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Review: In Tune by Yeyet Soriano

FIRST SET

Between fulfilling family obligations and navigating the tricky social climate at her private school, Sydney Mendoza tries hard to keep a balance.

Himig Raymundo, on the other hand, knows the feeling of living in the shadow of his successful parents and the agony of being with schoolmates who won’t let him forget it. 

When Sydney and Himig get “volunteered” to be the stars of High School Night by their batchmates who want to see them fail miserably, they band together to prove everyone wrong, and, in the process, find the one silver lining in the prank – each other.

SECOND SET

In the midst of college applications and entrance exams, Sydney finds herself at a crossroads: work abroad to earn money for her family or continue on to college on al all-expense-paid scholarship. Ironically, Himig, the school campus’s reluctant star, becomes the rock that anchors her so she won’t get lost in the fray.

No longer bound in anonymity, Himig gets a chance to finally step out of his famous parents’ shadow and show everyone who he really is, as Sydney reveals to him her most hidden secret*

*Summary from Yeyet Soriano’s website

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Review: Ming’s Christmas Wishes

Major thank you to Shadow Mountain for the opportunity to review Ming’s Christmas Wishes! 

Ming has three wishes: To sing in the school Christmas choir, to have a Christmas tree like the one in the department store window, and to feel like she belongs somewhere. We first meet Ming, a daughter of immigrants who just really wants to sing in the Christmas choir with the rest of her classmates. After being told time and time again that she’s not allowed to be in the choir — because she’s Chinese — Ming is obviously frustrated. Still, she has to hurry home in time to prepare dinner for her mom “Mama”, father “Pop” and younger brother “Didi”. On her way home, her eye catches a Christmas tree — her second wish. When she brings it up to her parents, however, her mom scolds her for wanting to be American. After all, Chinese people don’t have Christmas trees. Pop decides to take Ming into the mountains to visit some family friends. There, he shows Ming something to remind her of their heritage, and to help her draw strength. 

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Review: The Last Story of Mina Lee

Margot Lee’s mother, Mina, isn’t returning her calls. It’s a mystery to twenty-six-year-old Margot, until she visits her childhood apartment in Koreatown, LA, and finds that her mother has suspiciously died. The discovery sends Margot digging through the past, unraveling the tenuous invisible strings that held together her single mother’s life as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother. Interwoven with Margot’s present-day search is Mina’s story of her first year in Los Angeles as she navigates the promises and perils of the American myth of reinvention. While she’s barely earning a living by stocking shelves at a Korean grocery store, the last thing Mina ever expects is to fall in love. But that love story sets in motion a series of events that have consequences for years to come, leading up to the truth of what happened the night of her death. Told through the intimate lens of a mother and daughter who have struggled all their lives to understand each other, The Last Story of Mina Lee is a powerful and exquisitely woven debut novel that explores identity, family, secrets, and what it truly means to belong.

Summary from Goodreads
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Blog Tour & Review: Spellbreaker by Charlie N. Holmberg

Special thank you to SkyeBookTours for organizing this blog tour and providing me an ARC of the book in exchange for an honest review. All quotes are from an advance copy and are subject to change in final publication.

A world of enchanted injustice needs a disenchanting woman in the newest fantasy series by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Paper Magician.

The orphaned Elsie Camden learned as a girl that there were two kinds of wizards in the world: those who pay for the power to cast spells and those, like her, born with the ability to break them. But as an unlicensed magic user, her gift is a crime. Commissioned by an underground group known as the Cowls, Elsie uses her spellbreaking to push back against the aristocrats and help the common man. She always did love the tale of Robin Hood.

Elite magic user Bacchus Kelsey is one elusive spell away from his mastership when he catches Elsie breaking an enchantment. To protect her secret, Elsie strikes a bargain. She’ll help Bacchus fix unruly spells around his estate if he doesn’t turn her in. Working together, Elsie’s trust in—and fondness for—the handsome stranger grows. So does her trepidation about the rise in the murders of wizards and the theft of the spellbooks their bodies leave behind.

For a rogue spellbreaker like Elsie, there’s so much to learn about her powers, her family, the intriguing Bacchus, and the untold dangers shadowing every step of a journey she’s destined to complete. But will she uncover the mystery before it’s too late to save everything she loves?

Summary from Goodreads
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Review: The Crowns of Croswald by D.E. Night

Thank you to NetGalley and StoriesUntold for this eARC! 

In Croswald, the only thing more powerful than dark magic is one secret… 

For sixteen years Ivy Lovely has been hidden behind an enchanted boundary that separates the mundane from the magical. When Ivy crosses the border, her powers awaken. Curiosity leads her crashing through a series of adventures at the Halls of Ivy, a school where students learn to master their magical blood and the power of Croswald’s mysterious gems. When Ivy’s magic—and her life—is threatened by the Dark Queen, she scrambles to unearth her history and save Croswald before the truth is swept away forever.*

*Summary from Goodreads! 

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Review: The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

“I might be Cinderella today, but I dread who they’ll think I am tomorrow. I guess it depends on what I do next.”

American Rebecca Porter was never one for fairy tales. Her twin sister, Lacey, has always been the romantic who fantasized about glamour and royalty, fame, and fortune. Yet it’s Bex who seeks adventure at Oxford and finds herself living down the hall from Prince Nicholas, Great Britain’s future king. And when Bex can’t resist falling for Nick, the person behind the prince, it propels her into a world she did not expect to inhabit, under a spotlight she is not prepared to face.

Dating Nick immerses Bex in ritzy society, dazzling ski trips, and dinners at Kensington Palace with him and his charming, troublesome brother, Freddie. But the relationship also comes with unimaginable baggage: hysterical tabloids, Nick’s sparkling and far more suitable ex-girlfriends, and a royal family whose private life is much thornier and more tragic than anyone on the outside knows. The pressures are almost too much to bear, as Bex struggles to reconcile the man she loves with the monarch he’s fated to become.

Which is how she gets into trouble.

Now, on the eve of the wedding of the century, Bex is faced with whether everything she’s sacrificed for love-her career, her home, her family, maybe even herself-will have been for nothing.*

*Summary from Goodreads

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Review: More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

Part Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, part Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Adam Silvera’s extraordinary debut confronts race, class, and sexuality during one charged near-future summer in the Bronx.

Sixteen-year-old Aaron Soto is struggling to find happiness after a family tragedy leaves him reeling. He’s slowly remembering what happiness might feel like this summer with the support of his girlfriend Genevieve, but it’s his new best friend, Thomas, who really gets Aaron to open up about his past and confront his future.

As Thomas and Aaron get closer, Aaron discovers things about himself that threaten to shatter his newfound contentment. A revolutionary memory-alteration procedure, courtesy of the Leteo Institute, might be the way to straighten himself out. But what if it means forgetting who he truly is?

Summary taken from Goodreads
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Review: Love Your Life by Sophie Kinsella

When Ava arrives at a writing retreat in Italy, she’s told that she can’t reveal any personal information, including her name. After all, the purpose of the writing retreat is to shut off all communication with the outside world, and for the participants to focus on their stories. It’s just a harmless idea, until Ava, as “Aria”, meets “Dutch”, a participant from a cancelled neighboring martial arts retreat. Sparks fly, and the two of them embark on a whirlwind “baggage-free” romance of their own. No personal  details can be shared: from their real names, their ages, their jobs, or even their dating history. Everything is perfect, until Aria and Dutch must return to their regular lives, as Ava and Matt. 

From the moment they arrive back in London, Ava and Matt are faced with a harsh reality: their picture perfect romance isn’t all it’s chalked up to be. It seems like they can’t get along in any shape, way, or form. Whether it’s a simple opinion on food, or artwork, or apartments, or dogs, or room temperature – the list simply never ends. Can Ava and Matt learn to compromise and to love each other’s lives, or will they go their separate ways? 

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Review: The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

*PLEASE NOTE: This review does not adequately discuss the lack of representation and diversity within this novel, and for that I apologise. For a review that does acknowledge the lack of diversity and representation, I recommend THIS one, written by Aentee over at readatmidnight. Because I’m white, my review does not properly highlight the damaging amount of exclusion of BIPOC in this book. I acknowledge that I have a lot of privilege to be in a position where I do not think twice about being represented in media, so I deeply apologise for overlooking it. I will absolutely learn from this mistake, and do better to continue educating myself and continue to critically analyse mass media.

A Life No One Will Remember. A Story You Will Never Forget.

France, 1714: in a moment of desperation, a young woman makes a Faustian bargain to live forever and is cursed to be forgotten by everyone she meets.

Thus begins the extraordinary life of Addie LaRue, and a dazzling adventure that will play out across centuries and continents, across history and art, as a young woman learns how far she will go to leave her mark on the world.

But everything changes when, after nearly 300 years, Addie stumbles across a young man in a hidden bookstore and he remembers her name*

* Review from Goodreads

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ARC Review: Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco

Thank you to Netgalley & James Patterson Books for providing me with this eARC! 

Two sisters.

One brutal murder.

A quest for vengeance that will unleash Hell itself…

And an intoxicating romance.

Emilia and her twin sister Vittoria are streghe – witches who live secretly among humans, avoiding notice and persecution. One night, Vittoria misses dinner service at the family’s renowned Sicilian restaurant. Emilia soon finds the body of her beloved twin…desecrated beyond belief. Devastated, Emilia sets out to find her sister’s killer and to seek vengeance at any cost – even if it means using dark magic that’s been long forbidden.

Then Emilia meets Wrath, one of the Wicked-princes of Hell she has been warned against in tales since she was a child. Wrath claims to be on Emilia’s side, tasked by his master with solving the series of women’s murders on the island. But when it comes to the Wicked, nothing is as it seems.

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