Tag: historicalfiction

The Sin Eater Review

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A Sin Eater’s duty is a necessary evil: she hears the final private confessions of the dying, eats their sins as a funeral rite, and so guarantees their souls access to heaven. It is always women who eat sins – since it was Eve who first ate the Forbidden Fruit – and every town has at least one, not that they are publicly acknowledged. Stained by the sins they are obliged to consume, the Sin Eater is shunned and silenced, doomed to live in exile at the edge of town. Recently orphaned May Owens is just fourteen, and has never considered what it might be like to be so ostracized; she’s more concerned with where her next meal is coming from. When she’s arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, however, and subsequently sentenced to become a Sin Eater, finding food is suddenly the last of her worries. It’s a devastating sentence, but May’s new invisibility opens new doors. And when first one then two of the Queen’s courtiers suddenly grow ill, May hears their deathbed confessions – and begins to investigate a terrible rumour that is only whispered of amid palace corridors.

Death Beside the Seaside Review

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July 1910. Lady Hardcastle and her tireless sidekick Flo have finally embarked on a long-overdue seaside break. But just as they’re wavering between ice creams and donkey rides, their fellow guests start to go missing—and the duo find themselves with a hysterical hotel manager and a case to solve. The first to disappear is Dr Goddard, a scientist doing something terribly top-secret for the government. Gone too are his strongbox and its mysterious contents. By the time Lady Hardcastle has questioned the horde of international guests, her number-one suspect has been dispatched in grisly circumstances—and then the others start vanishing too. As the case begins to look like a matter of national security, Lady Hardcastle takes advice from her brother in the secret service. But could there be an even more personal connection at play?

To read my thoughts… click the title!

The Boundless Review

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  • Author: Kenneth Oppel
  • Series: Standalone
  • Genre: Historical/Magic Realism
  • No. of page: 332
  • Dates read: 12.05.19 – 15.05.19
  • Rating: 2 stars
  • Challenge: ONTD Challenge May Theme “A book set in a country you’ve never been to”. (Canada)

I had a lot of hope for this book. I had only recently added it onto my TBR list and happened upon it while in the library. This book, to me, had so much going for it but it just lacked in execution.

Plot: When Will Everett boards The Boundless he expects the ride of his life – not a fast route to death. But when the key to the train’s secret cargo falls into his possession he finds himself hunted by ruthless killers. As the great train hurtles across the country he will need all his wits to elude his pursuers – and keep himself alive. (Goodreads)

The overall writing was quite boring, I understand it needs to be easy as this is aimed at a more younger audience but the writing could have been more exciting! This book to me felt like it was a middle grade novel trying to be a YA novel. One thing I did enjoy with the writing was that it covered a lot of deep-rooted issues like racism, colonisation and sexism which I felt was handled well but then on the flip side the character does black face and is trying to pass off as Indian in order to not be recognised by the villain and that made me feel uncomfortable.

The book tackled with a lot of genres; historical fiction, fantasy and magic realism. While I normally enjoy a mismatch of genres this felt all over the place for me. I guess it was meant to play with the question of “what is magic?” and “is it magic or just an illusion?” but I don’t think it was executed that well.

I love stories set on trains. I think it’s a really interesting setting for a novel and the description of the different carriages was fun and varied, what I expect from a middle grade novel. I loved the imagination!

The characters were fun and slightly layered which was enjoyable and I loved going on the journey with them. Will, as a main character was fine, but you stay for the secondary characters as they bought more personality to the table. My favourite character would have to be Maren, a self-assured female character that had many different sides to her. I would have preferred if she was the protagonist of the story. She was the more interesting of the two.

The next book I will be reviewing is Viper by Bex Hogan. A book I obtained from the Fairyloot March Box. I have not had great luck with the books from the Fairyloot packages so I am hoping to enjoy this book but I am a bit worried.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August Review

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  • Author: Claire North
  • Series: Standalone
  • Genre: Sci-fi/Historical
  • No of pages: 405
  • Date read: 05.04.19 – 11.04.19
  • Rating: 4 stars
  • Challenge: ONTD April Theme “Time Travel”

I have been needing a book like this for so long!

This is my current favourite of 2019!

I read this book for the ONTD book of the month of April. The theme for April was time-travel and I was curious about what I was going to read and saw this book which had been sitting on my TBR for so long and thought, this is the moment!

Overall, Harry is a really intriguing character! We see him over 15 lifetimes and we learn more and more about him as each life passes. We know what makes him tick, what makes him laugh, what makes him cry and he feels like someone you know and understands like a friend as we watch him go on this journey. I really enjoyed his POV.

One of my favourites thing about the plot was the flipping between the current over-arching narrative working alongside the little peeks into important moments in Harry’s other lives. We will have a major plot point occur and followed up by an insight into his childhood from his 4th life and we learn about his relationship with his father. I think the pacing works well, switching between moments of high adrenaline and then moments of calm. I think this kind of narrative is also important to Harry’s character development.

I loved the Cronus Club and all the characters you meet because of the Cronus Club. Especially, all the jokes that members and other Kalacharka make regarding their immortality and constantly going through new cycles of life. I loved the jokes of not wanting to go through puberty again. The Cronus Club as a franchise was really intriguing, I loved learning how they worked and how they communicated with the future and the past.

North’s writing to me was really enjoyable. Her writing sucked me into the point where I couldn’t put the book down. I just wanted to keep on reading!

One thing I would say is there is a lot of science jargon and philosophical debate that is held between two characters of very high intelligence and those scenes would just go way over my head and came across quite dull as I couldn’t understand half of what they said. Chapters would be dedicated to these scientific debates and I got bored of those chapters quite quickly.

To me this was a slow burn of a book, I was always really enjoying it but I never had a moment of a sucker-punch WOW moment. It just grew on me slowly and when I finished it I just sat there and thought that was such a good book! This book was consistent, apart from the science debates, I loved every moment of this book and enjoyed picking back up everytime!