May 30, 2020 – jenacidebybibliophile

Disclaimer: This book was sent to me by the authors, Jessi Elliot and K.J. Sutton, for an honest review.

Genre: Adult/Fantasy/Romance/paranormal-Vampires

Plot: A city ruled by vampires. A disgraced princess. A world underground.

Charlotte Travesty lives in a world of comfort. Glittering nightclubs, a lavish mansion, and a staff of humans at her beck and call. Being a royal vampire means her future is secured—all she has to do is get through the Awakening, an ancient ceremony every vampire experiences when they come of age.

But when her Awakening arrives at last, everything changes in one terrifying instant.

Cast from her home and rejected by the royal family, Charlie is forced into a life of fear and brutality. Where creatures called weepers live below the city, kept at bay by an unlucky sector of fighters enslaved by the very king who cast her out. Charlie now finds herself among the ranks.

She soon learns that weepers aren’t all she needs to fear in her new life. Other workers are dying in the tunnels below ground. Charlie knows that if she’s going to survive, she must form alliances with the very humans that despise her. But will she win their trust in time? Or will she die in the very darkness she was born to rule?

For fans of Sarah J. Maas’s Crescent City and Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series, A Whisper in the Dark is the first volume in the Charlie Travesty serial.

Opinion:

“The crown rests beside me – it must have fallen off while I slept.”

A quick introduction to a new Adult Fantasy series that are bringing the Vamps back with a vengeance!

I LOVE anything by Kelsey Sutton, so of course when I found out she was working on a series of novellas with an author I hadn’t had the pleasure of knowing about, I was SOLD. And in true K.J. Sutton fashion, she literally gives ZERO information ahead of time about what she is writing, and then just displays it in all it’s glory on release day, on a platter of gold and blood. ❤

This first installment of the Charlie Travesty series was AMAZING! I was hooked from the first page until the last, immediately in love with our leading vamp Charlie, and obsessed with the world. I absolutely love a dystopian styled fantasy, especially one where Vampires rule over humans, and one where a royal “falls from grace“.

In this vampire world, the Awakening is the moment when a vampire comes into who they are. Each eye color dictates where a vampire will reside and what their interests will be. Charlie, being an artist, hopes to wake with emerald eyes that will take her into Sul, the quarter for artists and writers. But when she wakes, her eye color shows the true proof of who Charlie really is.

I am so impressed with how easily this story flowed. Usually when you get a book written by two or more authors, there is a disconnect between the writing styles or the switch in voices in painfully obvious. And being such a HUGE K.J. Sutton fan, I figured I’d easily be able to tell which parts were written or influenced by Kelsey.

Well. Color me wrong AF.

You would NEVER guess this was written by two different people! The melding of these two creative minds is impeccable, and the story and world they created was addicting as hell. And even though I’m not a big novella reader, I really found myself preferring this pacing. It gets to the point, but not in a rushed way. I honestly had no problems at all with this book, and all I want is to read everything else these two beautiful writers put onto paper.

It’s almost June.

Get those jeans high and tight ladies and gents, there are some EPIC upcoming releases.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~

~* My Top 10 Anticipated June 2020 Book Releases *~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

1. Again Again by E. Lockhart

Release Date: June 2, 2020

Genre: YA/Contemporary/Romance

Again Again has the most vague description, and the most guarded reviews ever, and all they do is make me want this even more.

From what I can gather, it’s the story of a girl being able to experience moments over and over, and trying things differently each time. Either changing her reactions, her decisions, or what she says and does.

Basically it’s this:

You know how you think back on all those situations wishing you said something wittier? Or stood up for yourself? Or were more compassionate?

Well that is what this story is about, and apparently, it’s powerful.

2. The House Guest by Mark Edwards

Release Date: June 3, 2020

Genre: Mystery/Thriller/Psychological

A psycho–woman–stalker–stranger?!

The House Guest is about a couple who begin house-sitting a home for the summer in New York. But when a woman named Eden shows up on their doorstep claiming to be a friend of the owners, the couple decides to trust her.

And with her charming personality and gorgeous looks, it’s hard not to!

But this wouldn’t be a good story if our girl wasn’t just a liiiiiitlllleee bit unhinged.

3. The Boundless (The Beholder, Book 2) by Anna Bright

Release Date: June 9, 2020

Genre: YA/Fantasy/Retelling

The Boundless is book 2 in The Beholder series…which…no…I haven’t read yet…

But I have it ready to read before the release date of The Boundless nears!

The Beholder is a tale with both Cinderella and The Odyssey elements that follows a princess as she sets off across the Atlantic to find a suitor, after being brutally rejected by a childhood friend. It’s a tale of adventure, romance and gallivanting across the sea and I am SO ready!

4. The Anti-Virginity Pact by Katie Wismer

Release Date: June 16, 2020

Genre: YA/Contemporary

The Anti-Virginity Pact.

If that title doesn’t make you want to read it, I don’t know what will.

A preacher’s daughter who is an atheist.

With a pact to lose her virginity by the end of her senior year.

Meredith has gone through her high school years silent and shy, but when she writes out a pact to herself that she MUST lose her virginity by the end of the year and a fellow student gets a hold of it, her is no longer invisible.

She begins being bullied in school and even when she meets a boy who doesn’t know of her goal, the pact threatens to bring in all crumbling down.

5. The Kinder Poison (Book 1) by Natalie Mae

Release Date: June 16, 2020

Genre: YA/Fantasy

THIS is one I just stumbled across today and I am wondering why the hell I hadn’t seen it until now?!

It’s like The Hunger Games had a love child with every fantasy tale I’ve ever loved, and I just want to puke I’m so excited.

The Kinder Poison is set in a world where magical abilities seem to decide rank. As a Whisperer to animals, Orkena is forced to work in the royal stables until her magic dries out. But when a ruler invokes the Crossing in order to decide which one of his heirs will take the throne, everything changes.

It’s a death-defying race across the desert where an heir must kill someone as a sacrifice at the end, and unfortunately, Orkena is presented as tribute.

6. Seasons of the Storm (Book 1) by Elle Cosimano

Release Date: June 23, 2020

Genre: YA/Fantasy

I got THIS little hottie from Edelweiss+ and YES I did click on it for the cover, but I requested for the plootttttt.

Seasons. KILLING. Seasons!

Seasons of the Storm follows Jack Sommers, who was given the choice to live forever or die. He chose life, but he was then forced to become Winter and act as the physical embodiment of the season.

But the seasons aren’t a casual breeze or gentle snowfall, every year he must hunt down the season that went before him, and kill them.

Summer kills Spring.

Autumn kills Summer.

Winter kills Autumn.

Spring kills Winter.

Also…why did the author give him the last name of Sommers if he’s mister Winter…?

7. Sisters of Sword and Song by Rebecca Ross

Release Date: June 23, 2020

Genre: YA/Fantasy

If there’s a scorpion on the cover, your girl needs it.

Sisters of Sword and Song has another little Hunger Games vibe, but more in the sense of sisters volunteering for sisters.

It has been eight years since sisters Evadne and Halcyon (FFS, these names) have been together, as Halcyon has been away serving in the Queen’s army. But when she returns earlier than expected, her sister learns that she is on the run and being charged with murder.

As Halcyon’s punishment is brought down upon her, Eva volunteers as tribute…*cough*…wait…volunteers ~~as tribute~~ to take part of her sister’s sentence. But what the girls are sentenced to is apparently

8. I Killed Zoe Spanos by Kit Frick

Release Date: June 30, 2020

Genre: YA/Mystery/Thriller

SO excited for this murder/mystery thriller I got from Netgalley!

I Killed Zoe Spanos is about two teens who become linked after one confesses to murder, and the other fights to reveal the truth.

Anna Cicconi is in the Hamptons for a Summer nanny job, but when she arrives, she finds that the community is in uproar after the disappearance of a local girl named Zoe Spanos. And what is odd, is Anna has a striking resemblance to Zoe, so the residents are more than unhinged to see her walking around.

But two months later, Zoe’s body is found, and Anna is charged with manslaughter after confessing.

9. Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh

Release Date: June 30, 2020

Genre: Science-Fiction/Dystopian

I know Dystopian novels have kind of gone by the waste-side in recent years as YA Fantasy took over, but for me, this type of eerie Uptopian/Dystopian book is ALL I EVER WANT!

Blue Ticket will be my first Sophie Mackintosh read (thanks Edelweiss+), but from the reviews I’m seeing, it won’t be my last.

It’s set in a world of a Lottery deciding the fate of a woman.

Upon a woman’s first bleeding, she has the chance of becoming a Blue Ticket woman or a White Ticket woman. The White Ticket grants you marriage and children, while the Blue Ticket grants career and freedom.

“You are relieved of the terrible burned of choice.”

When Calla, who has a Blue Ticket, begins to question her fate and her desires as she becomes pregnant, and wonders if the Lottery truly knows what is best for her.

10. Goddess in the Machine (Book 1) by Lora Beth Johnson

Release Date: June 30, 2020

Genre: YA/Science-Fiction

There is currently a giveaway for this on Goodreads, so go enter!!

Goddess in the Machine is all about cryonic slumber, waking up in the year 3102 and the descendants of a girl’s family and friends thinking she’s a deity.

Andra knows she is no deity, but goes along with the charade as she tries to figure out what has happened to the world in the thousand years that she was asleep. But for an exiled bastard prince named Zhade…