Waiting on Wednesday #87: Two Dark Reigns

Can't Wait Wednesday is a wonderful meme hosted by Wishful Endings based on Waiting on Wednesday created by Jill from Breaking the Spine where we highlighted an upcoming release that we're eagerly anticipating. 

Two Dark Reigns
by Kendare Blake
Hardcover, 320 pages
Expected publication: September 4th 2018 
by HarperTeen

Goodreads | Amazon| B & N | TBD

Queen Katharine has waited her entire life to wear the crown. But now that she finally has it, the murmurs of dissent grow louder by the day. There’s also the alarming issue of whether her sisters are actually dead—or if they’re waiting in the wings to usurp the throne.

Mirabella and Arsinoe are alive, but they’re dealing with a nightmare of their own. Stuck on the mainland, where their powers have weakened, the girls are being visited by a specter they think may be the fabled Blue Queen, pointing her rotting, boney finger toward Fennbirn.

Jules, too, is in a strange place—still on the island but in disguise. And her only confidantes, a war-gifted girl named Emilia and her oracle friend Mathilde, are urging her to take on a role she can’t imagine filling: a legion-cursed queen who will lead a rebel army to Katharine’s doorstep. This is an uprising that the mysterious Blue Queen may have more to do with than anyone could have guessed—or expected.

I'm so excited for this to come out! From a duology to a trilogy and now to four books? I do hope the pacing will not be off in this one. And please leave out all those nonsense romantic angles. Otherwise it will be perfect!

Waiting on Wednesday #86 : Sanctuary

Waiting on Wednesday is a wonderful meme created by Jill from Breaking the Spine where we highlighted an upcoming release that we're eagerly anticipating. 

Sanctuary 
by Caryn Lix
ebook, 480 pages
Expected publication: July 24th 2018 
by Simon Pulseby 

Goodreads | Amazon| B & N | TBD

Alien meets Alexandra Bracken’s The Darkest Minds in this thrilling debut novel about prison-guard-in-training, Kenzie, who is taken hostage by the superpowered criminal teens of the Sanctuary space station—only to have to band together with them when the station is attacked by mysterious creatures.

Kenzie holds one truth above all: the company is everything.

As a citizen of Omnistellar Concepts, the most powerful corporation in the solar system, Kenzie has trained her entire life for one goal: to become an elite guard on Sanctuary, Omnistellar’s space prison for superpowered teens too dangerous for Earth. As a junior guard, she’s excited to prove herself to her company—and that means sacrificing anything that won’t propel her forward.

But then a routine drill goes sideways and Kenzie is taken hostage by rioting prisoners.

At first, she’s confident her commanding officer—who also happens to be her mother—will stop at nothing to secure her freedom. Yet it soon becomes clear that her mother is more concerned with sticking to Omnistellar protocol than she is with getting Kenzie out safely.

As Kenzie forms her own plan to escape, she doesn’t realize there’s a more sinister threat looming, something ancient and evil that has clawed its way into Sanctuary from the vacuum of space. And Kenzie might have to team up with her captors to survive—all while beginning to suspect there’s a darker side to the Omnistellar she knows. 

It must the 'in thing' right now to have YA books set in space. There is so much YA fantasy and dystopian out there and readers are getting bored with all the usual tropes. I hope this one does not disappoint.

Waiting on Wednesday #85 : Sky in the Deep

Can't Wait Wednesday is a wonderful meme hosted by Wishful Endings based on Waiting on Wednesday created by Jill from Breaking the Spine where we highlighted an upcoming release that we're eagerly anticipating. 

Sky in the Deep
by Adrienne Young
Hardcover, 352 pages
Expected publication: April 24th 2018 
by Wednesday Books
Goodreads | Amazon| B & N | TBD

Raised to be a warrior, seventeen-year-old Eelyn fights alongside her Aska clansmen in an ancient, rivalry against the Riki clan. Her life is brutal but simple: fight and survive. Until the day she sees the impossible on the battlefield—her brother, fighting with the enemy—the brother she watched die five years ago.

Faced with her brother's betrayal, she must survive the winter in the mountains with the Riki, in a village where every neighbor is an enemy, every battle scar possibly one she delivered. But when the Riki village is raided by a ruthless clan thought to be a legend, Eelyn is even more desperate to get back to her beloved family.

She is given no choice but to trust Fiske, her brother’s friend, who sees her as a threat. They must do the impossible: unite the clans to fight together, or risk being slaughtered one by one. Driven by a love for her clan and her growing love for Fiske, Eelyn must confront her own definition of loyalty and family while daring to put her faith in the people she’s spent her life hating. 

A Viking teen female warrior? Wll why not? I'm anticipating that it will be gory and violent with lots of dead bodies strewn around but a cool heroine with an unpredictable plotline. Please make this one as cool as it sounds. I've been burned too many times with so-called 'alpha female protagonist' before. 

Review: The Loneliest Girl in the Universe

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe 

by Lauren James
ebook, 290 pages
September 7th 2017 
by Walker Books
ARC from Edelweiss
Goodreads | Amazon| B & N | TBD

 Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met, never even spoken to – someone who is light years away?

Romy Silvers is the only surviving crew-member of a spaceship travelling to a new planet, on a mission to establish a second home for humanity amongst the stars. Alone in space, she is the loneliest girl in the universe until she hears about a new ship which has launched from Earth – with a single passenger on board. A boy called J.

Their only communication with each other is via email – and due to the distance between them, their messages take months to transmit across space. And yet Romy finds herself falling in love.

But what does Romy really know about J? And what do the mysterious messages which have started arriving from Earth really mean?

Sometimes, there’s something worse than being alone . . . 

This book was amazing! I'm probably the very few who actually enjoyed the movie Passengers and also The Space Between Us. Romance set in space seemed such an exciting premise so I was expecting the same kind of mushiness from this book. But...well this is beyond my expectation.

At first sweet and mysterious it quickly became creepy and dark. Thank god for that ending otherwise, I really don't know how I can stomach reading such a tense book. Let me just say, if you're looking for a romance then look elsewhere but I guarantee that this book will certainly blow your mind!

Review: Everless

Everless (Everless #1)
by Sara Holland 
ebook, 338 pages
April 1st 2014 
Published January 2nd 2018 
by HarperTeen
ARC from Edelweiss
Goodreads | Amazon| B & N | TBD

In the kingdom of Sempera, time is currency—extracted from blood, bound to iron, and consumed to add time to one’s own lifespan. The rich aristocracy, like the Gerlings, tax the poor to the hilt, extending their own lives by centuries.

No one resents the Gerlings more than Jules Ember. A decade ago, she and her father were servants at Everless, the Gerlings’ palatial estate, until a fateful accident forced them to flee in the dead of night. When Jules discovers that her father is dying, she knows that she must return to Everless to earn more time for him before she loses him forever.

But going back to Everless brings more danger—and temptation—than Jules could have ever imagined. Soon she’s caught in a tangle of violent secrets and finds her heart torn between two people she thought she’d never see again. Her decisions have the power to change her fate—and the fate of time itself.

If I haven't been reading so much YA fantasy for the last 5 years, I would think this book is amazing and not just mediocre. But it's a great debut actually and the world building is complex and piqued my curiosity. But as much as I'm grateful for the strong female character, there are moments like her reminiscing about her childhood crush (yawn) and the oppressive state of the servants and villagers which just make me squirm.

I really hope the next book in the series would be a lot more exciting after that unpredictable twisted ending.