“You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary.”
I might not be an avid romance reader, but I honestly thought I woul“You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary.”
I might not be an avid romance reader, but I honestly thought I would enjoy this book. It was a quick and fast-paced read, but I felt quite indifferent about it.
“You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary.”
I might not be an avid romance reader, but I honestly thought I would enjoy this book. It was a quick and fast-paced read, but I felt quite indifferent about it.
“You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary.”
I might not be an avid romance reader, but I honestly thought I would enjoy this book. It was a quick and fast-paced read, but I felt quite indifferent about it.
“You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary.”
I might not be an avid romance reader, but I honestly thought I would enjoy this book. It was a quick and fast-paced read, but I felt quite indifferent about it.
“You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary.”
I might not be an avid romance reader, but I honestly thought I would enjoy this book. It was a quick and fast-paced read, but I felt quite indifferent about it.
“You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary.”
I might not be an avid romance reader, but I honestly thought I would enjoy this book. It was a quick and fast-paced read, but I felt quite indifferent about it.
“You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary.”
I might not be an avid romance reader, but I honestly thought I would enjoy this book. It was a quick and fast-paced read, but I felt quite indifferent about it.
“You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary.”
I might not be an avid romance reader, but I honestly thought I would enjoy this book. It was a quick and fast-paced read, but I felt quite indifferent about it.
“You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary.”
I might not be an avid romance reader, but I honestly thought I would enjoy this book. It was a quick and fast-paced read, but I felt quite indifferent about it.
“You take the most ordinary or unexpected things and make them extraordinary.”
I might not be an avid romance reader, but I honestly thought I would enjoy this book. It was a quick and fast-paced read, but I felt quite indifferent about it.
“This was nothing but an illusion. A cruel manifestation of her own mind, like the chandeliers in the old circus tent or the turn of a lock. This i
“This was nothing but an illusion. A cruel manifestation of her own mind, like the chandeliers in the old circus tent or the turn of a lock. This is what she’d wanted to see.”
Lara has lived her entire life in a small, quiet town in Virginia where she and her mother have never been suspected of performing magic. It was there that she met her fiancé, Todd, who disappears on their wedding day without a trace, in the same way and on the same day as another man 30 years ago. As the months pass and Lara tries to move on with her life, her mother gives her a painting that seems to have much more value than they imagined and which features Lara’s great-grandmother, a circus performer named Cecile. This, along with the promise that there she will get the answers she seeks about Todd’s disappearance, leads Lara on a trip to France.
The story is told in two timelines. We follow Lara trying to find answers in 2005, but we also get a glimpse of Cecile’s life in 1925 through the journals that Lara finds of her. I have to say that I didn’t care much for the flashbacks and I especially got frustrated with Cecile because, despite everything her twin did to her, she kept giving up her happiness for her. And for someone whose favorite book is set in a magical circus, the dark and secret circus in this story was probably the element of the story that interested me the least.
Overall, this was an entertaining read. I didn’t connect with the characters, but I liked how the story presented different mysteries—the disappearances in the town, Lara’s connection to the circus, the mystery of the three paintings—and how the revelations played out. I didn’t see the big plot twist coming until two paragraphs before the characters did, which is always fun when a book surprises me like that, especially since it doesn’t happen that often.
“Trust, my dears, is a knife: it may as easily injure as protect if given to the wrong person.”
I picked up this fantasy novella kind of on a whim.
“Trust, my dears, is a knife: it may as easily injure as protect if given to the wrong person.”
I picked up this fantasy novella kind of on a whim. A few days before I was leaving for a book festival, Celsius 232, and knowing that Angela Slatter was going to be attending, I decided to browse the kindle store and ended up buying and starting this one. And I’m so glad I did because I really enjoyed it.
Set in a small village with a prominent religious community, Of Sorrow and Such follows Patience Gideon, a middle-aged witch who the townsfolk secretly turn to when they need healing herbs and help. But a series of circumstances—a fellow witch hunted by the religious authorities, a shapeshifter who comes to her house in the middle of the night seeking her help, a man from Patience’s past who unexpectedly shows up in town—threaten the quiet life the protagonist has built with her daughter and her loyal dog.
This was such a beautiful witchy tale about sisterhood and female rage. Now that I know that Slatter has written more stories set in this world, some of which feature Patience herself (Gallowberries when she was younger, Sister, Sister taking place years after the events of this novella; both available in the short story collection Sourdough and Other Stories), I’ll definitely be reading more from this author soon.
“It was so much easier to hate a man than a system: vast, inhuman, bloodstained.”
The Warm Hands of Ghosts is a historical fantasy novel set during
“It was so much easier to hate a man than a system: vast, inhuman, bloodstained.”
The Warm Hands of Ghosts is a historical fantasy novel set during World War I that follows two siblings. In January 1918, Laura, a discharged nurse who has recently returned to Halifax after being wounded in the war, receives a notification of his brother’s death, but something doesn’t make sense and she decides to go back to the front to get answers. Across the Atlantic and a couple of months earlier, Freddie wakes up after an explosion and finds himself trapped in a pillbox alongside an enemy German soldier, with whom he will have to form a temporary alliance if they want to get out alive.
With this premise, Arden has written a story about family and the horrors of war, in which both protagonists must deal with trauma and grief, but in which there is also room for hope. In addition, the novel also has a speculative element in the form of a hotel that appears and disappears out of nowhere. A place run by a mysterious violinist who has a mirror that shows people what they most desire and whose enigmatic music attracts visitors who wish to forget the reality of war, if only for a few moments. But at what price?
I enjoyed Arden’s writing, as well as the idea of the magical hotel. I also appreciate the exhaustive research the author clearly carried out to set the novel in the years 1917 and 1918. Unfortunately, my interest dwindled as the story progressed, even reaching the last chapters without caring at all about the rather predictable and unexciting resolution of the plot.
“Words can damn or bless in equal measure, and are never to be used lightly.”
The Hacienda is a gothic horror novel set in 1823. It follows Beatriz
“Words can damn or bless in equal measure, and are never to be used lightly.”
The Hacienda is a gothic horror novel set in 1823. It follows Beatriz, a young woman recently married to a wealthy man whose previous wife died under mysterious circumstances. She moves to the countryside expecting to find a comfortable life at Hacienda San Isidro, but soon begins to hear voices and experience visions. Determined to make the hacienda her home and put an end to whatever haunts the house and her dreams, she asks Padre Andrés—a young priest who happens to be a witch—for help. It’s a suspenseful and well-written gothic story, albeit very predictable, with a forbidden romance and that addresses colorism, the persecution of people accused of witchcraft and the casta system that arose in México due to the Spanish colonization.
“But faith was so easily manipulated. After all, what was faith but belief in something intangible? Something unseen, something unheard.”
After yea
“But faith was so easily manipulated. After all, what was faith but belief in something intangible? Something unseen, something unheard.”
After years of waiting for the orisha to speak to her and eventually become a priestess, Ashâke, an acolyte in the temple of Ifa, decides to try to summon a orisha to find some answers. But this act ends up attracting the attention of a powerful sect that, following the preaching of a person once called The Teacher, wants to wipe out all the orishas.
It took me a while to get into this story, as Ashâke got on my nerves on more than one occasion, although I have to say that I started to like her more as the story progressed. I really enjoyed the glimpses we get into this world and the twist the author threw in near the end. I especially loved the interactions with the griots, their scenes narrating events through songs in which the audience is transported to the time and place where they occurred.
Overall, a fast-paced and engaging novella inspired by Yoruba mythology. I look forward to reading the next and final instalment of this duology when it comes out.
ARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
“I’ve already seen the cost of war. It’s too great a price borne by the people who benefit the least.”
Five Broken Blades is a fun fantasy story in
“I’ve already seen the cost of war. It’s too great a price borne by the people who benefit the least.”
Five Broken Blades is a fun fantasy story inspired by Korean myth and culture about a hitman, an exiled prince, a poison maiden, a thief, a spymaster and a nobleman who have been hired to work together in order to kill the God King. But if they want to survive, they have to trust each other, which is easier said than done since they all have their own secrets and only one of them can take the crown. It’s a fast-paced story with plenty of action and chapters that end in a way that makes you not want to put the book down. The writing is quite simple and I don’t think the book needed three romantic subplots—two of which were pretty rushed and with some scenes that made me cringe. I was also bothered by the hypocrisy of a certain character accusing another of being sexist only for him to end up making equally or more disgusting comments. But overall, it was a fun read with an interesting twist at the end—although I saw the other one coming—that left me wanting to know how the story continues.
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