3.5 stars.

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

Nova was born blind but when she ends up getting an operation to restore her sight, she wakes up to a whole new world and one in which she needs to learn everything all over again. Kate on the other hand finds herself dealing with anxiety after an accident that’s left her with a lot of questions. Nova brings Kate light again but Kate may be bringing Nova down and soon, tough decisions have to be made.

I really enjoyed the first half of this book. It’s written really well, and easy and I fell into the story really quickly so it moved at a great pace for me and after a couple hours I was already halfway through. Nova is a character that is very easy to like - she’s fun, bubbly, infectious and from the moment we meet her, when she’s still blind, she’s the type of person you know would make your life better and make you happy.

I really like Nova’s individual storyline and her journey of rediscovery and relearning everything about the world now that she could see again. I never really thought about hard it must be for people with bad sight to suddenly be able to see clearly, and everything they would have to learn to just get about everyday. I also loved some of Nova’s observations about sight, particularly when it came to how food looked compared to how great it smelled.

I would have liked more of Nova’s job to be in the novel, particularly before her operation. I feel like the whole ‘she can tell people are lying by their voice’ thing was sold in the blurb and made it sound like it was a bigger point in the book when really it was a non-entity. Nova’s job wasn’t important at all, and I was disappointed by that as it sounded really cool to me.

I definitely had a hard time warming up to Kate as a character but she is definitely going through the wringer, even more so than Nova and is not in a good place in her life before. I did like the friendship and romance that sparked between the two but the second part of the book when the romance was heavier completely fell apart for me and i stopped enjoyed the book so much.

I felt like the story became a bit drawn out, and I was ready for it to be over. As a reader, I felt like i was waiting for the super obvious thing to happen for ages, and even when it did eventually happen, it was just so all over the place and almost over the top, I didn’t enjoy it at all.

The first half was much stronger than the second, which was a real pity.

4.5 stars

Leah Burke, a character previously met in Simon Vs the Homosapiens Agenda, is prickly, stands up for what she believes in and secretly, a bit of a marshmallow on the inside. As she gets ready to graduate high school, Leah starts dealing with crushes, figuring out how to come out to her friends that she’s bi, and might realise other people have surprises up their sleeves too.

I was so nervous going into this book because number one: I’d already heard a lot of middling reviews and a lot of people that loved Simon felt disappointed by this one and number two: I really didn’t like Leah in Simon. BUT this book totally made me a Leah person. I now love Leah, who would have ever guessed that!

The pairing in this book was a shocker for me too when I first realised the romantic coupling. They’re not people I would put together and it seemed totally off to me (and also wonder why there couldn’t just be new people added from the same town or HS) BUT I loved them. I really felt like the chemistry was there, the adorable awkwardness and by the end I totally shipped them.

This book just blew me away and took me by surprise. Leah could definitely have been a bit nicer to people in this book, especially her mom, and she has a tendency to take things too far sometimes (even when it’s not always her place) but I still loved her despite it all. That’s just Leah, take her or leave her.

I understand people’s frustrations over the bisexuality conversation that Leah had with another character in this book and what Leah said about dismissing someone’s label and challenging them on their identity was wrong, no doubt about it. And I wish she could have acknowledged that properly by the end of the book but in my eyes, an older, wiser Leah who has spent more time in the LGTBQIA+ community will eventually look back on that conversation and see where she went wrong, and might actually apologise. One can hope.

I received this book from Orbit in exchange for an honest review.

Bloody Rose is exactly what it says on the tin - a sword-wielding, flame-haired adventure led by a mighty warrior who you do not want to meet on a bad day! Tam Hashford is working in a pub when she suddenly gets the chance to become the bard for legendary mercenary gang Fable, led by her heroine Bloody Rose. As Tam joins in on the adventures, she learns more about who Bloody Rose really is - and they all end up on a path on which they’ll probably have to save the world, again.

Just like Kings of the Wyld, Bloody Rose is a a fast-paced, unputdownable adventure with characters whose antics will make you belly laugh, and also cry out in fear for their safety when the going gets tough. Bloody Rose is set a few years after Kings of the Wyld but some of our favourite characters have some cameos like Slowhand, Golden Gabe and Moog.

I really enjoyed learning all the new characters in book like Cura and Brune, as well as Rose and Freecloud who we only met briefly in Kings of the Wyld. Tam was a great character to follow as she ended up in the middle of everything basically. I found it very interesting to see some of the turns Eames took about the arena tours, and how it was easy to see that the monsters were becoming the victims, and the mercs were becoming the monsters. It makes me excited for the third book to see how things go in that direction.

This book did break my heart by the end of it, though it was always inevitable really. I definitely had to just tough it out, and keep reading without having an emotional outburst though I couldn’t stop reading to get upset because I was too hooked on everything happened. The fight scenes in this are great, and the epic battle at the end was TRULY epic to say the least. I love the blend of toughness, comic relief and great fantasy writing in these novels - the only thing they’re missing is a map.

I cannot wait for the next book!

I received a free copy of this book from Little Island in exchange for an honest review.

The Space Between is a beautiful book completely written in verse about a young woman called Beth who can’t leave her house.

In the book,we learn that Beth has decided she’s not leaving the house for an entire year but it’s soon revealed that she also can’t seem to allow herself to leave the house and she suffers from severe anxiety.

There were so many times this book genuinely took my breath away at just how beautiful, truthful and powerful some lines were in it. I haven’t read many books in verse and I always go into them with trepidation because it’s a form I’m unfamiliar with but this story sucked me right in and Beth just clung to my heart straight away, as did Alice.

“What do you do when your brain is refusing to let you step outside
while screaming that you aren’t safe
that you need to run
you need to go?”

This book also had chapters/pages dedicated solely to Beth’s period and I LOVED this, being a huge advocate of the inclusion of menstruation in books.

This book is also diverse and I believe own voices (in the sexuality aspect at least anyway though I’m not 100% sure about the anxiety)

I received a free e-copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a fascinating, spread out high fantasy novel with roots in Ancient Asian culture and focuses on the friendship and love between two princesses- Barsalayaa Shefali and O-Shizuka.

This book is told in a mix of present day scenese with O-Shizuka who we know is now Empress, and letters she is reading from Shefali who is talking about their past, their childhood, friendships, adventures and eventual romantic relationship. Through the letters we find out what happened between them, and why in the present day they aren't together how they should be.

I really enjoyed this, and I found it engaging and easy to read. I loved the relationship between the girls. Their world is violent at times, and both of them can kill a man easily thanks to skills they have learned but the moments between them are tender and pure, and really stand out. I also loved the Asian culture that was seeped in this book, and I personally would have identified O-Shizuka as more Chinese or Japanese in heritage, and Shefali as Mongolian, though that's just how I pictured them and it may be different for others.

I will definitely be reading the next book in this series!

Blanche Beunon is an ex-Parisian circus performer, now living in San Francisco with her beau and his best friend. It's 1876, the smallpox epidemic is at large and Blanche is supporting her small family by working as a burlesque dancer in an established bar.

Little does Blanche know, but the night she bumps (literally) into Jenny Bonnet, a cross-dressing frog catcher who rides a large unicycle, is the night that changes the course of the rest of her life. Jenny's questions end up making Blanche reconsider choices she has made, and eventually, somehow, ends up with Jenny lying dead in an Irishman's bar.

I really enjoyed this book. I felt it extremely fresh and exotic. It was something I had never read about before and it really kept me on my toes. The story flashes back and forth from the night and the days following Jenny;s murder to the night Blanche originally met Jenny and the weeks that followed that meeting.

Blanche is a flawed character who, despite throwbacks, does try to do her best. She has led a life being sheltered and manipulated almost by the men in her life and it's interesting to see her character development into not only a mother but a woman who can stand up for herself, and stand on her own two feet. Jenny was a character that was so full of life but also full of secrets and it both thrilled and frustrated me that by the end of the novel we still only got a half-painted picture of who she really was. I would actually love some kind of short story in Jenny;s POV as I found her truly fascinating. I suppose she could be called a feminist before people even knew what the word meant.

The backdrop of the story, San Francisco during an epidemic was full of atmosphere, and dripping with history. Blanche's home is in the middle of the street where a number of emigrants lived and her daily life was full of the French, Irish and Chinese. I really loved this. I also loved that all the characters in this book were actually real people!

I think, from reading reviews on Goodreads, people need to go into this book with fresh eyes and not compare it to any other books from the same author. It is a delicious, atmospheric piece of historical writing, and it will have you dancing on stage with Blanche and riding around San Fran on a unicycle with a bag of hopping frogs with Jenny. Enjoy the ride!