Tuesday 30 June 2015

ARC Book Review: Church of Marvels by Leslie Parry

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Two Roads

Pages: 320

Challenges: Around the World Challenge



Summary


New York, 1895. It's late on a warm city night when Sylvan Threadgill, a young night soiler who cleans out the privies behind the tenement houses, pulls a terrible secret out from the filthy hollows: an abandoned newborn baby. An orphan himself, Sylvan was raised by a kindly Italian family and can't bring himself to leave the baby in the slop. He tucks her into his chest, resolving to find out where she belongs. Odile Church is the girl-on-the-wheel, a second-fiddle act in a show that has long since lost its magic. Odile and her sister Belle were raised in the curtained halls of their mother's spectacular Coney Island sideshow: The Church of Marvels. Belle was always the star - the sword swallower - light, nimble, a true human marvel. But now the sideshow has burnt to the ground, their mother dead in the ashes, and Belle has escaped to the city. Alphie wakes up groggy and confused in Blackwell's Lunatic Asylum. The last thing she remembers is a dark stain on the floor, her mother-in-law screaming. She had once walked the streets as an escort and a penny-Rembrandt, cleaning up men after their drunken brawls. Now she is married, a lady in a reputable home. She is sure that her imprisonment is a ruse by her husband's vile mother. But then a young woman is committed alongside her, and when she coughs up a pair of scissors from the depths of her agile throat, Alhie knows she harbors a dangerous secret that will alter the course of both of their lives... On a single night, these strangers' lives will become irrevocably entwined, as secrets come to light and outsiders struggle for acceptance. From the Coney Island seashore to the tenement-studded streets of the Lower East Side, a spectacular sideshow to a desolate asylum, Leslie Parry makes turn-of-the-century New York feel alive, vivid and magical in this luminous debut.

Saturday 27 June 2015

Stacking the Shelves (Jun 27)


Stacking the Shelves is all about the books we are adding to our shelves, physical or virtual, and sharing our excitement about our new titles. And why not, maybe also finding a great new read in the process! This weekly meme is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

Well, HELLO there! If you're in the habit of drifting over here every week to check on my ever-growing TBR list, you may have noticed there hasn't been a weekly haul post for TWO WHOLE WEEKS. Now, in case you were worried, I wasn't abducted by aliens in the middle of the night, nor did I stop buying/borrowing/requesting books (THE HORROR!). Nope, in reality I just decided to go on a last-minute holiday break before starting a new job this coming week. I had grandiose plans for my break, but in reality, I ended up looking more like this all the time:

Anyway, I guess I needed the rest, and now I'm charged and ready to get on with all that needs doing! And, of course, sharing ALL THE BOOKS.

Tuesday 23 June 2015

ARC Book Review: Tangled Webs by Lee Bross

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Pages: 304

Series: Tangled Webs #1

Challenges: Around the World Challenge


Summary


London, 1725. Everybody has a secret. Lady A will keep yours - for a price. Lady A is the most notorious blackmailer in the city. With just a mask and a gown to disguise her, she sweeps into lavish balls and exclusive events collecting the most valuable currency in 1725 London-secrets. But leading a double life isn't easy. By day, Lady A is just a sixteen-year-old girl named Arista who lives in fear of her abusive master, Bones, and passes herself off as a boy to move safely through the squalor of London's slums. When Bones attempts to dispose of his pawn forever, Arista is rescued by the last person she expects: Jonathan Wild, the infamous Thief Taker General, who moves seamlessly between the city's criminal underworld and the most elite upper circles. Arista partners with Wild on her own terms in the hopes of saving enough money to buy passage out of London. Everything changes when she meets Graeden Sinclair, the son of a wealthy merchant. Grae has traveled the world, has seen the exotic lands Arista has longed to escape to her whole life, and he loves Arista for who she is-not for what she can do for him. Being with Grae gives Arista something precious that she swore off long ago: hope. He has promised to help Arista escape the life of crime that has claimed her since she was a child. But can you ever truly escape the past?

Tuesday 9 June 2015

ARC Book Review: The Witch Hunter by Virginia Boecker

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Orchard Books

Pages: 368

Series: The Witch Hunter #1

Challenges: Women's Challenge


Summary


Sixteen-year-old Elizabeth Grey doesn't look dangerous. A tiny, blond, wisp of a girl shouldn't know how to poison a wizard and make it look like an accident. Or take out ten necromancers with a single sword and a bag of salt. Or kill a man using only her thumb. But things are not always as they appear. Elizabeth is one of the best witch hunters in Anglia and a member of the king's elite guard, devoted to rooting out witchcraft and bringing those who practice it to justice. And in Anglia, the price of justice is high: death by burning. When Elizabeth is accused of being a witch herself, she's arrested and thrown in prison. The king declares her a traitor and her life id all but forfeit. With just hours before she's to die, Elizabeth gets a visitor - Nicholas Perevil, the most powerful wizard in Anglia. He offers her a deal: he will free her from prison and save her from execution if she will track down the wizard who laid a deadly curse on him. As Elizabeth uncovers the horrifying facts about Nicholas's curse and the unwitting role she played in its creation, she is forced to redefine the difference between right and wrong, friends and enemies, love and hate... and life and death.

Saturday 6 June 2015

Stacking the Shelves (Jun 6)


Stacking the Shelves is all about the books we are adding to our shelves, physical or virtual, and sharing our excitement about our new titles. And why not, maybe also finding a great new read in the process! This weekly meme is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

Tuesday 2 June 2015

ARC Book Review: The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath by Ishbelle Bee

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way.

Publisher: Angry Robot

Pages: 336

Series: The Peculiar Adventures of John Loveheart, Esq #1

Challenges: Women's Challenge; Around the World Challenge


Summary


1888. A little girl called Mirror and her shape-shifting guardian Goliath Honeyflower are washed up on the shores of Victorian England. Something has been wrong with Mirror since the day her grandfather locked her inside a mysterious clock that was painted all over with ladybirds. Mirror does not know what she is, but she knows she is no longer human. John Loveheart, meanwhile, was not born wicked. But after the sinister death of his parents, he was taken by Mr Fingers, the demon lord of the Underworld. Some say he is mad. John would be inclined to agree. Now Mr. Fingers is determined to find the little girl called Mirror, whose flesh he intends to eat, and whose soul is the key to his eternal reign. And John Loveheart had been called by his otherworldly father to help him track Mirror down...