A pure, magical treat: Winterkeep, by Kristin Cashore

Words can't express just how much I love anything that Kristin Cashore writes. I remember picking up Fire from the local library at fourteen and ten years (!) later I still love it just as much; her writing style is just as compulsively readable as it was the first time I cracked the spine. So, …

Gorgeous and uplifting: We Free the Stars, by Hafsah Faizal

I was waiting for this book to be published as soon as I finished We Hunt the Flame. The prequel was everything you'd ever want in a fantasy or YA novel: romantic, lushly descriptive, inventive and above all fresh. It was such an exciting read, so when this book popped into my NetGalley box I …

How much should we share? Two books about social media

Christmas is over! So once again, it's time to turn our attention to all the books I've been reading (and catching up on!) over the past few months. And my theme for this post is social media. Yes, I know, it sounds a bit pretentious. But I don't know if I could file these books …

A twisted rabbit hole: My Dark Vanessa, by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Wow. This was quite a read, and I'm still not sure what to make of it. It's arresting, I'll give you that- in both senses of the word. Kate Elizabeth Russell's book is a modern-day Lolita, from Lolita's viewpoint: that of Vanessa, a girl who was groomed by her teacher, Jacob Strane, when she was …

The Burning God, by R.F. Kuang

By sheer coincidence, I started re-reading The Poppy War just before I found out you could request copies of The Burning God on Netgalley. What followed was a sheer week of binge-reading R.F. Kuang. Before you stands a wreck of a reader: broken by three books' worth of excellent writing, gripping plot twists and the …