Category Archives: Fiction

The Things She’s Seen by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina

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The Things She’s Seen, by Ambelin and Ezekiel Kwaymullina, is a beautiful story about grief and moving on. It’s about a young girl named Beth and her detective father Michael, who is the only one able to see and hear Beth after the horrible incident that killed her. Beth is here to help her father heal. Michael gets assigned to an ‘easy’ case to help him get back into
the swing of things, but something about the case doesn’t feel so easy. There is a bit of oddness surrounding the storyline and the characters in this crime. Michael (and Beth, of course) interview a strange witness who goes by Catching, and she tells them a story. Her story. The story is full of magic and fantasy, but always has a truthful meaning hiding underneath. Fishy and lovable characters riddle the pages of this riveting book.

The Kwaymullina siblings write with such amazing imagery when telling Catching’s story, and letting the reader easily picture Beth’s strange surroundings in this small town. An amazing book for anyone dealing with loss, going through hard times, or just a mystery fan in general. Neverending crimes and plot twists keep this short book mysterious, emotional, and hard to put down.

 

Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

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Spin the Dawn, by Elizabeth Lim, is an extraordinary fantasy novel about defeating gender stereotypes, the importance of your craft, and the power of love. Lim tells a beautiful story about Maia, the only daughter of a previously esteemed tailor now living in a small town, who disguises herself
as a boy to compete in a trial to become the next tailor for the emperor.

It is the opportunity of a lifetime, and she attends in disguise, knowing the lethal consequences if her secret gets out. The final challenge is the hardest one, sewing the three gowns made for the goddess Amana: one from the laughter of the sun, one from the tears of the moon, and one from the blood of the stars. Maia always thought these dresses were just a myth, but when she meets some mysterious new characters throughout the trial, her
mind changes. Can she succeed in sewing the three magical dresses and achieve her dream of becoming the best tailor in the land?

Lim crafts a truly amazing story, filled with every element needed for captivating interest throughout the whole thing. With strong themes of magic, adventure, and love, Spin the Dawn is incredibly difficult to put down. Interesting characters, impossible tasks, and blooming romances litter the magical pages. Recommended for anyone who loves sewing, magic, or an amazing story to get attached to. Lim’s sequel to Spin the Dawn will be highly awaited.

Serpent and Dove by Shelby Mahurin

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“A witch and a witch hunter bound by holy matrimony. There was only one way such a story would end — a stake and a match.”
The land of Belterra is plagued by fear of magic and witches. With the citizens wanting nothing more than the witches to be eradicated and burned at the stake, they walk the streets in disguise, hiding the smell that emits from their magic – that is until they themselves can destroy the humans, especially the royal lineage.
Two years ago, Lou left her coven to save her life. Being forced to suppress her magic and live life as a normal citizen – she subjects to lying, stealing, and killing (if necessary) to survive in the city of Cesarin, where life is hard, especially for women. She manages to fare undetected, being extra careful every step of the way…until one burglary – probably her most important one – goes wrong, setting the wheels in motion.
With the chasseurs — ruthless witch hunters affiliated with the church — and enemies of her past hot on her trail, Lou ends up in a compromising position with the Captain of the Chasseurs, Reid Diggory, a very detrimental position for the both of them. To avert any unnecessary situations, the Archbishop – leader of the Chasseurs, who is just as cold-hearted – comes up with a solution: Lou can either go to jail for her thefts or marry Reid and save his virtuous reputation.
Lou, being the smart girl she is, obviously agrees for the marriage as a means to protect herself from her enemies, as does Reid to salvage his repute. But they both could not be any more different from each other.
Lou is a strong, independent badass witch, with a high dosage of spunk and sass. Loves breaking rules, hates following orders. She is a feminist through and through, fully capable of saving herself, knowing when and where to put the men in their places.
Reid is a hard-core disciplined soldier, who blindly believes in the rules and regulations set by the church and Archbishop – a man he sees as his father. He will follow orders, even if his conscience says otherwise. He has a sweet soul that’s been tainted by the blood and cruelty of the Chasseurs.
Their arguments will leave you in hysterics. Their attempt at trying to be civil to each other will have you second-guessing their emotions. But their differences and learning from and accepting one another is what progresses the plot into creating a perfect atmosphere for a slow-burning romance that will keep you on your toes.
Besides the protagonists, the side leads are a complete entertainment package. There’s: bitchy, but loyal Coco – a blood witch and probably the best girlfriend Lou can ever have; sweet and adorable Ansel – the teenage soldier who is basically the-boy-next-door; And lovely, but stubborn Beau – the Prince. It’s a dream team, I tell you. And let’s not forget Lou’s enemies from her past – who exactly are they and why are they after her life? Adding in a few other black and white characters. It’s a puzzle figuring out if anyone is a villain in this story or if everyone’s just a hero of their own story…
With her fast-paced writing and plot twists at every corner, Shelby Mahurin has done a marvelous job at creating a world that you will dive right into and characters you’d want to befriend. Perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas.

Nocturna by Maya Motayne

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Maya Motayne writes an amazing fantasy novel infused with magic and interesting characters. Nocturna is more than just a story about magic and its dark side, it has an element of truth to it. The characters’ emotions are so strong that you feel like you’re fighting right beside them. Motayne’s descriptions and language create magnificent images in your mind of scenes that aren’t possible in real life. Nocturna sweeps you away to an entirely different world, and changes your views forever.
Nocturna tells about a prince named Alfie, whose family experienced a tragedy that made him king, but he is not ready for the huge responsibility. He feels lost on the throne. Alfie is ruined, until he meets a thief named Finn, whose magic consists of changing her own face to match anyone. She is a faceshifter living in the ugly part of town, hiding her ugly past with foreign faces. They release something horrible and dark into Alfie’s kingdom, and it’s up to them to entrap it once again. Nocturna hunts them down and brings out the absolute worst in them. The two fighters have to face their terrible memories and pasts in order to defeat the dark magic, but can they come together and put the greater good of the people first?
I recommend this book to any fantasy lover. Whether you like high fantasy, or just a touch of magic, this book is for you. Nocturna is impossible to put down. The plot is so addicting and surprising that reading it in just a few days (or one!) is almost a guarantee. I cannot praise this book enough. Motayne has written a beautiful, magical story filled with every emotion possible. There is so much love and friendship but also pain and suffering. It’s a mix of good and bad, light and dark. It’s Nocturna.

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay

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The book Patron Saints of Nothing by by Randy Ribay is about a boy Jay, whose cousin, Jun who lives in the Philippines, is killed by the police for, supposedly, dealing drugs. His family did nothing to acknowledge Jun’s death because he had ran away from home four years earlier. Unable to accept that Jun was a dealer, Jay goes to the Philippines to talk to his family and try to find the truth about what happened to his cousin. He makes friends with a girl, Mia, who decides to help him find out what really happened to Jun. While he is there, his uncle, Jun’s father gets really mad when Jay tries to talk about Jun and sends him to his aunt’s house a day early. His aunt tells him that Jun lived with them for a year after he ran away and, unlike his uncle, actually talks to Jay about Jun. While Jay is there he learns a lot about Jun, both good and bad. He learns the truth while getting his family to let themselves grieve too.
I really enjoyed this book. Though it’s about a heavy topic, it manages to still be a fairly light and easy read. I really like Grace’s character. In the beginning she seems like everyone else in the family, but by the end she admits that she really misses her brother and is upset about it. She is important too because she’s the one pulling the strings, not her father who was suspected.
I would recommend this book to anyone who likes mystery or is dealing with a loss. It’s surprising when it ends and is very unexpected. If someone just lost a family member or friend, I would recommend this book because it can help them understand that you can’t act as if nothing happened, it’s not healthy. You have to let yourself grieve. Also just know that you are not the only one who lost someone. Talking to someone about the person who died can make you feel better.

Dark of the West by Joanna Hathaway

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“War is no good for the young, or for love.”
War is no good for anyone, yet peculiarly many love stories begin within that scenario – puts the entire concept of love into perspective, doesn’t it? How it’s not all about love at first sight and happy endings. Dark of the West is effective at voicing just that in a subtly chaotic manner.
Set in a world, currently, in the midst of a not-so-secret war between Monarchy and Dictatorship, a princess and a lieutenant dare to fall in love…
Arelia Isendare a.k.a Ali is a princess of a small kingdom in the North. With her elder brother Reni in line for the throne, Ali has always been shielded from the knowledge of politics and danger that lies beyond the walls of her castle, wanting nothing more than passing her exams and joining the University. But when people from other parts of the world start infiltrating the palace – lies fill the halls, secrets are whispered around every corner, and everything she has ever known about her own family might all be a bluff – Ali learns that textbooks don’t reveal everything. Determined to know the truth, Ali is willing to do anything, even if it means going against those she loves.
Athan Dakar, is the youngest son of a ruthless general. Born and brought up on the battlefield, Athan – a fighter pilot himself – has never lived a life of peace. Always under the shadow of his obedient, highly respected brothers, he’s constantly scrutinized by his father, who sees him as a person of very little value. To prove his worth, and protect the people he loves, Athan learns that he needs to conceal his disapproval of war (the only thing that matters to his family), and show loyalty to everything he’s grown to hate, even it means siding with the ideologies he despises.
When Athan’s mother (the only person to ever understand him) is assassinated, his father – believing it to be none other than Queen of Etania, Sinora Lehzar, Ali’s mother, behind it – sends Athan undercover into Etania’s court to spy upon the royal family. Would have been easy if he didn’t end up falling for the girl he’s been tasked to spy on. And Ali, who detests the Safire and their oh-so-noble doctrine, finds a friend (and maybe something more) in a certain lieutenant of the same. Despite the mutual attraction, both Athan and Ali are up for more than they bargained for, especially when caught in a tangle of lies, politics, guns, revenge and chaos.
Inspired by a World war II-era Europe, Hathway does a tremendously great job at hooking the reader from the prologue itself (tip: go back to the prologue once you finish). Her writing is fast-paced and easily understandable, with only a slight confusion regarding the geography of the world. This is a definite add-on to lovers of all genre and will become a favorite fairly quickly.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

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When BeiTech, a powerful corporation in a futuristic, space traversing society, attacked an illegal mining colony run by one of their competitors, the lives of the colonists were irrevocably destroyed. Thousands died, and those who managed to escape are being pursued by the remainder of their attackers, who plan to destroy any who might reveal the atrocities they commited. Kady and Ezra, newly exes, were finishing high school when the attack came. They lost everything that day, and now, licking their wounds, are pursued by the very people who tried to kill them the first time, all they have left is each other.
Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman’s Illuminae is not like anything I’ve ever read. In fairness, I don’t read much in the way of space operas, so I may simply not have much to compare it to. The genre is generally too overpopulated for my tastes with leather-clad protagonists (you’d think styles would have changed in a few centuries) shooting blasters at a strangely uniformly humanoid collection of aliens (seriously, can we get, like, a highly evolved society of blue space bats that communicate using bioluminescence? Or just something instead of green humans? Thanks.)
But while Illuminae does employ many of the genre’s tropes, it does so in a unique way. Giant spaceships? Sure, but not all of them are battlecruisers or have guns (I mean… some of them are.) Ability to do jumps from one place to another within the galaxy? Of course! But only the huge, expensive ships have the technology to make them. Hot, intelligent hero on a mission, accompanied by an equally hot sharpshooter with a dark past? Check! But she isn’t particularly interested in the greater good (I mean, she is a bit, she is the hero after all…) and her love interest is less tall dark and broody than he is a loveable doofus with the texting grammar and etiquette of every teenager in your contacts.
Illuminae combines sci-fi and horror in an addicting story told not in the traditional methods of storytelling, but in a hodgepodge compilation of stolen documents. Everything from ship’s logs, to casualty reports, to text messages, are employed to tell the tale. The result is a riveting book that, despite depriving the reader of a deeper understanding of the characters’ states of mind, allows for a wider picture of the situation. The inclusion of official documents and communications gives the reader a sense that the book chronicles real events, and the text messages between the two main characters, Kady and Ezra, endears the protagonists to the reader and thus makes us care when they and others are in danger. I highly recommend this book, and urge you to get it as a hardcopy. I think any other format just couldn’t do it justice.

The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza by Shaun David Hutchinson

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The apocalypse starts at Starbucks. Because of course it does. Elena Mendoza has never been normal. She was born through a virgin birth (proved by a scientist to be the only example of an asexual form of reproduction called parthenogenesis) so depending on who you ask she’s either a miracle or an anomaly. On top of that she has heard inanimate objects speak to her since she was a child. But things really start to get strange when Frankie— the girl she’s had a crush on for literally years— is shot right in front of her, and the Starbucks Siren tells Elena to heal her.
But when Elena does the boy who shot Frankie (and dozens of others across the world) are raptured away in a beam of golden light. From there the book is a wacky rollercoaster of satirical humor, world-altering choices and just a little bit of existential crisis. From cover to cover, The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza is a hilarious read that has something for everyone.

Internment by Samira Ahmed

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“What’s that thing people always say about history? Unless we know our history, we’re doomed to repeat it? Never forget? Isn’t that the lesson? But we always forget. Forgetting is in the American grain.”
Set in a world where Islamophobia is the latest epidemic. A world where the Muslims of America are the new Jews of Germany, where internment camps are real and fascism has reigns on the government. A world so grim, it’s hard to imagine it happening but powerful enough to create an impact on the present generation into perceiving what is and can happen.
Internment is a dystopian fiction that follows the story of Layla – a 17-year old whose entire life changes instantly, after she, along with her parents are forced to evacuate their home in L.A. and are brought to — along with several hundred muslims — to an internment camp called ‘Mobius’. There they are told that they are to create a community built on, “Unity. Security. Prosperity.” (the irony of this motto will be hard to digest from the very first page)
But Layla is not in the mood to stick around, plastering a fake smile and act as if everything is just fine. Her resistment in accepting to build a “normal life” while living in a heavily guarded community barbed with electrifying fences a.k.a prison, is what builds the plot. Her unwavering determination for wanting and going against odds to acquire the freedom promised as a citizen of America heightens the incentive factors of the book.
From her Yemeni-Jewish boyfriend, David to her progressive Muslim parents to her newly acquainted friends (and enemies) at the camp – the characters are all interesting and help in equalizing the light and dark parts of the book. Unfortunately, we don’t get to read anything about the other characters – where they came from or who they are, besides Layla’s perception (or specifically, her thoughts) on them which I found to be a tad-bit disappointing. Because many of the characters who played important roles in the book ended up becoming a mystery with no background, making it hard to really decipher what to make of them.
Albeit the missing pieces here and there, the book does its job of instilling fear within a reader – not the fear you hate but the fear you learn from. This story had to be told and i’m glad Samira Ahmed went along to write this book based on her fear and comprehension of what’s been going on for the last couple of years – pointing out the prejudices based on race and religion.
Until we don’t learn from our history, there’s no saying it won’t repeat itself, no matter how confident one may be…

Wicked Saints by Emily Duncan

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“We’re all monsters, Nadya, some of us just hide it better than others.”
A brutal, dark and blood-lust gothic novel with unpredictabilities as its core theme, Wicked Saints is that feel-good novel that will destroy you but will have you adoring it and wanting more.
×————-×
“The girl, the monster, and the prince”
Nadeshda Lapteva (the girl) – A young cleric raised in a monastery high up in the mountains with the power to talk to Gods who whisper spells in her head allowing her to access powers strong enough to put an end to the century-old holy war between the two countries – Kalyazin and Tranavia. She is the only hope left for her people to not only restore the faith of the Gods but bring them back into power.
But are the Gods really the only ones giving her the power she possesses..
Malachiasz Czechowicz (the monster) – A blood mage with nothing to speak for but his name. He is the epitome of evil – an embodiment of darkness. Don’t be fooled by his pale, tortured eyes and devastatingly charming smile – this boy has a lot of lies hidden up his sleeves.
But is he actually just a man wanting peace or something more horrifying than we can imagine…
Serefin Meleski (the prince) – The youngest and most powerful mage of his time and the next in line to acquire the throne. But with a jealous father hell-bent on making sure no one can contest his power, even if it means assassinating his own son, and choosing a wife for himself – things are bound to get very interesting for this charming boy.
But what is that he truly wants…
×————-×
When their paths entwine with one another in this shadowy world, blood will be spilled. Beauty and brutality will meet. The balance between light and dark will tip the scales. They will each find answers in figuring out who they are and what they are meant for – even if it means straying away from the path they have been taught to take – and discover the greater power that lies within them.
This beautifully blood-drenched fairy tale will sink its claws into you, never letting you go until you’ve turned the last page.