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Book Review

Title: Kiss of Deception

Author: Mary E. Pearson

Genre: YA/Romance/Dystopian

Rating: *****

Review: The opening to Kiss of Deception was brilliant, we meet Lia who is the first daughter of the House of Morrighan who is to be wed to the Prince of Dalbreck and we follow her through the pre-wedding ritual some of which are slightly brutal. It is made painfully clear from the outset that Lia doesn’t want this marriage and it is purely a political alliance agreed upon by her parents. There is also mention of gifts that are passed to the first daughters and they present at womanhood but Lia doesn’t have a gift. As Lia and her attendant Pauline leave for the wedding they make their escape into the forest which they had planned earlier.

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Book Review

Title: Shatter me

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Genre: YA/Dystopian/Romance

Rating: *****

Review: The opening to Shatter me was great we meet Juliette who has been locked up in a mental asylum for a long time when she is given a cellmate in Adam. At first she is terrified of him but over the weeks they are locked up together she begins to open to him but won’t ever allow him to touch her. It turns out Juliette can kill people by touching them and this is why she is being isolated in a cell, she also realizes she already knows Adam as they went to school together but he doesn’t remember her. After weeks of being locked up they are suddenly removed at gunpoint and Juliette believes she is walking to her death. This isn’t so, it turns out Adam is a soldier and was locked up with Juliette to test her and she apparently passed. Adam’s commanding officer Warner wants to make a proposition with Juliette but we don’t know for what yet.

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Book Review

Title: The Ghosts of Ukuthula

Author: Rick McBee

Genre: Action/Historical/World Literature

Rating: *****

Review: The opening of The Ghosts of Ukuthula was great, there is politic intrigue, espionage and murder all in the opening chapter and I was hooked. We start the story in Durban, South Africa in October 1989, this immediately suggests to me as a reader that there will be time and location skips in the duration of this novel. We also meet Dirk Van Zyl, an intelligence agent during an information meeting with the Russians about disrupting the transfer of power to black leaders.

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Book Review

Title: Children of Eden

Author: Joey Graceffa

Genre: YA/Dystopian

Rating: *****

Review: The opening to Children of Eden was great we meet twins Ash and Rowen in their dystopian society of Eden. In their society each family is only legally allowed to have one child so Rowen is an illegal child and her parents have struggled to keep her safe for 16 years. As she becomes quite restless the family are surprised by government officials turning up, Rowen manages to hide in time but it isn’t much of a life. She is told by her parents that they have made ID lens on the black market and she will be going to live with a new family that doesn’t have any children so she can live a relatively normal life. When the truth is revealed to Rowen she is furious and runs away to the city not even thinking about the consequences if she is caught.

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Book Review

Title: Throne of Glass

Author: Sarah J Maas

Genre: YA/Fantasy/Romance

Rating: *****

Review: The opening to Throne of Glass was great, it has an ominous feel to it. We meet Celaena Sardothian, a trained assassin who has spent the last year in the salt mines of Endovier after getting caught. She is retrieved by Captain Chaol Westfall and brought before the Crown Prince of Adarlan. I loved Celaena’s sassy and almost cocky attitude especially for someone so young. The prince; Dorian offers Celaena the chance to be his champion in a contest to be the King’s assassin, should she win she will have the chance to earn back her freedom so naturally she agrees. As they travel to the city of Rfthold we gets hints that Celaena is something more than an assassin especially in the line; “she didn’t wish to reign over this city again”. This makes me wonder what she could be because she does talk a lot about magic and the Fae like she has intimate knowledge of them. When they arrive at the castle Celaena is segregated from the other champions and beings to develop a tentative friendship with Dorian through their shared love of literature. Celaena also learns of some strange markings throughout the castle and decides to investigate.

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Book Review

Title: Firing of the Crucible

Author: Michael E. Shaffer

Genre: Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Action

Rating: ****

Review: The opening to Firing of the Crucible was great, the novel opens with some strange space activity resulting in the emergence of a ship, through something like a wormhole. We are also introduced to Roh Ceeda who is piloting a ship through its Emergence because she can sense the  Aether in space. She has the task of taking people in stasis to somewhere safe. The journey Roh Ceeda is taking the ship on is meant to be impossible but it turns out to be fairly easy. Ceeda learns about the Terran species (humans) and how they differ from her own species; the Dvane.

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Book Review

Title: Renegades

Author: Marissa Meyer

Genre: YA/Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Rating: SAMPLER

Review: In this new world created by Meyer we learn of two kinds of people; prodigies and renegades. We learn of the legend where Ace gathered the strongest prodigies and rebelled against the government shortly after the renegades emerged. We are then introduced to Nova who is a seven year old inventor during at a time where her family is really struggling. When she asks about the renegades she is quickly silenced by her father. We learn that Nova has special gifts that she has been forced to hide. One might men break into their home and kill her parents and her baby sister Evie, Nova manages to use her gift to save her own life but is traumatized by the incident. She is later found by her uncle who tells her to call him Ace.

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