Review: The Migration by Helen Marshall – #Gifted

The Migration by Helen Marshall
Genre: Horror | Science Fiction
Length: 288 pages
Published on 5th March 2019 by Titan Books
Purchase*: Amazon | Wordery
_{*these are affiliate links}
Helen Marshall: Website | Twitter | Goodreads
Received for free from publishers in exchange for an honest review

Synopsis: Creepy and atmospheric, evocative of Stephen King’s classic Pet Sematary , The Migration is a story of sisterhood, transformation, and the limitations of love, from a thrilling new voice in Canadian fiction.

When I was younger I didn’t know a thing about death. I thought it meant stillness, a body gone limp. A marionette with its strings cut. Death was like a long vacation–a going away.

Storms and flooding are worsening around the world, and a mysterious immune disorder has begun to afflict the young. Sophie Perella is about to begin her senior year of high school in Toronto when her little sister, Kira, is diagnosed. Their parents’ marriage falters under the strain, and Sophie’s mother takes the girls to Oxford, England, to live with their Aunt Irene. An Oxford University professor and historical epidemiologist obsessed with relics of the Black Death, Irene works with a centre that specializes in treating people with the illness. She is a friend to Sophie, and offers a window into a strange and ancient history of human plague and recovery. Sophie just wants to understand what’s happening now; but as mortality rates climb, and reports emerge of bodily tremors in the deceased, it becomes clear there is nothing normal about this condition–and that the dead aren’t staying dead. When Kira succumbs, Sophie faces an unimaginable choice: let go of the sister she knows, or take action to embrace something terrifying and new.

Tender and chilling, unsettling and hopeful, The Migration is a story of a young woman’s dawning awareness of mortality and the power of the human heart to thrive in cataclysmic circumstances.

Advertisement

ARC Review: The Shadowglass by Rin Chupeco – #Gifted

The Shadowglass by Rin Chupeco
Series: The Bone Witch #3
Genre: Fantasy | Young Adult
Length: 432 pages
Published on 1st March 2019 by Sourcebooks Fire
Purchase: Amazon | TBD
Rin Chupeco: Website | Twitter | Goodreads
Review copy received from publishers at YALC

Synopsis:
In the highly anticipated finale to the Bone Witch trilogy, Tea’s life—and the fate of the kingdoms—hangs in the balance.

Tea is a bone witch with the dark magic needed to raise the dead. She has used this magic to breathe life into those she has loved and lost…and those who would join her army against the deceitful royals. But Tea’s quest to conjure a shadowglass—to achieve immortality for the one person she loves most in the world—threatens to consume her heart.

Tea’s black heartsglass only grows darker with each new betrayal. And when she is left with new blood on her hands, Tea must answer to a power greater than the elder asha or even her conscience…

Series Review: Alice & Red Queen by Christina Henry

Alice by Christina Henry
Series: The Chronicles of Alice Series
Genre: Fantasy | Horror | Adult
Length: 325 + 313 pages
Published on 28th June 2016 by Titan Books
Purchase Alice: Amazon | TBD
Purchase Red Queen: Amazon | TBD
Christina Henry: Website | Twitter | Goodreads
Purchased for myself from Waterstones

Synopsis:
In a warren of crumbling buildings and desperate people called the Old City, there stands a hospital with cinderblock walls which echo with the screams of the poor souls inside. In the hospital, there is a woman. Her hair, once blonde, hangs in tangles down her back. She doesn’t remember why she’s in such a terrible place-just a tea party long ago, and long ears, and blood… Then, one night, a fire at the hospital gives the woman a chance to escape, tumbling out of the hole that imprisoned her, leaving her free to uncover the truth about what happened to her all those years ago. Only something else has escaped with her. Something dark. Something powerful. And to find the truth, she will have to track this beast to the very heart of the Old City, where the rabbit waits for his Alice.

ARC Graphic Novel Review: Unnatural, Vol. 1 by Mirka Andolfo

Unnatural, Vol. 1 by Mirka Andolfo
Series: Unnatural #1
Genre: Fantasy | Graphic Novel
Length: 112 pages
Publishes on 27th Novmeber 2018 by Image Comics
Purchase: Amazon
Mirka Andolfo: Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads
eCopy received for review from publisher via Edelweiss+

Synopsis:
Leslie J. Blair is a simple pig girl, she loves sushi and she is trapped in a job that she hates. She lives with Trish, her best friend. In her world, which is full of anthropomorphic creatures, with a totalitarian government that interferes in the personal lives of its citizens, up to the point of allowing only relationships between individuals of the same race. The transgressors are punished. They are accused of being… unnatural!Leslie dreams of something different for herself. But these dreams are becoming dangerous, especially because they feature a mysterious wolf. And, when she wakes up, she thinks that she is being watched… And, as if that were not enough, on the day of her twenty-fifth birthday, Leslie receive an email that she would never have wanted to receive. But she still does not know it’s just the beginning …The hit Italian comic, a fantasy, erotica, romantic suspense series by MIRKA ANDOLFO (Wonder Woman, Harley Quinn, DC Comics Bombshells) will bring you in a colorful but terrible world, where personal freedoms are superfluous. Follow Leslie on a breathtaking plot, between thriller and fantasy with a touch of sensuality.

Collects issues #1-4

ARC Review: Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan
Genre: Fantasy | Young Adult | LGBT
Length: 374 pages
Published on 6th November 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton
Purchase: Amazon | TBD
Natasha Ngan: Website | Twitter | Goodreads
ARC received from publishers at YALC

Synopsis:Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It’s the highest honor they could hope for…and the most cruel.

But this year, there’s a ninth girl. And instead of paper, she’s made of fire.

In this lush fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most oppressed class in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards still haunts her. Now, the guards are back, and this time it’s Lei they’re after–the girl whose golden eyes have piqued the king’s interest.

Over weeks of training in the opulent but stifling palace, Lei and eight other girls learn the skills and charm that befit being a king’s consort. But Lei isn’t content to watch her fate consume her. Instead, she does the unthinkable–she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens the very foundation of Ikhara, and Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide just how far she’s willing to go for justice and revenge.

Presented by James Patterson, Natasha Ngan’s lyrical, searing, visceral fantasy, Girls of Paper and Fire, will remind us how precious freedom is–and the price we must pay to achieve it.