Category Archives: Ya Fantasy

Review: A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer

13 July, 2020 11:34 am , 4 Comments ,

A Curse So Dark and Lonely
(Cursebreakers #1)
by Brigid Kemmerer
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Publication date: Jan. 29, 2019
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Rating:

Fall in love, break the curse.

Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year, Prince Rhen, the heir of Emberfall, thought he could be saved easily if a girl fell for him. But that was before he turned into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. Before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.

Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, Harper learned to be tough enough to survive. When she tries to save a stranger on the streets of Washington, DC, she’s pulled into a magical world.

Break the curse, save the kingdom.

Harper doesn’t know where she is or what to believe. A prince? A curse? A monster? As she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what’s at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.

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Review: Cinderella is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

10 July, 2020 1:29 am , 2 Comments ,

Cinderella Is Dead
by Kalynn Bayron
Publisher: Bloomsbury YA
Publication date: July 7, 2020
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Rating:

It’s 200 years after Cinderella found her prince, but the fairy tale is over. Teen girls are now required to appear at the Annual Ball, where the men of the kingdom select wives based on a girl’s display of finery. If a suitable match is not found, the girls not chosen are never heard from again.

Sixteen-year-old Sophia would much rather marry Erin, her childhood best friend, than parade in front of suitors. At the ball, Sophia makes the desperate decision to flee, and finds herself hiding in Cinderella’s mausoleum. There, she meets Constance, the last known descendant of Cinderella and her step sisters. Together they vow to bring down the king once and for all–and in the process, they learn that there’s more to Cinderella’s story than they ever knew . . .

This fresh take on a classic story will make readers question the tales they’ve been told, and root for girls to break down the constructs of the world around them.

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Review: Crave by Tracy Wolff

10 April, 2020 1:04 am , 7 Comments ,

Crave
(Crave #1)
by Tracy Wolff
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Published: April 7, 2020
Genre: Paranormal Young Adult Romance
Rating:

My whole world changed when I stepped inside the academy. Nothing is right about this place or the other students in it. Here I am, a mere mortal among gods…or monsters. I still can’t decide which of these warring factions I belong to, if I belong at all. I only know the one thing that unites them is their hatred of me.

Then there’s Jaxon Vega. A vampire with deadly secrets who hasn’t felt anything for a hundred years. But there’s something about him that calls to me, something broken in him that somehow fits with what’s broken in me.

Which could spell death for us all.

Because Jaxon walled himself off for a reason. And now someone wants to wake a sleeping monster, and I’m wondering if I was brought here intentionally—as the bait.

 

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Sneak Peek Wednesday: The Helmont Academy of Alchemy by Meg Kassel

8 April, 2020 8:28 am , 2 Comments ,

The Helmont Academy of Alchemy
(The Silent Sister #1)
by Meg Kassel
Publisher: Self-published
Publication date: March 20, 2020
Genre: Paranormal Young Adult

If I had known my thoughts would kill her, I would have thought about something else.

When the sudden discovery of my mind control ability causes the death of my high school nemesis, my mom sends me to the Helmont Academy of Alchemy, a boarding school for kids with staggering IQs and supernatural talents.

My mom has a lot of secrets, including a connection to this school that makes its scary headmistress watch me like a hawk. When students who possess uncanny mental abilities (like mine), begin falling ill with a mysterious ailment and are “quarantined” on the forbidden thirty-third floor, I know something terrible is happening at this school. The terrifying reality is clear—The Helmont Academy wants more than just good grades from kids like me.

With the help of a pair of telepathic twins and a secretive, but fascinating boy who does wild things to my heart, I find myself navigating unlikely friendships and unraveling a secret society’s dark plot to develop my mind control ability into a devastating weapon.

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Posted in: Excerpt, YA Fantasy

Review: Find Me Their Bones by by Sara Wolf

25 November, 2019 5:44 pm , 3 Comments ,

Find Me Their Bones
(Bring Me Their Hearts #2)
by Sara Wolf
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Publication date: Nov. 5, 2019
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Rating:

No one can save her.

In order to protect Prince Lucien d’Malvane’s heart, Zera had to betray him. Now, he hates the sight of her. Trapped in Cavanos as a prisoner of the king, she awaits the inevitable moment her witch severs their magical connection and finally ends her life.

But fate isn’t ready to give her up just yet.

With freedom coming from the most unlikely of sources, Zera is given a second chance at life as a Heartless. But it comes with a terrible price. As the king mobilizes his army to march against the witches, Zera must tame an elusive and deadly valkerax trapped in the tunnels underneath the city if she wants to regain her humanity.

Winning over a bloodthirsty valkerax? Hard. Winning back her friends before war breaks out? A little harder.

But a Heartless winning back Prince Lucien’s heart?

The hardest thing she’s ever done.

 

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Sneak Peek Wednesday: Beasts of the Frozen Sun by Jill Criswell (Giveaway)

25 September, 2019 12:07 pm , 8 Comments ,

Beasts of the Frozen Sun
(Frozen Sun Saga #1)
by Jill Criswell
Publisher: Blackstone
Publication date: Aug. 6, 2019
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Burn brightly. Love fiercely. For all else is dust.

Every child of Glasnith learns the last words of Aillira, the god-gifted mortal whose doomed love affair sparked a war of gods and men, and Lira of clan Stone knows the story better than most. As a descendant of Aillira and god-gifted in her own right, she has the power to read people’s souls, to see someone’s true essence with only a touch of her hand.

When a golden-haired warrior washes up on the shores of her homeland–one of the fearful marauders from the land of the Frozen Sun–Lira helps the wounded man instead of turning him in. After reading his soul, she realizes Reyker is different than his brethren who attack the coasts of Glasnith. He confides in her that he’s been cursed with what his people call battle-madness, forced to fight for the warlord known as the Dragon, a powerful tyrant determined to reignite the ancient war that Aillira started.

As Lira and Reyker form a bond forbidden by both their clans, the wrath of the Dragon falls upon them and all of Glasnith, and Lira finds herself facing the same tragic fate as her ancestor. The battle for Lira’s life, for Reyker’s soul, and for their peoples’ freedom has only just begun.

 

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Review: Bring Me Their Hearts by Sara Wolf

5 August, 2019 7:20 am , 2 Comments ,

Bring Me Their Hearts
(Bring Me Their Hearts #1)
by Sara Wolf
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Publication date: June 5, 2018
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Rating:

Zera is a Heartless – the immortal, unageing soldier of a witch. Bound to the witch Nightsinger ever since she saved her from the bandits who murdered her family, Zera longs for freedom from the woods they hide in. With her heart in a jar under Nightsinger’s control, she serves the witch unquestioningly.

Until Nightsinger asks Zera for a Prince’s heart in exchange for her own, with one addendum; if she’s discovered infiltrating the court, Nightsinger will destroy her heart rather than see her tortured by the witch-hating nobles.

Crown Prince Lucien d’Malvane hates the royal court as much as it loves him – every tutor too afraid to correct him and every girl jockeying for a place at his darkly handsome side. No one can challenge him – until the arrival of Lady Zera. She’s inelegant, smart-mouthed, carefree, and out for his blood. The Prince’s honor has him quickly aiming for her throat.

So begins a game of cat and mouse between a girl with nothing to lose and a boy who has it all.

Winner takes the loser’s heart.

Literally.

 

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Sneak Peek Wednesday: The Rage of Saints by S.A. Klopfenstein (Giveaway)

27 March, 2019 12:37 am , 2 Comments ,

The Rage of Saints
(The Shadow Watch series, #2)
by S.A. Klopfenstein
Publisher: Self-published
Publication date: March 26, 2019
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

The Shadow Watch has been undone. Their captain lies in the dungeons of the White Citadel, and the Gallows Girl has disappeared. Most of the surviving Watchers have joined the chancellor’s new magical army, the Sky Guard, led by Darien Redvar, but the Gallows Boy is shaken from the return of the monsters of the Old World, and he must soon choose, once and for all, where his loyalties lie.

Tori and Mischa trek to the Great White North with an Alyut shaman, who believes Tori is the one who will bring Restoration to his people. A resistance is growing in the North, but Tori may not be the god the people are looking for, and the price of revolution may cost Tori her heart as well as her life.

Meanwhile, another threat grows in strength. Old World monsters are rising up across the New World, and no one knows how they’ve returned. As nations ready themselves for a magical war, their return threatens to change everything.

New alliances are set in place, new friendships are forged, new loves kindled. But no one is safe, for there can be no war without betrayal.

 

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Sneak Peek Wednesday: Dream Keeper by Amber R. Duell (Giveaway)

30 January, 2019 8:49 am , 6 Comments ,

Dream Keeper
(The Dark Dreamer Trilogy #1)
by Amber R. Duell
Publisher: The Parliament House
Publication date: Jan. 29, 2019
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

The Sandman is seventeen-year-old Nora’s closest friend and best-kept secret. He has to be, if she doesn’t want a one-way ticket back to the psychiatrist. It took her too long to learn not to mention the hooded figure in her dreams to her mother, who still watches Nora as if she’ll crack. So when Nora’s friends start mysteriously dying gruesome deaths in their sleep, she isn’t altogether surprised when the police direct their suspicion at her. The Sandman is the only one she can turn to for answers. But the truth might be more than she bargained for…

For the last five years, the Sandman has spent every night protecting Nora. When he hid the secret to the Nightmare Lord’s escape inside her dreams, he never expected to fall in love with her. Neither did he think his nemesis would find her so quickly, but there’s no mistaking his cruel handiwork. The Nightmare Lord is tired of playing by the rules and will do anything to release his deadly nightmares into the world, even if that means tormenting Nora until she breaks.

When the Nightmare Lord kidnaps Nora’s sister, Nora must enter enemy territory to save her. The Sandman is determined to help, but if Nora isn’t careful, she could lose even more than her family to the darkness.

 

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Sneak Peek Wednesday: Stolen by Marlena Frank (Giveaway)

23 January, 2019 12:33 am , 2 Comments ,

Stolen
(Stolen #1)
by Marlena Frank
Publisher: The Parliament House
Publication date: Jan. 22, 2019
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

It’s difficult taking care of a delusional father by yourself. Sixteen-year-old Shaleigh Mallet would rather explore and photograph dilapidated buildings than cater to her father’s dark episodes. But when she’s kidnapped by a creature who carries her atop a flying bicycle into another world, she realizes this wasn’t the escape she wanted.

In a kingdom known as the Garden, where minotaurs pull carriages and parties are held in hot air balloons, Madam Cloom and her faerie servant, Teagan, rule over the land with incredible but terrifying magic. Shaleigh must prove that she is the reincarnation of a long-dead ruler, not because she believes it, but because it’s her only chance to survive. With the help of a trespassing faerie, a stoatling, and a living statue, Shaleigh hopes to outwit everyone. She aims to break the bonds of servitude and finally make her way home. What she doesn’t realize, however, is that she’s playing right into the hands of a far worse enemy…

 

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