I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Tara, Whitney Blaire and Pinkie are three best friends who seem to be the perfect trio until things begin falling apart when Tara finds out her perfect boyfriend was seen kissing another guy. As Tara tries to figure out her relationship, she gets even more confused when a new girl stirs up feelings she never knew she had and Whitney attempts to guard her best friend's feelings.

This book was a little bit of a mess if I'm honest, and I can't say I totally enjoyed reading it. There were some parts I liked, weirdly my favourite character was Whitney who was possibly the bitchiest but for the most part I just didn't like how this book handled some things. While I'm glad there was a bisexual storyline in this between Tara and Riley, I didn't like how Brent's storyline was handled. When Tara found out about the guy kissing thing, she was understandably upset but never once did she seem to think she should talk to Brent about his feelings and his sexuality, or even see if maybe he needed someone to talk to about it. He was made out to be a heartless cheat, and that was a shame as it could have been a good opportunity for healthy conversation.

Tara was probably suppose to be the main character over Whitney and Pinkie but she was just boring and honestly, incredibly selfish. The entire novel she only thought about herself and never once did she ever seem to think about her friends and the things they might be worried about or be going through. She also dropped her friends like a hot potato once the right opportunity came along, and I don't really think she did enough grovelling at the end for that to have been sorted out to my satisfaction.

Pinkie was honestly a pathetic character who was so hard to read because she seemed so young. And not in an innocent, naive way, just in a sad way. I felt like the author tried to hard to give her an actual storyline and added in the Nash 'relationship' seemed rushed, and not thought through properly at all. It just flat-lined completely. There was also definitely some problematic conversation about Pinkie's homophobic feelings in this book, and I know that it was there to show some people need to really push themselves into acceptance sometimes but I don't think, again, Pinkie's feelings were dealt with properly at the end. All it said was that she didn't look away at Riley's arm around Tara but there was never any other conversation about if her homophobic feelings had changed into acceptance.

"I have nothing against gays. What they want to do is their business. Just as long as their business doesn't involve me or my friends." A quote from Pinkie that made me say "wtf?"

Whitney was my favourite character by far because I feel like she was the most complex. She was definitely the bitchiest and the most explosive character but I feel like a lot of her bad actions often came from a good place and she just expressed herself wrong. Throughout the book, she was fiercely loyal and protective of her friends, and Tara basically just spat in her face.

This book just ended up being catty often just for the sake of it, and i found the friendship to often be toxic and definitely not a group I would want to be part of. I don't think I would recommend this to people to read.

Karou has blue hair, tattoos and her wishes often come true but that's not the only thing that's a bit strange about her. Karou has no human family and was raised by a monstrous species of fantastical creatures called chimaera in a shop that can create portals to anywhere in the world. When Karou is working for her foster father Brimstone, she meets a terrifying angel who may know the truth about who she really is but it means she ends up stuck in a war between everyone she cares about.

I'm so glad that this book was my first read of 2018 but I'm also mad that I took so long to read it because it was beautiful, glorious, fantastical and everything magical I could wish for. I absolutely loved it. I feel like this book is a really hard one to actually explain to people (so I apologize for the truly terrible blurb above) and it's one of those books that you have to read to really understand the story - there's so much strange magical concepts in this but it just all clicks when you're reading. It was so creative, and unusual and I loved it.

I very much enjoyed Karou as a character. She's spunky, and fun plus she's able to hold her own in a fight but at the same time, she's still a teenager who longs to feel properly at home, and taken care of. She's a sucker for a handsome smile and dashing eyes, and as made a fool of herself in front of a guy just like many of us. I really liked her journey in this book.

Normally, I don't always like that sudden burning love in books like we saw in Akiva and Karou (or almost) but in this story, it just made so much sense. I liked that there wasn't only love but a lot of lust - and that Karou isn't a blushing virginal girl - and the chemistry between them was just so hot. I felt like the descriptions in this were just so vivid, I could really see everything in my mind's eye as I read it. The air battle literally made me feel like I was watching TV because I could see it all.

I loved the setting and this book made me want to visit Prague more than ever. Laini Taylor's writing is so beautiful, I just wanted to wrap the words around me and breathe them in. The magic in this book is complex but so cleverly created.

The one thing I didn't like in this book is something Karou does state her displeasure at and it's Brimstone's collection of teeth, bones and ivory etc. It just made me so angry and my stomach curl a bit at the thoughts of all these beautiful. dead animals and some of them being endangered.

I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy because the end of this one was seriously heartbreaking and I need to find out what happened, and find out if what I hope didn't happened, happened!

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from Head of Zeus/Zephyr.

The Snow Angel is a beautifully told middle grade novel about an 11-year-old girl called Makena whose biggest dream is to reach the snow on top of Mount Kenya. When disaster strikes her family, Makena suddenly finds herself alone in the world and navigating the slums of Nairobi. Fate eventually brings her to Scotland as she heals her broken heart and through it all she's watched by a mysterious magical fox.

This was so much more evocative, emotional and lovely than I thought it would be but I was truly sucked into this story really quickly, and I felt for Makena so much in it. The story really made me think about some things that I haven't thought about before, or at least in a long time. I, like everyone at the time, was obviously freaked out about Ebola but I have been lucky to never really need to think about it since the initial scare. I never thought about the children left behind as orphans because of it, and also how it could hit extremely ordinary people just like myself and my family and not just those living in extreme poverty or aid workers.

I loved the bits about albinism in it as well through Makena's friendship with another girl called Snow. Snow talks about how she's in danger because she's an albino and I feel like it's really educational in a simple, not scary way for younger kids that might be reading this. This was full of really lovely female friendships, and obviously diverse characters. Lauren St John is not an author of colour but she did grow up in Zimbabwe so knows a lot about African culture. I feel like she really did justice to Kenya (as far as I can say with my limited knowledge of the country) and described it so well and vibrant.

The small bits of magical realism with the fox were few and in between but it worked really well in the story. Makena really needed to make her own way through her grief and loneliness and I feel like, as a reader, I was really with her through that journey. It was heartbreaking and beautiful all at the same time.

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Battlemage is the third book in The Summoner series and in this one, Fletcher and his demons, Ignatius and Athena as well as his best friend have to work their way out of the Ether they’re trapped in (without dying), and then catapult into the final battle between their home and the orcs trying to take it.

I really enjoyed this book as always - and it had been almost two years since I read the second book The Inquisition. It did take me a while to connect all the characters and what had happened again (but thankfully I watched a couple of reviews of The Inquisition before starting to refamiliarise myself with what had happened, and this definitely helped).

I just love the world and the different demons that I encounter every time and how all the demons really end up grabbing a special piece of my heart - such as Sheldon who looked after them in the ether just because he wanted to, to the immediate care I felt for Pria when Othello infused her. Ignatius as always was amazing, and he actually became Toothless in this book which I’ve been saying he reminded me off the entire time. I absolutely love Athena and how she cares for Fletcher.

I liked how things happened once they got back to Hominium, though the prejudice around dwarves and elves and how useless King Harold was most of the time did make my blood boil a lot. I liked seeing Fletcher go back to his place of birth, bringing his own little mixed-race species village with him. I love those kind of nice, quiet scenes of a village being built (blame my Sim-loving, Castleville playing heart for that one) so I was sad we didn’t get loads of time there but the battles were pretty intense and really well-written.

There was a pint about 80% in to the book where I couldn’t figure out how Taran Matharu was going to wrap up the story because so much was happening, and it seemed like there was no end. There were definitely points here where I had a lump in my throat too like when Atilla’s demon healed Ignatius before disappearing, and pretty much every time Fletcher described the love he felt from Athena and Ignatius.

This was really great, and I’m very excited to see there’s another book coming because I had no idea!

4.5 stars

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Secrets Between Us is a beautifully told tale of two different women - one part of the story is told by Celeste, an 18-year-old woman living in a mountainside French village under Italian control in 1943 that sees an influx of Jewish refugees. Celeste becomes friends with a young woman called Myrian and it changes her life. Fifty years later, Celeste’s granddaughter Annie is trying to uncover her grandmother’s past which means unearthing secrets that have stayed buried for a very long time.

This book definitely surprised me with how beautifully told it was and how easily it sucked me into the tale. I had been expecting a completely different kind of love story truth be told so the direction this book went threw me off guard at first but then just made me love the book and story so much more. It tells a tale of a wonderful female friendship as well as a love that burned for over half a century.

I was definitely a lot more connected to Celeste’s story than Annie’s. Annie seemed very dull and boring compared to Celeste because she wasn’t really doing much and her story was really just a tool so we could see what had become of our Celeste. There were some points made to try and flesh out Annie a bit more - like the potential of a relationship with the village doctor, and a job in the library in Nice but it all fell a bit flat for me because I just always wanted to get back to Celeste in 1943.

I have to say I felt for poor Paul. He wasn’t a bad character overall and some of Celeste’s actions were a little bit selfish at times

(though she was, of course, pushed into the marriage by her parents) but I thought the fact we never got a conversation between him and Celeste before he died a bit sad, and I feel like he was slightly shortchanged when he had died trying to protect Celeste and her family.

I would have liked a bit more at the end if I’m honest. I didn’t like that all we found out about the Reiss’s was told in just one little line, and I felt like there was still a whole story waiting to be told there. I did really like the last line, but I do wonder how it took so long in the end when the book was out there for over 40 years.

But this was a beautiful story and I’m so glad I picked it up.

P.S This book made me want to eat all the bread. ALL the bread!

2.5 stars

I received a free copy of this book from Amulet Books (Abrams&Chronicle) in exchange for an honest review.

Mari Pujols is fifteen and pregnant but she can’t wait to meet her child until she finds out he only has half a heart. Now Mari is facing the toughest choice she can make as a mother - continue with her pregnancy and risk losing her baby at the end of it, or have a termination.

This should have been a very emotional, impactful story and while parts of it definitely were, I think other parts let it down a bit.

Mari is a tough cookie, to sum it all up in one. She is a fighter because she’s had to be and she hasn’t had it easy in life with parents that abandoned her and an abuela who didn’t treat her as well as she should have. And now her baby is sick on top of it all. But she’s just so angry all the time, and at everyone. She lashes out at her boyfriend, her friends, her grandmother (who is a bit of a b to be honest) and it’s sometimes hard to read, or at least it becomes exhausting to read. I definitely understand some of her anger, but I really wanted to shake her a bit and make her calm down, and just listen to people.

One of the best things about this book was Mari’s friendship group. She has three best friends and the four of them really were there for each other and it was a great example of female friendship. I did find some of their conversations a bit troubling in terms of Heavenly seemingly having a much older boyfriend, and at one point Mari plays a trick on Teri’s brother and posts half-naked photos of men on his Facebook page and likes them on his behalf to make it seem like he is gay as if this is a terrible thing.

The author is a paediatric cardiologist so she knows what she’s talking about when it comes to Angelo’s condition. It was well-detailed in a way that made it easier for the reader and Mari to figure out what was happening. I didn’t like some of Mari’s opinions on a lot of the nurses (she seemed okay with the male doctors but not the female doctors or the nurses bar one that Dr Love - a male doctor - introduced her to). Some of the doctors and nurses also appeared extremely gruff and rude to Mari and Bertie which I found odd, and would hope would not happen if this was a real life situation.

I also found Amelia’s death completely unnecessary

3.5 stars

I received a free copy of this book from Amulet Books (Abrams&Chronicle) in exchange for an honest review.

It’s 1909 and Odette and Trudchen Gray are two sisters who have grown up believing in monsters, and the people who protect the world against them. When Odette comes back after a two-year absence to spirit Tru away on an adventure, they might just meet the monsters they always talked about.

This is a whimsical tale that tells the story of a terrific bond between two sisters, and shows how sometimes believing that something exists makes it true. I really liked how this story was told - in 1909 by Tru, and in their past by Odette. Both sisters had a really lovely voice, and I also though both of them possessed an innocence to them that was really endearing and lovely. I really felt for both of them at different times, and how their family had failed them in different ways but I loved the bond and friendship they shared and hw much they relied on each other.

I thought this story was told in a really great way that almost halfway through I realised that I hadn’t yet seen anything magical or fantastical happen, but everything seemed on the edge of to because of the way Odette talked and how Tru believed her. I love that the reader was kind of left to decipher their own feelings about the sisters’ adventures and belief.

There were some parts that quite annoyed me such as Aunt Vik’s warning to Odette to “not get in the family way,” but then refused to tell her how one would manage to get that way. I did find it odd that Od and Tru apparently had no idea how babies were made as normally you would read and hear people who grew up on farms would know about the general act from seeing animals. But Aunt Vik definitely had e shaking my head in exasperation. Honest and open communication is better for all, no?

I did really love the very last bit with Trudie. I thought it was a really nice, little touch and it was great to see Od and Tru had fulfilled their dreams!

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

When Alice befriends the glamorous, wealthy Kat, she feels like she’s finally found that best friend that she never seemed to have when she was younger. Three years later, Alice finds herself being questioned over the death of Kat’s husband and suddenly starts to question how much she really knows about her best friend.

This is a domestic suspense thriller (I think?) so it doesn’t seem like a lot happens, or at least there’s not a load of pulse-racing action in it. However, I think the story flowed really nicely and, for me, read at a really quick pace.

I loved the set-up to the story. Straightaway in the first chapter we are seeing the reality of Alice’s home life as a stay-at-home mother. She’s getting the kids ready for school, making breakfast and trying to keep everything together. I feel like it’s a scene literally everyone can relate to - whether you’re a slightly stressed-out mother yourself, or if you were once the kid running around in your underwear because you couldn’t find your uniform. I definitely warmed up to Alice really quickly, while Kat was definitely kept firmly at a distance. It probably didn’t help that I kept picturing Kat as Revenge’s Victoria Grayson, where Alice was more of a Debra Messing-type character.

The ending was really wow oh wow for me, and I was left in a little bit of shock but I was so impressed.

2.5 stars

I received a free digital copy of this book from the publishers/author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Bear with me here as this review is probably going to be a long one as there were some things I loved with this book, but also a lot of things that irritated me.

This is basically a female space pirate adventure, with a team of four cool ladies. Their leader is Androma aka The Bloody Baroness who turned into a fearsome, bloodthirsty pirate while she ran away from a heartbreaking past. She gets a chance for a clean slate when she’s tasked with rescuing the General’s kidnapped son, but she must also team up with her ex-boyfriend for the mission. And stuff goes down…

First off, the good things. I liked the world in general - I thought there seemed to be a lot of thought about the space system, from the different planets and their people and cultures, to the war that went on and the peace between certain planets and how one was ousted.

I liked Dex. He was probably one of my favourite characters even though he was basically Flynn Rider from Tangled. Like I was generally waiting for him to do ‘the smoulder’ at one point.

I think I also like Adhira the most out of the planets, and Lira’s aunt as a character even though she wasn’t even in it that much. The species were extremely similar to one from Becky Chamber’s Wayfarer trilogy (the scales flashing emotions for instance) but I let that one slide.

Okay here’s some of my gripes (and probably some spoilers in here too so if you don’t wanna know, don’t read on).

There were so many POV’s! I actually didn’t really think we needed Dex’s POV until maybe the end when he was trying to save everyone. Lira’s one as well, probably wasn’t really needed. She also felt a little bit like cardboard most of the time to be honest. Klaren’s past POV was just weird and seemed really out of place for the majority of the book (also I mixed her up with Kalee at the beginning and was confused for a while).

And many of these characters and plots have been done before. Like I said Dex reminded me of Tangled’s Flynn Rider in many ways with his charm, Androma is basically Celaena Sardothien from Throne of Glass (more on her in a bit, I’ve a lot of say about Andi) and Nor was literally Queen Levana from the Lunar Chronicles. Also the whole thing about Zenith was what happened in Divergent.

Okay I’m going to talk about Andi now and how much I’m SICK of being given these characters that are oh so bad, but oh wait they’re really not. I’ve talked before about my feelings on Celaena and how much of an assassin she’s really not and Andi is really the same. She goes on and on and on, (like really, she never lets you forget about it) about how her soul is black, and she has no heart and she’s the ‘Bloody Baroness’ (really hate that name too, it makes her sound like an old woman), but then she’s haunted by the people she kills and remembers them and feels remorse. ALSO, there’s really no need for her to kill as many people as she does. If she’s as good as she says she is, she could definitely knock people out instead of killing them all the time - like did she really need to decapitate three soldiers’ heads that were in the way of her and Dex in the beginning? I think not.

Also, Andi and Dex just not doing anything with their relationship at the end was weird, and didn’t make any sense with what had gone on with them for pretty much the entire story. ALSO, Andi never really forgave Dex for ya know, turning her in so his dad wouldn’t die? I mean, I’d be okay with that reasoning on his part soooo she should probably forgive him.

Also everything about Kalee and the plane crash was just a HUGE overreaction if you ask me. Everyone going on about how Andi was some murderer when it was a plane crash that she obviously didn’t mean to cause. I think people need to look up the definition of murder and realise it’s ya know, killing with intent? I just got mad every time the Genral or Valen called Andi a murderer when she hadn’t murdered Kalee.

I was disappointed in Breck and Gilly as well. I feel like there was so much more that could have been done with them, and their back story but they ended up just being used as comic relief the entire time, and seemed like caricatures or something. I also think the entire crew really was being used as a fawning audience for Andi the entire novel which I didn’t think she deserved as at times she was a terrible captain.

And this book is so long. SO much longer than it needs to be I feel like at least 100 pages could have been cut. There were some scenes that were completely unnecessary (for example, that whole chapter in Adhira where the girls are wrestling/play-fighting for no reason?). I was stuck at 70% for almost three days, and that’s unheard of for me. I was so glad when this was over as it just seemed to take forever.