The Twisted Mark by Sophie Williamson

Pages: 379 

Publisher: Storm Publishing 

Released: 26th of July 2023 

Gabriel’s eyes haven’t left my face. There’s not much he can do to me that he’s not already entitled my body and my magic, served up on a plate in return for my brother’s freedom. I swallow hard. I’m hardly naïve—but I’ve never gone all the way. I can’t back out now. I can’t let my family down...

Sadie Sadler lives in the big city. Takes the train to work each day. Drinks fancy coffee. Does yoga… and never, ever does magic, lest it leads Gabriel Thornber straight to her door.

Sadie’s family have used their magic to protect the small northern town of Mannith for centuries. But now, Sadie’s brother Brendan is on trial for murder, and Gabriel, the charismatic and sinister head of the Sadlers’ only rivals, is moving to take the town. Only Sadie has both the knowledge to save Brendan and the magical strength to face down Gabriel.

The trouble is, there’s a good reason Sadie left home and turned her back on she bargained away her powers and her body to Gabriel to save her damn brother the last time he got in trouble. If she comes home, Gabriel will try to collect… but there’s no way she’ll allow her brother to rot in jail or her family’s strength to wane.

Returning in disguise, Sadie’s plan to save Brendan and get out is tested as she’s dragged back into a world of magic and power, with Gabriel at its centre. Battling both her long-standing terror of him and a growing, dark attraction, she must decide who Mannith’s real villains are and how far she’ll go for her family.

A promise made… a magical debt unpaid. This is a fight that could cost Sadie everything.

What I Have to Say 

I really, really wish I hadn't bothered finishing this book. The Characters who were meant to be "morally grey" were not. They were despicable. Writing morally grey characters does not mean you make them do a terrible thing and then make out that they're not so bad after all. 

Gabriel wasn't the only one who was bad, but he made me feel really queasy every time he was on screen. He (at the very least) threatened rape and played mind games with the main character and her family, so much so that the main character runs away and hides to avoid being raped by this guy. Then the rest of the book is basically the author trying to make out that it's not as bad as it sounds and making Gabriel a hero at every opportunity.  

It's a real shame because I liked Sadie a lot as a character and if the author had just leaned into it and made Gabriel a villain, I could have really been into it. 

2 stars 

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

The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang

Pages: 496 

Publisher: Solaris 

Released: 17th of August 2023 

Inspired by a classic of martial arts literature, S. L. Huang's The Water Outlaws are bandits of devastating ruthlessness, unseemly femininity, dangerous philosophies, and ungovernable gender who are ready to make history—or tear it apart.

In the jianghu, you break the law to make it your own.

Lin Chong is an expert arms instructor, training the Emperor's soldiers in sword and truncheon, battle axe and spear, lance and crossbow. Unlike bolder friends who flirt with challenging the unequal hierarchies and values of Imperial society, she believes in keeping her head down and doing her job.

Until a powerful man with a vendetta rips that carefully-built life away.

Disgraced, tattooed as a criminal, and on the run from an Imperial Marshall who will stop at nothing to see her dead, Lin Chong is recruited by the Bandits of Liangshan. Mountain outlaws on the margins of society, the Liangshan Bandits proclaim a belief in justice—for women, for the downtrodden, for progressive thinkers a corrupt Empire would imprison or destroy. They’re also murderers, thieves, smugglers, and cutthroats.

Apart, they love like demons and fight like tigers. Together, they could bring down an empire.

What I Have to Say 

I enjoyed this book a lot, though I found it a bit slow. I also found the names sometimes a bit confusing as there were a lot of them and  some of them were very similar but by focusing on just the main characters, I found it wasn't too hard to keep track. It was just some of the background characters I had to remind myself who they were the few times they came up. 

I found the Liangshan beautiful from the start. It was wonderful that they had somewhere for those betrayed by the empire to come together for a fresh start, where any past lives or crimes were forgiven and they were able to fight for a better future. It was great to see a group of mostly women and also a group where transwomen were just accepted and seeing solely as women and not anything else. 

I really really liked the ending. I wasn't sure if it was going to end happily or not. I could see it going both ways. But the way it ended was just an absolutely perfect message of hope, justice and just so fitting for all the characters. 

4 stars 

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

 

The Sentence by Christina Dalcher

Pages: 336 

Publisher: HQ 

Released: 17th of August 2023 

A law intended to end capital punishment.

Prosecutors who seek the death penalty put their lives on the line if the guilty are later found innocent.

A lawyer convinced beyond reasonable doubt.

Justine Boucher is presented with overwhelming evidence in a brutal murder case. Her request for execution is granted.

But what if she’s wrong?

What I Have to Say 

I'd forgotten quite how good Christina Dalcher's books are. The Sentence was well written with well presented arguments and very much intended to make you think. It was interesting to me how a book that so staunchly anti- capital punishment, also looked at the arguments for it.  

This book is dark. I would definitely say don't read it if you're at all squeamish about certain crimes because some bits of the book go into detail about heinous crime. Let's just say, I was really glad I was reading a fictional book about fictional people at some points and while I know that there are real crimes that are just as horrible, I can avoid reading them. 

The ending of the book was understandable. I could see how she was going to end it a few pages before the end and while it frustrated me endlessly, I don't think she could have ended it any other way. It was an ending that suited the book, even if not one that entirely satisfies the reader. 

I'm really glad I had the chance to review this book as I enjoyed reading it immensely and it reminded me how much I originally enjoyed the previous book of hers that I reviewed. 

5 stars 

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

Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons

Pages: 336f 

Publisher: Manilla Press 

Released: 3rd of August 2023 

Was the greatest ever love story a lie?

The first time Romeo Montague sees young Rosaline Capulet he falls instantly in love.

Rosaline, headstrong and independent, is unsure of Romeo's attentions but with her father determined that she join a convent, this handsome and charming stranger offers her the chance of a different life.

Soon though, Rosaline begins to doubt all that Romeo has told her. She breaks off the match, only for Romeo's gaze to turn towards her cousin, thirteen-year-old Juliet. Gradually Rosaline realises that it is not only Juliet's reputation at stake, but her life.

With only hours remaining before she will be banished behind the nunnery walls, will Rosaline save Juliet from her Romeo? Or can this story only ever end one way?

A subversive, powerful untelling of Shakespeare's best-known tale, narrated by a fierce, forgotten voice: this is Rosaline's story.

What I Have to Say 

This was so interesting. I love a retelling with some grit, really getting down to the practicalities of things and showing how unhealthy something is that has been so romanticised. The author took a deep dive into the original Shakespeare and it shows in the retelling. Picking up on things like the fact that Romeo's age is never mentioned but Juliet's is emphasised and reading something wholly new into the text. 

Romeo's villainous nature was really well done. Even if you don't read the blurb before going in (or you read it a while ago and only vaguely remember it, like I did), you pick up very quickly that Romeo is not what he seems. There are little seeds of bad behaviour spread throughout the text that quickly builds up to a full picture even before the truth is revealed to Rosaline. I don't think I've ever been quite so desperate for a character to go to a nunnery before! 

Most of all, this made me want to read Romeo and Juliet again and see all the details that the author has drawn out for this retelling. I want to see it in a new light after reading this and I think that's a beautiful thing. 

4 stars 

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

 

Death at the Party by Amy Stuart

Pages: 400 

Publisher: Penguin 

Released: 3rd of August 2023 

THE PLANNING TOOK MONTHS. THE MURDER JUST MOMENTS . . .

Nadine Walsh is determined to make her summer garden party the event of the year.

Everyone deserves a celebration after the year they've had. A chance to forget.

As she prepares to welcome her guests, however, Nadine can't help but be distracted. Her husband is of little help to her. Her two grown children are consumed with their own concerns.

But it's Nadine's own secrets that threaten to destroy her perfect party.

By the end of the night, Nadine will be standing over a dead body in the basement.

But which of her guests will she have murdered? And why?

What I Have to Say 

I don't think there was a single character I liked in this book. Maybe the daughter or the niece, but they didn't get a lot of screen time and I'm sure if they had, I would have hated them too. 

I didn't warm to Nadine at all. She seemed to hate and judge all of her neighbours, even the one she was having the affair with and that just set off on a bad foot to me. Then the story was massively predictable. It didn't really matter to me which neighbour she killed because all the ones it seemed likely to be were very interchangeable. 

Honestly I was just bored through most of this book. There was no tension there, not much desire to know more. I'm giving it three stars because it wasn't badly written, but I didn't enjoy it very much. 

3 stars 

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

Her Radiant Curse by Elizabeth Lim

Pages: 384 

Publisher: Hodderscape 

Released: 29th of August 2023 

From the New York Times bestselling author of Six Crimson Cranes comes a tale of two sisters - one as beautiful as the other is monstrous - who must fight to save each other when a betrothal contest gone wrong unleashes an evil that could sever their bond forever.

One must fall for the other to rise.

Channi was not born a monster. But when her own father offers her in sacrifice to the Demon Witch, she is forever changed. Cursed with a serpent's face, Channi is the exact opposite of her beautiful sister, Vanna-the only person in the village who looks at Channi and doesn't see a monster. The only person she loves and trusts.

Now seventeen, Vanna is to be married off in a vulgar contest that will enrich the coffers of the village leaders. Only Channi, who's had to rely on her strength and cunning all these years, can defend her sister against the cruelest of the suitors. But in doing so, she becomes the target of his wrath - launching a grisly battle royale, a quest over land and sea, a romance between sworn enemies, and a choice that will strain Channi's heart to its breaking point.

Weaving together elements of The Selection and Ember in the Ashes with classic tales like Beauty and the Beast, Helen of Troy, and Asian folklore, Elizabeth Lim is at the absolute top of her game in this thrilling yet heart-wrenching fantasy that explores the dark side of beauty and the deepest bonds of sisterhood.

What I Have to Say 

This book broke me. I thought that I would be okay. I knew how it ended from reading Six Crimson Cranes and The Dragon's Promise. I was prepared. Or at least I thought I was. In reality it was so intensely tragic. 

The thing I loved most about it was all the little nods to Six Crimson Cranes. The bowl that Vanna sleeps with over her breast to stop the light keeping her awake. Shiori's father coming to see Vanna and offering a crane sculpture. All of it made me so happy, because I loved Six Crimson Cranes so much. 

I was really worried it wouldn't live up to my expectations, but it did. It may not have been as perfect as Six Crimson Cranes, but it stood out as a book in it's own right and had the beautiful writing style that I've come to expect from Elizabeth Lim. I loved Channi's character, so different from Shiori, but still someone you could really like and root for. 

Honestly it was better than I ever could have hoped for a prequel. 

 

5 stars 

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

Zhara by S. Jae- Jones

Pages: 416

Publisher: Wednesday Books 

Released: 1st of August 2023 

Sailor Moon meets Cinder in Guardians of Dawn: Zhara, the start of a new, richly imagined fantasy series from S. Jae-Jones, the New York Times bestselling author of Wintersong.

Magic flickers.

Love flames.

Chaos reigns.

Magic is forbidden throughout the Morning Realms. Magicians are called abomination, and blamed for the plague of monsters that razed the land twenty years before.

Jin Zhara already had enough to worry about—appease her stepmother’s cruel whims, looking after her blind younger sister, and keeping her own magical gifts under control—without having to deal with rumors of monsters re-emerging in the marsh. But when a chance encounter with an easily flustered young man named Han brings her into contact with a secret magical liberation organization called the Guardians of Dawn, Zhara realizes there may be more to these rumors than she thought. A mysterious plague is corrupting the magicians of Zanhei and transforming them into monsters, and the Guardians of Dawn believe a demon is responsible.

In order to restore harmony and bring peace to the world, Zhara must discover the elemental warrior within, lest the balance between order and chaos is lost forever.

What I Have to Say 

This was the perfect blend of a magical girl anime and fantasy novel. You could really see how the author was inspired by the magical girl genre and used it as the base of this great new series. I loved how she even included animal companions for the girls to have though I was a bit sad that they didn't talk. 

The language used was a big part of this book, with the author trying to give a nod to the more formal language that would be used in the setting. I thought it worked really well. Especially the honorific avoidance of personal pronouns. It added to the various characters relationships and tension. I also have to mention Xu, the non-binary character who I loved. 

I did feel that occasionally plot points were forgotten about for a bit, especially with Han and Xu getting out from the palace. There was so much emphasis on them dressing in disguise and sneaking out and then it was just ignored for half the book. 

It was a really strong start to the series though and I can't wait to read on. 

3 stars 

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