for no one lives when a banshee cries

Hide the stars while banshees sing

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The Gilded Wolves

My rating: 5/5 stars.

I don't know what I expected, but there's only one thing I'm mad about in this book: the fact that there aren't any wolves.

The Gilded Wolves seamlessly integrates multiple cultures and mythologies with a fictional setting — a city in what I'm presuming is the France of 1889. It builds intriguing, well-developed characters in an intriguing, well-developed world and is masterful in its depiction of those characters in a way that makes me look and relate.

"One can always rely on a man's hubris. I figured you wouldn't share the letter." Hypnos tilted his head. "How devastating for you. To let down your team and admit that you'd failed. Oh, don't look at me like that, Séverin. The Order may not have looked in your direction all this time, but I have." "I'm flattered you think I'm worth watching." Hypnos winked. "With a face like that? I must not be the only one."

Tristan and Séverin, with their desperation to look out for each other; Laila with her desperate, harsh horror looking at how her culture has been twisted; Zofia and her struggle to connect and understand; Enrique and his quiet realisation that he is not as good as he wishes to be; Hypnos and his want to be accepted. I found myself loving and relating to all of these characters — especially to Hypnos; bisexual French aristocrat with a desperate need for acceptance, Séverin; vicious and ruthless in the denial of his inheritance and his history, and Zofia; showing all the signs of autism with no confirmation.

(As an autistic person myself, I hope it is confirmed eventually!)

(spoilers below the tag)

Tristan's death, while heartbreaking, was foreshadowed in the lack of chapters from his point of view and in how quietly desperate Séverin was to protect him throughout the book. That desperation speaks of an exploitable weakness in these kinds of stories, and while I had hoped it would not happen, that it did was not surprising.

Another thing I loved was how easily everything was tied together — Tristan's gardens, named after the sins; and Séverin's names for their stepfathers; matching. Séverin's memories of his past stepfather's abuse — specifically Wrath — and the villain's exploitation of the methods Wrath had used was something terrible, but something tied together so beautifully. I cannot help but admire Roshani Chokshi's writing.

Roux Joubert's voice was low, damp against Séverin's neck. "I could make you an angel, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie."

The build to the climax was written so beautifully, and I cannot deny the fact that I most certainly did not expect the plot twist at the end. The Gilded Wolves easily became the kind of book I could not put down.

I must admit, magical heist stories have, quite honestly, become the — genre, for lack of a better word — that I actively search for now. Both this and Six of Crows have set a really quite high bar.

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A Court of Thorns and Roses

My rating: 4/5 stars.

When I first read A Court of Thorns and Roses, I hated it. I was thirteen or fourteen — in retrospect, probably a bit too young for the book —and my love for faerie myth tripped me up multiple times while reading it. I wasn't a huge fan of romance, was of the opinion that the one between Tamlin and Feyre felt far too forced, and, for some godforsaken reason, I hated Lucien. Now I'm seventeen, wiser, more mature — more equipped to handle this book in general. And while I'm still not a huge fan of first person, I think that Sarah J Maas' writing is, in this book, far better than her writing in the first couple of Throne of Glass books. The prose was interesting, the plot intriguing, and while I think Feyre specifically is not a very intelligent character — not because of her inability to read, but because she acts in ways that are far too brave and far too reckless for me; a more reserved, calculating person; so I suppose cunning would be a better word to use there — I do see why she chooses to act as she does, and I can easily admire her for her ability to look past surface masks, regret past misdeeds and care for those who offer her nothing in return. Basically: if you read ACOTAR once, years ago, and thought it desperate; if you read it once, years ago, and criticised it harshly, give it one more chance. You might be surprised.

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The Cruel Prince

My rating: 4.5/5 stars

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black is a gorgeous book, full of magic and intrigue and betrayal. Like most books about the fae—especially those with human protagonists—it is full of tricky wordplay and intricate, woven lies.

The protagonist is Jude, a 17-year-old mortal girl raised in Faerie, after her sister’s father killed her parents and stole her and her siblings away. She grew up in Faerie; grew up in this land where the fruits are poison and the drinks narcotics; aphrodisiacs; all things fae revel in and mortals suffer in response too. She learns fear, as it is a constant in her life—a life as a part of the fae, where humans are far, far lesser—and she learns how to smile and pretend it isn’t there. But, most importantly: Jude learns to be dangerous. She learns to be unknown and unseen, learns to be vicious and ruthless and she learns to use the fact that she is mortal as a weapon.

“I want to win. I do not yearn to be their equal. In my heart, I yearn to best them.”

Jude is, quite honestly, one of my favourite female characters in the books I have read recently.

Jude may be the main character, but each of the others is equally well-developed and worthy of discussion—Vivi, who swore she would never forgive her father for taking her from her life; Cardan, cruel in the way he has learnt from his brother; Dain, vicious and strong and cunningly unkind; Taryn, unknowingly, unwillingly, heartbreakingly mean; Locke, who plays and plays and plays with mortals and will not stop; Madoc, who follows his nature and wishes for war, but tries oh-so-desperately to keep his children from it. The plot twists and developments in this book had my thoughts and opinions on these characters vacillating so wildly that I dropped the book when I actually started relating to Cardan. Cardan.

Let me be disappointed in myself in peace.

Given my extreme propensity towards fantasy books full of political intrigue and betrayal, I am already predisposed towards fae books. Given how much I loved Holly Black’s The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, I was definitely always going to pick this book up at some point. I’m inordinately glad it was now—17 years old to match the protagonist’s own age and slowly learning how to analyse and break apart everything I loved and/or hated about a book.

That way, I can easily say this: the only thing I disliked about The Cruel Prince was the budding relationship between Cardan and Jude, and even then, that was only a mild dislike. It can easily come across as impersonal manipulation as opposed to a budding romance, so if you aren’t in the mood for mortal-girl-falls-in-love-with-the-cruel-handsome-fae-boy-who-tormented-her you can read it as mortal-girl-manipulates-fae-prince, which is, quite honestly, far more entertaining.

“After our kiss, I am such a fool over you that I can hardly contain myself,” I tell him with as much sarcasm as I can muster. “All I want is to do nice things to make you happy. Sure, I’ll make whatever bargain you want, so long as you kiss me again. Go ahead and run. I definitely won’t shoot you in the back.” He blinks a few times. “Hearing you lie outright is a bit disconcerting.”

All in all, The Cruel Prince is a book I would most definitely recommend, especially to those who love beautifully flowing prose, political intrigue, fae wordplay, the hate-to-love trope, or all of the above.

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Ash Princess

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian is a take on a trope I’m sure we’ve all seen many times before: the princess of an overthrown kingdom has to overthrow an oppressive government and. retake her throne. It is, however, one of the best takes on this trope I’ve ever seen.

Unlike most, Ash Princess does not shy away from the harsh, dangerous reality of what it would be like as the monarch of an overthrown realm. It starts, harshly, with a rich image and a horrifying scene:

“You are our people’s only hope, Theodosia.”

And then they cut her throat and they took my name.

This book takes these tropes and then it takes reality and it does not shy away from the horror. It doesn’t dance around the things that happen; the slavery, the rape, the whippings Theodosia takes every time her people rebel. It does not shy away from how one would feel in that situation; doesn’t shy away from the hate she feels, if only for a moment, towards her people and the pain they cause her.

Theodosia as a character is interesting. She hates her captors, but she fears them just as much—if not more so—and so she tucks herself away, becomes the quiet, beaten-down Ash Princess, because that is what they want to see. She makes mistakes—many of them—and her emotions get in the way of being the harsh, wartime Queen she needs to be.

On the whole, though, she is manipulative and petty and harsh, and I, personally, love her. She’s a flawed character, and it’s a brilliant example of humanity at both its finest and its worst.

My name is Theodosia Eirene Houzzara, Queen of Astrea, and I will endure this.

Theodosia is a person—a Queen—distrusted by her own people. She is a sixteen-year-old girl forced into a life she should never have had to live, a sixteen-year-old girl who doesn’t always make the best choices, but tries to do what is best for herself and her people. She is a girl who learnt quickly that the best way to avoid punishment is to be good. So she does, and, because she does, her people—understandably, of course—do not trust her.

This book not only has an intriguing plotline and brilliant writing, but the author—Laura Sebastian—demonstrates a base understanding of the reality of both humanity and colonialism.

I would like to finish this with the author’s response to being asked about rape in this book:

One of my biggest pet peeves in storytelling is when rape is used as a plot device. I didn’t want to do that here. But at the same time, it would have been been disingenuous to write about colonization without including it.

Though there isn’t on-page rape, there are some scenes where the unspoken threat of it hangs over Theo’s head. There are scenes with uninvited and inappropriate touching.

There is also physical and psychological abuse including one graphic whipping scene. Again, this kind of violence was not something I set out to write and, in all honesty, they were the hardest scenes for me. But again, I felt they were necessary.

Theo’s world is an ugly one and I found its roots in real history. Not including the violent aspects and the ripples created by them would have been, I felt, to gloss over the atrocities of war and colonization that persist to this day in our very real world.

[faeflowerfeline]

“Sora,” the Dragon Prince says. His voice is terrifyingly, heartbreakingly real; charismatic in a way that Fairy doesn’t think she could ever be capable of becoming. He is so much so—so much more—that she finds herself taking half a step forwards; half a step towards what seems like salvation; before she even realises what she’s doing. “Join me,” the Dragon Prince says, and his voice is somewhere between a beg and a command. He seems betrayed, Fairy realises. Like he’d never expected Sora to switch sides.

Like he hadn’t controlled her to do so in the first place.

Like this, Fairy can almost see why Sora was swayed in the first place. Why she was in so deep that she tried to kill who she thought was her empress—why she tried to kill Fairy, in disguise.

But—

“No,” Sora says, and her voice is firm. She doesn’t move an inch, doesn’t even sway towards the Dragon Prince and his all-encompassing charm, and Fairy finds that she respects her and fears her in equal measure. Sora is harsh, unwelcoming, and her eyes, as they stare at their enemy—a boogieman come to life; the villain from their childhood stories and their childhood fear, who stands now before them in resplendent glory—are cold as ice. “I will never join you.”

At that, the Dragon Prince smirks. “But you did, once,” he says. “You stood by my side, by your sister’s side, and you did whatever I asked without question.”

Sora doesn’t even hesitate. “That was not allegiance,” she says. “That was not loyalty. That was control. And the fact that you cannot tell the difference between the two tells me more about your character than I think you ever wanted any of your ‘subjects’ to ever know.” When she says ‘subjects’, her voice changes, twists. Her face twists with it, into something harsh and disgusted. Fairy can’t help but agree. The Dragon Prince doesn’t have subjects.

He has slaves.

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Circle of Shadows

My rating: 3/5 stars

When I got this book in my fairy loot box and saw the gorgeous cover and purple sprayed edges, I was super excited to read it! I’d heard from the Fairyloot January theme that Circle of Shadows was a “fantastic story filled with magic-wielding ninjas, betrayal, epic friendships and more”. It certainly lived up to that promise—all three of those things were featured—but I just couldn’t get into it.

It was exhausting. Bland. The writing did not at all go the “show don’t tell” route, resulting in exhausting exposition that I skipped most of and some amazingly unrealistic dialogue.

“Woah,” Sora said. “There’s an entire encampment of red tents, with long yellow-and-green banners whipping in the wind. Thirty or forty people are dancing around a fire.”

There’s so much wrong with this one section, but I’ll leave it at this: people don’t say “whipping in the wind” when they’re talking about banners, even if the colours may be relevant. It just… no. That’s not how people give scouting reports. That’s flowery language you use to bulk up anything but speech.

Honestly, I was really close to putting this down and never picking it back up.

However, the book has its good points: the writing may not be the best, but there’s so much left here that is good, and I’d hardly be a good reviewer if I didn’t talk about what was good too.

So, the characters. Sora, Daemon, Fairy, Hana, Aki…. There are so many good, well-developed characters in this series. Hell, even the villains are well-developed, and that’s not through dialogue, either. You get a sense of their motivations; feel their betrayals, understand why they chose to do what they do. You learn the pain of losing a sister, of being left behind, or being worse than, of fearing you’re not good enough for your country. I’ve always thought that writing is an art based in manipulation, and Evelyn Skye really understands how to make you feel how her characters feel.

The plot twists were well done too—even bad writing can be easily excused by a good plot. And this book has it; from the return of a villain thought long-dead to the control he exudes over others and the magic he commands so easily, the villain (who I shall not name, because, spoilers) is established very early on as not just dangerous but blatantly evil too.

The magic doesn’t make much sense for most of it—the taiga magic, specifically. Chanting “climb like a squirrel” three times to suddenly be able to climb a tree quickly? For a group of magic-wielding ninjas, taking that much time out of your fight to form hand signs and chant a manta is amazingly impractical; in fact, it’s far less practical than just fighting normally. (No wonder the Ryuu defeated them so easily, with their far more practical magic, rooted in imagination and belief.)

So, the story started out flat, gained speed and interest and ended on a relative high—writing-wise (although that’s ignoring the weird romance + hallucinogens thing, which…. I’m not even gonna get into that. No. Just… no. Don’t do that.) but not so much plot-wise. For the plot, it was a relative low. Probably because this is a duology, and everything can be fixed (or made worse!) in the next one.

All in all, I don’t think I’d really recommend it, but that’s just personal opinion. Maybe others will like it more than I did. For me and for now, it can stay a pretty book on my bookshelf.

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My first FairyLoot box arrived today! It came with some awesome loot, as well as this gorgeous signed edition of Circle of Shadows by Evelyn Skye with purple sprayed edges!!! I can’t wait to read it.

X

If you want to see me review more fairyloot books and post more photos of fairyloot hauls, consider donating to my ko-fi!

[banshee-in-the-dark]

Shadow and Bone

My rating: 4.5/5 stars

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo is a lovely book, but it’s also a book I found hard to get into. That, however, was based on personal bias: for some unknown reason, I struggle desperately with books written in first person. Third person for me, thanks.

Despite that writing choice that I don’t quite agree with but pushed through anyway, Shadow and Bone is gorgeously written and planned. The whole concept is wonderfully original and beautifully executed, with twists I’d never expected and that harsh ache of betrayal that rocks even the reader to their bones.

Having already read Six of Crows, I can admit that I was hoping for something similar in Shadow and Bone. I didn’t get something similar, but what I did get was just as good, and I’m happy to have read it.

(Honestly, I’m not entirely sure why I was expecting something more heist-y. Maybe because Leigh Bardugo is so good at heist books?)

I do have to warn, though: if you’re not a fan of huge age gaps (read: over 100 years) this might not be the book for you. While the relationship (spoiler alert!) is in no way healthy, it’s still there.

All in all, I have to commend Leigh Bardugo on her work; on creating such a wonderful, complicated world and then showing us, the reader, it and all its intricacies instead of telling us. The lack of exposition and the compelling narrative really helped me find Alina and her friends and enemies intriguing and worthwhile characters.

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The Memory Keepers

My rating: 1.5/5 stars

I read Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan—which was given to me as a Christmas present, along with The Memory Keepers—and I enjoyed it immensely. As a result, I was really excited to read this.

Unfortunately, It did not live up to my hopes. The characters, Alba and Seven, are both bland characters that are rather difficult to relate to. Alba falls into the “rich abused child” trope, whose father is, of course, the book’s main villain. Seven is, by contrast, the poor thief from the bad part of town—a member of the group of people Alba’s father repeatedly and aggressively wrongs throughout the book. For Christ's sake; they show scenes of a massacre on TV—a massacre that Seven was present for—and make it abundantly clear that they don’t regret any of it.

That they enjoy seeing it.

“The broadcast is about to begin. Girls, may I remind you that this is not a football stadium or public square in the South. You are all young ladies of the highest breeding. There will be no cheering or shouts during the broadcast, no matter how pleasing it may be.”

And, okay, Alba isn’t like that. She’s a liberal, according to her classmates. But rebelling against her parents doesn’t make her an interesting character. She thinks about crimes with a detached sort of apathy, and the way that crimes are treated throughout the book is just… weird.

For example: memory theft and illegal redistribution of memories are crimes that are seemingly considered worse than rape, given that those two things were on a list of crimes considered worthy of capital punishment and rape was not. It’s easy to see why memory theft would be on a list of crimes that can be punished that harshly, considering that your memories are a very private thing. It’s basically mind-reading, and easily a violation, but if that’s so harshly punished, why isn’t rape?

Seven, on the other hand, verged from weird into creepy. Pretty early on in the book—right in the middle of the insta-love—Seven starts thinking about how much he enjoys having power over Alba, which was immensely uncomfortable. Alba, to contrast this, trusts Seven far too much for having only just met him.

“If you’re not planning to rape or kill me, could you please shut the door?”

This may be Alba’s first line to Seven, but it is followed depressingly quickly by:

“Then take me back with you. Take me surfing on your memory machine.”

This scene just feels so off, especially after having just been told—by both Seven and Alba, in fact—that stealing memories is a crime worthy of capital punishment. Trusting someone after they admit to having done one of the worst crimes of that time? Alba, what drugs are you on and where can I get some?

Honestly, I probably should have realised the book wouldn’t be great right here:

I will say, however, that the world itself interested me: the North/South division of a London set in the 2300s (ish), the idea of Memory Keepers and of memories that can be traded and viewed by others. With more interesting characters and less depressingly juvenile jokes—calling memory thieves ‘skid thieves’, after skid marks on underwear, for one—I probably would have really enjoyed this. As it stands right now, I only made it to page 194.

[banshee-in-the-dark]

The Gloaming

My Rating: 5/5 stars

Kirsty Logan's The Gloaming is a book about love and loss and magic—but, most of all, it is a story about hardship. It is a story about relationships that fall apart and relationships that both sides work to hold true; that both sides work to maintain. It is a book about giving and taking; about taking too much and becoming stone and giving too much and joining the sea.

It is a story about death—the beauty in it, the horror in it. It is a tale of sorrow and woe and finding a light in the darkness; finding a light and gripping it with two hands, holding on and never letting go.

(It is a story about giving that light everything you have and more and getting everything it has in return.)

"We talked about what happened to people after they died and you said... you said maybe this was dying. You said the sea would keep going, keep licking and licking at us until we were all gone. Until there was nothing of us but sunken bones, and then we would have to stay here forever."

"Mara, I think you were right. I think this is dying."

The Gloaming, despite the stone islanders marching their way to the cliffs to die; despite the little boys lost to the sea; despite the knowledge that Selkies always leave; despite a mother's insistence on changing the tales so that her daughters can grow up with magic, is not a horror story.

It isn't really a love story either.

Back before I died, when I was little and golden and gorging myself on magic, the island never seemed small to me. Every day my sisters and I made the world anew. Every day was a world within a world. Perhaps if I hadn't been born right when I was, my sisters would have been different. I think they were almost ready to stop dreaming and see the world for what it was. But how could they shake off their dreams, when they had to dream them all afresh for me?

Maybe The Gloaming is a story about the reality of the world. Maybe it is a story about the magic in the world that we can't see.

Maybe it isn't about either of those things.

Either way; The Gloaming is a gorgeous book with gorgeous, engrossing writing. It is a book I am glad I found and read and a book I strongly recommend to anyone else who enjoys books that make them feel like they're drowning.

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Should I read The Memory Keepers by Natasha Ngan or The Gloaming by Kirsty Logan next?

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Girls of Paper and Fire

My rating: 5/5 stars

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan was a book I went into expecting it to be a typical forbidden love—girl meets boy, they fall in love, despite anyone and everyone around them telling them they can't. To my immense delight, it was not: instead, it is a slightly more atypical forbidden love.

Girl meets girl.

I am here for the fact that my first book of 2019 was a wlw romance that dealt with the heavy themes of sexual abuse in a system that does not just enable it—it actively encourages it—and, additionally, a book that has a character who fights back against her abusers, even killing him in the end.

There's a line I see many reviewers quoting;

We might be Paper Girls, easily torn and written upon. The very title we're given suggests that we are blank, waiting to be filled. But what the Demon King and his court do not understand is that paper is flammable. And there is a fire catching among us.

Which is a fair and important line to quote: it shows the strength of these girls, chosen amongst all girls of the Paper caste, to be nothing more than the concubines of the King. It shows that they can and will fight back; that they choose to be more than Paper Girls, that they choose to have a life more important than that. As Wren says, so eloquently; "I don't want an easy life. I want a meaningful one."

But there is so much in this book that is important; from Lei's assertion that she will fight back, to Aoki's dangerous (and seemingly stupid) love for the King. It is a book that deals with Stockholm Syndrome, with fathers that will sell their daughter's bodies for political power and with the reality of the fact that, although both are seen as unacceptable in some societies, being a gay woman (especially a gay woman of colour) is somehow seen as less acceptable—and is, therefore, shown less; read about less; seen as nothing but a fantasy for straight men to get off on—than being a gay (white) man.

This is a gorgeous own-voice novel with brilliant writing and gripping, heart-wrenching plot, and I will most definitely be reading more of Ngan's work in the future.