So, the UK had a bank holiday yesterday and to be frank I completely got confused by the days so here is my day late post.

Today I will be talking about some books that I loved that I don’t see hyped enough online! Here are 5 books that I believe deserve to be shouted out!

The Last Days of Jack Sparks – Jason Arnopp

Plot: Jack Sparks died while writing this book. It was no secret that journalist Jack Sparks had been researching the occult for his new book. No stranger to controversy, he’d already triggered a furious Twitter storm by mocking an exorcism he witnessed. Then there was that video: forty seconds of chilling footage that Jack repeatedly claimed was not of his making, yet was posted from his own YouTube account. Nobody knew what happened to Jack in the days that followed – until now. 

Going into this I had no idea if I was going to like it or not. It was a bit out of my comfort zone but I ended up loving it so much!

Battle Royale – Koushun Takami

Plot: A class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing.

I was inspired to read this after watching the movie on Netflix and I was super invested! It is gory and quite dark but you just get so invested in these characters lives and you want to see what happens to them. If you are a fan of the Hunger Games then you will enjoy this.

To Best the Boys – Mary Weber

Plot: Every year for the past fifty-four years, the residents of Pinsbury Port have received a mysterious letter inviting all eligible-aged boys to compete for an esteemed scholarship to the all-male Stemwick University. The poorer residents look to see if their names are on the list. The wealthier look to see how likely their sons are to survive. And Rhen Tellur opens it to see if she can derive which substances the ink and parchment are created from, using her father’s microscope. In the province of Caldon, where women train in wifely duties and men pursue collegiate education, sixteen-year-old Rhen Tellur wants nothing more than to become a scientist. As the poor of her seaside town fall prey to a deadly disease, she and her father work desperately to find a cure. But when her mum succumbs to it as well? Rhen decides to take the future into her own hands—through the annual all-male scholarship competition. With her cousin, Seleni, by her side, the girls don disguises and enter Mr. Holm’s labyrinth, to best the boys and claim the scholarship prize. Except not everyone is ready for a girl who doesn’t know her place. And not everyone survives the deadly maze.

Now I love anything set in a Labyrinth, so I was so excited to read this! This was a super fun and inventive YA novel. I really enjoyed this, if you want a quick read that you can get lost in I would highly recommend this.

The Last Smile in Sunder City – Luke Arnold

Plot: Welcome to Sunder City. The magic is gone but the monsters remain. I’m Fetch Phillips, just like it says on the window. There are a few things you should know before you hire me:
1. Sobriety costs extra.
2. My services are confidential.
3. I don’t work for humans.
It’s nothing personal—I’m human myself. But after what happened, to the magic, it’s not the humans who need my help.

This is the perfect book if you are a fan of detective noir novels and urban fantasy. There is a sequel out already and the books just get better with each instalment.

The Snow Child – Eowyn Ivey

Plot: Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart–he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season’s first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone–but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

A beautiful and poignant re-telling of The Snow Maiden. If you are a fan of more character driven novels than plot focused ones then this book is a great option!

So, here we are. I hope I might have recommended a new favourite book for you!