
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes With Death
Book
I Am, I Am, I Am is Sunday Times bestseller and Costa Novel-Award winner Maggie O'Farrell's electric...
Biography memoir

The Chicken Sisters
Book
THREE GENERATIONS. TWO CHICKEN SHACKS. ONE RECIPE FOR DISASTER. A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK 'A...

Lisette's List
Book
From Susan Vreeland, bestselling author of such acclaimed novels as Girl in Hyacinth Blue,...

City of Friends
Book
City of Friends is the twentieth novel from the highly acclaimed number one bestselling author,...
Fiction

The Travelling Bag: And Other Ghostly Stories
Book
From the foggy streets of Victorian London to the eerie perfection of 1950s suburbia, the everyday...
fiction horror

Public Secrets
Book
From Nora Roberts, the incomparable New York Times bestselling author of Sanctuary and Montana Sky,...

A Game of Thrones the Board Game (2nd Edition)
Tabletop Game
King Robert Baratheon is dead, and the lands of Westeros brace for battle. In A Game of Thrones:...

Ali A (82 KP) rated The Poison Season in Books
Dec 8, 2022
Leelo was born and raised coexisting with the Wandering Forest located on the small island of Endla, and as much as she loves her community, she struggles with the fact that because her brother is an incanto, one without magic, he will be exiled by his next birthday.
When Leelo sees an outsider on the verge of drowning, she knows what she’s supposed to do - but in an instant, Leelo betrays everything she’s ever grown up. This leads to discoveries and consequences for both Leelo and the outsider, Jaren. But, as they grow closer, Leelo begins to question every fabric of her life.
I really enjoyed the premise of this novel - a creepy, evil forest that kills outsiders? Sign me up! Mara Rutherford did an amazing job at world building in this novel and establishing Leelo as a character. Because of how established she was, when Leelo begins to question her beliefs and lifestyle, it makes the book all the more interesting. It also gives you a bit of a chance to piece together your assumptions of the puzzle pieces Leelo is gathering and it was kind of fun to be able to say, “I knew it…”, when some of it came together.
The romance aspect of this novel is kind of what I would expect from a YA - not exactly instant love, but it was kind of close to it. But, Leelo and Jaren were sweet and I actually enjoyed their relationship and how they learned about each other and though it felt a little rushed, I still was rooting for them.
Overall, I think anyone who loves a good fantasy romance would greatly enjoy this book. And, even if you don’t like romance novels, I still think fantasy readers would enjoy the world building Rutherford has done.
*Thank you Inkyard Press for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review

Bound (Dark Reflections #1)
Book
The only thing worse than having no family at all, is having a family that is out to hurt you. That...
Young Adult Paranormal Romance Urban Fantasy

David McK (3562 KP) rated The Honour of Rome (Cato and Macro #20) in Books
Apr 24, 2022
I can't believe it's been going that long (ummm ... in a good way).
Anyway, we're now back at the original setting of the series - back in Brittania; back after Cato and Macro's various adventures across the Roman Empire.
Things have changes since then, however - Macro is now retired from the legions, whereas Cato (originally Macro's optio) now outranks him and now has a family of his own to look after.
The previous entry in the series (The Emperor's Exile is the one in which Macro retired, leaving - with his new wife Petronella - to travel back to Brittania to reconnect with his own mother and to look after his share of an inn that she has opened in Londinium. As a result, he was missing for large chunks of the narrative: circa three quarters or so of the story, let us say.
Meanwhile, Cato was charged with accompanying Emperor Nero's mistress Claudia Acte into exile on Sardinia, with the bulk of the novel then following Cato, the burgeoning romance between him and Claudia and events on that island.
This novel mirrors that approach, with the larger bulk of this following Macro and his adventures in Londinium and in the veterans colony of Camulodunum (which I've just found out is Colchester, and the first Roman Capital of the province) before the two principal characters finally reunite circa - again - three quarters of the way into the story.
There's also the groundwork laid here for, to paraphrase the closing words of the novel, the brewing storm, with the inclusion of characters from earlier novels (round about When the Eagle Hunts) who belong to the Iceni tribe, and with how they are being treated by their new Roman overlords. Anybody with a passing knowledge of UK history will know who I mean ...