Rating: 5 STARS! Genre: LGBT/Fantasy Series/Standalone: Standalone How I got this book: eARC via UKTor, BlackCrowPR and NetGalley When a reaper comes to collect Wallace Price from his own funeral, Wallace suspects he really might be dead. Instead of leading him directly to the afterlife, the reaper takes him to a small village. On the outskirts, off the path through the woods, tucked between mountains, is a particular tea shop, run by a man named Hugo. Hugo is the tea shop's owner to locals and the ferryman to souls who need to cross over. But Wallace isn't ready to abandon the life he barely lived. With Hugo's help he finally starts to learn about all the things he missed in life. When the Manager, a curious and powerful being, arrives at the tea shop and gives Wallace one week to cross over, Wallace sets about living a lifetime in seven days. By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, this absorbing tale of grief and hope is told with TJ Klune's signature warmth, humor, and extraordinary empathy. TW: Death, grief, loss, murder, suicide
After reading The House in the Cerulean Sea, I had certain expectations about this book going into it, and I was mostly wrong. This book is not a sequel or a continuation of The House in the Cerulean Sea, but something entirely new and, for me at least, incredibly powerful. At the beginning of the book, we meet Wallace Price in his prime. A ruthless lawyer, in the process of firing a long-time employee in a way that shows he has no compassion or heart. TJ Klune delivers a character who should, on all accounts, be impossible to like. And yet, Wallace might just be one of the most relatable, empathetic characters I've ever read. I adore the emotional way in which TJ Klune writes, something I've enjoyed in his previous books, but never before has any book had such an emotional impact on me as Under the Whispering Door. I certainly don't remember any book where I spent at least 1/3 of it in tears. As someone who has lost loved ones, this book gives me hope for all of us, and reading it was an incredibly cathartic process. While it was emotional, the book wasn't by any means 'doom and gloom'. The characters and situations in the book had me laughing out loud and smiling at the sweetness and the possibility. The romance in this book is beautiful, with a found family at its core, and the perfect pairing between a complete cinnamon roll character and a grumpier character. "Wallace stared after him, burning like the sun." Only TJ Klune could write a book about death that’s so hauntingly and profoundly beautiful…but also makes you laugh out loud. I swear each book he writes is better than the last. "When we're lost, we need help to try and find out way again." Rating: 3.5 STARS Genre: Adult Fantasy/LGBT+ Series/Standalone: Magic of the Lost #1 How I got this book: Bought (Illumicrate - check out my unboxing!) Touraine is a soldier. Stolen as a child and raised to kill and die for the empire, her only loyalty is to her fellow conscripts. But now, her company has been sent back to her homeland to stop a rebellion, and the ties of blood may be stronger than she thought. Luca needs a turncoat. Someone desperate enough to tiptoe the bayonet's edge between treason and orders. Someone who can sway the rebels toward peace, while Luca focuses on what really matters: getting her uncle off her throne. Through assassinations and massacres, in bedrooms and war rooms, Touraine and Luca will haggle over the price of a nation. But some things aren't for sale TW: rape, racism, slavery, torture, violence, gore
Rep: physical disability, queer I've been ruminating on my review of The Unbroken for a couple of days. My head was a little all over the place when I finished reading it and I wasn't exactly sure how I felt about the book. The Unbroken is unlike any book I've ever read. It's a very dark, adult fantasy, and while it is fiction and contains magic, it feels very real as the author deals with very heavy, unpleasant topics. The book centres around two characters, giving us a dual POV from Touraine, a conscript taken from her home as a child and raised as a soldier by the empire that took her, and Luca, the would-be queen. We meet Touraine as a lieutenant of the conscripts (the Sands). She's loyal to the empire that raised her, despite the hardships she and her soldiers face at every turn, but now she's met with new, unexpected challenges as she returns to the country she was taken from as a child to help quell the rebel resistance. Unlike her fellow soldiers, Touraine has no interest in defaulting or making connections in her homeland, knowing only too well the consequences for desertion and fully believing that if she works hard and is loyal, the empire will reward her. But things quickly go awry as Touraine prevents an assassination attempt against Princess Luca and finds herself surrounded by enemies and suspicion. Luca is a princess trying desperately to claim the throne from her uncle, who doesn't see her as a capable ruler and has sent her to stop the rebellion as a test of her abilities. Struggling to make allies and work around her uncle's military, Luca turns to books and strategic games to forge peace and unlock the country's secrets to win back her throne. “What is war if not a complicated web of mathematics and charm? Luca thought.” One thing I love most about this book is the gender roles. When being introduced to a person in a position of power, you almost always come to expect a man, because that's the general rule in life and in fantasy. When you hear General, Lieutenant, Sir, you typically expect the person to be male, but that is completely not the case in this book and it was very refreshing. I absolutely love that this book centres around violent women in positions of power. Not only that, but the characters are all morally grey, there is no good and evil here, there is complexity and drive that makes each character harder to like while also giving deeper reasoning and motive behind their actions. On the surface, Touraine and Luca couldn't be more opposite, Touraine is a hardened soldier whose every other word is a curse. Luca is a princess, a would-be queen, who spends her time pouring over books and research. But when you look deeper, both Touraine and Luca deal in death, and they're both doing what they feel is necessary to protect that which they care about. For Touraine, that's the Sands, her family, and for Luca, it's her throne and her empire. The characters are so complex, and that's such a fantastic element in this book. Honestly, it's so difficult to decide whether I like or support certain characters because at first, they seem to go in one direction and then they make choices that, while it makes sense to the character, just made me want to scream at them. The supporting characters are also fantastic. They add a lot to the story and to the overall tension and politics. Personally, Touraine, the conscripts, and the rebels are my favourites, while I found it much harder to like Luca and the other Balladairan's. "We just die, and when we die, we're not even worth the wood to burn us.” This book is sapphic, the queerness is a quintessential part of the book, and I love that it's just present and there with no explanation needed. However, saying that, I had a problem with the romance element in that it felt really rushed. For me, there wasn't quite enough chemistry between the two characters to justify their actions, so I just wish there was more of that build-up. The world-building was fantastic, I loved the description of the land where the story takes place; it felt extremely real, and there is a magical element to this story, which is really quite dark, I just would have liked to see a bit more of this. It came through more towards the end of the story though, so I'm guessing that will feature more heavily in book two. My biggest issue was the pacing, which felt a little all over the place. It starts slowly, then there's some action which speeds things up, and then things slow down again as the characters deal with politics and planning, before the action comes back and speeds things up, and repeat. Some sections just felt a little too rushed, when it would have been nice to have more development, and then some scenes/chapters dragged and felt as though not a lot happened. The pacing wasn't bad, it was just really mixed. Overall, I think The Unbroken is a really interesting first novel in an adult fantasy series. It's laid a lot of groundwork in terms of the politics and the bloodshed that we can expect from the rest of the series. I love the gender-role reversing and the queerness of the characters, but just wish the romance had more time to develop and that the pacing was a little quicker. I think fans of dark fantasy and violent, morally grey female characters will love The Unbroken by C.L. Clark. "Be the rain." |
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About Kay (She/Her)
Book addict, film mad, music lover, business owner, writer and mum (not necessarily in that order), living in the UK. About Sophie (She/Her)
Sophie loves books (obviously). She has a passion for photography and spotting wildlife, and is interested in anything made with passion and creativity. THIS BLOG IS SPOILER FREE!
Rating system: 5 Stars - AMAZING!! 4.5 Stars - Almost perfect! 4 Stars - I really loved it 3.5 Stars - I liked it alot 3 Stars - I liked it (I don't typically review books that I rate below 3 stars)
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