Kellan Reads and Reviews

A place to put all my book Reviews and thoughts

[kellansreads]

Review for In these Gilded, Ghostly Hearts

Title: In These Gilded, Ghostly Hearts

Author: Gwendolyn Kiste

Publisher: Creature Publishing

Categories: Fiction, Horror, LGBTQIA+, sapphic

Rating: 5

Thank you to Creature Publishing and Netgalley for a free e-arc of this novella in exchange for my honest review

To say the Great Gatsby is one of my favorite novels is an understated.  It taught me to love classics and showed the glamour and seedy underside of the Roaring Twenties.

And this book exceeds in capturing all that, as well as the danger of being queer in the 50s.  The characters were amazing, and more importantly, the characters of Jay and Daisy felt so much like the characters from the original Novel you'd be forgiven for believing it could have been written by the Great F. Scott Fitzgerald himself.

[kellansreads]

Review for Deathly Fates

Title: Deathly Fates

Author: Tesia Tsai

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Categories: Fiction, Fantasy, YA

Rating: 3.75

Thank you to St Martin's Press and Netgalley for this free e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

This book is very evocative and the characters felt real and believable. I truly felt their sorry, anger and joys and I will admit I did see the romance coming a mile away, as I'm sure everyone did.

That being said, the ending did feel a tad too rushed and many of the biggest plot points I was able to guess long before they happened in the book.

Overall A good read and a wonderful Stand Alone.

[kellansreads]

Review for The Secret World of Briar Rose.

Title: The Secret World of Briar Rose

Author: Cindy Pham

Publisher: Penquin Young Readers Group

Categories: Fiction, Fantasy, Sapphic, LGBTQIA, YA

Rating: 5 stars

Review: Thank you to Netgalley and Cindy Pham for this free ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Sleeping Beauty Faerie tale has always been my favorite, having grown up wearing out a VHS of Disney's sleeping beauty as a child. When I heard this was going to be a more sapphic retelling I was intrigued, and when the chance came to get this off Netgalley, I had to jump at the chance.

This book had me laughing, crying, angry, happy. I felt for these characters, and the twists and turns the story took kept me wanting to read just one more Chapter throughout picking it up. The story moved in ways I wasn't expecting, and every time I thought I knew what was going to happen next, I was shocked by a new twist in the tale.

If you are a fan of Sleeping Beauty, or even Faerie tale retellings that take the original story and twist it into something even better, then you must read this book.

I will be purchasing a copy to sit on my shelves and to reread any time I wish to greet the new friends I made in this book. The story of Briar Rose and Corin and every other character that I met in this story.

[kellansreads]

An introduction

Hello, and welcome to my book blog. I felt an introduction is appropriate for those who don't know me, I am Kellan, a 44 Trans Masc living currently in Texas. I am using this space to post my arc reviews and other thoughts on books here.

I read primarily fiction, with a focus on Fantasy and Science Fiction, though I will never turn down a good thriller or horror novel. I lean towards reading LGBTQIA, but it's not limited to just that. I don't usually review books beyond star rating but as I am working on my Netgalley TBR, I figured having a dedicated place to post my reviews would be nice.