Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Manifestor Prophecy by Angie Thomas

Pages: 304 

Publisher: Walker Books 

Released: 4th of April 2023 

Internationally bestselling superstar author Angie Thomas makes her middle grade debut with the launch of an inventive, hilarious, and suspenseful new contemporary fantasy trilogy inspired by African American history and folklore.

It’s not easy being a Remarkable in the Unremarkable world. Some things are cool—like getting a pet hellhound for your twelfth birthday. Others, not so much—like not being trusted to learn magic because you might use it to take revenge on an annoying neighbor.

All Nic Blake wants is to be a powerful Manifestor like her dad. But before she has a chance to convince him to teach her the gift, a series of shocking revelations and terrifying events launch Nic and two friends on a hunt for a powerful magic tool she’s never heard of...to save her father from imprisonment for a crime she refuses to believe he committed.

What I Have to Say 

This book is so beautiful! It's the book that every black kid deserves to have. Steeped in Black history and folklore, I can see how it was truly a book that was needed in the genre. 

The world that Angie Thomas has built is well remarkable! I'm hoping to explore more of the remarkable cities and culture in the next book because that's the best part of any magic society book. This book gave us a tantalising glimpse into the magic world and I am so hungry for more. 

I didn't know a lot of the folklore in the book, so I'm definitely gonna do some research into it as there were a lot of references I didn't get. In the end, I think it wasn't written for me. It was written for Black American children and I'm really glad to see more and more writers writing for them. 

Can't wait for the next book! 

4 stars 

My thanks got to Walker and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review. 

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Sutanto

Pages: 341 

Publisher: HQ

Released: 30th of March 2023 

Put the kettle on, there’s a mystery brewing…

Tea-shop owner. Matchmaker. Detective?

Sixty-year-old self-proclaimed tea expert Vera Wong enjoys nothing more than sipping a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy ‘detective’ work on the internet (AKA checking up on her son to see if he’s dating anybody yet).

But when Vera wakes up one morning to find a dead man in the middle of her tea shop, it’s going to take more than a strong Longjing to fix things. Knowing she’ll do a better job than the police possibly could – because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands – Vera decides it’s down to her to catch the killer.

Nobody spills the tea like this amateur sleuth.

What I Have to Say 

This book was wonderful, I loved the characters so much. Vera was like no other character I've seen before and yet I could imagine her perfectly. She had such life to her. I would love to go to her tea shop and try her tea, it sounds just like the sort of place I like to go. 

As with all mysteries, obviously, the case was important to the book. But I found the more we got into it, the less I was actually bothered by it. I didn't want to see it solved and see one of the characters I'd grown attached to locked up for murder! I loved them all. But the solution came and I was satisfied with it. It had just the right number of twists to stop it from being predictable and yet the clues were all there in the text. 

I think this is standalone, but I would quite like to see it become a series. Now Vera's got a taste for solving crimes will she really go back to just running the tea shop and managing the people in her life? I'm not ready to be done with this characters yet. 

 4 stars 

My thanks goes to HQ and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review. 

Stars and Smoke by Marie Lu

Pages: 336 

Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK 

Released: 6th of April 

The Hating Game meets Mission: Impossible in Stars and Smoke, a smoldering new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Marie Lu about a superstar tapped to become a secret agent and the reluctant young spy assigned to be his partner.

Meet Winter Young—rookie backup dancer turned global pop phenomenon. His star power has smashed records, selling out stadiums from LA to London. Now he’s bringing his swoon worthy assets to a whole new arena. . .

Infamous criminal tycoon Eli Morrison has just one weakness—his daughter, Penelope. And Penelope has just one wish for her nineteenth birthday—a private concert with Winter Young. When covert ops organization The Panacea Group approaches Winter with this once-in-a-lifetime chance to infiltrate Morrison’s inner circle, Winter must use his fame, cunning, and charisma to pull it off—only he won’t be on his own.

Posing as Winter’s bodyguard is the fiery Sydney Cossette, Panacea’s youngest spy. Sydney may be the only person alive impervious to Winter's charms, but as the mission brings them closer, she's forced to admit there's more to this A-lister than slick dance moves and a handsome face. Panacea's unlikeliest partners just might become its biggest heroes—and maybe even more—if they can survive each other first.

What I Have to Say 

I enjoyed this book, but it struck me as one that I would probably forget in time. The characters didn't stand out as anything special. The romance was good, I enjoyed it a lot, but I'm not really one to remember romance in books. 

An interesting premise: pop star Winter becoming a spy and working with Sydney to take down a criminal. Obviously it wasn't easy as their first plan and there were a lot of twists and turns along the way. I guessed one of the major plot points, which didn't ruin it for me, but it might have for some people. 

I honestly just don't have much to say about this one. It was a good read but nothing really stood out about it. 

 4 stars 

My thanks goes to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for providing me with this copy for review. 

Little Women (a retelling) by Laura Wood

Pages: 132 

Publisher: Barrington Stoke 

Released:  6th of April 2023 

Bestselling author Laura Wood brings the adventures of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy to even more readers in this beautiful retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s coming-of-age classic.

Little Women, the charming story of the brave and resilient March sisters, has been adored by generations of readers who have identified with the struggles of kind and pretty Meg; gentle, delicate Beth; precocious, artistic Amy; and of course wild, tomboyish Jo, determined to forge her own path and become a writer.

Follow the girls as they come of age during the American Civil War and fall in love with the story all over again in this retelling by award-winning writer Laura Wood.

What I Have to Say 

A heartwarming and faithful retelling, that captured the heart and soul of the original, this book is perfect for anyone who wants to read Little Women but finds the original a bit long. Whether for younger children, or anyone who finds reading a struggle, or even people who just want a taste of the book with setting aside the time to read the whole thing, this retelling covers all the important moments of the first half. 

I read the original book a while ago, so can't remember all the details, but the most important thing about the book to my mind is the relationships of the Marsh sisters. This book set them up perfectly and succinctly, getting enough on the page to show the different personalities and the ups and downs of their relationships with each other, while still remembering that the reader is young or possibly dyslexic. It has all the intricate details while catering to the reader. 

I definitely would recommend this to anyone struggling with the full book. I really hope they continue on and do the second half, originally called Good Wives. 

4 stars 

My thanks goes to Netgalley and Barrington Stoke for providing me with this copy for review. 

The First Move by Jenny Ireland

Pages: 368 

Publisher: Penguin Random House Children's UK 

Released: 13th of April 2023 

Juliet believes girls like her - girls with arthritis - don't get their own love stories. She exists at the edges of her friends' social lives, skipping parties to play online chess under a pseudonym with strangers around the world. There, she isn't just 'the girl with crutches'.

Ronan is the new kid: good looking, smart, a bad boy plagued by guilt over what happened to his brother Ciaran. Chesslife is his escape; there, he's not just 'the boy with the brother'.

Juliet thinks Ronan thinks someone like Ronan could never be interested in someone like her - and she wouldn't want him to be anyway because he always acts like he's cooler than everyone else. Whereas, Ronan thinks life is already too complicated for dating and just wants to keep his head down at school.

Little do they know they've already discovered each other online, and have more in common than they think . . .

What I Have to Say 

This book was so easy to sink into and get lost in. The voices of the characters were so strong and they were so relatable. 

I enjoyed the disability rep, it was well done. I do feel like all the disability rep is taking the same vein at the moment. That the character feels like a burden and hates their disability and though this is a really valid way to feel, I'm seriously ready for a character who's accepted themself and is more positive, so that we can see how much more they are than their disability. The books about Neurodiversity went through this phase too and I don't mean that there isn't any place for books about coming to term with disability, but there should be more to the genre. 

I liked the general message of this book. That everyone has something going on in their lives and that asking for help isn't a bad thing. Nothing excuses the ableism that takes place in this book, but it was good to remember that sometimes people have reason for this. 

In all, I really just loved this book especially the online messaging. Great to see some disability rep. 

4 stars 

My thanks goes to Netgalley and Penguin for providing me with this copy for review. 

Forget Me Not by Alyson Derrick

Pages: 320 

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's UK 

Released: 4th of April 2023 

What would you do if you forgot the love of your life existed?

Stevie and Nora had a love. A secret, epic, once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. They also had a plan: to leave their small, ultra-conservative town and families behind after graduation and move to California, where they could finally stop hiding that love.

But then Stevie has a terrible fall and the last two years of her life are erased overnight. Suddenly Stevie finds herself in a life she doesn’t quite understand – she’s estranged from her parents, drifting away from her friends and dating a boy she can’t remember crushing on. She’s headed towards a future that isn’t at all what her fifteen-year-old self would have envisioned.

And Nora finds herself … forgotten.

Can the two find their way back together through a lost memory?

A romantic ode to the strength of love and the power of choosing each other, against odds and obstacles, again and again.

TW: homophobia, racism, memory loss 

What I Have to Say 

This book was beautiful. The ending was perfect and made me cry so hard. I loved it so much. It was a wonderful story of sapphic love against all odds. Against a backdrop of racism and homophobia, it's about two girls tragically separated by memory loss and having to find each other again. 

I wouldn't like to speak about the medical stuff in the book. I don't know how accurate it is for memory loss and recovery, but it was a really interesting plot device and made for a really good story. It was in a way a coming of age story because it was her finding out that she was gay all over again. 

The only thing that made me pause was the fact that she was Asian. I loved the representation as it's always important to see in all sorts of books, but there was no explanation of her background. I was confused as to whether her parents or her mother were Asian or if she was adopted, because it felt like they fit into the town and there was no talk of them facing racial abuse or anything. It just left me confused about how it all fitted together. 

I really enjoyed it though and would definitely read it again! 

4 stars 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for providing me with this copy for review. 

The Sharp Edge of Silence by Cameron Kelly Rosenblum

Pages: 496 

Publisher: Hot Key Books 

Released: 11th of April 2023 

Students at Lycroft Phelps are marked for success.

As a straight-A student and girlfriend of the school's star rower, Charlotte believes in what the school has to offer. Meanwhile, scholarship student Max is struggling. Until he's asked to join the rowing team offering him popularity - but at what cost? Then there's Quinn, a sixth-generation legacy student, who should be able to lay claim to the school in a way others can't. Who instead must watch the boy who assaulted her continue to play at the top of the school's food chain. Only in the dead of night does Q realize the solution to her suffering: Colin Pearce must die.

But Lycroft Phelps has more than one dark secret at its heart, and as the three students uncover just how far the school will go to keep those ugly truths hidden, there's a lot more than reputation at stake...

TW: Misogyny, panic attacks/ disorders, rape 

What I Have to Say 

I will never get tired of reading books about girls bringing down the system and getting revenge on boys for all the shit they put us through. The only downside was how long it took to actually get to the plot of bringing down the system. It felt like there was a lot of set up with the different relationships and the crew team. I don't know if anything could have been taken out, because a huge part of the plot was Max getting caught up in the crew team and that was very necessary, but it just slowed down the book a lot. 

I wasn't sure at first about having a male voice in a book about rape, but I really really liked Max's POV. I think it really added a lot to the book. Because it showed how boys, even boys who know better, can be pulled into the toxic masculinity and become part of it. It was good to see one of the "good ones" and how easy it can be to stand by and not stop things like this from happening. 

In all, I think this was handled really well. I liked how the emphasis wasn't on the rape. The rape had happened before the book even started and was only shown in flashbacks. The emphasis was on the fall out and how to stop it happening again. 

Definitely on my list of best feminist reads of all time. 

4 stars 

My thanks goes to Netgalley and Hot Key Books for providing me with this copy for review. 

Let's Play Murder by Kesia Lupo

Pages: 400 

Publisher: Bloomsbury YA 

Released: 13th of April 2023 

Video games have never been more murderous.

Veronica wakes up trapped with four strangers in a sprawling manor house in a snow storm with a dead body, a mystery right out of an Agatha Christie novel. It feels so real - but it isn't. This is VR and this is THE Game; a rumoured Easter Egg hidden in other VR games that draws you into a competition for a prize beyond your wildest dreams. And there's no escaping the VR world until the Game is won.

But while Veronica and her fellow players are trying to figure out the puzzle, something is not right in the VR world. Blackouts, glitches, NPCs acting strange, and a mysterious figure haunting their footsteps. Then when a player dies, and also dies in real life, all hell breaks loose.

Without warning, the game Veronica thought she was playing gets overshadowed by a much darker, and much more real, mystery: who is killing us?'

It may not be a game Veronica wanted to play, but it's one that she has to win - or die trying.

What I Have to Say 

This was such an interesting concept! I loved the blend of genres, how it was a mystery but it was also blended with thriller and sci fi themes with an heavy mix of horror added to the balance.  The concept gripped me straight away, but sadly it didn't keep me hooked. The ending completely felt flat to me even though I didn't really see it coming. 

I also really hated some of the characters. The worst was Charlie, she just rubbed me the wrong way from the moment she appeared. I don't think we were meant to like her honestly, but she just annoyed me. 

I was most put off though by the characters using the word "psycho" and "psychotic". These words have long been misused, especially in the horror genre and it's time we took them out of colloquial vocabulary for good. Psychosis is a very real condition and it doesn't even slightly make someone a serial killer.  

3 stars 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Bloomsbury for providing me with this copy for review.