It has been twenty-seven long years since the last sunrise. For nearly three decades, vampires have waged war against humanity; building their eternal empire even as they tear down our own. Now, only a few tiny sparks of light endure in a sea of darkness. Gabriel de León is a silversaint: a member of a holy brotherhood dedicated to defending realm and church from the creatures of the night. But even the Silver Order couldn’t stem the tide once daylight failed us, and now, only Gabriel remains. Imprisoned by the very monsters he vowed to destroy, the last silversaint is forced to tell his story. A story of legendary battles and forbidden love, of faith lost and friendships won, of the Wars of the Blood and the Forever King and the quest for humanity’s last remaining hope: The Holy Grail.
Thank you so much to Harper Voyager for providing me with an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Argh. I wanted to love this book. Heck, I would have taken like. This is one of those books that has made me really sit down and consider the pressure we put on ourselves as a community sometimes with hyped books, new releases and especially proof copies.
Because I’ve got to be completely honest with myself and all of you. This just…wasn’t for me. To be frank, I was bored, I was confused, and I found this book way too long. I had no motivation to pick it up and I was finding it really hard to get into, but I pushed through. I had been reading it for almost a week when the book was released in the UK and I switched over to the audiobook, which honestly saved me. Although I’m sure I would have finished it eventually with just the physical copy, the audio definitely helped me out a LOT in this case.
Although I was finding this really slow to start, I had heard other readers with similar feelings who felt it picked up halfway, so I pushed through to then. Do you want to know where I found it picked up for me? With less than 100 pages to go. If the entire book had been the same experience for me as the final 50-100 pages, it may have been a 4 or even 5 star. But it honestly took me over 600 of 720 pages to get into, and I think if I was anyone else I would have given up.
After all that ranting, I wouldn’t say that this book was bad or that I didn’t enjoy it. It is highly entertaining and there were a lot of scenes I loved a lot, I just found the links between them very hard to find and they all felt very disjointed and jarring. I also enjoyed the found family aspect a lot and the relationships between the main characters were very interesting to read about. The plot twists really got me, especially at the end in the last 100 pages which I loved.
Overall, this one was such a rollercoaster and I just wish I liked it more than I had, but you can’t love them all!
I can’t believe it’s time for my August wrap-up already and that we’re heading in to the autumn season. I’m super excited for some autumnal reads, but I also managed to read 14 books in August. That’s the same amount as I read in July and I’m pretty happy with that! You can also find my August wrap-up on my YouTube channel below.
Everyone has a reason to fear the boy with the gun… 10:00 a.m.:The principal of Opportunity, Alabama’s high school finishes her speech, welcoming the entire student body to a new semester and encouraging them to excel and achieve. 10:02 a.m.: The students get up to leave the auditorium for their next class. 10:03: The auditorium doors won’t open. 10:05: Someone starts shooting. In 54 minutes, four students must confront their greatest hopes, and darkest fears, as they come face-to-face with the boy with the gun.
Cee has been trapped on an abandoned island for three years without any recollection of how she arrived, or memories from her life prior. All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay, and it’s up to Cee to cross the ocean and find her. In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara lives in an eco-city built for people who protected the planet―and now need protecting from it. With natural disasters on the rise due to climate change, eco-cities provide clean air, water, and shelter. Their residents, in exchange, must spend at least a third of their time in stasis pods, conducting business virtually whenever possible to reduce their environmental footprint. While Kasey, an introvert and loner, doesn’t mind the lifestyle, her sister Celia hated it. Popular and lovable, Celia much preferred the outside world. But no one could have predicted that Celia would take a boat out to sea, never to return. Now it’s been three months since Celia’s disappearance, and Kasey has given up hope. Logic says that her sister must be dead. But nevertheless, she decides to retrace Celia’s last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know. Her sister was full of secrets. But Kasey has a secret of her own.
Amari Peters knows three things. Her big brother Quinton has gone missing. No one will talk about it. His mysterious job holds the secret . . . So when Amari gets an invitation to the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, she’s certain this is her chance to find Quinton. But first she has to get her head around the new world of the Bureau, where mermaids, aliens and magicians are real, and her roommate is a weredragon. Amari must compete against kids who’ve known about the supernatural world their whole lives, and when each trainee is awarded a special supernatural talent, Amari is given an illegal talent – one that the Bureau views as dangerous. With an evil magician threatening the whole supernatural world, and her own classmates thinking she is the enemy, Amari has never felt more alone. But if she doesn’t pass the three tryouts, she may never find out what happened to Quinton . . .
When a mysterious sailor dies in sinister circumstances at the Admiral Benbow inn, young Jim Hawkins stumbles across a treasure map among the dead man’s possessions. But Jim soon becomes only too aware that he is not the only one who knows of the map’s existence, and his bravery and cunning are tested to the full when, with his friends Squire Trelawney and Dr Livesey, he sets sail in the Hispaniola to track down the treasure. With its swift-moving plot and memorably drawn characters – Blind Pew and Black Dog, the castaway Ben Gunn and the charming but dangerous Long John Silver – Stevenson’s tale of pirates, treachery and heroism was an immediate success when it was first published in 1883 and has retained its place as one of the greatest of all adventure stories.
A Kind of Spark tells the story of 11-year-old Addie as she campaigns for a memorial in memory of the witch trials that took place in her Scottish hometown. Addie knows there’s more to the story of these ‘witches’, just like there is more to hers. Can Addie challenge how the people in her town see her, and make her voice heard? A story about friendship, courage and self-belief, perfect for fans of The Goldfish Boy, Addie’s story was born from Elle’s own experiences of neurodiversity and her commitment to seeing greater representation in children’s books.
Olivia is an expert at falling in love . . . and at being dumped. But after the fallout from her last breakup has left her an outcast at school and at home, she’s determined to turn over a new leaf. A crush-free weekend at Farmland Music and Arts Festival with her best friend is just what she needs to get her mind off the senior year that awaits her. Toni is one week away from starting college, and it’s the last place she wants to be. Unsure about who she wants to become and still reeling in the wake of the loss of her musician-turned-roadie father, she’s heading back to the music festival that changed his life in hopes that following in his footsteps will help her find her own way forward. When the two arrive at Farmland, the last thing they expect is to realize that they’ll need to join forces in order to get what they’re searching for out of the weekend. As they work together, the festival becomes so much more complicated than they bargained for, and Olivia and Toni will find that they need each other, and music, more than they ever could have imagined.
Ash Persaud is about to become a reaper in the afterlife, but she is determined to see her first love Poppy Morgan again, the only thing that separates them is death. Car headlights. The last thing Ash hears is the snap of breaking glass as the windscreen hits her and breaks into a million pieces like stars. But she made it, she’s still here. Or is she? This New Year’s Eve, Ash is gets an RSVP from the afterlife she can’t decline: to join a clan of fierce girl reapers who take the souls of the city’s dead to await their fate. But Ash can’t forget her first love, Poppy, and she will do anything to see her again… even if it means they only get a few more days together. Dead or alive…
Ever felt anxious or alone? Like you don’t belong anywhere? Like you’re almost… invisible? Find your kindred spirits at The Sad Ghost Club. This is the story of one of those days – a day so bad you can barely get out of bed, when it’s a struggle to leave the house, and when you do, you wish you hadn’t. But even the worst of days can surprise you. When one sad ghost, lost and alone at a crowded party, spies another sad ghost across the room, they decide to leave together. What happens next changes everything. Because that night they start the The Sad Ghost Club – a secret society for the anxious and alone, a club for people who think they don’t belong.
A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret. Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days. But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.
For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine howwaiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures. But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train. Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.
Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life—working hard all day and partying all night—until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start up again, Bryce finds herself at the heart of the investigation. She’ll do whatever it takes to avenge their deaths. Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose—to assassinate his boss’s enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he’s offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach. As Bryce and Hunt dig deep into Crescent City’s underbelly, they discover a dark power that threatens everything and everyone they hold dear, and they find, in each other, a blazing passion—one that could set them both free, if they’d only let it.
★★★★ 4 out of 5 stars
I honestly had such an amazing reading month in terms of liking the books I read, I can’t remember the last time I had this many 4 and 5 star reads in a month! It’s hard to pick my favourite, but The House in the Cerulean Sea absolutely blew me away. My least favourite was Treasure Island, but I wouldn’t say I disliked any of my August reads.
Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga where we share books we’ve bought or received this week. Find out more and join in here!
Hi readers! Considering I haven’t updated you on the books I’ve bought or received for a couple of weeks now, I’m actually quite pleased with the amount I have to talk about. I have a feeling I am about to be buying a few more though, as I haven’t been at work for a few weeks and I go back tomorrow!
In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time. In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer’s, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know. But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .
I actually bought this one a while back and gave it to my mum, who finished reading it and gave it back to me recently! I’m really intrigued to see what I think of this one.
Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can’t get rid of him. When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free. However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school’s resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He’s determined to find out what happened and tie up some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.
I did have a random book haul as I spotted this one in a local Waterstones, and I’ve never seen a hardback in the UK before so I couldn’t resist! This has been on my want to buy list since release, so I couldn’t not pick it up!
There’s one thing Jay Collier knows for sure—he’s a statistical anomaly as the only out gay kid in his small rural Washington town. While all this friends can’t stop talking about their heterosexual hookups and relationships, Jay can only dream of his own firsts, compiling a romance to-do list of all the things he hopes to one day experience—his Gay Agenda. Then, against all odds, Jay’s family moves to Seattle and he starts his senior year at a new high school with a thriving LGBTQIA+ community. For the first time ever, Jay feels like he’s found where he truly belongs, where he can flirt with Very Sexy Boys and search for love. But as Jay begins crossing items off his list, he’ll soon be torn between his heart and his hormones, his old friends and his new ones…because after all, life and love don’t always go according to plan.
I’ve also never seen a hardback of this one in the UK, so I decided to pick it up too as it is such a beautiful copy and I’ve heard good things about it.
The kingdom of Kandala is on the brink of disaster. Rifts between sectors have only worsened since a sickness began ravaging the land, and within the Royal Palace, the king holds a tenuous peace with a ruthless hand. King Harristan was thrust into power after his parents’ shocking assassination, leaving the younger Prince Corrick to take on the brutal role of the King’s Justice. The brothers have learned to react mercilessly to any sign of rebellion–it’s the only way to maintain order when the sickness can strike anywhere, and the only known cure, an elixir made from delicate Moonflower petals, is severely limited. Out in the Wilds, apothecary apprentice Tessa Cade is tired of seeing her neighbors die, their suffering ignored by the unyielding royals. Every night, she and her best friend Wes risk their lives to steal Moonflower petals and distribute the elixir to those who need it most–but it’s still not enough. As rumors spread that the cure no longer works and sparks of rebellion begin to flare, a particularly cruel act from the King’s Justice makes Tessa desperate enough to try the impossible: sneaking into the palace. But what she finds upon her arrival makes her wonder if it’s even possible to fix Kandala without destroying it first.
I was very, very grateful to receive a proof copy of Defy the Night from Bloomsbury! Thank you Bloomsbury – I’m super excited to get to this one.
Exiled to a far-flung island by the whims of the gods, Medusa has little company except the snakes that adorn her head instead of hair. But when a charmed, beautiful boy called Perseus arrives on the island, her lonely existence is disrupted with the force of a supernova, unleashing desire, love, betrayal . and destiny itself.
I received another proof from Bloomsbury too, which looks so interesting! This one comes out in October and is a YA retelling, so will hopefully be great for me to learn more about the Greek Myths.
Kiki is a trainee witch. On her thirteenth birthday she must follow tradition and leave home to find a new village. She knows she has to use only her powers to make a living, but Kiki’s no good at potions or spells…can she use her flying abilities to make her own way in the world? She sets out with her beloved black cat Jiji on an exciting journey, making new friends along the way.
I’ve loved Studio Ghibli for probably close to 10 years now, but I only watched Kiki’s Delivery Service a couple of years ago for the first time (and it quickly became my favourite Ghibli!). After seeing this gorgeous book around, I knew I wanted to read it. And after rewatching the film a couple of days ago with my lovely friend Alex, I knew it was time to pick it up.
I just loved reading this book. It is the ultimate comfort read and obviously felt somewhat like a reread due to re-watching the movie so recently. However, I was pleasantly surprised by how different this story was. A lot of this was only in subtle ways, but Kiki really does get up to some adventures that aren’t in the movie, which made it so fun to read about and gave me a fresh perspective!
Kiki don’t get too hung up on appearances,
Some of the aspects I preferred in the movie, and some in the book, but I honestly love both of them despite the differences. The main feeling of the story, of Kiki moving away from home and settling as a witch in another town, remains the same. The joy and beauty of the pretty seaside town shine through just as well in the book and are helped along by some gorgeous illustrations by Joe Todd Stanton. The characters are also so lovable and I can really see which characters in this one inspired aspects of the movies.
it’s your heart that’s important.
This is the kind of story that is perfect for any age. I would have adored this as a child I’m sure, but I loved it as an adult too. It is one of those beautiful, charming stories that you can’t help but fall in love with.
Bryce Quinlan had the perfect life—working hard all day and partying all night—until a demon murdered her closest friends, leaving her bereft, wounded, and alone. When the accused is behind bars but the crimes start up again, Bryce finds herself at the heart of the investigation. She’ll do whatever it takes to avenge their deaths. Hunt Athalar is a notorious Fallen angel, now enslaved to the Archangels he once attempted to overthrow. His brutal skills and incredible strength have been set to one purpose—to assassinate his boss’s enemies, no questions asked. But with a demon wreaking havoc in the city, he’s offered an irresistible deal: help Bryce find the murderer, and his freedom will be within reach. As Bryce and Hunt dig deep into Crescent City’s underbelly, they discover a dark power that threatens everything and everyone they hold dear, and they find, in each other, a blazing passion—one that could set them both free, if they’d only let it.
Argh. I want to equally hug this and throw it across the room. I really liked this one, but sadly it ended up being my least favourite Sarah J Maas book so far (and now I’ve read all of them!). I don’t often find that her books feel long, but this one did. This took me almost 2 weeks to read and I struggled to want to pick it up, which I found so sad after managing to read A Court of Silver Flames in a couple of days and not wanting to put it down.
However, after spending the first half feeling like it was a little bit of a slog, the second half picked up so much and I absolutely loved it. It took me so long to feel like I was totally into the story, but I did feel completely different about the second half to the first. I think part of this is because this is the first Sarah J Maas book I’ve read that has an urban setting rather than a more medieval feeling setting. I just didn’t expect to have phones, TV and all other modern technology and it did really throw me at first.
Through love,
There was still a lot I loved in this book, including the characters. Although it took me a while to start rooting for them, I did really love them and reading about the slow burn romance we had throughout. On that note, I must admit the sexual tension in this book made me want to throw it against a wall sometimes, but I have heard that Crescent City 2 is meant to be the smuttiest yet! Which I’m not sure how I feel about, as I found A Court of Silver Flames had so much smut that it took away from the plot. Argh, we’ll see how it is!
I also love (and feel like Sarah J Maas does this really well) how grief and mental health shines through in Bryce’s character. I feel like we don’t often see mental health issues reflected in fantasy and it’s something that makes the characters feel so much more real and relatable. This also made me feel like my heart was being stomped all over in the final pages and I was so nervous about what was happening to them!
all is possible.
Although this is my least favourite Sarah J Maas book so far, I did still really enjoy it and I’m so excited for the second book which comes out in February 2022!
For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine howwaiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures. But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train. Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.
I think I’ve finally found it. Between The House in the Cerulean Sea and One Last Stop and Afterlove, I think I’ve finally found my favourite type of book. It’s the magical realism, the found family, the tragedy, the rip-your-heart-out-and-put-it-back-together-again type of book. It’s pure magic.
Put simply, I loved One Last Stop. It perfectly portrayed all of the things I have recently discovered I love about books. It was beautiful and heartbreaking and heartwarming all in one. It had a delightful mixture of strength and love and found family. A mixture of loneliness and togetherness. Of finding others but also yourself. I’m so glad I read it.
But, you know, that feeling? When you wake up in the morning and you have somebody to think about?
I both listened to and read One Last Stop, and I loved both experiences. I enjoyed Casey Mcquiston’s writing a lot more in this one than in Red, White and Royal Blue, and I found it translated to audio really well. The narrator was wonderful and perfectly portrayed the wittiness, love and hope of August’s story. Some of my favourite books have been read with a mixture of audio and physical reading, and this one was no different.
I loved August and Jane and the whole diverse cast of characters surrounding them. August felt vulnerable and real but I also found her really likable, and Jane was so easy to fall for through August’s eyes. I also loved how Jane gave us insight into the past, giving us a way to discuss LGBTQIA+ rights throughout history, and how that feels. I absolutely adored the entire cast of characters, especially the found-family in August’s flatmates and their friends. All of the characters had their own depth and backstories, conflicts and interests. They felt authentic and lovely.
Somewhere for hope to go? It’s good. Even when it’s bad, it’s good.
The thing I loved most was the impossibility, or at least improbability, of this book. It meant that truly anything could have happened, and this book could have gone down many different roads. It left me reeling with emotion but also feeling like my heart had been slowly pieced back together. I rooted for August and Jane every step of the way and I certainly won’t forget them in a hurry!
A magical island. A dangerous task. A burning secret. Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages. When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he’s given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days. But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.
How do you even begin to review a book that stole your heart, ripped it to pieces and put it back together again? This book was a total and utter rollercoaster, and I adored it. It made me laugh out loud and it made me sob. It made me angry and it made me smile quietly to myself. It gave me everything I could ever want from a book.
Linus Baker leads a quiet life that he fully believes he is satisfied with – until he is sent on an assignment to a children’s home full of magical youth on an island far away. The lives of Linus and these children hold so many secrets, so much love and friendship and magic. This is found family to the highest degree, and I adored it.
Hate is loud, but I think you’ll learn it’s because it’s only a few people shouting, desperate to be heard.
The writing is just absolutely breathtaking. I listened to this partly on audiobook and read it partly in physical format and I loved the writing both ways. It was so beautiful, lyrical and poetic. The dialogue is beautiful and although would be far fetched and unrealistic in any other book, it fits perfectly with these characters. And the characters, ah the characters are really what makes this book.
They are all so individual and impossible not to love. There is something magical about these children that teach everybody around them about compassion, hope and understanding. This story carries so many important messages that will leave every reader full of hope and an unexplainable, undeniable warmth. I spent the last 20 or so pages of this book sobbing because I just needed everything to be okay.
You might not ever be able to change their minds, but so long as your remember you’re not alone, you will overcome.
This book is like a warm hug, a blanket wrapped around your shoulders on the coldest day. It is absolutely delightful, full of characters that will steal your heart and an island that you won’t help but fall in love with. It is the ultimate comfort read and I know it will be one I don’t forget in a hurry. A new favourite of all time and possibly my favourite book of 2021 so far.
Ever felt anxious or alone? Like you don’t belong anywhere? Like you’re almost… invisible? Find your kindred spirits at The Sad Ghost Club. This is the story of one of those days – a day so bad you can barely get out of bed, when it’s a struggle to leave the house, and when you do, you wish you hadn’t. But even the worst of days can surprise you. When one sad ghost, lost and alone at a crowded party, spies another sad ghost across the room, they decide to leave together. What happens next changes everything. Because that night they start the The Sad Ghost Club – a secret society for the anxious and alone, a club for people who think they don’t belong.
This book is like a warm hug. It was so pure and honest and I just absolutely loved it. I picked this graphic novel up a while ago as I kept seeing recommendations for it, and finally decided to read it in one sitting. The illustrations were so beautiful and fit this story perfectly, they felt so soft and gentle. The main character is such an honest and heartwarming focus for the book and I feel like their story is such a beautiful one. The depiction of anxiety, depression and loneliness felt so visceral and honest, and I definitely related to how deflated the ghost felt.
I feel like this is the kind of book you can’t help but rate 5 stars, simply for the amount of people this book will help. For all the people who won’t feel quite so alone by reading it.
Ash Persaud is about to become a reaper in the afterlife, but she is determined to see her first love Poppy Morgan again, the only thing that separates them is death. Car headlights. The last thing Ash hears is the snap of breaking glass as the windscreen hits her and breaks into a million pieces like stars. But she made it, she’s still here. Or is she? This New Year’s Eve, Ash is gets an RSVP from the afterlife she can’t decline: to join a clan of fierce girl reapers who take the souls of the city’s dead to await their fate. But Ash can’t forget her first love, Poppy, and she will do anything to see her again… even if it means they only get a few more days together. Dead or alive…
Thank you to the publisher, Hodder, for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
I don’t know what I expected going into this book, because even though there is a lot in the synopsis, it still managed to lull me into a false sense of security. This book is an utter emotional rollercoaster and it threw me multiple times. This follows Ash and her relationship with Poppy, which was an absolute joy to read about and reminded me of my own relationship with my boyfriend and when we first got together.
However it didn’t take long for Byrne to steal my heart and stomp all over it. After being lulled into this lovely story of these two girls falling in love, Ash dies. And I knew this from the synopsis, but I still felt it like a punch in the gut. This book did such an amazing job at describing exactly how disorientated Ash feels as she is thrown into this new afterlife as a reaper, and I felt every little thing alongside her.
This book was full of heartwarming scenes, friendship and of course romance, but also made me cry and made my heart hurt. This was such a beautiful love story with a twist, and quickly became a new favourite book. Ash and Poppy stole my heart and although their romance is a little insta-love, I just couldn’t help but adore it. I also really enjoyed reading about Ash as a reaper and I feel like she finds an amazing found-family with some great characters which I loved.
This book also discussed some very important subjects throughout such as grief, coming out and family. I also just couldn’t put this down and read the entire (almost 400 page) book in basically one sitting. I had to know what was going to happen at the end of this book and to these characters. I also read this one with Courtney and we both really enjoyed it.
Overall this book is definitely a new favourite. I just fell for these characters in a way I didn’t expect and I know their story will stay with me for a long time to come.
Olivia is an expert at falling in love . . . and at being dumped. But after the fallout from her last breakup has left her an outcast at school and at home, she’s determined to turn over a new leaf. A crush-free weekend at Farmland Music and Arts Festival with her best friend is just what she needs to get her mind off the senior year that awaits her. Toni is one week away from starting college, and it’s the last place she wants to be. Unsure about who she wants to become and still reeling in the wake of the loss of her musician-turned-roadie father, she’s heading back to the music festival that changed his life in hopes that following in his footsteps will help her find her own way forward. When the two arrive at Farmland, the last thing they expect is to realize that they’ll need to join forces in order to get what they’re searching for out of the weekend. As they work together, the festival becomes so much more complicated than they bargained for, and Olivia and Toni will find that they need each other, and music, more than they ever could have imagined.
Thank you to the publisher, Scholastic for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I really liked You Should See Me in a Crown and I was super excited to receive a copy of Leah’s newest book from the publisher! In this book we follow Olivia and Toni, two best friends who are heading to a music festival. They have an agreement to have a crush free, drama free weekend at Farmland music festival, but things are never that easy, are they?
I really enjoyed this and I feel like it captured the essence of a music festival so well. Olivia’s love for music really shone through and gave me the vibes I was looking for. I love how many subplots we had throughout that were also intertwined in the music festival idea itself, and it made for a very fast paced read!
Somewhere in the light-years of space between the spiritual and the scientific,
I read this book in less than a day, starting it one evening and finishing it late the next morning. Although this book isn’t particularly short, I found it so easy to read and didn’t want to put it down. I just wanted to know which way the plot was going to go and I had no idea exactly what the end of this book looked like. The chapters being from both characters also made this a really quick and easy read – although I don’t remember much of Toni’s story, I’ll admit!
I did like the characters but Olivia’s character did knock half a star off my rating because I just found her very annoying. Although I did appreciate how real her actions and mistakes were, I just found the way she acted throughout highly impulsive, immature and grated on me. I overlooked this for the most part and did manage to largely ignore it, but it did ever so slightly impact my thoughts and feelings.
between the known and the ineffable, there’s live music.
I loved how this book discussed friendship, grief, relationships and being true to yourself. I also loved the importance of music that shone through and I felt like the friendship group had a found family feeling, which I enjoyed a lot.
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