Month: Aug 2020

Consigned to Oblivion – B.C. Hedlund

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Rating: 4 out of 5.
It’s been a long time since I read a book like this, that forces you to read and digest every sentence, that doesn’t allow you to read quickly and skim. It was a welcome change. This is a beautifully written book, from a surprisingly young full length debut author. It’s definitely a coming of age story, but it will appeal to people of all ages.

The book is about Cassandra, a haunted teenager undertaking her senior year at high school, however it focusses a lot on her relationships with others in similar situations to her, that all have a reason to be drifting and how they exist in the world together. The book covers a number of difficult topics, death, suicide, family losses, self harm and mental health, and how all of these impact others. Hedlund describes the main character as blurring the lines between fiction and reality and this is definitely true – Cassandra is battling herself and others both internally and externally.

The path the book takes meant I really enjoyed the secondary characters of Rachel and Lily and Owen is well written. If you’re reading for the LBGTQ+ content – stick with it – it’s there.

Hedlund shows a lot of potential with this title and I hope to see more like this in the future.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

Queers Who Don’t Quit – Edited by G. Benson

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Rating: 4 out of 5.
I always find anthologies tough to review and this one is no exception. There were a number of stories I really enjoyed, and a few that were misses for me. The representation this collection of stories gives to the LGBTQIA+ community is amazing, variable and well thought out. The story lengths are vary variable – there are some great stories that were over way too soon. I struggled to get into the first half of the book and thought I was on my way to a three star review – but there are some hidden gems in the second half.

I appreciated the range of genres – especially as it forced me out of my comfort zone a few times and now has me considering some genres I would not normally have thought about reading. I particularly enjoyed Punchline by G Benson, First Day Back by A.P. Raymond and Some Things Are More Important by Addy Long. This Is What You Get by Evie Riojas, Werewolf Blues by Eve Morton, The Path To Truth by Aila Alvina Boyd and First Cute by Elna Holst also deserve a mention. I will definitely be exploring the work of all these authors further.

The wide range of representation, both of the community and the genres means there is something for everyone in this collection and I would definitely recommend giving this collection a read.

I received an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Sylver and Gold – Michelle Larkin

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Rating: 5 out of 5.
This was my first Michelle Larkin book and I wasn’t disappointed. I’d read a number of positive reviews for this book before I started and I have to say I agree with them all wholeheartedly – I loved reading this. I’m not normally one for anything to do with the paranormal in the books I read, but I found this to be a really good way of adding this element to a cop story in order to make it different.

I probably shouldn’t have made the decision to read this in the dark late at night – it is a bit creepy at times, but the thing that pleasantly surprised me was that although the book has lots of murder and other dark moments shared between the main characters, I was always left with a positive light feeling whilst reading.

I loved the interactions between Sylver and Gold, Mug the dog had real personality and I enjoyed the secondary characters. I thought the spirits were well written and meaningful and were used really effectively to continue the story moving forwards. I thought Sylver’s interactions with the spirits might get boring and repetitive but this wasn’t the case.

This one is definitely heading to my read again pile.

I received an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Off Balance – L.E. Royal

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Rating: 4 out of 5.
I’m still struggling a little with how I feel about this book, even though I’ve sat on it for a while.

Firstly, it’s not quite a four star book – more of 3.75, so I’m rounding up. There are some parts of this book I really enjoyed and others that left me with a bit of a sour taste. I like a workplace romance, and an age-gap romance and I didn’t mind the power dynamic as such – I was uncomfortable with some of the conversations – however I can imagine someone saying these things – so they aren’t necessarily unrealistic.

I only know the basics of CP, so in order to review the work fairly I did a bit of reading. The depiction seems in line with the type of CP discussed in the book so whilst I’m not really qualified to discuss it in much more depth, I am disabled and relatively high functioning, so am comfortable talking about the feelings Elena displays, which to be fair, are mostly pretty much exactly how I’ve felt at times. Elena’s stubbornness and desire to ‘go it alone’ read very true, as does the impact of having a loving relationship on those feelings.

I loved the interactions with Maya’s daughter – Livvie – and Elena – in fact they were probably my favourite part of the book. I also really enjoyed the non-binary representation of Maya’s best friend, the use of pronouns and the discussion of introducing this to Livvie.

This is definitely worth a read – it just comes with a beware it isn’t a particularly light book.

I received an e-ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.