Tag: reading

January Reading Recap!

Happy 2025 Damsels! The first month has gone (slowly) but I have read some great reads fresh to my hoard from the Christmas presents! From sweet dystopian romance to high fantasy to booktok mystery-thrillers there is something for every reader!

These books have been all over the booksta for years but I somehow havent read them until now! I picked them up early in the month and devoured them in two days. I would 100% recommend and I have full reviews for 1, 2 and 3 for more details and content warnings. If you are looking for mystery thriller, a smart lead that doesn’t make you want to shake some sense into them and a really complex plot then GGGTM is everything!

This is a really fast paced read, full of Greek gods and trials in a gorgeous ancient Greek mythology inspired world. With revenge fueled participation in trials that are designed to be an amusing and violent gods entertainment and a unlimited wish at the end for anything but immortality and a little bit of romance its a great read. My full review is here

Stunning twist on the traditional damsel and dragon tale – this is YA fantasy at its best and Elodie is one of the most realistic heroines i have read in a while. This is going straight onto the best reads of 2025 – link to review here

I loved this from start to finish – super hero satire and a feminist take on the outdated ‘love interest’ trope? I was completely sold and read it in less than 48 hours it was just gorgeous. Full review here but let me heavily encourage you that this should go straight on your TBR it is a breath of fresh air all readers need!

These are gorgeous books set in a fantasy world with lots of magic centered around tea and its ceremonies. With a sweet romantic subplot, an self-exiled princess learning about the realities of the oppression refugees in her kingdom are facing and a gorgeous tea dragon in the second you NEED to read this series. Its just gorgeous.

Books I read that are coming soon!

Meet Me at Midnight by Brianna Bourne

Nightweavers by RM Gray

Heir of Storms by Lauryn Murray

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Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the Broke and Bookish and now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl where bloggers are given a prompt that is usually a list of ten bookish things.

This weeks prompt was –

2024 Releases I Was Excited to Read but Still Haven’t Gotten To (will you be prioritizing these this year?)

1 – Reckless by Lauren Roberts – I will absolutely be prioritising this read 100% (I only got it at Christmas but it is already being pushed higher and higher on my TBR and I’m definitely going to have a read of that so I can have a complete trilogy read through when Fearless comes out!

 2 – Powerful by Lauren Roberts – yes another one of Lauren Roberts’s books! I haven’t bought this one yet but when I do it is going straight to the top of my TBR (even if the ending is going to devastate me – why do the supporting characters always have to die??)

3 – A Tempest of Tea by Hafsah Faizel – vampires, illegal underworlds and heists! As soon as I saw the synopsis for this book I knew I had to read it.

4 – Grandest Game by Jennifer Lynn Hawthorne – this came out last year but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet! I always love a second series in the same world with old and new characters so I am definitely going to give this one a try!

5 – Burning Crowns by Catherine Doyle – I cannot believe I haven’t read this one yet! It sounds like just the fantasy read that I look for and it most certainly is a priority to read in 2025.

6 – Castle of the Cursed by Romina Garber – it is on my bookshelf and I am looking forward to reading it! I have so many books on my TBR right now that it is slightly lower than some others (so it might be a few months before I read it!) but it is definitely in my top fifty books I 100% want to read in 2025.

7 – Two Sides to Every Murder by Danielle Valentine – this sounds like just the murder/thriller I’d enjoy. I love murders that are being looked back on from the future (it was one of my favourite things about a good girls guide to murder) it just gives so much space for finding out the secrets of the past and how they lead to the formation of the present.

8 – Chaos and Flame and Blood and Fury by Tessa Gratton –  the second book came out and I cant wait to read the first – its all the kind of things I love in my fantasy, houses, competiting fractions, long lost inheritance.

9 – The Medici Heist by Caitlin Schneiderhan – historical details and a heist including Michelangelo in one of the most beautiful cities in the world? how could I not put this on my catchup list?

10 – Heartless Hunter by Kristen Ciccarelli – romantasy, witches and a world that sounds just like my kind of thing? I cant believe that this one has gone through 2024 without me reading it!

Extra – Fate Breaker by Victoria Aveyard! This came out in February and I couldnt read it instantly because i hadnt read the others! Red Queen had me completely head over heels with her writing style and I’m still partly in a book hangover from the ending! I am going to read this book 10000% in 2025.

Happy Reading!

Lottie

 



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Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by the Broke and Bookish and now hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl where bloggers are given a prompt that is usually a list of ten bookish things.

This weeks prompt was –

New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2024

Lauren Roberts – I just love Powerless so much and cant wait for Fearless to come out this year!

Jennifer Lynn Barnes – I cant believe it took me so long to read the Inheritance Games, its so good and I cant wait for my TBR to get down to the next book!

Holly Jackson – a good girls guide to murder had been on my list since forever and I finally read it in early January (but I bought it in December and read half of it in a friends copy a few months ago!)

Naomi Novik’s Scolomance series – she has written the Temeraire series which I had read but I feel like this is such a different series it counts! A Deadly Education definitely stands out among this years reads.

K M Shea – At the beginning of the year I went through a huge K M Shea phase, reading through all her Magiford series and several of her fairy tales (I’m planning on writing reviews of the Magiford series soon because they are amazing!).

Tara Grayce – she wrote the elven alliance (which has a part two series which is going to get its third book this year!) Also planning to write reviews of these for the series before the new book comes out!

Casey Blair – I read Coup of Tea for the first time in 2024 and loved it!

Amelie Zhao – Blood Heir was so good and I’m midway through Red Tigress now!

Emma St Clair – Royally (re) arranged was really good and I’ve read several more of her books since (she has done a series collab with Jenny Proctor if you are looking for sweet romances).

Happy Reading!

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Squire by Tamora Pierce

13+

This is the third book in the Protector of the Small series and I absolutely love this one to bits.

We start with Keladry walking through a near empty palace as all the knights have come and picked their Squires already. As the only girl she hasn’t even got any interviews with potential knight masters and has to acknowledge the fact that despite all her struggles she might end up being assigned to a desk knight. That is one of the things that Pierce does so well, she really shows how slow change is and how even the most powerful people inciting that change sometimes struggle against the tide of opposition and yet it never feels like a lecture or even a large facet of her characters.

This book takes us so much further than the palace complex, introducing us to the difficulties that had never been discussed with the pages at the palace among the privileged elite. Travelling under Lord Raoul and working alongside the Kings Own Keladry gets to experience why she wanted to be a knight so much – to protect people and achieve justice. I feel like Keladry’s experience really grows throughout this book, she gains the battle knowledge and experience that she is going to need and we get to see her take on some leadership.

This book also has the terrifying caveat of the Chamber at the end – all the work Keladry has put in, all the sacrifices she has made of her future will all be for naught if the Chamber finds her unworthy. Squires die in the Chamber, she is the first female knight to openly go through the Chamber in a few hundred years and all eyes are on her.

World – 5/5 – I love it so much and we get to see such a wide range of different terrain across Tortall.

Romance – 5/5 – Sweet Romance – there is a little romance in this one, Keladry has an adorable relationship with someone we have met in previous books. However it never becomes the focus although we see Keladry thinking about how it relates to her career as well as how people view her (the small adknowledgement from Raoul that it will always be harder for her to court among her peers because she is a woman and there are a lot of people eager to besmirch her reputation was a delightful small detail.)

Plot – 5/5 – it never drags, there are multiple different subplots and plots and so many different characters that interact with Kel but yet they never feel bland.

Characters – 5/5 stars – I love the characters. They are so realistic even the ones I hate and they all have such depth to them.

Happy Reading!

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The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

13+

Okay so I admit I was a little wary going in. Its one of those books that everyone either loves or hates (and they ping pong back from review to review) so I wasnt sure I was going to enjoy it. BUT! I did. Its not my usual genre – its contempory mystery thriller with a subplot of romance that I fear is going to become a love triangle but I’m suspecting it’ll be an excellent one. From the back I thought it would be more of a light easy read – a few puzzles thrown in and a bit like a game of Cluedo with four brothers every review goes on about OR a dark thriller about truely how far the rich would go to keep their wealth and power.

Avery is quite a stereotypical lead and we can understand her character very quickly. Its needed because the rest of the characters have layers upon layers and yet nothing. Her best friend Maxine’s odd swearing got a little on my nerves. Instead of using the actual words she substituted them them frequently. I almost wish that she had just said the words, I found myself having to figure out what her convoluted swearing substitutions actually meant. That said I did like how Avery was called out on her self absorbed behavior – the mc often has the most drama, but that is no reason not to know your best friends boyfriends name.

The four brothers felt a little samey but it was really interesting to see just how far the machinations of their grandfather went. Tobias Hawthorne was truly either a genius or a twisted psychopath and I cant decide if he was both. Greyson, Nash, Jameson and Xander have been pitted against each other constantly as children in these challenges and games. The old man would set up these complex riddles for them to follow, and in the end the boys were encouraged to backstab and betray each other to get to the answer first.

The supporting characters were interesting and I wish that Skye the mother got more page time, it would be interesting to hear her side of the really unjust inheritance system and toxic grandfather whom pitted everyone against each other.

The world is well…this one. Usually in fantasy/dystopian I talk about the world building and lore but because its contempory I’m going to talk about the locations. Hawthorne House is the perfect setting – all those tunnels and passages and just how deep Tobias Hawthornes plan runs inside the bones of the house is incredible. I wish we had got more time at the private school, it felt like Avery barely dipped her toe into that world but the book does take place over less than a week so I’m just hoping for more in the next book.

The plot was interesting. Overall it was complex and many layered but the solution was found very easily. This is because the plot was entirely engineered by Tobias Hawthorne and we as the reader have no clue about his motivations yet. I felt Avery was a little swept away and confused (understandably) by her new world and it is really interesting just how easily she is manipulated. In a lot of books the character either doesnt realise they are being manipulated until they are told, or does a cynics stand against it and likely ends up in some kind of plot point anyway. However Avery was realistically stranded with an unreliable sister (Libby whom I do like but she isnt in the best place to help Avery) in a out of state manor with people who detest her.

Romance is the one thing I am not sure how I feel about. Jameson and Avery appear to be getting into a relationship but then not at the same time (I am so glad the DNA test came back quickly tho) and the other characters romance is all in the past.

Emily is the main subplot point that guides the main plot. Its interesting to wonder if Tobias was intentionally bringing her back up or if it was accidental. Either way, Emily as a character serves as the warning for what Avery could become. She had two of the Hawthorne boys, Jameson and Grayson and in the end she loved both and neither because she wanted the experience of being a millionaire more than the boys. Avery is juxtaposed against Emily with a few key differences.

Plot – 4/5

World – 3/5 – I dont know what it is but I just didnt grasp the world quite as well as usual despite the fact I live on the same planet.

Characters – 4/5

Romance – 3/5 – Sweet Romance – hardly there to be honest but i can feel the love triangle coming on.

Things to be aware of: Death, manipulation, domestic abuse (none on the page but mentioned)

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Terrier (Beka Cooper Book 1) by Tamora Pierce

14+B
This book is another hit from Tamora, and I love how different Beka is from Alanna, Kennedy, Daine, and Aly. Unlike those series which are all set within a thirty-year time frame, this series is set hundreds of years before and stars Beka Cooper (yes she is George Cooper’s great great many greats relative) who is working as a Puppy. This is a trainee ‘Dog’ which is essentially Tortalls version of a police. Beka is a tough lead – I might even go as far as to say that she is one of the toughest heroines that i have ever read in the first book.
While this returns to the Tortall I love, Beka’s world is very very different from Alanna’s and Kennedy’s especially. It focuses on the Lower City and the crime within and the morally grey lines between being a ‘Dog’ and a criminal. Beka is older (16) than the other heroines have been in their first books, so she suits this darker representation of Tortall.
Characters – 5/5 stars – They are incredibly lifelike even though I would say that Beka isnt the most morally complex – i LOVE morally complex characters – which leaves room for the supporting cast to show the lack of set morals in the Lower City.
World – 4.5/5 stars – Tortall is amazing, but in this book, we only focus on a very small corner of it unlike some of the other books where we get to see different countries and customs.
Romance – NA – not present but there are sexual undertones to some of it.
Plot  – 1000/5 stars – It is complex it is twisty and it took a second read to see the clues to the criminal.
Things to be aware of: This was a tricky one to put an age rating on – but I had to add the B because it is pretty dark and there are a few sexual innuendos. As always the age ratings are just a guide so you can read it whenever you want as long as you are comfortable with a bit more violence than some of my recommendations.

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A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

15+

When I opened this book I was expecting the normal staples of a boarding school/magic school fantasy, but this book utterly flipped them on there head. Instead of a relatively safe on the surface this was blatantly dangerous, and all throughout there was a layer of threat made even more serious by the fact that everyone in the book was so accepting of it.

The Scholmance is a secondary school at least in its basics. The school is located in a void – which may be one of the most terrifying locations I have read yet – and is isolated from the outside world completely. Inside the school it isn’t safe, with monsters creeping out of pipes and the constant threat of death. However, outside is even worse, and the only way to survive when you graduate is to learn enough from the school – and I mean the school its self as there are no adults or teachers inside the school –.

The world is so complex of its self, and all the characters are opposites. The exploration of the difference in privileges between the enclave kids and the indie kids is intriguing and touches on an aspect that I always love finding in books. The enclave kids have so much more power and community than the indie kids who are basically sitting ducks for the creatures who roam the halls.

Characters – 4/5 stars – the focus isn’t on the characters for the first half of the book, it is on the world and how to survive in an environment that is ever-changing.

World – 100000000/5 stars  – I have gushed about this in my review but I have to say it again the world is amazing.

Romance – 4/5 stars – Soft Romance – the romance isn’t really prevalent in this story, but the little bit there is sets up delightfully for the next book in the series which I cant wait to read!

Plot  – 5/5 stars – it is beautiful in its simplicity, and then the shocking twist at the end. El the main character knows what her goal is and that is survival, even if her plans to survive may be counterintuitive.

Things to be aware of: It deals with constant threat, and is therefore a darker read than my usual picks, but it is worth it for the intriguing world. Its not the biggest book but it is quite description heavy in the beginning, which reflects how El is on her own and only talking to herself.

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