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Book Review: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

Dec 17, 2016

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

Pages: 352
Publish date: December 1st, 2016
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
ISBN: 1489219552
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU – Dymocks

Fate and fortune. Power and passion. What does it take to be the queen of a kingdom when you’re only seventeen?

Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of death and destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father’s kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran’s queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar’s wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire…

But Akaran has its own secrets—thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most…including herself.

The Star-Touched Queen:

I received an ARC of The Star-Touched Queen Roshani Chokshi from Harlequin Teen Australia in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.

I have been wanting to read The Star-Touched Queen for quite some time, but up until recently, it hadn’t been published here in Australia. Then I received a review copy and I was hanging out to read it. However, I did put it off as I was waiting for the release date to be a little closer. And after reading The Star-Touched Queen, I am a little disappointed.

The Star-Touched Queen follows protagonist Maya, daughter of the Raja and holder of a terrible horoscope. It is said that her marriage will follow with death and destruction. The kingdom not only feared her but hold a hatred that is cemented deep into her life. Her life changes when her father arranges a marriage of political convinces, that will hopefully bring some peace to the kingdom.

I have a love/hate relationship with Maya. For the most part, I truly enjoy her as a protagonist. She had this strength about her, that was somewhat empowering. Nearly everyone in her kingdom hated her or feared her, yet she didn’t let it get to her. It was great to see her stand up for herself. As the novel goes on, we get to find out who Maya truly is and she becomes even stronger. However, at times I felt like Maya’s voice shifted and she started acting and thinking, younger than she seemed to be. It was like she was a child all of a sudden.

I didn’t seem to care for the other characters in The Star-Touched Queen. There wasn’t the connection that I love to have with side characters, especially if they have interactions with the protagonist.

The romance was lacklustre for me. I didn’t feel much of a connection and I felt that it was totally insta-love. Amar is, I don’t know how to explain him. I am not totally sure that I liked him as a character per say, but I did, however, enjoy finding out his story. As The Star-Touched Queen went on, I was able to see the chemistry and tried to get over the ‘insta-love’ vibe that it was giving me.

Now to talk about the plot – the first half of the book I was good, everything seemed to flow and make sense. And then part two happen and I had no idea what was going on. It was like the whole novel changed and I was totally confused. The reader is thrown into this whole different world and we aren’t really given an explanation until the end. Even then things weren’t really explained.

In saying all this Roshani Chokshi writing in The Star-Touched Queen is absolutely stunning. I was swept away in the words and sentences that are beautifully weaved together. It’s such a different atmosphere in YA, but it was perfectly done. The world of The Star-Touched Queen is variant and colourful and that is how I felt the writing was as well. They bonded together so well.

In terms of world-building, like the plot, I was a little confused. At the start, I was able to understand what was happen, where we were and how the world worked. But when I got into part two, I was again confused.

The Star-Touched Queen is one of the first, if not the first book that I have read on Indian mythology and I enjoyed it. I love history and the concepts of mythology so it was great to dive into this diverse world that not many people talk about.

Overall, I liked The Star-Touched Queen. It’s not my favourite book out there, but it’s defiantly not my most hated. The concept was interesting, Maya was intriguing and the writing was exquisite. I was swept up into a world of magic and finding out who you really are. And although I was slightly confused, I would want to read more into this world and books from Roshani Chokshi.

Have you read The Star-Touched Queen? Did you like it? Did you have the same problems as me? Are you planning to read it? Let’s Chat!

Book Review: The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas

Apr 21, 2016

The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas

Pages: 336
Publish date: April 19 2016
Publisher: Delacorte: Random House Children’s
ISBN: 0553521454
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU

The Darkest Corners is a psychological thriller about the lies little girls tell, and the deadly truths those lies become.

There are ghosts around every corner in Fayette, Pennsylvania. Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about it after what happened there that last summer. Memories of things so dark will burn themselves into your mind if you let them.

Callie never left. She moved to another house, so she doesn’t have to walk those same halls, but then Callie always was the stronger one. She can handle staring into the faces of her demons—and if she parties hard enough, maybe one day they’ll disappear for good.

Tessa and Callie have never talked about what they saw that night. After the trial, Callie drifted and Tessa moved, and childhood friends just have a way of losing touch.

But ever since she left, Tessa has had questions. Things have never quite added up. And now she has to go back to Fayette—to Wyatt Stokes, sitting on death row; to Lori Cawley, Callie’s dead cousin; and to the one other person who may be hiding the truth.

Only the closer Tessa gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer—and this time, it won’t be so easy to run away.

The Darkest Corners:

I received an e-arc of The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas from Random House Children’s via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review, this has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.

The Darkest Corners is probably one of my favourite YA psychological thrillers. This book will mess with your mind and you will have no idea what is coming next. There are twists and there are turns.

The Darkest Corners follows protagonist Tessa as she returns to a place that she was not keen on returning to. She left Fayette with she was nine when a travesty rocked her world, she tried not to think about the things that happened before she left – she tried to lock them away, but when she returns everything starts to crumble.

Then we have Callie, she is the one that stayed, but she was never the same again. She parties every weekend to hide from the memories that were burned into her mind and hasn’t talked to Tessa since she left. So when she returns, everything comes back to haunt her.

I really enjoyed Tessa, she was such an intriguing protagonist. She has gone through so much up until now and through the novel she has to go through more. My heart broke for her so many times.

Callie, annoyed me at times, but I understand why she was the way she was. Like Tessa she has gone through hell and her mechanism of dealing with it was different to Tessa’s.

We see throughout The Darkest Corners that their friendship is quite strained. They haven’t talked to each other in forever and when events are brought back into the light that happened the summer before Tessa left – you know there is going to be trouble.

I really enjoyed the writing style of Kara Thomas in The Darkest Corners. It was quite easy to read, but the way that she can flip the plot on its head was brilliant.

I liked that The Darkest Corners had little to no romance. I usually find it quite hard to read a book without romance, however the book was that engaging that it didn’t need it for me.

The book had me on the edge of my seat. I didn’t know who to believe, what to believe or what was going to happen next. There were some things that I did guess, but that had nothing to do with the main plot. The book kept me thinking and I could not put it down, until I knew what had happened.

Nevertheless, we see questions that Tessa has been asking herself for years come into light. About Callie’s dead cousin, to what really happened that night.

Overall, The Darkest Corners by Kara Thomas is a mind-blowing, heartbreaking, intense thriller, which questions; truth, friendship and if someone can manipulate what they thought had happened. It shows us that family is not always family, not matter what you believe. If you like any book that will mess with your mind and ask you to question everyone, then this is the book for you.

Have you read The Darkest Corners? Did you like it? Are you going to read it? Let’s Chat.

Cover Reveal: Hallowed Ground by Rebecca Yarros

Dec 12, 2015

Welcome, Welcome to the cover reveal of Rebecca Yarros’ Hallowed Ground. Hallowed Ground is the fourth book in her Fight and Glory Series and it’s the sort of sequel to the first novel Full Measures.

I love this series – it’s not common that I read New Adult series but I do love to from time to time and let me tell you I love the Fight and Glory. It’s fun, hot, sexy. It makes me cry and laugh and smile. They are so fun to read but I normally end up in tears because hey they are about Military boys.

Anyway check out the beautiful and awesome cover for Hallowed Ground.

Hallowed Ground by Rebecca Yarros

Publish date: 25th January
Publisher: Entangled: Embrace
ASIN: B0191K3HWW
Purchase: Amazon UK – Amazon US

There are some debts you can’t repay.

Josh Walker is loyal, reckless, and every girl’s dream. But he only has eyes for December Howard, the girl he’s craved since his high school hockey days. Together they have survived grief, the military, distance, and time as they’ve fought for stolen weekends between his post at Ft. Rucker and her college at Vanderbilt. Now that Josh is a medevac pilot and Ember is headed toward graduation, they’re moving on—and in—together.

Ember never wanted the Army life, but loving Josh means accepting whatever the army dictates—even when that means saying goodbye as Josh heads to Afghanistan, a country that nearly killed him once before and that took her father. But filling their last days together with love, passion, and plans for their future doesn’t temper Ember’s fear, and if there’s one thing she’s learned from her father’s death, it’s that there are some obstacles even love can’t conquer.

Flight school is over.
This is war.

About the Author

Rebecca Yarros is a hopeless romantic and lover of all things chocolate, coffee, and Paleo. In addition to being a mom, military wife, and blogger, she can never choose between Young Adult and New Adult fiction, so she writes both. She’s a graduate of Troy University, where she studied European history and English, but still holds out hope for an acceptance letter to Hogwarts. Her blog, The Only Girl Among Boys, has been voted the Top Military Mom Blog the last two years, and celebrates the complex issues surrounding the military life she adores.

When she’s not writing, she’s tying on hockey skates for her kids, or sneaking in some guitar time. She is madly in love with her army-aviator husband of eleven years. They finally can call Colorado home along with their gaggle of rambunctious kiddos and snoring English Bulldog.