Best Books of the Year

Hello and welcome to the first Best Books of the Year of this blog!

Photos made by me. Please attention: some titles are in italian! If you click on the title, you can read the summary on Goodreads.

Lo Hobbit: un viaggio inaspettato, cronache dal set I: I’m a huge fan of the Hobbit movies and book, so I buy 5 of the books that illustrates how the movies were made, with photo and interviews of the cast. Yes, Richard Armitage, you know what I mean.

L’albergo stregato (The Haunted hotel) by Wilkie Collins: I know Collins for The woman in white, that I need to read in 2018, but in 2017 I read The Haunted hotel and it’s amazing! Gothic and spooky and mysterious!

Mano di Ferro (Ironhand) by Charlie Fletcher: The second book in the Stoneheart series, this book has lost a little potential from the first book, but I love the characters. They are intense and realistic and dramatic. I have to buy the third book in english, because they never translate it in italian.

The Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard: I buy this book this summer, in Oxford, and I beagn to read it on the train back home, few days later. It’s darkly funny, like Christopher Moore, and I will read more adventures about Johannes Cabal.

La detective (A spy in the house) by Y.s. Lee: a wonderful YA set in London in 1858, featuring a kick ass girl and a funny romance.

 

The “Vampyr” book is my copy of Dracula by Bram Stoker: I made this dust jacket for the book for a vampire hunter cosplay that I made some years ago, and I re-read Dracula because in summer I went to Whitby.

Un lavoro Sporco (A dirty Job) by Christopher Moore: Moore is one of my favourite authors, and I re-read A dirty Job because sometimes I need to read or re-read something written by Moore.

Buona apocalisse a tutti! (Good Omens) by Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett: Gaiman and Pratchett are my favourite authors, so I read Good Omens and it’s amazing. #TeamCrowley forever! Can’t wait to see the tv adaptation!

Flights and Chimes and mysterious times by Emma Trevayne: OMG this book is amazing!! Steampunk London with fairies and mechanical parts of human body, mysterious fracture in the wall, a poetic and magic middle grade book with a wonderful cover.

Holy Cow by David Duchovny:  I buy this book in Brasov, Romania, the past summer. I was curious about David Duchovny written a book and Holy Cow is a book that made me cry, and laugh and think a lot.

In the shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters: This book is everything for me. I cried a lot after finishing it. Cat Winters is one of my fave authors, thanks to this book.

Percy Jackson racconta gli dei greci (Percy Jackson’s greek god) by Rick Riordan: It’s Percy and it’s written by Riordan, I need to write more?

Not Pictured:

The Last Necromancer by C.J. Archer: with an amazing gothic cover and fantastic characters, the first book in the Ministry of Curiosities series is a 5 star read! Review soon!

And you? What’s the best book you read this year?

Happy New Year to all of you!

My Life in Books Tag!

I found this tag on Rainy Days and Pajamas. 

The rules? Pretty simple: answer the questions with books you read this year! Some of the books I chose are in italian, so I translate the title!

In high school I was: Princess Jellyfish (Akiko Higashimura)
People might be surprised (by): The Demon in the wood (Leigh Bardugo)
I will never be: Slave, Warrior, Queen (Morgan Rice)
My fantasy job is: The Last Necromancer (C.J. Archer)
At the end of a long day I need: Good Omens (Pratchett/Gaiman)
I hate it when: It’s not me, it’s you! (Mhairi McFarlane)
Wish I had: The box of demons (Daniel Whelan)
My family reunions are: Holy Cow (David Duchovny)
At a party you’d find me with: Dracula (Bram Stoker)
I’ve never been to: A monstrous Place (Matthew Stott)
A happy day includes: Pyramids (Terry Pratchett)
Motto I live by: The impossible quest of hailing a taxi on Christmas Eve (George Saoulidis)
On my bucket list is: The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra (Vaseem Khan)
In my next life, I want to have: Flights and chimes and mysterious times (Emma Trevayne)

And that’s it! I tag everyone who wants to do this tag!

Beauty and Beastly by Melanie Karsak, Review

Beauty and Beastly (Steampunk Fairy Tales Series)

Author: Melanie Karsak

Pages: 162

Genre: Steampunk, romance

Rating: 5/5

Add on: Goodreads, Amazon

Summary:

In this tale as old as time, Isabella Hawking must tinker a solution to a heartbreaking mystery.

When Isabelle and her papa set out from London on a sea voyage, Isabelle was thrilled. Visiting foreign courts, learning from master tinkers, and studying new ways to manipulate mechanicals sounded like a dream. But an unexpected gale turns the waters violent, and the ship is lost. Isabelle survives the tempest only to be shipwrecked on a seemingly-deserted island. Dotted with standing stones, faerie mounds, and a crumbling castle, the haunting place hints of a magical past. Isabelle may be an unwitting guest, but her arrival at the forgotten citadel heralds a new beginning for the beastly residents inside.

Beauty and Beastly is a retelling of the classic Beauty and the Beast fairy tale set in 1814 Regency England.

Review:

I can’t express how much I loved this book!

I read a lot of retelling in the past years, I even partecipate in a challenge based on retellings, and I never found one that I really really like. For example: I like the idea of Dorothy Must Die, but I didn’t like the MC.

But Isabelle Hawking is a great main character! She’s strong, and intelligent, she doesn’t despise the other girls, and she creates wonderful creations made of metal and music.

“How dare you presume to pick my rose. A rose by any other name would still spell damnation for us all.”

First of all: some of the chapters title are the same of the famous songs from the movies! I don’t know you, but I sing those songs a lot. No, I’m not a good singer.

Second: the author has turn down the Stockolm syndrome tipically associated with this tale. So we don’t have a Beast very angry, and bad and violent with Isabelle, and she isn’t a passive character. This is so important to me, because Melanie Karsak spread a great message with that: violence is not love.

Obviously, there is romance in this book, and drama and adventure, all mixed. I’m not a romantic girl, but I found it so cute!

The world that the author has written is beautiful: I have a special place in my heart for steampunk settings, and this is incredible. Just imagine the castle where the beast live, like in the last movie, but all made in metal, and clockwork. To this world, add some airship, fairies and Celtic folklore.

All the female characters in the book are great: the fairy that has cast the spell on the castle, Isabelle, and Lily, an amazing airship’s captain that has her own adventure in another book, “Chasing The Star Garden”.

 

Other books in the series:

Curiouser and Curiouser

Ice and Embers