenuity and charm—and even the monster within—to win this fight. But a dark threat looms that cannot be defeated by a young king’s gift for the impossible. The Stormwitch. Zoya Nazyalensky has lost too much…
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The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue Book Review
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab From Goodreads: A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget. France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets. Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world. But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and…
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The Midnight Lie Book Review
The Midnight Lie by Marie Rutkoski From Goodreads: Where Nirrim lives, crime abounds, a harsh tribunal rules, and society’s pleasures are reserved for the High Kith. Life in the Ward is grim and punishing. People of her low status are forbidden from sampling sweets or wearing colors. You either follow the rules, or pay a tithe and suffer the consequences. Nirrim keeps her head down and a dangerous secret close to her chest. But then she encounters Sid, a rakish traveler from far away who whispers rumors that the High Caste possesses magic. Sid tempts Nirrim to seek that magic for herself. But to do that, Nirrim must surrender her…
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Spin the Dawn Book Review
Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim From Goodreads: Project Runway meets Mulan in this sweeping YA fantasy about a young girl who poses as a boy to compete for the role of imperial tailor and embarks on an impossible journey to sew three magic dresses, from the sun, the moon, and the stars. Maia Tamarin dreams of becoming the greatest tailor in the land, but as a girl, the best she can hope for is to marry well. When a royal messenger summons her ailing father, once a tailor of renown, to court, Maia poses as a boy and takes his place. She knows her life is forfeit if her secret is discovered, but…
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Girls of Storm and Shadow Book Review
Girls of Storm and Shadow by Natasha Ngan Though this review is SPOILER FREE for GoSaS, it does contain SPOILERS for the first book in the series. Also, I imagine this book will include a TW for: violence and sexual abuse, plus potentially some other stuff that I have forgotten to mention. When reading the book, please check what TWs are in place if you may require them. From Goodreads: Lei and Wren have escaped their oppressive lives in the Hidden Palace, but soon learn that freedom comes with a terrible cost. Lei, the naive country girl who became a royal courtesan, is now known as the Moonchosen, the commoner who…
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Book Events: YALC 2019
I know, I know, this is coming to you late. This month has been horrendous for academic deadlines, and I’ve had to do a lot of work in quite a rush, and between that and the long hours spent at my laptop trying to make my brain focus, I ended up going on a sort of impromptu hiatus. Which means my review of YALC and a breakdown of the gigantic haul I snagged while I was there, has been put back to now. As some of you may know, at the end of July, I attended the Young Adult Literature Convention with some of my favourite people in the world.…
