Books Via Ashley

The Queens of Innis Lear by Tessa Gratton Synopsis (from Goodreads) The erratic decisions of a prophecy-obsessed king have drained Innis Lear of its wild magic, leaving behind a trail of barren crops and despondent subjects. Enemy nations circle the once-bountiful isle, sensing its growing vulnerability, hungry to control the ideal port for all trade routes. The king's three daughters—battle-hungry Gaela, master manipulator Regan, and restrained, starblessed Elia—know the realm's only chance of resurrection is to crown a new sovereign, proving a strong hand can resurrect magic and defend itself. But their father will not choose an heir until the longest night of the year, when prophecies align and a poison ritual can be enacted. Refusing to leave their future in the hands of blind faith, the daughters of Innis Lear prepare for war—but regardless of who wins the crown, the shores of Innis will weep the blood of a house divided. Review Holy. Freaking. Crap. THIS BOOK. ...

Series Saturday: Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan Books in Series The Lightning Thief The Sea of Monsters The Titan's Curse The Battle of the Labyrinth The Last Olympian Synopsis When Percy Jackson finds out he in the son of Poseidon, the Greek sea god, he is sent off to Camp Half-Blood, a place where demigods like himself can train for be battle and be safe from the monsters in the world. But the Titan Kronos is rising, and Percy and his other demigod friends must complete a series of quests if they want to save the world! Review So I've heard of this series for years and years and yet I just never picked it up. I got the first book in a Kindle deal, but then it sat there on my Kindle for two years until I finally decided, okay, let's do this. I read The Lightning Thief  and I was HOOKED. I devoured the rest of the series as quickly as I could get my hands on them. This was SUCH a great series! I've always loved Greek mythology, and Ri...

No Good Deed by Kara Connelly *I received a free ARC  from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review * This book releases 18 July 2017 from Delacorte Press. Synopsis  ( from Goodreads ) Ellie Hudson is the front-runner on the road to gold for the U.S. Olympic archery team. All she has to do is qualify at the trials in jolly old England. When Ellie makes some kind of crazy wrong turn in the caverns under Nottingham Castle—yes, that Nottingham—she ends up in medieval England. Ellie doesn’t care how she got to the Middle Ages; she just wants to go home before she gets the plague. But people are suffering in Nottingham, and Ellie has the skills to make it better. What’s an ace archer to do while she’s stuck in Sherwood Forest but make like Robin Hood? Pulled into a past life as an outlaw, Ellie feels her present fading away next to daring do-gooding and a devilishly handsome knight. Only, Ellie is on the brink of rewriting history, and when she pic...

Defy The Stars - Claudia Gray Synopsis  ( from Goodreads ) "She's a soldier. He's a machine. Noemi and Abel are enemies in an interstellar war, forced by chance to work together as they embark on a daring journey through the stars. Their efforts would end the fighting for good, but they’re not without sacrifice. The stakes are even higher than either of them first realized, and the more time they spend together, the more they’re forced to question everything they’d been taught was true." Review This was my first Claudia Gray book and now I have to go read everything she's ever written. But seriously, this was some great sci-fi fun. I loved every minute of this book! The book is told from two viewpoints: Noemi and Abel. They start off as enemies, learn to trust each other, become friends, and fall in love. Both characters start off one way and through each other grow and become better and realize important things about themselves. This is what I love to...

Strange the Dreamer - Laini Taylor Synopsis ( from Goodreads ) "The dream chooses the dreamer, not the other way around—and Lazlo Strange, war orphan and junior librarian, has always feared that his dream chose poorly. Since he was five years old he’s been obsessed with the mythic lost city of Weep, but it would take someone bolder than he to cross half the world in search of it. Then a stunning opportunity presents itself, in the person of a hero called the Godslayer and a band of legendary warriors, and he has to seize his chance or lose his dream forever." Review " On the second sabbat of Twelfthmoon, in the city of Weep, a girl fell from the sky. Her skin was blue, her blood was red. " How about THAT for an opening line? (read the rest of the prologue here ) And that GORGEOUS cover! This is the UK cover and I am in love. Usually I don't really care about covers one way or another but I can always appreciate a beautiful book. Ahhhh what ca...

When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi Synopsis ( From Goodreads ) "At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor making a living treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live." Review The writing is beautiful . With the same delicacy as performing an intesive surgery, Kalanithi writes his thoughts and experiences surrounding his illness. The words and prose are exquisite, made even more so by the depth of what they convey. This is one of the most poignant, beautiful, heart-wrenching things I have ever read. In the introduction, written by Abraham Verghese, one of Kalanithi's colleagues, you as the reader are invited to read Kalanithi's words as a conversation between you and him, your thoughts and feelings being your half. When I read that, I was unsure of what he meant, but in reading this short ...

Behind The Throne  - K. B. Wagers Synopsis ( From Goodreads ) "Quick, sarcastic, and lethal, Hailimi Bristol doesn't suffer fools gladly. She has made a name for herself in the galaxy for everything except what she was born to do: rule the Indranan Empire. That is, until two Trackers drag her back to her home planet to take her rightful place as the only remaining heir. But trading her ship for a palace has more dangers than Hail could have anticipated. Caught in a web of plots and assassination attempts, Hail can't do the one thing she did twenty years ago: run away. She'll have to figure out who murdered her sisters if she wants to survive." Review What. A. Book. As an avid Star Wars and Science Fiction lover, I was enthralled from page one. The plot is a tense political drama--someone wants to overthrow the Empire and they have to find out who before they get killed. To be honest, it's a simple plot, but it was very well paced and definitely ...

Crooked Kingdom - Leigh Bardugo *** This is the sequel to SIX OF CROWS, so SPOILERS ahead!*** Synopsis After risking everything at the Ice Court, the gang finds themselves double-crossed out of the money they were promised and Inej held hostage. Now back on the streets of Ketterdam, they find themselves up against impossible odds... But when you can't beat the odds, you change the game. Review Six of Crows was an amazing book: an Ocean's Eleven  type heist set in a rich fantasy world with a gang of six memorable and witty characters. Like, guys, I really liked Six of Crows. And rereading it this year made me like it even more. That's why I can't emphasize enough how much Crooked Kingdom blew my mind . In Crooked Kingdom, everything I loved about Six of Crows is taken and expounded upon and blown beyond my expectations. The plot is  tense . They come up with these insane plans, things go horribly wrong, and you're wondering, "How the hell...

Arcanum Unbounded - Brandon Sanderson Synopsis A collection of Sanderson's "short" stories and novellas set in his Cosmere universe. Review It's no secret that Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite authors. His writing is stupendous, his stories are incredible and his plot twists are mind-blowing. Rarely can I figure out exactly where the story is headed, but I am always exceptionally pleased when I get there! Sanderson isn't as known for his "short" stories. Probably because they aren't short. Two of them in this collection clock in around 40k words, which is approaching the line between a novella and a novel. A few of the stories ( The Emperor's Soul, Sixth of the Dusk, Shadows for Silence ) can be read with no knowledge of his other books, and would perhaps be a good introduction to his writing. Those ones you can get individually or are published in other anthologies. I myself had already read a few of the stories, but withi...

A Court of Mist and Fury - Sarah J. Maas Warning: This is Book #2 in the series, so there are some *spoilers*.  Title is abbreviated as "ACOMAF" Synopsis Picking up where A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR) left off, Feyre has survived the ordeal Under The Mountain, defeating the dark High Fae Amarantha, and has returned to the Spring Court. But she can't forget the horrible things she had to do to save her love, Tamlin, and all of the Fae. She also has a bargain with Rhysand, the High Lord of the Night Court, that she can't break. As she's walking down the aisle for her wedding to Tamlin, Rhy calls in their deal, and Feyre is forced to navigate dangerous politics, her burgeoning magic, and an even greater threat than the one she already faced. Review First off, WOW. I read the first book, ACOTAR, earlier this year, and I really enjoyed it. It started off as a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, and then took a very different and much darker tu...

The Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer Time for Series Saturday ! This is one of the new features I'm going to start including on my blog, where I review a series as a whole, rather than just the individual books within it. The Lunar Chronicles is a series that I’ve been hearing about for years . I knew it was a retelling of various fairytales and for some reason, it just really didn’t catch my interest. However, the first book, " Cinder ", was on sale one day for Kindle and I bought it on the fly. It then sat in my "To Read" folder for over a year and a half. One day, I was in a book funk where none of the current books I had out from the library were really satisying the mood and feel I was angling for (I think avid book readers know what I’m talking about). As I scrolled through my "To Read" folder, I saw "Cinder" and thought, "Well, might as well see how this is." Instantly hooked. Set in a somewhat distant future...

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett Synopsis Bulikov was once the city at the center of the most powerful nation on earth, a nation given power by their gods. But then those Divines were killed, and now the tables have turned.  The once great Continent has fallen to poverty and disease, its very reality broken, while the once oppressed Saypuri rule over them. Shara Thivani comes to the city as an unimposing junior diplomat, but secretly she's a covert agent sent to investigate the murder of an esteemed colleague. As she digs through the unrest that boils under the surface of the city, she discovers tangled webs of rebellious plots, and indications that the gods may not all be as dead as they had thought. Review What a book! Bennett's easy prose drew me right into the story. His characters were very relaxed and human, the dialogue subtly humorous. The pacing was very well done, keeping me engaged even while the characters are doing mundane things. Interspersed ...

Wolf by Wolf by Ryan Graudin Synopsis It's 1956, and Hitler won WWII. Every year, the Axis powers (the Third Reich and Imperial Japan) hold a motorcycle race across the two continents. The victor gets to attend a fancy ball in Tokyo and have a meeting with the Führer himself. Enter Yael, a Jew whose time in a concentration camp as a medical experiment left her with the ability to skinshift. Her goal? Win the race and kill Hitler. To enter the race, she poses as the previous year's winner, Adele Wolfe. But things prove even more challenging when Adele's brother enters the race, and Yael finds out that Adele had secrets of her own. Review I love books that take history and say "What if..." and create an entirely new sequence of events. I think the events surrounding WWII are especially interesting due to the enormous impact the war and the outcome had on the world. I had been eagerly waiting to read this book since it came out in October and I was not d...

Partials - Dan Wells This is Book 1 in the Partials Sequence trilogy Synopsis In the near future, scientist have created super-humans, called Partials, which they used as soldiers in a great war against China. Then, denied rights as human beings, the Partials fight against their human creators. The war ends when a huge virus has wipes out 99.9% of the human population. The people left (in the US at least) have formed a society on Long Island, while the remaining Partials occupy Manhattan and other cities. Unfortunately, all new human babies being born die within a day from the virus. This means extinction for humans is on the horizon. The Partials face a similar dilemma: They were built with an expiration date and are also beginning to die out. Kira is a teen who works in the hospital and is studying the virus, determined to find a cure. While out on a mission, she and her friends capture a Partial, Samm, who helps lead to a discovery about the virus and the origins of the ...

Shadows of Self - Brandon Sanderson This is the second book in a series, so potential Spoilers for the first book, Alloy of Law. Synopsis Waxillium Ladrian is back in Elendel a few months after the events in Alloy of Law . He's trying to settle into normal life, but obviously failing. He and his best friend, Wayne, use their powers to help the police force chase down criminals in the city. Marasi Combs, now a constable, joins them. In doing so, they uncover a plot to overthrow the governor. With social and economic conditions worsening, the government collapsing could send them back to a state like from the time of the Final Empire. It's a race against time and an immortal enemy to save civilization as they know it. Review Surprisingly, I have not reviewed one of Sanderson's novels yet.  He is one of my favorite authors, and I basically love everything he writes.  He is a master storyteller, with huge plot twists and reveals that I can never quite guess,...

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan Synopsis In the recent recession, Clay Jannon is out of a job, until he stumbles across a 'Help Wanted' sign in the window of an unusual bookstore, owned by the kind yet mysterious Mr. Penumbra. Clay is hired for the nightshift in the store, and it's clear that it's a front for something else--strange customers come in to the store at all hours of the night, urgently requesting to check out some of the store's unique volumes. Clay decides to get to the bottom of what's going on. Enlisting the help of his friends, their investigation leads them on a wild adventure to solve a mystery that's hundreds of years old. Review The plot is extremely compelling, but lighthearted--it doesn't take itself too seriously. I really didn't know what to expect when I picked up this book--I had seen it was popular and looked interesting. But after the first couple pages I was hooked and in for a fun adventur...

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir Synopsis Laia is a Scholar, a people who were conquered hundreds of years ago by the Martials. When her grandparents are killed in front of her and her brother is taken prisoner, she manages to escape. She finds her way to the Resistance, a rebel movement which her parents once led, and for which they lost their lives. In exchange for help in getting her brother out of prison, Laia agrees to spy for them in the very heart of Martial society: Blackcliff, the academy where the terrifying Masks are trained. Elias is one of those Masks--in fact, the best the school has seen in decades. But he finds himself disillusioned with the blood and violence loved by Martial society. On the eve of his escape, the fulfillment of a prophecy brings him right back into the center of everything he hates as he fights friend and foe for the chance to be Emperor. He wants to be free, but will it cost him his soul? Meanwhile, ancient evils stir, and Laia and E...

A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab Synopsis There are four different Londons in four parallel worlds: Grey London, Red London, White London, and the closed off Black London, all with varying degrees of magic. Only two people, known as Antari , have the ability to travel between them. Kell, from Red London, is one of them, and works as an ambassador between worlds. He also smuggles forbidden artifacts from one world to another. At one point, he unknowingly brings a dangerous object from Black London. He flees to Grey London, only to have it stolen by Lila Bard, a pickpocket with big dreams. She then saves his life and forces him to take her on an adventure spanning worlds. Together they have to try save all the Londons and the worlds they inhabit from an ancient magic that threatens to destroy them all. Review I was drawn in by the first couple pages and couldn't stop. Some have complained that the first 100 pages are a bit slow and front-loaded with world building...

The Martian by Andy Weir Synopsis The Ares 3 Mars mission is forced to abandon their 31-day mission on day six due to a huge sandstorm. Unfortunately, a flying piece of debris hits Mark Watney as the crew makes their way to the ship. He's lost in the storm, and the five other members leave him behind, thinking he's dead. Well, he's not. Instead, he's stuck on Mars. By himself. With only thirty days of food and limited supplies and no way to communicate to back home. And the next Mars mission won't be there for four years. Plus, if anything breaks down, he's dead. So he'd better get to work on figuring out how to survive. Review I first heard about this book about six months ago, saw the thousands of five-star ratings on Amazon, and bought it. It joined my "To Read" queue, but was repeatedly pushed back by library books with more immediate due dates. Finally, with the movie release coming up soon, I moved it to the top of my list a...