Fawkes | Nadine Brandes

Title: Fawkes

Author: Nadine Brandes

Length: 448 pages

Publication date: July 10, 2018

Genre: YA alternate history/fantasy

Rating: 4/5

Thomas Fawkes is turning to stone, and the only cure to the Stone Plague is to join his father’s plot to assassinate the king of England. Silent wars leave the most carnage. The wars that are never declared, but are carried out in dark alleys with masks and hidden knives. Wars where color power alters the natural rhythm of 17th century London. And when the king calls for peace, no one listens until he finally calls for death. But what if death finds him first? Keepers think the Igniters caused the plague. Igniters think the Keepers did. All Thomas knows is that the Stone Plague infecting his eye is spreading. And if he doesn’t do something soon, he’ll be a lifeless statue. So when his Keeper father, Guy Fawkes, invites him to join the Gunpowder Plot—claiming it will put an end to the plague—Thomas is in. The plan: use 36 barrels of gunpowder to blow up the Igniter King. The problem: Doing so will destroy the family of the girl Thomas loves. But backing out of the plot will send his father and the other plotters to the gallows. To save one, Thomas will lose the other. No matter Thomas’s choice, one thing is clear: once the decision is made and the color masks have been put on, there’s no turning back.

Fawkes is such a unique story! I absolutely loved the concept of the fantasy element woven in with this alternate history retelling. There's a lot going on in that concept but I think Nadine Brandes pulled it off well! I thought the magic system was well thought out and effective in the story. The idea of the Stone Plague was really interesting - a plague that was literally turning people to stone, don't read that every day. I really enjoyed the characters and I found them engaging. I felt like the stakes were really high for these characters and I just wanted to know that they would be okay. I also love the faith element that the author wove through the story - it was done really well. I would highly recommend this for fantasy fans!

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own. 

The Graceling Realm || series review

This year I made a resolution to write a review for every book I read. As you can tell, I am doing pretty well at that (/sarcasm). But it's not too late in the year that I can't get caught up! So here we go!

The first book I finished in 2016 was Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore. It's the final book in the Graceling Realm trilogy, so I'm just going to review the series (as evidenced by the title of this post).

The Graceling Realm trilogy is a YA fantasy series. The books of this series feature a different main character, but they all tie in together. Bitterblue is the direct sequel to Graceling, and features characters from Graceling and Fire. Fire is a companion prequel to Graceling, but I wouldn't read it first because it would have spoilers for Graceling.

Some series stats:


In this world, there are people known as Gracelings, people that have with an extreme skill, or "grace". They are born with different coloured eyes, which is how they are able to be identified. Katsa, our main character in the first book, is graced with killing. Being the niece of a brutish king, she is forced to be his personal assassin, even though she loathes every minute of it. She is part of a secret council that goes performs tasks that seek justice against the crown. One day a prince named Po comes to the council and asks them to find his missing grandfather, believed to be kidnapped by one of the neighbouring kingdoms, and our story takes off from there.

Fire takes place many years before Graceling, and it tells the story of a girl named Fire, the last human monster living in a wild country. Monsters in this world are brightly coloured versions of regular animals, and they also possess the ability to control minds. Fire has this ability but she is very reluctant to use it, as she doesn't want to force her will onto innocent people. However, Prince Brigan needs her help to uncover a plot against the king, and convinces her to come to King City to become a part of his investigation.

The final book in the series, Bitterblue, takes place a decade after the events of Graceling. The young Queen Bitterblue has ascended the throne of Monsea, and she must unravel the mysteries surrounding the reign of the previous king, who was a tyrannical ruler.

Good things about this series:

• The world building in this series is amazing. It really felt like a proper fantasy world, with many rich elements woven together. 
• The characters were very strong, and for the most part they showed good development over the course of their respective stories. Strong female protagonists are always good.
• The romances in these books feature slow-burning, "will-they-or-won't-they" relationships, which I quite enjoy. 

Not so nice things about the series:

• My main complaint about this series is the very casual attitude toward sex that Cashore depicts. It's nothing at all for people to have sex outside of marriage, with multiple partners, and we also see several homosexual relationships and an implied bi-sexual character. The middle book, Fire, is the worst one for this. One of the male side characters sleeps with nearly every female character introduced in this book. All of the women just accept this as how he is, and they have no qualms about the situation at all. There is also a very convenient plant that serves as a "morning after" device, and the only negative depiction of a sexual encounter at all in this series is that a female character gets pregnant because she didn't have any of this plant on hand. [I realize that others might not share the same opinion on this topic, these are just my personal moral convictions.]
• Bitterblue suffered from some pacing issues; it felt like at times the story was just spinning it's wheels because Cashore was trying to build more mystery, but really it just felt the same things kept happening over and over. It could have been a good 100 pages less and not suffered at all. 

Overall conclusion:

I think that Kristin Cashore is an excellent writer, and if you want to get into fantasy but are intimidated by it, this would be a good place to start. 

If you are bothered by the sexual elements I mentioned, just skip Fire altogether. It does have elements that are fascinating regarding the world, but you won't miss anything at all if you read Graceling and Bitterblue as a duology.

Day 21 || Kass Morgan

Title: Day 21 

Book 2 of The 100 series

Author: Kass Morgan

Length: 320 pages

Publication date: Sept. 16, 2014

Genre: YA, dystopian, sci-fi

Rating: 3.5/5

This summer Chris and I watched the first season of The 100 on Netflix. I don't think the show is the best, but I like the premise of it, so I decided to read the first book. I thought it was a good read, and so very different from the show. When I saw the second book was coming out, I requested a copy from Netgalley for review.

I don't want to say too much about the plot because of spoilers, but a quick summary of the first book - the Earth was on the cusp of a nuclear war, so an Ark-like ship was sent into space, for the surviving humans to live while the Earth became habitable again. Fast forward a couple hundred years, and the ship is starting to lose air, and it becomes vital to find out if Earth is liveable again. The 100 are a group of the ship's prisoners under the age of 18, and they are sent down in a pod where their vital will be monitored for radiation poisoning. In their descent to Earth, they lose communication with the ship, so they have to figure everything out on their own. We follow 4 main characters: Clarke, Wells, and Bellamy, who are among the 100; and Glass, who remains on the ship. Day 21 picks up exactly where the previous book left off. 

I did enjoy this book more than the first one. It was a very quick read, the writing style is very easy to get into. I did think the plot of this book did improve on the first one, I didn't anticipate everything that was going to happen. I wish there had been a little more character development. Wells and Clarke did develop from the first book, Glass a bit less, and Bellamy not at all. But there could have been more. Bellamy acted like a spoiled brat a lot of the book, I thought. I understand in the situation he was facing, but that could have been written a bit better, maybe with some more compassion. The tension there didn't help anything, in my opinion. But the drama is way toned down from the tv show, with is really good.

The plot of this series is just fantastic, in my opinion. A group of teenagers that have never set foot on Earth before, wandering around wondering how they're going to survive, not knowing what life on Earth will be like - really great. I've not heard of anything similar to this concept before. If there are any books similar to this that you know of, please let me know! 

I would definitely recommend this series if you're looking for something not too serious, but still has action and an exciting plot. The first book is quite cheap for Kindle, I think I got it for $2.99. If you're interested, you should give it a go. I'm definitely waiting for the last book to come out next year.

I received a digital copy of this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions expressed are my own.