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Book Review | The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts
Title: The Glorious Race of Magical Beasts Author: Alex Bell Published: 1st February 2024 Publisher: Faber & Faber Genre: Middle grade, adventure, fantasy Rating: 4/5 stars An out of this world magical adventure with talking animals, risk-taking and friendship aplenty! A new standalone magical story from the best-selling author of the Explorers’ Club series. Twelve-year-old Eli is an apprentice librarian at the largest library in the world. But when his grandmother falls ill, he enters the Glorious Race of Magical Beasts to raise money for her treatment. This annual race is always held in the most perilous places and is full of spiky dangers. Most participants seek out unicorns and…
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Book Review | The Last Murder at the End of the World
Title: The Last Murder at the End of the World Author: Stuart Turton Published: 28th March 2024 Publisher: Bloomsbury Genre: Fiction, Thriller, Dystopian Rating: 3/5 stars Solve the murder to save what’s left of the world. Outside the island there is nothing: the world destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched. On the island: it is idyllic. 122 villagers and 3 scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they’re told by the scientists. Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to…
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Weekly Wrap Up 15/01
Hello, welcome to another Weekly Wrap Up (15/01). It’s still January, it feels like this month goes on for years and it’s just so dark! Thankfully we have books to escape into, read on to see what I’ve been enjoying this week! Books Read Jayben and the Golden Torch by Thomas Leeds This is a lovely middle grade fantasy about Jayben who wakes in the Elf world with no memories but a great destiny to save the elf world and all their memories. It’s great fun! Buy from Waterstones or Bookshop.org Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo. I have been actively avoiding this book because I hate the cover so much…
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Book Review | So Let Them Burn
Title: So Let Them Burn Author: Kamilah Cole Published: 16th January 2024 Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group Genre: YA, Fantasy Series: Divine Traitors #1 Rating: 3/5 Whip-smart and immersive, this Jamaican-inspired fantasy follows a gods-blessed heroine who’s forced to choose between saving her sister or protecting her homeland – perfect for fans of The Priory of the Orange Tree and Fourth Wing. Faron Vincent can channel the power of the gods. Five years ago, she used her divine magic to liberate her island from its enemies, the dragon-riding Langley Empire. But now, at seventeen, Faron is all powered up with no wars to fight. She’s a legend to her people and a nuisance…
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Weekly Wrap Up 08/01
Hello, welcome to my first Weekly Wrap Up (08/01) of 2024. I’ve been going through some life changes this month, so I haven’t been doing quite as much reading as I normally like to do in January, but there’s still time for that to change! Books Read The Last Murder at the End of the World by Stuart Turton I was lucky enough to get an eARC of this dystopian mystery novel from Bloomsbury and NetGalley. It’s an intriguing idea for a novel, a murder mystery with the last survivors of the apocalypse, sounds interesting! I liked it but I didn’t love it as much as I hoped to. Pre-order…