The Child of Fire and Earth Book Review

 

Title: The Child of Fire and Earth
Author: Barry Ryerson
Genre: children's fantasy
Available: paperback, Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, audiobook, signed and personalised copies

Summary:

This book follows Hew, a young boy in the 15th century. He is the son of a farmer but he always dreamed of becoming a knight. One day he meets a dragon and he discovers all of the magical creatures that exist whilst on a grand adventure.

Book Review: The Fast Little Fox (The Fast Little Fox & Friends book #1) by Jill Horton

This book was kindly sent to me to review. However, all opinions are my own and honest. This post also contains affiliate links.

Title: The Fast Little Fox (The Fast Little Fox & Friends book #1)

Author: Jill Horton

Genre: Children's picture book

Available on: Amazon.co.uk - Amazon.com in paperback and on kindle (Also free on Kindle Unlimited!)

Add it on Goodreads

The Fast Little Fox is an adorable children's book filled with cute and humorous pictures. We follow Freddy Fox who runs so quickly, he makes mistakes. He makes a friend who helps him learn and he makes up for his actions.

I thought that this was a wonderful children's book. It teaches lessons whilst also improving vocabulary. There are various animal characters for the children to learn about, each of their names beginning with the letter of what animal they are which can help to build associations for children.

This book is a great length for a story time tale and I can't wait to see the rest of the books that Jill Horton creates. I highly recommend this book if you have children or work with them!

My rating: 5/5 stars

Book Review: Shadowless by Randall McNally

This book was kindly sent to me to review. However, all opinions are my own and honest. This post also contains affiliate links.

Title: Shadowless

Author: Randall McNally

Genre: YA Fantasy

Buy links: Amazon.co.uk - Amazon.com

In Shadowless, there are children of deities. These children do not have shadows and become engaged in a battle to survive. We follow different perspectives as we discover this world and the dark motives of the deities.

 

This book has an amazing premise which I love. It had so many unique plot points which I feel would be great in a video game or even movie franchise. The end of the prologue instantly piqued my interest. There was a lot of description in this book, which was well done and if you like adult fantasy books, I think you would enjoy this read.

This book was really intriguing and well written but I do wish that there had been more of a goal to catapult the action for me personally. 

However, this book felt very reminiscent of some popular adult fantasy books and I believe there is a great audience for this out there who just need to discover this book!

My rating: 3.75/5 stars

Thank you to my Ko-Fi members!~

Jill Horton- check out her book! Amazon.com - Amazon.co.uk

Book Review: Little Wanderers: The Everlasting Seasons by I. K. Silver

This book was kindly sent to me to review. However, all opinions are my own and honest. This post also contains affiliate links.

Title: Little Wanderers: The Everlasting Seasons
Author: I. K. Silver
Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy
Buy links: Amazon.co.uk - Amazon.com

In this book we follow Snowy, a dwarf on a somewhat personal development journey. 

This was a really cute children's book that had some important lessons inside and showed great characteristics to teach children. I feel like this would be a great book to read to a child.

My rating: 3.75/5 stars

Thank you to my Ko-Fi members!~

Jill Horton- check out her book! Amazon.com - Amazon.co.uk

Book Review: Childish Spirits by Rob Keeley

This book was kindly sent to me to review. However, all opinions are my own and honest. This post also contains affiliate links.

Title: Childish Spirits
Author: Rob Keeley
Genre: Middle Grade Mystery
Buy links: Amazon.co.uk - Amazon.com

This book follows two children who move into an old house and spooky things begin to happen which leads to the children meeting spirits and trying to solve a mystery.

Our two main characters, Ellie and Charlie, or 'Chas' were introduced well from the beginning, with personality and their own individual characteristics which made me more invested in what was going to happen to them.

The build-up and foreshadowing were excellently implemented and it made me keen to read on and find out what exactly was going to happen and what the cause of the strange occurrences was.

I do feel like I would have liked more information about the family's background in the first few chapters so I could see where they had come from and why they had moved to this place.

The sense of foreboding increased chapter by chapter as we found out more about a spirit living in the house. It was quite dark in places, with mentions of child death.

I also found the children's relationship with their dad a bit strange with conversations between them not feeling fully realistic. 

One of the spirits was actually quite creepy and this added to the dark atmosphere of the book. I enjoyed seeing Ellie and Charlie questioning the situation and delving more into the mystery and I wanted to know what had happened.

If you are looking for a quick contemporary mystery with spirits and that also deals with family relationships, I would recommend checking this book out.

My rating: 3/5 stars

Thank you to my Ko-Fi members!~

Jill Horton- check out her book! Amazon.com - Amazon.co.uk

Book Review: The Legend of Podkin One-Ear (The Five Realms #1) by Kieran Larwood

This post contains affiliate links

Title: The Legend of Podkin One-Ear

Author: Kieran Larwood

Genre: Childrens Fantasy

Buy links: Book Depository - Waterstones - Amazon.co.uk - Amazon.com

The Witcher, The Name of the Wind and Game of Thrones meets rabbits.

In this book, the world is populated by rabbits who live in warrens with one person leading as the 'chieftain'. However, their peace is interrupted by an impossible enemy. We follow Podkin and his brother and sister through a tough journey filled with grief, hardships and love. 

This book is marketed as a children's book but let me tell you, I cried multiple times. This book represents grief, fear and hope so well. There are multiple quotes that had me sobbing. 

The characters felt so realistic and well-developed. The plot was incredible and I couldn't tell where it was going or what would happen. I loved how the book had little interludes where the person telling the story was asked questions and we found out more about the world and the lore. 

The illustrations sneaked in throughout were beautifully done, full of character and added to the story so well.

This book was such a lovely quick read. There was so much action which catapulted me through the story. There were paragraphs of description where needed which fleshed out the scenes but not too much as to lose my interest. There was always something happening or a goal to get to.

I absolutely loved this book. It was a perfect fantasy book filled with emotion and I can't wait to read the rest of the books in the series! I want everyone to read this book. If you like fantasy, read this!

My rating: 5/5 stars

Thank you to my Ko-Fi members!~

Jill Horton- check out her book! Amazon.com - Amazon.co.uk

Book Review: The Hatmakers by Tamzin Merchant

 This post contains affiliate links

Title:  The Hatmakers

Author: Tamzin Merchant

Illustrator: Paola Escobar

Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy

Buy links: Book Depository - Waterstones - Amazon.co.uk - Amazon.com

Review:

In The Hatmakers we are introduced to a unique and creative magical world set in England in the past but with a difference: there are families who make magical clothes and accessories that impact the wearer. Items that can make you feel brave or calm or sleep and so many other things. Cordelia is the youngest hatmaker. Her father has gone missing and strange things start happening. With a war looming, can Cordelia find her father and work out what is going on? 

Exile (The Extinction Trials Book 2) Review!

This review may contain spoilers. This post includes affiliate links however all my opinions are my own and honest.

Title: Exile (The Extinction Trials Book 2)
Author: S. M. Wilson
Genres: YA, Dystopian
Buy links: Amazon - Book Depository

Summary:

Exile is the second book in The Extinction Trials trilogy (I reviewed the first book here). In Exile, we follow Storm and Lincoln again, first with their lives in Earthasia, their jobs and their lives and then as they venture Piloria again.

The scientists are busy creating viruses to kill three of the dinosaurs on Piloria but then Lincoln sees a potential treatment for his sister, the only problem is he will have to go back to Piloria to fulfil it. Storm finds out more about her family and starts to build a relationship with her father. We also see Leif again and meet a new main character, we also find out more about a couple of existing characters.

The Extinction Trials Book Review!

This book was sent to me from my wishlist, strangely enough from the actual author! However, all opinions are my own, honest and unbiased. This review may contain spoilers. This post includes affiliate links.

Title: The Extinction Trials (#1)
Author: S. M. Wilson
Genres: YA, Dystopian
Buy links: Amazon - Book Depository

Synopsis: 

The Extinction Trials is set in a world where there are two continents: Earthasia and Piloria. Earthasia is home to all of the humans, it is overcrowded, they are rationed and share beds. They have little food or power supplies. Then there is Piloria, the continent of the dinosaurs. This is home to some of the most terrifying dinosaurs but it is lush with foliage, fruit and space.

Every year, 100 people are selected and sent to Piloria on a mission, usually this is to find new food supplies but this year they want these 'finalists' to find and bring back three dinosaur eggs so that the DNA of dinosaurs can be examined.

Recent Reads #1: Some new favourites and some disappointments

Hi everyone! So I wanted to start writing wrap-ups of some of the books that I've read recently and have more to say about. I want to start from the beginning of this year but as I read quite a lot in the first few months of this year I am probably going to split this into more than one post! I'm going to give a summary, a few thoughts and my rating for some of the books that I have read. I hope that you enjoy this post!

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Red Rising is set in a world where there are people who live on Mars and mine for the people on Earth. They believe that they are making Mars safe for humans to live on but this is a dangerous job and there are secrets behind the more powerful in society.

This book sounded really interesting and I was in the mood for some sci-fi. It's a really popular book but unfortunately I didn't really like it. I liked the concept but I didn't like the characters. I found the main character and even parts of the plot irritating.

3/5 stars

Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb: The Farseer Trilogy Book One Book Review

Title: Assassin's Apprentice (Book one of the Farseer Trilogy)
Author: Robin Hobb
Genre: Fantasy
Number of pages: 460
Length of audiobook: 17hrs 18 minutes
Trigger warnings: child abuse, animal murder

Synopsis:

Assassin's Apprentice follows a boy called Fitz throughout his early childhood and teenage years. Fitz is the illegitimate child of the prince of the kingdom. No one knew that he existed until he is brought to the castle. The King will not allow Fitz to claim his birthright and his father is banished. Fitz is allowed to stay in the castle and is essentially raised by the stable master who names him Fitz (he didn't have a name before and was simply referred to as 'boy'). We find out early on that Fitz has a power, one that allows him to go into the minds of animals, to communicate with them and see what they see. This power is seen as forbidden and evil so it is discouraged. As Fitz becomes older he makes an agreement to be the king's ally and his assassin.

Eliza and Her Monsters Book Review!

Title: Eliza and Her Monsters
Author: Francesca Zappia
Genre: YA Contemporary
Length of the audiobook: 8hrs 51mins
Narrated by: Caitlin Kelly and Kate Rudd
Trigger warnings: anxiety, panic disorder, depression, suicide, bullying

Synopsis:
Eliza Mirk is a teenage girl who doesn't have any friends in real life and hides in her room drawing. But the secret that no one except her family know is that online she is LadyConstellation, a creator of an extremely popular and famous webcomic called Monstrous Sea.

Eliza loves her webcomic and her online friends and she prefers living in the online world until she meets Wallace Warland, a boy who loves Monstrous Sea and turns out to be the famous fanfiction writer of it! Wallace shows Eliza that there is more to an offline world than she thought. But Wallace doesn't know the truth. What would happen if it all came out?

A Memory Called Empire Book Review

Title: A Memory Called Empire
Author: Arkady Martine

Publication Date: 2020 

Publisher: TOR Books 

Genre: Sci-fi

Length of audiobook: 15:37:00
Trigger warnings: Suicide, death

Synopsis:

In the Texicalaanli Empire, a new ambassador has been found. Her predecessor was murdered and she may be next.

Mahit investigates what is going on amongst the rich and powerful but Mahit is hiding secrets of her own, including one that could kill many.

The Dragonslayer Book 2: Knight of the Silver Circle Book Review

Knight of the Silver Circle
By Duncan M. Hamilton
Released November 2019 by Tor Books
Find it on Amazon
Previous book in the series: Dragonslayer

Synopsis:
Three dragons are burning towns and killing people, as well as decimating their food stocks. Guillot was able to kill one using an ancient sword and cup but now he needs help to kill all three of these new dragons.

Gold The Moon Eater Review

The Moon Eater (Gold Book 1)
by I. M. Bones
Genre: Dark Fantasy
Publication Date: 2019
Number of pages: 284
Goodreads - Amazon - Book Depository

Undercover Thief Review

Undercover Thief
by H. T. King
Genre: YA Thriller
Publication Date: 2019
Number of pages: 438
Goodreads - Amazon - Book Depository

An Illusion of Thieves Book Review

Title: An Illusion of Thieves
Author: Cate Glass
Genres:Adult, Fantasy
Publisher: TOR Books
Publication Date: 2019
Number of pages: 352
Trigger warnings: child slavery, sexual assault, violence, alcoholism

Synopsis:
This book is set in a place called Cantagna where a death sentence is given for being a sorcerer.

Romy had a hard childhood and leaves to become a courtesan to the Shadow Lord who claims to be allowing everyone to share the comforts and benefits that were once only given to the wealthy. Romy's brother Neri, uses magic to steal and when he is caught, Romy must do everything she can to help him.

Dragonslayer Book Review

Dragonslayer
by Duncan M. Hamilton
Published by TOR Books
Publication Date: 2019
Number of pages: 301

Trigger warnings: murder and alcohol.

Synopsis:
Guillot dal Villevauvais used to be a member of the King's personal guard. He now spends his time drinking and mourning the death of his wife and child.

The Prince asks Guillot to kill a dragon out of the blue. Especially because dragons went extinct... didn't they?

Truly Devious Book Review!

Title: Truly Devious
Author: Maureen Johnson
Genres: YA, Mystery
Publication date: 2018
Number of pages: 416
Length of audiobook: 10 hours 13 minutes
Trigger warnings: anxiety, panic attacks, murder, death, abduction, bereavement

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden: Book Review