Review: Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Published: 9th July 2019 | Publisher: Delecorte Press | Cover Designer: Regina Flath | Cover Art: Aykut Aydoğdu| Source: Won in a giveaway.
Rory Power's Website

It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her.

It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true. From Goodreads.

Book Depository | Wordery | Goodreads

Rep: Lesbian protagonist/narrator, lesbian main character, secondary black character.

Trigger Warnings: This book features blood, vomit, death, mutations, graphic and gorey violence, descriptions of wounds, self-defense killing, experiments on people, self-harm, suicide ideation, suicide, gassing. Also, see Power's own list of trigger and content warnings.

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13 Facts About Me

In order to help you guys get to know me a little better, here are some random facts about me!

1. My favourite film is The Notebook. Part of me finds this really annoying, because it makes me feel like a cliché, but it's so beautiful. When I first saw it, I really hoped it was based on a true story. I cry every time I see it.

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Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash.

On Being More Intentional with My Time

As I've mentioned before, the recent changes in my lifestyle have led me to slowing right down. In turn, this has given me space that's allowed me to reflect and re-evaluate my life, and what I spend my time on.

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Review: Craft by Gabriela Herstik

This post contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Craft by Gabriela Herstik

Published: 15th March 2018 | Publisher: Ebury Press | Cover Designer: | Source: Bought
Gabriela Herstik's Website

Infuse a drop of magick into your everyday life.

Writer, fashion alchemist and modern witch, Gabriela Herstik, unlocks the ancient art of witchcraft so that you can find a brand of magick that works for you.

From working with crystals, tarot and astrology, to understanding sex magick, solstices and full moons; learn how to harness energy, unleash your inner psychic and connect with the natural world.

Full of spells and rituals for self-care, new opportunities and keeping away toxic energy, Craft is the essential lifestyle guide for the modern woman who wants to take control and reconnect with herself.

After all, empowered women run the world (and they’re probably witches). From Goodreads.

Book Depository | Wordery | Goodreads

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Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1866-1873

Lady Lilith and Me: How a Painting Gave Me Body Confidence

Trigger/Content Warning: This post features mentions of rape, infertility, miscarriage, and infanticide.

Lilith - the woman who, according to Jewish mythology, was Adam's first wife, who refused to be subservient to him and lie beneath him during sex, before running off to the Red Sea and becoming a she-demon - holds a special place in my heart. Not because she is considered a feminist icon, though that is pretty awesome. Not because she murdered men, mothers, new born babies, which I try to ignore. No, I love Lilith, specifically Lady Lilith above, because she's a redhead.

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Review: House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin A. Craig

Published: 6th August 2019 | Publisher: Delacorte Press | Cover Designer: Alison Impey | Source: Won in a giveaway
Erin A. Craig's Website

Four of Annaleigh Thaumas's eleven sisters have returned to the Salt, the brackish water that surrounds their lonely island home, their lives cut short, each more tragically than the last. Whispers throughout the Highmoor estate say the girls have been cursed by the gods.

When Annaleigh finds out that her sisters have been sneaking out to attend glittering midnight balls and dance until dawn, she's not sure whether to stop them--or join them. And when she begins to see a series of horrific, ghostly visions and more sisters die, she realizes she must solve the mystery--with the help of Cassius, a sea captain who knows much more about her than he should--and unravel the Thaumas curse before she descends into madness or... it claims her next. From Goodreads.

Book Depository | Wordery | Goodreads

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features sex, death, grief, funerals, discussion of suicide, descriptions of multiple dead bodies, murder, the idea of "madness" born of magic, pregnancy, birth, a stillborn baby, and mention of violence against women.

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Photo by Austin Schmid on Unsplash.

Self-Care Strategies for Mental Well Being

Yesterday was Mental Health Day - and this post was meant to go up yesterday, but I was ill with a migraine, so I didn't get to finish it in time, but I still want to mark it. As I recently wrote about my experiences with anxiety, I thought I would share with you some of my self care strategies that help my mental health.

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Review: The Grace Year by Kim Liggett (#Ad)

I received this eProof for free from Del Rey via NetGalley for the purposes of providing an honest review.

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

Published: 10th October 2019 | Publisher: Del Rey | Cover Designer: | Source: NetGalley
Kim Liggett's Website

No one speaks of the grace year.
It's forbidden.
We're told we have the power to lure grown men from their beds, make boys lose their minds, and drive the wives mad with jealousy. That's why we're banished for our sixteenth year, to release our magic into the wild before we're allowed to return to civilization.
But I don't feel powerful.
I don't feel magical.

Tierney James lives in an isolated village where girls are banished at sixteen to the northern forest to brave the wilderness - and each other - for a year. They must rid themselves of their dangerous magic before returning purified and ready to marry - if they're lucky.

It is forbidden to speak of the grace year, but even so every girl knows that the coming year will change them - if they survive it...

The Grace Year is The Handmaid's Tale meets Lord of the Flies - a page-turning feminist dystopia about a young woman trapped in an oppressive society, fighting to take control of her own life. From Goodreads.

Rep: Side lesbian character.

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features pregnancy, birth, bullying, death, ogling, discussion of sex, fade-to-black sex scene, sex shaming language, predators, sexual assault, forced prostitution, rape culture, violence against women, execution by hanging, forced watching of execution, discussion of skinning girls alive, an axe wound, suicide, cannibalism, transphobia: girl grabbed by the crotch to "check" she's not "really" a boy, homophobia: same sex attraction leads to violent punishment, acting on same sex attraction is punishable by death, and purposeful public outing of lesbian character.

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Photo by Caju Gomes on Unsplash.

World Smile Day: Things that Make Me Smile

Happy World Smile Day! On this joyful day, I thought I'd share some of the things that make me smile, in no particular order.

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Review: Crier's War by Nina Varela (#Ad)

I received this eProof for free by HarpeerTeen/Afire Pages via Edelweiss for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Crier's War by Nina Varela

Published: 1st October 2019 | Publisher: HarperTeen | Cover Designer: David Curtis and Erin Fitzsimmons | Source: Publisher/Afire Pages via Edelweiss
ISBN: 0062823965 | Pages: 448 | Age Category & Genre: Young Adult Fantasy, Romance
Nina Varela's Website

From debut author Nina Varela comes the first book in an Own Voices, richly imagined epic fantasy about an impossible love between two girls—one human, one Made—whose romance could be the beginning of a revolution.

Perfect for fans of Marie Rutkoski’s The Winner’s Curse as well as Game of Thrones and Westworld.

After the War of Kinds ravaged the kingdom of Rabu, the Automae, designed to be the playthings of royals, usurped their owners’ estates and bent the human race to their will.Now Ayla, a human servant rising in the ranks at the House of the Sovereign, dreams of avenging her family’s death…by killing the sovereign’s daughter, Lady Crier.

Crier was Made to be beautiful, flawless, and to carry on her father’s legacy. But that was before her betrothal to the enigmatic Scyre Kinok, before she discovered her father isn’t the benevolent king she once admired, and most importantly, before she met Ayla.

Now, with growing human unrest across the land, pressures from a foreign queen, and an evil new leader on the rise, Crier and Ayla find there may be only one path to love: war. From Goodreads.

Rep: Lesbian protagonists, f/f, everyone has brown skin.

Trigger Warnings: This book features blood, hunting, sex overheard, death, grief, humans killed, descriptions of dead bodies - burned and beheaded, and murder fantasies.

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