March 2020 TBR

Welcome to another TBR, and this time it is March's turn. I know I always say it but again where has the last month gone.

So let's get into the books I am aiming to read this month

• The Witcher: The Last Song - Andrzej Sapkowski
• Orphan Monster Spy (#1) - Matt Killeen
• Ninth House (#1) - Leigh Bardugo
• The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam (#1) - Chris Ewen
• A Map of Days (#4) - Ransom Riggs
• Orphan Monster Spy (#1) - Matt Killeen
• A Pinch of Magic (#1) - Michelle Harrison

• Cirque du Freak (#1) - Darren Shan
• A Sprinkle of Sorcery (#2) - Michelle Harrison
• The Vampire's Assistant (#2) - Darren Shan
• The Extinction Trials: Exile (#2) - S. M. Wilson
• The Shadows Between Us - Tricia Levenseller
• The Midnight Lie - Marie Rutkoski

• Surviving His Scars (#4) - Terri Anne Browning
• Dear Martin - Nic Stone
• Pet - Akkwaeke Emezi
• Death Note vol - Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata
• A Darker Shade of Magic (#1) - V. E. Schwab
• Children of Blood and Bone (#1) - Tomi Adeyemi

• Soulbinder (#4) - Sebastien de Castell
• Jurassic Park (#1) - Michael Chrichton
• Dread Nation (#1) - Justina Ireland
• Sapphire Blue (#2) - Kerstin Gier
• The Grim Grotto (#11) - Lemony Snicket
• Girls of Paper and Fire (#1) - Natasha Ngan

I have chosen a wide range of books there to cover me for all eventualities.

Watch out for my TBR for The Bookie Trials Royal Weekender which commences on the 28th and 29th March.

REVIEW: The Extinction Trials (#1) - S. M. WIlson

Title: The Extinction Trials (#1)
Author: S. M. Wilson
Series: The Extinction Trials
Publisher: Usborne Publishing
Format: Paperback
Pages: 381 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Betrayal. Sacrifice. Survival.
Welcome to the Extinction Trials.

In Stormchaser and Lincoln's ruined world, the only way to survive is to risk everything. To face a contest more dangerous than anyone can imagine. And they will do anything to win.

But in a land full of monsters - human and reptilian - they can't afford to trust anyone. Perhaps not even each other...

REVIEW: Salvation (#1) - Terri Anne Browning

Title: Salvation (#1)
Author: Terri Anne Browning
Series: Angel's Halo MC Next-Gen
Publisher: Unknown
Format: E-Book
Pages: 228 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Lexa
These feelings I have for Ben can’t go anywhere.
I’m the Angels Halo MC president’s daughter.
And he is the sheriff.

For both our sakes, I have to keep him away.


Ben
Lexa calms the rage that I’ve struggled with my entire life.
I couldn’t care less who her father is.
Nothing matters but making her mine.

Because my broken beauty is where my salvation begins.

REVIEW: Life is Strange Vol 1: Dust

Title: Life is Strange Vol 1: Dust
Author: Emma Vieceli (Author), Claudia Leonardi (Illustrator), Andrea Izzo (Colourist)
Series: Life is Strange
Publisher: Titan Comics
Format: Paperback
Pages: 115 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

One year after the storm destroyed Arcadia Bay, fan-favourite characters Max and Chloe have a new life together… but timelines are starting to tangle.

Collects Life is Strange #1-4

REVIEW: A Curse so Dark and Lonely (#1) - Brigid Kemmerer

Title: A Curse so Dark and Lonely (#1)
Author: Brigid Kemmerer
Series: Cursebreakers
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Format: Paperback
Pages: 477 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Fall in love, break the curse.

Cursed by a powerful enchantress to repeat the autumn of his eighteenth year, Prince Rhen, the heir of Emberfall, thought he could be saved easily if a girl fell for him. But that was before he turned into a vicious beast hell-bent on destruction. Before he destroyed his castle, his family, and every last shred of hope.

Nothing has ever been easy for Harper. With her father long gone, her mother dying, and her brother constantly underestimating her because of her cerebral palsy, Harper learned to be tough enough to survive. When she tries to save a stranger on the streets of Washington, DC, she's pulled into a magical world.

Break the curse, save the kingdom.

Harper doesn't know where she is or what to believe. A prince? A curse? A monster? As she spends time with Rhen in this enchanted land, she begins to understand what's at stake. And as Rhen realizes Harper is not just another girl to charm, his hope comes flooding back. But powerful forces are standing against Emberfall . . . and it will take more than a broken curse to save Harper, Rhen, and his people from utter ruin.

REVIEW: Heartstopper Vol 1 - Alice Oseman

Title: Heartstopper Vol 1
Author: Alice Oseman
Series: Heartstopper
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
Format: Paperback
Pages: 268 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Charlie Spring is in Year 10 at Truham Grammar School for Boys. The past year hasn't been too great, but at least he's not being bullied anymore, and he's sort of got a boyfriend, even if he's kind of mean and only wants to meet up in secret.

Nick Nelson is in Year 11 and on the school rugby team. He's heard a little about Charlie - the kid who was outed last year and bullied for a few months - but he's never had the opportunity to talk to him. That is, until the start of January, in which Nick and Charlie are placed in the same form group and made to sit together.

They quickly become friends, and soon Charlie is falling hard for Nick, even though he doesn't think he has a chance. But love works in surprising ways, and sometimes good things are waiting just around the corner...

REVIEW: Me - Elton John

Title: Me
Author: Elton John
Publisher: Macmillan
Format: Audiobook
Time: 11HRS 47MINS
Narrator: Taron Egerton
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Christened Reginald Dwight, he was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three, he was on his first tour of America, facing an astonished audience in his tight silver hotpants, bare legs and a T-shirt with ROCK AND ROLL emblazoned across it in sequins. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again.

His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with song-writing partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade.

In Me Elton also writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you, by a living legend.

REVIEW: Rebel of the Sands (#1) - Alwyn Hamilton

Title: Rebel of the Sands (#1)
Author: Alwyn Hamilton
Series:  Rebel of the Sands
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Format: Paperback
Pages: 358 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Mortals rule the desert nation of Miraji, but mythical beasts still roam the wild and remote areas, and rumour has it that somewhere, djinn still perform their magic.  For humans, it’s an unforgiving place, especially if you’re poor, orphaned, or female.

Amani Al’Hiza is all three. She’s a gifted gunslinger with perfect aim, but she can’t shoot her way out of Dustwalk, the back-country town where she’s destined to wind up wed or dead.

Then she meets Jin, a rakish foreigner, in a shooting contest, and sees him as the perfect escape route. But though she’s spent years dreaming of leaving Dustwalk, she never imagined she’d gallop away on mythical horse—or that it would take a foreign fugitive to show her the heart of the desert she thought she knew.

REVIEW: Chosen (#2) - Kiersten White

Title: Chosen (#2)
Author: Kiersten White
Series: Slayer
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Format: Paperback
Pages: 349 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Nina continues to learn how to use her slayer powers against enemies old and new in this second novel in the New York Times bestselling series from Kiersten White, set in the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Now that Nina has turned the Watcher’s Castle into a utopia for hurt and lonely demons, she’s still waiting for the utopia part to kick in. With her sister Artemis gone and only a few people remaining at the castle—including her still-distant mother—Nina has her hands full. Plus, though she gained back her Slayer powers from Leo, they’re not feeling quite right after being held by the seriously evil succubus Eve, a.k.a. fake Watcher’s Council member and Leo’s mom.

And while Nina is dealing with the darkness inside, there’s also a new threat on the outside, portended by an odd triangle symbol that seems to be popping up everywhere, in connection with Sean’s demon drug ring as well as someone a bit closer to home. Because one near-apocalypse just isn’t enough, right?

The darkness always finds you. And once again, it’s coming for the Slayer. 

REVIEW: The Hazel Wood - Melissa Albert*

Title: The Hazel Wood (#1)
Author: Melissa Albert
Series: The Hazel Wood
Publisher: Penguin Books
Format: Paperback
Pages: 355 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

*E-COPY OF BOOK RECEIVED FROM NETGALLEY FOR AN HONEST REVIEW - PAPERBACK COPY WAS BOUGHT BY MYSELF FROM MY OWN MONEY*

Goodreads Blurb

Seventeen-year-old Alice and her mother have spent most of Alice's life on the road, always a step ahead of the strange bad luck biting at their heels. But when Alice's grandmother, the reclusive author of a book of pitch-dark fairy tales, dies alone on her estate - the Hazel Wood - Alice learns how bad her luck can really get. Her mother is stolen away - by a figure who claims to come from the cruel supernatural world where her grandmother's stories are set. Alice's only lead is the message her mother left behind: STAY AWAY FROM THE HAZEL WOOD.

To retrieve her mother, Alice must venture first to the Hazel Wood, then into the world where her grandmother's tales began . . .

January 2020 Reading Wrap-up

Welcome to another reading wrap-up, and I know you are sick and tired of me writing this, but lordy me where did January go.

That is the first month of 2020 over with, and we have officially completed the first month of the new decade (that is quite scary come to think about it)

REVIEW: Serpent & Dove (#1) - Shelby Mahurin

Title: Serpent & Dove (#1)
Author: Shelby Mahurin
Series: Serpent & Dove
Publisher: HarperTeen
Format: Hardback
Pages: 513 Pages
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Goodreads Blurb

Bound as one to love, honour, or burn.

Two years ago, Louise le Blanc fled her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, forsaking all magic and living off whatever she could steal. There, witches like Lou are hunted. They are feared. And they are burned.

Sworn to the Church as a Chasseur, Reid Diggory has lived his life by one principle: thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. His path was never meant to cross with Lou's, but a wicked stunt forces them into an impossible union—holy matrimony.

The war between witches and Church is an ancient one, and Lou's most dangerous enemies bring a fate worse than fire. Unable to ignore her growing feelings, yet powerless to change what she is, a choice must be made.

And love makes fools of us all.