Tag: 2018

Queen of Thieves by Katherine Bogle (ARC Review)

Queen of Thieves by Katherine Bogle (ARC Review)

by Leelynn @ Sometimes Leelynn Reads ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Ruthless commander. Cunning thief. Deadly blademaster. 

Narra is a second generation thief raised in the Guild by her iron-fisted father. Growing up, she dreamed his death would free her, but when he shows up dead in the wreckage of a train destroyed by the Revolution, the happiest day of her life is ruined by one word: traitor. 

Her father is accused of betraying the only thing she thought he ever really loved; the Thieves Guild. To prove his innocence, and remove the stain from her name, Narra will go to darker places than she ever thought possible and be forced to work with people she doesn’t dare trust. 

If she fails, she’ll lose more than her sanity or her life. 

She’ll lose the Guild. 

Set in a steampunk world on the cusp of civil war, Queen of Thievesintroduces a dark tale where family lies, magic might be real, and thieves fall for revolutionary princesses. 

Book Overview:

Author: Katherine Bogle | Series: Clockwork Thief | Format: eBook – ARC | Length: 368 pages | Publish Date: August 21, 2018 | Genre: YA Fantasy | Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ | Recommend: Yes

“But they avoided her.  They’d never touch her with such fondness or sincerity.  She was cold, heartless – a villain even among thieves.”


Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author, and agreed to provide an honest review.

Can I first just start off by saying that I am a sucker for YA books with a bad ass heroine that doesn’t give a crap what others think? Okay I guess that’s my second disclaimer for the review.

Moving on.

Second of all, I think that this series will be one of my favorites in the near future, and I’m going to have to get me some physical copies to add to my collection. The eBook just doesn’t do it justice!  I absolutely am in love with Narra. From the beginning of the book, you can see the type of woman she is. I don’t even know if I can consider her to be a typical female MC, because honestly she just has this aura of “IDGAF if you like me” and I’m all for it.

Plus her dad is a drunk piece of turd that really needs to step the heck down and let his daughter run things, but that’s none of my business.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bogle’s prose.  Her writing style is one of my favorites so far, and I know that now I’m going to have to read the rest of her work sometime soon.  Also, I need to find out what else is going to happen in Narra’s life, because there is no way that I can just end it like that.

Absolutely no way.

Author Spotlight
Courtesy of Goodreads
 
Born: in Saint John, Canada
            January 26, 1993
Twitter: KattyB3
Genre: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Young Adult
Influences: Lindsay Buroker
Goodreads Member Since: September 2015
 
 

Katherine Bogle’s debut young adult novel, Haven, came second in the World’s Best Story contest 2015. She currently resides in Saint John, New Brunswick with her partner in crime, and plethora of cats.

Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh

Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh

by Leelynn @ Sometimes Leelynn Reads ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Odessa is one of Karthia’s master necromancers, catering to the kingdom’s ruling Dead. Whenever a noble dies, it’s Odessa’s job to raise them by retrieving their souls from a dreamy and dangerous shadow world called the Deadlands. But there is a cost to being raised–the Dead must remain shrouded, or risk transforming into zombie-like monsters known as Shades. If even a hint of flesh is exposed, the grotesque transformation will begin.

A dramatic uptick in Shade attacks raises suspicions and fears among Odessa’s necromancer community. Soon a crushing loss of one of their own reveals a disturbing conspiracy: someone is intentionally creating Shades by tearing shrouds from the Dead–and training them to attack. Odessa is faced with a terrifying question: What if her necromancer’s magic is the weapon that brings Karthia to its knees?

Book Overview:

Author: Sarah Glenn Marsh | Series: Reign of the Fallen | Format: Audiobook | Narrated by: Alex McKenna | Length: 12h, 53 min | Publish Date: January 23, 2018 | Genre: YA Fantasy, LGBTQ | Rated: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | Recommend: HECK YES

“Your mother brought you into this world as a whole person,” the princess huffs, pulling so hard that I slide to the edge of the bed. “And last I checked, you still are one. No matter what or who you’ve lost. Now get”—she jerks on my arms—“up!”


OKAY.

This book was honestly one of my all time favorite books this year. I don’t think I’m being biased because I got to listen to the author’s live Q&A in one of my Facebook groups or anything like that at all.  I hadn’t had a chance to read it by the time the Q&A happened and I thankfully forgot any spoilers that were sort of mentioned during the chat.  Although I will say that Sarah did an amazing job at not spoiling anything for those of us that didn’t read it yet, so thank you for that!  But after hearing her talk about it and seeing all of my book friends rave about the book, I knew that I had to read it.

So thank gosh I had the opportunity to do so when another book club that I’m running ended up choosing it for this month.  Yay me!  I jumped on this book so fast it was a miracle I didn’t stop going to work to read it all in one sitting. Honestly, I wish I could have, but I gotta make money to buy more books, ya know what I mean?

Fast forward to now, the aftermath of me finishing this book and staying up all night to finally find out what happened.  I am so amazed.  I think it’s possible that this book was even better than what everyone told me. They hyped me up so much, but by the time I finished it, I was even more hyped up, if that’s even possible! Odessa was such a great unreliable narrator, and I could feel for her throughout all of it.  Going through such terrible loss and pain, and dealing with it by resorting to addiction was so relatable for me that I couldn’t help but love her.  Meridy was also one of my all-time favorite characters. She was so commanding of her station of a Master Beast-Master, with her “pet” being a huge grizzly bear named Lysander.  She could hold her own against Odessa. In fact, all of the women in this book could hold their own as characters and didn’t have to depend on any man to rescue them or weren’t merely love interests.

Speaking of love interests.

Can I just say that I love it when an author is able to incorporate so many different kinds of people into a book without it being problematic or “special”, if that makes sense?  Odessa is bisexual – her first love is Evander and her second in the book is… well not Evander but also not a boy.  I swear I think she was even checking out Valoria, our resident princess who I absolutely fell in love with, and I was down with that! I think even I was like “hmm yeah Valoria is pretty hot, I bet” but that’s beside the point.  There are Simeon and Danial who are romantic partners and nobody gives them grief about it.  The idea that people have to be wary about who they love because others will mistreat them is nowhere in this book and I absolutely appreciate Sarah for doing it this way.  It’s how it’s supposed to be, and if the fictional world of Karthia can get behind this message, then the rest of the world needs to catch up.

Ugh, I just really loved this book. I already preordered the second one because I need to find out what’s going to happen next, and whether some characters will end up coming back.  Necromancy has been given a new meaning with this book, and I love it so much.  I just love it. Go read it, seriously. Best decision this month.

Author Spotlight
Courtesy of Goodreads
 
Born: in Arlington, Virginia, The United States
Twitter: SG_Marsh
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fiction
Goodreads Member Since: October 2013
 

Sarah Glenn Marsh writes young adult novels and children’s picture books.

She lives, writes, and paints things in Virginia, supported by her husband, four rescued greyhounds, three birds, and many fish.

If she could, she’d adopt ALL THE ANIMALS.

Oh, and she’d love to be your friend here on Goodreads, or over on Twitter

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez

by Leelynn @ Sometimes Leelynn Reads ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.

But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga’s role. 

Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.

But it’s not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first kiss, first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister’s story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?

Book Overview:

Author: Erika L. Sánchez | Series: None | Format: Audiobook | Narrated by: Kyla Garcia | Length: 9 hours, 41 mins | Publish Date: October 17, 2017 | Genre: YA Contemporary | Literary Awards: National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature (2017) | Rated: ★ ★ ★ ★ | Recommend: Yes



“How do we tie our shoes, brush our hair, drink coffee, wash the dishes, and go to sleep, pretending everything is fine? How do we laugh and feel happiness despite the buried things growing inside? How can we do that day after day?” 


I’ve been doing a bad job at letting my readers know which books should have trigger warnings, so I’m going to do one for this book: please be warned that this book has death, and attempted suicide.

This book starts off with the aftermath of Julia’s sister Olga’s death. It wasn’t a pretty death either, and the entire Reyes family is still feeling the effects of what happened. None of Olga’s family was with her when she died, and I think it’s safe to say that she died instantly, so there was no chance to save her. Either way, the Reyes family lost their eldest daughter, and there’s just no healing from it.

See, Olga was the perfect Mexican daughter, according to Julia. Olga stayed at home to be with her parents, went to a community college close to their home in Chicago, cooked and cleaned almost as well as their mother, and was just pretty much better in every single way. According to Julia, anyway. Julia is anything but perfect and is nothing like her older sister. Julia is rude (or at least very, very blunt and can come off as rude), wants to go to college in New York, and can’t cook or clean to save her life. So when Olga dies and her mother starts being even harder on Julia than before, it just seems to come crashing down around her.

“I don’t know why I’ve always been like this, why the smallest things make me ache inside. There’s a poem I read once, titled “The World Is Too Much with Us,” and I guess that is the best way to describe the feeling—the world is too much with me.”


This book is about death and learning how to deal with death. This book shows that time does not always heal all wounds and that sometimes the death of a family member – one that hid secrets up until the day she died – is too difficult to deal with alone. Not only did this book resonate in me because of Julia’s actions later on in the book, but also the Mexican culture that we got to witness throughout this book. I can really see how my Chamorro and Spanish culture is similar to the Mexican culture. I could see my grandma in Julia’s grandma, and my Chamorro family in her Mexican family.

I definitely recommend this one.

Stay tuned for the Author Spotlight in the future!