Posted September 16, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
An Ember in the Ashes by
Sabaa Tahir Series: An Ember in the Ashes #1 Publisher: RazorBill (2015)
Hardcover (446 pages)
Via: Library Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
I WILL TELL YOU THE SAME THING I TELL EVERY SLAVE.
THE RESISTANCE HAS TRIED TO PENETRATE THIS SCHOOL COUNTLESS TIMES. I HAVE DISCOVERED IT EVERY TIME.
IF YOU ARE WORKING WITH THE RESISTANCE, IF YOU CONTACT THEM, IF YOU THINK OF CONTACTING THEM, I WILL KNOW AND I WILL DESTROY YOU.
Laia is a slave.
Elias is a soldier.
Neither is free.
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.
But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.
There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.
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Tagged as 4 star, Library, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted September 10, 2015 in Reading, Review / 4 Comments
Seraphina by
Rachel Hartman Series: Seraphina #1 Publisher: Random House (2012)
Hardcover (464 pages)
Via: Library Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty’s anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.
Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen’s Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.
In her exquisitely written fantasy debut, Rachel Hartman creates a rich, complex, and utterly original world. Seraphina’s tortuous journey to self-acceptance is one readers will remember long after they’ve turned the final page.
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Tagged as 5 star, All Time Favorites, Library, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted August 5, 2015 in Reading, Review / 2 Comments
A Wicked Thing by
Rhiannon Thomas Series: A Wicked Thing #1 Publisher: HarperTeen (2015)
eBook (337 pages)
Rating: Reading Challenges: 2015 Fairytale Retelling,
Read 2015 Synopsis
Rhiannon Thomas’s dazzling debut novel is a spellbinding reimagining of Sleeping Beauty and what happens after happily ever after.
One hundred years after falling asleep, Princess Aurora wakes up to the kiss of a handsome prince and a broken kingdom that has been dreaming of her return. All the books say that she should be living happily ever after. But as Aurora understands all too well, the truth is nothing like the fairy tale.
Her family is long dead. Her “true love” is a kind stranger. And her whole life has been planned out by political foes while she slept.
As Aurora struggles to make sense of her new world, she begins to fear that the curse has left its mark on her, a fiery and dangerous thing that might be as wicked as the witch who once ensnared her. With her wedding day drawing near, Aurora must make the ultimate decision on how to save her kingdom: marry the prince or run.
Rhiannon Thomas weaves together vivid scenes of action, romance, and gorgeous gowns to reveal a richly imagined world … and Sleeping Beauty as she’s never been seen before.
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Tagged as 4 star, Fairy Tales, Fairytale Retelling Challenge, Library, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted August 3, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
A Thousand Pieces of You by
Claudia Gray Series: Firebird #1 Publisher: HarperTeen (2014)
Audiobook {9 hours and 18 minutes} (368 pages)
Via: Library Rating: Also by this author: Ten Thousand Skies Above You Also in this series: Ten Thousand Skies Above You Reading Challenges: 2015 Birthday Month,
Read 2015 Synopsis
Marguerite Caine’s physicist parents are known for their radical scientific achievements. Their most astonishing invention: the Firebird, which allows users to jump into parallel universes, some vastly altered from our own. But when Marguerite’s father is murdered, the killer—her parent’s handsome and enigmatic assistant Paul—escapes into another dimension before the law can touch him.
Marguerite can’t let the man who destroyed her family go free, and she races after Paul through different universes, where their lives entangle in increasingly familiar ways. With each encounter she begins to question Paul’s guilt—and her own heart. Soon she discovers the truth behind her father’s death is more sinister than she ever could have imagined.
A Thousand Pieces of You explores a reality where we witness the countless other lives we might lead in an amazingly intricate multiverse, and ask whether, amid infinite possibilities, one love can endure.
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Tagged as 4 star, Birthday Month Reading Challenge, Library, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
Posted July 29, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
All Fall Down by
Ally Carter Series: Embassy Row #1 Publisher: Scholastic (2015)
Audiobook {8 hours and 33 minutes} (320 pages)
Via: Library Rating: Also by this author: See How They Run Also in this series: See How They Run Reading Challenges: Read 2015 Synopsis
This exciting new series from NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Ally Carter focuses on Grace, who can best be described as a daredevil, an Army brat, and a rebel. She is also the only granddaughter of perhaps the most powerful ambassador in the world, and Grace has spent every summer of her childhood running across the roofs of Embassy Row.
Now, at age sixteen, she’s come back to stay–in order to solve the mystery of her mother’s death. In the process, she uncovers an international conspiracy of unsettling proportions, and must choose her friends and watch her foes carefully if she and the world are to be saved.
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Tagged as 4 star, Library, Read 2015, You Read How Many Books Challenge
