Hello, once again, welcome to my belated reading roundup. My new role at work has kept me extremely busy, we had guests and I’ve been dealing with a sick, unhappy kitty. I swear cats can smell one grain of crushed up medication in a spoonful of delicious, tasty food. I’m really sorry for the forced pill popping Lushka, but I did try it the easy way first. Fortunately, she seems to be on the mend. Anyway, enough of the excuses. Since my last roundup I’ve read three books and I’m part way through three others. What I read The first book I read was The Young Elites by Marie Lu. This is the first book in a YA fantasy trilogy telling the story of Adelina, who, like some other young people, has been left with special powers after an illness. Marie Lu has said her inspiration for Adelina was Darth Vader, and being aware of this helped me a lot – Adelina is a rather dark character. While I enjoyed the book – I loved the Renaissance style setting – a lot, it didn’t leave me with any desire at all to pick up the sequels. Strangely, I had the…
First of all, may I just say isn’t this the most gorgeous cover art? I’m not certain who created them, but all three covers (four if you include the novella) in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series are simply stunning. Days of Blood and Starlight is the second in Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy which is a contemporary fantasy based on the themes of Romeo and Juliet. We have the star-crossed lovers from different and opposing sides, faked death, boyfriend goes off the rails. This second instalment is based on the premise of “what if Juliet woke up from her fake death and found, not that Romeo had taken his own life, but that he’d killed all her family and friends?” What I liked The world. The world that Taylor has created is wonderfully rich and detailed. I loved reading about the chimaera and seraphim. We learn more about their world in this book. The themes. The idea of star-crossed lovers is a timeless one. There is a reason that Romeo and Juliet is a classic, and Taylor has done a great job of interpreting that into modern fantasy. Add into this the theme…