Black Spring

Inspired by Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, BLACK SPRING reimagines the passionate story in a fantasy 19th century society sustained by wizardry and the vengeance code of vendetta.

Anna spent her childhood with Damek and her volatile foster sister Lina, daughter of the Lord of the village. Lina has magical powers, and in this brutal patriarchal society women with magical powers are put to death as babies. Lina’s father, however, refuses to kill her but when vendetta explodes in their village and Lina’s father dies, their lives are changed forever. Their new guardian Masko sends Anna away and reduces Lina to the status of a servant. Damek—mad with love for Lina—attempts to murder Masko, then vanishes for several years. Anna comes home five years later to find Lina about to marry a pleasant young farmer, and witnesses Damek’s vengeful return and its catastrophic consequences.

Passionate, atmospheric and haunting, BLACK SPRING will stay with readers long after they turn the final page.

I just want to take this book everywhere with me and love on it and write in the margins and love it as much as I’ve loved my copy of Wuthering Heights because it literally took everything I love with the story I love most and combined it all in splendour. 

So, first, forewarning, Wuthering Heights is one of the classics that everyone claims to have read but haven’t/or they read it once and hated it. (Protip, very few people like Wuthering Heights during their first read. It’s one of my favourite books ever and I didn’t like it until the second time through). Black Spring is very much like Wuthering Heights so if you’ve never read it or hated it (give it another go!) I would approach this with caution. 

I’ve been a fan of Croggon’s work since the Pellinor series (which I still fervently tout as being the closest thing to a YA Lord of the Rings in terms of scope and worldbuilding). So, when I found out about this book not only was I ecstatic, I also impatiently bought a UK copy because I didn’t want to wait for the US release date (which is in August, if you’re curious). I had some trepidation because Wuthering Heights! It’s so easy to ruin because it’s such a passionate story! But I was enamoured with the fantasy setting she was placing it against, and I trust Croggon’s worldbuilding (obviously), so I was hopeful in going into this story. 

And I was definitely not disappointed. The story has been crafted in about the same way as Wuthering Heights in that it begins with a narrator completely uninvolved in the story. Hammel is from the south and is travelling to the primitive forbidding northern lands to get away from it all. True to WH, he goes to visit the landowner of the house he’s renting and if you know WH, you know who he meets. (wink wink nudge nudge). 

Now, I am one of those people who adore all the characters in WH even though the majority who read WH can’t stand them and find them to all be whiny and selfish (and they are! Kind of. It’s part of what makes them so brilliant). The characters in Black Spring are all very true to the WH counterparts. This is a retelling at its finest. It retains the original story in spirit but has set it against a completely new backdrop (proving how transcendent the story itself is, I suppose.) This isn’t like a Deathless retelling in which the story is new but holds the essence of the old story, Black Spring follows the same narrative style and story as WH, it just gives a new tinge to it with its setting. Which, I personally think was the proper way to go about this, because WH is such a complicated story that changing too much would ruin it. 

She did cut Hindley and Hareton and the majority of the second generation plot. I, personally, don’t mind that because I care less about that plot (as do most WH readers… so it was a good decision).

Black Spring is set in Elbasa, a harsh village in the northern lands where wizards and blood magic rule underneath the harsh vendetta. The vendetta is this cruel, dark, thing that’s happening outside the basic core of the plot. I don’t want to spoil how it works but there’s a lot of death and most of the village dies. And it’s a beautiful concept. Lina is a witch and should have been put to death because witches are not suffered to live in the north, but she’s also of the royal blood and thus escapes her fate. 

What I am so in love with (aside from the setting which is magnificent) is how Croggon used magic to explain and to further Lina’s wild spirit and mad nature. It was… kind of genius, actually because it gave it this twist that was just amazing. (I think it also makes Lina a bit more likeable than Cathy… but only a bit). Damek was perfect (yes, I am also one of those people who love Heathcliff without shame. So.), that’s… that’s all I have to say just that she handled all the characters so perfectly. 

The plot was a little scrunched up because Croggon chose to cut out the second generation, and I do wish that we could have seen more of the vendetta and the world building. However, this isn’t really a story for a vast amount of world building because it is so self contained and I recognise that. I appreciate the world building that did happen and I feel as if it was just enough for contain the story. 

The prose was gorgeous. It was a little bit purple, but it was true to the style of WH and Croggon’s background as a poet showed in the most beautiful of ways. I’m just in love with the words of this book and how she framed the dreary and blood soaked land in the picturesque ways that the moors of WH were framed. 

10/10 stars without question. A stunning retelling of an often misunderstood classic. 

The Mark of the Golden Dragon

Jacky Faber, soldier, sailor, spy, and sometime pirate, condemned for life to the English prison colony in Australia for high crimes against the Crown, has once again wriggled out of the grasp of British authorities. Back on her flagship, the Lorelei Lee, she happily heads back to England in the company of dear friends and her beloved Jaimy Fletcher. 

However, due to a typhoon, an earthquake, tidal waves, pirates, and her own impetuous nature, Jacky is cast into a world of danger that extends from the South China Sea to the equally treacherous waters of politics in London's smoky dens of intrigue, deception, and betrayal. 

Can she save herself from recapture and a final trip to the gallows? Can she also save her own dear Jaimy from the madness that seems to be overtaking his tortured mind? Devious Chinese businessmen, willowy Eurasian maidens, fierce Gurkhas, loyal friends, and wildly romantic highwaymen are all involved in this tale of love, courage, and redemption.

This is without question the longest running series that I’ve consistently kept up with since I was about 14. And while a lot of the reviews seem to call for L.A. Meyer to wrap up the series I definitely think otherwise, they can keep coming, I adore every instalment in this series. 

Admittedly, this had a rough start for me. The Orientalist/White Saviour deal that was happening in the beginning of this book rubbed me the wrong way. The very beginning with the village in which Jacky comes in and saves the day!… I could have done without that because it was unnecessary. It moved past the more problematic elements, though, and even noted them. Jacky thinks on a few different occasions how ridiculous British folk are for wanting to rule everything and changing Chinese names to better sound English. I appreciated that nod to the mentality of the time and how it isn’t a correct way of perceiving the world. So, this book got a star knocked down for the white saviour bit at the beginning and dipping into problematic territory BEFORE approaching it the correct way. 

HOWEVER, the minute Jacky got out of the East, the story returned to what I love best about it. Jacky getting into trouble, making terrible choices, and being separated from Jaimy once again. The inclusion of one Lord Byron and a look into the higher society was what charmed me about this book. Jacky’s quest to find and rescue Jaimy who has gone mad since she went overboard - thinking her dead. That whole plot with Jaimy as a famous highway robber was delicious. A good bit, I do love how Meyer is able to put these two in the most ridiculous situations and pull them back out again. I’ve enjoyed watching the characters progress throughout the story. I loved that we got to hear more about Higgins’ life before Jacky and we saw old characters from Mississippi Jack. 

Jacky as a character is one I adore simply because she just knows herself so well and takes no shit from anyone. This was the first time she gets called out on her ways with men and it was interesting to see her reaction to it. She’s just an incredibly interesting character and I love watching her progress (because she really has, and that’s the beauty of the series. There’s been 9 books so far and she’s progressed marvellously through each one). I look forward to the next book because the way this one ended promised for some good adventures to come. 

8/10

Bitterblue

Eight years after Graceling, Bitterblue is now queen of Monsea. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisors, who have run things since Leck died, believe in a forward-thinking plan: Pardon all who committed terrible acts under Leck's reign, and forget anything bad ever happened. But when Bitterblue begins sneaking outside the castle--disguised and alone--to walk the streets of her own city, she starts realizing that the kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year spell of a madman, and the only way to move forward is to revisit the past.

Two thieves, who only steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck's reign. And one of them, with an extreme skill called a Grace that he hasn't yet identified, holds a key to her heart.

A trend in fantasy series’ that I really enjoy is when each book is about a different character, but the characters from previous books appear or are involved in some way in the later books. Tamora Pierce does this very well and Kristin Cashore does it admirably as well. 

I was saying the other day that Kristin Cashore is one of my favourite YA High Fantasy writers currently writing today (as the genre is still… pretty small). (Also, as a side note, straight high fantasy. Other YA high fantasy writers that come to mind are Leigh Bardugo but the Russian tinge to her series puts it in a different category in my mind.) 

I admit it’s been a very long time since I read Graceling (due for a reread this summer!) so in the very beginning I struggled to tie the pieces together that connected Bitterblue to Graceling. As Bitterblue takes place eight years into the future, though, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out after I got farther into the book. 

This book delighted me for so many reasons. One was that it was highly political in that it centered on Bitterblue, a young queen who is struggling to put a broken kingdom back together after her father’s tyrannous reign. This kind of story is really really difficult to pull off from what I’ve encountered. To be able to go through the slightly more mundane elements of a queen’s life while still keeping it entertaining enough that it isn’t slow takes talent. And the book never was slow even for it’s 500+ pages. 

The cast was delightful even though I was on multiple occasions thankful for the character guide in the back (I was always getting Bitterblue’s four advisors mixed up.) I adored the role that Po and Katsa played in the novel. I love seeing main characters in other characters’ points of view. It actually made me love them even more than I did from reading Graceling. 

Bitterblue as a character was a marvel. She was a girl struggling with a dark past she couldn’t remember and a present in which information was hidden from her and secrets were being kept from her. Political intrigue and conspiracy theories abounded in this book as in addition to the mess that Bitterblue was going through, there was also an entire plot that dealt with Katsa and Po as they worked to depose the tyrannical kings of the seven kingdoms. 

I’ve seen Cashore’s books under fire before for the things that I, admittedly, love about them. Marriage is never at the forefront of any of the female protagonists minds (ever! Katsa is opposed to marriage bless her heart). It’s more of a personal quirk of mine but I appreciate a cast of three separate female protagonists (Katsa, Fire, and Bitterblue) who have romantic interests but don’t have marriage as the tie up at the end of the books. I love Cashore’s inclusion of gay and lesbian characters as well. (Raffin and Bann though bless their hearts too.) 

All in all I’m just so happy with this book. It was a take on high fantasy that isn’t done very often and it was done so well. It was woven with linguistic bits and ciphers and new Graces and countless other things that gave it added flavour. The conspiracy was handled so well and everything was paced so well. At times I actually wondered how it wasn’t dragging because the subject matter was such that in another book it would have had slow moments. I never felt bored, though, and the characters were all too delightful. 

9/10 stars. 

The Shadow Girl

Sometimes I forget for an hour or two that she's with me. Sometimes I convince myself that she was only a dream. Or that I'm crazy.

For as long as Lily Winston can remember, she has never been alone. Iris, a shadowy figure who mimics Lily's movements and whispers in her ear, is with her always—but invisible to the rest of the world. Iris is Lily's secret.

But when Lily's father is killed in a tragic accident, his cryptic final words suggest that he and Lily's mother have been keeping secrets of their own. Suddenly, Iris begins pushing Lily more than ever, possessing her thoughts and urging her to put together the pieces of a strange puzzle her father left behind. As she searches for answers, Lily finds herself drawn to Ty Collier, a mysterious new boy in town. Together, Lily and Ty must untangle a web of deception to discover the truth about her family, Iris . . . and Lily's own identity.

So, I won the ARC of this book through Goodreads First Reads giveaways and I was looking forward to reading it, it seemed interesting enough. And it was interesting! Until… about halfway through….

It was frustrating, that was the only word I have for this book. Really frustrating. I guessed the plot twist a quarter of the way through: I looked to my roommate and said, “If she ends up being -----, I’m throwing my book out the window.” *reads 20 pages* “I’m throwing my book out the window.” So, there was no real twist at the end for me. 

What was the most frustrating thing, though, was the love triangle and just how bad it was. One half is the good friend Lilly grew up with, the other is the hot mysterious strange type. It’s predictable, it didn’t really resolve itself in a way that made any sense at all, and Lilly’s flip flopping drove me insane. Love triangles frustrate me already, this one just drove the plot to the background and took the foreground which was probably not good for the sake of the story. I found that I didn’t care about which boy Lilly chose because I didn’t care about either boy. I really only cared about the actual plot of the book with Iris, but even that ended up being predictable in the end. 

It’s unfortunate because the premise of this book seemed so good! But, once again, first person narrative made for a flat character and a love triangle bored me to tears. 

2/10 at least it didn’t take me very long to read. 

Masque of Red Death

Everything is in ruins.

A devastating plague has decimated the population, and those who are left live in fear of catching it as the city crumbles around them.

So what does Araby Worth have to live for?

Nights in the Debauchery Club, beautiful dresses, glittery makeup . . . and tantalizing ways to forget it all.

But in the depths of the club--in the depths of her own despair--Araby will find more than oblivion. She will find Will, the terribly handsome proprietor of the club, and Elliott, the wickedly smart aristocrat. Neither is what he seems. Both have secrets. Everyone does.

And Araby may find not just something to live for, but something to fight for--no matter what it costs her.

Ah, and I return from my long school induced absence! Oh, YA dystopia, you strike again. Inspired by Poe’s work of the same name, I admit this was a dystopia that drew me in almost instantly. That said, it had it’s faults that YA dystopia almost always seem to have. 

It gets a pass, though, because though Araby had some qualities that made me cringe a bit, the fact that she was a drug addicted, suicidal teenager with survivor guilt won me over to her. She was way too trusting amidst the inherently distrusting world she was placed in; she followed what the two male characters told her to do way too often. Though I appreciated the way she got stuff done when it was needed to be done, I wished she had taken her own initiative at times. It felt like she was always just doing what Elliott or Will told her to do. 

That said, I’ll start with the iffy and move on to what I loved. We have the usual trap of a dystopia that isn’t fully explained. Now, granted, we got closer than in most dystopias, but I was hoping that the plague would have been explained a bit better, sometimes I felt like too much was being assumed. The Red Death as a second contagion seemed completely implausible. I understand that the second contagion was the more direct nod towards Poe’s tale, but it felt completely out of the blue and it also didn’t make sense (the first contagion had to do with sores and being contagious through the air; the second? People randomly fell down dead crying blood. It didn’t fully make sense…) The world she constructed in the aftermath of this destruction, though, I really really liked. Vaguely steampunk (just enough), and very bleak. The world building was good, it just needed more in way of backstory going further than just Araby’s childhood. Dystopia relies on backstory I don’t understand why authors tend to ignore it. 

Also this is YA so apparently that means there has to be a love triangle. Again, I both enjoyed and was irritated by this. Like, obviously I appreciated Elliott over Will as Elliott was the screwed up revolutionary who wasn’t very kind and just seemed to be using Araby (alas am I predictable in my tastes) whereas Will was the tattooed boy who worked in the club and had two young siblings to take care of back home. (A good boy/bad boy dynamic, really). The thing that irritated me about the love triangle was the fact that it existed and how blindly Araby followed the two boys around (granted, Elliott was within reason because the revolution was his plan; Will? Will just got cast in the ‘I want to protect you’ role that is insufferable). There was also no remote resolution so lord only knows how much messier the love triangle is going to become in the next book. 

The good things, though? I loved the concept of the masks being the only protection from the contagion and the way they all held on to them. I really liked how Araby’s relationship with her parents was portrayed - survivor guilt from Araby surviving and her twin brother, Finn, dying was hit on the head with this and I thought it was done pretty well. The theme of revolution from the Prince Prospero was one that I, of course, was fond of (I do love a good revolution plotline), and though Araby fell into some YA heroine traps, I really did enjoy her narration (which is saying a lot because it was a first person novel).

So, I’d give it a 6.5 or 7/10. Worth a pick up. It didn’t take me long to read and the atmosphere alone makes it enjoyable enough for a read.