Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone…

A convict with a thirst for revenge.
A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager.
A runaway with a privileged past.
A spy known as the Wraith.
A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.
A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

(via Goodreads)

Six of Crows is a stand-alone novel based in the same universe as Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha Trilogy: Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm, and Ruin and Rising. It is also supposed to be the beginning of a new trilogy, though I'm not seeing a series title yet anywhere reliable, so there's a bit of mystery still to be had!

The first thing I’d like to talk about with this novel is the way it looks. The black pages, the crow artwork for each chapter, and the section separators were just absolutely stunning, and would definitely have helped me pick this up off the shelf, if I hadn’t heard of it before and specifically gone to the library to get it.Call me shallow, but I’m a sucker for great cover art, and that’s always been one of Bardugo’s books’ strengths. I mean, look at these!


Okay, art aside, I really enjoyed Six of Crows.

It really worked as a stand-alone novel, which is difficult to do with as intricate of a story as Bardugo wrote for the Grisha Trilogy. While knowledge of the different countries and the powers of the different types of Grisha might be helpful, as well as mentioning minor characters from the original trilogy, I fully believe that you could easily read this novel on its own and figure it out. Bardugo worked the small but important details into the story, showing us the distinct differences in each character’s world view.

I particularly loved the characters. Every character had their own motivations, which I won't spoil for you here. Nina and Inej were my girls, and I just want to cuddle Wylan. I’m really glad for the character development in Matthias. I’m glad that he was able to work through a lot of his issues, although I felt that maybe it should have taken him a little while longer to get over a lifetime of trained hatred of Grisha. There is an itty bitty bit of romance, but not that couldn't easily be ignored.

Kaz’s character was almost entirely unlikable to me, and he was the only character that I still feel like I don’t understand how his brain works. However, he was an awesome character, and I like that he still doesn’t make sense. I really appreciate Bardugo’s work to make sure that we could still be surprised, despite all of the planning and scheming. That’s really difficult to do with as many moving parts as this heist had to it. I loved that Bardugo was able to write his limp and hand injuries into the story without them being the definition of his character. They simply were a part of him, as they should be.

I really recommend reading this book in one go, or as close to it as possible, because everything about this book is wildly complicated. I've heard from others that they find the first section of the book drawn out and boring, but it's really, really important to understand everything that goes on in the beginning in order to keep up with what's going on when it actually goes down. It also makes it more exciting when you know what's going wrong and what their contingency plans were. However, the book is pretty long and pretty complicated at 465 pages in the hardback version.

Since it is also the beginning of a series on its own, I think this book did a great job setting us up to be able to follow the rest of the characters throughout wherever there journey takes them next. I hope all of them gain some common sense that keeps them away from very complicated heists, but since that is very unlikely for this group of hooligans, I will only say this.

"No mourners, no funerals."

If you enjoyed the Grisha Trilogy, I definitely think you'll enjoy this novel. I really enjoyed this book, and I really look forward to the next one. However, because of the somewhat drawn out beginning and the length of this book, I'm giving it a rating of four out of five stars.


This review was originally published on CandidCeillie on Nov. 2, 2015.

I think this is the first zombie book I've ever read, and that kind of surprises me? I really enjoyed this book, and I'm really glad I picked it up for $3.95 on Audible.

There'll be a full review soon!

Crooked Kingdom is the NYT #1 Bestselling sequel to Six of Crows, and a spinoff series to The Grisha Trilogy. I reviewed Six of Crows last year, so go check that out if you haven’t read the book. However, I would not continue reading this review if you haven’t read Six of Crows. There are spoilers for it that I can’t help but mention in this review.

I’m gonna keep this as spoiler-free as possible, because this book came out a little over a week ago, but the Dregs are back together, and back to fighting. They need to find Inej, figure out what’s happening to Nina after her use of jurda parem and get their revenge on the monstrous Jan Van Eck. So of course, that means that there’s battles, tricks and fun to be had for everybody.

Read the full review here!

I received an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you liked The Diviners or The Great Gatsby, I can almost guarantee that you’ll love Iron Cast by Destiny Soria.

Iron Cast takes place in an alternate pre-Prohibition Boston, where hemopaths cannot practice. Hemopaths basically have an iron allergy that also gives them power to create illusions for others through music, poetry or acting. Ada and Corinne work at a club called the Cast Iron, run by gangster Johnny Dervish. By night, they perform illusions for crowds, and by day they use their illusions to steal from the Boston elite, in order to keep the club running.

Read the full review here!

I received a review copy of White Nights, Black Paradise as part of the Rich In Variety blog tour, in exchange for an honest review and movie cast post!

This book surprised me with how much I enjoyed it, given the craziness that you read from the characters’ perspectives. White Nights, Black Paradise is a historical fictionization of the Jim Jones cult, based on interviews with people who were survivors or knew people in the cult. You can read more about this cult through the wikipedia because it’s really interesting, but I think it would have helped to have a little bit of prior knowledge. I had no idea that the People’s Temple was so racialized

Read the full review here!

I received an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you know me at all, you know that I love food. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I have a very wide palate, or that I’ve tried very much in the way of cooking on my own. However, my mom lived in Turkey when she was younger, and she has always loved Middle Eastern and Mediterranean food, so when I saw this cookbook, I knew I wanted to give it a try.

I’ll go ahead and say that I was not able to make any of the dishes in this book, because I also have a full-time job. However, the photos in this cookbook are beautiful and look like things that could come out of my kitchen, if my kitchen was ever this clean and organized. I can only imagine how great that photoshoot must have smelled.

In the [possibly] final installment of the Sevenwaters saga, author Juliet Marillier gave us the story of Maeve, the daughter of Sevenwaters who was badly burned in ‘Child of the Prophecy’, and carries the legacy of that fire in her crippled hands and her scarred face. She finally returns home after ten years of living in Harrowfield with Liadan and Bran, and has grown into a courageous, forthright woman. She has a special gift for gentling difficult animals, and particularly loves working with horses. Though her body’s scars have healed, her spirit remains fragile and she’s still afraid.
When she returns home, Sevenwaters is in turmoil. Mac Dara has become desperate to see his only son return to the Otherworld, but Cathal refuses because of his marriage to Maeve’s sister. To force Lord Sean’s hand, Mac Dara has caused a party of innocent travelers on the Sevenwaters border to vanish, only to allow their murdered bodies to be found, one by one. When Maeve finds the body of one of the missing men in a remote part of the woods, she and her brother Finbar embark on a journey that will bring about the end of Mac Dara’s reign or lead to a hideous death for both of them.

This book was very solid – I love Maeve as a character. I have always been a huge fan of Ciarán’s, and getting to see him so much in this book was fantastic. I absolutely adore that she realized instantly that she needed to be there for Finbar, and even when she knew it wouldn’t end up the way she wanted, she did everything she could to make his life better at every step of the way.
I loved the way Maeve grew into her love for Badger and Bear – everyone was so scared at first, and then they grew into the friendship between the three of them. Her decision at the end felt somewhat like Sorcha’s (heart’s) decision to love Red, and not Simon, which was such a depressing thought for such a lovely ending that I had to banish it to the Otherworld. ;) Really, I wish Badger all the happiness in the world with his bride-to-be, and I hope that he’s happier with her than Simon was with Elaine, despite the sucky circumstances.
Ciarán. Can we please talk about Ciarán? This man is so absolutely wonderful. I had always thought that he would take Cathal’s place when the time came to it. He was so absolutely miserable, thanks again to really sucky circumstances, but he was able to find happiness and family, finally. I think that his decision to take Cathal’s place as leader of the Otherworld is brilliant – think about it, guys. If he is the leader of the Otherworld, he can probably see and talk to his daughter, Fainne. He probably hasn’t been able to see or hear from her since Child of the Prophecy, which was roughly ten years ago at the start of Flame of Sevenwaters
I have to say, though, Luachan was far too perfect from the beginning. No one, I repeat NO ONE, is as tactful and handsome as he is without there being something seriously wrong with him. That being said, I had a few moments of doubt that Marillier was going to have Maeve fall in love with him because he’s so perfect, and because he was good to Finbar, but no, Juliet is not that mean, he was just an Otherworld spy. Caisin totally took me by surprise. Like, I thought it was a little fishy that she was helping Maeve find everything without asking for anything in return, but I didn’t think she was as bad as she turned out to be. Maybe I just really wanted to trust her, be able to believe in help without ulterior motives. I guess I just have to be constantly reminded of the fact that the Otherworld beings are not always as friendly as they seem to be. Good thing I own almost all of Marillier’s books.
I really really really hope that we get a book about Eilis. She reminds me of my favorite cousin, and I want to know why she went so far away from home that she couldn’t come home to visit Maeve. I’d also love a book about Finbar as chieftain… and a book about Johnny adjusting to life as chieftain, but that would mean Sean was dead, which would be depressing… I think the real issue is that I do not want this series to be over. Hey Juliet, wanna do a girl a favor and write those? Pretty please?
All in all, I loved the book. Sure, it was a little predictable occasionally, but I was always enjoying it. It made me giggle, it made me cry, and it made me exclaim with “I KNEW IT” occasionally, despite the fact that I read the last two hundred pages in public, surrounded by friends. It was a VAST improvement on Seer of Sevenwaters, which I almost hated because of the fact that Sibéal’s suddenly okay with the fact that she’s going to basically give up everything she’s worked for for like ten years for a man, but not quite as good as the original trilogy. If it is the final book, then I am okay. If it’s not… I WANT AN EILIS BOOK!