Thank you to Shealea from Caffeine Book Tours for including me on this tour! I love Gothic books and queer lit, so this is right up my alley! The Book and its AuthorUnspeakable contains eighteen Gothic tales with uncanny twists and characters that creep under your skin. Its stories feature sapphic ghosts, terrifying creatures of the sea, and haunted houses concealing their own secrets. Whether you're looking for your non-binary knight in shining armour or a poly family to murder with, Unspeakable showcases the best contemporary Gothic queer short fiction. Even dark tales deserve their time in the sun. Meet the editor, Celine Frohn! MoodboardA little moodboard inspired by Unspeakable! Thank you again to Caffeine Book Tours for including me and Nyx Publishing for sharing an e-ARC. I hope this moodboard tides you over while I gather my thoughts for my review (coming soon!)
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Thank you to Wednesday Books for inviting me to the A Golden Fury blog tour! Can't wait to share this shining new dark fantasy. The Book and its AuthorThea Hope longs to be an alchemist out of the shadow of her famous mother. The two of them are close to creating the legendary Philosopher’s Stone—whose properties include immortality and can turn any metal into gold—but just when the promise of the Stone’s riches is in their grasp, Thea’s mother destroys the Stone in a sudden fit of violent madness. While combing through her mother’s notes, Thea learns that there’s a curse on the Stone that causes anyone who tries to make it to lose their sanity. With the threat of the French Revolution looming, Thea is sent to Oxford for her safety, to live with the father who doesn’t know she exists. But in Oxford, there are alchemists after the Stone who don’t believe Thea’s warning about the curse—instead, they’ll stop at nothing to steal Thea’s knowledge of how to create the Stone. But Thea can only run for so long, and soon she will have to choose: create the Stone and sacrifice her sanity, or let the people she loves die. Samantha Cohoe writes historically-inspired young adult fantasy. She was raised in San Luis Obispo, California, where she enjoyed an idyllic childhood of beach trips, omnivorous reading, and writing stories brimming with adverbs. She currently lives in Denver with her family and divides her time among teaching Latin, mothering, writing, reading, and deleting adverbs. A Golden Fury is her debut novel. ReviewFirst off, I just have to say the premise is fascinating. I’m a future chemist, and as many of you might know, alchemy is the historical predecessor of chemistry. Lead into gold and all that. So to see it used as the premise for a YA fantasy… sign me up! A Golden Fury is more of a lower-stakes, higher tension read in terms of expectations, and it has a good reason to be a standalone: I simply don’t see the plot having anywhere else to go from here. Heading in, that’s two things in this book’s favor: one, we need more STEM YA! (This is *barely* STEM, but I’m hoping we can make an exception) and two, standalone fantasy! We love it!
I won’t say too much about plot for fear of spoiling this book, but let’s just say that although slow at times, A Golden Fury’s storyline really gives readers a chance to sink into the science and embrace the atmosphere in France and England. There are lots of fun political sidebars for you history nerds to dissect as well, if you’re into late 18th century England. I also liked the inclusion of Oxford—any fantasy nerds will recognize it as a popular setting for books (His Dark Materials, The Bone Season) as well as the schooling-place of fantasy’s 20th century greats (J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis). Thea, our lead character in A Golden Fury, is driven by her love for alchemy and also a desire to succeed on her own after a lifetime of hearing her flaws picked apart by an accomplished mother. She has the knowledge to complete the Philosopher’s Stone, but is put off by the curse that surrounds it. Nevertheless, as we can tell from the synopsis, circumstances intervene and she is forced to try regardless. Thea’s narration is easily my favorite thing about this book. Her desire for support and admiration is so understandable—I totally get why she opens up to so many people, and it hurt every time to see her rebuffed. Further, many of those people end up depending on her help later, so Thea becomes even more fascinating when you watch her making decisions about balancing her own life with those of her friends and family. Lots of readers might say this is a plot book, but no. It’s a character study, and you can’t tell me I’m wrong. A Golden Fury is also a study of madness. What happens when making the Stone pushes Thea past her brink? How can she save her friends and family from their own minds? Are some of them even worthy of salvation? Again, another thing that makes Thea’s narration a true gift to this world. She teeters on the edge of unreliability because of this induced insanity. Sometimes, I was quite sure what she’s imagined and what’s real, but other times, Cohoe pulls a big reveal and totally tricked me! My main problem with the novel is a significant issue, but didn’t detract from my enjoyment. I just didn’t feel emotionally attached to anything in the world. Everything was going perfectly, and I really could have loved this novel and 5-starred it, but it just didn’t make me want to tear my heart out in that delicious way some books have. I’m still recommending it, of course, given how fascinating it is, but I personally wasn’t struck with lightning after reading. 4/5 stars for everything else—plot, characters, alchemy! Hi readers! Literary and historical fiction fans will enjoy this Q&A with author Florence Reiss Kraut on her novel How to Make a Life! My review will be out later this week/month, so I'll share the cover and description below as well. Thank you to Smith Publicity for partnering with me on this post and sharing a copy of How to Make a Life. Question: How did the idea for How to Make a Life take shape? Florence Reiss Kraut: I have always wanted to write a novel about a big ethnic – in my case Jewish – family like my own, but not my own. Over my career when I was mostly writing short stories, a family began to take shape and the same characters began to emerge at different stages of their lives. All of a sudden, I was linking the short stories and building four generations of a family. I worked on that concept over 6 years, writing and re-writing until I actually had a novel, How to Make a Life. Q: Why was writing about a large, diverse family important to you? FRK: A large, diverse family describes the one I was born into. I had 27 first cousins and 20 aunts and uncles. That was 11 families, including mine, all of whom lived in NYC where I was born, raised and educated. We visited each other on weekends and holidays, and entire summers were spent together in bungalow colonies. Some of my cousins were as close as brothers and sisters. No matter where family members moved, who they married, how they lived, we somehow all kept our connections to one another. I wanted to celebrate that kind of family bond that can span generations. Q: The book tackles some mental health topics as well. Why was that important for you to include? FRK: I spent my professional life as a clinical social worker, working with many people and families who lived with and suffered from mental illness. In such a large family, like the one in which I grew up, we also had members who experienced mental illness. I wanted to show how this illness affects not only the ones who suffer from the disease, but also the ones who love them, live with them and try to help them. Q: Do you have a favorite character in the book and why? FRK: I feel like choosing one character as a favorite is a little like choosing a favorite child. Impossible. I like all the characters, some because of their strengths, some because of their weaknesses. I feel empathy for all of them. That said, I do have more chapters from Jenny’s point of view because she is the one who always works to keep the family together, the one to whom family members turn for help. I guess all families have one or two people like that. Q: How did your faith inform the novel? FRK: I grew up in this large rowdy and very Jewish family. My grandparents who were immigrants at the turn of the century—although they did not come from Ukraine or flee pogroms—were Orthodox Jews. Their 11 surviving children mostly remained in the faith. At least they all married within it and, when I was growing up, our religious practices were part of my everyday life, from celebrating holidays to the Sabbath with Jewish foods, books, culture, and humor. I think that our family was very much like the families of other immigrant ethnicities. In my generation, the religious connections got looser. Some of my cousins inter-married with other religions and races, some stopped practicing any form of religion, and some moved to Israel so they could live a more integrated Jewish life. My background makes me intensely Jewish, totally connected to Jewish history and culture, and very proud of it. But I am not a religious person. When Ida and her daughter Bessie flee a catastrophic program in Ukraine for America in 1905, they believe their emigration will ensure that their children and grandchildren will be safe from harm. But choices and decisions made by one generation have ripple effects on those who come later—and in the decades that follow, family secrets, betrayals, and mistakes made in the name of love threaten the survival of the family. A sweeping saga that follows three generations from the tenements of Brooklyn through WWII, from Woodstock to India, and from Spain to Israel, How to Make a Life is the story of a family who must learn to accept each other’s differences—or risk cutting ties with the very people who anchor their place in the world. A native New Yorker, Florence Reiss Kraut was raised and educated in four of the five boroughs of New York City. With a BA in English and a Masters in Social Work she worked for over thirty years as a clinician, a family therapist and eventually CEO of a family service agency before retiring to write and travel. Her own close family of 26 aunts and uncles and 27 first cousins and listening to stories around the kitchen table, coffee klatches and family parties inspired her to write her fictional, multi-generational family drama, How to Make a Life. She has published stories for children and teens, romance stories for national magazines, literary stories, and personal essays for the Westchester section of the New York Times. Her fiction has appeared in publications such as The Evening Street Press and SNReview. Connect with Florence Reiss Kraut at FlorenceReissKraut.com, Facebook (@FlorenceReissKrautAuthor) and Goodreads.
Hi readers, I know I've been gone this past week--turns out classwork is important! But I'm back today with my blog tour post for Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf. Check out the Tour Schedule here, and thank you to Penguin Teen and TBR & Beyond Tours for sharing a copy!
The Book and its Author
Ali Greenleaf and Blythe Jensen couldn't be more different. Ali is sweet, bitingly funny, and just a little naive. Blythe is beautiful, terrifying, and the most popular girl in school. They've never even talked to each other, until a party when Ali decides she'll finally make her move on Sean Nessel, her longtime crush, and the soccer team's superstar. But Sean pushes Ali farther than she wants to go. When she resists--he rapes her.
Blythe sees Ali when she runs from the party, everyone sees her. And Blythe knows something happened with Sean, she knows how he treats girls. Even so, she's his best friend, his confidant. When he begs her to help him, she can't resist. So Blythe befriends Ali in her attempt to make things right with Sean, bringing Ali into a circle of ruthless popular girls, and sharing her own dark secrets. Despite the betrayal at the heart of their relationship, they see each other, in a way no one ever has before. In her searing, empowering debut novel, Hayley Krischer tells the story of what happened that night, and how it shaped Ali and Blythe forever. Both girls are survivors in their own ways, and while their experiences are different, and their friendship might not be built to last, it's one that helps each of them find a way forward on their own terms. Goodreads || Barnes & Noble || Bookshop.org (affiliate link)
Hayley Krischer has been an award-winning journalist for over 20+ years. She is a contributing writer for the New York Times, where she has covered feminist roller skaters, Instagram obsessed moms, profiled Gabrielle Union, Tatum O’Neal, and S.E. Hinton. She has also written for many publications about women and teenage girls including Marie Claire, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Lenny Letter, and the Hairpin. Her YA debut, SOMETHING HAPPENED TO ALI GREENLEAF will be released in fall 2020 from Razorbill. Hayley received her MFA in creative writing from Lesley University. Her first newspaper job was as an editorial assistant at the Boston Globe. She reads tarot cards.
Review & Playlist
Something Happened to Ali Greenleaf is dark and crushing, exactly how I like my YA contemporary! It is about fundamental rage, twisted friendships, and misplaced loyalties.
I’ll be upfront and say there are very few likable characters in here. If you told me you thought a single one of them (except perhaps Ali) was admirable or good, I’d give you a side eye. Blythe in particular is interesting to me because she is a terrible friend, a bad person, and for most of the book she’s not even trying to be good. I’m a firm believer in morally grey characters, especially ones with complex motives who wouldn’t usually be allowed to exist in YA. This novel is a necessary departure from the complete forgiveness narrative, the one with little tied up bows on the ending. It simply exists for readers, exists to tell Blythe and Ali’s stories, and that can be enough. Another thing Krischer did well was addressing sexual assault and rape. Now, there are some aspects of the content that would probably never happen at a high school, and for that I make allowances (I wouldn’t expect the novel to sacrifice good storytelling for moral realism, because frankly I’m not interested in every book having a lesson to teach) but rape is absolutely an issue young adults should address. Krischer’s sensitive response to victim blaming, shame, fear, and all the powerful emotions that Ali experiences after her rape made this an absolute 5 star read for me. It wasn’t just her hurt that bled off the page, it was her absolute uncertainty as to a path forward. I won’t spoil anything for you, but I’ll say that this novel had an incredibly satisfying emotional resolution and I think Hayley Krischer is a debut voice to keep an eye on. As part of my blog tour post, I’ve also created a little playlist evoking some of the themes of the book! Here’s the link: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6DZILpBvUjVaVQC4bniWaG?si=axINCZE-Sp62yhltASJ9Zw or you can visit https://open.spotify.com/user/bookbaroness to browse my Spotify. GiveawayHi all! Here today with a quick review and list of tv/film recs for Vampires Never Get Old! Thank you to the publisher for sharing a review copy & to Hear Our Voices for having me on this tour! The BookIn this delicious new collection, you’ll find stories about lurking vampires of social media, rebellious vampires hungry for more than just blood, eager vampires coming out―and going out for their first kill―and other bold, breathtaking, dangerous, dreamy, eerie, iconic, powerful creatures of the night. Welcome to the evolution of the vampire―and a revolution on the page. Vampires Never Get Old includes stories by authors both bestselling and acclaimed, including Samira Ahmed, Dhonielle Clayton, Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Tessa Gratton, Heidi Heilig, Julie Murphy, Mark Oshiro, Rebecca Roanhorse, Laura Ruby, Victoria “V. E.” Schwab, and Kayla Whaley. Review This anthology full of superstar writers is a powerful reminder that vampires aren’t over! We’re swept away in tales from all over the globe and all walks of life, to remind readers that vampire media can be incredibly white and heteronormative, but doesn’t have to be that way! Typically for anthologies, I’ll give one to two line reviews of each story and bold my favorites, without assigning star ratings. To be upfront, Vampires Never Get Old earned a 4/5 star rating from me. Some stories I really enjoyed, but others didn’t quite hit their mark. Seven Nights for Dying by Tessa Gratton I loved the agency given to our main character in her choice of whether or not to become a vampire! Gratton delays the transformation process in an interesting way, letting the MC take her time and think about the decision. Does this allow more room for regret, uncertainty? I’m not sure! But I really enjoyed this one. Mirrors, Windows & Selfies by Mark Oshiro This was cute, but I wish I had more information! Told through the blog posts of a young vampire who’s not supposed to exist and therefore must move around with his family, the story obsesses over the idea of reflection and what it means to look at oneself. I was left confused at the end… there was some implied consequence for the main group of vampires discovering Cisco’s existence, but we don’t know what it is and the story misses its mark. The House of Black Sapphires by Dhonielle Clayton YES. Yes, yes yes. Give me so much more of this! Dhonielle’s description of New Orleans (a fascinating city by all accounts) and its vampiric underbelly is beautiful, and I loved Bea’s relationship with her family. I just wish it hadn’t ended so abruptly—a common desire with stories in this collection. The Boys From Blood River by Rebecca Roanhorse Cowboy… vampires… ? I really liked the beginning of this story! Set in a diner, and our lead is a Native boy who is bullied for being gay. Then, a creepy jukebox and a gang of vampires show up, and it just gets weirder from there. I wish the folkloric grounding of this story had continued to guide its ending, because I could have gotten into that. Senior Year Sucks by Julie Murphy "Revamped” (haha) Buffy! Slayers and monster-hunters rank pretty high on my list of favorite tropes, so I super enjoyed this sapphic story that shows you don’t need a certain type of body to hunt vampires. I did think it was a little odd that our MC was also a cheerleader named Jolene (was this supposed to be a Dumplin’ reference?) but that’s a minor quibble. The Boy and the Bell by Heidi Heilig What would you do if you were blackmailed for being trans? This historical short story features a boy in medical school seeking cadavers in a local cemetery, when he hears a grave bell ringing—someone’s been buried alive. The atmosphere of this one is completely spooky and fall-appropriate, but it’s a great read all year round! In Kind by Kayla Whaley This is my favorite story of the entire anthology. It’s half epistolary, half narrated, and we see a 17 year old girl killed by her father in a “mercy killing” because she was disabled, and her body is missing. She’s the vampire in this story which doesn’t take away her neuromuscular disorder, only enables her to gain power and survive! I loved the idea that vampirism isn’t a “cure” for earthly diseases and the MC is already who she needs to be. A Guidebook for the Newly Sired Desi Vampire by Samira Ahmed This is easily another one of my favorites. Hilarious, ironic, and sarcastic, this short story is literally a guidebook to being a “Newly Sired Desi Vampire.” The anonymous support system outlined has suggestions for who to eat (colonizers, always!), who might have turned you (a British tourist in all likelihood), and how you can keep living in your culture. I was smiling the whole way through and it was a much-needed light moment in the middle of the anthology. Bestiary by Laura Ruby I’m sorry to say I just couldn’t understand this story. A young vampire lives in a zoo and has a telepathic connection with the animals (I think?). There’s also some sort of water crisis, possibly due to underfunding? Some parts were hard to connect with and the plot bounced all over the place, so I just wasn’t a big fan. If you’re into anti-capitalism messages and animal rights, though, it’s worth a read. Vampires Never Say Die by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker I wasn’t quite sure how to feel about this one. On the one hand, the dramatic irony is interesting, but on the other hand… why would a 200 year old vampire think it’s okay to befriend a 15 year old on Instagram? That just rubbed me the wrong way—the story takes place two years after they met, so she’s 17 now, but still. I’d have to reread and see if that still bugged me. First Kill by Victoria “V. E.” Schwab Oooh this one definitely hit me! I can’t say anything because there’s a really awesome plot twist that I’d hate to spoil for you, but it makes such a good ending to this collection! Vampy TV/Movies!
Hi all! I have something sooo exciting for you today, which I've been keeping secret for a while! Thrilled to finally share this interview on contemporary world-building with the amazing Kayla Ancrum, author of The Wicker King (2017), The Weight of the Stars (2019), and Darling (2021). My questions (bolded) will hopefully help some of you aspiring writers out there, and offer a new insight into The Wicker King and The Weight of the Stars for readers and fans! Thank you so much to Ms. Ancrum for kindly agreeing to this interview--I am absolutely star-struck and feel like the luckiest blogger in the world! Welcome to The Baroness of Books! What aspect of your world-building do you approach differently now than when you started writing?
I’ve always been a really research focused person. When I did world-building research for my first book, I spent a lot of time researching things about the specific characters I was designing. But now I do a lot more research on the history of the topic I’ve chosen in fiction. I want to know what things readers who might be interested in my book, have read in the past. For my newest book DARLING, I spent a month before writing reading and researching Peter Pan adaptions from the past 20 years. In the beginning of my career, I might have chosen to spend more time researching the cultural background of my MC. What’s the first thing you start with when setting your stories? I’m actually really obsessed with setting multiple unrelated books in the same universe/location! Currently I have this town I created for my first book THE WICKER KING and by 2022 I’ll have 3 books set in this town set in 3 different time periods. THE WICKER KING is set in 2002, THE WEIGHT OF THE STARS is set in 2028 and UNTILED will be set in 2015. I’m hoping to have an additional novel set in the 1980s there as well. Its really cool because you get to keep some of the same characters but the readers get to see them at different ages. For example, the MCs in THE WICKER KING are 17 in that book but show up as background characters in THE WEIGHT OF THE STARS in their late 30s and in UNTITLED in their mid 20s. Its also cool because I’m an author that doesn’t do a lot of background description, so readers’ understanding of what the actual town looks like expands with each book. When I’m deciding to set a book outside of this town, I try to make sure I have personal connection to the location. Its easier to write contemporary of a real location when you have at least visited. There are things that don’t really translate unless you’ve seen what existing in that space is like. Even just watching walk throughs of the location and speaking to people who have lived there is massively helpful, if you cannot visit. How do you ensure that your stories’ backgrounds/settings are as diverse and inclusive as your main plot/“foreground”, so to speak? It comes to me instinctively. I grew up in a very diverse community in a large city so I tend to try to replicate that in my books. What are some challenging aspects of contemporary world building, and how do you combat them? Making sure everything is accurate. I tend to really place a lot of weight on technical probability. If I’m writing about a real place, I try not to make anything up at all. I want things that happen to my characters to be possible/probable and I want the location in which they’re occurring to make sense to people who live in the area. This is a ton of research of course, but its actually a part of this process where it really helps to have a strong editing team behind you. With my imprint, we actually have fact-checkers who hyperfocus on small cultural details and I’m very thankful to have access to this service. What’s your favorite part of creating a contemporary world? Definitely the time period. I adore “modern historical” and the cultural signifiers associated with certain eras. Writing about people using older technology with rose covered glasses about it is such a delight an definitely something we’ve seen spike in interest in other types of media, like Stranger Things. As a reader, what kind of world building best draws you in? Do any particular novels stand out to you as examples? I’m very fond of the “this world is normal but something very small but very abnormal and almost supernatural is happening in it”. And for this I love The Mysterious Benedict Society. It's such a fun and relatable world with just the tiniest bit of science fiction to spice it up. Which parts of the real world translate best to fiction, in your opinion? The way people treat each other and the way they navigate love-familial or otherwise. It’s timeless. The Book and its AuthorFirst serialized on the popular app and website WebToon, Always Human ran from 2015-2017 and amassed over 76,000 unique subscribers during its run. Now reformatted for a print edition in sponsorship with GLAAD, Always Human is a beautifully drawn graphic novel about a developing relationship between two young women in a near-future, soft sci-fi setting. Always Human is drawn in a manga-influenced style and with an incredible color palette that leaps off the page! In the near-future, people use technology to give the illusion of all kinds of body modifications—but some people have “Egan’s Syndrome,” a highly sensitive immune system that rejects these “mods” and are unable to use them. Those who are affected maintain a “natural” appearance, reliant on cosmetics and hair dye at most to help them play with their looks. Sunati is attracted to Austen the first time she sees her and is drawn to what she assumes is Austen’s bravery and confidence to live life unmodded. When Sunati learns the truth, she’s still attracted to Austen and asks her on a date. Gradually, their relationship unfolds as they deal with friends, family, and the emotional conflicts that come with every romance. Together, they will learn and grow in a story that reminds us no matter how technology evolves, we will remain . . . always human. Rendered in beautiful detail and an extraordinary color palette, Always Human is a sweet love story told in a gentle sci-fi setting by a queer woman cartoonist, Ari North. Ari North is a queer cartoonist who believes an entertaining story should also be full of diversity and inclusion. As a writer, an artist, and a musician, she wrote, drew, and composed the music for Always Human, a complete romance/sci-fi webcomic about two queer girls navigating maturity and finding happiness. She’s currently working on a second webcomic, Aerial Magic, which is about the everyday lives of the witches who work at a broomstick repair shop. She lives in Australia with her husband. ReviewAlways Human, an adorable sapphic love story that originated on WEBTOON should be at the top of your graphic novel TBR! I’m so glad I got the chance to read (and develop this moodboard and a book tag for you to try!) First off, I’m immediately adding Always Human to my WEBTOON subscriptions page because I need to be kept informed about any future installments! I also need to emphasize how cute Austen and Sunati are! They’re so cute together, and I loved looking at the scenes where they went on dates and explored the world together. They were so thoughtful about what activities would both show off their personalities and let the other have a good time as well, and… wow now you know how important I find proper date planning in a relationship. Anyways—squeal!! The world was super creative. Set in a futuristic Australia (I’ve never read a book set in Australia before!), characters can use virtual reality, hover cars, and “mods”—things that we can only dream of now. I most enjoyed the interactions between Austen and Sunati where they had some hard conversations about Austen’s Egan’s Syndrome, and how that impacted her. I’ll say that I think Always Human has a heartfelt portrayal of some struggles a person with one might go through, and some that an abled person might have when starting a relationship. I’ve always agreed with the assessment that we need more disabled characters in YA, and Always Human is another great step! I think the only place the story suffered is a lack of plot. There was a clear route of “problem, solution, rinse and repeat” each time, and I felt like Always Human could have been a little longer and delved deeper into some of the conflicts. Don’t get me wrong, I love a short novel, but I wanted to know so much more about the world and characters that I ended up feeling teased by the length. If there are future installments, this paragraph will be a moot point. Overall, like I said before, you should give Always Human a try! It’s a refreshing romantic read perfect for any season and reader. 4/5 stars. MoodboardAlways Human Book TagRULES: 1. Thank the person who tagged you! 2. Link back to the creator, The Baroness of Books 3. Tag some friends! 4. Attach these rules to your post. Sunati: What would you change about your last read?
Austen: What trope will you always enjoy, no matter what book it’s in? Luna: Favorite fictional robot? Rae: Most practical character? Mods: Two of your favorite book covers? Virtual Reality: What time period is your favorite setting to read about? The Waterfall: Most romantic scene you’ve read? Cayli: Sweetest character? Yasel: A book that grew on you after you started it? Starlight Soldiers: Your favorite non-bookish piece of media? I'm so excited to share The Black Kids with you today on this blog tour for SimonTeen! This amazing novel came out August 4th, and I hope you'll go pick up a copy today! I also want to note that I am not an #OwnVoices reviewer for this book, and accepted the tour information because I knew SimonTeen also worked with Hear Our Voices Tours on a tour that did prioritize Black reviewers. The Book and its AuthorPerfect for fans of The Hate U Give, this unforgettable coming-of-age debut novel explores issues of race, class, and violence through the eyes of a wealthy black teenager whose family gets caught in the vortex of the 1992 Rodney King Riots. Los Angeles, 1992 Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It’s the end of senior year and they’re spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. They can already feel the sunny days and endless possibilities of summer. Everything changes one afternoon in April, when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, Ashley’s not just one of the girls. She’s one of the black kids. As violent protests engulf LA and the city burns, Ashley tries to continue on as if life were normal. Even as her self-destructive sister gets dangerously involved in the riots. Even as the model black family façade her wealthy and prominent parents have built starts to crumble. Even as her best friends help spread a rumor that could completely derail the future of her classmate and fellow black kid, LaShawn Johnson. With her world splintering around her, Ashley, along with the rest of LA, is left to question who is the us? And who is the them? Christina Hammonds Reed holds an MFA from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. A native of the Los Angeles area, her work has previously appeared in the Santa Monica Review and One Teen Story. The Black Kids is her first novel. (From the Simon & Schuster website) ReviewA compelling and grounded historic read, The Black Kids offers an intelligent perspective that is alarmingly relevant today. I must admit, I was not well educated on the 1992 Rodney King Riots before reading this novel, but I am now committed to continuing to learning more. Ashley Bennett’s voice was perfect for this story as a quintessential teen. She was far from perfect, and that’s exactly what we needed. Her socioeconomic status left her privileged and unaware—at times, she was outright impolite in collaboration with her mean-girl posse. However, we appreciate a character who learns and grows!! The Black Kids can also be considered a coming-of-age novel as Ashley reckons with the combination of her wealth and her Blackness, and what it means to be both in her LA neighborhood. I know talking about atmosphere is usually reserved for SFF books, but I’d say historical fiction is a hard genre to get right as well. It’s strange to me that the 90’s are considered historical now, because I mostly couldn’t distinguish this novel from a contemporary aside from the absence of iPhones and laptops. Regardless of that, it definitely gave off California vibes. Refer to my moodboard below for the New Englander’s perspective of what a “California vibe” is. The structure of the novel, with flashbacks to earlier times in Ashley’s lief The first-person narration and full account of Ashley’s life made the book that much more special for me. Taking away the measure of separation between the reader and the narration brings Ashley’s perspective, and the lessons she learns, to the forefront of the book. We feel her pain just as much as we see her mistakes, and we’re compelled to root for her through both the good times and the bad. I particularly appreciated Ashley’s interactions with her friends. Her wealthy white friends’ insensitive comments about race and deep-seated misunderstanding of the dangers Ashley could face when interacting with police officers is powerful (and sadly familiar to many BIPOC readers). I loved Ashley’s developing understanding of the kind of friendships she truly wants, and her later chats with LeShawn and Lana made me so happy because I felt that she truly was forming healthy relationships. I would highly recommend this novel to all readers. I can’t stress enough how essential it is, for both its existence as a historical YA covering an event many young Americans may not even know about, but also for its amazing writing and delivery. MoodboardAaaahhh!!!! I'm freaking out over being on this blog tour for my most anticipated 2020 release, Star Daughter! If you want to check out the tour schedule here, you'll find a multitude of other amazing blog posts celebrating Star Daughter's release. Read on for my review, #OwnVoices reflection, and a recreation of the cover in a photoshoot featuring yours truly! The Book and its AuthorThe daughter of a star and a mortal, Sheetal is used to keeping secrets. Pretending to be "normal." But when an accidental flare of her starfire puts her human father in the hospital, Sheetal needs a full star's help to heal him. A star like her mother, who returned to the sky long ago. Sheetal's quest to save her father will take her to a celestial court of shining wonders and dark shadows, where she must take the stage as her family's champion in a competition to decide the next ruling house of the heavens--and win, or risk never returning to Earth at all. Brimming with celestial intrigue, this sparkling YA debut is perfect for fans of Roshani Chokshi and Laini Taylor. Shveta Thakrar is a part-time nagini and full-time believer in magic. Her work has appeared in a number of magazines and anthologies including Enchanted Living, Uncanny Magazine, A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, and Toil & Trouble. Her debut young adult fantasy novel, Star Daughter, is forthcoming from HarperTeen on August 11, 2020. When not spinning stories about spider silk and shadows, magic and marauders, and courageous girls illuminated by dancing rainbow flames, Shveta crafts, devours books, daydreams, travels, bakes, and occasionally even plays her harp. ReviewI put off writing this review for so long, because honestly I don’t know what to say. From the moment I started reading, I knew I would fall in love with Sheetal and her world. I was right, and now I don’t have words to express what Star Daughter made me feel. Even not having grown up with Hindu stories and mythology, I immediately connected to the story. Like with every other fantasy I read, I’ll start with the world building. The starry court is beautifully wrought, and I could absolutely live in the Night Market (I always love a good Night Market, and seeing what imaginative stalls and vendors authors choose to include). I felt like I was dreaming the entire time I was reading because of the lush imagery, and I don’t believe anything in the real world could compare to the wonders inside this story. So much of my enjoyment came from the writing. Thakrar’s prose is out-of-this-world wonderful, like a hybrid blend of poetry and prose. There are beautiful lines on every page, so you’ll just have to read it before I reproduce the entire book by listing favorite quotes! The comparisons to Roshani Chokshi and Laini Taylor are spot-on. If you were a fan of Thakrar’s story in the Toil & Trouble anthology of YA witchcraft (as I was), you will absolutely love Star Daughter. I also loved reading about Sheetal and her family. Her inner conflict stemmed from the loss of her mother, and the love she carries for her father (and consequent regret at harming him through her powers), which some have discounted as a “typical YA plot line,” but I found Thakrar’s approach to be wonderfully original. Dev, her love interest, is absolutely adorable! I’m of the mind that we need more soft/creative YA boys, and Dev fits perfectly. He’s so thoughtful towards Sheetal (and so clearly in love with her) but isn’t afraid to stand up for himself and his family. If I was pressed to choose a favorite character, though, I think I’d choose Minal. She’s possibly the best YA BFF I’ve ever read about (and honestly, can we have a second book featuring her own adventures please??) Minal supports Sheetal no matter what in the competition, accompanying her to the Celestial Palace and never backing down from a challenge. Like I mentioned above, I don’t think there’s anything derivative about Star Daughter. It is so different from all of its comps, and I think you need to read it. I really feel that this story has the potential to be so widely beloved, so please preorder, request from the library, or order the ebook! I’m giving Star Daughter 5/5 stars, and can’t wait to include it on my list of Favorite Books of 2020. #OwnVoices ReflectionI haven’t read nearly enough fantasy with Indian protagonists, but not one of the ones I have read have starred a Gujarati character. It meant so much to me to see that in my favorite genre. Everything about Sheetal’s family, from the food they ate to every time someone called her “dikri,” hit me hard. When I was a kid, there weren’t many stories centering characters who looked like me or shared my background. This was echoed in the community where I grew up (a mostly white New England suburb) and I never knew the effect it had on me until I started reading more widely in YA. I’m still discovering what that has changed about my self-image, about the unconscious ways in which I move about the world. I can’t speculate about what kind of person I’d be now if my culture and appearance had been represented in the “mainstream” when I was growing up. All I can do now is continue to support #OwnVoices authors and help create a welcoming space in the book community where everyone is allowed to tell their own story. I have to thank Shveta Thakrar for sharing this beautiful tale with the world—Star Daughter instantly became a favorite story of mine and I know I’ll be yelling about it for years to come. (starting now, of course! Go buy this book!) I can’t wait to see what comes next from her! Cover Recreation^ my recreation of Sheetal's pose on the Star Daughter cover! ^ me holding Star Daughter!
I'm here with my post on the Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop blog tour, hosted by Shealea from Caffeine Book Tours! Very excited to share this one--Vanessa Yu is a wonderful novel and I had fun creating content for this tour. Thank you to Berkeley Publishing for sharing an ARC for my review. The Book and its AuthorBecome enamored with the splendor of Paris in this heartwarming and delightful story about writing one’s own destiny and finding love along the way. Vanessa Yu never wanted to see people’s fortunes—or misfortunes—in tea leaves. Ever since she can remember, Vanessa Yu has been able to see people’s fortunes at the bottom of their teacups. To avoid blurting out their fortunes, she converts to coffee, but somehow fortunes escape and find a way to complicate her life and the ones of those around her. To add to this plight, her romance life is so nonexistent that her parents enlist the services of a matchmaking expert from Shanghai. The day before her matchmaking appointment, Vanessa accidentally sees her own fate: death by traffic accident. She decides that she can’t truly live until she can find a way to get rid of her uncanny abilities. When her eccentric aunt, Evelyn, shows up with a tempting offer to whisk her away, Vanessa says au revoir to America and bonjour to Paris. While working at Evelyn’s tea stall at a Parisian antique market, Vanessa performs some matchmaking of her own, attempting to help reconnect her aunt with a lost love. As she learns more about herself and the root of her gifts, she realizes one thing to be true: knowing one’s destiny isn’t a curse, but being unable to change it is. Roselle Lim was born in the Philippines and immigrated to Canada as a child. She lived in north Scarborough in a diverse, Asian neighbourhood. She found her love of writing by listening to her lola (paternal grandmother's) stories about Filipino folktales. Growing up in a household where Chinese superstition mingled with Filipino Catholicism, she devoured books about mythology, which shaped the fantasies in her novels. An artist by nature, she considers writing as "painting with words." ReviewFor those of you who don’t know me, I was supposed to be in Paris this summer, and my trip was cancelled due to COVID-19. I expected reading this to be bittersweet, and I expected to feel hurt. Surprisingly, none of that happened! Instead, I completely fell in love with this love story. Vanessa’s “gift” is more of a curse to her, and she spends her life coughing up predictions at inopportune moments while lacking the dashing romance her aunts so desperately want her to have. That is, until she travels to Paris with her aunt Evelyn in hopes of taming her gift, for Aunt Evelyn is also a clairvoyant. This is a quieter romance, more introspective-contemporary than bodice-ripper, and we see a lot of Vanessa’s self-doubt come through while she adjusts her perspectives and considers the implications of her gifts. I enjoyed Vanessa’s character over the course of the novel, and I think her narration will be fun and engaging for many readers. My favorite part of the book, however, was the blend of magic and foodie culture in one of the most culinarily respected cities in the world. Food is important in the Yu family, so readers are treated to mouthwatering descriptions of dishes that Vanessa eats as she explores Paris. Lim’s worldbuilding is simply… magical, for lack of a better word! From the art museums Vanessa explores with her love interest to Evelyn’s well-stocked tea shop, I truly felt like I was exploring the Marais along with Vanessa. It’s one of my favorite districts in Paris for a reason—there’s so much to see and do! Even though the book is billed as a romance, it’s a bit on the subtler side as I stated earlier. Readers will appreciate the romantic tendencies, but those interested in a simple contemporary will also love Vanessa. I didn’t mind this too much, the lack of “heat,” so to speak, left room for the novel to explore family relationships and Vanessa’s mysterious gifts more fully. Sometimes a simmer works just as well! Overall, I quite enjoyed Vanessa Yu’s Magical Paris Tea Shop! It’s a sweet summer read that will have every reader head over heels, as I’m sure Lim’s 2019 debut did as well—I’m for sure going to pick that one up soon. 4/5 stars for this lovely novel. Creative Content |
The BaronessHey, I'm Shreya! I love to read, write, travel, and drink tea. Disclosure: I am an affiliate of bookshop.org and I will earn a small commission if you click the above link and make a purchase.
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