high fantasy

Dragons and Destiny: Exploring Ragar Or’s Mysteries

by Stefani

The Prophecy of the Yubriy Tree by Ben Spencer

Published: October 19, 2024 by Knock Knee Books

Buy this book at: Amazon / Barnes & Noble

Synopsis:

Every year, prophecy leaves fall from the Yubriy Tree. And every year, the Dayborn king sends his most trusted servants to collect the leaves and return them to the capital.

Only this year, one of the leaves drifted into the forest unseen.

Three lives will be forever changed by the undetected prophecy leaf.

The strong-willed daughter of a powerful family. The mysterious and reviled half brother of the king. And a talented but unlucky musician, desperate to write the song that will bring him good fortune.

Looming in the background are reports of the first dragon to appear in Ragar Or in over sixty-five years. And, as anyone familiar with Ragar Or’s history knows, when dragons appear, royalty dies.

Rating:

Review:

**Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest feedback. Thank you Net Galley and Knock Knee Books!**

I really loved this book. The very first chapter captured my attention and the book didn’t let go until the last page. The first chapter details the process of collecting the Yubriy leaves and it follows the journey of the three leaves that get carried away. Then we jump straight into meeting our main three characters, around whom I presumed that the lost prophecies would revolve. It was a perfect introduction into the story.

So because we have these three main characters that means we have three ongoing narratives that revolve around different aspects of this world. Johanna is the daughter of a high lord whom the king is asking for assistance in squashing a rebellion. She was amazing. I loved her character, her story and her spunk. The first time we’re introduced to her was unforgettable and I loved her for every page after. Silas is a musician who desperately wants to get a patronage somewhere, but he gets caught up with an unexpected ally while running from soldiers who are trying to murder them. He was a little harder to enjoy, he’s a sullen musician after all. But eventually he warmed my heart too, and his story turned out to be incredibly important to events that happen later in the book. And Gregor, the bastard half brother of the king who acts as his counsel and his sage. Gregor’s story was probably the most compelling of the bunch. He introduces us to so many beautiful and important parts of the story.

I couldn’t get enough of this book. I dreamed about it a few times, trying to work out how it would end and what the missing prophecies were. The world was wonderfully crafted. The characters were realistic and likeable. The magic of this world was fascinating and unique. I just loved it. This is definitely a series I will be following.

Upcoming Releases Sunday – August 18, 2024

by Stefani

She Doesn’t Have a Clue by Jenny Elder Moke

Expected publication: January 21, 2025 by Minotaur Books

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

With a colorful cast of characters and a cellar full of wine, anything can happen―from murder to a second chance at love―in Jenny Elder Moke’s half mystery, half romance adult debut set at a lavish destination wedding.

A high-end wedding on a private island off the coast of Seattle sounds like something out of a magazine. But for bestselling mystery author Kate Valentine, it’s more like a nightmare.

Why Kate agreed to attend her ex-fiancé’s wedding is its own enigma, but she’ll plaster on a fake smile for two nights, with the aid of free champagne, naturally. And because the groom happens to be her editor, she’ll try to finish a draft of her latest Loretta Starling mystery as a wedding gift. But when the bride is poisoned and Kate stumbles across a dead body, she finds herself in a real-life mystery that eerily echoes the plot of her latest novel. And the only person who seems willing to help Kate catch the killer is Jake Hawkins, aka: the Hostralian; aka: Kate’s biggest romantic regret.

As the wine flows and the weather threatens to hold every guest hostage, bitter resentments and long-held grudges surface amongst the colorful crowd. Anyone could be capable of murder, it seems. What would Loretta do? Unfortunately, Kate doesn’t have a clue.

Breath of the Dragon by Shannon Lee & Fonda Lee

Expected Publication: January 7, 2025 by Wednesday Books

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

The first novel in a sweeping YA fantasy duology based on characters and teachings created by Bruce Lee!

Sixteen-year-old Jun dreams of proving his worth as a warrior in the elite Guardian’s Tournament, held every six years to entrust the magical Scroll of Earth to a new protector. Eager to prove his skills, Jun hopes that a win will restore his father’s honor—righting a horrible mistake that caused their banishment from his home, mother, and twin brother.

But Jun’s father strictly forbids him from participating. There is no future in honing his skills as a warrior, especially considering Jun is not breathmarked, born with a patch of dragon scales and blessed with special abilities like his twin. Determined to be the next Guardian, Jun stows away in the wagon of Chang and his daughter, Ren, performers on their way to the capital where the tournament will take place.

As Jun competes, he quickly realizes he may be fighting for not just a better life, but the fate of the country itself.

The Favorites by Layne Fargo

Expected publication: January 14, 2025 by Random House

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

To the world, they were a scandal. To each other, an obsession.

An epic love story set in the sparkling, savage sphere of elite figure skating about a woman determined to carve her own path on and off the ice

She might not have a famous name, funding, or her family’s support, but Katarina Shaw has always known that she was destined to become an Olympic skater. When she meets Heath Rocha, a lonely kid stuck in the foster care system, their instant connection makes them a formidable duo on the ice. Clinging to skating—and each other—to escape their turbulent lives, Kat and Heath go from childhood sweethearts to champion ice dancers, captivating the world with their scorching chemistry, rebellious style, and rollercoaster relationship. Until a shocking incident at the Olympic Games brings their partnership to a sudden end.

As the ten-year anniversary of their final skate approaches, an unauthorized documentary reignites the public obsession with Shaw and Rocha, claiming to uncover the “real story” through interviews with their closest friends and fiercest rivals. Kat wants nothing to do with the documentary. But she can’t stand the thought of someone else defining her legacy either. So, after a decade of silence, she’s telling her story: from the childhood tragedies that created her all-consuming bond with Heath to the clash of desires that tore them apart. Sensational rumors have haunted their every step for years, but the truth may be even more shocking than the headlines.

Inspired by the powerful love and hate that fuel Emily Bronte’s classic, Wuthering Heights, The Favorites is an exhilarating dance between passion, ambition, and what it truly means to win.

Progress Update Friday – August 16, 2024

by Stefani

Five Broken Blades by Mai Corland

Progress: 30 pages of 424

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

It’s the season
for treason…

The king of Yusan must die.

The five most dangerous liars in the land have been mysteriously summoned to work together for a single objective: to kill the God King Joon.

He has it coming. Under his merciless immortal hand, the nobles flourish, while the poor and innocent are imprisoned, ruined…or sold.

And now each of the five blades will come for him. Each has tasted bitterness―from the hired hitman seeking atonement, a lovely assassin who seeks freedom, or even the prince banished for his cruel crimes. None can resist the sweet, icy lure of vengeance.

They can agree on murder.

They can agree on treachery.

But for these five killers―each versed in deception, lies, and betrayal―it’s not enough to forge an alliance. To survive, they’ll have to find a way to trust each other…but only one can take the crown.

Let the best liar win.

How it’s going:

We’ve been introduced to 3 of the 5 main characters so far. They are each interesting in their own right, I find myself wanting to know more about them. My only complaint thus far is the constant head hopping. Literally every 1-4 pages we’re hoping to the next character. It feels like we get to a part that’s starting to be interesting and then it’s someone else’s turn. I hope that’s not a consistent pattern, because I like the story itself.

The Bitter Truth by Shanora Williams

Progress: 87 pages of 320

Check this book out at: Goodreads

Synopsis:

An upstanding political candidate. A determined stalker. A shattering lost weekend. Now, when his worst secret comes calling, how far will one man’s elegant, all-too-devoted wife go to uncover the truth . . . or bury it?

For Jolene “Jo” Baker, the least she can do for her adoring husband, Dominic, is give unwavering support for his North Carolina gubernatorial run. He is not only the love of her life, he’s also helping her prove that she’s far more than just a pampered trophy wife. With huge crowds showing up at Dominic’s speeches and the polls consistently in his favor, she’s never been happier to stand proudly by his side . . .

Until she and Dominic start seeing the same, strangely ominous woman turning up all along the campaign trail. Until their tour starts becoming a nightmare of botched events, crucial missed information, and increasingly dangerous “accidents.” Suddenly Jo can’t get any answers from Dominic—or understand why he is acting so paranoid and terrified . . .

What Jo can do is start digging into his past—one she’s never really questioned beyond his perfect image and dazzling accomplishments. What results is an alarming series of events that leave her Good friends turn into enemies, truths are revealed to be lies, and all clues lead back to one secret, shattering weekend that changes Jo’s entire life. With her world splintering into pieces, can Jo risk trying to set things right? Or will hiding the bitter truth by any means necessary destroy her as well?

How it’s going:

This book is everything I was hoping it would be at this point. Bad, seedy people doing bad things. I feel like the synopsis is a little misleading about Jo though. The synopsis portrays her as a doting wife. But the book is clear that she is over this marriage, she is tired of Dominic and his secrets. But she also doesn’t want to leave because her prestige wanes if she’s not married to the governor anymore. She made him, he owes her, so she isn’t going anywhere. I like it.

Take My Money! Sunday

by Stefani

The Tower of Fools by Andrzej Sapkowski

Expected publication: October 27, 2020

Goodreads

Synopsis: Reinmar of Bielawa, sometimes known as Reynevan, is a healer, a magician, and according to some, a charlatan. When a thoughtless indiscretion forces him to flee his home, he finds himself pursuednot only by brothers bent on vengeance but by the Holy Inquisition.


In a time when tensions between Hussite and Catholic countries are threatening to turn into war and mystical forces are gathering in the shadows, Reynevan’s journey will lead him to the Narrenturm — the Tower of Fools.


The Tower is an asylum for the mad…or for those who dare to think differently and challenge the prevailing order. And escaping it, avoiding the conflict around him, and keeping his own sanity will prove more difficult than he ever imagined.

Why I’m Excited: I am currently reading The Witcher series, and absolutely loving it. I have watched The Witcher on Netflix twice so far, and absolutely loved it. This sounds very interesting and also very different from that series. It interests me. And, I just so happen to have an ARC. I’m so excited!!

The Future is Yours by Dan Frey

Expected publication: February 9, 2021

Goodreads

Synopsis: If you had the chance to look one year into the future, would you? 

For Ben Boyce and Adhi Chaudry, the answer is unequivocally yes. And they’re betting everything that you’ll say yes, too. Welcome to The Future: a computer that connects to the internet one year from now, so you can see who you’ll be dating, where you’ll be working, even whether or not you’ll be alive in the year to come. By forming a startup to deliver this revolutionary technology to the world, Ben and Adhi have made their wildest, most impossible dream a reality. Once Silicon Valley outsiders, they’re now its hottest commodity. 

The device can predict everything perfectly—from stock market spikes and sports scores to political scandals and corporate takeovers—allowing them to chase down success and fame while staying one step ahead of the competition. But the future their device foretells is not the bright one they imagined.

Ambition. Greed. Jealousy. And, perhaps, an apocalypse. The question is . . . can they stop it?

Told through emails, texts, transcripts, and blog posts, this bleeding-edge tech thriller chronicles the costs of innovation and asks how far you’d go to protect the ones you love—even from themselves.

Why I’m Excited: I love a good sci-fi and particularly ones in which AI leads to mass chaos. I am not 100% sure that’s where this book is going, but I’m fairly sure that’s where it will end up. The way it is told seems to be similar to World War Z. I am a bit hesitant about that because I have seen lots of books try to copy the storytelling style of that book and never succeeded. I am excited to see what this one brings.

Review: The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood

by Stefani

45046552The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood

Published: February 11, 2020 by Tor Books

Buy this book at: Amazon | B&N | Book Depository

Synopsis: What if you knew how and when you will die?

Csorwe does — she will climb the mountain, enter the Shrine of the Unspoken, and gain the most honored title: sacrifice.

But on the day of her foretold death, a powerful mage offers her a new fate. Leave with him, and live. Turn away from her destiny and her god to become a thief, a spy, an assassin—the wizard’s loyal sword. Topple an empire, and help him reclaim his seat of power.

But Csorwe will soon learn – gods remember, and if you live long enough, all debts come due.

Rating: 2 star

Review: I must say it has been a long time since I was as disappointed in a book as I am in this one. My expectations for this book were sky high. I had seen a lot of good buzz about it and the premise sounded amazing. A high fantasy with orcs and elves, mages and assassins? And brought to me by Tor Books? Sign me up! Here just have my money!! Then, in the end, it was just a giant feeling of “whomp whomp”. That makes me sad. Especially because this book had a ton of potential.

Csorwe had the potential to be an amazing character. She was raised her entire life to know that she will be sacrificed to her god on a specific day and that is her only purpose. And then, at the last moment, she is offered an alternate destiny. A chance to become an assassin, a sword hand for a wronged wizard who wants his power back. And she just so happens to be an orc priestess too. Unfortunately, she was also incredibly boring. I had no emotional connection to her at all. Probably because we only see her in action packed moments. We only see her in the moments preceding battle, the midst of battle and the immediate aftermath of battle. Characters are created in the little moments. The moments that the character spends training, planning, preparing, and theorizing about what is to come. There was absolutely none of that in this book. We go from Csorwe leaving behind her destiny to several years later when she’s already largely trained. We are told that she really enjoyed training with a mercenary group, but we never actually see that happen. We are told that she is a remarkable fighter and assassin. Except she only does this actual task one or two times, neither of which could be considered wildly successful. Mostly she gets her ass kicked. To the brink of death. Seemingly every day.

Tal’s character was slightly more fleshed out but I got the feeling that he was there purely as an adversary for Csorwe and occasional comic relief. That was a shame because I felt like there was untapped potential there. Shuthmili was a good character and I found myself connecting with her at times, but since she isn’t a major factor in a lot of the book it was hard to develop any lasting feelings about her.  And her romance with Csorwe was very sweet.

The most memorable character was Oranna. I had some deep feelings about her and thought she was the best character as a whole. She actually felt like a real person instead of a cardboard stand-in for a real person. She was wonderful although I don’t think that I ever completely grasped her motivation behind everything that she did. I know what she told us her motivation was but it seemed hollow and shallow. I suspect it wasn’t entirely the truth.

The writing was technically solid and I found myself reading large swathes of pages at a time without realizing the time was going by. That was the good part. The problem was the disjointed nature of the narrative. We start with Csorwe at 14, then we jumped a few years to about 17 or 18, then jump again to her at around 22. Every time we arrive in a new time period, things are already figured out and a plan is already well underway for what needs to happen. It was confusing. I never got a chance to get invested in a particular narrative before it was over and we moved on to the next thing. There was also absolutely no showing in this book, just telling. We are told that people felt a certain way. We are told that things work a certain way. We are told that this is the answer to the entire thing. We are told that this is what will happen next. It made things very boring and without a connection to the story.

I am not sure why the author tried to make different races of beings. I forgot that Csorwe was an orc for most of the book because it is never mentioned and it doesn’t influence how she behaves, speaks or her interactions with others. Similarly, I completely forgot that Tal was an elf until I was writing this review and remembered some tidbit about his ears and skin color. I don’t need Tolkien levels of race building here. Frankly I am glad it wasn’t because Tolkien’s 4 page narratives about a tree bore the bejesus out of me (I know, I pronounced myself a heretic on that one, haha!). But you need to give me something because these characters were painfully human.

Because of all this showing and not telling, I also have no idea how this world looks or how it works. I got some vague stuff about gates that remind me of Stargate and some kind of ship. It is alternately described as a wooden ship or a barge, and has an “alchemical engine” which gives me steampunk airship vibes. But I have no idea if any of these interpretations are correct. The world itself was not fleshed out well. So as interesting as a Maze that eats dead worlds is, unless you can describe it for me then it’s just an interesting idea and nothing else.

One aspect that I loved was the pantheon of gods, how they are worshipped and the magic system of this world. That was all completely stellar. I am always on board with some good ole fashioned god worship, complete with sacrifices. I also really enjoyed the rules for using magic in this world. Magic comes with a price, exacting a physical toll on the user. So there is a delicate balance that must be struck and maintained. That was all fabulous and one of the big things that kept me going on this book.

My final issue is that I have no idea why this book was called The Unspoken Name. We have the Unspoken One, Csorwe’s patron god. But they are only referred to as the Unspoken One. Never as anything else. The term unspoken name weren’t actually in the book until page 435 and it seemed to be mostly used as an exasperated expletive. “We need to think. We need to – Oh, by the twelve hundred Unspeakable names, what in hell is that?” This probably shouldn’t get on my nerves but it did.

In the end, this book was okay. It shows some signs of brilliance and I can see that the author is very talented. But that brilliance was not curated properly and so the final result ends up being messy and disappointing.