Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington

Pages: 416 

Publisher: Penguin 

Released: 27th of July 2023 

*Squid Game at an American High School - the twisty YA thriller that everyone will be talking about in 2023.*

Twelve girls. Three rounds. One ultimate prize . . . for the last one left alive.

Edgewater Academy is a school for the very rich and very powerful.

Adina Walker is neither of those things. Alone and outcast, when she gets into a fight with a fellow student (and former friend), her scholarship to a top college is revoked, and her world falls apart.

Until she's invited to The Finish.

Annual games for the brightest and the best, hosted by power-family The Remingtons, the winning prize for The Finish is everything Adina wants. This is her chance at the life she's dreamed of.

Then the contestants start to die.

Love, revenge, pride - all are on the line. This isn't a game any more . . .

Horrific and engrossing in equal measure, THEIR VICIOUS GAMES is also a thoughtful and clever commentary on race and class. Ace of Spades meets The Inheritance Games, this is a game you'll want to see through to the finish.

What I Have to Say 

This book was amazing! I honestly keep waiting to get bored of reading about people killing each other in deadly competitions, but I never do! This one sucked me in from the start with the voice of the main character. She was sarky, compassionate and in many ways innocent. I can't really say what it was that set her apart but it was just fantastic. 

This book also surprised me. Through most of the book, I thought I knew what was going to happen. But there were mysteries there and twists that changed things. It felt fresh and original, which is impressive from an idea that has been done so often before. 

Just everything about this book was completely perfect. I'm so glad that I read it. 

5 stars 

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

The Final Strife by Saara El- Arifi

Pages: 467 

Publisher: Harper Voyager 

Released: 23rd of June 2022 

In the first book of a visionary African and Arabian-inspired fantasy trilogy, three women band together against a cruel Empire that divides people by blood.

Red is the blood of the elite, of magic, of control.

Blue is the blood of the poor, of workers, of the resistance.

Clear is the blood of the servants, of the crushed, of the invisible.

Sylah dreams of days growing up in the resistance, being told she would spark a revolution that would free the Empire from the red-blooded ruling classes’ tyranny. That spark was extinguished the day she watched her family murdered before her eyes.

Anoor has been told she’s nothing, no one, a disappointment by the only person who matters: her mother, the most powerful ruler in the Empire. But dust always rises in a storm.

Hassa moves through the world unseen by upper classes, so she knows what it means to be invisible. But invisibility has its uses: It can hide the most dangerous of secrets, secrets that can reignite a revolution.

As the Empire begins a set of trials of combat and skill designed to find its new leaders, the stage is set for blood to flow, power to shift, and cities to burn.

TW: Addiction, Drug Abuse, Violence, Child Abuse, Bodily Harm, Execution

What I Have to Say 

This book was powerful, but not for the faint of heart. For one thing, the children of the lowest class are maimed at birth and are left disabled for the rest of their lives. This is not a light hearted book at all. If you're looking for a light, fun romp, look elsewhere. 

I really enjoyed reading it though. It made the points about racism and classism in a really fascinating fantasy setting. The way the system was set up was both intriguing and well thought out. There were a few times I had questions about certain aspects of it, but all of them were answered by the end of the book. 

I listened to the audio of this book and really liked the songs in it. They got stuck in my head a bit, but were really enjoyable. I don't know if they'd be so enjoyable in print form though because they were really long. 

I would definitely advise the reader to be in the right headspace for this book, but I really did enjoy it and it made me think a lot. 

4 stars 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Harper Voyager 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. 

Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean

Synopsis (from Goodreads) 

Pages: 384 

Publisher: Gollancz

Released: 8th of November 2018 

In a palace of illusions, nothing is what it seems.

Each generation, a competition is held to find the next empress of Honoku. The rules are simple. Survive the palace’s enchanted seasonal rooms. Conquer Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. Marry the prince. All are eligible to compete—all except yōkai, supernatural monsters and spirits whom the human emperor is determined to enslave and destroy. 

Mari has spent a lifetime training to become empress. Winning should be easy. And it would be, if she weren't hiding a dangerous secret. Mari is a yōkai with the ability to transform into a terrifying monster. If discovered, her life will be forfeit. As she struggles to keep her true identity hidden, Mari’s fate collides with that of Taro, the prince who has no desire to inherit the imperial throne, and Akira, a half-human, half-yōkai outcast.

Torn between duty and love, loyalty and betrayal, vengeance and forgiveness, the choices of Mari, Taro, and Akira will decide the fate of Honoku.

What I Have to Say 

This is definitely one of my new favourite books. Set in a world where yōkai live alongside humans, mistrusted and feared so much that they are enslaved, their powers bond by metal collars, it was so interesting to see the tensions between them and the ways that the different yōkai were fighting back against the system. 

I loved Mari. She was a beautiful character with so much strength in some ways and so much vulnerability in others. I loved that she struggled with her yōkai abilities and how she was so kind and different from the rest of the women in Tsuma. It was a really great take on the Crane Wife and showed the strength of women taking power back from the men who would enslave them. 

I loved it all. From the competition between the girls in the season rooms to the range of characters and their interactions in and out of the palace to the perfect ending, satisfying and compelling right to the last page. I loved the romance between Mari and Taro and was heartbroken by the way things changed over the course of the novel. 

There wasn't a character in this book that I didn't love (or love to hate) and I adored the little snips of stories about the gods throughout the book. This is definitely a book that any fantasy lover should pick up. 

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

Mini- Interview and Giveaway! The Walled City by Ryan Graudin

Last week I went to I blogger event in London. The event was a wonderful Afternoon Tea with a bunch of Bloggers and the author Ryan Graudin, kindly organized by the ever lovely Nina Douglas of Orion Books. The event was exciting and some of you may have seen pictures (seen below)  from the cover reveal we did of Graudin's new book Wolf by Wolf, which I was thrilled to be a part of.

Probably the most exciting thing (other than getting a proof copy of Wolf by Wolf)  was that I got a few moments alone with Ryan Graudin to conduct a mini- interview. I kept it short out of respect for the other bloggers (and that I couldn't think of that many questions). I also didn't have the forethought to record the interview so everything is going to have to be paraphrased. 

To tie in with the giveaway, most of the questions are about her previous book The Walled City. 

Were there any parts of the book that you found particularly emotional to write about? 

Yes. The scenes in the brothel with Mae Lin and Ambassador Osamu were particularly difficult. At times she found herself physically reviled. Some of the things that Jin had to go through were hard to write about, but nothing was as hard as Mae Lin. 

Were there parts of the book that you embellished to make the story work better? 

A lot of names were changed for the book, including not using the name of the city that The Walled City was based on. The Brotherhood are symbolically the Triad. She tried to keep checking the facts as much as she could, but it was hard to keep everything accurate. There were things that she got wrong in drafts that she hadn't even thought about (such as the fact that cicadas cannot grip bamboo wood as it's too hard). She also change a lot of names during the process because she found they weren't Cantonese. 

One instance where she took creative license was the fact that she wasn't sure if Jin could really get to the city on her bike as it's a long way, but as it works best for the story, she kept it in. 

Alternatively, was there anything you didn't include? 

She was careful not to make things too graphic as she wanted to impact on her readers rather than shock them. 

Also, as she knew a lot of women are constantly going through the things Mae Lin goes through, she made an effort to be careful with what she was writing. 

I asked her if there was anything she wanted to say about Wolf by Wolf. 

She found it hard to find the right niche for it as she hasn't seen much alternative World War Two literature in YA before, especially ones involving the supernatural elements that she included. She spoke about the American tag line "Inglorious Bastards meets Code Name Verity" which she hadn't seen or read respectively. She also talked about the X-men similarities. 

Giveaway - Signed Copy of The Walled City 

- UK entries online. Sorry guys! But I can't afford international postage! 

- Will end on 2nd of May (two weeks from now) 

-I'll probably throw in some origami bookmarks. 

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Blogoversary Competition!

What's Up For Grabs

• The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

• The Lost Boy by Karen Mahoney - teaser.

• Various bookmarks picked up at events and four origami bookmarks I made myself

• Angel Fire badges

• Assorted Postcards picked up at events

• Karen Mahoney cover stickers

•  Frostfire fridge magnet

How to Enter

Just fill out the form below! Winner will be announced here on December 1st.
- International entries welcome.  

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