Review | Spinning Silver

Title: Spinning Silver
Author: Naomi Novik
Series Details: Standalone
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: July 10, 2018
Genre: Fantasy, Retelling
Pages: 480

Blurb from Goodreads:

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father’s inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty—until Miryem takes matters into her own hands. Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold.

Review | Scarlet

Title: Scarlet
Series Details: The Lunar Chronicles #2
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Macmillan
Imprint: Feiwel and Friends
Release Date: February 05, 2013
Genre: Fantasy, Retelling, Science Fiction, Young Adult 

Pages: 454

Blurb from Goodreads:

Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She’s trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive.

Review │ Cinder

Title: Cinder
Series Details: The Lunar Chronicles #1
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Macmillan
Imprint: Feiwel & Friends
Release Date: January 03, 2012
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult, Retelling
Pages: 390

Blurb from Goodreads:

Sixteen-year-old Cinder is considered a technological mistake by most of society and a burden by her stepmother. Being cyborg does have its benefits, though: Cinder’s brain interference has given her an uncanny ability to fix things (robots, hovers, her own malfunctioning parts), making her the best mechanic in New Beijing. This reputation brings Prince Kai himself to her weekly market booth, needing her to repair a broken android before the annual ball. He jokingly calls it “a matter of national security,” but Cinder suspects it’s more serious than he’s letting on.

Review │ The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic

Title: The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Publisher: Macmillan
Imprint: Imprint
Release Date: September 26, 2017
Series Details: Standalone
Genre: Anthology, Fantasy, Retelling, Young Adult
Pages: 281

Blurb from Goodreads:

Love speaks in flowers. Truth requires thorns.

Travel to a world of dark bargains struck by moonlight, of haunted towns and hungry woods, of talking beasts and gingerbread golems, where a young mermaid’s voice can summon deadly storms and where a river might do a lovestruck boy’s bidding but only for a terrible price.

Review │ My Plain Jane

Title: My Plain Jane
Series Details: The Lady Janies #2
Author: Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, Brodi Ashton
Publisher: HarperCollins
Imprint: HarperTeen
Release Date: June 26, 2018
Genre: Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult, Retelling
Pages: 464

Blurb from Goodreads:

You may think you know the story. After a miserable childhood, penniless orphan Jane Eyre embarks on a new life as a governess at Thornfield Hall. There, she meets one dark, brooding Mr. Rochester. Despite their significant age gap (!) and his uneven temper (!!!), they fall in love—and, Reader, she marries him. (!!!)

Or does she?

Review | Circe

Title: Circe
Author: Madeline Miller
Publisher: Hatchette Book Group, Inc.
Imprint: Little, Brown and Company
Release Date: April 10, 2018
Series Details: Standalone
Genre: Fantasy, Retelling
Pages: 400

Blurb from Goodreads:

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe has neither the look nor the voice of divinity, and is scorned and rejected by her kin. Increasingly isolated, she turns to mortals for companionship, leading her to discover a power forbidden to the gods: witchcraft.

Review | Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of Villainy

Title: Because You Love to Hate Me: 13 Tales of Villainy
Authors: Ameriie (Editor), Renee Ahdieh, Soman Chainani, Susan Dennard, Sarah Enni, Marissa Meyer, Cindy Pon, Victoria Schwab, Samantha Shannon, Adam Silvera, Andrew Smith, April Genevieve Tucholke, Nicola Yoon
BookTubers: Christine Riccio, Tina Burke, Samantha Lane, Sasha Alsberg, Sophia Lee, Zoe Herdt, Benjamin Alderson, Jesse George, Regan Perusse, Catriona Feeney, Raeleen Lemay, Whitney Atkinson, Steph Sinclair, Kat Kennedy
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Imprint: Bloomsbury Children’s Books
Release Date: July 11, 2017
Series Details: Standalone
Genre: Anthology, Fantasy, Retelling, Young Adult
Pages: 339

Blurb from Goodreads:

In this unique YA anthology, thirteen acclaimed, bestselling authors team up with thirteen influential BookTubers to reimagine fairy tales from the oft-misunderstood villains’ points of view.

Review | Hunted

Title: Hunted
Author: Meagan Spooner
Publisher: HarperCollins
Imprint: HarperTeen
Release Date: March 14, 2017
Series Details: Standalone
Genre: Fantasy, Retelling, Young Adult
Pages: 374

Blurb from Goodreads:

Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them. 

Review | Bright Smoke, Cold Fire

Title: Bright Smoke, Cold Fire
Series Details: Bright Smoke, Cold Fire #1
Author: Rosamund Hodge
Publisher:  HarperCollins
Imprint: Balzer + Bray
Release Date: September 27, 2016
Genre: Fantasy, Retelling, Young Adult
Pages: 437

Blurb from Goodreads:

When the mysterious fog of the Ruining crept over the world, the living died and the dead rose. Only the walled city of Viyara was left untouched. 

Review | Wintersong

Title: Wintersong
Series Details: Wintersong #1
Author: S. Jae-Jones
Publisher: Macmillan 
Imprint: Thomas Dune Books
Release Date: February 07, 2017
Genre: Retelling, Young Adult, Fantasy
Pages : 436

Blurb from Goodreads:

All her life, nineteen-year-old Liesl has heard tales of the beautiful, mysterious Goblin King. He is the Lord of Mischief, the Ruler Underground, and the muse around which her music is composed. Yet, as Liesl helps shoulder the burden of running her family’s inn, her dreams of composition and childish fancies about the Goblin King must be set aside in favor of more practical concerns. 

Review | Reign of Shadows

Title: Reign of Shadows
Series Details: Reign of Shadows #1
Author: Sophie Jordan
Publisher: HarperCollins 
Imprint: HarperTeen
Release Date: February 09, 2016
Genre: Retelling, Fantasy, Young Adult
Pages: 304

Blurb from Goodreads:

Seventeen years ago, an eclipse cloaked the kingdom of Relhok in perpetual darkness. In the chaos, an evil chancellor murdered the king and queen and seized their throne. Luna, Relhok’s lost princess, has been hiding in a tower ever since. Luna’s survival depends on the world believing she is dead. 

Review | Alice

Title: Alice
Series Details: The Chronicles of Alice #1
Author: Christina Henry
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Imprint: Ace
Release Date: August 04, 2015
Genre: Retelling, Fantasy, Adult
Pages: 291

Blurb from Goodreads:

A mind-bending new novel inspired by the twisted and wondrous works of Lewis Carroll…

In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls which echo the screams of the poor souls inside. 

Review | A Study in Charlotte

A Study in Charlotte (Charlotte Holmes #1) by Brittany Cavallaro
Published by Katherine Tegen Books on March 01, 2016
Genres: Mystery, Contemporary, Retelling, Young Adult
Pages: 321

THE BLURB

The last thing Jamie Watson wants is a rugby scholarship to Sherringford, a Connecticut prep school just an hour away from his estranged father. But that’s not the only complication: Sherringford is also home to Charlotte Holmes, the famous detective’s great-great-great-granddaughter, who has inherited not only Sherlock’s genius but also his volatile temperament. From everything Jamie has heard about Charlotte, it seems safer to admire her from afar.

From the moment they meet, there’s a tense energy between them, and they seem more destined to be rivals than anything else. But when a Sherringford student dies under suspicious circumstances, ripped straight from the most terrifying of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Jamie can no longer afford to keep his distance. Jamie and Charlotte are being framed for murder, and only Charlotte can clear their names. But danger is mounting and nowhere is safe—and the only people they can trust are each other.

A Study in Charlotte is the first in a trilogy.

MY THOUGHTS

A Study in Charlotte is one of those books that you won’t hate because it’s fun enough to make you want to turn just another page before bedtime. But also the kind that you won’t come to love deeply because everything is played on safe temperatures. No sudden spikes of excitement.