Paperbacks – Page 9 – Lyndsey Hall

Review: The Sin Eater’s Daughter trilogy by Melinda Salisbury

Sin Eater's Daughter trilogy Melinda Salisbury

If I had to choose an author whose books I hope mine are one day shelved next to in book stores, it would be Melinda Salisbury. The Sin Eater’s Daughter is one of my all time favourite series, and the style of YA Fantasy that I absolutely aspire to write. It’s been a while since I finished reading The Scarecrow Queen, but I wanted to review the series here for anyone who hasn’t read it yet. (Where have you been?! Get to the library quick sharp!)

The Sin Eater’s Daughter

Twylla is sixteen, betrothed to a prince, and forced to serve as the court executioner. The human embodiment of a goddess, she has the power to kill with just a touch, her skin imbued with a deadly poison that has no antidote. Only the royal family are immune to it. But that doesn’t stop her supposed fiance from staying as far from her as possible.

When a new guard is assigned to her, she finds his playful smiles and lack of fear a refreshing change, and soon falls for his charms. The controlling and paranoid queen reveals her plan to destroy the enemies she believes are out to threaten her rule, and Twylla must choose between escaping into the night with her lover, or staying to protect the kingdom she is bound to serve.

I adored the first book in this series, it’s full of fairy tale elements and forbidden romance. Twylla’s character doesn’t have much agency in book one, she seems to be pulled along by the actions of everyone around her, but that is a big part of her arc and by the end of the series she’s become much more active than reactive, and the growth and development she undergoes is more believable for being a slow, steady change.

The big revelation towards the end of book one was a complete surprise to me, I did not see it coming at all, and it left me questioning absolutely everything about the world I’d become absorbed in. It’s a very well done twist, adding another layer to the dark, Brothers Grimm style fairy tale.

The Sleeping Prince

Ever since her brother left them to work as a guard at the castle, Errin has been struggling to keep both her and their sickly mother alive. Foraging in the forest for ingredients to create her illegal herbal concoctions, selling them to a mysterious stranger who refuses to show her his face, and dodging the authorities who are looking for any reason to throw them both in the makeshift jails that are popping up all over the kingdom. But that all pales in comparison to the threat of the Sleeping Prince, whom the queen has woken from his enchanted sleep, and is now on the war path.

When Errin’s village is evacuated and her mother is taken by soldiers, Errin is forced to travel across a dangerous, war torn kingdom alone. What she discovers along the way could be the key to defeating the Sleeping Prince, but is the danger closer to home than she realises?

Book two follows a completely new character who is mentioned but never appears in book one, which makes it slightly more difficult to get into at the beginning. By the time I was a few chapters in though I was enjoying this book even more than the first – I’d go so far as to say it’s my favourite of the three. Errin is a brave, strong and complicated character, and after Twylla’s quieter, softer persona and her life at the castle, book two is a real change of scenery. Both books are tense, suspenseful and exciting, but instead of court politics, veiled threats and the creeping feeling that something isn’t quite right, book two is full of danger, betrayal and monsters straight out of a nightmare.

The Sleeping Prince begins after the action of book one, and the story lines merge towards the end in a pretty satisfying way. The two protagonists balance each other out nicely, so I would recommend persevering if you didn’t absolutely love Twylla, or if you struggle at first with the change in POV from book one to two.

The Scarecrow Queen

The Sleeping Prince has taken control of the kingdom with the help of his terrifying golems and has now installed himself at the castle. Twylla and Errin have become separated, Twylla is in the mountains gathering a force against Prince Aurek and Errin is simply trying to save her mother, and herself, from his evil clutches. As the war rages on and time begins to run out for the rebels, allegiances will be broken, friendships betrayed and lives lost before the final battle can be fought.

Book three alternates between the POVs of both Twylla and Errin, following their parallel story arcs to the ultimate conclusion where they converge once more. Whilst I was a little bit disappointed about some of the character arcs and how they ended in The Scarecrow Queen (#JusticeForLief), the conclusion of the series was very satisfying and credible. Twylla was the character who came the furthest in my opinion, as Errin started out a stronger and more independent woman, but Twylla became strong and really developed over the course of the three books. The plot and subplots all tie up nicely at the end, but it still left me hoping for more from this dark and beautiful fairy tale world.

In addition to the trilogy, there’s a novella called The King of Rats which I haven’t actually read, but hopefully one day I will! It’s a prequel detailing the story of Crown Prince Aurek and his sister Aurelia, and how the curse came about, which is one of my favourite parts of the series, I love how Salisbury took fairy tales we all know well, such as the Pied Piper of Hamlet, and twisted them into something completely new and surprising. I’m not sure what inspired the concept of the Sin Eater, I’d love to know if it’s something that truly takes place in some cultures, as I found it fascinating and loved how it was woven into the story.

Final word: if dark YA fantasy and fairy tale retellings are your cup of tea, you’ll absolutely love The Sin Eater’s Daughter trilogy.

Lyndsey

Review: Perfect by Cecelia Ahern

Hi guys! I have news 🙂 On Wednesday 11th April my beautiful baby boy finally arrived! He’s officially eight weeks old today. I can’t believe I’m the mum of a two month old baby… While I bury my head in the sand and try to ignore the fact I’m now frighteningly grown up and completely responsible for another human life, here’s a little book review for your reading pleasure.

The first book in this duology, Flawed, was the first book I ever reviewed on this blog! You can check out my review here, if you haven’t read book one and don’t want any spoilers then I wouldn’t recommend reading on…

TL;DR Celestine is in hiding after escaping the clutches of Judge Crevan and his Whistleblowers. Holed up in a Flawed safe-house with a group of fellow branded outcasts, she’s a sitting duck when the Whistleblowers eventually turn up to raid the facility. Forced to go on the run again, she decides to hunt down the one person who may be able to help her overturn her Flawed sentence, but will she find the elusive footage and expose Judge Crevan for the monster he really is?

So, we left Celestine at the end of Flawed leaving her parents’ home and going on the run from Judge Crevan and his Whistleblowers, and we meet her again at the beginning of Perfect hiding out on her granddad’s farm. If you remember, Granddad is a Flawed sympathiser who speaks out against Crevan and his court, and helps Celestine when she first goes into hiding in book one. He’s an absolute legend with zero filter, like many granddads, which unfortunately means he’s already on the court’s radar, so it’s not long before the Whistleblowers turn up to raid his property in search of Celestine.

Barely escaping a pretty horrifying and fiery death, our girl Celestine is forced to run again, and with the help of some old friends, winds up at a facility where Flawed are hidden and employed in secret. She’s reunited with Carrick, but the peace doesn’t last long as Whistleblowers soon arrive, having been tipped off to Celestine’s location by someone she considered a friend. Worse, a familiar face is among the soldiers sent to escort her to Highland Castle.

With nowhere left to run, Celestine is forced to seek out the one person who might be able to help her overturn her Flawed sentence, if only she can find the lost footage of her sixth brand. If she discovers the tape in time, she’ll have a decision to make that could impact on the entire country – use the footage to blackmail Judge Crevan and have her sentence overturned, or release the tape and expose Crevan for the monster he is, in the hopes this revelation brings about the demise of the Guild itself. Will she save herself, or sacrifice her only leverage in order to free her fellow Flawed from their own sentences?

You’ll have to read it to find out! 😉

Perfect is a gripping novel that provides a satisfying conclusion to the Flawed series, answering some of the questions we’re left with after book one and posing several more about ethics, morality and humanity. There are parallels with the Nazi regime in this book that highlight the ease with which people can be turned against a subgroup of society, given enough indoctrination.

The Flawed are stripped of all life’s luxuries, forced to eat a bland diet, given a strict curfew, banned from gathering in groups of three or more, and forbidden from enjoying many of what we would consider basic human rights.

The rest of society are threatened with being labelled Flawed themselves if they so much as help a Flawed person, suggesting that being Flawed is practically contagious. Sympathising with the Flawed’s plight is tantamount to openly criticising the Guild, another surefire way to wind up branded Flawed yourself, so people avoid their Flawed neighbours, treat them as lesser, something to be pitied and feared, which makes the Guild’s job of alienating the Flawed and controlling the general public even easier.

It’s a terrifyingly credible series of events.

I gave Perfect 3.5 stars, the same star rating I gave Flawed, it’s a well written sequel and a satisfying conclusion, I enjoyed reading it, but it wasn’t completely unputdownable, and I would have loved to feel more gripped. A little more tension and threat would have made this a four star read.

If you love dystopian stories, you’ll definitely enjoy Flawed and Perfect, the premise is equally fascinating and quietly disturbing, and Ahern’s execution is perfectly tuned to the Young Adult genre, after dozens of incredibly successful adult novels.

Have you read the Flawed series? What were your thoughts, did you find the concept believable? Let me know in the comments.

Lyndsey

Review: One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

I read One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus on my holiday in Singapore in September and I literally flew through it, it was such a fun read.

TL;DR Five kids go into detention, but only four come out alive. They’ve all got secrets, but do any of them have a motive for murder? Simon’s plan to expose all their deepest, darkest truths on his popular gossip app could be the key…

A jock, a geek, a prom queen, a bad boy, and Simon the outcast are all thrown into detention for having phones in their bags. The weird thing is, they’re not their phones. That doesn’t seem to matter to the overzealous teacher though. When a crash in the school car park draws the teacher away from the room, leaving the kids alone, it’s not long before Simon is dead, the cause a suspected allergic reaction.

One by one, the kids are questioned by the police and their darkest secrets start to come out, secrets so big they might push anyone to kill to keep them hidden. Any one of the four could be responsible, or could they just be the scapegoats for a killer who’s hiding in plain sight?

By the end of the book, no one is who they seemed at first glance, and they’ll never be the same again. Isolated and feared by their schoolmates, and demonised by the local media, Bronwyn, Addy, Nate and Cooper gradually form a tight-knit circle, but is it a case of keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Or are the four witnesses to Simon’s death the only ones who can solve the mystery before the crime is pinned on the wrong person?

This book is a fun, fast and gripping read with so many twists and turns it’ll keep you up at night turning page after page. Billed as a cross between The Breakfast Club and Pretty Little Liars, it brings together a band of misfits from every well-known high school clique and throws them into a compelling murder mystery plot for the modern age.

I had my suspicions about the climax from somewhere in the middle, but I certainly didn’t predict the whole reveal and was pleasantly surprised by some of the twists. The only reason this wasn’t a five star read is because a few of the secrets were pretty predictable and some of the drama was very high school, which is not a criticism as such, but knowing that I’m not exactly the target demographic for YA, despite it being my favourite, from a personal point of view some of the issues could have been easily resolved with a little communication. I’m sure that wouldn’t be a problem for younger readers, so that’s a very personal feeling on the novel and definitely wouldn’t make me recommend this book any less, I still think it’s a brilliant read.

I gave One of Us is Lying four stars, it’s a great contemporary thriller with well-written, flawed and interesting characters and an explosive plot twist. Have you read it yet? If not, what are you waiting for? If yes, tell me in the comments what you thought! Who was your favourite character? Did you see the twist coming? (No spoilers please!).

Lyndsey