Gemma's Book Nook: March 2020

Tuesday, 31 March 2020

March Wrap Up

March was another great reading month for me, I seem to be on a roll at the moment. Not only did I read 7 books again but 6 of them were 4 stars and above. Here are the books I read in March.

Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko
Published 18th August 2020 by Hot Key Books
Star Rating - ***.5
Goodreads Challenge - 22/50
Review - Blog Review

44806008. sy475

Dispel Illusion by Mark Lawrence

Published 14th November 2019 by 47 North

Star Rating - ****

Goodreads Challenge - 16/50

Re-Coil by J. T. Nicholas

Published 3rd March 2020 by Titan Books

Star Rating - ****

Goodreads Challenge - 18/50
Review - Blog Review

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Published 6th February 2020 by Macmillan Children's Books

Star Rating - ****

Goodreads Challenge - 19/50

14061955

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo (re-read)
Published 17th June 2014 by Square Fish
Star Rating - **** (original rating 3.5*)
Goodreads Challenge - 20/50

30969755

The Cheerleaders by Kara Thomas (audiobook)
Published 31st July 2018 by Penguin Random House
Star Rating - ****
Goodreads Challenge - 21/50

Aru-Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi

Published 3rd May 2018 by Scholastic

Star Rating - *****

Goodreads Challenge - 17/50

How many books did you manage to read in March? I'd love to hear about your favourites.

Saturday, 21 March 2020

Review - Thorn by Intisar Khanani

Thorn by Intisar Khanani

Published 24th March 2020 by Hot Key Books

Star Rating - ****

Goodreads Challenge (2019) - 68/50

I was gifted an unsolicited ARC copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis (from Goodreads)

A princess with two futures. A destiny all her own

Between her cruel family and the contempt she faces at court, Princess Alyrra has always longed to escape the confines of her royal life. But when she’s betrothed to the powerful prince Kestrin, Alyrra embarks on a journey to his land with little hope for a better future.

When a mysterious and terrifying sorceress robs Alyrra of both her identity and her role as princess, Alyrra seizes the opportunity to start a new life for herself as a goose girl.

But Alyrra soon finds that Kestrin is not what she expected. The more Alyrra learns of this new kingdom, the pain and suffering its people endure, as well as the danger facing Kestrin from the sorceress herself, the more she knows she can’t remain the goose girl forever.

With the fate of the kingdom at stake, Alyrra is caught between two worlds and ultimately must decide who she is, and what she stands for.

My Thoughts

I had never actually heard of this book before I received it in the post neither have I read the original fairytale that this book is based on, The Goose Girl. However, after reading the synopsis I thought it sounded exactly like something I would really enjoy and I wasn't wrong. As I said, I haven't read the source material but this didn't hinder my enjoyment of this book at all and I don't think you need to have read the original fairytale to enjoy this one.

This book is beautifully written. It is descriptive but not unnecessarily so and the plot moves along at a nice steady pace that keeps you engaged throughout. The magic is weaved well throughout the story and there are points where the magic makes the story feel quite atmospheric. There were also some quite hard hitting moments within this book. The story doesn't shy away from incidents and events and at points was quite brutal and that made it feel like a true fairytale.

I loved our main character Alyrra also known as Thorn. She was quite humble and really appreciated the small things. She just wanted to be happy and carve out a life for herself where she felt like she belonged however, as we progressed through the story she begins to grow as a person and starts to fight more for what she believes in. I really liked the relationship between Alyrra and Kestrin too there was no instalovey stuff happening and I felt the story really explored how they felt about each other. Even in the end, they are still not quite there and I appreciated this lack of romance and exploration of feelings.

Overall I would recommend this one for fairytale lovers. Whether you've read the original tale of The Goose Girl or not I think this story will be enjoyed by many.

Overall Rating

Thursday, 19 March 2020

Review - Re-Coil by J. T. Nicholas

Re-Coil by J. T. Nicholas

Published 3rd March 2020 by Titan Books

Star Rating - ****

Goodreads Challenge - 18/50

I was kindly gifted a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Synopsis (from Goodreads)

Out on a salvage mission with a skeleton crew, Carter Langston is murdered by animated corpses left behind on this ship. Yet in this future, everyone’s consciousness backup can be safely downloaded into a brand-new body, and all you’d lose are the memories of what happened between your last backup and your death. But when Langston wakes up in his new body, he is immediately attacked in the medbay and has to fight once again for his life—and his immortality. Because this assassin aims to destroy his core forever.

Determined to find his shipmates and solve this evolving mystery, Langston locates their tech whiz Shay Chan, but two members are missing and perhaps permanently killed. Langston and Chan are soon running for their lives with the assassin and the corporation behind him in hot pursuit.

What Langston and Chan ultimately find would signal the end of humanity. What started as a salvage mission just might end up saving the world.

My Thoughts

I don't read much sci-fi as I tend to find much of it can be quite science heavy which isn't something I enjoy. The sci-fi I have enjoyed tends to be a little bit lighter, generally YA, however, the synopsis of this one sounded so interesting I thought I would give it a shot and I'm really glad I did.

This was a high action sci-fi thriller that kept me reading until the very end. A real page turner, the writing was fast paced and engaging and the story really kept me on my toes. There were lots of twists and turns that kept me wanting more. I thought the idea of being re-coiled was a really interesting concept and that this book explored the idea of being pretty much immortal in a different way to that which is usually explored in fantasy novels. This then led to a really great discussion surrounding gender, particularly biological gender. This book freely discussed how people can be re-coiled in a body whose gender is different from that of the person themselves. This actually happened to one of our main characters and I thought explored their feelings about this well.

I enjoyed both of our main characters too. They both had really distinct personalities and I enjoyed reading about them. They both seemed to have some shady history and this definitely played a part in them doing the right thing and I liked this morally greyness about them. I also appreciated the very little romance in this book. It was hinted at a lot throughout however, at no point did it over shadow the story and I enjoyed this.

Overall a really great read and one I would recommend to both sci-fi and thriller fans alike. I will be keeping an eye out for further books from this author in the future.

Overall Rating

Monday, 2 March 2020

March TBR

I didn't manage to get a TBR post up for February however, I did post a picture on my Twitter and I'm pleased to say that I managed to complete this TBR so that's 2/2 so far.

March's TBR is going to be a little more free as I have a few books to read and I'm not sure which prompts they will fit into for my monthly challenge so any extras will depend on this (this should make more sense in a moment).

As before I'm splitting my TBR up into the following four sections...

TBR and Beyond yearly challenge prompts (I will be choosing two of these a month)
TBR and Beyond monthly challenge
Any readathons I'm planning on taking part in
Review copies I have to read
Any library books or books from my existing TBR I'm planning on reading

So here's what I plan to read in March so far.

Yearly Challenge Prompts

My two challenge prompts for this month are...

A book with time travel or parallel universes - Dispel Illusion by Mark Lawrence
A book from the Rick Riorden imprint or the Salaam Reads imprint - Aru Shah and the End of Time by Roshani Chokshi

TBR and Beyonds Monthly Challenge

This is where I need to wait to see if any of the other books on my TBR fit into any of these prompts. The aim of this challenge is to choose a chain and read a book to match each prompt on the chain. Which chain I choose will depend on if any of my other reads fit into any of the prompts (I hope that makes sense). If you would like to know which chain I choose in the end I always update my reading progress on my Twitter.

Review Copies

Recoil by J.T Nicholas

Other (Library/Existing TBR Books)

Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo (Exsiting TBR/Reread)

Lets hope I can keep up my momentum from February and read all the books in March.

What are you planning on reading in March? Let me know.

Sunday, 1 March 2020

February Wrap Up

Who can believe we've made it to the end of February already. With February being the shortest month of the year I thought I would have fewer books read this month however, I managed to finish 8 book which is fantastic for me!