I Can Has Books?

I've decided to come up with a new feature, sound bites, or mini bites, bite sized reviews. Still working on the name. But the basic concept will be books that I've only said a few sentences about, which generally are when I review picture books I check out from the library. But may not be limited to them. So Welcome I guess to Mini bites? (Hmm maybe) Book 1: Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall  Series: Jabari #1 Published: May 19, 2017 Candlewick Press Hardcover 32 pages My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Jabari Jumps is a cute book in which a little boy name Jabari is going to show is dad that he can jump off the diving board, even though it's so high up. This book teaches children a way to over come a fear, and the reward that comes along with facing them.  Book 2: Freedom Soup by Tami Charles Standalone Published: December 10th, 2019 Candlewick Press My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ As a child and her Grandmother gather in the kitchen making soup, freedom soup. Her Grandmother asks her they called it

  Cemetery   Songs by Julie Gilbert Publication date: December 15th 2020 Genres: Young Adult Blurb Poignant and uplifting,  Cemetery   Songs  is a compelling YA about a girl, a ghost, and the graveyard that sends them both on a journey of self-acceptance. When Polly Stone’s birthmother dies, she feels lost and adrift. How do you mourn someone you never knew? Even the dead, whose final thoughts Polly can hear, offer no advice. Instead Polly fails her classes, alienates her friends, gets fired from her summer job, and accidentally sets fire to the high school. At a loss, Polly’s parents ground her and insist she volunteer at the local archives. The dusty boxes are boring, but Polly is intrigued by her assignment: mapping an abandoned Black settlement on the edge of town. At the very least, it gives her time to examine her confused feelings for Billy Meyer, a former classmate who is also blackmailing her. Amid weedy tombstones, Polly and Billy encounter the charming ghost of Harrison Card

  The Boy Who Walked Too Far by Dom Watson Series: The Xindii Chronicles (#1) Published: September 22, 2020 Genre: Science Fiction Horror Age Group: Adult Pages: 409 Blurb: It ’ s the end of the universe, and everything has come undone. Entropy has won the war, but one last battle rages in the half-ruined city of Testament.   No one knows who created this last outpost and peopled it with billions of species. However, it is here, under a sky with no stars, that the last remnants of life in the universe live, love, and pray to their many gods. It is here where Godrich Felstrom dies.   Most residents of Testament care little for the affairs of a single, fragile human, but the event brings back bad memories for Heironymous Xindii.  I t has been many years since the dreamurlurgy professor discovered his true potential and doomed four people in the process. Now, he lectures to bored students who dream of the many pleasures Testament has to offer. Xindii, on the other hand, becomes

    Steel & Stone by Kate Haley Series: The War of the North Saga (#1) Published: May 6, 2020 Genre: Epic Fantasy Age Group: Young Adult Pages: 251 Book Blurb   Ten years. Thousands dead. No memories.   The amnesia was supposed to be a good thing. Other soldiers bask in its freedom. Except for Elvac it doesn ’ t feel right. When he returns from his first year at war he can ’ t shake the niggling sensation that something is missing. His life has been turned upside down, yet he can ’ t remember being gone. The only proof of his time away are the scars, and the haunting dreams of fire.   With the help of his friends, Elvac begins to regain his lost memories, and with them uncover the truth of his missing year, and what the Church of Sunne is really doing with their War of the North… ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Elvac is back from war in the South, and he can not remember anything of that past year. Or at least he shouldn't. None of the soldiers do, the horrors that they witnessed and committed will haun

Havenfall by Sara Holland Young Adult Fantasy Pub: March 3rd, 2020 Bloomsbury Ya ⭐⭐⭐ Havenfall is an Inn that is located in the mountains of Colorado. The inn houses and protects the door ways to the other realms. They are Fiordenkill, who are considered noble and stoic, yet secretive. Their magic is in healing. Then Bryn who deal with elemental magic. The realm of Solaira, who are shapeshifters and lastly we have Haven, aka Earth, the human world. Humans don't know about the magic, well they don't remember it once they leave. Maddie, is spending her Summer at Havenfall, it is home to her. She hopes to one day take over for her uncle, the current inn keeper, as it's been her family line that does so. It is the innkeepers job to play host and maintain the peace. All who seek refuge and peace are free to come and go to Havenfall, those who break it are no longer welcome. Which has resulted in one of the doors to the realms being sealed off due to an incident that took place

 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue By V.E. Schwab Published: October 6 2020 Tor Books Genre: Literary fantasy Oh how I adored thee... This was beautiful, and seductive. A caress, a whisper. Adeline LaRue does not want this life that is laid out for her, she turns down proposal after proposal, until her parents arrange marriage with Roger. She doesn't want to marry and lose herself. She wants to be free, to live. So she prays, to the old gods, the new God does nothing. Day in day out she prays, giving all she has yet none answer. And time is running out. Never pray to the gods that answer after dark If you could make a deal, the price your soul, what would you ask for? Would you pray to the gods, in the hopes they would answer? What if the night it's self is the only one who hears? Or cares? Hello darkness my old friend.

  The Girl with the Whispering Shadow (The Crowns of Croswald, #2) by   D.E. Night Published January 23rd 2019 by Stories Untold LLC Genre: Middle Grade Fantasy ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Welcome back to the world of Croswald. This review contains spoilers if you have not read Book 1: The Crowns of Croswald. The Girl with the Whispering Shadow the second instalment of D.E Night's The Crowns of Croswald series. And like the first book it did not disappoint.  The book basically starts days after the events of book 1, Ivy and Rebecca are getting ready to leave the Halls of Ivory for the summer. One going home the other, Ivy going to the town with no name, well it has a name but it is a secret and only those who live there or are going there know it. You can not find this town on your own you have to go by cabby. It is protected from the outside world, it where the many of the scrivenist live in safety to practice magic.  But things are happening in the town, shades are being scene and quills are being sto

         Amethyst by Jesse Nolan Bailey Published: September 24, 2020 Genre: Fantasy (New Weird) Age Group: Adult Cover Art and Design: Rena Violet ( https://www.coversbyviolet.com/ ) Order Link: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/zdn3e00kso Blurb: Rashell’s brother has vanished. When the local villagers express no concern, she enlists the help of a stranger from a faraway city to find Teth.   Investigator Derrik discovers the people worship a massive stone known as the Amethyst. Even more bizarre, an ancient relic of a mummy fuels their reverence.   Given limited time, Rashell and Derrik confront these mysterious elements at play, all the while striving to uncover what happened to Rashell’s brother. Review: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rashell's brother is missing, and no one is her village is doing anything to help find him. Keer the village leader seems to not ever care that he is gone. So she sends away for an outsider to come investigate. They don't like outsiders in this place D

  A Season of Whispers by Jackson Kuhl Published: October 8, 2020 by Aurelia Leo Genre: Supernatural Gothic Horror Age Group: Adult Pages: 130 Blurb: In the summer of 1844, Tom Lyman flees to Bonaventure, a transcendentalist farming cooperative tucked away in eastern Connecticut, to hide from his past. There Lyman must adjust to a new life among idealists, under the fatherly eye of the group’s founder, David Grosvenor. When he isn’t ducking work or the questions of the eccentric residents, Lyman occupies himself by courting Grosvenor’s daughter Minerva.   But Bonaventure isn’t as utopian as it seems. One by one, Lyman’s secrets begin to catch up with him, and Bonaventure has a few secrets of its own. Why did the farm have an ominous reputation long before Grosvenor bought it? What caused the previous tenants to vanish? And who is playing the violin in the basement? Time is running out, and Lyman must discover the truth before he’s driven mad by the whispering through t

Sisters of the Moon Alexandrea Weis Published by: Vesuvian Books Publication date: September 22nd 2020 Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy ** A Novella *** A monstrous fate will turn a girl into a legend. On an island in Lake Obersee, where The Sisters of St. Gertrude abide, a destitute Moor named Durra arrives. Sold for taxes, she and her two companions tend to the nuns and their collection of cats. At night, she combs the library for details on the order, the remote island, and the beasts howling outside her window. But when a prank reveals the sisters’ gruesome secret, Durra is forced to accept a new fate. Bestowed an unearthly power, she must choose between life as a nun or living among the monsters beyond the convent walls. Her path is about to change the tide in the ultimate war. The war between good and evil. Goodreads / Amazon ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review: Durra and two other girls have been taken to an island in which a convent lies. The Sisters of St. Gertrude, live a sim

Focus by Naomi Charles My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Told in a series of flash backs and present day. Focus is story that is full of twist and turns, it grabs you and keeps you coming back for more. Nicole got into something so much deeper then she ever imagined possible the day she walked into Noah's, her then boyfriend's house, two years earlier. When he told her to leave, when she saw all the blood, when she promised to help cover for him, to help cover the murder of his uncle. She wasn't prepared for him to just up and go, to never see or speak to him again. She wasn't prepared to have nightmares, to be jumpy. She doesn't like surprises now. So now two years later, she's moving forward in her life, she's in NYU, she's made a new friend, of the boy type, Jason. She wasn't prepared to run into Noah, to have all the memories flood back. To have the worry and fear come to the surface because the new guy is pre-law and some how he has stumbled upon the murder o

Dear Girl by Aija Mayrock My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Staying true to the book, my review will be in poetry form. Dear Girl, A collection of poetry to bring you to tears. Some you feel Some you might never know, while wishing you did. I found myself clapping, shouting yes this is true. Rivers forming in my eyes because I have worn these shoes. **** Aija Mayrock's poems will connect all women kind to another. We have fought, we have cried. This our truth. We must love each other, love ourselves, speak out for one another, hold the candle, hold the door. Scream a little louder for the voices of the unsure, the timed, the scared, the forgotten and the lost. I cried. I connected. I smiled. Well written, broken up into sections and 100% real. *Thank you Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing View all my reviews  

Smash It! by Francina Simone My rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5 Oliva is like so many other teenage girls lacking confidence, insure with their body, in love with their best friend, who by the keeps on giving her those mixed signals. After a moment self reflecting after some unwanted advice from a bartender at Halloween party she decides to make same changes. To take charge of her life, to be seen, to do it, to say yes more. So she makes herself a list, "the year of fuck it" And well things they are starting to go well....until they don't. The story it's self is a play on Shakespeare's Othello, which also just happens to be the school play that O wants to try out for as part of her year of yes, her year of "fuck it". I liked how the story it's self is broken up in to Acts, like they would be for a play with a modern spin on the lines, because the play in the book is a modern rap musical version. I'm torn, torn when it comes to this review. One side I laughed so

The Crowns of Croswald by D.E Night Book 1 in the The Crowns of Croswald series Fanstay: Middle Grade/Young adult Publish: July 21, 2017 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ pulse so many more If you love whimsical magical stories then The Crowns of Croswald by D.E Night is the perfect book for you. I LOVED this book!!! Ivy Lovely has lived her sixteen years as a scaldrony maid, working in the kitchen of Plum Castle surrounded by Slurry fields tending to the scaldron's who cook/prepare the food. Thinking nothing special of herself, until Rimbrick a dwarf and dear friend, her only friend try's to tell her otherwise. She doesn't believe that she has any magic in her, even after receiving her letter to the Halls of Ivy, a magic academy. How can she be a squinch? And yet there she goes, whisked off to the Town with no name to join the academy along with the other squinches and royals. The squinches have picture perfect memories and are the researchers and record keepers, the sketchers for the Royals. The Ro

  Divinity’s Twilight: Rebirth by Christopher Russell Published : June 2, 2020 Genre: Fantasy Age Group: Adult Pages: 498 A world consumed by war . . .   An ancient evil resurrected . . .   A millennia old bargain comes due . . .   When two blades clash, the third will fall, and the fate of all will be jeopardized. To save Lozaria, the failures of the past must be atoned for by a new generation of heroes. The time has come for mortals to cast off sight and, in doing so, truly come to see . . .   Victory is never absolute.   Seven centuries ago, the forces of order won the Illyriite War on the plains of Har ’ muth. Darmatus and Rabban Aurelian slew their elder brother, Sarcon, the despotic architect of the conflict, then sacrificed themselves to banish the cataclysmic vortex opened with his dying breath. The first advent of the Oblivion Well was thwarted. Even without their vanished gods, the seven races of Lozaria proved themselves capable of safeguarding their w