By M.C. Frank

Last week, I found myself in the E.R., with pain so intense I could barely breathe. Doctors were discussing the possible need for surgery, but they were kind enough to leave me my phone while they ran tests. On that phone? A book sent directly by the author, months ago, lost and then recovered. It was fate. That book was M.C. Frank’s Lose Me., and it got me through one of the worst nights of my life.

Summary

Jane Austen meets New Adult fiction in this compulsively readable romance.

“Today is not the day I die.”

Ari Demos starts every day with this thought. Fresh out of high school, she’s landed a coveted role as a stunt double in a new Pride and Prejudice adaptation starring the Hollywood phenomenon Weston Spencer. But this job isn’t going to be easy: Ari will be performing complicated water stunts and driving fast cars along the narrow cliffs of Corfu. One false step and she could lose not only her job but her life.

And then Wes Spencer, Mr Darcy himself, arrives in Greece. He’s got dirty blonde hair, a mile-long yacht and a bored look on that gorgeous face. Ari wants nothing to do with the rich actor boy, but on the day she meets him, she has an accident. One that almost claims her life. And now she can’t hide the truth any longer:
She might be much closer to losing everything than she thought. She might be dying. And the British actor is the last person she’d expect to save her life.

She’s a hard-working island girl. He’s adored by millions. 
Falling in love was never supposed to be a part of the job. 
Staying alive was never supposed to be a part of growing up.

Was this story ever meant for a happily ever after?

Musings

What I love most about M.C. Frank’s writing is her style. In a word, it’s beautiful. It flows so elegantly, without being unnecessarily verbose.  She immediately draws you to the beautiful Greek island of Corfu, making you feel as if you’re actually there, watching the waves and breathing in the salty air. There’s such a love for the place that it drips from every word.

Let’s get into the characters. We have Ari, a young stunt actress in her first big role. And we have Wes, a massive star, playing the role of Mr. Darcy in a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Ari knows his reputation and has no desire to be around him. But Ari has a secret [and this might be a bit of a spoiler, but it’s in the first few chapters]: she has a ticking time bomb in her head. A tumor, one that could end her life.

For a girl who wakes up every morning with the mantra “today is not the day that I die,” that’s pretty massive. And when Wes starts falling for her, can she really help but fall back? Knowing that their time will end soon, either through the end of filming or her own demise, she sees herself breaking Wes’s heart. How can she live while knowing it’s all going to come crashing down?

There’s just so much to love about the characters. Wes is the perfect book boyfriend (allow me to swoon a little?) once the asshole playboy facade fades away. The perfect gentleman, smart, a book lover (that’s where he gets me!) and handsome to a fault. It makes you feel for him, knowing Ari has no choice but to break his heart. And Ari herself is such a complex girl, her struggles so vivid and honestly quite traumatic.

And then there’s their relationship. I was put off a little at first, with how toxic it seemed at first glance. There’s quite a lot of saving, knights in shining armor, and then squabbling about life-saving (at first). I just couldn’t see a healthy way for Ari and Wes to be together, with all their baggage, secrets, and basically life-debts. But then I realized that was the entire point! And the character growth from that point on? Stunning.

I’m not a romance reader, but this New Adult contemporary really struck a cord. Basically – ALL THE FEELS.  I haven’t even gotten to talking about the amazing supporting characters and the subplots. And while the story isn’t a direct retelling of Pride and prejudice, it’s definitely something fans of Austen will adore.

Sublime. Read at your own risk, your heart will probably break.

On a personal note, I read this book while having painkillers plugged right into my veins. The first time around, I kept misreading passages and getting myself confused. I dozed off during the CGI dolphin scene and imaged some weird ocean choreography. It was quite trippy!

The Winternight Trilogy #2
By Katherine Arden

When I first read The Bear and the Nightingale last winter, I was enthralled. With all the magic of a Russian folktale, it stood out to me as one of my favorite novels of the year, and maybe of all time. So I was pleasantly surprised when I heard there would be a sequel: in fact, it’s now going to be a trilogy! And when the publisher offered me a chance to read The Girl in the Tower, I pounced. And I’m in love all over again.

Summary

Orphaned and cast out as a witch by her village, Vasya’s options are few: resign herself to life in a convent, or allow her older sister to make her a match with a Moscovite prince. Both doom her to life in a tower, cut off from the vast world she longs to explore. So instead she chooses adventure, disguising herself as a boy and riding her horse into the woods. When a battle with some bandits who have been terrorizing the countryside earns her the admiration of the Grand Prince of Moscow, she must carefully guard the secret of her gender to remain in his good graces—even as she realizes his kingdom is under threat from mysterious forces only she will be able to stop.

Musings

Without her father to protect her prospects, Vasya takes flight to avoid being hunted down as a witch. She must pretend to be a man to survive in this brutal world, leaving her small town for the first time and exploring the wonders of the world. But things are not that easy: when she proves herself to be a hero, the Grand Prince of Moscow wants her – believing Vasya to be a him – by his side. Reunited with her siblings, Vasya knows her cross-dressing could be their downfall. But what other choice does she have?

The interesting thing I did not expect in this novel was the shift of perspective. We now see many events from the eyes of Vasya’s brother, Sasha: a monk who seems more at ease wielding a sword than living in seclusion. We also get a limited point of view from Olga, Vasy’s sister, now a wife and mother. It’s interesting to have them as supporting characters: Olga finds purpose in her traditional female role, while Sasha has the freedom (as a man) to take on any role he wishes as a monk.

But when we’re with Vasya, my heart pounds. I love her character. She’s a strong, wild woman whose stubbornness grows even more in the pages of this book. She’s not as reckless as she was in the beginning of The Bear and the Nightingale, but she’s still headstrong, just smarter at picking her battles.

Morozko returns, and his relationship with Vasya grows as well. At first, I found myself a little put off by having such a powerful being paired with such an inexperienced girl, but this was actually discussed in the book, which really impressed me. And now, I have to say, I ship it.  There’s something really unique in this relationship that talks to me.

The Magic really is here, with more elements of Russian folklore intertwined with the plot. It’s fascinating to be brought into this world, but also sad to see that magic dwindling and dying. Just as with the Bear and the Nightingale, the Girl in the Tower addresses the end of the age of magic, when religion takes over the myth.

I could keep talking for ages about this book, but I’ll try to be brief: if you loved the Bear and the Nightingale, then The Girl In the Tower is not one to miss. The ending is insanely amazing, and heartbreaking, all at once. You’ll fall in love with the characters, the magic, with Rus, and especially Vasya.

Another month has gone by! Once again, my opportunities to read were limited: studying astrophysics is a full-time job, and along with my actual full-time design job, I rarely have a chance to sit down and read. It feels weird not reading ARCs anymore!

But I have been slowly tackling my TBR. Here are a few of the books I read this month.

Church of Marvels

New York, 1895. Sylvan Threadgill, a night soiler cleaning out the privies behind the tenement houses, finds an abandoned newborn baby in the muck. An orphan himself, Sylvan rescues the child, determined to find where she belongs.

Odile Church and her beautiful sister, Belle, were raised amid the applause and magical pageantry of The Church of Marvels, their mother’s spectacular Coney Island sideshow. But the Church has burnt to the ground, their mother dead in its ashes. Now Belle, the family’s star, has vanished into the bowels of Manhattan, leaving Odile alone and desperate to find her.

A young woman named Alphie awakens to find herself trapped across the river in Blackwell’s Lunatic Asylum—sure that her imprisonment is a ruse by her husband’s vile, overbearing mother. On the ward she meets another young woman of ethereal beauty who does not speak, a girl with an extraordinary talent that might save them both.

As these strangers’ lives become increasingly connected, their stories and secrets unfold. Moving from the Coney Island seashore to the tenement-studded streets of the Lower East Side, a spectacular human circus to a brutal, terrifying asylum, Church of Marvels takes readers back to turn-of-the-century New York—a city of hardship and dreams, love and loneliness, hope and danger. In magnetic, luminous prose, Leslie Parry offers a richly atmospheric vision of the past in a narrative of astonishing beauty, full of wondrous enchantments-a marvelous debut that will leave readers breathless.

This was one of the books I got in my massive “book of the month club” haul, and one I had been meaning to read for quite a long time. I had an odd fascination with turn of the century NYC, and Church of Marvels promised me coney island sideshows, asylums, and orphans. It sounded fun!

And it delivered. Wow. What a great book! Amazing twists, great characters… the way it all ties together took me completely by surprise. It was completely unexpected, yet fit so well, as if the author wove a perfect tapestry. It’s not fast-paced, but it is engrossing.

My review: ★★★★☆

When Dimple Met Rishi

Dimple Shah has it all figured out. With graduation behind her, she’s more than ready for a break from her family, from Mamma’s inexplicable obsession with her finding the “Ideal Indian Husband.” Ugh. Dimple knows they must respect her principles on some level, though. If they truly believed she needed a husband right now, they wouldn’t have paid for her to attend a summer program for aspiring web developers…right?

Rishi Patel is a hopeless romantic. So when his parents tell him that his future wife will be attending the same summer program as him—wherein he’ll have to woo her—he’s totally on board. Because as silly as it sounds to most people in his life, Rishi wants to be arranged, believes in the power of tradition, stability, and being a part of something much bigger than himself.

The Shahs and Patels didn’t mean to start turning the wheels on this “suggested arrangement” so early in their children’s lives, but when they noticed them both gravitate toward the same summer program, they figured, Why not?

Dimple and Rishi may think they have each other figured out. But when opposites clash, love works hard to prove itself in the most unexpected ways.

I can definitely see why so many people recommended this book. It’s so cute! It’s so sweet! It’s got everything I want from a novel: awesome main characters, a girl who loves coding (my heart!), dance offs, friendships, and of course, a growing romance.

Dimple is such a sweet, brilliant, relatable main character. Other having Indian heritage, I was JUST like her when I graduated high school! She’s passionate and smart, but doesn’t have any of the nerd tropes. She’s human! And adorable.

And Rishi… he wears his heart on a sleeve, he’s just so honest and loving. He loves his family, which is why he respects their wishes. He loves Dimple, despite not knowing her at all, and then falls in love with her all over again once they meet.

The ending is perfect and just like warm Nutella for your heart. Don’t miss this one!

My review: ★★★★☆

The Princess Diarist

The Princess Diarist is Carrie Fisher’s intimate, hilarious and revealing recollection of what happened behind the scenes on one of the most famous film sets of all time, the first Star Wars movie.

When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved—plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a (sort-of) regular teenager.

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time—and what developed behind the scenes. And today, as she reprises her most iconic role for the latest Star Wars trilogy, Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience.

This book is not what I expected: the book jacket is very misleading. When I bought it, I thought I was going to get an inside view of what life was like on the set of Star Wars, but in fact, it’s closer to Carrie Fisher’s Wishful drinking. A retrospective – an introspective retrospective – about her life in general, and how Star Wars changed her world forever. Which is not to say we don’t get a bit of her time on set, but that portion focuses on her affair with Harrison Ford.

Carrie’s voice is perfect. Her wit is perfect. Her poetry is perfect. It’s a fantastic look inside her brain, both as she was writing the novel, and 40 years ago. How she lived and dealt with the hordes of fans. But the focus really is on Carrison (taking up at least the middle half the book) when I picked up this book expecting something entirely different.

My review: ★★★☆☆

Home (Binti #2)

by Nnedi Okorafor

It’s been a year since Binti and Okwu enrolled at Oomza University. A year since Binti was declared a hero for uniting two warring planets. A year since she left her family to pursue her dream.And now she must return home to her people, with her friend Okwu by her side, to face her family and face her elders.

But Okwu will be the first of his race to set foot on Earth in over a hundred years, and the first ever to come in peace.

After generations of conflict can human and Meduse ever learn to truly live in harmony?

I discovered Binti a few months ago and was instantly hooked. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read before. The first novella transported me to a world where mathematicians were harmonizers, humans were minorities in the alien order, and Binti is the first of the Himba people ever to be offered a place at Oomza University.

In the sequel, Binti has been at Oomza University for year, and she struggles with post-traumatic stress from her original encounter with the Meduse.  That’s a huge problem for someone who’s supposed to be a master harmonizer and a master of meditation through mathematics. She believes that the issue is that she needs to return home and go on pilgrimage with other Himba.

What I love about this series is how it presents a completely alien world to us… despite the Himba being real people from Namibia. Seeing a future that’s not centered on the cultures I know changes my view of the universe entirely.

WHile it really had the feel of a second book in a trilogy, and doesn’t wrap up anywhere near as neatly as the first book, it give us a reasonable explanation for the central deus ex machina from the first book (Binti’s possession of the edan) and makes us long for book three, which comes out in January.

My review: ★★★★★

Have you read these books? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below!

Gosh, time moves by so fast! Just last month, I was in the US, spending time with the family. Today my life is in boxes as I prepare to move into my new apartment.

Which means I’ve been behind on reviewing new and upcoming books, but I did make a nice dent in my TBR. I decided that rather than writing a full review on a single book, I’ll give you my thoughts on what I have read in this past month. It adds a bit of variety!

The Library of Fates
by Aditi Khorana

No one is entirely certain what brings the Emperor Sikander to Shalingar. Until now, the idyllic kingdom has been immune to his many violent conquests. To keep the visit friendly, Princess Amrita has offered herself as his bride, sacrificing everything—family, her childhood love, and her freedom—to save her people. But her offer isn’t enough.

The palace is soon under siege, and Amrita finds herself a fugitive, utterly alone but for an oracle named Thala, who was kept by Sikander as a slave and managed to escape amid the chaos. With nothing and no one else to turn to, Amrita and Thala are forced to rely on each other. But while Amrita feels responsible for her kingdom and sets out to warn her people, the newly free Thala has no such ties. She encourages Amrita to go on a quest to find the fabled Library of All Things, where it is possible for each of them to reverse their fates. To go back to before Sikander took everything from them.

Stripped of all that she loves, caught between her rosy past and an unknown future, will Amrita be able to restore what was lost, or does another life—and another love—await?

My review: ★★★☆☆

The book started off strong but just got weaker and weaker until the end, where it felt like the author was in a rush to finish. There was a massive sequence that careened completely off the rails, although the epilogue was sweet. It became hard to suspend your disbelief.

The relationship was also a little weak for me. The first love interest was great, and I understand why it could never happen, the second becomes hard to believe. There’s no chemistry.

Also – I checked, but Spiders have legs, not tentacles. That sure messed with me! There were examples of lazy editing (like obnoxious repetition) that got to me as well.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue
by Mackenzi Lee

Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men.

But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy.

Still it isn’t in Monty’s nature to give up. Even with his younger sister, Felicity, in tow, he vows to make this year-long escapade one last hedonistic hurrah and flirt with Percy from Paris to Rome. But when one of Monty’s reckless decisions turns their trip abroad into a harrowing manhunt that spans across Europe, it calls into question everything he knows, including his relationship with the boy he adores.

My review: ★★★★★

Oh. My. Gosh. This book was so much fun!

It’s fun, it’s quirky, it’s cute, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever read. It’s one of those books where the characters face real life and death consequences, but the read itself is light, a fun adventure to really just throw yourself into and devour.

I mean, it has everything: Pirates! Medical malpractice! Gentlemen! Naughtiness! Love! And oh, how I swooned for the romance! It was perfect, I found myself rooting for Percy and Monty from page one. I love the character growth, the humor, just everything.

Not to mention the historical accuracy! It’s really neat to read a book that takes place during a “grand tour” of Europe. To image a little what it would have been like to be rich and young in the sièle des Lumières – or, to exist without privilege, either.

Oh! And they go through my hometown! They don’t have the best time there, but it’s really fun just to be mentioned. MARSEILLE RPZ!

Want
by Cindy Pon

Jason Zhou survives in a divided society where the elite use their wealth to buy longer lives. The rich wear special suits that protect them from the pollution and viruses that plague the city, while those without suffer illness and early deaths. Frustrated by his city’s corruption and still grieving the loss of his mother, who died as a result of it, Zhou is determined to change things, no matter the cost.

With the help of his friends, Zhou infiltrates the lives of the wealthy in hopes of destroying the international Jin Corporation from within. Jin Corp not only manufactures the special suits the rich rely on, but they may also be manufacturing the pollution that makes them necessary.

Yet the deeper Zhou delves into this new world of excess and wealth, the more muddled his plans become. And against his better judgment, Zhou finds himself falling for Daiyu, the daughter of Jin Corp’s CEO. Can Zhou save his city without compromising who he is or destroying his own heart?

My review: ★★☆☆☆

I’m disappointed with WANT, but probably because my expectations were set too high. When I finished it, I didn’t feel the urge to read it again, and even while reading it I had an incredible sense of deja-vu.

I think if it’s your first time reading scifi, you’ll enjoy it immensely. It’s got action, cool technology, exciting plot and a future that scares you because it’s so realistically possible. But for a massive fan of scifi, I found it full of clichés, and very predictable. I felt like I had read the same thing before.

Lots of things were far fetched and irked me. Not the science, actually: but the plot itself. The logic behind sending Zhou in undercover – to befriend the woman he once kidnapped, the daughter of a man who had a man hunt out for him? – is just absurd, and bugged me out of the story. Other decisions like that made the story not flow easily.

And other small things got in my way of truly enjoying the book: the fact that Iris always has to be doing something dangerous (her only character trait is that she’s dangerous, and this gets repeated over, and over again) for example. The characters other than Zhou or Daiyu were flat, with the author reminding us over and over why they’re not. But one character trait does not make a character complex.

It just was hard to get into the style. The constant repetition of traits, the fact every chapter starts days/weeks forward and then Zhou has to tell you “we were doing this,” the lack of chemistry between Zhou and Daiyu…

I’m disappointed, because I was really excited about this novel. I mean, it’s so cool to see a novel set in Taiwan! And that cover, wow! Taiwanese MCs! But the story fell flat. While the worldbuilding was extremely realistic (as I said, real enough to scare me) the plot was nothing new.

So those are the other books I read in August! Have you read them? If so, what did you think? Do you agree with my review? Let me know in the comments below!