A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

A Torch Against the Night by Sabaa Tahir

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Received: Publisher
Publication Date: August 30th, 2016
Publisher: Razorbill
Point of View: 1st Person & Alternative
Recommended Age: 13+
Pacing: Slow
Genres & Themes: Young Adult, High Fantasy, Magic, War

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BLURB:

Elias and Laia are running for their lives. After the events of the Fourth Trial, Martial soldiers hunt the two fugitives as they flee the city of Serra and undertake a perilous journey through the heart of the Empire.

Laia is determined to break into Kauf—the Empire’s most secure and dangerous prison—to save her brother, who is the key to the Scholars’ survival. And Elias is determined to help Laia succeed, even if it means giving up his last chance at freedom.

But dark forces, human and otherworldly, work against Laia and Elias. The pair must fight every step of the way to outsmart their enemies: the bloodthirsty Emperor Marcus, the merciless Commandant, the sadistic Warden of Kauf, and, most heartbreaking of all, Helene—Elias’s former friend and the Empire’s newest Blood Shrike.

Bound to Marcus’s will, Helene faces a torturous mission of her own—one that might destroy her: find the traitor Elias Veturius and the Scholar slave who helped him escape…and kill them both.

Review: The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Received: Bought
Publication Date: 1996
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Point of View: 1st Person & Masculine
Recommended Age: 12+
Genres & Themes: High Fantasy

BLURB:

The king’s scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king’s prison. The magus is interested only in the thief’s abilities.

What Gen is interested in is anyone’s guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses.

Review: The Winner’s Crime (The Winner’s Trilogy, #2) by Marie Rutkoski

The Winner’s Crime by Marie Rutkoski

My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Received: NetGalley
Publication Date: March 3rd 2015
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (UK & ANZ)
Genres & Themes: YA, High Fantasy, Romance, War-setting, Conspiracy, Secrets, Betrayal, Family.

BLURB:

Book two of the dazzling Winner’s Trilogy is a fight to the death as Kestrel risks betrayal of country for love.

The engagement of Lady Kestrel to Valoria’s crown prince means one celebration after another. But to Kestrel it means living in a cage of her own making. As the wedding approaches, she aches to tell Arin the truth about her engagement…if she could only trust him. Yet can she even trust herself? For—unknown to Arin—Kestrel is becoming a skilled practitioner of deceit: an anonymous spy passing information to Herran, and close to uncovering a shocking secret.

As Arin enlists dangerous allies in the struggle to keep his country’s freedom, he can’t fight the suspicion that Kestrel knows more than she shows. In the end, it might not be a dagger in the dark that cuts him open, but the truth. And when that happens, Kestrel and Arin learn just how much their crimes will cost them.