ARC Review: Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove by Rati Mehrotra

Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove
by Rati Mehrotra
Publication Date: October 18th 2022
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Find This Book: Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove
Rating: 4/5

**An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.**

Night of the Raven, Dawn of the Dove centers around Katyani, the adoptive daughter, bondswoman, and royal guard of the Queen of Chandela. Her future has never been in doubt: she will be her adoptive brother's most trusted advisor when he becomes king. Attending to Ayan and his cousin Bhairav, Katyani is shipped off to a monastic school of a famous guru where they will hone the skills needed to be the next leaders of the kingdom (including magic and mosnter hunting). Nothing could annoy Katyani more than leaving court and being shipped off to a rule-abiding school in the middle of a forest, except her run-ins with Daksh, the guru’s son, who can’t stop going on about the rules and whose gaze makes her feel like he can see into her soul. (Yes, there is a slow-burn romance!)

But when Katyani and the princes are hurriedly summoned back to Chandela before their training is complete, tragedy strikes and Katyani is torn from the only life she has ever known. Alone and betrayed in a land infested by monsters, Katyani must find answers from her past to save all she loves and forge her own destiny. Bonds can be broken, but debts must be repaid.

This book is a fantastic standalone fantasy, set in medieval India. It will suck you in with Katyani's fun yet brash personality and with a fast-paced plot full of with magic, Indian mythology, and court intrigue! Katyani's dedication to her promises, and her loyalty to her friends and family created a loveable heroine who uses more than just her brute strength when in the face of danger. The slow-burn romance could have used a bigger pay-off which is what knocked this down a star for me, but the world-building was well fleshed out and Katyani's struggle for her identity and sense of home really made this book stand out.

ALC Review: All of Us Villains by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman

All of Us Villains
by Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman
Publication Date: November 9th 2021
Publisher: Tor Teen
Find This Book: All of Us Villains
Rating: 5/5

**An ALC of this book was provided to me by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.**

All of Us Villains is a new fantasy duology that you’d have to pay me to shut up about. It was action-packed yet still had a well developed world and well developed characters. Every 20 years, seven families send a family champion to compete in a magical fight to the death. The winner’s family get sole access to the town stores of high magic until the next tournament. This tournament is a magical curse upon the town, and any families that fail to send a champion get a member of their family killed by the curse at random. Foody and Herman took the ‘games’ trope and made it totally unique. I love the concept that a curse is what forces and maintains the games and their violence. It makes for an exceptionally eerie and tragic backdrop to the plot and to the character’s motivations.

Other perks?

-Amanda Foody and Christine Lynn Herman co-wrote. I’d be curious to know the breakdown of who wrote what because the entire book felt so cohesive. This writing duo was meant to be!

-Multiple POV’s that are all well-developed! I feel like most books always have thaaat character that you’re struggling to get through when it’s their turn to POV but that was not the case with All of Us Villains. I was excited for every single POV change and to listen to all their unique perspectives.

-Book within a book. I love when books have some internal literature and lore! In this case, an in-universe book was written about the cursed tournament and a quote from the book started each chapter.

-Only one bed trope. Without getting into detail I loved forced-proximity tropes and it was so good in this book!

ARC Review: Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

Spin the Dawn
By Elizabeth Lim
Publication Date: July 9^th 2019
Publisher: Knopf
Find This Book: Spin the Dawn (The Blood of Stars #1)
Rating: 4/5 




I was given an eARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Spin the Dawn is a precious pearl of a book. The only reason it doesn’t have 5 stars from me is because the pace wasn’t quitewhat I prefer. The gorgeous cover and Mulan description made me want to read it ASAP and I was so excited when I was approved for this arc. The book itself was just as awesome as the cover! Lim takes us into an East-Asian inspired fantasy world with a setting very similar to China, and mythology that seems lightly based in Shintoism (the sun goddess Amana/Amaterasu is upset by a and the sun goes away, creating the cycle of night and say. There are even mythical decedents of Amana, though they are not royalty like in Japan.

The novel is about a girl named Maia, who is “enlisted” like Mulan to replace a male figure. In this case, she is taken to compete to be the new Imperial Tailor, as the Emperor’s old tailor just died. The book Is broken into three parts, all with their own intrigues. In the beginning you’re learning about how the Summer Palace works, how the social hierarchy is laid out, and how the book understands and defines magic. Later on, Maia has to prove herself by going on a thrilling and dangerous adventure to make mythical dresses out of the laughter of the sun, the tears of the moon, and the blood of the stars. Are these ingredients even real, and does Maia have what it takes to collect them???

The book didn’t ‘twist’ persay, as I feel twists include a bit of a jolt in the narrative, but the ending was certainly unexpected. There were many parts of it I didn’t see coming, but it all flowed together perfectly- the ideal balance! If you’re looking for fantasy, magic, and/or #ownvoices rep- Lim spins the perfect tale with Spin the Dawn!

Review: Helm Abomination by Gryffyn Phoenix

Helm Abomination (Haven Awakening #2)

by Gryffyn Phoenix

Publication Date: June 15^th 2016

Publisher: Avalerion Books, Inc.
Source: Author

Find This Book: Helm Abomination

Rating: 4/5

I was provided a copy of this book by the author in exchange for an honest review.

As you may know, I was given a copy of Haven Awakening a week or so ago. You can read the review if you’re interested HERE.  This was so I could read and review an ARC of book two which just came out! I was super pumped after Haven Awakening and jumped right into Helm Abomination, and while this book left me with many questions I’m hoping they’ll all be resolved in future books!

I really loved the chill, stylized writing of the author. Verity felt like a girlie girl naïve, totally sheltered 16-year-old girl. I thought some of the gay remarks were weird and off-putting, but she’s an ignorant teen who hasn’t interacted with anyone but her 2 siblings so I guess it’s understandable, but this knocked the book down a star for me. I respected how sweet Verity is with all of the ‘monsters’ they come across throughout the novel. Cass and trained Haven to kill everything and Helm adapted to do the same. Verity on the other hand recognizes that killing doesn’t need to be the answer. These creatures are hurting and are quite amiable when cared for. Helm becoming a sanctuary for these misunderstood animals was like a page out of Hagrid’s book and I adored how great it turned out. Mythological creatures as pets? YES PLEASE.

Reading about Helm after spending all of book one in Haven was awesome. I’d so rather live in Helm and I felt like I got to learn about and understand more of the guys living at Helm than I did of the people back in Haven. My favorite character in Helm is probably Book, their researcher, because he’s a shy introvert in the dramatized extreme. Watching him come out of his shell for Verity was so cute because they are both sweetie pies. While Verity does get a bit clichéd when she goes into the “I’m so average” spiel, I appreciate how non-typical she is in other regards. She actually talks to her parents, she actually cracks open some books and does school work. When she gets thrust into this world she doesn’t suddenly become super badass and awesome. She learns and trains really hard to create and improve upon her skills. She doesn’t need a makeover to get the cute guy. Cute guy already likes her and she wears the makeup to bring confidence to herself. No eyebrows were knit in the making of this book. The most important part- she eats like a normal human with the healthy food and junk food mixed in giving her a normal human figure. Who knew I would crave all of this normalcy out of a fantasy book? It was so revitalizing to not be constantly thinking “ok… that will never happen in real life”. Everything sort of fit in with the fantasy and created universe of the book.

This book was just as easy to pick up and enjoy as book 1, though it left me aware of just how much Verity and I didn’t know/understand. I feel like the origin story of Helm and Haven has so many conflicting variations that I’m still not really sure why they were formed or why they suddenly became enemies aside from just the appearance of Cass, but that really doesn’t tell me much. This vagueness by the end of book 2 is also a reason I can't give the book all 5 stars. How does a newbie like Cass suddenly turn up and create upheaval within Haven all that time ago? Why would the citizens of Haven allow her to turn them into this? Heck I still don't know what Cass is or what her powers consist of. I need details in the next book. Also, where does Cass gets all of this anger and hatred from? The girl needs to take a chill pill, I’m still not sure where this conflict came from/what it’s based on. This clearly all started before Verity got the magical eyes. Additionally, we have some sort of prophecy that implies Verity kills Haydn, her boy toy, but it’s not really clear where this prophecy came from, what it’s exact words are, or how Haydn, Kaydn, and Cass are connected. They have a huge reveal that Verity can’t kill Cass without Cass bringing Kaydn with her and that if Kaydn dies so will Haydn. I get that there was totally no time in the moment to explain this all to Verity… but I still at some point need an explanation to this. Lastly, what the heck is up with Verity’s family? What are her parents? Are they even related? What happened to her siblings? Where the heck did Grandma just poof off to? What is their ancestry? How does Verity’s body changes affect her life/the future of the plot??? You better be writing Gryffyn, because I NEED ANOTHER BOOK. I NEED ANSWERS.

PS please put in more domovi scenes because the lil purple creatures are so cute and their relationship with Verity really evolved this book and I’m hoping for hugs and maybe a conversation one day. Verity will certainly need her domovi now more than ever after that killer ending. *wink wink* Haha. Puns.

Review: The Undying God by Nathan Wilson

The Undying God
by Nathan Wilson
Publication Date: Oct 8th 2012
Source: Author
Find This Book: The Undying God
Rating: 4/5





A copy of this book was provided to me by the author in exchange for an honest review.

 I really liked the characters and the plot of this book, It was very intriguing and made me think about societies ideals. The villain, Margzor, believes that keeping ones virginity is an awful thing and that it’s something to be done when you love someone and someone loves you. His life has been pretty much the worst and he yearns to be loved. A demon posses him and gives him the idea to kill the demigod of virginity, Astalla, and become a demigod himself. He has so much hate that he believes in these ideals so strongly that he starts murdering the Demigod’s followers. It could just be that I wasn’t paying attention as closely as I should have to the book (there were a lot of breaks because I needed to paint a couple rooms) but I feel like his background wasn’t really explained, and that was disappointing. I felt it was really easy to feel pity for Margzor and I’m curious about his childhood and what originally caused him to hate.

 The Literary Foil of Nishka and Arxu was really interesting to read (props for the cool names too). Arxu needed Nishka to bring out the good and emotions in him. He had been murdered and brought back to life, completely emotionless and he couldn’t remember anything about his life. Nishka on the other hand cares deeply about her father and his well-being, which is why she left her small home town to sell his goods. Her father hires a pale stranger (Arxu) to guard her on the road until she gets back. When Nishka almost dies, that’s when the humor of the book, Hrioshango, comes in. He’s constantly on the wrong side of the law and really perverted, but made the book pretty funny. He’s pretty much a foil of himself which sort of makes sense since he’s a chaos magician?

One thing I absolutely loved about this book was the description. It was so deep and vivid, with amazing vocabulary. There was so much of it, you could picture what was going on easily (for better or for worse with those bloody gore scenes) without being an overload. Another thing I loved was ALL of the characters. Even though I don’t think everything I wanted was explained, the characters were well thought out and realistically deep. You could watch the characters grow and muture…. Or grow into even more hatred… Margzor realizes that he has the chance to be saved from his hate, and chance to give up his goal and to stop killing, and he puts that hope 100% into Nishka who had shown him mercy without even realizing it. Then he decides to kill Astalla’s followers anyway? I didn’t really get that part… Another part I wasn’t so sure about was when Margzor looks in a pool of blood and sees the image Nishka and Arxu together… I’m pretty sure Margzor doesn’t have magic, so how did that happen?? Also, how does Arxu get his memories back? Was it because he walked into the ruins of his old home? Because he killed his murderer? Because he almost dies? I have no clue, but all of a sudden he has them back… Lastly, I don’t get how the title of the story fits…. “The Undying God” because I’m pretty Sure 3 deities die in this book sooooo….

I guess I’m just being nit-picky, but Nishka just abandoned her father, never really sold much of anything, and then disappears… I’m curious about what happened to Hrioshango too. But I suppose this was a happily-ever-after story in the end. So it had its pros and cons. The fact that it centered on a sensitive modern issue such as sex was refreshing for me. It’s such a touchy subject in this day and age where some people do covet virginity and where others probably couldn’t care less about it. This book really made me think. It was pretty hard to pick a side between the ‘villain’ and the ‘good guys’ because they both had valid points. By the end of the book I still hadn’t made up my mind! All in all I really liked this book even with these little criticisms and I will definitely re-read in the future.