The Prison Healer - by Lynette Noni

Title:             The Prison Healer

Author:        Lynette Noni

Published:  30 March, 2021

Series:          The Prison Healer #1

Rating:         4 stars

Synopsis:

Seventeen-year-old Kiva Meridan has spent the last ten years fighting for survival in the notorious death prison, Zalindov, working as the prison healer.
When the Rebel Queen is captured, Kiva is charged with keeping the terminally ill woman alive long enough for her to undergo the Trial by Ordeal: a series of elemental challenges against the torments of air, fire, water, and earth, assigned to only the most dangerous of criminals.
Then a coded message from Kiva’s family arrives, containing a single order: “Don’t let her die. We are coming.” Aware that the Trials will kill the sickly queen, Kiva risks her own life to volunteer in her place. If she succeeds, both she and the queen will be granted their freedom. But no one has ever survived. With an incurable plague sweeping Zalindov, a mysterious new inmate fighting for Kiva’s heart, and a prison rebellion brewing, Kiva can’t escape the terrible feeling that her trials have only just begun.

I managed to read an early copy of this book from work and wanted to give it an honest, spoiler-free review.

All thoughts and opinions regarding this book are solely my own.

Our Characters:

Kiva: our main character who has seen Some Things in her lifetime.

Jaren: our main man who has also seen Some Things in his life but somehow remains positive.

Naari: our guard who seems to be nicer than the rest.

Tipp: our little cinnamon roll and my favourite character just for being the littler of sunshine that he is!

I loved Jaren's humour and I also love how natural the amputee, stutter and blindness are when they're mentioned in the story; they don't seem as if they're forced in just for the sake of being in the story. Also the casual mention of someone being gay and the other main characters not even making a fuss about it.

One thing I picked up on though, was how tunnel fever reminded me of back at the start of the coronavirus pandemic; how easily it was spreading and the precautions you had to take if you dealt with someone with the virus so you also didn't become infected.

I did like how when you look at the side of the book at the pages you can see two blacked out parts of pages which makes it interesting as you don't know what that's about until you get there and when you get to that point in the book, it makes total sense why they're blacked out.

One point reminded me of something I've read at some stage though -- how some prisoner's in real life somewhere are allowed to look after shelter cats in the prison and it helps not only the prisoners, but also the cats as both parties learn to love and trust again. The prison cat in The Prison Healer named Boots reminds me of that and I really like that it was mentioned.

There was something I wasn't really fond of in the book though which was how often something like "Those five words were..." was said. It just became little repetitive over time, but it didn't detract from the story which was good.

However the final chapter was shocking with what it revealed! It probably didn't help that I had to stop with only three pages left at one stage as I'd had something on a timer. I also later figured out that I'd already called what was going to happen, but it was still a shock to the system. But oh my goodness, I seriously can't wait for the second book in this series to come out! I need to know what happens next!

"What about Your Highness?"

He pulled a face. "Definitely not." 

"Your Grace?" 

"I'm not a duke." 

"Your Excellency?" 

"Nor a lord." 

"Your Majesty?" 

"Please stop."

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All books in this series:

    1 | The Prison Healer
    2 | The Gilded Cage

2009 - by Aditya Koppula

Title: 2009

Author: Aditya Koppula

Published: 18 Jul 2020

Series: -

Rating: 3 stars

Synopsis:

Just when everything is going normally, we all come across that "one year" that throws everything at us. "2009" is a poetic short story that explores the human reaction to opportunities, love, empathy and inner strength.

I received a copy of this book in return for an honest review.

As I had previously read the author's other book, when I started reading this I thought that this would also be a poetry book for some reason. If I had looked a little closer at the front cover, I would have seen that it even told me it was a poetic short story. Whoops! Because of that I was a little confused when most of it turned out to be in short story format, but it was still a nice and quick read.

Many of us either have a relationship or a good career, and the lucky ones get both.

This story doesn't follow the story of the author, but an Australian character called Joanna. In the bio of the author on Goodreads, however, it does also state that the events in the book are inspired by true events.

There were a couple of times where I thought there was a little too much description of something, but it didn't detract from the storyline too much. There were also a couple of times when the problems in another country were put into perspective right in front of your eyes which is good though as it gives you a little bit of a wake up call to what's truly going on in the world.

What happened towards the end of the book between Joanna and Ethan is something I wouldn't have predicted if you'd asked me at the beginning of the book. The author does describe the feeling of this situation very well though, and I'm sure everyone has that one bad situation which reading this may bring back feelings of anger or resentment about.

Overall, this was a good book to read as it was nice to follow along with Joanna's story with the odd poem thrown in about how she was feeling and what she was going through too.

We all have that one year that changes our lives forever. Mine was 2009. What's yours?

Romanov - by Nadine Brandes

Title: Romanov

Author: Nadine Brandes

Published: 7 May 2019

Series: -

Rating: 3 stars

Synopsis:

The history books say I died.
They don’t know the half of it. 
Anastasia “Nastya” Romanov was given a single mission: to smuggle an ancient spell into her suitcase on her way to exile in Siberia. It might be her family’s only salvation. But the leader of the Bolshevik army is after them, and he’s hunted Romanov before.
Nastya’s only chances of saving herself and her family are to either release the spell and deal with the consequences, or enlist help from Zash, the handsome soldier who doesn’t act like the average Bolshevik. Nastya has only dabbled in magic, but it doesn’t frighten her half as much as her growing attraction to Zash. She likes him. She thinks he might even like her.
That is, until she’s on one side of a firing squad . . . and he’s on the other.

I received this book as an ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review. I also then purchased the book and listened to it as an audiobook.

While reading this book I was enjoying reading about the, at least slightly fictitious, life of the Romanovs as I've never really learned about them in my life -- only what I know from watching the Disney movie Anastasia when I was younger. I also adore the cover on this book! the reds and golds look stunning against the solid black

However, I was hoping that there would be a little more magic than what was presented throughout the book. Most of the time we either see relief spells or are shown/told about the Romanov doll.

There were a handful of times where I felt as if one or more of the Romanov children were forgotten about or simply glossed over. I understand that this wasn't a story from their point of view, but it would have been nice to hear more than just something like "Olga stayed behind to read to mother".

One romance I didn't mind seeing in this was between Evan and Maria and my heart felt for Maria when they were caught together during the surprise inspection and the consequences that came afterwards for them.

My three favourite characters would probably have to be Nastya, Alexei and Nikolai (their father). The bond between Nastya and Nikolai, and also Nastya and Alexei would never be broken in this story, my guess is -- only death could seperate them and even then their love would never disappear.

I may have only given this book 3 stars, but I wouldn't mind reading it again at a later date.

My favourite quote from the book is below:

"We are Romanovs. The bond of our hearts spans miles, memory and time."

Spoilers!

The romantic-type moments between Zash and Nastya weren't too bad and they were just subtle enough to make them believable -- especially when trying to stay unseen while portraying a severe Bolshevik soldier. Towards the end the romantic moments heightened though and I didn't get as into them as I did when the entire family was in the house in confinement. I would have been happy to just see the pair as friends in the end though.

End Spoilers!

Aurora Rising - by Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff [Read 1]

Title: Aurora Rising

Author: Amie Kaufman & Jay Kristoff

Published: 6 May 2019

Series: The Aurora Cycle #1

Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis:

The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…

A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger management issues
A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering
And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.
Nobody panic.

Everyone panic.

I received this book as an ARC from the publisher, Allen & Unwin, for winning their giveaway. Thank you so much for letting me read this one!

I don't think that I could sum up who this book is suited for any better than the dedication of this book did:

If your squad was hard to find, or you're still looking, then this one is for you.

I liked that after a bit of interesting story of Ty in space, we back up a little into the italics and find out what led up to that point. Aurora's chapters have the flashback italics too and I also like how the end of her present sentence is the beginning of her flashback.

Character-wise, I loved Scarlett's sass, humour and scarcasm plus Fin's sarcasm too! Finian may also be gay or bi, but it's never explicitly stated.

Also, did anyone else notice that all the Syldrathi cabals start with W? No? Just me?

The best swearing ever occurs within this book too! For example: Hole cake. Son of a biscuit. Mothercustard...

Oh, that's what be'shmai means... (If you want to find out what I'm on about with this part, then read the book.)

Every single damning way to protect something is being used all at once to protect things? Good luck, Squad 312! Side note:That star map is awesome and I want one!

What's Eshvaren? Is it going to get revealed and is it probably important? Yes and yes. I feel like I've heard that word somewhere before too but can't pick where.

I do wonder how everyone on the Hadfield ship died except for her. How was she the only one to survive? How did she even end up on the ship in the first place when the book ends like that?!

Doesn't the Illuminae Files trilogy also have "Foundation Day"? I know they're two different universes, but I’m still curious... I also like how there's info pages between every few chapters in this book though as it breaks it up a little and gives you a touch more info, plus the different font that they use for the texting they did with one another. It’s a similar style to the Illuminae Files, I think – but also very different.

Hold onto your undies, kids.

It's about to be a bumpy ride...

Spoilers!

What happened to Zila when she was 6? I'm worried for her.

Did Cat and Ty have a thing then broke up? I guessed that they may have because of the sort of matching tattoos.

Aurora said "I apologise" and "Forgive me" backwards?! What?! I didn't even notice that until Zila mentioned it!

Insulting their mothers. Just dont. -- I want to know the story behind that. Who insulted who's mother to make that a thing? Was there a brawl? Was the offender disowned and sent off world?

Human bodies squeezed out of their uniforms like toothpaste? WTF? Eww!

Side note: WHY WOULD YOU RUB YOUR HANDS AGAINST THE MOSS TO CLEAN THEM?! MORON! IT'S TRYING TO KILL YOU!

End Spoilers!

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All books in this series:

    1 | Aurora Rising
    2 | Aurora Burning