REVIEW: Trapped - Beverley Kendall

Title: Trapped
Author: Beverley Kendall
Publisher: Season Publishing LLC
Format: E-Book
Pages: 360 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

My life has turned out to be such a cliché. And not in a good way. 

It’s not exactly Sixteen and Pregnant, but at eighteen my only advantage is a high school diploma. And if that’s not enough, the father—and I use that term loosely—couldn’t have hightailed it out of my life fast enough. 

I thought I really knew him. Unfortunately, my boyfriend of three years transformed from Dr Jekyll to Mr Hyde once he realized his carefree, childless days would be coming to an end. 

I’m over him now though. The real love of my life is chubby, has more gum than teeth, and stands a little over two feet tall. She may not have been planned, but I’ve never regretted having her. She is the centre of my world. 

A world that's turned upside down when my ex-returns ready to earn the love and trust of the child he abandoned before birth. 

Letting him into my daughter’s life is one thing but letting him back into mine isn't going to happen. Because the biggest mistake of my life has a name, and that name is Mitchell Aaron Kingsley. 

And he's one mistake I don't ever intend to make again. 

REVIEW: Truth (#2) - Julia Karr

Title: Truth (#2)
Author: Julia Karr
Series: XVI
Publisher: Speak
Format: Paperback
Pages: 299 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Nina Oberon's life has changed enormously in the last few months. When her mother was killed, Nina discovered the truth about her father, the leader of the Resistance. And now she sports the same Governing Council-ordered tattoo of XVI on her wrist that all sixteen-year-old girls have. The one that announces to the world that she is easy prey to predators. But Nina won't be anyone's stereotype. And when she joins an organization of girls working within the Resistance, she knows that they can put an end to one of the most terrifying secret programs the GC has ever conceived. Because the truth always comes out . . . and the consequences can be deadly. 

REVIEW: The Novice (#1) - Taran Matharu

Title: The Novice (#1)
Author: Taran Matharu
Series: Summoner
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Format: Paperback
Pages: 390 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

When blacksmith apprentice Fletcher discovers that he has the ability to summon demons from another world, he travels to Adept Military Academy. There the gifted are trained in the art of summoning. Fletcher is put through gruelling training as a battlemage to fight in the Hominum Empire’s war against orcs. He must tread carefully while training alongside children of powerful nobles. The power hungry, those seeking alliances, and the fear of betrayal surround him. Fletcher finds himself caught in the middle of powerful forces, with only his demon Ignatius for help.

As the pieces on the board manoeuvre for supremacy, Fletcher must decide where his loyalties lie. The fate of an empire is in his hands. The Novice is the first in a trilogy about Fletcher, his demon Ignatius, and the war against the Orcs.

REVIEW: Ascension (#1) - Victor Dixen

Title: Ascension (#1)
Author: Victor Dixen
Series: Phobos
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Format: Paperback
Pages: 488 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Six girls, six boys. Each in the two separate bays of a single spaceship. They have six minutes each week to seduce and to make their choices, under the unblinking eye of the onboard cameras. They are the contenders in the Genesis programme, the world's craziest speed-dating show ever, aimed at creating the first human colony on Mars.

Leonor, an 18-year-old orphan, is one of the chosen ones. 
She has signed up for glory.
She has signed up for love.
She has signed up for a one-way ticket.
Even if the dream turns to a nightmare, it is too late for regrets.

REVIEW: There's Someone Inside Your House - Stephanie Perkins

Title: There's Someone Inside Your House
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Format: Paperback
Pages:  287 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Love hurts...

Makani Young thought she'd left her dark past behind her in Hawaii, settling in with her grandmother in landlocked Nebraska. She's found new friends and has even started to fall for mysterious outsider Ollie Larsson. But her past isn't far behind.

Then, one by one, the students of Osborne Hugh begin to die in a series of gruesome murders, each with increasingly grotesque flair. As the terror grows closer and her feelings for Ollie intensify, Makani is forced to confront her own dark secrets.

REVIEW: A Court of Wings and Ruin (#3) - Sarah J. Maas

Title: A Court of Wings and Ruin (#3)
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Series: A Court of Thorns and Roses
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Format: Paperback
Pages:  720 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Feyre has returned to the Spring Court, determined to gather information on Tamlin's manoeuvrings and the invading king threatening to bring Prythian to its knees. But to do so she must play a deadly game of deceit – and one slip may spell doom not only for Feyre but for her world as well.

As war bears down upon them all, Feyre must decide who to trust amongst the dazzling and lethal High Lords – and hunt for allies in unexpected places. 

REVIEW: Unintended (#5) - Georgia Cates

Title: Unintended (#5)
Author: Georgia Cates
Series: The Sin Series
Publisher: Georgia Cates LLC
Format: Kindle
Pages: 291 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Captor becomes lover…

I’m a marksman. Mobster. Deadly assassin. 
My job is to protect my brotherhood, but that isn’t my only responsibility. 

I’m Kieran Hendry, the up-and-coming leader of The Order, and a new duty calls. I must take a wife. 

A wife I don’t know. 
A wife born into a position at the top of The Fellowship hierarchy.
A wife who will forge a strong alliance between her brotherhood and mine. 
A wife I don’t want.

I knew next to nothing about Westlyn Breckenridge when I abducted her, but I quickly discover that she’s intelligent, strong, defiant, selfless. And beautiful.

One night with her is all it takes for me to see that she is no typical Mafia princess. I’m hopeful this arranged marriage won’t be the miserable union I imagined it to be. But convincing my intended to give us a chance won’t be easy when she sees me as the enemy. The brute who kidnapped her. The vile fiend who threatened to do as he wished with her body.

It’s true. I am all those things. I had cruel intentions. But everything has changed. My affection for her is unexpected. My love, unintended.

REVIEW: Saga Vol. 4 - Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples

Title: Saga Vol. 4
Author: Brian K. Vaughan & Fiona Staples
Series: Saga
Publisher: Image Comics
Format: Paperback
Pages: 144 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

As they visit a strange new world and encounter even more adversaries, baby Hazel finally becomes a toddler, while her star-crossed parents Marko and Alana struggle to stay on their feet.

REVIEW: Specials (#3) - Scott Westerfeld

Title: Specials (#3)
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Series: Uglies
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Format: Paperback
Pages: 372 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

The good, the bad, the pretty and the ugly - Tally's seen it all. But now she's been turned into one of the 'Specials', a superamped fighting machine engineered to keep the Uglies down and the Pretties stupid.

REVIEW: Caraval (#1) - Stephanie Garber

Title: Caraval (#1)
Author: Stephanie Garber
Series: Caraval
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Format: Hardback
Pages:  402 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over.

But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner.

Scarlett has been told that everything that happens during Caraval is only an elaborate performance. Nevertheless, she becomes enmeshed in a game of love, heartbreak, and magic. And whether Caraval is real or not, Scarlett must find Tella before the five nights of the game are over or a dangerous domino effect of consequences will be set off, and her beloved sister will disappear forever.

Welcome, welcome to Caraval…beware of getting swept too far away.

REVIEW: The Silkworm (#2) - Robert Galbraith

Title: The Silkworm (#2)
Author: Robert Galbraith
Series: Cormoron Strike
Publisher: Hachette Audio UK
Format: Audiobook
Time: 17Hrs 16Mins
Narrator: Robert Glenister
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, she just thinks he has gone off by himself for a few days - as he has done before - and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realises.

The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were published it would ruin lives - so there are a lot of people who might want to silence him. And when Quine is found brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any he has encountered before...