Review #91 - Saga vol 6 by Brian K Vaughan

Details:

Title: Saga Vol 6

Author: Brian K Vaughan

Publisher: Image Comics

ISBN 13: 978-1632157119

Synopsis:

After a dramatic time jump, the three-time Eisner Award winner for Best Continuing Series continues to evolve, as Hazel begins the most exciting adventure of her life: kindergarten. Meanwhile, her starcrossed family learns hard lessons of their own.

Review:

Review #90 - Saga Vol 5 - Brian K Vaughan

Details:

Title: Saga Vol 5

Author: Brian K Vaughan

Publisher: Image Comics

ISBN 13: 978-1632154385

Synopsis:

While Gwendolyn and Lying Cat risk everything to find a cure for The Will, Marko makes an uneasy alliance with Prince Robot IV to find their missing children, who are trapped on a strange world with terrifying new enemies.

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Review #89 - New World Rising by Jennifer Wilson

Details:

Title: New World Rising

Author: Jennifer Wilson

Publisher: Oftomes Publishing

ISBN 13: 978-1619845459

Synopsis:

Since witnessing her parents' murders at the age of eleven, Phoenix's only purpose in life has been to uphold her mother's dying words- to be strong and survive. But surviving outside of The Walls- outside of The Sanctuary- is more like a drawn-out death sentence. A cruel and ruthless city, Tartarus is run by the Tribes whose motto is simple, "Join or die." 

Refusing to join and determined to live, Phoenix fights to survive in this savage world. But who can she trust, when no one can be trusted? Not even herself.

Review:

Review #88 - Blackwing by Ed McDonald

Details:

Title: Blackwing

Author: Ed McDonald

Publisher: Gollancz

ISBN 13: 978-1473222038

Synopsis:

The republic faces annihilation, despite the vigilance of Galharrow's Blackwings. When a raven tattoo rips itself from his arm to deliver a desperate message, Galharrow and a mysterious noblewoman must investigate a long dead sorcerer's legacy. But there is a conspiracy within the citadel: traitors, flesh-eaters and the ghosts of the wastelands seek to destroy them, but if they cannot solve the ancient wizard's paradox, the Deep Kings will walk the earth again, and all will be lost.

The war with the Eastern Empire ended in stalemate some eighty years ago, thanks to Nall's 'Engine', a wizard-crafted weapon so powerful even the Deep Kings feared it. The strike of the Engine created the Misery - a wasteland full of ghosts and corrupted magic that now forms a No Mans Land along the frontier. But when Galharrow investigates a frontier fortress, he discovers complacency bordering on treason: then the walls are stormed, and the Engine fails to launch. Galharrow only escapes because of the preternatural magical power of the noblewoman he was supposed to be protecting. Together, they race to the capital to unmask the traitors and restore the republic's defences. Far across the Misery a vast army is on the move, as the Empire prepares to call the republic's bluff.

Review:

Review #87 - All Of This Is True by Lygia Day Penaflor

Details:

Title: All Of This Is True 

Author: Lygia Day Penaflor

Publisher: Bloomsbury

ISBN 13: 978-1408890936

Synopsis:

MIRI loves the novel Undertow like it's a living being. So when she and her friends get the chance to meet the author, Fatima Ro, they plot a way to get closer to her. As for what happened with Jonah . Well, obviously none of that was Fatima's fault.

SOLEIL wants to be a writer herself one day. She can't believe it when Fatima asks them to hang out with her - and having Jonah there makes it even better.

PENNY is more than the party girl everyone thinks she is, and she's willing to share her darkest secrets with Fatima to prove it. But what will happen when Fatima finds out about Jonah?

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Review #86 - The Mermaid by Christina Henry

Details:

Title: The Mermaid

Author: Christina Henry

Publisher: Titan Books

ISBN 13: 978-1785655708

Synopsis:

Once there was a fisherman who lived on a cold and rocky coast and was never able to convince any woman to come away and live in that forbidding place with him. One evening he pulled up his net and found a woman in it. A woman with black hair and eyes as grey as a stormy sea and a gleaming fish's tail instead of legs.

The storm in her eyes rolled into his heart. She stopped her thrashing and crashing at his voice, though she did not understand his words. But her eyes had seen inside of him, and his loneliness caught her more surely than the net. So she stayed with him, and loved him, though he grew old, and she did not.

Remarks of this strange and unusual woman travelled from village to village and town to town, until they reached the ears of a man whose business was in the selling of the strange and unusual.

His name was P.T. Barnum, and he d been looking for a mermaid.

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Review #85 - A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir

Details:

Title: A Reaper at the Gates

Author: Sabaa Tahir

Publisher: Harper Voyager

ISBN 13: 978-0008288754

Synopsis:

Beyond the Empire and within it, the threat of war looms ever larger.

The Blood Shrike, Helene Aquilla, is assailed on all sides. Emperor Marcus, haunted by his past, grows increasingly unstable, while the Commandant capitalizes on his madness to bolster her own power. As Helene searches for a way to hold back the approaching darkness, her sister's life and the lives of all those in the Empire hang in the balance.

Far to the east, Laia of Serra knows the fate of the world lies not in the machinations of the Martial court, but in stopping the Nightbringer. But while hunting for a way to bring him down, Laia faces unexpected threats from those she hoped would aid her, and is drawn into a battle she never thought she'd have to fight.

And in the land between the living and the dead, Elias Veturius has given up his freedom to serve as Soul Catcher. But in doing so, he has vowed himself to an ancient power that will stop at nothing to ensure Elias's devotion–even at the cost of his humanity.

Review:

Review #84 - Paper Girls Vol 1 - Brian K Vaughan

Details:

Title: Paper Girls vol 1

Author: Brian K Vaughan

Publisher: Image Comics

ISBN 13: 978-1632156747

Synopsis:

In the early hours after Halloween of 1988, four 12-year-old newspaper delivery girls uncover the most important story of all time. Suburban drama and otherworldly mysteries collide in this smash-hit series about nostalgia, first jobs, and the last days of childhood. 

Review:

Review #83 - Floored by a collaboration of YA authors

Details:

Title: Floored

Author: Sara Barnard, Holly Bourne, Tanya Byrne, Non Pratt, Melinda Salisbury, Lisa Williamson, Eleanor Wood

Publisher: Macmillan

ISBN 13: 978-1509862306

Synopsis:

When they got in the lift that morning, they were strangers. Sasha, who is at the UK's biggest TV centre desperately trying to deliver a parcel; Hugo, who knows he's by far the richest – and best-looking – guy in the lift; Velvet, who regrets wearing the world's least comfortable shoes to work experience; Dawson, who isn't the good-looking teen star he was and desperate not to be recognized; Kaitlyn, who's slowly losing her sight but won't admit it, and Joe, who shouldn't be there at all, but who wants to be there the most.

And one more person, who will bring them together again on the same day every year . . .

Review:

Review #82 - Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson

Details:

Title: Phasma

Author: Delilah S. Dawson

Publisher: Arrow

ISBN 13: 978-1787460010

Synopsis:

One of the most cunning and merciless officers of the First Order, Captain Phasma commands the favor of her superiors, the respect of her peers, and the terror of her enemies. But for all her renown, Phasma remains as virtually unknown as the impassive expression on her gleaming chrome helmet. Now, an adversary is bent on unearthing her mysterious origins―and exposing a secret she guards as zealously and ruthlessly as she serves her masters.

Deep inside the Battlecruiser Absolution, a captured Resistance spy endures brutal interrogation at the hands of a crimson-armored stormtrooper―Cardinal. But the information he desires has nothing to do with the Resistance or its covert operations against the First Order.

What the mysterious stormtrooper wants is Phasma’s past―and with it whatever long-buried scandal, treachery, or private demons he can wield against the hated rival who threatens his own power and privilege in the ranks of the First Order. His prisoner has what Cardinal so desperately seeks, but she won’t surrender it easily. As she wages a painstaking war of wills with her captor, bargaining for her life in exchange for every precious revelation, the spellbinding chronicle of the inscrutable Phasma unfolds. But this knowledge may prove more than just dangerous once Cardinal possesses it―and once his adversary unleashes the full measure of her fury.

Review:

Review #81 - Orphan Monster Spy by Matt Killeen

Details:

Title: Orphan Monster Spy

Author: Matt Killeen

Publisher: Usborne Publishing

ISBN 13: 978-1474942386

Synopsis:

A teenage spy. A Nazi boarding school. The performance of a lifetime.

Sarah has played many roles - but now she faces her most challenging of all. Because there's only one way for a Jewish orphan spy to survive at a school for the Nazi elite. And that's to become a monster like them.

Survive. Deceive. Resist.

They think she is just a little girl. But she is the weapon they never saw coming... with a mission to destroy them all.

Review:

June Wrap Up and July TBR

So in June 2018 I managed to read a total of 12 books, 

In order of reading I completed Sea Witch by Sarah Henning, The Extinction Trials: Exile by SM Wilson, Star Wars: Finn and Poe Team Up! by Nate Millici, Saga vol 4 by Brian K Vaughan, A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir, Star Wars: Lost Stars but Claudia Gray,  City of Bastards by Andre Shvartz, Spare and Found Parts by Sarah Maria Griffin, The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris,  A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers, Smoke in the Sun by Renee Ahdieh and Charmcaster by Sebastien de Castell.

 

Stats -  

Hardback = 3

Paperback = 2

Graphic Novel/Manga = 3

Audiobook = 3

Ebook = 1

 My 5 star reads were The Extinction Trials: Exile, Saga vol 4, A Torch Against the Night, Lost Stars vol 1, City of Bastards, A Closed and Common Orbit and Charmcaster. The Extinction Trials was a great second book and we learnt more about the characters and world, Saga vol 4 was another great instalment in the series, A Torch Against the Night was a brilliant sequel and I love the characters more and more, Lost Stars was a beginning to the adaptation of Claudia Grey's amazing book, City of Bastards was yet another great sequel which was packing with politics and action, A Closed and Common Orbit was touching, engaging and full of adventure and Charmcaster was a perfect re-read. The most disappointing read for me this month was probably Spare and Found Parts, it had a really interesting plot but it just didn't pull it off well enough for me. 

So in July I am continuing to read books in preparation for meeting the authors of them at YALC in London. Though there will be some others mixed in there too.

Review #80 - Charmcaster by Sebastien de Castell

Details:

Title: Charmcaster

Author: Sebastien de Castell

Publisher: Hot Key Books

ISBN 13: 978-1471406706

Synopsis:

Kellen, Reichis and Ferius are on their way to Gitabria, a city where amazing inventions are dreamed up and sold across the land of the Seven Sands.

But when the three of them stumble across a tiny mechanical bird, magically brought to life, they quickly realise all is not as it appears. 

Meanwhile two strange Argosi appear, carrying secrets from Ferius' past, together with an unlikely Jan'Tep ally.

And as time ticks on, all the cards in Ferius' deck point to the emerging tides of war . . .

Review:

Review #79 - Smoke in the Sun by Renee Ahdieh

Details:

Title: Smoke in the Sun

Author: Renee Ahdieh

Publisher: Hodder

ISBN 13: 978-1473664432

Synopsis:

After Okami is captured in the Jukai forest, Mariko has no choice - to rescue him, she must return to Inako and face the dangers that have been waiting for her in the Heian Castle. She tricks her brother, Kenshin, and betrothed, Raiden, into thinking she was being held by the Black Clan against her will, playing the part of the dutiful bride-to-be to infiltrate the emperor's ranks and uncover the truth behind the betrayal that almost left her dead.

With the wedding plans already underway, Mariko pretends to be consumed with her upcoming nuptials, all the while using her royal standing to peel back the layers of lies and deception surrounding the imperial court. But each secret she unfurls gives way to the next, ensnaring Mariko and Okami in a political scheme that threatens their honor, their love and very the safety of the empire.

Review:

Review #78 - A Closed and Common Orbit by Becky Chambers

Details:

Title: A Closed and Common Orbit

Author: Becky Chambers

Publisher: Hodder

ISBN 13: 978-1473621473

Synopsis:

Lovelace was once merely a ship's artificial intelligence. When she wakes up in an new body, following a total system shut-down and reboot, she has to start over in a synthetic body, in a world where her kind are illegal. She's never felt so alone.

But she's not alone, not really. Pepper, one of the engineers who risked life and limb to reinstall Lovelace, is determined to help her adjust to her new world. Because Pepper knows a thing or two about starting over.

Together, Pepper and Lovey will discover that, huge as the galaxy may be, it's anything but empty.

Review: