In the second installment of the Darker Shade of Magic trilogy, Delilah Bard is aboard the Night Spire as its best thief, while Kell is being closely watched by the King of Red London. It’s been four months since the fateful night where Kell tied his life with Rhy’s, defeated Holland and the Danes, and returned the black stone to Black London, and the urge to run grows stronger in him every day. But he is not alone. Prince Rhy’s mood has turned dark, and to avoid the thoughts that haunt him at night, the prince focuses all of his time and energy into the Essen Tasch, a magical tournament held between London and its surrounding countries. But unbeknownst to most, this year’s tournament will hold many secrets and surprises for all involved.
I’ve said it before and I will say it until the day I die: Victoria Schwab knows how to tell a story. One aspect of her writing that I will always admire is the pacing. Schwab has a way of telling a story quickly, but not too quickly. She doesn’t bog the reader down with recapping what had happened in the previous book, and instead weaves it throughout the new story, placing nuggets at the right spot where the reader will say, “Ah, yes! I remember now.” She also weaves in new characters with the old. Although Delilah Bard is still my favorite character, Alucard Emery has become a close second with his charm and wit.
Out of all of Schwab’s story, A Gathering of Shadows pays the closest homage to Harry Potter with the Essen Tasch. However, it still tells a story all of its own. There are a few unanswered questions by the end, as well as a cliff hanger that will make your heart drop, but all of that makes me even more excited to pick up the final installment in the trilogy, A Conjuring of Light. Seriously, if you haven’t started this trilogy yet, what are you waiting for?
What if a tattoo held the answers to your fate?
What would you do if you learned you were going to die today? That’s the premise behind Adam Silvera’s They Both Die at the End – where a service called Death Cast is started to let people know the day they’re going to die. What they don’t know is how or when.
The Haunting of Hill House is only the second story I’ve ever read by Shirley Jackson. Like the majority of people, I read The Lottery in school, and probably wouldn’t have gone much further than that had it not been recommended to me. Obviously, I need to break out of that habit.
As children we live on fairy tales. They tend to be the first stories we’re told, our first insights into the world of make believe. It’s no different for Elsa. But what Elsa doesn’t know is that the fairy tales her grandmother tells her are more than just stories, and that there are truths behind the fantasy.
The world can be an unknown and scary place, especially when you’re all alone from another planet.
The world is a complicated and messy place. I would say that no one really knows what they are doing, which is kind of a good thing because it let’s us know that we’re not alone. But what if you were chosen to decide the fate of the world?
If you’re looking for a short (read: 106 pages), amazingly awesome and creepy page turner you need go no further than Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw.
Over the past several years I have begun to enjoy reading memoirs. There’s something about learning about someone else’s life that fascinates and captivates me. I guess it has something to do with being able to relate with someone you have never met and understanding that you are not alone. Although The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is fiction, I thought that it read similarly to a memoir, which actually surprised me since I had started the book anticipating a fictitious story surrounding Oscar Wao. However, Oscar may be the main focus of the story, but his family plays a large role and helps the story unfold from multiple angles.
When we lose someone—whether it’s our parent, sibling, grandparent, friend, pet, etc.—grief is there to put its arms around us, to hold our hand through all of the firsts, and to never, truly ever let go. Even as the years pass, you may do something or see something that may send a jolt through you of remembrance and a cocktail of feelings. I spent the majority of my childhood mourning over the loss of my mother, and even though my dad died two years ago there are still certain things that make me wish I could call him up and tell him about it. In the memoir It’s Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too), Nora McInerny explores the loss of her father and her husband both weeks after miscarrying her second child through a collection of stories, essays, and lists guaranteed to make you laugh, cry, and feel all of the feels.
Casey Tingle 