Books of Love: 2018

Friday, December 21, 2018

Stacking The Shelves, Bought Borrowed and Bagged, Coloring Book Updates

Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by Team Tynga's Reviews and Bought, Borrowed and Bagged is hosted by Braine over at Talk Supe Blog

NOTE: THIS IS FOR TWO WEEKS. I didn't have anything new to show to you, so hence why it was for two weeks, so is the coloring book pictures

NETGALLEY/EDELWEISS BOOKS

Coloring Book Haul:

13th Chamber Coloring Book Update

Art of Madness Coloring Book Update

Damsels of Destress Coloring Book Update

Enchanted Forest-Alena Lazareva Coloring Book Update

Fairies, Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids Coloring Book Update

Fantasy Imagery Coloring Book Update

Flowers of Fantasy Coloring Book Update

Johanna's Christmas Coloring Book Update

Maskara Coloring Book Update

Original Bliss Vol 1 Coloring Book Update

Percy and the Coloring Wonderland Coloring Book Update

The Night Voyage Coloring Book Update

The Nutcracker Coloring Book-MacMillen

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Book Review: Circle of Shadows by Evelyn Skye

Title: Circle of Shadows

Author: Evelyn Skye

Series: Circle of Shadows #1

Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Publisher: Balzer and Bray, an imprint of Harper Collins

Pub Date: January 22nd 2019

Pages: 400

My Copy: ARC That I picked up at Book Expo America

Note: This review could be considered Spoilery, so read at your own risk.

Book Summary:

Sora can move as silently as a ghost and hurl throwing stars with lethal accuracy. Her gemina, Daemon, can win any physical fight blindfolded and with an arm tied behind his back. They are apprentice warriors of the Society of Taigas—marked by the gods to be trained in magic and the fighting arts to protect the kingdom of Kichona.

As their graduation approaches, Sora and Daemon look forward to proving themselves worthy of belonging to the elite group—but in a kingdom free of violence since the Blood Rift Rebellion many years ago, it’s been difficult to make their mark. So when Sora and Daemon encounter a strange camp of mysterious soldiers while on a standard scouting mission, they decide the only thing to do to help their kingdom is to infiltrate the group.Taking this risk will change Sora’s life forever—and lead her on a mission of deception that may fool everyone she’s ever loved.

Book Review:

A solid start to a new series. I like that all of the characters are interesting and have very different personalities. This is a very good start because you have characters who each want something or need to accomplish a goal.

I really fell in love with both Sora and Daemon right from the start. They are what you call mischief makers and have gifts. Their mischief sometimes gets them in trouble and when they are given a less than glamorous assignment they are both surprised. Things turn out very surprising for both of them. They also have two friends name Broomstick and Faery who also help them with their mischief. Both of them play a major role later on in the book.

Really like the fact that family plays a role to a lot of our characters. Sora really finds that having family and visiting them keeps her grounded in a lot of ways. While going on an assignment, both Sora and Daemon visit her family. It really was one of the most interesting and heartfelt scenes i thought in the book. Sora and her mother’s conversation really made me love the heartfelt scenes about what has happened and that she should live her live to the fullest since her sister didn’t get to have that chance to live. Daemon also finds this a little bit uncomfortable as he doesn’t really have one of his own or doesn’t understand where he comes from. His friends have become his family.

Also things happen that neither of them can expect or see coming around the corner. We find that someone has attack a village and caused a lot of deaths and destructions. This causes a lot of chaos. Plus Sora and Daemon on a scouting expedition find someone who was thought dead. Prince Gin is alive and this causes major problems later on in the book. He is trying to convert people to his cause.

Prince Gin is really bad we find out. He wants to get this mystical place that supposedly is real as he believes. Others say that it doesn’t exist. We find out that there was a great battle between his sister, the Queen, Aki and him many years ago. His sister one and he was badly hurt or thought to be dead. We learn that he is back and has new abilities and is hypnotizing people sort of to control them. What happens is that he manages to get Sora under his control but has no control over Daemon. This causes major issues for Daemon. He wonders why and is glad that he is immune. We also learn that Sora’s younger sister Hannah is alive and this makes things more intense.

So there are a lot of conflicts, fighting, deceptions and much more going on in this book. I really like how the relationships are complicated between families. You see it running parallel with Aki and Gin and Sora and Hannah. Things happen that both pairs siblings have different viewpoints of things and are on different sides of the fight that will happen. It’s an interesting dynamic that gets played on both sides of the coin. Dilemas happen when people have to make choices and knowing what side you are on can be tricky because both sides believe that they are right.

This was a really crazy book with lots of twist and turns. Plus Aki, the Queen also gets involved on a very deeply personal level. Things happen and more magic gets involved. Plus Aki puts Faery in a very dangerous position having her get dressed up as Aki. So this makes things much more tense and leads to many weird things happening to Faery. Faery looks a lot like the Queen, so this is why they do it. They do it to buy time to figure out how to stop Prince Gin from ruining everything.

I really enjoyed the craziness that took place during the last chapter. It comes down to an intense battle and major craziness. Hannah is truly devoted to Prince Gin and will do anything for him that he asks of her. This is not what Sora had intended. She had hoped that her sister would see reason. Yet things happen and nothing goes as planned for our main characters.

Really enjoyed the ending of this book as it was something you didn’t expect and hope that it leads to the next book having a totally different direction for our characters. Not to mention, the world they have lived in has totally changed. Really good young adult fantasy that had me guessing right until the end.

Rating:

Four Hearts