September 7th 2017 by Bloomsbury Childrens

400 Pages

Sarah Crossan is a professional on the quick read. The lyrical poetry of her fiction is unlike any other author I have read, and these books are perfect for getting out a book hangover. Unlike her usual novels, which are centrally focused in her home country of England, Crossan takes us over to the colonies this time - to take on the American Justice System.

As an English-woman, I have very little knowledge of the American Justice System other than what I've read on Buzzfeed or Sky News stories on Donald Trump. Crossan takes me into the world of the American small town - an idea romanticised in film and television. In Moonrise, it's a much more depressing place, in fact, everywhere is because Joseph Moon is preparing to watch his brother die.

Edward Moon was coerced into signing a confession of homicide of a police officer at the age of seventeen.  Our story follows years after, when the legally bound Edward is to be executed in Kirkland, Texas. Joseph Moon, his younger brother has taken the long journey across the Atlantic to be at his brother's side, and to make one final push for his brother's life.

Joseph is a talented young man, with a future ahead of him, yet he finds himself lingering in Kirkland - unable to face visiting his brother and fixing cars for food. Despite the distance that grew between the brother's after his conviction, they share (with their sister Angela) a shared traumatic childhood. Their mother was an abusive alcoholic, and once she disappeared when Edward was convicted, and abusive aunt took her place.

The death penalty has been a hot topic for years. In Britain, we do not have it. As far as we are concerned as a society - the death penalty appears like an eye for an eye sort of deal. I struggle to understand what it must be like on death row, deserved or not. Edward's hope that something will save him is tragic, whether he is guilty or not. 

Joseph is so young too. He's barely out of school and having to take on such a huge responsibility. He fills out the narrative with memories and flashback that give such a sense of all the characters it is hard to imagine that they aren't all living, breathing people. The entire book is exquisite, poignant and it reads like breathing. 

Crossan has hit it out of the park again, I can't wait to see what she comes up with next. 

Reading the Riot Act

There's someone inside your house by Stephanie Perkins
289 Pages

We all remember Stephanie Perkins of Anna and the French Kiss. It feels as though it has been a million years since we last heard from her but finally, just in time for Halloween, she released a new horror novel for us to enjoy.

Now, I am not a horror fan. I have an overactive imagination and deep, deep paranoia that really just does not suit well to fans of the horror genre. Thankfully, this book serves as almost a precursor to the horror genre. I mean there are murders, and gore like any self=respecting horror book. But this is entry level horror for the wimps out there like me.

We follow Makani, who in horror tradition has just moved to town. There is all this secrecy in regards to her past. Why did she move suddenly? Why won't she talk about what happened there? Then, enter the murders. Students are slaughtered left right and centre. Perkins has set up a hell mystery.

The murderer seems to be coming only for Makani, they are after her for some reason. At this point, I thought I had the book figured. I was expecting a Johnny Depp, The Secret Garden sort of plot line. TWIST MAKANI IS THE MURDERER! But that didn't happen.

We get side-tracked by this love story. And I'm into it, the guy is hot and I'm rooting for my Hawaiian babe to get a bit of action. Then, out of nowhere, they figure out who the murderer is, and I can't even tell you - because he's such a small character. Here is where everything begins to fall apart.

It's not so much a shock, as a....who? Who the hell is that guy? Oh, that's right he was in the peripheral at the beginning and seems to have no actual motive. The murders and Makani's shady past have no connection whatsoever. The plot begins to reek of broken promises.

Let me make this clear...there is nothing wrong with subverting expectation. But this book didn't seem to be doing it for any reason. It read more like Perkins realised the murderer was easy to guess - so bullsh**ted. I can see her now, furiously typing on a keyboard yelling 'FUCK IT!' at the top of her lungs.

Girl. I feel you - but there is such a  thing as reader expectations.
Follow the genre tropes or subvert it, but don't do both.

Image Courtesy of The Fiction Feline

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
257 Pages

Guess who discovered Audible?
Guess who very much enjoys Audible?

I swear I'm not trying to sell you Amazon. I am just sort of in shock that listening to a book can be even more evocative than reading at times. Not with fantasy, not for a moment can I enjoy a fictitious story voiced by anyone other than my own consciousness. Non-fiction, however, that I love to have read to me.

In the times of Jane Austen people would read aloud to each other all the time. I think audiobooks are trying to do the same thing and having the author reading their work - emphasis where intended and stories known like the scars on the back of your hand. It's pretty amazing really, I found myself totally absorbed by Fisher - and only now have I discovered what an amazing person we lost last year.

I will make this very plain. I have never felt as though I am "like everyone else." I'm too vulgar and harsh for the girly girls and too girly for the tomboys. So where the hell we're my people? The people who had to say what was on their mind because if not, that thought will rot and burn inside me until I falter like a lunatic. I've really never felt so understood than I did listening to Fisher's words.

She had brilliant comic timing, an exciting life that I can only dream of and was truly, truly honest about things I don't think many people are. She remembers what she thought as a teenager, the way her young mind logically led her places. It is so detailed I almost begin to wonder if anything she says is real, but that's half the fun.

 I think I might be mourning. I was never a huge Star Wars fan and even now I cannot fully enjoy the films without scoffing and laughing at its expense...but something happened with this book. I think became a Carrie Fisher fan. A woman who was sexual and vulgar and eloquent and educated (even though she refused to accept that.) A woman who was funny, and knew that was her weapon.

It is a brutally revealing story - brutal to herself and to people around her. (Sorry Harrison!) But it's also beautiful and it feels fitting that this, the ultimate telling of her life. A book so concerned with its author I can almost feel her breath on the pages. It's fitting that this was her last book and terribly tragic at the same time.

If only I had got on the Leia Bandwagon all those years ago when my father tried to drag me onto it.

Published May 2nd 2017 by Bloomsbury

Paperback 699 Pages

Though it's good to be back, there's still Hybern to deal with. The gang organise a meeting, getting the leaders together and try to unite Prythian against Captain Crunch. Sorry, The King of Hybern. I loved how political this book was, it was like Game of Thrones, where wars aren't just won on battlefields. There is diplomacy, working together and it is so interesting to watch it all come together or unravel. 

Hybern attacks Velaris and the meeting is pulled forwards. Nesta, who's been acting like a straight-up biatch is having a change of heart. I mean, we get what her problem is because Elain is acting nuts. Everything she says is sinister and random. Nesta, in her worry, basically becomes a meaner Amren. (I know, who thought that was possible!) The meeting with the High-Lords is pulled up, it has to be now and they are not happy about having a High-Lady in the midst. Neither are the High-Lords wives - Feyre seems to be giving them ideas. Everything is tense but working out and then boom! The moment we have all being waiting for...in walks Tamlin. 

Tamlin is ruthless. For some reason, I love it. He's catty, talking about Feyre's climaxing noise and just bating Rhysand, begging for a punch. Then, Rhysand takes away his ability tio speak. As someone who didn't even like Tamlin in book one, this is extremely satisfying. I preferred this scene of the numerous Rhys/Feyre sexy times. After this, although a lot of stuff happens, the war seems to come at you fast. Before I know it, Elain is a seer, we've been winnowing the humans to safety and the battle is on us. 

I was sure there was going to be death. Lots of death, and with Feyre rallying the Bone Carver, The Weaver and whatever the hell was in the bottom of the library, the odds seemed good. Until we saw Hyrberns army. The gang don't stand a chance. Lucien has gone to rally the human queens and as it turns out - Tamlin and Jurian are good guys. But, it's not enough. I know it, and the characters know it. They are saying goodbye and it all feels horrible. 

I start to dread the ending, dread knowing the finale is coming for Throne of Glass too, knowing this will only be the beginning of my sorrow. Nesta feels it, having taken something from the Cauldron. She knows when it is about to attack, and it obliterates.

They have to nullify it, Amren says she knows how, the Suriel told her where to look. But Elain is mad and Nesta is down. Cassian at her side. More Goodbyes. They need to get Hybern away from the Cauldron, so Amren and Feyre have a chance of nullifying it. Ships appear and there is Feyre's father. Lucien didn't bring the human queen, their father did. With ships named after the daughters, he fights for. I won't pretend I didn't cry. 

Damn. This review is long. 

We flip between Nesta and Feyre, the latter with her hand on the Cauldron and Amren apologising for lying. They aren't;t there to stop the Cauldron, they are there to release Amren. Feyre is pulled into the Cauldron, watching Hybern battle Nesta and Cassian. He's killing them, both of them. Feyre screams. She can't do anything to stop it. 

Then, Elain, with a knife in Hybern's throat. Nesta is on it, twisting the dagger in his throat, pay back for killing their father. The armies don't know Hybern has fallen. They keep fighting and Amren is released, laying waste to the fighters below. The Cauldron is destroyed, the beast inside Amren released. The very fabric of their world is shattered, and it needs to be fixed. 

Made and Unmade. Rhys appears. They all know the world will end if the Cauldron is not remade. Feyre does it, but everyone is depleted. Rhys offers his limited power, insists on it. She takes and takes, healing the cracks and saving them all, until she turns, and has killed Rhys. 



I know. I know, I crapped my pants. 
I had forgotten about Feyre. About how Rhys had held onto her and the High-Lords had brought her back. Spoiler Alert! It happens again. 

Then, the war is over. Time passes quickly and everything is such a shock. Amren is back and no one is dead. There is a happy ending. And it feels...disappointing. The final 50 pages are like lightning. I can barely comprehend where we are until we are there, at the end. And it feels like there should be more. 

I gave A Court of Wings and Ruin a solid 4 stars. 



Despite the slow beginning and the too fast ending - the journey in between was stunning. It was crazy and wild and one hell of an adventure. Besides, it's the journey that counts, not the destination. You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads and Facebook. Until then...Happy Reading.

A high-stakes online game of dares turns deadly
When Vee is picked to be a player in NERVE, an anonymous game of dares broadcast live online, she discovers that the game knows her. They tempt her with prizes taken from her ThisIsMe page and team her up with the perfect boy, sizzling-hot Ian. At first it's exhilarating--Vee and Ian's fans cheer them on to riskier dares with higher stakes. But the game takes a twisted turn when they're directed to a secret location with five other players for the Grand Prize round. Suddenly they're playing all or nothing, with their lives on the line. Just how far will Vee go before she loses NERVE?


Nerve by Jeanne Ryan
Published July 28th 2016 by Simon&Schuster
Paperback 294 Pages

I am a huge fan of books turned into movies. I often think book trailers should be more like film trailers (books are a visual medium after all) because the film trailer can always entice me into reading it. I read nerve before seeing the movie and the book only heightened my excitement for what seemed like a blockbuster.

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.

What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.

Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.

What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time. 

Image from booksweheart

Me Before You is set in the English countryside, Yorkshire I assume. I'm from Cumbria so this is like

next door to me and that makes me really happy. Moyes got the setting built really well as I live and have

been to these types of villages many times. That and the fact the protagonist is named Lou (I'm a Lou)

pulled me in immediately. What a shame I didn't like Lou that much - but I'll get to that.

Immediately Lou loses her job. She lives with her family who are a bit hard done for, so the loss of money is 
a definite blow. She tries working at a few jobs that are gruesome or terrible until finally, she falls into being
a caregiver for Will. Will has Quadriplegia meaning he is mostly paralysed from the chest down, with a little
bit of movement in his arm. There relationship is pretty rocky to say the least until a mutual attraction forms.
They fall in love it's gushy and romantic and cute - but then we have this underlying issue. Will wants to die.
Will promised his parents 6 months to change his mind and if not he would be going to Dignitas to end his life.

Naturally this is a huge aspect of the book and has caused a lot of controversy. People seem to be concerned that
what Moyes is saying is that Will's life is meaningless now, that he is disabled so he wants to die because he thinks
his life is never going to be good enough. I disagree, personally I never got that reading of it. What I understood
from the book was that Will is a rich boy, he has probably never had to want for anything in his life and I imagine
when that's the case and to want for something so simple that you can never have -that has to be so hard. I don't think
Will as a person, from the way he was raised or whatever, is not equipped to look on the bright side.

I won't touch on euthanasia much but for me, the story was not saying all disabled people want to die. For me it
was about Will as a person rather than a man with quadriplegia. I think Will does not accept second best, even if
that second best is a happy life with Lou, and that is ultimately the tragedy of this book. When she lays it all out on the
beach, telling her she loves him and she can make him happy and he still says no. That was hard to read, it felt so final.

Lou at first really bugged me. I found her very childish, rather annoying and it was a struggle to push through until we
met Will - who was hilarious, charming and complicated. It's just every two seconds I wanted to shake her around and
give her a kick up the arse. She was so hard to get through too, but once Will did she became this whole new person.
Confident and actually honest with herself because I knew very early on that Patrick was awful, they were terrible together,
they barely got on and when she moved in with him it was just so awkward. She spent most of the book going through the
motions of what she thinks she should be doing and it was great to see Will knock some sense in to her.

The romance really was not as big of a part of this novel as it was advertised but that is fine by me. It was steady and real
and slow and I liked that. Moyes did not create insta-love or have her checking him out as he wheeled into the room -she let
the characters do it, almost to the point where you barely notice the change- it was some stunning writing.

That final scene in Dignitas, when they know it's about to happen and she rushes there to see him - BEAUTIFUL. I almost 
couldn't believe it was happening it was so awful but it was also just so great. I would have to say this book got better as it
went along. The more we learned about both these characters, the more they reached out of the page and slapped me with
emotion. I think it is a damn fine book, but if I have to read Patrick running one more time - I will throw it at the wall.

I hope this helps, let me know what you thought of the book (or the movie).
Happy Reading.

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