New favorite trope unlocked: sky pirates who sail the clouds and hunt giant metallic dragons...

Sky's End by Marc J Gregson reminded me a lot of Brandon Sanderson's Skyward if it focused on the characters from Jennifer Nielsen's Ascendance trilogy, and it was way better than I expected it to be.
The story follows Conrad, once a Highborn, now a Low as he enters a training program for Hunters, the people who kill the gargantauns (aka giant metal dragons). The program ends with a competition called the Gauntlet, where the eventual captains of the ships will be decided. The plot was super fast-paced, and the last 20% was unexpected yet so well-plotted that it didn't feel out of place. There were plenty of twists and turns and I'm actually super excited for book two.
But also...the character dynamics were amazing. Conrad was snarky and ambitious enough to be an enticing main character, but he also had enough flaws that I disagreed with him multiple times. I liked Roderick and Keeton a lot. Pound's character arc intrigued me but I have mixed feelings about him because the picture I have of him in my head is rather unflattering. The same goes for Bryce...I can see her becoming a cool character in book two but we don't know enough about her to truly appreciate her. Also, I HATE Sebastian with a burning passion and no, I will not take criticism. The found family vibes are immaculate and I'm glad that there wasn't much of a focus on romance, at least for the first book.
If you're looking for a sky-high, swashbuckling adventure with snarky characters, metallic dragons, and plenty of surprises, be sure to check out Sky's End.
4.25/5
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC!

"'Librarians don't create new worlds,' he explained. 'They discover existing worlds.'
Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

When I saw the description of this book, I got super excited because it reminded me a bit of The Story Thieves by James Riley, but an adult version.
The concept of the book was pretty original and intriguing. It takes place in a world where people known as Librarians can enter and exit books at will (similar to what takes place in Story Thieves. There were aspects of it that also reminded me of Cassandra Clare's Shadowhunter series. While I did really like the concepts, the worldbuilding was vague in some places. The only two "stories" the characters visited were fantasy books---which is fine on its own---but they were very similar to each other, and considering the wide variety of genres available, I thought it could've featured more unique stories.
As for the plot, I found the pacing to be almost too fast in some places. There were some times when scenes would shift within a sentence and if I wasn't paying extremely close attention, I could get lost. Overall, the plot itself was intriguing, as it involved Emerson coming to terms with her past, learning about her powers as a Librarian, and choosing between the "official" Librarians in one branch and the "rebels" in the other. I also didn't realize it was a series, so I was surprised when it ended on a cliffhanger.
And the characters? Personally, I felt that they weren't fleshed out well enough to be enticing. There were a lot of side characters that I couldn't remember the names of and that were introduced once and forgotten about. I found Silas to be creepy and honestly I didn't like Adrien that much either.

Spoiler

He kept bringing up his kiss with Emerson, which was just weird to me. I did like him better than Silas though...

. Emerson was an okay protagonist (I tend to have issues with female main characters who are "different" but I didn't mind her), but she wasn't a Jude Duarte or a Katniss Everdeen.
My only other comment would be that the book felt more YA than adult, and I'm not sure if it was intended to be or not, as the characters all are older in age.
This book was an enjoyable read with a unique premise, but I didn't find it to be a favorite of mine.

too much green, not enough gay

A solid start in a new series, The Mist-Walker is a spooky graphic novel perfect for your fall TBR.
I really loved the color palette. Some parts of the story were set in shades of gray, in others in different purple-ish hues. The art style was quirky and cute. I also adored the little section separators. Between each "section" is a page with a quote/excerpt and a little image that I remember loving because they looked so epic.
The story itself felt a bit lackluster for me, as did the characters, but I think it's because the story is so short and hopefully the author will develop the plot and characters further in the next volume. There were some parts of the story that I found vague or underexplained, but again, I think they'll be expanded upon in the next part of the story.
Great start to a series with a delicious art style and spooky vibes!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC!

First and foremost, let me just say that I don't like leaving bad reviews and none of my opinions are meant to insult the author. However, Flames Unbound leaves much to be desired. (Also, I apologize now for the length of this review...just know it could've been so much longer).

I saw this book on Netgalley and it sounded very similar to Fourth Wing-a novel that I personally did not find to be as great as it was made out to be, but still gave me a desire to read dragon books-and I decided to give it a try.

As noted in many of the other reviews, Flames Unbound has some issues with plagiarism.
Let's start with the obvious: this was quite obviously based on Fourth Wing. The author claims that she started writing this in July of 2023, meaning she began the project at the peak of Fourth Wing's hype. (She also says she only spent two weeks editing...make of that what you will).
Instead of Violet Sorrengail, we have Vesper Sora, a book nerd with a chronic illness who is reluctantly tossed into Dragon War College and is well-known because one of her parents (in this case her dad) is famous. There, Vesper meets Kyrin, a moody, reclusive, but oh-so-sexy son of a rebel with the power to wield shadows... sound familiar?
Additionally, there's a character named Thane (instead of Dain), a small group of Vesper's friends who are hornier than any real teenager has any right to be, Vesper being nicknamed "Viper," Vesper having special hair and special magic and a special dragon, and that's just a few of the eerie similarities between Fourth Wing and Flames Unbound. I'd also like to point out that the writing style is extremely similar as well.
"The course was hard. Really f***ing hard."
"She was enraptured at how gorgeous and mysterious and untouchable this guy was. His stare alone gave off dark, brooding, don't-come-near-me vibes, but Vesper only wanted to get closer to uncover who this ambiguous, attractive, centurion was."
"Holy sh*t, what an exquisite male if she'd ever seen one. Her mouth may have actually started to f***ing water. What the f**k."
"The dreamiest, hottest guy to grace the Continent. As beautiful as he was intelligent, a delicious morsel of brain, brawn, and beauty, all wrapped up in a dark blue package---for her."
I'll spare you the rest of the quotes I highlighted (and there's a lot), but I'd also like to mention the other popular books/tropes that Flames Unbound steals.
Shadow and Bone ... Vesper has light magic and glows a silvery-white to counter her lover's shadow magic? Sounds like Alina and the Darkling...
Divergent ... in addition to Vesper falling for her mentor, there's a scene where some of her companions try to drown her out of jealousy but are caught by Kyrin. Sounds a lot like the scene where Tris is almost tossed into the water after being tied up in her sleep...
Not to mention the countless other tropes the book uses...

Oh, but Abby, it's not fair to judge a book based on other books. Nothing in this world is truly original!
Okay, fine. Let's discuss the parts of the book that were original.
Firstly, I didn't mention it above, but Vesper has blue hair. And so does Kyrin. Everybody has rainbow hair. Cool, I guess. I wrote a story about dragons with rainbow hair too...when I was twelve. Also, the only two people with blue hair end up as lovers? Sweet Home Alabama playing softly in the distance
Whatever. I can move past rainbow hair. But the lack of plot?
Vesper goes to dragon school...she does some fights, gets put in the Special Program for Special People, fights some more, goes to the capital, and then suddenly she's so in love with Kyrin that she makes babies with him every other chapter for the remainder of the book, starting at about 60%. I'm not kidding when I say that. Personally, I am not a fan of smutty books so I had my roommate and her friend read one of the many sex scenes and they only made it 3 pages in before they started dying and said it's the worst smut they've ever read, so... there's that.
Also ... the pheromone side plot... When Vesper and Kyrin have sex, apparently they release pheromones (like a bug?) that make everyone else horny. I'll give you one quote and then leave it at that:
"Blowjobs during lectures, sparring matches turning into dry humping romps. A straight up bacchnalia in the Equitem Secteur."
One of my biggest pet peeves in books is when they ramble on for what seems like forever and there's no clear progression of what needs to or what will happen. Flames Unbound is guilty of having that issue; Vesper doesn't seem to have a concrete goal besides "survive," which is great but there are not really many threats to her. Also, any plot that starts to form in the first half is quickly overridden by the pure smut that fills almost the entire second half.

Now, I can't go into too many more complaints because if I talked about every single one of my annotations, this review would never end. I do, however, want to end on a positive note.
This author has potential. There were scenes from this book that I did enjoy

Spoiler

(Vesper's elixir being drugged by her sister to give her an addiction, the cliffhanger at the end, some of the soulmate stuff, tattoos, etc)

. I don't believe that this book is going to end up being published, seeing as all of the ARCs were recalled, but I really hope that the author picks some concepts and themes out of this book to keep. She could probably keep the worldbuilding and play around with different characters/plots (as long as they're not carbon copies of Violet and Xaden) and people would really enjoy it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free eARC.

The Call of Dreamwalkers is an urban fantasy story about a group of teens fighting off "Mind Worms" in their dreams. I found the concept of the story very intriguing, as it seemed like something a younger version of me would've been really interested in.
Because the world takes place in one very similar to our own, there was minimal worldbuilding necessary. That being said, I found that the reason behind the Mind Worm's existence, Arcadion, and why the school specifically was targeted were not well-explained. There were also parts of the daily "school life" that I found relatable and parts that I thought were completely unbelievable in terms of a modern high school experience.
The plot was relatively simple but also enticing. Ana and her team of Virtues had to protect the school from the Mind Worms influencing everyone with negative thoughts. I did find that the plot was not very nuanced and therefore it definitely wasn't the most original and influential stories I ever read, but for a younger audience I could see it hitting home fairly well. The ending was good, there were plenty of positive themes, and it dealt with many heavy topics well.
The characters are all high schoolers and they were accurately portrayed as such for the most part. I found Ana as a strong and bold protagonist, and the supporting cast was also well-formed. My main complaint about the characters is that they were two-dimensional for the most part. Ana was well-rounded and flawed, but most of the supporting cast showed up all at one time (which also made it hard to differentiate between them and form connections with them) and so they did not really change or grow through the course of the story.
I also found that this story, stylistically, reminded me more of a middle grade book rather than a YA. I know that YA is a hard age gap to pinpoint because it encompasses readers from 12 to 18, and I understand that this book might appeal to younger YA audiences. There were themes that were more mature, but the writing style itself was more similar to middle grade books that I am familiar with.
Overall, this book was a good story for a young audience with its great themes. It reminded me of "Reverie" by Ryan La Sala, but for early teens looking for an introduction into YA.

I was quite surprised by how much I enjoyed When Gods Fall. To be quite honest, the only reason I finished it as fast as I did was because I was convinced I could predict a plot twist and my roommate thought I was dead wrong. (Well, guess what, I was right! Did I miss all of the other plot twists? Yes. But do I care? A little, but that's not important.)
The world-building was probably my favorite part of the book. It's reminiscent of a Greco-Roman word with twelve gods that match with the twelve Olympians. However, there are three different sets of gods (including the main twelve) for the main three regions of the world. There are also Non-Humans...which I don't really know how to describe. There's also the Gifts of the gods, which is essentially the magic system. I really liked the take on "demigods" and the various forms of magic found throughout the book. In general, though, the world-building was super immersive and intriguing.
In terms of plot, it was relatively fast-paced. When I look back on how much happened in the book, I'm amazed at how much was fit into roughly 1,000 e-book pages. It did drag a bit closer to the end, but the actual ending was explosive and I can't say much more without spoiling anything.
I also really liked the character dynamics of this book. The backstories of Alena and Katell reminded me a bit of Veronyka and Val from the Crown of Feathers, whereas their actual relationship reminded me a lot of Ephyra and Beru from There Will Come a Darkness. Personally, I found Alena's POVs to be more interesting than Katell's, but I know I'm in the minority there. The romance was pretty good, although I can sense a love triangle forming and I don't know which side I like better. On one hand, Leukos and his Elsa powers are a safe bet, but Nik is the Luke Castellan I never knew I needed. I do hate Dorias though with my entire being and I will die on that hill.
When Gods Fall is the beginning of an epic fantasy series with Greco-Roman inspired world-building and magic combined with an enticing rebellion plot and mysteriously charming characters. I look forward to seeing where the series goes next, and I can see the villain becoming truly despicable.
Thanks to BookSSirens and the publisher for the free e-ARC.
4.25/5

"'Grim, people only pay by the hour if they've hired a prostitute,' Wolfe said. Grim was quiet for a beat. 'Oh.'"

Do you ever read a book that you find wholesome for no reason whatsoever?
When Things Are Set Right is a fantasy adventure book that I did not expect to enjoy as much as I did. I'd seen it compared to Lord of the Rings, so I was prepared for long-winded explanations that would confuse me, but instead, I was treated with a short, fast-paced adventure with a found family I actually really liked.
The story focuses on a wood-elf named Aeryn helping an escaped slave called Grim to find his way home. It sounds simple, but the story had quite a few twists and turns and a despicable villain whom I have zero sympathy for.
I think the highlight of this book for me was the relationship dynamics between the characters. It was refreshing to read something where romance is not front and center. The characters were realistic and the way they treated each other just made my heart happy.
If you're intimidated by classic epic fantasy, When Things Are Set Right is a perfect introduction to the genre, and it's only 200 pages!
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the free e-ARC!
3.5/5