Book Review Alert: Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

Reviewed: September 12th, 2023
Released: May 2nd, 2023
Genre: YA Fantasy
Format: Hardcover

Welcome to the brutal and elite world of Basgiath War College, where everyone has an agenda, and every night could be your last . . .

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general – also known as her tough-as-talons mother – has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away . . . because dragons don’t bond to ‘fragile’ humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter – like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom’s protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Alliances will be forged. Lives will be lost. Traitors will become allies . . . or even lovers. But sleep with one eye open because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die. Read my thoughts…

Book Review Alert:

Christmas on Outcast Station by Jeanne Adams and Nancy Northcott

Reviewed: September 1st, 2023
Released: December 23rd, 2018
Genre: Science Fiction
Format: eARC

The Princess Problem
by Jeanne Adams

It’s Christmas on Outcast Station and Chief Station Marshal Brad Carruthers has a princess problem. It seems one of orphans from the station’s accidental plague is a princess––soon to be queen––and several people want to kill her. Brad isn’t about to let that happen on his watch. Outcast Station already has enough of a bad reputation without losing princesses. However, when she’s kidnapped, the station springs to action. In the end, can a motley assortment of crew and orphans help Brad find the lost princess before Christmas?

Scorpions for Christmas
by Nancy Northcott

For Federated Colonies Deputy Marshal Hank Tremaine, the only bright spot in his posting to the back end of beyond is its proximity to the Drachan Empire. Fascinated by the scorpioid Drachans, he’s eager to learn more about them. He should’ve been careful what he wished for. A Drachan has been murdered at the local spaceport and a priceless religious artifact stolen. As diplomatic tensions mount, Hank and his comrades race to find the killer and the missing relic before interstellar war breaks out. Read my thoughts…

Book Review Alert: A Wolf So Grim and Mangy by Caroline Noe

Reviewed: September 3rd, 2023
Released: September 20th, 2022
Genre: Humourous Fantasy
Format: Paperback

A Land of Darkness drowns in despair.
It’s called My Office.

When I’m not typing manifests, I churn out fantasy books no-one reads.
Less Young Adult, more MAD: Middle Aged Disappointment.
So, when I’m gifted a magic book for Secret Santa, I can’t believe my luck.

One miserable ‘Once Upon a Time’ later and I’m marooned on a frozen mountain, heaving with weirdos, biting each other’s throats.

The Snake’s oily,
The Eagle’s bald,
The Bear’s accident prone,
My ‘Handsome Prince’ is more cheesed off Wolf, busy scratching, and I’ve no idea who the Villain is (unless it’s me).

Worst of all…
I’ve no way home and the Mangy Wolf’s got the hots for me.

Growing old is no fairytale. Read my thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Mosiac by R.A Harrison

Reviewed: August 31st, 2023
Released: September 1st, 2023 (Launch day!!)
Genre: Science Fantasy
Format: ARC- Paperback

Declared a renegade
The life you knew in shatters
How do you pick up the pieces?

Bekah and Lan are young professionals, at the beginnings of their careers, but have fallen foul of the Consortium, the huge mining and industrial conglomeration with its stranglehold on the colonies. Into their lives comes the enigmatic Zandra, with a secret so well hidden not even she knows of it, but which will change all of their lives. But an invitation from Captain Pendryl, to join him aboard the Caladrius, may provide the solution they are all searching for.

Crewed almost entirely by the Gifted, the Caladrius will be the flagship of a taskforce protecting telepaths and telekinetics in the colonies. But the mission is not without danger … too many of the colonies have become isolationist and regressive, and see the Gift as witchcraft.

Read my thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Sea of Souls by N.C Scrimgeour

Reviewed: August 25th, 2023
Released: August 4th, 2023
Genre: Folklore Fantasy

Dark be the water, and darker still the creatures that lurk within…

Free-spirited Isla Blackwood has never accepted the shackles of her family’s nobility. Instead, she sails the open waters, searching for belonging on the waves.

But when tragedy calls Isla home, she realises she can no longer escape the duty she’s been running from. Selkie raiders have been terrorising the island’s coasts, and when they strike at Blackwood Estate, Isla is forced to flee with her hot-headed brother and brooding swordmaster.

To avenge her family and reclaim her home, Isla will have to set aside old grudges and join forces with an exiled selkie searching for a lost pelt. The heirloom might be the key to stopping the bloody conflict—but only if they can steal it from the island’s most notorious selkie hunter, the Grand Admiral himself.

Caught between a promise to the brother she once left behind and an unlikely friendship with the selkie who should have been her enemy, Isla soon realises the open seas aren’t the only treacherous waters she’ll need to navigate.

As enemies close in on all sides, she must decide once and for all where her loyalties lie if she wants to save what’s left of her family—and find the belonging she’s been searching for.

Sea of Souls is a dark fantasy filled with selkie folklore, ancient magic and high-seas adventure. Perfect for fans of Scottish-inspired settings and dark mythological creatures. Read My Thoughts …

Book Review Alert: Recruitment by K.A Riley

Reviewed: August 20th, 2023
Released: November 28th, 2018
Genre: Dystopian Fantasy

In the Valta, no matter what month you were born, everyone is assigned the same birthday. November 1st. It’s the anniversary of the day when the government declared war on the Eastern Order.
The day you turn seventeen, the Recruiters come to take you away. And no one ever hears from you again.

It’s October 31st. Today, Kress is sixteen years old.
Tomorrow, she’ll be taken.

The good news? So will her best friend Cardyn, and Brohn, the handsome, enigmatic boy she’s avoided all her life.

The bad news?

Recruitment isn’t what any of them expected.

Weeks of training await. Military and psychological tests, escape rooms, hand-to-hand combat. The Recruits are told they’re the key to winning the war. But with each day that passes, things begin to make less sense.
If only Kress had been able to bring her trained raven, Render, with her.
If only none of them had ever had to come to this place. Read my thoughts…

Book Review Alert: A Descent of Dragons by Jasmine Young

Reviewed: August 15th, 2023
Released: July 31st, 2023
Genre: Epic Fantasy

One hatchling’s fall will break a continent.

A hatchling will descend from the skies.

It will forever change the fate of one rider.

But this is far from a dragon. Better that it had never come at all.

This is the portentous truth about what caused it to fall into the world of men…

An event that will precede the breaking of a continent.

Only available by subscribing to Jasmine Young’s Epic Legends mailing list.

Read my thoughts…

Book Review Alert: The Stone of Time by Pamela Chartrand

Reviewed: August 13th, 2023
Released: July 31st, 2023
Genre: Wicca Fantasy

When you recognize your destiny, you’ll know what to do.

Paige Delaney is coming to terms with her identity as a bloodline witch. Although she’s one of the most powerful of her line, she struggles to access her magical gifts.

Returning to the Wiccan bonfire, she receives a mystical vision of a monk attacking a hooded figure, and she knows she must pursue it. She travels to France to find the enigmatic bookseller who introduced her to the sacred text that started it all. With his mentorship, and the mysterious Stone of Time, she time-travels to 14th-century Avignon on a daring mission to rescue the Herbarium.

There, she meets the Companion who is attempting to save the life of a young man, but risks falling into a trap set by the Papal counsel.

Overwhelmed, Paige fears her tenuous grasp on her powers will fail.

And when fate reunites her with her timeless love, Paige must make a heart-wrenching choice—

Return to the present, or remain and leave behind everything she knows and holds dear. Read My Thoughts …

Book Review Alert: Salvage Right by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Reviewed: August 9th, 2023
Released: July 4th, 2023
Genre: Space Opera

A door never closes, but a window opens . . .

With origins in the Old Universe, the malevolent, acquisitive intelligence of Tinsori Light sought to infect others with itself and send those agents out into the wide new universe to infect even more.

For centuries, two heroes stood between Tinsori Light and the vulnerable universe—Light Keepers Jen Sin yos’Phelium and Lorith of the Sanderat.

Just when it seemed that they—merely human—must fail, Tinsori Light, enfeebled by aged systems, succumbed to the stress of a unique spatial event—and died, leaving the station a shell.

Luckily, the light keepers have back-up. A mismatched team of arcane specialists are on-station, working nonstop to preserve the Light, build trustworthy systems, and open the refurbished station for business.

In fact, ships are already incoming, and it becomes a matter of urgency to sort friend from foe. In particular, the Lyre Institute wishes to acquire Tinsori Light, and will do anything, spend anyone, to achieve that goal. Read My Thoughts…

Book Review Alert: Too Many Shadows, Not Enough Light by LC Ainsworth

Reviewed: August 6th, 2023
Released: January 12th, 2023
Genre: Science Fiction

Princesses are born to defend their people.

Being the best Imperial Air Force cadet, spending time with her friends and maybe meeting a cute boy is all Princess Astrid Zainab Korsning better known as Izzy wants.

If only Yanar, her country, was not at war with Petra.

If only she wasn’t forced to become regent while her mother was fighting on the front lines.

If only she had not come face to face with the unknown enemies while investigating signs of infiltration on earth by dark forces.

If only she was not in danger of falling in love with the wrong boy during her first trip to London.

Princesses are born to die for their people

The kingdom of Petra: once upon a time the best place in the galaxy for art, literature and music. That was until the war against The Alliance, a federation of planets led by the Yan empire.

Their last hope for victory, travelling to a planet of savages named Earth and attacking from the inside, their most powerful country, Yanar.

The Hendus: survivors of a dead world, desperate for a new home.

Their last hope for survival, finalising the colonisation of Earth from the shadows which they started 200 years ago.

The Backhand : Marginalised group of nature lovers, forbidden from practicing their religion by Yanar.

Their last hope for revenge, the alienation of the Members of the Tens, Yanar’s aristocracy and the imperial family.

Petra, Hendu and The Backhand agree, the empire must fall.

And it starts with the death of a 17-year-old princess. The only problem, Izzy is not just a princess, she is also an Omni, a human who possesses five supernatural powers. Read My Thoughts….