TOP 3 January 2021 Favourites

Hey everyone! Today I’m going to tell you about my top three books for last month. I loved them all for very different reasons, and I think you’ll love them too!

The first book is The Rising Storm (Paradigm Trilogy #1) by Ceri A. Lowe

What if the end of the world was just the beginning?

15-year-old Alice Davenport was a loner and an outcast before the Storms swept away everything she knew. Saved from the ravaged remains of London by the mysterious and all-powerful Paradigm Industries, her fierce independence and unique skills soon gain her recognition from the highest levels of command. But their plans to rebuild civilisation from scratch mean destroying all remnants of the past – no matter what, or who, gets left behind.

Alice must decide if she will fight for the old world, or the new…

Decades later, 15-year-old Carter Warren is woken from the Catacombs after years of cryonic sleep. He’s determined to do whatever it takes to climb the ranks to Controller General – until he realises the Industry’s control methods have become harsher than ever. The Barricades make sure nothing from the Deadlands can get in to the Community – and no one can get out. And a shocking discovery about his own family causes Carter to question everything he’s ever known…

As Alice becomes entangled in the Industry’s plan for the future, and Carter delves into the secrets of his past, they must make sacrifices which threaten to tear them apart. And both of them are forced to confront an impossible question…

Would you dare to risk it all for the perfect world?

The second book is Refraction by Christopher Hinz.

A loner cursed with a psychic power learns he was part of an illicit experiment as a baby and embarks on a perilous hunt to find those responsible.

If Aiden Manchester had to have a superpower, why couldn’t it be something useful like predicting the future? Or Jedi mind tricks? Instead, he’s afflicted with manifestations, balls of goo which materialise in midair while he sleeps. But then Aidan learns he was a ‘Quiver Kid’; one of seven orphaned babies drafted for an illicit experiment at Tau Nine-One. Setting out to find the experimenters and his fellow victims, Aiden’s quest turns lethal when he’s kidnapped by a maniacal Quiver Kid with a dark agenda.

As he uncovers dangerous truths about his past, Aiden’s very essence is called into question. Will a hellish confrontation at Tau Nine-One reveal the ultimate purpose of the Quiver Kids?

And the last book is Ticker by Lisa Mantchev!

A girl with a clockwork heart must make every second count.

When Penny Farthing nearly dies, brilliant surgeon Calvin Warwick manages to implant a brass “Ticker” in her chest, transforming her into the first of the Augmented. But soon it’s discovered that Warwick killed dozens of people as he strove to perfect another improved Ticker for Penny, and he’s put on trial for mass murder.

On the last day of Warwick’s trial, the Farthings’ factory is bombed, Penny’s parents disappear, and Penny and her brother, Nic, receive a ransom note demanding all of their Augmentation research if they want to see their parents again. Is someone trying to destroy the Farthings…or is the motive more sinister?

Desperate to reunite their family and rescue their research, Penny and her brother recruit fiery baker Violet Nesselrode, gentleman-about-town Sebastian Stirling, and Marcus Kingsley, a young army general who has his own reasons for wanting to lift the veil between this world and the next. Wagers are placed, friends are lost, romance stages an ambush, and time is running out for the girl with the clockwork heart. 

I loved all of these books for very different reasons! They’re all exciting and unique, and just very out there in terms of the different things I like. And maybe you’d like them too if you checked them out! If you’d like to read into just exactly why I loved them so much, I’ve linked my reviews for them in their introductory sentences before their synopsis.

Have you read any of these? Do you have questions? Do you want to read any of them? I’m always down to talk about them! Hope you’re doing well and having a great day.

20XX Volume 1 by Jonathan Luna & Lauren Keely Review

4/5 Stars 160 pages
Published November 24th 2020 by Image Comics

You know how I feel about books about people with powers, and if you don’t here’s a reminder. I love them most of the time! Especially when there’s something relatable to our own world it. And that’s why I loved this book. Super relatable even now in the midst of a lockdown, the future world that Mer lives in is not only filled with some really interesting tech, but one with a virus that kills most of the people that catch it. If you can live through it, however, you’re really a changed person, quite literally. You have powers, but you’re also completely segregated from the people without. But you’re immune from catching it again.

We see some familiar things, gang violence, daily mask wearing, a girl who just lives with her cat, and it changes to something crazy and really interesting. After learning she has the virus, to almost dying in the hospital, Mer has some big changes coming to her life, and that’s not just losing her job due to her sudden illness. She’s now faced with a choice to join a gang, or just be completely isolated from everyone else. She just wants advice from her cousin, but even that’s not so simple.

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This was a really good book, and I can’t wait to see what happens next. It has some action in it, including a lot of really detailed blood and gore at times, but entwined into that is a story of a woman just wanting to fit in and really find herself again. I didn’t want to put it down once I started it. I think that this was a really nice break from the novels I’ve been reading lately, or more like haven’t been reading. It was a breath of fresh air, and it gives me new motivation. If you think you’d be into something like that, I definitely recommend checking it out.

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can here through my Amazon Associates link!

And if you’d like to keep up with one of the creators you can here on Twitter!

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well and staying safe.

Billionaire Island by Mark Russell, Steve Pugh, & Chris Chuckry Review

4/5 Stars 144 pages
Published November 11th 2020 by Ahoy Comics

I’m going to be honest, I haven’t read as many comics and graphic novels this year as I have in other years. No particular reason, just not as many have caught my eye lately. This one however, is very different than the usual ones I would pick up, horror or supernatural or superhuman comics. Billionaire Island is a story about what would happen if a massive corporation wanted to control the world’s population by not only creating a deadly sterilization virus, but also if they took the world’s richest people and stuck them all on a floating man made island away from the chaos. But as they’re going to find out, they can’t run and hide forever.

I really enjoyed the topic of this comic because I love apocalyptic fiction, and I love violent scenes in comics. The story was amazing and I really didn’t want to put it down once I finally got around to reading it. The characters ranged from kind of strange, chaotically neutral, and then just the diabolical richest of the rich. Sometimes I think that rich people really think like this, just without a care for anyone else in the world, and this book really takes it to the absolute extreme. Locking people up at their work station so that they don’t kill themselves, putting people that they don’t want around in a human sized hamster cage to live out the rest of their lives, and even letting a literal dog run their world. Who knew all of these things could go together so well?

And at the midst of the story, a man who’s lost everything he cares about in life, just trying to expose the billionaires for what they really are. And taking down anyone he has to in the process. He’s bad ass, and he’s ready to get his revenge. I really liked reading this story, and there isn’t really anything bad to say about it, at least in my opinion. I would say if you think you’d be into something like this, definitely grab a copy and check it out for yourself! I’d love to have one on my bookshelf.

You can grab one here, through my Amazon associates link.

And if you’d like to keep up with the creator’s on Twitter, you can here.

Mark Russell

Steve Pugh

Chris Chuckry

Thanks for reading! Hope you have a great day.

Starfire Angels (Dark Angel Chronicles #1) by Melanie Nilles Review

4/5 Stars 172 pages
Published December 19th 2013 Prairie Star Publishing

You know how I get, I have a vision of a kind of book in my mind, and I just don’t feel right until I read it. Luckily, it was pretty easy for me to find an angel book in my library, and this one was so interesting I was easily able to dive right into it. A different take on the usual kind of archangel books I’ve read, this one contained a new species of aliens I’ve never read before, ones that look exactly like humans and are able to hide their huge angel wings to blend in. I really enjoyed reading it.

The main character is a girl named Raea, who was orphaned at five years old, but luckily taken in by her aunt and uncle, and two younger cousins. She’s always felt kind of off, but didn’t know why until the topics in this book came up. Turns out she’s actually part of an alien species, and the quiet creepy guy behind her is the only one that can help her. She’s a little immature about the entire situation, wanting to date the hot foreign guy, but what could you ask from a teenager who found out she has mystical powers and insanely huge angel wings? She eventually finds her footing just in time to save her secret.

There is a part that I didn’t really enjoy reading, and that is that there’s a memory that she’s trying to dig out of her brain just so she can know it. While I understand it, I don’t really know why it was added to the story, seeing as it wasn’t important, and I feel like it was just put in there to make you uncomfortable and hate the bad guy in the story more. I didn’t really trust or like him before that, and I feel like the trauma being brought up and just kind of thrown in there wasn’t necessary. Just warning you, if you get upset at the topic of sexual assault than just be warned that they do discuss it in this book. It’s pretty far in, though and it’s really at a time that you wouldn’t expect it.

The story was exciting and the characters were a little cringey at times, but I did enjoy reading it, and I’m interested in the next book after this. I’m hoping that we get to know more about Raea’s family’s home through the portal, and that we get to know more about the species in general. What their language is all about, and what their abilities are all about. Why they are the keepers of alien life forms in crystals and all that. I definitely recommend checking it out if you’re looking for an interesting book about angels to read, and you don’t mind young adult fiction.

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If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here, through my Amazon Associates link.

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well and staying safe.

The Rising Storm (Paradigm #1) by Ceri A. Lowe Review

5/5 Stars 340 pages
Published April 4th 2018 by Bookouture

Wow, I knew this book would be right up my alley, I just didn’t know how much I would actually love it. And I really did love it. A new and exciting take on the well worn path of a young adult dystopia novel, I really couldn’t get enough. It very much gave me Fallout vibes, and if you know me, you know I’m obsessed with that game. I couldn’t ask for more from it, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next book in the trilogy.

Following a fifteen year old boy named Carter, we see his life unfold as he’s forced underground to pay his duties to the community, to freeze himself until they need him sometime in the next twenty years. He’s giving up what family he has left, his grandfather, after his parents passed away, and really everyone he knows. But he knows it’s what he has to do for the good of the world that he lives in. What he doesn’t know, is that someone’s pregnant with his children. And the world he thaws into is much more dysfunctional than the one he was frozen in fifteen years before. And most of all, that they think he’s their only hope for change.

It also follows Alice, a child who’s stuck in the middle of a devastatingly changing world almost ninety years before Carter’s frozen. She’s left alone in the middle of a flooding world, forced to fend for herself until help eventually comes in the form of the Community that eventually blossoms into the world that Carter knows. The two children are woven together in rotating chapters, and like I said at the beginning, I really couldn’t get enough of this book. I powered through it like it was nothing, and it really makes me want to read more dystopia novels, like now.

Exciting and unique, the thing I loved most about this book was how the two children’s stories were put together. They seem very different on the surface, but the more we get to know about them, the more we realize that the stories are a lot more similar than we originally thought. Both go through hardships, and both want what’s best for the community, but they have differing opinions that get them into trouble with the people around them. Originally one was sort of a rebel against the community and the other was everything that they wanted, but as we learn, they turn into something else entirely and find themselves in completely different places by the end of the book. I don’t think I would change anything about it at all, and I’m eager to start the next book in the trilogy as soon as I get a chance. One thing I was confused about however, was if everything was horrifically flooded for the better part of five years, wouldn’t all the houses be horribly water damaged? Or did it just storm and not horribly flood? Anyways, not important. I loved it, and that’s it.

If you’re into young adult dystopia novels with a new take on the subject, than I definitely think you should give this one a chance. Who knows? You might love it just as much as I did. You can grab a copy here, through my Amazon Associates link.

And if you’d like to keep up with the author, you can here, on Twitter!

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well.

I Forced a Bot to Write This Book: A.I. Meets B.S. by Keaton Patti Review

I have to be honest, this book was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever read. And that’s exactly why I loved it. It was so funny and surprising, the things that were written. From tv scripts to fake resumes, life hacks, and everything in between, I know I’m going to be thinking about this book for a while. I’d love a copy just to have, just because it’s so silly I want to show people, you know?

4/5 Stars 192 pages
Published November 17th 2020 by Andrews McMeel Publishing

My favourite things in this book were the tv scripts, I think. There were a ton of tv shows done like Friends, Game of Thrones, Spongebob Squarepants, and just so many others. Though my copy of the arc didn’t have any pictures, I just kind of skipped over those because I feel like I couldn’t fully understand them. Usually that problem would have me just not reading the book entirely because it’s not a complete copy, but that didn’t stop me for this. I couldn’t! It’s too silly. I wanted to see what it was all about.

The only thing I would have changed is I honestly wish there were more tv scripts. Maybe some more cartoons would have been funny to read about, like The Simpsons, American Dad, and South Park. But honestly that’s it. I loved the rest of it, and if you’re looking for just something funny to read to break up your usual reading, this is the book for you.

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here through my Amazon Associates link.

And if you’d like to keep up with the author, you can here on Twitter!

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re having a great day.

Refraction by Christopher Hinz Review

Let me just say that this was one of the most interesting, and well put together books I’ve read in a long time. I did put it off for a while when I was taking a break from reading, but I wish I didn’t. There wasn’t a single thing about this book that wasn’t intriguing, and I couldn’t get enough of it. I also wouldn’t change anything about it. Completely unique, I hope I can read more books this different in the future, because if you’ve read it, you just know that it’s going to be something that’s stuck in your head for a while after you finish it.

5/5 Stars 400 pages
Published November 10th 2020 by Angry Robot

Aiden has a power. It’s not anything he deems special or exciting though, because his power is that sometimes when he sleeps, he manifests a pile of slime somewhere in a ten foot radius from his body. And once he wakes up, it falls to the ground, or into whatever it’s levitating above, and hardens, usually destroying the thing in the process. It’s messy, it’s kind of gross, and his sister hates it. But it’s his life, and that’s all he’s known since he was a kid. Then one day, everything he knows is turned upside down.

After receiving a cryptic phone call from the people who bought his deceased parents house, he learns that his father has hidden a safe behind the old furnace, in the wall, and it’s addressed to him, and not only that, but if it’s tampered with or forced open by someone else, the contents will be destroyed. So he heads to their house after a fight with his sister. But what’s in the safe changes his life forever.

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This is the beginning of the longest week of Aiden’s life. He learns that he was adopted, and that the first eighteen months of his life, him and six other babies were basically science experiments until the project was forced to shut down, and they were adopted out. Six other people who can do what he does, and maybe more. And he needs to get to the bottom of it. But what he finds at the bottom, and frankly, on the way to the bottom, is really crazy and almost unbelievable if it wasn’t happening in real time. He almost gets killed many, many times, makes some interesting friends, and has the adventure of a lifetime. And I couldn’t put it down.

I would say that this is probably one of my new favourite books. When I was describing the events to people I know, it all seemed so crazy. And it really is. That’s just what I loved about it the most.. I think it’s something you just have to experience to really understand it. I highly recommend it to everyone reading this. Even if you think it wouldn’t be for you, just give it a shot. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here, through my Amazon Associates link.

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re doing well and staying safe, and enjoying insane books like this.

Ticker by Lisa Mantchev Review

Can you believe I’ve never read a steampunk book before? I can’t. Especially with how amazing this book was. Non stop action, amazing clockwork animals and especially bugs, and just the imagination and the imagery in this book made it completely unlike anything else I’ve read lately. I also loved all the characters, even the bad ones. They were so well rounded and put together. I just couldn’t get enough. And that’s why it’s one of my new favourites.

5/5 Stars 273 pages
Published December 1st 2014 by Skyscape

The story follows a set of twins, Penelope (Penny) and Copernicus (Nic), and their friends, Sebastian and Violet, as well as their parents, and a few other important people, told through Penny’s point of view. But she’s a lot different than anyone else around her, because she has a clockwork mechanical heart. There’s this problem with the girls in her family, not her mother but her two deceased sisters and her, where their hearts just give out one day without warning. And their family friend is willing to do anything, and I mean anything, to keep her ticker ticking. But that’s where things get kind of nasty.

After being put on trial for murder, they find out that Warwick, the man who created her ticker, has been testing his inventions and augmentations on innocent people, and even children. And Penny’s the first survivor. She doesn’t agree with his methods at all, but she needs him to stay alive. And when a set of very specific events result in her parents being kidnapped, the crew is sent off in search of the man who created her heart, and has escaped from prison and is holding her parents hostage. That’s when things really get exciting.

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Something I really appreciated about this book, was how easy it was to imagine it. I sometimes have problems with imagining the characters as they’re supposed to be seen, how the author wants them to be seen, and that wasn’t a problem with this. From hair colour to tattoos to what dress they’re wearing that day, I loved every bit of them, even when things went sour. I loved their quirks and their mannerisms, and everything about the world that they’re in. It just seemed so exciting, being able to dress up so fancy, watch mechanical bugs, and maybe see someone with an interesting copper augmentation. I kind of wish that this was a series so that I didn’t have to say goodbye to the characters so soon, but not everything can be, and I can appreciate that. I’d love to get a paper copy so that I can jump back into this world whenever I want.

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So if you’re into bad ass characters and a world full of cakes, dresses, and machinery that is very much alive in the sense of animals and bugs, mixed into an amazing story of coming together with your friends, fighting for what’s right and battling a very hard illness at the same time, I highly recommend checking it out!

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here through my Amazon Associates link!

And if you’d like to keep up with the author on Twitter, here’s a link for that!

Thanks for reading! Hope you’re having a great day.

Insight (Web of Hearts and Souls #1) by Jamie Magee Review

Sometimes you just need a break from all the rush of the world and all the new books coming out. Sometimes you just want to sink into the kinds of books  you read as a teenager. And sometimes, you just want to relax while you’re reading, and I think this was that book for me. I think the idea of weaving multiple series together is a really interesting and unique idea, and I can’t wait to check more of these books out. Overall, I really enjoyed it.

4/5 Stars 314 pages
Published July 20th 2010

Insight is the story of a teenage girl who’s life is suddenly uprooted when she not only receives a mysterious tattoo after waking from a horrible nightmare, but also when she finds out that her dreams, the boy she’s been meeting in them for as long as she can remember, and that alternate dimensions are all very real things. Not completely ready for the big change, she’s forced to go on the run after the intimidating boy, not her boy but the one from her nightmares, begins hunting her down.

I really enjoyed the powers that the people in the book have, specifically Willow’s, because I think it would be really interesting to be able to know the exact emotions of the people around you. I thought that the characters were pretty realistic from their reactions to the paranormal things going on around them, like going into different dimensions like it’s not an insanely huge deal, going from living in the world that we know in real life to one where there’s complete peace, and even going into a dimension where their world is completely devoid of colour. I think all of those things were really unique and I can’t wait to see how they develop even more throughout this whole series.

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My problems with this book aren’t really big problems. I just expected more action and exciting things to happen, but this is more of a foundation book for the rest of the series. Though exciting things did happen in this book, I think that even bigger events and things will happen throughout the rest of the books. Honestly I can’t wait to see what happens, because there are quite a few. It seems to be a long running series, and that’s really what I could use right now. Just beware, this story is more an explanation for things to come and I think really sets everything up, rather than having all the action here and now like a lot of the other books I read.

Like I said up there, I really enjoyed reading this book, and I think if you’re into young adult paranormal fiction books, you’re going to enjoy this one too. Maybe think about picking it up if you get the chance!

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here through my Amazon Associates link.

And if you’d like to keep up with the author on Twitter, you can here!

Thanks for reading! Do you love teen fiction as much as I do? Hope you’re having a great day!

A Love Across Time by Genevieve Jane Review

I know what you’re thinking, another fairy tale retelling? And honestly, I’m thinking the same thing. This one, however, is a bit different than the others I’ve read, though it wasn’t my new favourite. It was an okay read, one that I had trouble getting into fully, and that’s why I only gave it two stars.

2/5 Stars 327 pages Published November 2nd 2020

Following two people, Kathryn, in a few years past Canada, and Jacob, in a few years in the 1800’s in Germany, we get to learn their two stories. Kathryn, not abused but simply neglected by her too busy parents, going to school and finding herself after their death, and eventually finding a romance for herself in Jake, a professor at her university. And Jacob, after losing his first love, trying to find himself again despite a curse a witch has placed on him, causing him to lose love after love until he finds the true love of his life, however many years that may take, and when he deserves it.

I had a really hard time getting into this book. I don’t know why, because it goes through all of the fairy tales I enjoyed as a kid, but it just was kind of boring for me. The way that things were described kind of made me think they weren’t a big deal, when thinking back on them, they were a huge deal in the book. Everything seemed kind of flippant, and by the end of them, I feel like I didn’t connect with the characters. And that’s really the biggest problem I had with this book. It just wasn’t for me.

Overall, I think if you’re looking for a fresh take on a romance novel full of fairy tale retellings, than maybe you might like this one more than I did.

If you’d like to grab a copy, you can do so here, through my Amazon Associates link.

Thanks for reading! Hope you have a great day and are doing well.