I’m telling you, I swear I have a thing for covers with women on them in dresses that I just don’t have access to, apparently. Because this is yet another one that I’m so glad I saw thanks to the cover, and the synopsis for both the first and the second book really reeled me in. Thank you as always to the FFBC team for hosting this blog tour for Sensational by Jodie Lynn Zdrok! The full schedule is linked to the banner.

Jodie Lynn Zdrok’s Sensational is the thrilling follow-up to Spectacle in which a killer haunts the Paris World’s Fair of 1889.

The 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris is full of innovations, cultural displays, and inventions. Millions of visitors attend over the course of several months…so no one would notice if a few were missing, right? Maybe—but someone is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the guillotine with a display of their own: beheaded victims in some of the Exposition’s most popular exhibits.

Nathalie Baudin’s ability to see murder scenes should help, but she’s suffering the effects of her magic more than ever before. Fortunately she has other Insightfuls to team up with—if they can be trusted.

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Jodie Lynn Zdrok holds two MAs in European History and an MBA. She enjoys rooting for Boston sports teams, traveling, doing races (to offset being a foodie), and posting cat photos to Instagram. She works in technology and lives in North Carolina by way of Massachusetts.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Fantastic Flying Book Club and Tor Teen for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

Okay now, can I just say that Tor Teen has been giving me so many amazing books to try out that I don’t think I’ve been disappointed by any of them so far? And this book is no exception! So thank you to Tor Teen for working with some amazing authors and making sure that they are able to get their stories out for people like me to read and enjoy. It’s so important.

Second of all, wow. I really love YA historical fiction, and it’s been difficult for me to find some lately with my libraries not having a lot of ebooks or audiobook options at this time. So with being able to read Sensational, I was able to scratch my YA Historical Fiction itchy spot for a little bit. I think that Zdorak did an amazing job with this sequel, and I really enjoyed the magical aspect that she included for our main character Nathalie. I think that Nathalie being able to use her magic to see the murder scenes and her detective skills that we see in this novel really help to make her a main character that I could root for. I also liked the the fact that her magic isn’t all powerful, and we do see some times where it seems to be causing her weakness. There should always be some sort of effect when using magic, and Zdorak shows that wonderfully.

I also really liked the setting of the Exposition Universelle and it being in Paris. I know sometimes Paris can seem like an overused setting for a lot of historical fiction – and that’s a gross estimation okay, please don’t take that to heart – but I still really liked this one. I felt like because it wasn’t dealing with any sort of war plot, it made me want to fall in love with this story even more. I also am not very versed on the Exposition Universelle so this gave me some insight into it and really made me want to be more educated on stuff that I usually don’t gravitate towards. It’s interesting how books do that to you, right?

Also, I’m really hoping that there’s another book coming out for Nathalie because I like her a lot.