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Fantasy

a hunger of thorns by lili wilkinson – corrupt witchy magic and twisted forest underworlds

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If you’re looking for a book that embodies dark whimsy…A Hunger of Thorns is calling to you. It gave me huge vibes of “what if alice in wonderland was sapphic and full of witches and corrupt magic” and it delivers just that. This is a tale of fairy tales turned toxic, love turned obsession, desperate quests and unlikely allies. It lingers on the edge of horror tbh, and since I’m in a horror-mood, I really appreciated that angle.

The story is told by Maude who is a witch who has lost her magic…and she’s also lost her best friend to a mysterious shut-down power plant that is festering with corrupt magic. Maude and Odette’s relationship is complicated and bordering on toxic. Maude has been deeply in love with Odette ever since they were children, but Odette has grown up sharp-edged and crass. They haven’t been friends for a while when she goes missing, but that doesn’t stop Maude pledging to find her. Plus there are pieces missing in Maude’s memory and also in the history they’ve always been told about magic and witches. Throw in a complicated relationship with Maude’s long-dead mother (a twisted, possibly bad witch–or was she?) and two sapphic grandmothers who love Maude deeply but maybe are keeping things from her…and you have a plot threaded in mystery. Maude is also a very morally grey character, driven by a creepy obsessive love but who is also very loyal.

The world building was super interesting too, as it’s a similar-to-our-world-but-not-quite. It feels a bit like Britain/Ireland but it’s a world separate to our own.

The writing is super lyrical and reminded me of fairy tales, but again, with that twist of macabre whimsy. Egg moons and thrupenny biscuits and all the tea you could ask for (because doesn’t tea fix everything!!). When we end up deep in the toxic wasteland of the power plant, the descriptions grow wild and woolly just like the atmosphere and there is so much to explore. There are plenty of monsters to face–but physical and metaphorical.

Definitely a story to pick up if you like fairy tales on the darker side and sapphic witches and falling deep into worlds of twisted magic and wild, wild sentient forests. The sticklewood is here and it will get its hooks in you.

Thank you to Allen & Unwin for the review copy!

Maude is the daughter of witches. She spent her childhood running wild with her best friend, Odette, weaving stories of girls who slayed dragons and saved princes. Then Maude grew up and lost her magic – and her best friend. Storytelling is her only gift that remains.
Odette always hungered for forbidden, dangerous magic, and two weeks ago she went searching for it. Now she’s missing, and everyone believes she’s dead. Everyone except Maude.
Maude is sure she can find Odette inside the ruins of Sicklehurst, an abandoned power plant built over an ancient magical forest –a place nobody else seems to remember is there. The danger is, nobody knows what remains inside Sicklehurst, either. And every good story is sure to have a monster…

goodreads | amazon | allen & unwin

published 18 Apr 2023

hell bent (ninth house #2) by leigh bardugo – deliciously dark

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I finished reading Hell Bent last week and let me just say (succinctly) AHHHH. This sequel has been long awaited (Ninth House came out in 2019 can you believe) and am pleased to say I thoroughly enjoyed Hell Bent. Dark, bloody, full of tricks and demons and puzzles and schemes, it is a breathless journey. Alex continues to punch her way through problems, and the book really delved into the survivor mentality too. I do love when books unpack trauma and mental health issues amongst plots of clever twists and wicked powers.

Without giving too much away, Hell Bent centres on Alex and Dawes looking desperately for a way to get Darlington out of hell. Rituals, summonings, a gauntlet invoked by blood that will open the gates of hell–they’re quite literally ready to try everything, no matter the cost. Even if the cost could be losing Lethe itself. Alex and Dawes budding friendship was everything; they are such polar opposites in personality (Alex is sharp and dangerous and dark, and Dawes is a total soft-hearted, cosy baking introvert) but the team work these two put in is divine. Then the surprising addition to their duo is the reoccurring appearance of Turner, and then add in also dumbass golden retriever Tripp. And suddenly we have the foursome who are going to hell for a little exchange student trip to fetch Darlington. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG.

I did think the book would be darker and the fall out worse though, but possibly this is just on me 😂 and the horror I’ve been reading lately. I loved the pacing of it, the ever-rising stakes, how it wasn’t a traditional 3-act structure so it honestly kept me engaged the whole time. The finale sets up gloriously for more books and like–omg my heart maybe screamed a few times in happiness at the imagery–am holding my breathe here to keep back spoilers. So basically read it and tell me what you thought!!

Deliciously dark, this is dark academia meets urban fantasy with a good dose of demon tricks, unforgivable acts, blood-soaked history references, and untamed powers.

Thank you to Hachette Australia for the copy!

Alex Stern returns in another tale of murder and dark magic set among the Ivy League elite. Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell.
Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex” Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory?even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.
Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies’ most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.
Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.

goodreads | book depository | hachette aus

Nightbirds by Kate J. Armstrong (plus a special Q&A with the author!)

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If you’re looking for a decadent YA fantasy, this one is calling to you.

I’m super lucky to be able to interview Kate J. Armstrong, so read on for the Q&A too!

Nightbirds delivers this lush and detailed world that is so easy to get lost in. It has a unique forbidden-style magic system where a kiss can gift power and the set up reminded me of the Grisha dynamics with magic being praised and worshipped by some, but persecuted and controlled viciously by others. Add that into this Caraval meets Gatsby glittering and luxurious style world, and you have Nightbirds. The parties and balls and gowns were all beautifully described–and loved the contrast of that with rebellion and flames later on.

She grew up being told it couldn’t be, and she believed.

The story follows three main characters, our magical Nightbird girls: Matilde, Sayer and Æsa. Matilde definitely felt like a main character, confident and glamorous and privileged, who doesn’t notice she is a bird in a cage. Sayer has the bitter, stabby personality so immediate fave for me. Æsa is an absolute sweetheart and so caring and lovely. Like protect Æsa at all costs please and thank you. While there is also romance for each of the girls, the focus is on sisterhood and friendship. There are some side-character POVs and tbh quite a huge cast, so there’s a lot to keep track of making it perfect for readers who like fantasy that goes deeper.

Your magic is something rave and no doubt powerful. But it isn’t a poison… I know because it comes from you

The story also feels like a love letter to women empowerment, drawing off age-old imagery of girls as caged birds, girls being used by powerful men, girls as witches when they cannot be controlled. The Nightbird girls can gift magic with a kiss, but what if everything they’ve been told all their lives about their powers is a lie? It’s a story about girls uniting, raising each other up, and refusing to be held down by an oppressive society.

Would recommend if you like…

  • lush and pretty world building with Caraval x Gatsby vibes
  • girl friendships and empowerment
  • magic, all the magic
  • evil churches trying to control magic
  • betrayals and twists
  • romance! kisses! love!
  • rebellions

Hi Kate, I’m so thrilled to have the chance to chat with you about your gorgeous debut, Nightbirds! Can you tell us a little about your publishing journey, from first seed of an idea to publication?

KATE J ARMSTRONG: It’s lovely to be here! I was hiking up a mountain in Montana when I had this very clear image bloom in my mind of an opulent room and a girl in a feathered mask kissing a boy who had paid for the favor. She was giving him something besides the kiss, too: magic. I wanted to know what sort of magic it was and why she would give such a potent power away. A few months later, I was sipping a champagne cocktail in a 1920s-themed speakeasy in New York City. The place was clearly meant to transport you back in time to the 1920s, that time of sparkling flappers, sultry music, and shadowy, illicit-feeling thrills. It had me thinking about that era’s Prohibition: the way the ban on booze made drinking dangerous, and thus accidentally made it glamorous, turning what had been a commonplace substance into a symbol of rebellion, decadence, and status. I thought about how, in chasing alcohol into the shadows, Prohibition also created a dangerous underworld that made its own rules. And then I thought: what if, in that masked girl’s world, there was a Prohibition around magic? What if the rarest and most powerful kind was intrinsic to women? What would happen if a coveted, illegal, morally controversial power was something only girls could claim?

I started writing Nightbirds in 2018, but I didn’t send it out to publishers until 2021. While this book might be my first published novel, I’d already written four before it. Number Four got me my agent, but it didn’t end up selling. That was a big blow to my confidence, but I felt sure that Nightbirds was something special. Lucky for me, my publishers agreed.

Nightbirds definitely is something special!! And the journey to publication is no easy feat for sure. What drew you to writing fantasy and what was your favourite part of creating the world of Nightbirds?

KATE J ARMSTRONG: Like most kids, I was always checking the crawl spaces under stairs and the backs of walk-in closets, secretly hoping to find a door to another world there. I love fantasy as a reader because it gives me a chance to walk through that door, to escape into another world altogether. I found myself drawn to fantasy because it gave me the chance to craft a world that enchanted me—one where I made the rules, but where I could also explore very real-world issues. As for creating the world, I loved every minute of it, but particularly building the magical system. There are two types of magic in NIGHTBIRDS: alchemical and intrinsic. The first is conjured by alchemists, and it can be used as medicine, but also as recreation, distilled into cocktails that will let you speak another language for a handful of minutes or make someone’s dress seem to spark and smoke. It is expensive, it effects fleeting, and can be deadly if brewed badly. But the most valuable magic is intrinsic, passed through bloodlines and only found in young women. Enter the Nightbirds, a secret group of girls who can gift their magic with just a kiss. I loved coming up with their powers and thinking about all the ways they could be used.

Matilde, Sayer and Æsa are all such complex and captivating characters–who came into your imagination first? And who was the easiest/hardest to write?

KATE J ARMSTRONG: Matilde arrived first, and pretty much fully formed! She’s the veteran Nightbird of the trio: spoiled, privileged, confident and sassy, she doesn’t see anything wrong with the Nightbirds system. When I thought about creating my other characters, I knew I wanted them to be very different from Matilde – I love a cast of very distinct characters who have to work to understand each other. I also wanted those girls to challenge and push her, and to let readers see the Nightbirds system through a totally different lens. Enter Sayer, the daughter of a Nightbird who fell from grace, who has some scores to settle. She’s a fan favorite already, and I can see why: her anger at the unjustness of the world, and her take-no-prisoners attitude, is something I think we all can cheer for! She has nothing but contempt for the system, and she forces Matilde to question who its rules were really built to benefit. After that came Æsa, who is the sweetness to Sayer’s sharp edges and the timid blush to Matilde’s saucy smile. An outsider from the wind-swept Illish Isles who has become a Nightbird to keep her family from starving, and raised by a pious father in the shadow of a church that preaches it’s a sin to use magic, I think she might be the most relatable of all the girls.

Matilde and Æsa were the easiest to write, perhaps because they were clear opposites: from the beginning, I understood who they were and what mattered to them. Prickly, guarded Sayer was a little more difficult to pin down. She’s the kind of person that isn’t easy to get to know, but once you’re under her guard she’s as loyal and steadfast as they come. I found that was true in writing her, too!

I loved how different they were and how that turned out to be an incredible asset to them working together as the ultimate team. When do you usually write and what is your writing space like?

KATE J ARMSTRONG: I like to write in the morning, when the world is quiet and the world hasn’t had a chance to intrude on my daydreams. And I like to write in lots of places: cafes, parks, the beach. All I need is my headphones and my writing playlist! Although when I first start a book, I tend to write things by hand, and I do a lot of that in nature. I do a lot of plotting while I’m out on walks. But the place I spend most of my time writing, these days, is in my garden shed. My husband took what was once a spider-filled tool shed and turned it into this amazing little studio, which I’m slowly filling with my favorite books and pieces of art (and, of course, a bed for my greyhound). I love having a small space that’s dedicated to writing. When I go in there, everything else fades away.

Can we beg for a hint about what you’re working on next?

KATE J ARMSTRONG: I’m working on Nightbirds’ sequel! I can’t wait for readers to find out what’s in store for the girls in this one. I can’t say much about it, other than there will be more of many things I love: intrigue, betrayal, big magic…and, of course, kissing.

And lastly! What have been some of your favourite author moments so far?

KATE J ARMSTRONG: There have been SO many. Holding my bound book in my hands for the first time. Seeing my beautiful maps in their final form. Meeting teen readers (and their moms!) on the road. Nothing fuels me quite like meeting readers in the wild.

Thank you so much for all these incredible answers, and congratulations on your beautiful debut!!

thanks to Allen & Unwin for the review copy

Date Published: 28 Feb, 2023
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Purchase: Book Depository, Dymocks
Add it on Goodreads
In a dazzling new fantasy world full of whispered secrets and political intrigue, the magic of women is outlawed but three girls with unusual gifts have the chance to change it all.
Magic may be illegal in Simta, but you can find it if you know which whispers to heed. None as tantalising as the ones about the Nightbirds, Simta’s best kept secret. These privileged girls have the ability to gift their magic to others with a kiss – something the church would have them killed for. But protected by the Great Houses, their identities safe behind masks, the Nightbirds are well-guarded treasures.
Matilde, Æsa, and Sayer spend their nights bestowing their unique brands of magic to well-paying clients. But this Season’s Nightbirds find themselves at the heart of a political scheme that threatens their secrets and their safety. When they discover that their magic is far more than they were ever told, they see the carefully crafted Nightbird system for what it is: a gilded cage.
Now they must make a choice – to remain kept birds or take control, remaking the city that dared to clip their wings.
Filled with sumptuous, cinematic writing and dazzling details, Nightbirds is a fiercely feminist fantasy debut where the most potent magic lies not in a kiss, but in the truth.

Mirror Girls by Kelly McWilliams – Haunting Story of Sisters, Curses & Ghosts

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This is such a dark and haunting story.

It’s the kind of horror where the paranormal things happening are less atrocious than what the humans are doing. It’s a very dark and sobering book and is set in the 1950s in southern USA. (Side note, I am Australian so I haven’t learned USA history in depth.) Also if you hear the word “horror” and go “ehhh no I don’t read that”, waaaaait. This isn’t full of jump-scares and probably is also classified as paranormal historical YA too. Needless to say, you should definitely still read!!

It follows the story of Charlie and Magnolia, twins separated at birth. Their father was a white heir to a rich plantation family, and their mother a Black housekeeper. They ran away together, but were later murdered, and each of their grandmothers took one of the babies: because Charlie was born Black and Magnolia very light-skinned and able to pass as white. They were JUST BABIES. They didn’t get a choice. Magnolia was basically ripped away from Charlie and their Black grandma and never even got to know she had a sister or Black heritage. She only finds out when the book begins and her white grandmother dies (she was such a cruel awful woman too).

“Because every time I accept that I’m worth less – less than a man, or a white person, or a gosh-darn oil baron – it punches a hole in my spirit. Punch enough holes and your spirit breaks.

It’s told in dual POV by both sisters and I loved them both a lot, though I think Magnolia had the bigger personal arc. Once she learns she’s Black, she ends up cursed and unable to eat/drink and is seeing terrifying ghosts, because it’s like part of her has been fractured in two. It’s time to choose a side. Meanwhile, Charlie grew up in New York (while Magnolia stayed in the south) and she fights for full rights and she’s forthright and wonderful. The sister bond was LOVELY too. They are literal strangers at first, but 🥺 their hearts know each other.

The book doesn’t shy away from covering horrible historical events: murders of slaves, the absolute obscene amount of racial prejudice Black people faced and their casual killings by bigoted, evil white people. Sobering reveals happened at every turn. And it’s also full of the fierce love, joy, and pride of the Black community. They were fully willing to accept Magnolia if she chose to stand with her people. It’s a very powerful story.

Curses, ghosts, a creepy house full of horrific secrets: it’s a story that says the dead aren’t who you truly have to fear when humans are capable of worse to each other.

Title: Mirror Girls
Author: Kelly McWilliams
Date Published: February 8th 2022
Genre: YA Historical Fiction, Horror
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Purchase: Book Depository
Add it on Goodreads
As infants, twin sisters Charlie Yates and Magnolia Heathwood were secretly separated after the brutal lynching of their parents, who died for loving across the color line. Now, at the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, Charlie is a young Black organizer in Harlem, while white-passing Magnolia is the heiress to a cotton plantation in rural Georgia.
Magnolia knows nothing of her racial heritage, but secrets are hard to keep in a town haunted by the ghosts of its slave-holding past. When Magnolia finally learns the truth, her reflection mysteriously disappears from mirrors—the sign of a terrible curse. Meanwhile, in Harlem, Charlie’s beloved grandmother falls ill. Her final wish is to be buried back home in Georgia—and, unbeknownst to Charlie, to see her long-lost granddaughter, Magnolia Heathwood, one last time. So Charlie travels into the Deep South, confronting the land of her worst nightmares—and Jim Crow segregation.
The sisters reunite as teenagers in the deeply haunted town of Eureka, Georgia, where ghosts linger centuries after their time and dangers lurk behind every mirror. They couldn’t be more different, but they will need each other to put the hauntings of the past to rest, to break the mirrors’ deadly curse—and to discover the meaning of sisterhood in a racially divided land.

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake – Dark Academia, Magicians & Ancient Libraries

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I enjoyed myself immensely reading The Atlas Six.

The hype was pretty intense for this one. (It went from self-published book to getting a cult following fandom online and then due to that it was picked up by Tor Books for a big deal…I think it’s even optioned for a movie now? So wild origin story.) And usually I’m at odds with the hype these days (tragically) but this suited me utterly and thoroughly. I also listened to the audiobook and couldn’t recommend it enough. I’s a full-cast narration and has 6 different voices. Usually I find so many narrators overwhelming, but I loved how this one unravelled.

The Atlas Six is about secret societies and the Library of Alexandria. It’s dark academia and uncoils a story around the power of exclusive knowledge, arcane sacrifices, and magicians getting drunk on their own power. It is slam packed with magic, in an academic and somewhat philosophical way. A lot of the science-mathy scenes went over my head, but I still really enjoyed those sections. Compelling if ostentatious. There’s lots of unravelled psyche and messing with heads too, and I loved always love that.

Six incredibly powerful magicians are invited to the exclusive Alexandrian Society. If they get through their first year of initiation, they will be full members. Six are chosen, five can go through. But the five have to kill the one. We have two physicists, an empath, mind-reader, illusionist, and a naturalist.

I loved the insane levels of magic powers, how these six are clever and powerful and academic rivals, each arrogant but also longing to be part of something more. It is so very character driven and the dynamics were fascinating.

Tristan ended up being my pessimistic favourite. Nico and Libby were the ADHD/autistic duo, I cannot be convinced otherwise. (Literally Libby is just so autistic, I adored it. I also liked that though they are locked in a frenemy-enemy dynamic, they aren’t slated to be a couple at all.) I liked Parisa; she definitely wants to burn the world down but she is beautiful and we’d let her. Reina hates people, loves books so thoroughly relatable. And Callum can go choke.

However overall I have to admit…nothing happens. I kept waiting for plot to start, but genuinely it’s full of conversations and discoveries and mindscapes and all that. But that saying, I was not bored! I’m not sure how I feel about the very final twist but I do want the sequel asap.

It’s an academic and twisty introspective dark academia with a rotting undercurrent of magic and power. These six people could make or break worlds and you can’t look away from the process.

Title: The Atlas Six
Author: Olivie Blake
Date Published: March 1st, 2022
Genre: Adult Fantasy
Publisher: Tor Books
Purchase: Book Depository, Blackwells
Add it on Goodreads
The Alexandrian Society is a secret society of magical academicians, the best in the world. Their members are caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity. And those who earn a place among their number will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams. Each decade, the world’s six most uniquely talented magicians are selected for initiation – and here are the chosen few…
– Libby Rhodes and Nicolás Ferrer de Varona: inseparable enemies, cosmologists who can control matter with their minds.
– Reina Mori: a naturalist who can speak the language of life itself.
– Parisa Kamali: a mind reader whose powers of seduction are unmatched.
– Tristan Caine: the son of a crime kingpin who can see the secrets of the universe.
– Callum Nova: an insanely rich pretty boy who could bring about the end of the world. He need only ask.
When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they must spend one year together to qualify for initiation. During this time, they will be permitted access to the Society’s archives and judged on their contributions to arcane areas of knowledge. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. If they can prove themselves to be the best, they will survive. Most of them.

[Double Reviews] The Tower At The End of Time & The Revelry – Magical Fantasy Stories

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I have two reviews to share with you today, for a double little treat 👀👌🏻 These are both sent from Walker Books (thank you so much!) and one is YA and the other is MG. So let’s dive right in 😌 Hope you enjoy!

The Tower At The End Of Time #2 by Amy Sparkes

Date Published: January 6th, 2022
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Publisher: Walker Books
Purchase: Book Depository, Blackwells
Add it on Goodreads
Adventurous, magical and brilliantly funny sequel to The House at the Edge of Magic.
Nine and her friends have broken the curse on their marvellous, magical House, and are free to travel the worlds once more! Their first stop: The Wizarding Hopscotch Championships. There’s only one problem: the House is nervous about travelling – and gets the hiccups! Bouncing from world to world with every “HIC!”, they finally land at the championships, only for Flabberghast to have an unfortunate run-in with square number nine, and find himself faced with the terrible Tower at the End of Time. But maybe here they can find out how to cure the House’s hiccups, and Nine might finally discover who left her the beloved music box, and who she really is… A young middle grade novel full of humour, magic and mischief – and the second in a three book series.

This was a delightful Middle Grade book with so, so much whimsy and chaotic magic! It felt like Alice in Wonderland colliding with Howl’s Moving Castle — but instead this time it’s a very opinionated flying house. And the house is not having a great time considering it has been stationery for 3 years, and now taking off again has left it with a damaging case of the hiccups (it might even explode if this keeps up). Add in an electric array of characters including a bizarre wizard, a talking spoon, a troll, and Nine herself (an orphan who just wants a family!!) and you have a book that is very charming and light-hearted to read.

A small confession here is that, I didn’t know it was a sequel! I was graciously gifted a copy as a surprise, so I just cheerfully dived and was there like, “Hmm, this feels like a sequel? But maybe not.” Well, it was. 😂 That said, I think it was enjoyable on it’s own, but I definitely recommend starting with book one. I’m curious about the origin of Nine and how she came to be tangled up in this moody house. I did feel like Nine didn’t have much agency for most of the book, so I wonder if book 1 set up her character more.

The style is also great for young kids too, with lots of nursery rhyme references and silly magic (hopscotch competitions! magical tea cupboards! enchanted houses with the hiccups!) so it was definitely geared at the littlies. There is a tower of doom to traverse and answers to be found to difficult questions, but at the heart of the book is found-family and lots of inventive problem solving.

A cute read for sure!

The Revelry by Katherine Webber

Date Published: January 6th, 2022
Genre: YA Contemporary Fantasy
Publisher: Walker Books
Purchase: Book Depository, Blackwells, Dymocks
Add it on Goodreads
A story of best friends, bad luck and the consequences of breaking the rules in a town built on secrets and superstitions.
I am girl of Ember Grove, and these are my woods… Growing up in Ember Grove, Bitsy Clark knows better than to mess with the long-held traditions of her hometown. Until her best friend, Amy, persuades her to sneak into the Revelry – the end of school party in the woods, to which only those leaving are invited. When she wakes the next day, Bitsy can’t remember anything from the night before. Weirder still, whenever she tries to speak about the Revelry, Bitsy chokes on the words. But this is just the beginning, and what starts out as a run of bad luck starts to feel like a curse. As Bitsy’s life goes from bad to worse, things only get better and better for her best friend. It’s as if there’s only so much luck to go round and Amy’s getting all of it…

This is a YA contemporary with just a pinch of fantasy, to keep you guessing if everything Bitsy goes through is real…or not. It’s set in a small odd little town, where every year there’s a secret and magical Revelry. Only accessed by invitation to those graduating high school. It’s the Once In A Life Time experience and NO one talks about it afterwards, though it’s definitely said to change your life. The story is told by Bitsy Clark who is dying to get into the Revelry early. She sneaks in with her bestie, Amy, but when they wake up the next morning…they have no idea what happened. The only thing Bitsy knows is that she’s cursed. When something good happens to Amy, something terrible happens to Bitsy. Their friendship starts fracturing big time as the little things grow. Jobs are lost. Embarrassing wardrobe malfunctions happen at school. Bitsy feels like she’s failing at every turn and, worse, Amy doesn’t even seem to care.

So the interesting thing about this is that it’s VERY easy to wonder: is the curse real? Or is Bitsy just being extremely catty to her best friend? There are a lot of coincidences, and a lot of moments where Bitsy’s bad decisions just come back to bite her. I think the book was taking a look at teen girl friendships. How bitterness and cutting behaviour can come out of nowhere, and it can ruin everything if you let it.

Bitsy got more and more focused on herself and her perceived woes that she really treated Amy badly the whole way through. Downside to this — Bitsy was pretty unlikeable. Her selfishness towards Amy was hard to forgive.

I did love the concept of the Revelry, and the snippets of magic in the woods (the strange girl! the history of their little town slowly coming out and dark secrets revealed). It’s also a super fast read, bite sized and concise. If you enjoy books like Moira Fowley-Doyle and The Hazel Wood, this is one to check out.

Only A Monster by Vanessa Len – Time Travelling Monsters & Heroes

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I’ve been seeing more urban fantasies of monstrous creatures and dark cities coming out and I have to say, I am here for it.

Only A Monster by Vanessa Len is looking to be one of the Big Name releases for 2022 and I was very keen to get my hands on it. (Also the cover is such dark whimsy 😙👌🏻) It promised a hero x monster romance, time travelling, antiheroes, and powerful families with dark powers. And I am excited seeing Australian-based authors go far too!

The story follows Joan Chang-Hunt as she spends the holidays with her grandma’s family in London. Part human, part monster, Joan has a severe disconnect with her monster-side. She knows about being a monster (the book starts with a prologue of a young-Joan being told the weight of the monster secrets needs to stay hidden as she performs her first piece of magic) but she doesn’t really understand what it means. Until, as a teen, she accidentally steals time from a human and travels. Then the truth hits hard — monsters drain years (and life) from humans in order to travel to any era they please, popping in and out of centuries for pleasure and fun. Joan is a pretty Straight Laced Do-Gooder and is horrified. But her introduction to the monster world takes a pretty steep learning dive when she’s attacked by the terrible Oliver family — and protected by her human boyfriend.

Who turns out to be the fated Hero of all the monster family’s legends. The Hero who is going to kill them all. So basically — Joan chose the wrong person to have a crush on.

The story dives straight into an on-the-run plot line as Joan escapes the monster massacre with the help of Aaron Oliver (nemesis of her family!!) I actually expected them to fall in love? 😂 But they were more antagonistic frenemies, slowly gaining trust and friendship, as Joan tries to find a way to go to the past and warn their families of the incoming massacre.

It did leave me with a lot of questions, like why are the Olivers and Hunts enemies? Hopefully the sequel has aaaall the answers 🙌🏻 I did expect it to be a darker, but it’s definitely a good start for YA readers looking to try urban fantasy.

Fast-paced, time-travelling, enemies-to-lovers and star-crossed romances, with a girl battling her monstrous side as she tries to save her family — this is the perfect read for fans of This Savage Song and Shadowhunters.

“You’re a hero and I’m a monster,” she whispered. “There’s only one way that story ever ends.”

Thanks to Allen & Unwin for the review copy!

Title: Only A Monster (#1)
Author: Vanessa Len
Date Published: February 2022
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Purchase: Book Depository, Blackwells, Dymocks
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Don’t forget the rule. No one can know what you are. What we are. You must never tell anyone about monsters.
Only a monster would kill a hero. Right?
Every family has its secrets, but the summer Joan Chang-Hunt goes to stay with her Gran in London, she learns hers is bigger than most. The Hunts are one of twelve families in London with terrifying, hidden powers.
Joan is half-monster. And what’s more, her summer crush Nick isn’t just a cute boy – he’s hiding a secret as well; a secret that places Joan in terrible danger.
When the monsters of London are attacked, Joan is forced on the run with the ruthless Aaron Oliver, heir to a monster family who are sworn enemies of her own. Joan is drawn deeper into a world that simmers with hostilities, alliances and secrets. And her rare and dangerous power means she’s being hunted. She’ll have to embrace her own monstrousness if she is to save herself, and her family. Because in this story . . .
. . . she is not the hero.

A Snake Falls To Earth by Darcie Little Badger — Lipan Apache Fantasy of Storytelling, Shapeshifters and Hurricanes

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This book is an actual a soft and wholesome delight. 🥺

Last year I fell in love with Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger so I needed her next book SO BADLY. A Snake Falls To Earth is a gorgeous follow-up. It has a different feel than Elatsoe (the biggest factor being it feels much younger), but it cemented my love for the author’s voice and storytelling style. Sometimes you just want to read about soft kids who want to help people and take care of each other and 😭 cherish tight-knit friendships above all else.

A Snake Falls To Earth has two narrators in two different worlds. (1) is Nina, a Lipan Apache girl who is a storyteller at heart and loves connecting to her roots and believing in old myths and legends. She lives in our world and her family runs a bookstore and her grandmother’s land miiiiight be a crossing between two worlds. (2) is Oli is a cotton mouth snake in an alternate dimension, one of the animal people who can shift shapes at will. He’s newly left home and loves reading and has made some unusual friends as he camps in the forest, but when one of his friends gets very sick, he realises the answers lie in earth. Cue — universes COLLIDING. But gently. Because no loud noises here.

I loved both Nina and Oli’s stories but I was kind of more invested in Oli. He has a ton of “everyday adventures”, from catching voices in jars to meeting his coyote soon-to-be-besties to having a run in with a nonbinary eagle to getting his tail stepped on. It reminded me a lot of my childhood faves of Farthing Wood and Beatrix Potter. Just gentle, cottagecore vibes. He also gets more page time (I think?). While Nina’s part was still lovely, as she tries to translate a story from her late great-(great?!?!) indigenous grandma who spoke in a Lipan dialogue Nina didn’t know. Plus Nina’s half deals a bit more with climate change critiques and hurricanes.

It did feel very young, basically middle-grade voice and vibes. Mostly this is because none of the characters had flaws? Everyone was just really kind and curious, and the book kept reassuring the reader that nothing bad would happen, so even when we DID get some high stakes, it all smoothed out easily. So basically — read this if you need a break from stressful books 😂🙌🏻 but also just read it because it’s GOOD 😌✨. I appreciated the change of pace and the comfortable vibes.

Other things I liked

  • Oli basically just avoid confrontation at ALL COSTS and his #1 hobby is napping in the sun…so like, maybe i too am a snake.
  • I just loved the animal people shapeshifters 🥺
  • the focus definitely is on friendship, and Oli’s bond with Risk and Rain (the coyote twins) is super lovely.
  • there are lowkey monsters in the background
  • Nina was so chill. 10/10 would like to be her friend.
  • Nina says she is asexual on page, but Oli also seemed super ace to me! He was pretty much like “marriage seems ok i guess if you meet the right person but idk”. BLESS.
  • lots of homage and love words Lipan Apache culture and the importance of verbal storytelling

If you’re looking for a book that is both wholesome and comforting, full of heart and storytelling and friendship and chaotic teens on adventures — this is it!! It was a lovely story and beautifully written.

I also listened to the audiobook from NetGalley and really loved the narrator too!

Title: A Snake Falls To Earth
Author: Darcie Little Badger
Date Published: November 9th 2021
Genre: YA Epic Fantasy
Purchase: Book Depository, Blackwells
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Nina is a Lipan girl in our world. She’s always felt there was something more out there. She still believes in the old stories.
Oli is a cottonmouth kid, from the land of spirits and monsters. Like all cottonmouths, he’s been cast from home. He’s found a new one on the banks of the bottomless lake.
Nina and Oli have no idea the other exists. But a catastrophic event on Earth, and a strange sickness that befalls Oli’s best friend, will drive their worlds together in ways they haven’t been in centuries.
And there are some who will kill to keep them apart.
Darcie Little Badger introduced herself to the world with Elatsoe. In A Snake Falls to Earth, she draws on traditional Lipan Apache storytelling structure to weave another unforgettable tale of monsters, magic, and family. It is not to be missed.

 

The Unflinching Ash by Angela Armstrong – Female Magicians & Death Defying Tricks!

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It’s time for a fantasy with magicians and mentalists 😙👌🏻

The Unflinching Ash is absolutely everything I needed. I’ve always been super obsessed with magicians — the card tricks and the illusions and the sleight-of-hand, like YES I love this. (And secretly want to try it….which okay I did? But it lasted like 3 days because I was bad at it and have 0% of the showy flares.) This book is like fantasy meets a girl Houdini and it also has a stark commentary on how women vs men are treated within the same specialities. Ash is an incredible mentalist, but while men are allowed to entertain with their tricks — she’s likely to be burned at the stake or drowned as a witch for it. The unfairness keeps your teeth grit and your fury on edge as you root for Ash.

What she needs: immunity from the queen, protection so she can follow in her parents’ footsteps as a Mystic without risk of persecution.
To win: she has to get a recommendation, beat all the other magicians, oh and also SURVIVE until the contest.

I loved the way the magician part was written! The tricks are described and often explained too, and the author’s note lists a few famous tricks/magicians that inspiration came from. (Also challenges us to name some female magicians which…yeah 😩😭 I could not.) Ash does a lot of crowd-reading. She’s a mentalist and pulls off these literal death-defying tricks by accurately guessing people’s thoughts and intentions. Then she vanishes as soon as the show is over.

And what of her captors? Did they really think her so frail and helpless that darkness, some rope, and a perversion of blacksmithery would be sufficient to hold the daughter of Pabla la Presica and Alexact?

There are also so many amazing side-characters. Taking a second to gush about Ash’s sister Grete and her husband Wynn because they were amazing 😌 Grete is a tough-as-sticks older sister who worries after Ash, and Wynn often helps Ash with her tricks, and he’s just amicable and kind. And Ash herself is so bold and unapologetic, clever and forthright too. She goes through a LOT, just trying to avoid being murdered as a witch, but she’s constantly thinking of others and helping them too 🥺💛

“What is a witch, but a woman who understood something a man did not?”

And then THERE IS REN. Who I absolutely adored!! He’s after the queen’s immunity too and he is scoping out the opposition when he meets Ash. I loved their romance because it starts off with them just trying to impress the other by outsmarting each other. He’ll pick her pocket, she’ll do a death-defying trick. They have incredible intuition about each other’s tricks and so much chemistry. I also loved that soft Ren wanted to help Ash, but she KNEW she needed to do this 100% for herself.

High stakes and death-defying tricks and women magicians!! This is a fast-paced and clever story of female magicians and tentative love with real historical influences.

AD | Thank you to the author for providing a copy of the book for a review & feature!

In a world like ours, Mystics once ruled the night. Well, so long as they were men. On Ash’s day of naming, she chose the Mystic path nonetheless. The same illusions that garner gasps of awe from the lamp-lit crowds earn her scorn from the basilica. There is only one way forward: a perilous quest – earn the Queen’s Seal, a badge of honour, and immunity. She’ll simply have to avoid being hanged, burned or drowned first.

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Ghost Wood Song by Erica Waters — Haunted Music, Messed Up Families, & Murder Mysteries!

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This is exactly the kind of book I’d been craving!

I’m currently on a creepy-forest-and-low-key-horror reading kick lately, and I had preordered this ages ago (fun story 😂it took like 4 months to arrive despite preordering) so I was like NOW IS THE TIME. I ended up listening to the audiobook and it was so fantastically narrated. Sometimes heavy Southern accents are hard for me (an Australian) to understand, but this worked out! I absolutely sank into the story and it entirely stole my heart.

It’s so deeply about grief. I think the audiobook narrator enhanced this but…my heart broke several times over. Generational grief, suffering, self-torture, and secrets. It’s about a family whose pain runs layers deep, but their avoidance of it just poisons themselves. I kind of love books about dysfunctional families and their secrets, so this captivated me.

Shady Grove’s family falls apart when her step-father is murdered and her brother, Jesse, is jailed for it. She’s not even over her father’s death and his legacy of playing a magic fiddle that can raise ghosts haunts her. She wants the fiddle back. Even more so now, because she needs it to figure out who really killed her step-father so she can get her brother out of jail. She’s always winced at being seen as “white trailer trash” but her family is such a mess. Reclusive aunt. Dead father. Haunted ex-family home. Magic in their bones. Angry brother. A Shadow Man that haunts her sleep. I loved her absolute determination, but also her softness. She is a vulnerable girl keeping herself together through sheer grit. Music owns her soul — but not always in healthy ways.

THINGS I LOVED

  • The music aspect! The haunted fiddle is amazing and creepy and all-consuming. Althooooough…Shady does start a bluegrass band with her friends and I 💀 cannot deal with country music. I will look passed this. 😪
  • Big friend groups! It actually deals with toxic friendships (I do think Sarah was thoroughly toxic to Shady).
  • Shady is bisexual!! She has a crush on Sarah (who is closed off and cold to her) and ends up also crushing on Cedar (who is a soft but smug cowboy and a real sweetheart).
  • JESSEEEEEE. Okay to be absolutely honest, he’s my favourite character. He doesn’t have a lot of page-time, but he is obviously a huge catalyst to the story and the driving force behind Shady’s actions. His backstory BROKE me when it all comes out. He’s angry and stuffed with survivor’s guilt and he’s absolutely thoroughly alone 🥺I am in pieces for Jesse and this kid really deserves a hug. When he broke down crying near the end just….me too, son. (The way Shady was angry at him…no 😭)
  • It was so emotional and it truly made me FEEL that.
  • Loved that it had creepy magic and superstition but it was still rooted in our world. It’s not so much set IN a forest, but there’s a woods that plays a good part.
  • Also loved little toddler Honey 🥺👌🏻

It’s a highly emotional story with a riveting murder mystery and ghosts with sharp teeth and anguished tears. It’s full of grief, but also healing. I totally loved the characters and I wanted nothing more than for Shady to face her past and find a way to face the future.  

If I could have a fiddle made of Daddy’s bones, I’d play it. I’d learn all the secrets he kept.
Shady Grove inherited her father’s ability to call ghosts from the grave with his fiddle, but she also knows the fiddle’s tunes bring nothing but trouble and darkness.
But when her brother is accused of murder, she can’t let the dead keep their secrets.
In order to clear his name, she’s going to have to make those ghosts sing.
Family secrets, a gorgeously resonant LGBTQ love triangle, and just the right amount of creepiness make this young adult debut a haunting and hopeful story about facing everything that haunts us in the dark.

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