Review: Toil & Trouble

Title: Review & Trouble

Date of Publication: August 28th, 2018

Goodreads Summary:

A young adult fiction anthology of 16 stories featuring contemporary, historical, and futuristic stories featuring witchy heroines who are diverse in race, class, sexuality, religion, geography, and era.

Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

Glinda the Good Witch. Elphaba the Wicked Witch. Willow. Sabrina. Gemma Doyle. The Mayfair Witches. Ursula the Sea Witch. Morgan le Fey. The three weird sisters from Macbeth.

History tells us women accused of witchcraft were often outsiders: educated, independent, unmarried, unwilling to fall in line with traditional societal expectations.

Bold. Powerful. Rebellious.

A bruja’s traditional love spell has unexpected results. A witch’s healing hands begin to take life instead of giving it when she ignores her attraction to a fellow witch. In a terrifying future, women are captured by a cabal of men crying witchcraft and the one true witch among them must fight to free them all. In a desolate past, three orphaned sisters prophesize for a murderous king. Somewhere in the present, a teen girl just wants to kiss a boy without causing a hurricane.

From good witches to bad witches, to witches who are a bit of both, this is an anthology of diverse witchy tales from a collection of diverse, feminist authors. The collective strength of women working together—magically or mundanely–has long frightened society, to the point that women’s rights are challenged, legislated against, and denied all over the world. TOIL & TROUBLE delves deep into the truly diverse mythology of witchcraft from many cultures and feminist points-of-view, to create modern and unique tales of witchery that have yet to be explored.

My Review:

I like pretty much anything witchy, so I was excited about this short story anthology about witches!

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I’ll first say that I’m bad with most short story anthologies. There were ones that I liked, ones that were okay, and ones that I didn’t like at all. I definitely preferred the ones that weren’t modern day! There were even a few I might have zoned out on while reading, because I can’t even recollect what the whole story was about!

It’s worth a read, though! Even the ones I couldn’t get into still had great writing! Plus again, it’s witchy!

Do you like witches?

 

 

Favorite Books of 2017!

This year was pretty hard, but I got it down to my top ten reads that came out in 2017!

 

What’s your favorite read from 2017?

Review: The Fallen Kingdom

Title: The Fallen Kingdom

Author: Elizabeth May

Date of Publication: June 13th, 2017

Goodreads Summary:

The long-awaited final book in the Falconer trilogy is an imaginative tour-de-force that will thrill fans of the series. Aileana Kameron, resurrected by ancient fae magic, returns to the world she once knew with no memory of her past and with dangerous powers she struggles to control. Desperate to break the curse that pits two factions of the fae against each other in a struggle that will decide the fate of the human and fae worlds, her only hope is hidden in an ancient book guarded by the legendary Morrigan, a faery of immense power and cruelty. To save the world and the people she loves, Aileana must learn to harness her dark new powers even as they are slowly destroying her. Packed with immersive detail, action, romance, and fae lore, and publishing simultaneously in the UK, The Fallen Kingdom brings the Falconer’s story to an epic and unforgettable conclusion.

My Review:

This was hands down the best book of the entire series. I really liked book one, and book two was pretty good for a middle book, but this last book was amazing!

Aileana has returned with no memories and with powers that are hard to control at first. Kiaran has his power restored and has become the Unseelie King once again. The world is falling apart and only one sibling, the Unseelie or the Seelie, can live for it to be restored. Aileana discovers there may actually be another way, and she goes on a quest to find a long lost book that can help end the curse.

The Fallen Kingdom felt like an actual fantasy with the perfect blend of action, romance, and magic. Derrick is still one of my favorite characters being the hilarious and loving pixie that he is. The friendship bond between him and Aileana has been my favorite throughout the entire series.

I loved Aileana and Kiaran so much in this book, and it was hard seeing him struggle with his true nature, but that fight is what made me love him even more.

Sorcha has been the biggest villain the entire time, but in this book we get to see different sides to her and while she has done horrendous things we are able to see what led up to that.

I love the way that Elizabeth May describes things, and her world building is fantastic. I can envision every single detail that she is including, especially with the horrific images that she is providing, and I love that!! If you haven’t started this series, then start it now!

Have you started this series yet?

Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Books With A Fantasy Setting

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
This week’s topic is Top Ten Books With a Fantasy Setting

I really love a fantasy setting because I can escape from the current world into a new type of world where magic really does exist!

What type of setting do you guys like?

Review: The Vanishing Throne

Title: The Vanishing Throne

Author: Elizabeth May

Date of Publication: June 21, 2016

Goodreads Summary:

Everything she loved is gone.

Trapped. Aileana Kameron, the Falconer, disappeared through the fae portal she was trying to close forever. Now she wakes in an alien world of mirrors, magic, and deception—a prisoner of the evil fae Lonnrach, who has a desperate and deadly plan for his new captive.

Tortured. Time after agonizing time Lonnrach steals Aileana’s memories, searching for knowledge to save his world. Just when she’s about to lose all hope, Aileana is rescued by an unexpected ally and returns home, only to confront a terrifying truth. The city of Edinburgh is now an unrecognizable wasteland. And Aileana knows the devastation is all her fault.

Transformed. The few human survivors are living in an underground colony, in an uneasy truce with a remnant of the fae. It is a fragile alliance, but an even greater danger awaits: the human and fae worlds may disappear forever. Only Aileana can save both worlds, but in order to do so she must awaken her latent Falconer powers. And the price of doing so might be her life…

My Review:

The book starts out with Aileanna trapped away from the human realm with a fae named Lonnrach who is holding her prisoner and constantly drinks from her blood with his bites to try and pull information through her memories. He is on a mission to find something that he needs that Aileanna has no idea about.

Aileanna loses herself through the things that Lonnrach does and one of the only things that is keeping her from losing it all are thoughts of Kiaran who is her fae friend and maybe more. Eventually Kiaran’s sister Aithinne rescues her, and they escape and make it back to the human world where they meet up with characters from book one.

At first I wasn’t sure about this book because it was kind of slow at first, but things eventually pick up, and I could not put it down. We are introduced to a new character Aithinne which is Kiaran’s sister, and I absolutely loved her. She has demons of her own from Lonnrach and being trapped with the fae for 2,000 years, but she hides them so well and is funny and someone that I would aspire to be like.

We meet Derrick again who is such a crazy and cute little fairy. I would like to have one of him myself especially with his sewing skills. I didn’t like Gavin as much as I did in book one and maybe it was because he was so hardened after things that had happened from the fae attack.

I could not get enough of Kiaran and his back story. You want to hate him because of the things that he has done but love him because of the individual he has become.  The romance between him and Aileanna was absolutely perfect and did not take away from the story at all.

The last thirty pages get pretty intense, and I have no idea what is going to happen in the next book from that cliffhanger, but I am so ready for it.

Have you started this series yet?

“Waiting on” Wednesday: The Vanishing Throne

“Waiting On” Wednesday is a weekly post hosted by Breaking the Spine, that discusses upcoming releases that we are super excited about!

 

The Vanishing Throne

By: Elizabeth May

Publication date: June 7, 2016

Summary from Goodreads:

My name is Lady Aileana Kameron.

First the fae murdered my mother. Then they destroyed my world.

Now I’m fighting for more than revenge.

Aileana took a stand against the Wild Hunt, and she lost everything: her home, her family and her friends. Held captive by her enemy, and tormenting herself over her failure, escape seems like only the faintest possibility. But when she gets her chance, she seizes it . . . to rejoin a world devastated by war.

The future is bleak. Hunted by the fae, running for her life, Aileana has only a few options left. Trying to become part of a society scarred by – and hiding from – the Wild Hunt; trusting that a fragile alliance with the fae will save her; or walking the most dangerous path at all: coming in to her own powers as the last of the Falconers . .

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I have been waiting so long for this book to come out I literally am bouncing around waiting for it.  Aileana is such an amazing and awesome mc.  If you haven’t started book 1 then start now!

What about you guys?  What book are you waiting on?