BlogTour: All that we see or seem; A dream within a dream

Title: All That We See or Seem
Author: Kristina Bahr
Genre: YA Dark Fairy Tale
Release Date: May 2018
Editor: Uncommon Universes Press LLC

Goodreads rating: 4.62/5

Add to: Goodreads, Amazon

Summary:

Every night, seventeen-year-old Reeve Lennox finds herself under a noose.

By day she is a lady of Acarsaid’s royal house, daydreaming of adventure and love. But every night in sleep she wanders through a nightmarish city, an invisible witness to the screeches of monsters and the screams of their victims. Her only consolation is Bran, a battle-torn young man with a selfless heart and eyes that reflect the stars.

Yet while Reeve falls deeper into her dreams, in truth she is engaged to Arden, a mercurial nobleman who has long been cured of his belief in love and breathes fire and flattery like other people breathe air.

Torn between two lives, Reeve struggles to remember what’s real, until night and day collide, with a revelation that threatens all of Acarsaid.

Title: A Dream Within a Dream
Author: Kristina Mahr
Genre: YA Dark Fairy Tale
Release Date: March 2019
Editor: Uncommon Universes Press LLC

Add to: Goodreads, Amazon

Summary:

Invisible to the man she loves, Reeve Lennox fights to reclaim him from a dark world.

As her wedding day nears in Acarsaid, her betrothed Arden offers only his wayward soul and saucy tongue. At night she desperately tries to reach Bran, the young soldier of nightmarish Tenebris who holds her heart. However, her king insists that the realms of Tenebris and Acarsaid must remain separate, lest the evil wizard Rancore brutally conquer all.

But the dark magic of Tenebris defies mere distance. A war is coming, one only Reeve may be able to prevent, if she can reunite her family on opposing sides.

With two kingdoms at stake, Reeve must discover her strength and her family’s legacy before all is lost. Yet righting the wrongs of the past may require the sacrifice of her truest love.

About the Author
Kristina Mahr devotes her days to numbers and her nights to words. She works full-time as an accountant in the suburbs of Chicago, where she lives with her two dogs and two cats, but her true passion is writing. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family and friends, reading, and waking up at the crack of dawn every weekend to watch the Premier League.

Website: https://kristinamahr.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kristina_Mahr

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristinamahr/

 

Blog Tour Organized By:

YA Bound Book Tours

 

Review blog tour: The Spyglass and The Cherry Tree

Title: The Spyglass and the Cherry Tree
Author:  Matt Beighton
Genre: Upper MG/YA Fantasy
Release Date: June 2017
Signed copies on Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/577769183/the-spyglass-and-the-cherry-tree-the(£1 off at Etsy with the code SPY100 (until end of November).

Add to: Goodreads, Amazon

Rating: 3,5/5

Summary:

Some people fall down rabbit holes. Others hide inside magical wardrobes. Skye Thistle looked through an old spyglass.

Lost and alone on a world filled with Goblins, Orcs, Dragons and others that, until now, she was convinced existed only in fairy tales, Skye wants only one thing: to return home.

If she’s to have any chance of getting home safely, Skye must overcome her own fears and prejudices and embrace the prophecies that she fears have already sealed her fate on the distant world of Ithilmir. All that stands in the way of restoring peace and balance is a fearsome and worryingly familiar Dark Queen.

Goblins are very real, and whether Skye believes in them or not, she’s their only hope.

Readers around the world are enjoying the complex mythology and descriptive world building of The Spyglass and the Cherry Tree, the first adventure in the Shadowlands Chronicles.

Review:

First of all, thanks to YA Bound Books Tour for giving me a free copy of this book.

The cover is the reason I decided to request this book, because it’s the perfect cover for an MG/fantasy/adventure book.

The beginning is like a lot of other fantasy: a normal girl who has a mother who strongly believes in Fairies and Goblins, is forced to spend her holidays with her grandparents.

But when she watches throught the old spyglass she doesn’t believe at her own eyes! A new planet? Skye hasn’t the time to be happy about that, because the Spyglass transport her on that planet!

She is lost and alone, afraid of the dark and the sounds of a forest, and soon she is surrounded by Goblins. And not the kind of Goblins we usually know.

I must admit that I didn’t give a high rating at this book because a lot of world-building information are given to us step by step, with long and sometimes boring monologues by this or that character.

When finally the long journey of Skye began, I was there thinking that this story reminds me of another: The Hobbit. We had a main character who is afraid in a perilous world; we had a group of people that are not the same race of the MC; we had a powerful enemy and a long journey in the wild world.

However, this book is really adventurous and it’s not predictable. I like a lot all the mythology of the different species and the background story. Skye is really a likeable character, totally human at the beginning and who grows during the entire book.

 

About the Author

Matt Beighton was born somewhere in the midlands in England during the heady days of the 1980s and continues to spend most of his days in the same shire. He is happily married with two young daughters who keep him very busy and suffer through the endless early drafts of his stories.

When he’s not writing, he teaches primary school (Kindergarten to some of you), messes around on canals in his inflatable kayak and supports his beloved Leicester City.

To find out more and to join his mailing list, visit http://www.mattbeighton.co.uk.

He is currently recruiting avid readers of children’s books for his Street Team. Find out more and request to join at http://mattbeighton.co.uk/street-team.

Author Social Media:

Website: http://www.mattbeighton.co.uk

Amazon author page: http://author.to/mattbeighton

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/mattbeightonauthor

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/mattbeighton

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/mattbeightonauthor

 

 

Blog Tour Organized by:

YA Bound Book Tours

 

 

Review Blog Tour: Bring Me Their Hearts, by Sara Wolf

 

Bring Me Their Hearts
Author:  Sara Wolf
Genre: YA Fantasy
Release Date: June 5th 2018
Publisher: Entangled Teen

Pages: 400

Rating: 5/5

Add on: Goodreads, Amazon.

Summary:

Zera is a Heartless—the immortal, unaging soldier of a witch. Bound to the witch Nightsinger ever since she saved her from the bandits who murdered her family, Zera longs for freedom from the woods they hide in. With her heart in a jar under Nightsinger’s control, she serves the witch unquestioningly.

Until Nightsinger asks Zera for a prince’s heart in exchange for her own, with one addendum: if she’s discovered infiltrating the court, Nightsinger will destroy Zera’s heart rather than see her tortured by the witch-hating nobles.

Crown Prince Lucien d’Malvane hates the royal court as much as it loves him—every tutor too afraid to correct him and every girl jockeying for a place at his darkly handsome side. No one can challenge him—until the arrival of Lady Zera. She’s inelegant, smart-mouthed, carefree, and out for his blood. The prince’s honor has him quickly aiming for her throat.

So begins a game of cat and mouse between a girl with nothing to lose and a boy who has it all.

Winner takes the loser’s heart.

Literally. 

Review:

“There are two things men will always believe about a woman: that she’s stupid, and that she’s weak. Today, as every day, I am neither of these things.”

This book is amazing, goes directly to my best reading of 2018 and one of the best fantasy/YA I ever read!

We have Zera, an Heartless who wants to take back her heart from the witch who keeps her heart in a jar and use her as a soldier. She can’t died, but she can’t step away from her heart neither. We have a Prince and we have a world full of perils, a world well described with the locations, the story of the past and its religion. A world with “medieval” inspiration but with some touch of magic, horror and fantasy.

Apart the cover, that I love so much because the dress seems like moving, my favourite part of the book is Zera. She’s a great main character: her life was and is currently tormented by her past, her life without a heart is miserable and she’s agonizing for a human touch.

But no one will ever touch her, or walk with her, if they know she’s a Heartless. A monster.

But Zera is also a very sarcastic and intelligent girl. I loved every single dialogue in this book. The best dialogues are, obviously, between her and the Prince. I laughed so hard with the dialogues, and sometimes I was crying because the author has done a great job to make the reader feel what Zera feel.

She’s tormented: she has to do what she wants (take her heart back), or she has to do what is right by take the prince heart and probably prevent a war between witches and humans?

It’s right to let another human suffer what she suffers?

And a special mention to all the other characters: I’m totally in love with Malachite, the bodyguard of the Prince, strong, intelligent and sarcastic, but you have to believe me that every character in this book is interesting and well descripted.

It’s really a page turner, with no dead times, and I always appreciated that, because I get bored very easily.

I’m a little doubtful about the ending: I was expecting a more dramatic or a happier ending, and I was in a little shock for the cliffhanger.

And now, something that I never do: please, I need the second book right now!

Thanks to Ya Bound Book Tours for this opportunity. I received a free copy in exchange of an honest review.

About the Author
Sara Wolf is a twenty-something author who adores baking, screaming at her cats, and screaming at herself while she types hilarious things. When she was a kid, she was too busy eating dirt to write her first terrible book. Twenty years later, she picked up a keyboard and started mashing her fists on it and created the monster known as Lovely Vicious. She lives in San Diego with two cats, a crippling-yet-refreshing sense of self-doubt, and not enough fruit tarts ever.

 

Author Links:
Website: http://sarawolfbooks.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sara_Wolf1
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/authorsaraw/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorsarawolf/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Sara-Wolf-476490705731978/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6862831.Sara_Wolf
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sara-Wolf/e/B00BVOVP08/

 

Blog Tour Organized by:

YA Bound Book Tours

 

 

Truthstone by Mike Shelton, Review

Truthstone (Truthseer archives #1)

Author: Mike Shelton

Pages: 283

Genres: YA, fantasy

Rating: 5/5

Add on: Goodreads, Amazon

Summary:

One little lie won’t hurt, will it?
When fifteen year old Shaeleen unexpectedly is given a TruthStone, every lie she hears or tells causes her immense physical pain. As she struggles to control her new power and curb the pain, she learns a powerful truth that could thrust an entire continent into civil war. She must choose: reveal the truth and stop the pain – or sacrifice her own well-being to protect her kingdom.
For two hundred years the five kingdoms of Wayland have been protected by the stones of power. Now those stones are failing and a darker power is trying to take control. With the help of her brother, Cole and a newfound friend, Orin, Shaeleen sets out to gather and restore the power of all the stones.
But will she succeed before the endless lies destroy her?

Review:

First of all, thanks a lot to Ya Bound Book Tours for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Truthstone is a lovely fantasy, and I was totally hooked from the beginning to the end.

Do you know the feel when a really good book changes the way you look at the world?

That’s what happened to me with Truthstone. I spend the days when I was reading it thinking about “what I will do if I had a truthstone?” “What if everyone arounds me are telling me lies?”

Maybe the story doesn’t seems so original, right? But in this case is written so good.  There are all the descriptions of the surroundings, of the dresses and the characters; their emotions are well descripted, as well the differences between the class.

Shaeleen is a good main character: at the beginning she’s not sincere, but with the help of the truthstone, of her brother Cole and her friends, she grow up to a beautiful and honest woman.

The magic of the stones, the history and the geography of the different countries are well written, interesting and without plot holes. I appreciate it.

I really can’t find something that it’s wrong with this book: the writing style is good without long boring description; it’s not so difficult to read for me (english isn’t my first language); I love the characters and the world, and I think that the cover is lovely too.

There’s no violence or curse words in this book, so I recommend it to young readers too. There’s a sequel too, called Truthspell, and I can wait to read it!