Review: Extasia by Claire Legrand (#Ad)

I was sent this proof for free by Harper360YA for the purposes of providing an honest review.

Links with an asterisk (*) are Ad: Affiliate Links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Extasia by Claire Legrand

Published: 3rd March 2022 | Publisher: Harper360 | Source: Publisher
Claire Legrand’s Website

A must-read for fans of Victoria Schwab and Elana K. Arnold, this terrifying YA standalone from New York Times bestselling author Claire Legrand follows a girl who joins a coven to protect her village from a powerful religious cult.

Her name is unimportant.

All you must know is that today she will become one of the four saints of Haven. The elders will mark her and place the red hood on her head. With her sisters, she will stand against the evil power that lives beneath the black mountain—an evil that has already killed nine of her village’s men.

She will tell no one of the white-eyed beasts that follow her. Or the faceless gray women tall as houses. Or the girls she saw kissing in the elm grove.

Today she will be a saint of Haven. She will rid her family of her mother’s shame at last and save her people from destruction. She is not afraid. Are you?

Claire Legrand, author of Sawkill Girls, returns with an emotionally searing and lyrically written novel that beckons readers to follow its fierce heroine into a world filled with secrets and blood—where the truth is buried in lies and a devastating power waits, seething, for someone brave enough to use it. From The StoryGraph.

Purchase from Bookshop.org*
The StoryGraph | Goodreads

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features body horror; visceral, gorey descriptions of violence; violence against women; domestic violence; forced imprisonment; attempted rape; torture; cannibalism; and someone being burnt alive.

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Ad: Titles with an asterisk (*) were provided to me for free by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Links with a circumflex (^) are Ad: Affiliate Links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I'll make a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Most Anticipated Fantasy of 2022 - January to June

It's 2022! A brand new year that will bring us a hell of a lot of brand new books! So today I'm sharing some of my most anticipated 2022 fantasy novels - in which I'm including an horror and a dystopia, because they're sub-genres in my opinion - from January to June. There are others, but I think 27 are enough to be getting on with, don't you? So on with the books!

The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman* (4th January, Hot Key Books)

Four siblings. A country in ruin. One quest to save them all.

Vira is desperate to get out of her mother's shadow and establish her legacy as a revered queen of Ashoka. But with the country's only quarry running out of magic - a precious resource that has kept Ashoka safe from conflict - she can barely protect her citizens from the looming threat of war. And if her enemies discover this, they'll stop at nothing to seize the last of the magic.

Vira's only hope is to find a mysterious object of legend: the Ivory Key, rumoured to unlock a new source of magic. But in order to infiltrate enemy territory and retrieve it, she must reunite with her siblings, torn apart by broken relationships and the different paths their lives have taken. Each of them has something to gain from finding the Ivory Key - and even more to lose if they fail. Ronak plans to sell it to the highest bidder in exchange for escape from his impending political and unwanted marriage. Kaleb, falsely accused of assassinating the former maharani, needs it to clear his name. And Riya, the runaway sibling who cut all family ties, wants the Key to prove her loyalty to the rebels who took her in.

They must work together to survive the treacherous journey. But with each sibling harbouring secrets and their own conflicting agendas, the very thing that brought them together could tear apart their family - and their world - for good.

First in a duology from an incredible new talent, this Indian-inspired fantasy debut is epic, fierce and magnetically addictive, taking you on a thrilling journey where magic, a prized resource, is the only thing between peace and war. From Goodreads.

Bookshop^ | Goodreads

Continue reading Most Anticipated Fantasy of 2022 - January to June

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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Review: The Power by Naomi Alderman

The Power by Naomi Alderman (Bought) - What if the power to hurt were in women's hands?

Suddenly - tomorrow or the day after - teenage girls find that with a flick of their fingers, they can inflict agonizing pain and even death. With this single twist, the four lives at the heart of Naomi Alderman's extraordinary, visceral novel are utterly transformed. From Goodreads.

Trigger Warning: This book contains rape, of men and women.

Continue reading Review: The Power by Naomi Alderman

Review: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (Bought) - Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She has only one function: to breed. If she deviates, she will, like dissenters, be hanged at the wall or sent out to die slowly of radiation sickness. But even a repressive state cannot obliterate desire - neither Offred's nor that of the two men on which her future hangs.

Brilliantly conceived and executed, this powerful evocation of twenty-first century America explores a world in which oppression of women, and repression of the truth, have become justified. From Goodreads.

Continue reading Review: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Review: 5 to 1 by Holly Bodger (#Ad)

5 to 1 by Holly Bodger

I was sent this review copy for free by Knopf Books for the purpose of providing an honest review.

In the year 2054, after decades of gender selection, India now has a ratio of five boys for every girl, making women an incredibly valuable commodity. Tired of marrying off their daughters to the highest bidder and determined to finally make marriage fair, the women who form the country of Koyanagar have instituted a series of tests so that every boy has the chance to win a wife.

Sudasa doesn’t want to be a wife, and Contestant Five, a boy forced to compete in the test to become her husband, has other plans as well. Sudasa’s family wants nothing more than for their daughter to do the right thing and pick a husband who will keep her comfortable—and caged. Contestant Five’s family wants him to escape by failing the tests. As the tests advance, Sudasa and Contestant Five thwart each other at every turn until they slowly realize that they just might want the same thing.

This beautiful, unique novel is told from alternating points of view—Sudasa’s in verse and Contestant Five’s in prose—allowing readers to experience both characters’ pain and their brave struggle for hope. From Goodreads - but edited.

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Review: Denton Little's Deathdate by Lance Rubin

Denton Little's Deathdate by Lance Rubin (eProof) - Denton Little's Deathdate takes place in a world exactly like our own except that everyone knows the day they will die. For 17-year-old Denton Little, that's tomorrow, the day of his senior prom.

Despite his early deathdate, Denton has always wanted to live a normal life, but his final days are filled with dramatic firsts. First hangover. First sex. First love triangle (as the first sex seems to have happened not with his adoring girlfriend, but with his best friend's hostile sister. Though he's not totally sure. See: first hangover.) His anxiety builds when he discovers a strange purple rash making its way up his body. Is this what will kill him? And then a strange man shows up at his funeral, claiming to have known Denton's long-deceased mother, and warning him to beware of suspicious government characters…. Suddenly Denton's life is filled with mysterious questions and precious little time to find the answers.

Debut author Lance Rubin takes us on a fast, furious, and outrageously funny ride through the last hours of a teenager's life as he searches for love, meaning, answers, and (just maybe) a way to live on. From Goodreads.

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Review: The Name on Your Wrist by Helen Hiorns

The Name on Your Wrist by Helen Hiorns (review copy) - In Corin's world, your carpinomen - the name of your soul mate, marked indelibly on your wrist - is everything. It shapes your whole life, and sets out your future. People spend decades searching for the one they're supposed to be with.

But what if you never find your soul mate? What if you fall for someone else - someone other than the name on your wrist?

And what if - like Corin - you're desperate not to be found?

The winner of the Sony Young Movellist, chosen by Malorie Blackman. From the blurb.

Continue reading Review: The Name on Your Wrist by Helen Hiorns

Review: Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill

Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill (ARC) - In a world in which baby girls are no longer born naturally, women are bred in schools, trained in the arts of pleasing men until they are ready for the outside world. At graduation, the most highly rated girls become "companions", permitted to live with their husbands and breed sons until they are no longer useful.

For the girls left behind, the future – as a concubine or a teacher – is grim.

Best friends freida and isabel are sure they’ll be chosen as companions – they are among the most highly rated girls in their year.

But as the intensity of final year takes hold, Isabel does the unthinkable and starts to put on weight...

And then, into this sealed female environment, the boys arrive, eager to choose a bride.

Freida must fight for her future – even if it means betraying the only friend, the only love, she has ever known... From Goodreads

Continue reading Review: Only Ever Yours by Louise O'Neill

Review: Into the Still Blue by Veronica Rossi

Into the Still Blue by Veronica Rossi (review copy) - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

Their love and their leadership have been tested. Now it's time for Perry and Aria to unite the Dwellers and the Outsiders in one last desperate attempt to bring balance to their world.

The race to the Still Blue has reached a stalemate. Aria and Perry are determined to find this last safe-haven from the Aether storms before Sable and Hess do-and they are just as determined to stay together.

Meanwhile, time is running out to rescue Cinder, who was abducted by Hess and Sable for his unique abilities. And when Roar returns to camp, he is so furious with Perry that he won't even look at him, and Perry begins to feel like they have already lost.

Out of options, Perry and Aria assemble a team to mount an impossible rescue mission - because Cinder isn't just the key to unlocking the Still Blue and their only hope for survival, he's also their friend. And in a dying world, the bonds between people are what matter most.

In this final book in her stunning Under the Never Sky trilogy, Veronica Rossi raises the stakes to their absolute limit and brings her epic love story to an unforgettable close. From Goodreads

Continue reading Review: Into the Still Blue by Veronica Rossi

Review: The Culling by Steven dos Santos

The Culling by Steven dos Santos (eGalley) - Lucian Lucky Spark has been recruited for training by the totalitarian government known as the Establishment. According to Establishment rules, if a recruit fails any level of the violent training competitions, a family member is brutally killed ...and the recruit has to choose which one. As the five recruits form uneasy alliances in the hellish wasteland that is the training ground, an undeniable attraction develops between Lucky and the rebellious Digory Tycho. But the rules of the training ensure that only one will survive - the strongest recruits receive accolades, wealth, and power while the weakest receive death. With Cole-Lucky's four-year-old brother-being held as incentive, Lucky must marshal all his skills and use his wits to keep himself alive, no matter what the cost. From Amazon UK

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Review: Coda by Emma Trevayne

Coda by Emma Trevayne (proof copy) - Ever since he was a young boy, music has coursed through the veins of eighteen-year-old Anthem--the Corp has certainly seen to that. By encoding music with addictive and mind-altering elements, the Corp holds control over all citizens, particularly conduits like Anthem, whose life energy feeds the main power in the Grid.

Anthem finds hope and comfort in the twin siblings he cares for, even as he watches the life drain slowly and painfully from his father. Escape is found in his underground rock band, where music sounds free, clear, and unencoded deep in an abandoned basement. But when a band member dies suspiciously from a tracking overdose, Anthem knows that his time has suddenly become limited. Revolution all but sings in the air, and Anthem cannot help but answer the call with the chords of choice and free will. But will the girl he loves help or hinder him?

Emma Trevayne's dystopian debut novel is a little punk, a little rock, and plenty page-turning. From Amazon UK

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Review: Through the Ever Night by Veronica Rossi

Through the Ever Night by Veronica Rossi - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

Aria has struggled to build a life for herself outside Reverie. It hasn't been easy adjusting to life in the wilderness but the struggle has been worth it with Perry by her side.

But Perry has other challenges. His people are looking to him for answers. Answers about what happened to his nephew and what's happening to their world. And they don't trust the privileged Aria, one of the enemy, in their midst.

Soon Perry'll be forced to chose between the tribe that looks to him for leadership and the girl that looks to him for love. From Amazon UK

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Review: Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Requiem by Lauren Oliver - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

It is the rule of the Wilds.

You must be bigger, and stronger, and tougher.

A coldness radiates through me, a solid wall that is growing, piece by piece, in my chest. He doesn't love me.

He never loved me.

It was all a lie.

'The old Lena is dead', I say, and then push past him. Each step is more difficult than the last; the heaviness fills me and turns my limbs to stone.

You must hurt, or be hurt.

Lena can build the walls, but what if there's no one left to take them down? The powerful, heartbreaking conclusion to one of the most eagerly awaited, talked-about series is here. From Amazon UK

Continue reading Review: Requiem by Lauren Oliver

Review: Roar and Liv by Veronica Rossi

Roar and Liv by Veronica Rossi - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

Before Perry and Aria, there was Roar and Liv.

After a childhood spent wandering the borderlands, Roar finally feels like he has a home with the Tides. His best friend Perry is like a brother to him, and Perry's sister, Liv, is the love of his life. But Perry and Liv's unpredictable older brother, Vale, is the Blood Lord of the Tides, and he has never looked kindly on Roar and Liv's union. Normally, Roar couldn't care less about Vale's opinion. But with food running low and conditions worsening every day, Vale's leadership is more vital - and more brutal - than ever. Desperate to protect his tribe, Vale makes a decision that will shatter the life Roar knew and change the fate of the Tides forever. From Amazon UK

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Review: Annabel by Lauren Oliver

Annabel by Lauren Oliver - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

Lena's mother, Annabel, has always been a mystery - a ghost in Lena's past. Until now. Discover her secrets in Lauren Oliver's brilliant original digital story set in the world of international bestsellers Delirium and Pandemonium. Through chapters that alternate between her past and present, Annabel reveals the true story behind her failed cures, her marriage, the births of her children, her imprisonment, and, ultimately, her daring escape. From Amazon UK

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Review: Insignia by S.J. Kincaid

Insignia by S.J. Kincaid (ARC) - What if playing computer games could save the world... And what if the Government's secret weapon was you?

Tom Raines is suddenly recruited into the US Army to train as a virtual reality Combatant to see if he is good enough to help fight World War Three. Equipped with a new computer chip in his brain, it looks like Tom might actually become somebody. But what happens when you start to question the rules?

Fast-paced and futuristic, INSIGNIA, the first of a trilogy, asks significant questions about the use of technology and the value of human life. From the press release.

Continue reading Review: Insignia by S.J. Kincaid

Review: Fever by Lauren DeStefano

Fever by Lauren DeStefano (review copy) - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoiled for you.

Running away from her forced polygamous marriage leads 17-year-old Rhine Ellery straight into a trap: a twisted carnival whose ringmistress desires the beautiful and unusual Rhine as her star attraction. But with Gabriel - her lover and fellow escapee - Rhine remains determined to reach Manhattan, find her twin brother, Rowan, and start a life far from the gilded prisons that have confined her.

The road to freedom is long and perilous - and in a world where women only live to the age of 20 and men die at 25 - time is very precious. And worse still, Rhine's sinister father-in-law, Vaughn, is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion... by any means necessary.

Continue reading Review: Fever by Lauren DeStefano

Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Wither by Lauren DeStefano (review copy) - In our brave new future, DNA engineering has resulted in a terrible genetic flaw. Women die at the age of 20, men at 25. Young girls are being abducted and forced to breed in a desperate attempt to keep humanity ahead of the disease that threatens to eradicate it.

16-year-old Rhine Ellery is kidnapped and sold as a bride to Linden, a roch young man with a dying wife. Even though he is kind to her, Rhine is desperate to escape her gilded cage - and Linden's cruel father. With the help of Gabriel, a servant she is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in what little time she has left. From the blurb.

Continue reading Review: Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Team Candor UK Review: Insurgent by Veronica Roth

Insurgent by Veronica Roth (review copy) - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoiled for you.

Fighting for survival in a shattered world… the truth is her only hope.

I have done bad things. I can’t take them back, and they are part of who I am.

Tris has survived a brutal attack on her former home and family. But she has paid a terrible price. Wracked by grief and guilt, she becomes ever more reckless as she struggles to accept her new future.

Yet if Tris wants to uncover the truth about her world, she must be stronger than ever… because more shocking choices and sacrifices lie ahead. From Amazon UK

Continue reading Team Candor UK Review: Insurgent by Veronica Roth