I quite enjoyed The Ivies by Alexa Donne. Donne debuted as a sci-fi romance author, but it appears she has pivoted and found a niche in YA thrillers, and I for one applaud that. I love it when an author who has found moderate success in one genre pivots into another and it takes off. […]
I really enjoyed Gone Too Far by Natalie D Richards who, I have discovered since reading the book, is known for YA psychological thrillers. Gone Too Far was published in 2015 but it feels like it could have come out recently. I also want to mention that YA thrillers are one of my favourite genres […]
League of Liars is not what I was expecting, but I still really enjoyed it. I thought the book was very well plotted, with distinct and well-rounded characters. I really enjoyed the chaos of the magic system and I thought it was more of an original take than what we usually get in YA fantasy: […]
I have been charmed by a romance book based on Wordle. Do y’all remember the word game that took over the internet during the pandemic? That’s what this book is based on: a young woman named Emily, adrift in life, unfocused but convinced she’s destined for greatness, and her love for Wordle. I don’t like […]
The Grace Year was a beautifully brutal book exploring generational trauma coupled with horrific misogyny and utter panic about female sexuality as if every single man was inspired by Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. In this book’s dystopian world, girls are second-class citizens forbidden from engaging in any number of acts – even […]
I really enjoyed this book – I listened to it on audio – and it was highly engaging and entertaining for a large part of the narrative. I thoroughly enjoy time loop stories, and I was delighted to see common elements explored in this novel such as the ‘no consequences’ day and several other elements […]
After the events of Timekeeper and Chainbreaker, I found Firestarter just… fine. I wasn’t particularly invested in the first half of the book. In fact, I can’t even really remember what happens, because the plot is basically ‘character gets kidnapped and now another character has to rescue them’ rinse and repeat as necessary. Except that […]
One Dark Window was hyped as a gothic fantasy with a unique magic system and while I can see why it’s being marketed as ‘gothic’ if I turn my head and squint (and no, this is NOT the fault of the writer, rather the marketers), the unique magic system had 2 parts, one of which […]
This was a really enjoyable story once I got past the incredibly slow first half. With a focus much more on characterisation and worldbuilding and far, far less on plot, with barely any action until halfway through, I was actually wondering what all the hype was about! That being said, once the game of cat […]
When I read the blurb for Love From Scratch, I instantly fell in love with the idea of this flashy, confident, golden retriever movie star hero and this ‘grumpy’, reserved, black cat heroine. And I’m so pleased that from the very opening line, I fell head over heels for Love From Scratch and loved every […]
