• All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: Girls of Paper and Fire

    16 October, 2018
    39898847

    Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It’s the highest honor they could hope for… and the most cruel.

    But this year, there’s a ninth girl. And instead of paper, she’s made of fire.

    In this lush fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most oppressed class in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards still haunts her. Now, the guards are back, and this time it’s Lei they’re after – the girl whose golden eyes have piqued the king’s interest.

    Over weeks of training in the opulent but stifling palace, Lei and eight other girls learn the skills and charm that befit being a king’s consort. But Lei isn’t content to watch her fate consume her. Instead, she does the unthinkable – she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens the very foundation of Ikhara, and Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide just how far she’s willing to go for justice and revenge.

    Girls of Paper and Fire

    Natasha Ngan

    Rating: 5/5 ðŸŒˆ
    Published: 6th November 2018
    Goodreads
    Rep: wlw mcs (ownvoices), South-east/East Asian characters (ownvoices)

    I know it now with a certainty that has fitted into the lost core at the heart of me, as hard and angular as my hope was soft and shimmering. The King will not have me.

    Read More
  • All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: In The Vanishers’ Palace

    8 October, 2018
    41724928

    In a ruined, devastated world, where the earth is poisoned and beings of nightmares roam the land…

    A woman, betrayed, terrified, sold into indenture to pay her village’s debts and struggling to survive in a spirit world.

    A dragon, among the last of her kind, cold and aloof but desperately trying to make a difference.

    When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn’s amusement.

    But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side. She finds herself dangerously attracted to the dragon who is her master and jailer. In the end, Yên will have to decide where her own happiness lies—and whether it will survive the revelation of Vu Côn’s dark, unspeakable secrets…

    In The Vanishers’ Palace

    Aliette de Bodard

    Rating: 4/5 ðŸŒˆ
    Published: 16th October 2018
    Goodreads
    Rep: Vietnamese mcs (ownvoices), bi mc (fairly sure ownvoices), lesbian mc, non-binary side characters (not ownvoices)

    And then she’d wake up, gasping, trying to breathe, raising her hands to her face, remembering Vu Côn’s touch on her skin, as wet and as cold as the oily river.

    Read More
  • All Reviews,  Literature

    ARC Review: Love Like This

    1 October, 2018
    40183920

    Sometimes the most imperfect match is the most perfect surprise. 

    Hadley Cooper believes in happily-ever-afters with her whole heart. Described by her friends as a wide-eyed, eternal optimist, she looks for the bright side in most any situation. However, when her job as the assistant manager of Silhouette, a posh boutique on Rodeo Drive, is on the line, she realizes it’s time to pull her head out of the clouds and find a way to turn business around, and that just might mean partnering with the most stubborn up-and-coming fashion designer she’s ever encountered. 

    Spencer Adair has a passion for fashion, but hates the fact that it rhymes. She’s serious about her designs, fiercely protective of her work, and is waiting patiently for her big break. What she didn’t plan on, however, was the unsolicited opinions of that overly friendly blond boutique manager. Or the way her heart beats faster every time she’s around.

    Love Like This

    Melissa Brayden

    Rating: 2/5 ðŸŒˆ
    Published: 16th October 2018
    Goodreads
    Rep: lesbian mc and li (ownvoices), Latina(?) li (not ownvoices, also never specified)

    Her soul soared, her heart sang, and her life could go in so many different directions.

    Read More