Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham
Fantasy Literature for Young Adults (over the age of 12).
Hunted by the Sky by Tanaz Bhathena
Hunted by the Sky (2020) is the first book in Tanaz Bhathena’s YA fantasy duology THE WRATH OF AMBAR. Bhathena is an award-winning YA author, and Hunted by the Sky is her first foray into YA fantasy. Set in an alternate world based on medieval India, the story held my interest with its magic, suspense, and the conflicts the two main characters face. The descriptions of settings delighted me.
Gul has spent her life in hiding and on the run,
September 17th, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4.5 | Tanaz Bhathena | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Hex Hall (2010) is Rachel Hawkins’s debut novel, a young adult paranormal boarding school story.
Sophie Mercer is half-witch and half-mortal, but lives alone with her single human mother and knows little about her magical father. After wrecking her high school prom with a disastrous spell, Sophie is sent to Hecate (nicknamed Hex) Hall, a school for delinquent magical beings.
In her human school, Sophie was outcast for her witchy powers. At Hex Hall, her magic is not at all unusual,
August 21st, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 3 | Rachel Hawkins | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 2 comments |
The Bird King by G. Willow Wilson
G. Willow Wilson’s 2019 YA Novel The Bird King is a wonderful read: an exciting adventure with a complicated female protagonist, set in a time and place that may be unfamiliar to many of us. Magic is woven throughout the book, as young Fatima wrestles with the concepts of faith, freedom and leadership.
Fatima is the Sultan’s concubine in the last Islamic kingdom on the Iberian Peninsula. She holds a precarious place in the palace hierarchy.
August 20th, 2020. Marion Deeds´s rating: 4 | G. Willow Wilson | Stand-Alone, Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 4 comments |
The Damned (2020) is the sequel to Renée Ahdieh’s The Beautiful, a young adult vampire novel set in 19th century New Orleans. You’ll need to read The Beautiful first, and this review will have a few spoilers for that novel.
The Damned begins where The Beautiful left off. (Spoilers for The Beautiful are starting here!) Sébastien Saint Germain had been betrayed and murdered by his friend.
August 11th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 2 | Renee Ahdieh | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
It’s 1872 and Celine Rousseau, who’s seventeen years old, has just arrived in New Orleans with several other girls who will work in a convent until they can make matches with respectable young men in the city. Celine is from Paris, where she made gowns for the upper class. She had to flee Paris, and her father, after a tragic event that she won’t talk about.
The work at the convent is boring, but Celine has found a new best friend — Pippa from England — and she’s fascinated by the sultry city of New Orleans,
August 4th, 2020. Kat Hooper´s rating: 3 | Renee Ahdieh | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Red Mantle by Maria Turtschaninoff
Maria Turtschaninoff’s Maresi told the story of the Red Abbey — a feminist, goddess-worshipping sanctuary for women — and the young novice whose special powers helped her save it from invaders. The sequel, Naondel, was really a prequel, going back to the founders of the Abbey and explaining how they came together to form it. Red Mantle (2018), the conclusion of the RED ABBEY CHRONICLES series, returns to Maresi,
July 30th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 5 | Maria Turtschaninoff | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Jay Kristoff’s TRUEL1F3 (2020) wraps up his YA dystopian LIFELIKE trilogy with a long buildup to an epic battle, set in a nuclear-blasted future version of the “Yousay.” Some humans have (presumably due to radiation-induced mutations) developed superpowers and are often treated as deviants by normal humans; most of our main characters, like Lemon Fresh (named after the detergent box she was found abandoned in as a baby) are in this group. Intelligent robots are everywhere and are bound by Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics … other than a rebel group of advanced “Lifelike”
July 27th, 2020. Tadiana Jones´s rating: 3 | Jay Kristoff | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibañez
Woven in Moonlight (2020) is a lushly imagined YA fantasy based on Bolivian history and culture, and featuring a creative form of magic based on weaving. The plot is exciting, filled with twists and turns and betrayals. For me, though, I also found that it had some elements that distracted me from the story, and some others that made less sense when I thought about them later.
Ximena is a young girl who lost her family when the indigenous Llacsans rose up against the colonizing Illustrians.
July 24th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 2.5 | Isabel Ibañez | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova
Labyrinth Lost (2016) is the first in Zoraida Córdova’s BROOKLYN BRUJAS series.
Alejandra “Alex” Mortiz is the middle daughter of a Puerto Rican bruja (witch) family in Brooklyn. Alex has been trying to suppress her power for years, because she believes it was the reason her father left the family.
Her sixteenth birthday is approaching, however, and with it her Deathday ceremony, a coming-of-age ritual during which she will receive a blessing from her ancestors.
July 20th, 2020. Kelly Lasiter´s rating: 4 | Zoraida Cordova | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | 1 comment |
Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo
The third and final instalment in Leigh Bardugo‘s GRISHA trilogy was far more rewarding than I had ever anticipated. Though I liked the first book Shadow and Bone and really liked the sequel Siege and Storm, it was Ruin and Rising that I truly loved.
It’s difficult to summarize the finale of any book series without giving away details of its predecessors,
July 15th, 2020. Rebecca Fisher and Kat Hooper´s rating: 4.5 | Leigh Bardugo | Young Adult | SFF Reviews | no comments |
Previous SFF Author: John Wyndham
COMMENT Book #3 of this trilogy is very much a heist story, and I quite enjoyed it!
Pirate stories and heist stories... Do we ever get enough of them?
Very interesting, Ulrich! Thanks for clueing me in!
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