Fourth Wing

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros                                            Fantasy, Action, Dragons

(from Amazon)  Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.  But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.  With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.  She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.  Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.  Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.    

(My Review)

This book has been wildly popular - and hard to get a copy of.  I felt it lived up to the hype.  Young Violet is well-suited for a life among scholars, but her life is turned upside down when she is summoned to join the "dragon riders".  As a "dragon rider" cadet, she faces many dangers, not just trying to bond and ride a dragon, but also from other cadets (due to who her mother is).  What Violet lacks in physicality, she excels in intelligence and quick thinking.  She even finds romance.  

Yellowface

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang                                                  Asian American Literary Fiction

(from Amazon)  Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.

So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.

But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

(My Review)

June is a struggling author, who makes a life-changing decision when her successful-author friend, Athena Liu, dies in her presence, along with a manuscript she has just completed.  June decides to re-edit it, and claim it as her own.  This satire is such an interesting discussion of authorship, plagiarism, and representation. Interesting read.

 

Warrior Girl Unearthed

Warrior Girl Unearthed (The Firekeeper's Daughter, Book 2) by Angeline Boulley     

                                                                                     Multicultural Thriller and Suspense for Teens

(from Amazon)  Perry Firekeeper-Birch was ready for her Summer of Slack but instead, after a fender bender that was entirely not her fault, she’s stuck working to pay back her Auntie Daunis for repairs to the Jeep.  Thankfully she has the other outcasts of the summer program, Team Misfit Toys, and even her twin sister Pauline. Together they ace obstacle courses, plan vigils for missing women in the community, and make sure summer doesn’t feel so lost after all.  But when she attends a meeting at a local university, Perry learns about the “Warrior Girl”, an ancestor whose bones and knife are stored in the museum archives, and everything changes. Perry has to return Warrior Girl to her tribe. Determined to help, she learns all she can about NAGPRA, the federal law that allows tribes to request the return of ancestral remains and sacred items. The university has been using legal loopholes to hold onto Warrior Girl and twelve other Anishinaabe ancestors’ remains, and Perry and the Misfits won’t let it go on any longer.  Using all of their skills and resources, the Misfits realize a heist is the only way to bring back the stolen artifacts and remains for good. But there is more to this repatriation than meets the eye as more women disappear and Pauline’s perfectionism takes a turn for the worse. As secrets and mysteries unfurl, Perry and the Misfits must fight to find a way to make things right–for the ancestors and for their community.                                   

(My Review)

Perry stumbles into an internship working in her tribe's museum, and begins to learn more about stolen artifacts and the struggles to repatriate tribal artifacts that have been stolen by private, and even by scholarly collectors for hundreds of years.  The author is excellent at introducing and even educating readers to important multicultural information, without feeling you are being lectured.  The story also covers the very real topic of the high rates of disappearance among indigenous women. The characters are real and engaging.  There is a suspenseful mystery and even romance.  This was an excellent sequel, but could definitely be read as a stand-alone.  

 

How to Survive Your Murder

 

How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine       YA Horror/Thriller/Mystery

(from Amazon)  Alice Lawrence is the sole witness in her sister’s murder trial.  And in the year since Claire’s death, Alice’s life has completely fallen apart. Her parents have gotten divorced, she’s moved into an apartment that smells like bologna, and she is being forced to face her sister’s killer and a courtroom full of people who doubt what she saw in the corn maze a year prior.  Claire was an all-American girl, beautiful and bubbly, and a theater star. Alice was a nerd who dreamed of becoming a forensic pathologist and would rather stay at home to watch her favorite horror movies than party. Despite their differences, they were bonded by sisterhood and were each other’s best friends.  Until Claire was taken away from her.  On the first day of the murder trial, as Alice prepares to give her testimony, she is knocked out by a Sidney Prescott look-alike in the courthouse bathroom. When she wakes up, it is Halloween night a year earlier, the same day Claire was murdered. Alice has until midnight to save her sister and find the real killer before he claims another victim.

(My Review)

This book was a big slasher mess.  It had elements from so many other stories I've read.  There were bits I found interesting and felt could really work, but I felt it just got lost in the....craziness of the story.  I wanted to like it.

Legends and Lattes

 

Legends and Lattes  by Travis Baldree                     Fantasy/LGTBQ+

(from Amazon)  Worn out after decades of packing steel and raising hell, Viv, the orc barbarian, cashes out of the warrior’s life with one final score. A forgotten legend, a fabled artifact, and an unreasonable amount of hope lead her to the streets of Thune, where she plans to open the first coffee shop the city has ever seen.  However, her dreams of a fresh start filling mugs instead of swinging swords are hardly a sure bet. Old frenemies and Thune’s shady underbelly may just upset her plans. To finally build something that will last, Viv will need some new partners, and a different kind of resolve.

(My Review)

This book was delightful!  It totally gave me Gilmore Girls vibes - if Stars Hollows was set in a world full of orcs, succubi and goblins.  It was just so cozy, with Viv, an orc, moving to a small town, wanting to open a coffee shop - no one has ever heard of coffee.  You are introduced to such a sweet cast of characters, the kind that make a small town so unique and quirky.  Of course, not all of the towns people are sweet.  I loved the sense of community, and relationships.  

Five Survive

 

Five Survive by Holly Jackson                            Crime Fiction for Teens

(from Amazon)  Red Kenny is on a road trip for spring break with five friends: Her best friend—the older brother—his perfect girlfriend—a secret crush—a classmate—and a killer.  When their RV breaks down in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, they soon realize this is no accident. They have been trapped by someone out there in the dark, someone who clearly wants one of them dead.  With eight hours until dawn, the six friends must escape, or figure out which of them is the target. But is there a liar among them? Buried secrets will be forced to light and tensions inside the RV will reach deadly levels. Not all of them will survive the night. . . .

(My Review)

Holly Jackson kept the tension high throughout the book.  I could not stop reading.  This was a solid suspenseful read.  It starts out as a fun beginning of a spring break trip with a group of friends, but it quickly escalates, as their RV breaks down.  They find themselves in the middle of nowhere with no cell service, and soon find themselves being attacked.  This book does not stop until the end.

The Ghost Tree

 

The Ghost Tree by Christina Henry                        Historical Fantasy/Horror Fiction

(from Amazon)  When the bodies of two girls are found torn apart in the town of Smiths Hollow, Lauren is surprised, but she also expects that the police won't find the killer. After all, the year before her father's body was found with his heart missing, and since then everyone has moved on. Even her best friend, Miranda, has become more interested in boys than in spending time at the old ghost tree, the way they used to when they were kids.  So when Lauren has a vision of a monster dragging the remains of the girls through the woods, she knows she can't just do nothing. Not like the rest of her town. But as she draws closer to answers, she realizes that the foundation of her seemingly normal town might be rotten at the center. And that if nobody else stands for the missing, she will.

(My Review)  

Very creepy read!  Mutilated girls bodies are found, but the police don't seem that concerned and then soon forget (and so do the whole town).  The latest bodies are found a year after Lauren's father was found, and now the murders are escalating.  The only ones who seem concerned are Lauren and the new police officer who just arrived from out of town.  Is Lauren a key to the murders?