Fantasy Books

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall

Mogsy’s Rating (Overall): 4 of 5 stars

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Series: Stand Alone

Publisher: Macmillan Audio (February 4, 2025)

Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins

Author Information: Website | Twitter

Narrator: Karissa Vacker

Another Kate Alice Marshall thriller! Not only did I add A Killing Cold to my TBR the moment I learned about it, I also went in with absolute confidence that, no matter what the story was about, it was going to be an entertaining and twisty ride. I can’t be more pleased to report that my instincts were correct, and that this book also surprised me in ways I didn’t see coming.

In this chillingly atmospheric novel that blends psychological expense with generational secrets and an isolated setting, readers are introduced to Theo Scott, a young woman traveling to meet her fiancé’s family following a whirlwind engagement. A relationship where two people fall in love and move through the milestones so quickly is always bound to raise some eyebrows, but it’s worse when the man you are marrying is Connor Dalton, whose family is richer than sin. As the couple makes their way to Idlewood, the Dalton family’s winter retreat in the mountains, Theo knows she will be placed under intense scrutiny. All of Connor’s immediate family members will be there, ready to pry into her life with their probing questions—questions that Theo dreads, either because her adoption leaves her without the answers or because her past is too painful to share.

As expected, Theo immediately feels like an outsider at Idlewood. Other than Connor’s older sister Alexis, everyone else feels as distant and cold as their remote surroundings, all but accusing our protagonist of shamelessly marrying Connor for the money. Theo is also anxiously hiding the fact that she has been receiving threatening text messages ever since the engagement, cautioning her to stay away from the Daltons. Now, the warnings appear to have followed her to the snow-covered retreat, as someone begins leaving her similar notes outside her cabin—implying that the mysterious sender is one of Connor’s family members. On top of this, the sprawling property makes Theo uncomfortable. Certain sights bring back disturbing snippets of memories, even though she is sure she’s never been here before. But that certainty is shattered when, in a shocking moment, she discovers a picture of herself as a child, taken right here in Idlewood.

Marshall’s storytelling is immersive and has a intimate quality, like you are watching everything play out like a movie in your head. Thrillers set in cold, remote places are also like catnip for me, I just can’t resist them, and Idlewood perfectly hit the mark. The atmosphere of the secluded estate feels both lonely and claustrophobic, emphasizing Theo’s status as an interloper in this place filled with dark family history. This even lends the story a classic Gothic vibe, where the past refuses to stay buried and isolation breeds paranoia.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle was keeping track of the characters and understanding how they are all related/connected. It’s inevitable that with a large cast and complex relationships, there will be challenges to determining who’s who and how they fit into the story. Some of Dalton family members stood out immediately, such as Alexis, her wife Paloma, and their son, Sebastian, or Connor’s wayward younger brother Trevor. Others took more effort to register, such as the Dalton patriarch (already, his name escapes me), Connor’s mother Rose and his Uncle Nick. However, as the story progressed, their individual personalities became clearer, making them more distinguishable and adding to the intrigue.

This leads to the novel’s greatest strengths—all the twists! Just when you think you have the mystery all figured out, the plot hurls another curveball and leaves you reeling. The pacing is deliberate but fast, allowing the tension to build naturally, ramping up to an ending that is shocking—and, okay, maybe a little over the top. But at least it was presented in a way that felt satisfying, with a resolution that ties together the story’s many threads and, more importantly, delivers happy endings for the people I felt deserved it most.

While A Killing Cold does tread familiar territory within the genre—and avid readers of psychological thrillers will definitely feel this—Kate Alice Marshall’s carefully executed plotting and her expert use of the setting still made it an engaging and fun read. This story had everything, including but not limited to slow-burn suspense, unreliable memories, heart-stoppingly close calls, and scandalous family drama. Fantastic reading by Karissa Vacker, one of my favorite narrators, also made this one an addictive, unputdownable audiobook.

Once again, I have scoured the internet for speculative fiction books coming out this year and compiled a list of works I wanted to highlight. After looking through book descriptions, early reviews, and any available excerpts, I’ve put together a list of 17 fantasy and science fiction books coming out in 2025 that sound particularly compelling to me. (Of course, some of these are mainly here due to my having enjoyed other work by the same author!) As always, this […]

The post Anticipated 2025 Speculative Fiction Releases first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

Here are 7 Author Shoutouts for this week. Find your favorite author or discover an…

The post 7 Author Shoutouts | Authors We Love To Recommend appeared first on LitStack.

You’ve heard. I know you’ve heard. And I know what your reaction was — first, surprise… shock, even. Then sadness, and probably anger too. “Please, not again, Goddammit! And not him!” (And if you really haven’t heard, forgive me for being the bearer of bad news.)

Those were my reactions, anyway, when I read about the New York Magazine story that was published early this year (“There is No Safe Word,” by Lila Shapiro; the article may be paywalled), a story that contains appalling, sickeningly detailed accusations from multiple women of thoroughly vile conduct (up to and including outright sexual assault) by Neil Gaiman, one of the most successful and admired writers in contemporary fantasy.

Whatever the results of the inevitable adjudication, civil or criminal, I think it is safe to say that Gaiman (who has naturally denied everything, because that’s what a guilty and an innocent man alike would do) has, at the still relatively young age of sixty-four, entered the “public and professional pariah” stage of his life. This has been confirmed by the panicked corporate scramble to cancel any and all Gaiman-related film, television, and literary projects that were in any stage of discussion or production when the accusations began to surface.

I don’t know the truth about any of these allegations, of course, but given their number and scale and specificity, it’s extremely difficult to believe that the predicament Gaiman finds himself in is merely the result of a “misunderstanding” (his characterization). What I do know is how depressing and disheartening the whole thing is.

The strength of my reaction surprised me because I don’t have a deep relationship with Neil Gaiman’s work. He came to prominence writing the Sandman for DC, but that was in the late 80’s, after I had quit reading comics and before I started up again, so I’ve only read a few of those issues. Beyond that, I’ve read a half a dozen short stories and four of his books — his adult fantasy novels Neverwhere and Stardust, both of which I liked a lot, and his children’s fantasies Coraline and The Graveyard Book, which I liked more than just a lot.

The Graveyard Book (which I read last summer, right before the first cracks began to appear in Gaiman’s reputation) was, I thought, absolutely magnificent — deliciously eerie, bloodcurdlingly frightening, genuinely wise, deeply humane, flawlessly imagined and above all, beautifully written. I had tears in my eyes when I finished it, and I immediately began enthusiastically recommending it to anyone I knew who hadn’t read it. The Gaiman book that most people think is his greatest achievement, American Gods, is one that I’ve never gotten around to, though a copy has been sitting close to the top of my TBR pile for the past few years; I was thinking that maybe I would finally read it this summer.

My feelings about this awful news are based as much on the attractive public persona that Gaiman has so successfully projected as it is on his work itself, of which I’ve read only a fraction. I personally experienced his charm and magnetism at the San Diego Comic-Con once, where he was a guest at the annual Jack Kirby Tribute Panel; I was sitting just a few feet away as he spoke about his regard for the King, and talked movingly about how heartbroken he was for Kirby when he first read the 1970’s Eternals series and reached the point where it became clear that Kirby had, because of Marvel’s editorial interference, just given up on the story and characters he had invested so much in. (It was issue #15, actually.) I thoroughly approved of Gaiman at that moment — we all love it when a smart, successful, famous person echoes thoughts that we’ve had ourselves. (I too had noticed the big change in issue #15.) We’ve probably seen the last of that witty, convivial public figure.

I guess my dismay mostly stems from a feeling that I (and a lot of other people) had, that Neil Gaiman was one of the Good Guys, someone who championed all the right things, someone emblematic of all that’s best about the genre, a big-hearted, generous mentor, a major writer who always took the time to encourage and support other writers everywhere. Certainly no one was ever readier with an appreciative forward or an enthusiastic blurb. I’m not sure which author I’ve read the most of in my life, but I know I’ve read more blurbs by Neil Gaiman than by anyone else, by a couple of orders of magnitude; if I added them all up, they’d probably make a whole book in themselves. (The first thing I read this year, V.E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, came emblazoned with a rapturous Gaiman recommendation. We’ve probably seen the last of those, too.)

This news has sparked so many emotions (always understanding that the real victims here are not paperback readers with hurt feelings) — the shock, sadness, and anger that I mentioned before, along with disappointment and resentment, too, resentment at being reminded of something that I would rather not be reminded of, something that all of us who love books and writers (any art, really) would much rather forget. You know what it is.

Baldly stated, it’s this: there is no necessary connection between a person’s moral character and the quality of his or her art.

In practice, this means that second-rate books (or mediocre music, or uninspired paintings, or worthless films) may very well be the sincere productions of otherwise admirable people, upright, honorable men and women of unshakeable integrity.

Good character, in other words, is no guarantee of talent. We know that and don’t have too much trouble acknowledging it; even if it doesn’t seem altogether fair, it’s something we can live with. There’s an obverse side to the coin, though, and that’s something we’re not nearly so comfortable looking at: a morally bad person may nevertheless be capable of producing great art, and we definitely don’t like that. We feel that it shouldn’t be so, because it somehow seems wrong in a way that the other side of the principle doesn’t. But the paradox is still true, even though we may wish it were otherwise.

We’re happier when the two halves come together neatly, when the artist and the art perfectly mesh, as in the case of Mary Anne Evans, who was, by all accounts, one of the finest people ever, and who wrote (under her pen name George Eliot) what I think is the greatest novel in the English language, Middlemarch, a book that glows with the decency, compassion, and generosity that exemplified its author’s private character. Mary Anne Evans poses us no problems.

Not everyone is Mary Ann Evans, though, and the number of people with very serious marks against their character who have produced great works of art is legion. (Dickens treated his wife abominably, Tolstoy was a monster of selfishness, Caravaggio was a murderer, and don’t even get me started about Roman Polanski.) For that reason, I guess this story shouldn’t have surprised me at all — but I’m glad it did. Though Gaiman may have played us all for suckers with his glowing public persona, I’d rather be a sucker than be so cynical that I couldn’t be shocked and depressed by such revelations. If you’re taken off-guard by something like this, it at least means that you still have faith in people; you don’t automatically expect everyone to be a hypocritical scumbag.

Now that this dreadful news is out, though, I’m stuck with the question — how can I reconcile the Neil Gaiman who could write the wonderful, uplifting, life-affirming Graveyard Book with the Neil Gaiman who could commit the atrocious acts that he is accused of?  How can they be the same person?

I don’t know… but it looks like it may be necessary for me to make room for both the revulsion that I feel towards Neil Gaiman the man, and for the genuine joy and pleasure I received from this strange thing that he was somehow able to separate from himself, The Graveyard Book. I can do it, I guess. I’ll have to.

I’m not sure, though, if now I’ll ever read American Gods; I’m not sure I want to anymore.

Thomas Parker is a native Southern Californian and a lifelong science fiction, fantasy, and mystery fan. When not corrupting the next generation as a fourth grade teacher, he collects Roger Corman movies, Silver Age comic books, Ace doubles, and despairing looks from his wife. His last article for us was In Dreams: David Lynch: 1946 – 2025

 

 

The Chaos Weaver (The Chaos Chronicles #1)by Aubrey Winters
What is it about:A dragon took my brother.I’m going to get him back.
My entire world changes when a scheme-gone-wrong results in my brother being taken by a dragon.
I’ve followed them into a strange and dangerous world filled with magic and enemies, but its handsome king has promised to help me hone powers I never knew I had.
Can he help me find my brother, or will I lose my heart—and everything I ever knew—in the process?
What did I think of it:So on social media the author was giving people the opportunity to sign up for an Advance Reader Copy. At her mention of necromancy and a mysterious king, I immediately signed up. And I got an ARC!
This is a really cool read!
I loved Everly from the start. She and her twin brother had a bad start in life and are surviving by conning people and stealing. I didn't really like her brother, but to Everly he is the world. So I could understand she follows and wants to do anything to get him back when a dragon drags him off to another world.
I really enjoyed getting to know this other world together with Everly. She immediately lands in trouble, manages to get out of it, to fall in the next mess. At times she is a bit too trusting, but as the world she landed in has very different rules and she's on her own for the first time in her life, I could understand .
And then there's the mysterious king! 
Without giving away too much I can tell you he was my favorite character (although long time blog followers might be fearing for his life now, I know I do). 
The ending although not a complete cliffhanger was exciting, leaving lots of questions, and made me hungry for more!
I might need to get this in print when it releases (ebook releases January 31st, go preorder!), and I already got a book from another series by this author to try soon.
Why should you read it:Necromancy and a Mysterious King!Need I say more?!

 

Buy A Letter to the Luminous Deep

OFFICIAL AUTHOR BIO: Sylvie Cathrall writes stories of hope and healing with healthy doses of wonder and whimsy. She holds a graduate degree in odd Victorian art and has handled more than a few nineteenth-century letters (with great care). Sylvie married her former pen pal and lives in the mountains, where she dresses impractically and dreams of the sea. 
FORMAT/INFO: A Letter to the Luminous Deep was published by Orbit Books on April 25th, 2024. It is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats. 
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: One year ago, a disaster struck the underwater residence known as the Deep House, leaving its two inhabitants, E. and Henerey, presumed dead. After a year of grieving, E.'s sister Sophy and Henerey's brother Vyerin begin to investigate the events that led to their siblings' death. Sifting through correspondence between the many individuals involved, the two begin to uncover a much more ominous mystery than they expected.

A Letter to the Luminous Deep is a charming underwater tale that ultimately dragged too much to keep me hooked. This is a very slow-paced affair, told largely through letters written in the style of the late 1800s. This is certainly a difficult form of novel to pull off. For one, there are occasional moments where the author has to do some narrative contortions to explain why certain events or conversations were put to paper. While I understand the necessity in order to convey certain key information to the reader, it does strain the credulity a bit in some places.

That said, there were also numerous ways the narrative structure worked. I did enjoy the subtle ominous foreboding that builds up over the course of the story. Certain innocuous observations of things that are "off" in the world begin to create an unsettling pattern, especially as we have a rough idea of how events end. Several people each have a piece of the puzzle, but it's only in assembling those pieces by collecting these letters that they (and the audience) start to see the whole picture.

I also liked the slow romance between the two characters of E. and Henerey. Each is a shy or reticent person for various reasons. Through the letters, however, we can see two people being understood in a way they haven't before. The use of aborted "first drafts" of letters also lets us see a little glimpse of their respective nervousness as they try to fumble through how to address a person they've developed feelings for, even though they've never met in person.

The author has also built up a fascinating maritime culture. Some calamity 1000 years ago left this fantasy world with minimal inhabitable land. As a result, whole peoples live one boats or floating collectives. As our focus in this story is on the colleges and scholarly life of these people, most of the details do remain frustratingly out of sight, but perhaps not unreasonably. The people writing the letters are focused on their own narrow slice of life, not on the workings of society as a whole.

CONCLUSION: While I did enjoy my read of A Letter to the Luminous Deep overall, I found it struggled to hold my attention towards the end. The narrative structure of letters just dragged events out. We have a good idea of what happened some thirty pages or so before the ending, with the rest of the characters trying to catch up through their long-winded missives. As someone who struggles with slow books, ultimately this just didn't click for me. While the set up for part two of the duology is intriguing, this tale simply isn't my cup of tea.

  

Image by Ervin Gjata from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn (or whenever you’re reading this)!

Welp, what a start to 2025. Personally, it hasn’t been great. I kicked off the year very ill (thanks, Covid), languishing in bed wondering if this was the moment I drown without ever touching water. ‘Twas not pretty. Looking wider, the world appears to be literally on fire, or underwater, or deliberately reduced to rubble. It’s not been a good time for a whole lot of folks. I have been taking care of myself by largely staying off social media (sorry if I was missed. But I was already overwhelmed and unable to cope with my own busy-ness, let alone the worries of the world at large), and engaging in art. Not creating physically, as I’ve been very unwell, but consuming, art. Okay, I’ve been watching lots of Chinese dramas (some of which I don’t remember because I was in a feverish haze). That still counts, though.

I’ve also been daydreaming a lot, which is usually the important first step in my creative process. I have a new book in my head. All I need to do is finish the book I’m working on now, and then sit down and draw out this story word by word. I expect that it will become my next free online serial.

Though I’m sick… again (not Covid this time, just an annoying flu)… I’m in a much better place, coping-wise. And I owe that to art.

Some art, to cheer up the page.

It has been a recent (or not so recent, depending on your perspective) trend toward denigrating the arts; removing funding for it, making absurd claims that those who provide it should not be properly compensated, or ignoring complete just how important the arts are and how much we rely upon them.

Think about it.

What usually happens when we’ve had a rough day? Most folks will go home, mix themselves a drink, and then turn on the television, or fire up that console or gaming PC. Those shows that you watch? Art. Those games you play? Art. Someone wrote, blocked, shot, and edited those episodes/games. Actors and voice actors stepped in to fill those roles. Composers created the score. This is also true for those of us who turn to films to make us feel better. I often watch movies that make me cry when I’ve had a rough time. It helps me get the angst out (as I usually struggle to feel at all. Yay, depression!). Sometimes, I’m not in the mood to cry, so I’ll put on a really dumb action flick because explosions and absurd situations make me happy. Sometimes it’s to laugh at the movie. Sometimes it’s to experience the catharsis of evil getting what it deserves. We so infrequently see that in the real world.

From the game Detroit Become Human – a fantastic exploration of AI what makes a person a person.

Television and film aren’t the only way we interact and lean on art.

I cannot tell you the number of times I have been struggling with, well, everything, and unable to find a way to express or clear it away. Then the right piece of music hits, and suddenly I’m a puddle on the floor, or my mind is hijacked and taken on a really impressive adventure. I lean on music a lot for coping with the world. It is even an incredibly important part of my writing process. I have crafted entire novels off a single song (the most recent example would be Skylark, which was written the moment I listened to a song, and then also with that one song on repeat for the three months it took to get that story out onto the page). I have listened to a song, and a critical scene plays out like a movie in my head, guided by the music. The most striking example is this song:

One day, if that story is ever published, I’ll let you all know which scene in particular this song engendered.

Books, of course, including audio books and comics, are other ways the arts create space for us. There are so many reasons and ways literature of all kinds can help. The simplest is a brief escape. I’m no longer me, sitting on the sofa, utterly destroyed by the state of the world. I’m a silent observer; part of adventuring party, or even the main character in another story. And in this story, however high the stakes may be, I am still safe on my sofa. It doesn’t matter what kind of escape. A low stakes, cozy read? Excellent escape. A dire, world-ending threat full of struggle and grief? Excellent escape (and also an opportunity to let those tears out at last). Escape is so important. It’s not forever. And it won’t solve the real-life problems for you.

Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay

But rest is important. If you don’t have a rest day in your workout regime, your muscles will have not time heal, recover and grow. If you do not get adequate sleep, your cognitive function will be severely impacted. It’s no different for your mind/heart. If you don’t take a break from what is causing you distress, you’ll collapse beneath the weight of it all. It’s important to escape. Do it, and don’t feel guilty for it.

Literature also helps navigate terrible situations and scenarios for those of us who struggle with doing so in the real world. It helps give voice, using someone else’s words, to our experiences with enough separation that we remain safe. And sometimes, sometimes it can unlock the tings we need released in order to move forward. I have often been struggling with a completely separate grief, read a particularly tragic incident in a story that has nothing to do with whatever is weighing on me, and then cried. And cried. And cried. Not about the events in the book. But about the situation I’m facing. It’s just that the book helped unlocked the emotions that were trapped behind a dam I didn’t know I had built. Visual media has also helped with this; more with videogames than television shows or films of late, admittedly.

It’s no mistake that nearly all of us turn to the arts when things start going wrong. The arts are important and necessary.

So this is how you survive these interesting times. Consume art.

Image by Jose Antonio Alba from Pixabay

And make it.

I know it’s incredibly difficult to create with the world literally on fire. Or if you’re sick in bed with all the energy of a sloth after a big meal. All the same, human beings are creators by nature. It doesn’t matter what art you create. Or if other people think that art is good. You don’t have to share it at all. It’s just for you. Just create.

That can mean something as simple as buying yourself a colouring book and going to town with crayons or pencils. Hell, even a ball-point pen will work if you’re in a pinch. Got some time between tasks at work? Doodle. Write a short poem. A piece of flash fiction. It doesn’t have to practical. It doesn’t have to be monetized. It does not have to appeal to anyone else. It’s just for you, unless you want otherwise.

If you want, share your art. But that is not required.

It is hard right now. It’s alright if you’re struggling to create. Lord knows, I am. Finding motivation is tough in the current clime. Sometimes I think that’s by design. If you’re too busy trying to stay afloat, how can you imagine anything better for yourself, your neighbours, or the world? So, if anger, frustration and rage is all you have left, use that. Create from that.

Create out of spite.

Create. Make it a giant middle finger to the people who are trying to hold you down, make it hard, steal your joy, stop you from imagining.

Create art. Consume art. It is good for your soul, and the world could use more soul, I feel.

And if you have the means, consider tossing a coin to your Witcher (artist), for their skills have kept the monsters at bay for a little while longer. And in a world full of monsters, that is not nothing.

When S.M. Carrière isn’t brutally killing your favorite characters, she spends her time teaching martial arts, live streaming video games, and cuddling her cat. In other words, she spends her time teaching others to kill, streaming her digital kills, and a cuddling furry murderer. Her most recent titles include Daughters of Britain, Skylark and Human. Her serial The New Haven Incident is free and goes up every Friday on her blog.

Dive into Vanishing Treasures, by Katherine Rundell, exploring the delicate balance between cultural heritage and…

The post “Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary and Endangered Creatures” by Katherine Rundell appeared first on LitStack.

 

Our realm, splintered and broken, yearned to be united under a single ruler. The Witches may have won and put one of their own on the throne, but even they had suffered.

(page 1, The Queen's Blade by Evelyn Ward)
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Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, previously hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: - Grab your current read - Open to a random page - Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) - Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their  TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

The finale to John Gwynne’s Bloodsworn, The Fury of the Gods, brings the Norse epic to a grand conclusion. The conflagration of warriors, wolf-gods, dragon-gods, rat-gods, and other various and sundry supernatural entities comes to a head as the dragon god, Lik-Rifa, seeks to take over the world and expunge her sibling gods while Varg,…

Book Description:

They say that the cure for Love will make me happy and safe forever.

And I’ve always believed them.

Until now.

Now everything has changed.

Now, I’d rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie.

Lena looks forward to receiving the government-mandated cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe, predictable, and happy life, until ninety-five days before her eighteenth birthday and her treatment, when she falls in love.

Rating: 4 Stars

Favorite Quotes:

But it does not tell you this: that love will turn the whole world into something greater than itself.

Love, the deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don’t.

This is a dystopian book that’s a little different from The Hunger Games & Divergent and the like.  The world isn’t ending, necessarily but the government has mandated that everyone over the age of 18 has a procedure that basically renders you incapable of love and most of the other strong emotions.  They literally cut a piece out of the brain to achieve this!  I cannot imagine a time when the majority of people would be pushing for this to happen, but here it does.  I guess I can see some appeal to not suffering through a broken heart but to cut out a piece of my brain to achieve this?  Uhhhh, no thank you!

The story follow Lena Haloway as she is preparing for her procedure.  She got about 3 months until it is scheduled and there are interviews that have to be done so that the government can pick a husband suitable for her (because if you don’t care, how could you choose for yourself?) and what she will do for a living (will she go to college or just get a job until she is married?).  They regulate the music that your allowed to listen to and the books that you can read.  Something that Oliver did that is really different from most dystopian stories is the fact that everything we once had still exists.  There are cell phones and cars and the internet.  They are all strictly monitored and not everyone has them but they are still in use.  So many times you read these types of books and its like living in the dark ages and I thought this was a nice touch.

One of my gripes about this book is that if you take away the portion of the brain that controls emotion, how does anything get done?  If you don’t care, how do you take care of your children or get up everyday and go to work and cook and clean?  Love guides almost all the things we do.  We work because we love our families and want to take care of them.   We love our children and so we play with them and discipline them and laugh with them.  If you remove all those things are you really still alive?  Aren’t other things in our lives determined by a type of love?  If you were a police man breaking up an illegal party with a bunch of teenagers involved, would you care enough to just send them home or would you release the dogs against them and beat them with clubs and would it matter either way?  Very confusing to me.  I guess if love was that simple and it could be removed without interfering with everything else, then maybe, but it simply affects too many things.

Anyway, the story drags on a bit for me once the world is set up and you get a grasp on what’s happening.  Lena and Hana (her best friend) start to break the rules and go to unauthorized parties after curfew.  Up until this point, they’ve had almost no contact with the opposite sex besides adult males (parents and teachers who have all had the procedure) and these parties are full of uncured boy their own age.  So in typical teenager fashion they are rebelling before they can’t anymore.  Then Lena meets a boy, Alex, who shows her that there is so much to be missed by having the procedure done and how much the cureds have been lying to everyone (particularly Lena).  As they get to know each other and fall in love Lena realizes that there’s no way she could ever willing have the procedure and she tries to come up with a way for them to escape.

Will they find a way or will Lena have to lose part of herself?

*SPOILERS BELOW*

First of all, I cannot believe that there wasn’t a love triangle in this book!  It was kind of nice  to not have to be vacillating between two love interests!

I was wondering throughout the whole beginning of the book if it wouldn’t turn out that Lena’s Mom was still alive.  Considering how long ago she supposedly killed herself she was still very present in Lena’s mind and that usually means something is coming up.  It’s too bad that she didn’t  get to see her before she escaped though.

I cannot BELIEVE that Alex doesn’t make it with Lena to the Wilds!  He sacrifices himself up to the regulators so that Lena can get away.  He got shot and captured but I’m not sure if he’s alive or not!  What will she do now in the Wilds all alone?  Being with Alex was the main reason she decided to run away in the first place!  Sheesh, I wonder what Oliver has planned for book 2?

Book Description:

tick
tick
tick
tick
tick
it’s almost
time for war.

Juliette has escaped to Omega Point. It is a place for people like her—people with gifts—and it is also the headquarters of the rebel resistance.

She’s finally free from The Reestablishment, free from their plan to use her as a weapon, and free to love Adam. But Juliette will never be free from her lethal touch.

Or from Warner, who wants Juliette more than she ever thought possible.

In this exhilarating sequel to Shatter Me, Juliette has to make life-changing decisions between what she wants and what she thinks is right. Decisions that might involve choosing between her heart—and Adam’s life.

Rating: 4.5 Stars

Favorite Quotes:

My troubles have arrived fashionably late to this conversation, inconsiderate beasts that they are.

It’s the kind of kiss that makes you realize oxygen is overrated.

He’s standing right in front of me and I miss him like I haven’t seen him in years.

“I think there’s something about the impermanence of life these days that makes it necessary to etch ink into our skin,” he says.  “It reminds us that we’ve been marked by the world, that we’re still alive.  That we’ll never forget.”

Another heart wrenching book by Mafi.  She really is a wonderful writer.  I couldn’t put the book down.  I devoured it in a day and now I’m dying to know what happens next.  I’m not sure but I think this is a three book series so the next one should be the end.  I love the way your heart is practically in your throat the whole book.  There is so much emotion happening and Mafi writes in a way that you can’t help but experience everything along with the characters.

Book two picks up shortly after where book one ended.  Juliette, Adam and James have been at Omega Point for about a week and things are starting settle down.  Once the immediate danger is over Juliette has retreated back inside herself because she is now surrounded by people who know what she can do and some of them include children.  She doesn’t want to scare anyone and so she decides to just keep to herself and only really talk to and associate with Adam.  What a hard thing to have to experience at the age of 17, to try to make friends when you’ve never done something like that before.  She’s always been immediately ostracized when she was around other people and so she doesn’t know how to start getting to know people.  I thought this was a good road for Mafi to take with this story, it makes it more believable.  Because of this, she comes off even scarier than she would have if she even made some small attempt to interact with people.  The story about how she killed that little kid years ago gets out and now everyone is looking at her just like people always have.  So much for being with people who would understand her because she wasn’t the only one with some bizarre powers.  Castle thinks that there might be more to Adam being able to touch her than it just being some fluke and now he’s undergoing some test to see if there’s another reason he can touch her.  The results are devastating and now Juliette has to decide how she’s going to back away from him to keep him safe.  She learning more about her own abilities and now she’s not just worried about her touch being dangerous.  Her whole body is a weapon and she has no control over it.  On top of that monumental obstacle, she is still keeping secrets from Adam.  She hasn’t told him that Warner can touch her too and that she kissed him right before she shot him.  I don’t know why she doesn’t say anything.  She should have told him as soon as he was healed.  There was no real reason for her not to except for the part where she actually enjoyed it.  She could leave that part out of it as far as I’m concerned but the rest of it she should have told him.  You can’t keep secrets like that.  The fact is that if they really loved each other there would be no reason to keep these kinds of secrets.  Adam might be a little pissed but the fact is she did what she needed to do so that she could save him and I don’t think that he would be angry for long.

Kenji plays a much bigger role in this book and I’m so glad because I love him!  He’s like the only bright spot in the book; his personality is so bright and carefree that you can’t help but smile when he’s around.  This is not to say that he doesn’t have some serious moments and he does put Juliette in her place a few times but she really needed someone to kick her in the ass so she would quit moping around.  The reality is that she is the primary reason that The Reestablishment is hunting so fiercely for Omega Point.  Not that this wouldn’t have come to a head at some point in the future but the timetable’s been moved up and that is because of Juliette.  Warner can’t let her go and now that his father is involved he hasn’t got a choice but to find her.  After learning more about him in Destroy Me I was pretty sure he would be a big part of this book as well.  We learned even more about him and his past as him and Juliette spend some time together.

Kenji has been working with Juliette to help her figure out and hone her skills and she starts to get a little more control of it.  I was hoping this would naturally lend itself to help with her self-esteem but that doesn’t really happen.  If she should would just accept who and what she is life would start to become more manageable for her but she can’t stop seeing herself as a monster.  She’s come out of her shell a little bit and it starting to make some friends but everyone at Omega Point is preparing to battle Warner’s father and his men and they need Juliette to help them.  With the strength of her power she could be the edge that they need to win.

Will she be able to put her personal feelings aside and focus on the more important objective?  Will she be able to use her abilities against the “bad guys” to save the innocent citizens of sector 54?  How will she reconcile her feelings for Adam and Warner?

*SPOILERS BELOW*

Oh man this book was torture for me!  I’m still so unsure who I want Juliette to end up with!  Her and Adam have such an intense relationship and it’s been growing since they were kids.  Now that they have finally found each other and Adam can actually touch her things were looking up.  This was not to last, of course, and now Adam has discovered that he has an ability as well.  He’s a disruptor and that’s why he can touch her because he can cancel out her power. The problem with this is that he has to be constantly on guard in order for it to work and that can’t happen when they are getting physical with each other.  She nearly kills him at one point!  So she’s decided to stay away from him and it’s destroying both of them.  Then there’s Warner.  This is the first time that Juliette really gets to know him for who he is instead of the leader of sector 54.  When she was listening to his father tear him down and then again later when he was being held captive at Omega Point and she had to interrogate him.  He was so sweet to her and let her see a part of himself that I don’t think he’s ever shown anyone else.  The scars on his back, the way he really sees himself, the way he sees her and how she makes him feel.  It was breathtaking to witness.  Now she’s so confused about what to do and she hasn’t told Adam about any of this and she hasn’t told Warner that Adam is his brother (which shocked the hell out of me, by the way) and she’s somehow in the middle and unable to decides what to do.  She’s also hiding a lot of information about Warner.  She doesn’t tell anyone that she knows why he can touch her and what his ability is and I’m not sure why.  What could it harm?  It just makes her look worse for keeping it to herself.  I think she loves them both but who is the better choice?  Adam is so loving and caring and wants to take care of her and he loves her with a desperation that is a little frightening.  Warner can be gentle and caring and he doesn’t pull any punches.  He is who he is and he accept Juliette for who she is and what she is capable of.  He also loves her in an overwhelmingly obsessive way.  I wonder if this is something about Juliette or if it’s something in their DNA that she attracts?  Either way it’s a tough decision.

I wish that Kenji wouldn’t have stopped Juliette from killing Anderson.  That guy is a monster and someone needs to take care of him.  I understand why he did it but at the same time you don’t go to war with someone in his position if you don’t have his replacement ready to take over.  Then in the end when he just shot her in the chest and leaves!  This was the only real issue I had with the book.  Why would he have gone through the trouble of shooting her in front of Warner only to leave before he could witness what it did to him?  And, why would he have had “the girls” kidnapped to use to heal him only to leave them behind?  If anything, he should have at least taken them with him back to the capital.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how it all ends.

Book Description:

Perfect for the fans of Shatter Me who are desperately awaiting the release of Unravel Me, this novella-length digital original will bridge the gap between these two novels from the perspective of the villain we all love to hate, Warner, the ruthless leader of Sector 45.

In Tahereh Mafi’s Shatter Me, Juliette escaped from The Reestablishment by seducing Warner—and then putting a bullet in his shoulder. But as she’ll learn in Destroy Me, Warner is not that easy to get rid of. . .

Back at the base and recovering from his near-fatal wound, Warner must do everything in his power to keep his soldiers in check and suppress any mention of a rebellion in the sector. Still as obsessed with Juliette as ever, his first priority is to find her, bring her back, and dispose of Adam and Kenji, the two traitors who helped her escape. But when Warner’s father, The Supreme Commander of The Reestablishment, arrives to correct his son’s mistakes, it’s clear that he has much different plans for Juliette. Plans Warner simply cannot allow.

Set after Shatter Me and before its forthcoming sequel, Unravel Me, Destroy Me is a novella told from the perspective of Warner, the ruthless leader of Sector 45

Rating: 5 Stars

Favorite Quotes:

It’s a strange thing, to never know peace.  To know that no matter where you go, there is no sanctuary.  That the threat of pain is always a whisper away.

Love is a heartless bastard.  I’m driving myself insane.

I’m at a loss for words with this novella.  At the end of Shatter Me I had already firmly decided that I didn’t like Warner.  I didn’t necessarily think he was a bad person, per se, but that he wasn’t a good person either.  Now I find myself saddened by his story.  Raised by a man who never had a nice thing to say to him and never receiving any kind of affection.  It’s very similar to Juliette’s story, really, only that in Warners situation it wasn’t because people couldn’t touch him but because no one did.  It makes a lot more sense now why he felt to connected to Juliette and now that he has her journal from when she was institutionalized he’s even more determined to find her and bring her back to be with him.  I’m not sure if he’s going to have much success with this due to the way he tried to get her affections the last time but I at least have a better feel for who he is and why he is the way he is.  I think that anyone can change, given the proper motivation.  The question is, will Warner want to change and is love enough of a motivator for him?  I think we’ll find out in book two which is next up on the list.

Book Description:

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war– and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

Rating: 4.5

Favorite Quotes:

Truth is a jealous, vicious mistress that never ever sleeps, is what I don’t tell him.  I’ll never be okay.

my cheek is pressed against his chest and he smells like strength and courage and the wold is drowning in rain.

I remember you every day forever in every single broken moment of my life.

His hands are shaking so slightly, his eyes brimming with feeling, his heart thrumming with pain and affection and I want to live here, in his arms, in his eyes for the rest of my life.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from this book when I first picked it up.  It was a recommendation from a friend and I thought, what the hell, I’d give it a shot.  It was surprisingly good!  The writing style took a little getting used to as most of what Juliette thinks is in run on sentences.  This makes a little more sense once you figure out that she has been locked up all alone for almost a year and hasn’t spoken to another living soul for that whole time.  I think I’d be a little nutty too.  Mafi is a very emotionally descriptive writer and because of this it doesn’t take very long for you to be attached to certain characters and to really despise others.  I only used four of my favorite lines from this book above but I think I highlighted around 10 or so which is really high for me in any book.  I think she’s an amazing writer and once I got used to her writing style, I really liked it.

I’m not sure what year the book is set in but basically we’ve destroyed the planet and there’s not enough food or clean water and The Reestablishment has taken over power of everyone. They’ve decided that in order to correct the problems that society has caused they need to make several changes.  Only the strong get to survive, they are getting rid of all the books they can find and trying to create a whole new language.  All the unhealthy, weak and old are gotten rid of.  It doesn’t specifically say how this happens maybe they are all killed or maybe they are just segregated from the rest of society?  Juliette has some sort of weird power where it is dangerous for her to touch anyone.  She had an incident in a grocery store and after that she was locked up in what she assumes is an insane asylum.  One day she gets a cell mate, Adam Kent, and then things start to change a little for her.  Can you imagine not speaking to anyone for a year?  Just as she’s starting to get used to the idea of him she’s taken out of her cell and introduced to the sector leader for The Reestablishment, Warner, who informs her that he’d like her to join their cause.  He thinks that her “talent” could be really useful to them.  Which means, of course, that he would like her to help him kill the rebels.  Warner takes her to their base and sets her up with a nice room and nice clothes and good meals and thinks that this is the way to get her to agree to join him.  He’s got more on his mind than just how she can help their cause too.  Luckily for her, people can’t touch her (at least not most people) so she seems to be relatively safe for the time being.

Adam has been assigned to guard her and as time goes on we learn a little about their past and get to see their relationship develop into something very sweet and intense.  Juliette’s got to escape from The Reestablishment, especially from Warner as he’s got some kind of weird obsession with her, and Adam is going to help her to this.  When they finally get free, it’s a mad dash to find their allies and get somewhere safe.  Then everything gets turned on its head when they do finally find safety.  Will this new group be the good guys?  Will they want to use Juliette for her “talents” as well?  With her suddenly being in a situation of acceptance, how will she handle it and will her and Adam be able to stay together?

*SPOILERS BELOW*

I love the relationship between Adam and Juliette.  I wasn’t sure how this would work out in the beginning, since she can’t be touched and was relieved that Adam was the exception to this rule.  The fact that they knew each other when they were younger went a long way with me to support the intensity of their feelings for each other.  You can’t just meet someone and all of a sudden be in love with them.  I liked that they each had formed feelings for the other growing up even though they had never had a conversation before now.  Adam is so sweet to her and the fact that he remembered all the small things she did growing up for the same people who treated her so terribly was a nice touch.  I’m not sure how this will all play out as Juliette has no experience with relationships of any kind.  How will she handle something so intense?

I was disappointed to learn that Adam wasn’t the only one immune to Juliette’s dangerous touch when Warner touched her right before they escaped.  I’m not sure exactly how I feel about Warner.  I think that he is a product of his upbringing.  Even though he can be ruthlessly cold and calculated, I’m not sure that he is a bad person.  I think this is all he knows.  He seems to have real feelings for Juliette although they way he got to know her was a little stalkerish with reading all about her history and then watching her in the asylum for the past year.  He’s obsessive though and he’s not going to just let her go without some sort of fight.

I actually really loved the ending to this book!  I totally didn’t see it coming.  A whole group of people who all have different abilities.  How wonderful for Juliette to finally feel like she belongs somewhere.  Adam made a little headway with her self-esteem over the course of the few months they got to spend together but think about how horrible her life would have been.  Can you imagine not being touched by anyone for almost your entire life?  It’s pretty incredible that she’s still such a good person.  The kind of power that she has would have been so dangerous in the wrong hands.  The way her parents made her feel like a monster especially pissed me off.  As a parent you love your children NO MATTER WHAT and how could you let her feel so alone her whole life?  They could have ruined her forever.  I’m excited to see what book two brings.  I’d like to know what other kind of gifts the people of Omega Point have and how they deal with Warner and the threat he represents.

Next up is Destroy Me, a novella before Unravel Me.