Tag: Books: Fantasy

Review: Wicked Saints

Posted 4 September, 2019 by Lianne in Books / 1 Comment

Wicked Saints (Something Dark and Holy #1)
By: Emily A. Duncan
Format/Source: Hardback; my purchase

A girl who can speak to gods must save her people without destroying herself.

A prince in danger must decide who to trust.

A boy with a monstrous secret waits in the wings.

Together, they must assassinate the king and stop the war.

In a centuries-long war where beauty and brutality meet, their three paths entwine in a shadowy world of spilled blood and mysterious saints, where a forbidden romance threatens to tip the scales between dark and light. Wicked Saints is the thrilling start to Emily A. Duncan’s devastatingly Gothic Something Dark and Holy trilogy.

I admit, it was the book cover that drew my attention first. I ended up picking up this book after it was featured in an Indigo Book Box which was pretty exciting (I never buy book boxes so this was a first).

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Review: Vicious

Posted 5 July, 2019 by Lianne in Books / 0 Comments

Vicious (Vicious #1)
By: V.E. Schwab
Format/Source: eBook; my purchase

Victor and Eli started out as college roommates–brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find–aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge–but who will be left alive at the end?

I seem to be on a roll here: first A Darker Shade of Magic, now Vicious. Both books have been on my TBR queue for years so there’s a certain sense of accomplishment in finally reading this book 🙂

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Review: A Darker Shade of Magic

Posted 3 July, 2019 by Lianne in Books / 2 Comments

A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic #1)
By: V.E. Schwab
Format/Source: eBook; my purchase

Kell is one of the last Travelers: magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universesĂłas such, he can choose where he lands. There’s Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, ruled by a mad King George. Then there’s Red London, where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. White London, ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne–a place where people fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London…but no one speaks of that now. Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see–a dangerous hobby, and one that has set him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations, first robs him, then saves him from a dangerous enemy, and then forces him to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

But perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, Kell and Lila will first need to stay alive–and that is proving trickier than they hoped.

At long last, I am reading this book. For years I’ve heard seen this book around, heard great things about it, and wanted to read it myself. I guess I stalled on it because I was worried that it was just overhyped or something. But anyway…

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Review: The Stone Sky

Posted 21 June, 2019 by Lianne in Books / 0 Comments

The Stone Sky (The Broken Earth #3)
By: N.K. Jemisin
Format/Source: Paperback; my purchase

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS… FOR THE LAST TIME.

The Moon will soon return. Whether this heralds the destruction of humankind or something worse will depend on two women.

Essun has inherited the power of Alabaster Tenring. With it, she hopes to find her daughter Nassun and forge a world in which every orogene child can grow up safe.

For Nassun, her mother’s mastery of the Obelisk Gate comes too late. She has seen the evil of the world, and accepted what her mother will not admit: that sometimes what is corrupt cannot be cleansed, only destroyed.

The remarkable conclusion to the post-apocalyptic and highly acclaimed trilogy that began with the multi-award-nominated The Fifth Season.

All right, here we are, last book in the trilogy. This book has been quite the journey so it was quite exciting to finally reach the end and see how everything played out.

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Review: The Obelisk Gate

Posted 14 June, 2019 by Lianne in Books / 0 Comments

The Obelisk Gate (The Broken Earth #2)
By: N.K. Jemisin
Format/Source: Paperback; my purchase

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS… FOR THE LAST TIME.

The season of endings grows darker as civilization fades into the long cold night. Alabaster Tenring ñ madman, world-crusher, savior ñ has returned with a mission: to train his successor, Essun, and thus seal the fate of the Stillness forever.

It continues with a lost daughter, found by the enemy.

It continues with the obelisks, and an ancient mystery converging on answers at last.

The Stillness is the wall which stands against the flow of tradition, the spark of hope long buried under the thickening ashfall. And it will not be broken.

So I read the first book sometime before my exams and meant to continue onward but then I was so busy getting ready for my holiday, and then of course busy when I returned (and distracted by all the other books I picked up while I was on holiday) that I didn’t get around to continuing the trilogy until now.

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