Top Ten Tuesday #5

Hosted by The Broke and The Bookish 

Top Ten of the Best Books I’ve Read Recently

Fairy Tail Blue Minstrel Vol 1

          

I love Fairy Tail and have been meaning to start reading its spin-offs for a while now. I started off with Wendy’s Spinoff Blue Minstrel and I was not disappointed! That adorable little sky dragon slayer is holding her own and is truly an amazing character.

The Temple of Paris

           

I’ve hyped this book up a lot recently so I won’t fangirl over it again but it’s a super amazing sequel about fantasy science told by an awesome female protagonist!

Dracula

          

I’ve owned this book for awhile, read about 8 pages 4 years ago and finally sat down and read it this year. It lived up to the hype, and it was so cool seeing how much of the lore Stoker put in one book.

Avatar Smoke and Shadow Part 2

        

 

I will never not love this serious. I will read all of the Avatar Universe until they stop producing new material. Hopefully that will never happen because I need the gap between Aang and Korra filled up, after Legend of Korra ended, and even just stories about all of the past avatar’s adventures. Right now we’re looking at a rebel uprising that wants to dethrone Zuko and make Ozai the Firelord again! I haven’t read the third and final part yet but I’m looking forward to it.

Silk

          

 This is seriously not a story to pass up. Cindy Moon aka Silk is an Asian-American young woman who was bitten by the same radioactive spider as Peter Parker but wasn’t able to control her powers. She locked herself up in an underground bunker where she stayed for years until discovered by Spiderman himself! Now she’s a badass force of nature who beats up bad guys and always has a witty remark. This comic features Spiderman, The Fantastic Four, Black Cat, Mockingbird, and Spiderwoman, and everyone’s favorite boss: J. Jonah Jameson Jr.

Ms. Marvel

          

Ms. Marvel is another awesome comic featuring a 16-year-old Pakistani-American. She’s marvel’s first Muslim character to get their own comic book and the first volume won the 2015 Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story. It’s so refreshing to get some diversity!

Angela Queen of Hel

           

Ok this is going to be my last Marvel promotion but this is also another amazing read. Angela is Thor’s sister, an Angel Bounty Hunter who grew up outside of the 9 realms. This comic starts out with her lover Sera in Hel and Angela’s goal is to take over as Queen of Hel to free her lover and mistreated Angel sisters. If you want an empowered woman, queer representation and all the sass look no further!

Dark Disciple

          

This is one of the new canon Star Wars books so of course I had to read it. It looks at what’s really good and evil and whether or not a middle ground exists. Vos (a jedi) and Ventress (a former sith and enemy of the jedi) realize that they have a common enemy: Count Dooku. Teaming up will give them the best chance at killing him before he and the separatists take over the galaxy destroying innocent lives. Being partners on such a stressful mission creates an intricate bond between a dark force user and a light force user like never before.

The Rose Society

        

 

I’ve already reviewed this but this book is another great novel by Marie Lu. The cast of characters get cool powers in such an interesting way and I love how the story is told by the villain’s perspective.

Sword of Summer

I’m Rick Riordan trash. As long as he writes mythological books, I will read mythological books. Magnus was a fascinating character and I was shocked to find that he was killed only a couple pages into the book. This also has Muslim representation with Magnus’s good friend Sam as well as plenty of references to his past works since they’re all intertwined so well! (Also Annabeth Chase makes a brief appearance so that’s a plus)

Twitter!

Just a quick little update everybody, I finally decided to get a Twitter for my blog! You can hit me up at LoveAt1stWrite and be sure to follow for future updates!

Review: The Temple of Paris by Laura DeBruce Blog Tour Stop + Giveaway!

The Temple of Paris

by Laura DeBruce

Publication Date: February 5^th 2016

Publisher: Quicksilver Legacy Books
Source: Blog Tour

Find This Book: The Temple of Paris

Rating: 5/5

Summary:

An adventure through Paris.

American teenagers, Hana and Alex, travel to Paris on a mission to save the people they love. They have to decode an obscure message to find the only woman on earth who can help them. They soon discover unexpected allies — a quirky detective with a crystal dowser, and two young Italians studying in the City of Light. When a mysterious dwarf stalks Alex, and sinister characters from the past reappear, Hana questions the truth about their newfound friends.

The first lives Hana and Alex need to save may be their own.

Review

So my first introduction to this series was by giving the author my opinion of book 2’s cover options a couple years ago. I was then given a copy of book one, The Riddle of Prague which I reviewed here. I have been eagerly awaiting book two’s release ever since! This series is very well researched with history, culture, architecture and museums being referenced, which I extremely enjoyed. For me, the best part about literature is when an author can take the strange, such as Hana and Alex’s quest for Valentina and the elixir, and make it seem like a realistic adventure! I didn’t know much about Prague, the setting of the first book, but I’ve had to do some extensive research on the city of Paris back in the days of my French Language classes and I was pleasantly reminded of everything that I had learned. Paris is so beautiful and has such a long and rich history that I was glad to see it come through in this novel. It felt like I could really be there myself experiencing some of these scenes set in Paris!

I relished how the story and the characters were expanded upon in more detail in book two, something I lightly criticized in my review of book one. The Immortals have lived for hundreds of years and therefore must have complicated and long histories, and boy did Laura DeBruce come through for me. Nadja, an important character in The Riddle of Prague never fails to impress me and hold me in awe. I absolutely loved getting to hear her backstory with the Fortune Teller and the Nurse and thought it’s slow reveal was the perfect pace to keep feeding me information while also letting me come to my own conclusions (though some of them were a bit off). Just like last book there are secrets upon secrets, and I don’t think Hana will ever get to the bottom of it. Just maybe she’ll learn enough to save her mother in the end of the trilogy.

The Italian Brunelli family, who are introduced as a friends of Hana in book one get introduced in greater detail with some unexpected twists as the plot unfolds. It was interesting to meet a character that Hana knew more about than the reader, because for once we just have to take Hana’s opinion for granted, unlike in book one when the reader knew everything that Hana did and more. For the most part, the reader could discover and learn alongside Hana instead of Hana telling the reader information she already knows. Hana came to her conclusions, and I came to mine. When it came to the characters Gio and Roberta Brunelli I had to consider whether I should take Hana’s assumption of them at face value or not. They certainly kept me on my toes! While I was mentally debating whether everything was as it seemed, I really enjoyed them as characters, especially Gio’s charming personality and dedication to his camerawork.

Another aspect of the book that I adored was Alex and Hana together again! He left so abruptly at the end of book one, I wasn’t sure how quickly they would be able to find each other again or how it would happen. Watching Alex and Hana’s relationship develop further as they go through such testy and traumatic experiences together was exactly what the doctor ordered. Their strong will and the love for their families is truly admirable and the circumstances they find themselves in create a constant page-turner of a book. My favorite character, David, got a bit less page-time this time around as well as spunky little Talia which was sad; but obviously not everything can be fit into one book and while I missed them very much their presence wouldn’t have made much sense plot-wise. Hopefully they’ll be there for the finale!

The plot of this book is that Hana with help from Alex, the immortal David, a hired investigator of Alex’s dad, and two friend’s of Hana’s from the Brunelli family are looking for the famous yet elusive Valentina who is the only one who can help save Hana’s mom and Alex’s sister from an early grave. After the fun historical riddle in book one, this book was more like a scavenger hunt with the only clues being a “Pantheon” and a “Temple of Glory”. There are such fascinating connections between the characters that it became a much more complex web than I originally imagined. Making all of the connections in my head and looking to see if I was right really made this a really enjoyable read. The Temple of Paris was a fantastic fantasy history mystery book that I couldn’t put down, but at the same time I didn’t want it to be over! My 3 year wait was totally worth it and I sit in anticipation of the third and final book The Fountain of Ragusa!

Book Trailer for The Riddle of Prague: 

About the Author

LAURA DEBRUCE worked in the television business in Prague where she fell in love with the city and its legends. She is a documentary filmmaker and writer who currently lives in Maryland. The Riddle of Prague is her first novel.


To learn more please visit www.theriddleofprague.com

Author Links:

Website│Goodreads│Twitter│Facebook

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Blog Tour Organized by: YA Bound Book Tours