Author: Holly Black

Review Round Up | The Villa, The Stolen Heir, and Lunar Love

Posted January 23, 2023 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 2 Comments
Review Round Up | The Villa, The Stolen Heir, and Lunar Love

I’ve been following Rachel Hawkins for years – from her YA work to today’s adult mystery/suspense fiction – and she remains a lowkey favorite of mine. This book sealed the deal for me and she is still cemented as an auto-buy author. Some early reviews are a bit mixed but I actually liked both timelines: one takes place in the 70s during the original murder and the other is present day with two best friends staying at the villa. The book was very tense throughout, where you know something bad is going to happen in at least one timeline but probably both. I really loved the ending: it totally surprised me. It’s not really a true mystery or thriller but more of a suspense novel, which is definitely still a fun ride. I couldn’t put it down and was always so curious to see what would happen next. The mashup of comps at the bottom of the synopsis (“Inspired by Fleetwood Mac, the Manson murders, and the infamous summer Percy and Mary Shelley spent with Lord Byron at a Lake Geneva castle––the birthplace of Frankenstein”) all feel accurate based on m limited knowledge of those three. I would say my own personal comparison is like a much darker version of Daisy Jones and the Six haha. I love Holly Black and her writing so much. There’s truly nothing better than falling back into a familiar world, especially when you thought your time with it was over! THE STOLEN HEIR kicks […]

Review Round Up | Chasing Lucky, The Hunting Party, and How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

Posted January 1, 2021 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments
Review Round Up | Chasing Lucky, The Hunting Party, and How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

In an effort to cut down on posts and burnout, my Review Roundups will feature 2-4 books I’ve read or listened to recently. Sometimes they’re newer releases and sometimes they’re all backlist titles. My ARC reviews usually get the solo treatment. Enjoy the mini reviews! I’ve pretty much loved all of Jenn Bennett’s books and this one was good! I have to say it might be my least favorite, but still a very cute, atmospheric read. Annoyingly, I can’t really put my finger on the things that bother me or prevent it from being a fave. Josie returns home to Beauty, RI (kind of like Newport, in my eyes) and encounters her long lost best friend, Lucky, after they were essentially ripped apart five years before. Josie and the women in her family are “cursed” and have bad luck with men. This didn’t really play into the story as much as I expected but was somewhat of an underlying theme. She and her mom are back in Beauty to run her grandma’s bookstore while she’s away with her aunt. It was fun to read about this coastal Rhode Island town but I didn’t get as many fun New England seaport vibes as I was hoping for? The bookstore was THERE but not as present as I would have liked either for some reason. There are a lot of plot points I didn’t expect or remember from the synopsis, if they were in there, like the breaking of a store window and a […]

#Faerieathon | Holly Black’s Queen of Nothing Release Day Event Recap and Book Review

Posted November 27, 2019 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments
#Faerieathon | Holly Black’s Queen of Nothing Release Day Event Recap and Book Review

Faerieathon Recap I’ve spent the last six months reading and rereading all of Holly Blacks novels set in or around the fae world, along with Kristin, Melanie, Jane, and Alexa. I’ve LOVED following along with everyone’s posts and watching their liveshows whenever possible. I was planning on doing reread reviews on the blog throughout the readalong but got a bit lazy. I did do reviews for the Modern Faerie Tales trilogy because YIKES and because some of them were first-time reads for me. To give a general recap on other things, I really enjoyed THE DARKEST PART OF THE FOREST again. It’s just so lush and atmospheric. I reread THE CRUEL PRINCE, skipped THE LOST SISTERS novella because I felt like I didn’t need it, and dove back into THE WICKED KING earlier this month. It was awesome to go back and reread the Folk of the Air books because they were even better the second time, understanding what was going to happen and anticipating all of the twists! Holly Black Event I was SO excited to see that Holly Black, true to her Massachusetts roots, was doing an event ON her release day at one of my favorite indie bookstores. An Unlikely Story is about an hour and a half away from me and is where my sister and I went to see Sarah Dessen over the summer. I decided I would leave work on Tuesday, head to the event, and take the following day off from work. I was […]

FaerieAThon Reviews: Modern Faerie Tales

Posted August 22, 2019 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment
FaerieAThon Reviews: Modern Faerie Tales

FaerieAThon is hosted by Super Space Chick, Mel to the Any, It’s Jane Lindsey, and Alexa Loves Books. It’s a six-month-long event that involves reading or rereading all of Holly Black’s books set in the fae world. This includes the Modern Faerie Tales series, The Darkest Part of the Forest, and The Folk of the Air series. Each month has daily chapters to read and live shows to recap/discuss. Links above are directly to announcement posts and videos. I’ll be including my thoughts on the book and anything else I want to discuss related to the fae world! Tithe Quick facts Is this one a first time read or a reread? Reread! I read it the first time probably within the first few years after it was published? I would venture to guess early high school. If rereading, did my review or rating change? I didn’t rate this one the first time around but it was one of those classic “this is one of my favorite books!” situations. I didn’t really have a place to track ratings around 2006! I feel like I considered this a “favorite book” back then though and this time I only rated it 3 stars. Did I keep up with the reading schedule as planned? Yes! I was very diligent about the daily chapters. It was helpful to have the ebook on Scribd so I could read here and there throughout the day. I tried to finish them during work breaks so I didn’t have to cram anything […]

ARC Review: The Wicked King

Posted December 14, 2018 / Book Reviews / 4 Comments
ARC Review: The Wicked King

* No spoilers for this book, but there will be spoilers for THE CRUEL PRINCE * Initial Excitement & Summary There were so many moments since I finished THE CRUEL PRINCE that I just wished I had this book. It’s funny, because I was often in a reading slump this summer and I kept saying “if I just had THE WICKED KING aka the only book I want to read, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.” Needless to say, I was extremely excited and did not want to wait until January to read this. After the events of TCP, I was ready to see what the hell was going to happen next. Jude and Cardan had gotten a bit closer, but then she screwed him over by crowning him Prince. Everyone betrayed everyone and Jude ended up as an adviser (meaning she had a spell/charm on Cardan so she could command him to do whatever she wanted him to do) to him as the king. The events of this book start out with the status of their relationship and how Jude has fallen into her position of power. Without getting too much into it, there was a lot of focus around those relationships and Taryn’s upcoming marriage to Locke. Storytelling, Characters, and Ending I was so eager to see what was going to happen next, after the way TCP ended! Talk about a cliffhanger. I was eager to see how Jude would grow into her new role and power, because […]

ARC Review: The Cruel Prince

Posted December 13, 2017 / Book Reviews / 11 Comments
ARC Review: The Cruel Prince

Initial Excitement & Summary I loved Holly Black’s TITHE series when I was younger. Unlike a lot of bloggers I’ve noticed, I actually love fae stories. My cousin and I were always obsessed with faeries when we were kids and that definitely spilled into my reading life. And, of course, Black is the absolute QUEEN of fae stories. Needless to say, I was realllly jazzed up about this one. I had it on my Goodreads TBR since 2015, then Ellice grabbed it for me and let me borrow it early, so I read this back in September/October. Jude and her two sisters, Vivi and Taryn, witnessed a faerie come kill their parents and whisk them away to the Faerieland. They live there with Madoc, a high-ranking fae, because he is technically Taryn’s father. Jude grows up and starts to fight for power. She clashes with one of the princes, Cardan, and trains to become a Knight. I can’t say too much more summary-wise because things get awesomely twisty as the book goes on! Storytelling & Characters Hoooly shit, you guys. This book was amazing. All of Black’s descriptions were out of this world (I guess literally?) and I really felt like I was there. The beginning part of the book is sort of a slow climb up to the climax, where we learn more about the land they live in and Jude’s relationships. She forms alliances, learns new skills, and even has to kill. She is manipulative, fascinating, and a straight-up […]

Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Posted January 29, 2015 / Book Reviews / 10 Comments
Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest

This is definitely not going to be an easy book to review! I got to the end and wasn’t even sure how to pull my thoughts together enough for a rating. I mean this in a very good way, but Holly Black’s books can just be so delightfully weird that half the time I don’t even know if I fully understood it. This was certainly a unique read with lots of nuances and secrets; it had a slow and steady plotline that didn’t really have a formal “climax” with a lot of action. I enjoyed that though. I completely forgot how much I love Black’s writing style; I know it’s not for some people. She is the absolute QUEEN of magical realism, this I know for sure. It gave the book an old-school folklore feel while also being set in modern day. The Darkest Part of the Forest takes place in a very unique New England (yay!) town that happens to have faeries living in the forest. I won’t get too much into the actual plot, because I feel like the action is very slow-burn and I wouldn’t want to spoil any of the plot points aside from the ones in the summary. Ben and Hazel are siblings who have spent their lives in love with a horned boy that has slept forever in a glass casket in the forest. Things start getting a bit crazy around the town as the faeries, who usually leave them alone, start injuring the townspeople. […]

Book Buddies Holiday Review: My True Love Gave to Me

Posted December 25, 2014 / Book Buddies Reviews, Book Reviews / 5 Comments
Book Buddies Holiday Review: My True Love Gave to Me

Book Buddies is a discussion-style review that takes place with one of my two buddies. (Learn more and see past reviews here) We both read the book and then have a private discussion about it. We post our discussion as a review on the last Wednesday of each month. You’ll be able to see our similar/different opinions on the overall book, characters, writing style, etc. – just like a regular review. Half our discussion will take place right here, and the other half will be on Cristina’s blog! (Link at the bottom) For this particular review, because it included short stories, we alternated the stories between the two of us and shared our thoughts on all of them. Because of that, I’m featuring six stories but will share my overall rating for the other six stories at the bottom of the page. Overall Thoughts I absolutely loved reading this anthology. There were quite a few stories that left me wanting more, for different reasons. Some of them had such great characters that I would have loved a full story with them. Others felt kind of rushed or unfinished, which unfortunately can happen with short stories. They would have benefited from a few more pages for characterization, wrapping up the stories, or just better developing it overall. Regardless, I would highly recommend this collection of short stories to anyone who enjoys the Christmas season. At the bottom of my post, you can see some of my story recommendations! Discussion #2- The Lady and the Fox by Kelly Link […]