Friday Reads: A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab!!!!

Hey there guys!

It's Friday!! And this time I do have the week off too, like most people! Wheee!

Today I have one of the top 10 books of 2016 for this week's Friday Reads and you might think it is a bit early to be so sure, but I have no doubt about it!! I'm now a massive Victoria Schwab fangirl and the Shades of Magic series it's one I'm recommending & pushing onto everyone!

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Massive book hangover in place, I keep thinking of the characters and what happened ALL THE TIME!

Shades of Magic is a trilogy so AGOS is the second book and one that not only didn't suffer from the middle book syndrome, but that simply made you forget that such a thing even exists!

I was dying to get my hands on this one since the moment I finished A Darker Shade of Magic and re-reading it to prepare was also a great idea, because I soaked all the details in a way I hadn't done the first time!

A Gathering of Shadows was brilliant and I didn't want to stop reading, wanted to read slower because I didn't want the book to end and I wanted to devour the book because I needed to know what was coming next!

The pace of the book, plot wise, might have been a bit more leisurely, at least if we think of the end game where things were leading up to, BUT give the amazing character development that was going on and how central it is to the plot and will continue to be (I'm sure of that) I was simply enjoying (and/or suffering) every minute of it!!

Lila, Kell & Rhy are simply put amazing, nuanced and deeply flawed and multidimensional characters (no pun intended about the multiple Londons) and I loved having all three as POV characters in this one!

I really loved Rhy's voice and seeing his struggle with the new situation with his own voice was something I was very glad we got to read! I adore Kell and so feel for him and his struggles between his restlessness, his need of freedom and his unfaltering loyalty to his brother, because Kell & Rhy? BEST BROMANCE EVER! But Lila... LILA IS EVERYTHING! I adore her and she's the best thief because she stole my heart in ADSOM and I'm sure it won't be returned to me, ever!! She's brave, reckless and ONE OF A DAMNED KIND! *sigh* Lila is my patronus!

The tension in this book, both plot wise and character wise increases exponentially as the ending gets closer and you cannot turn pages fast enough but will also need a breather for some tea now and then because you might experience a feelings overload or two (or maybe more, just be warned!).

And the final warning, we get a cliffhanger, and dear Lila almighty it's a MASSIVE BIG DUAL CLIFFHANGER and I don't know how I'll survive till the final book in the trilogy comes out... *is dead of feels*

All the bloody stars to this one!! As Travars! (damn, doesn't seem to work for time travel...)

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Thursday Thoughts: Vicious & Midnight Marked (ARC review)!!

Hello there guys!!

Since last week I totally failed at posting reviews, I'm adding an extra day of review posting this week, and since I love alliterations, I'm calling it Thursday Thoughts!

As my extra reviews of the week, I'm pairing today two adult books, one that has been in my TBR pile since either early last year or late 2014, so it will count towards my Rock My TBR Challenge and that I buddy read with my friend LaLa from LaLa in the Library.

And the other one is an eARC I got approved for on NetGalley that releases in March BUT since it's the next book in one of my favourite Urban Fantasy series ever... I just HAD to read it! It counts towards my Netgalley & Edelweiss Reading Challenge and contributes to keeping my ratio at 80%!

Vicious by V.E. Schwab

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


My first book for #RockMyTBR challenge! And I'm sort of kicking myself for not reading it before. As soon as I read ADSOM, I needed to read anything else Victoria had written, and so I bought this one, but it ended up being packed up in a box way too soon (moving time) but I finally got it out in time to buddy read it with my friend LaLa!

I love how very grey all the characters are, and how unsure you are while reading if everything is part of the plan or not. The first part of the book is told mostly on Victor's POV, and you aren't entirely sure if it's a very sucessful antihero story, an even more successfully done "now I feel bad for the villain dammit" or if it's something in between. Then we see a few more POVs and on the second half we also get Eli's POV, and then things change a bit. You start wondering if the usual labels of villain and hero or even antihero can be applied to either of these two, and how you alternatively keep on switching your allegiance from one to the other.

I think I very much ended up siding with Victor but fuck if I know if he's the hero, the villain or the antihero, and I have to wonder what that says about my moral code... I mean, it's not that I approve about his tactics or his motivations or lack of empathy, but I very much prefer him to Eli so... I dunno? Damn Victoria Schwab making me root for a guy that is the lesser evil? I don't even know!

We keep on switching between present and past, between Victor's revenge plans and the how and somewhat the why Eli and Victor became who they are or even "what" they are now. A lil bit of science, a lil bit of philosophy and a lot of food for thought about powers, responsability, what defines who we are or how we even define ourselves. The ending was quite a twist and once again left me wondering if it had all been planned in advance or if it was as it was only because of the character's change in choices that couldn't be planned... or could they? Seriously, so much that I'm not sure if it's fate or a brilliant strike of planning!

Thankfully, I read the book knowing that there is a sequel, and I'm so very highly and impatiently awaiting! 4 to 4.5 stars to this one!

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Midnight Marked by Chloe Neill

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Oh, how I loved this one! Chicagoland Vampires is one of 3 adult urban fantasy series that I'm utterly in love with, and that is still going strong and onto book 12 with Midnight Marked. This is the kinda series that I preorder the book as soon as it becomes available on Amazon, and that I usually start reading as soon as it downloads to my Kindle at midnight.

It's a bit mind-blowing to think that only a year has passed between the first book and this one being the twelfth, because SO MUCH STUFF KEEPS ON HAPPENING! These guys can't even go to a damned baseball game without encountering a dead body and finding themselves knee-deep in another crisis!

The cast is extensive because we've met quite a varied group of supernaturals of a type or another, and a few humans too. I love having the Pack back in the picture, along with our favourite vampires from Cadogan house, our resident sorcerers and the best grandfather on that side of the Atlantic.

Merit is a great main character and I like how she's grown so much since she was turned and how she continues to be both resilient, kick arse and vulnerable all at once! She's very much in love with Ethan, Master and alpha male, but she does NOT fail to call him on his bullshit and challenge him when it needs to be done.

Ethan, also known as Darth Sullivan, is alpha male 100% and changes cannot come too easily for a 400 year old vampire, but I like that he is beginning to adapt, even though he still seems uncapable of a proper apology and instead we get what Mallory calls "alphology". He deserved a bit of a smack in the head for failing at being Master and losing his head going all alpha, but nothing that can't be forgiven.

Merit & Mallory's friendship continues to be a joy to read about, and I love how after all that happened, their friendship was tested and strenghtened. I loved seeing them going on double dates, even if they usually end interrupted rudely by murder more often than not.

We get a few interesting answers when it comes to questions unanswered from book 1, and so proving that you never know when something will come back to play a part on what's to come. We also get a few more mentions of a certain prophecy that I hope we'll get more answers to soon, maybe next book?

The ending after the final confrontation with the bad guy seemed a bit... I dunno, cheap? But of course opens up for what might come in the next book(s) and I wonder how things will play up. On the other hand, I'm extremely please with the final surprise in the book and I'm still squeeing about it!!

Only thing that must be noted is how every book seems to be a love letter to Chicago, Chloe Neill never fails to make me want to visit all the places talked about in the books! Is there a Chicagoland Vampires tour yet? There needs to be! Very much deserved 4 stars for this one! When is the next one coming out!?! Waiting a whole year is gonna kill me!!

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Tell Me Tuesdays #34!!

Tell Me Tuesdays is a meme/feature created by the awesome La La In The Library, where we can share how we choose the book we are currently reading from our TBR pile!

I'm always curious about that, cause as much as I tend to make myself a rough schedule for books to read and the like, I'm quite a mood reader and sometimes I just HAVE to ignore my schedule and read something else!

Vicious by V.E. Schwab


Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. 

Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

Vicious is the first one of my buddy reads with LaLa for this month, both as part of the #RockMyTBR challenge for the both of us! I'm quite loving the book so far, even if I'm not even halfway with it!! Hopefully I'll have more reading time tonight to read it!!

So what are you all guys reading and how and why did you decide to pick up that book? Shiny new ARC? Comfort read? Scheduled for review? Must have new release? Tell me!!

Saturday Pages: ALL THE SAMPLERS!!

Hello there guys!!

Yesterday I absolutely enjoyed my first opera experience, getting goosebumps and nearly crying at the end, Madama Butterfly was fantastic! Now the besties and me are planning to go see Rigoletto next when the company plays it in Feb/March!

Today for this week's Saturday Pages I have mini reviews for all the samplers that I recently got from Netgalley! I know a lot of you guys don't like samplers but I seem to have zero self control when it comes to books I want, and also samplers are very useful when I'm curious about a book by a new author, or for a book that I should be more excited about since it's an author I love...

A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab


This one was simply lack of self control... AGOS is one of my top 3 most awaited sequels for 2016 and the moment I saw this sampler available on NetGalley I knew I had to read it.

It's quite a big sampler, and I'm already itching to re-read it, so I won't have a problem with re-reading the beginning once the book comes out!

Although I was 100% before now I'm 1000% sure that I'll absolutely love this book!! Our beloved Lila Bard is being her badass self, and even more badass that ever before! I just had to adore her & her restlessness and her wish & fear to belong and settle down.

We see that change has come to Red London, Grey London and White London, and whatever we thought we knew about the Antari is being challenged very early on! Or maybe I'm just reading too much into certain details... Who knows!

We meet a few new characters, although we barely get to know them, although Alucard gets a bit of more page time, and he promises to be a very interesting character indeed! There seems to be a certain history that will come into play later on, and I cannot wait to find out more!

Really guys, if you haven't read ADSOM, go read it now and if you have... go preorder AGOS NOW! If you already have it preordered, as I do... rest assured, we're gonna love this one to pieces, I KNOW IT!!

The Forbidden Wish by Jessica Khoury


Jessica Khoury has a few books out already but for some reason I haven't read anything by her yet, so when I saw the sampler for this one (fantasy! Aladdin retelling!) I decided to check it out and see if it could be my kinda thing.

And as it happens, it is! I really enjoyed both the descriptions and the writing and loved how it starts and feels familiar (if you've watched the movie) but also how different it is, and not only because the genie, jinn in this case (let's be proper) is a girl, but also because of how much history is behind the current story. How much regret and guilt the jinni carries with her.

We meet quite a few characters that could be familiar but that are also complete different and with a very different history and development, from Aladdin himself, to the princess, to the Jinni... And I cannot wait to see more of these characters, and of course to get more of the world building and of the history snippets that Zahra gives us here and there.

The sampler gave us only a small peek at the plotting that might come into play in the book, from Zahra's mission to gain her freedom to Aladdin's quest to do something important, and where both might clash at some point and what choices will Zahra make this time!

This sampler convinced me that I want to check this book, so much that I ended preordering it!

Riders by Veronica Rossi


This is sampler that I requested because this is a book that by all usual standards I ought to be super excited about! It's by Veronica Rossi and I adored her Under The Never Sky series, and the book is a reimagining about the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, so really... it sounds like it'd be a Pili book! But for some strange reason I'm not that excited about it.

Reading the sampler I was a bit thrown off by how it starts in the middle of the action so to speak, and how our main character spends his time tied to a chair telling someone from the US government (and us of course) all that's been going on till that moment.

I don't usually mind that style of storytelling, but I'm not sure how I'd like if the whole book is gonna be told like that till the final part or something... At least all of the sampler is Gideon recounting what has happened. And although I want to find out more and meet the rest of the Horsemen and know what the hell happened to land Gideon in military custody... it feels like there's a lack of urgency since it's a recount of the past.

After reading this sampler I'm still unsure of this one, and will be awaiting reviews from my bloggy friends that got ARCs before deciding whether I get this one or pass it up.

Mark This Book Monday: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab!!!

Hello there guys!

Happy Monday! Yes, it's Monday, the week starts, but since I've been working the weekend... it is just another day but one where I can get book mail! ;)

Today for Mark This Book Monday I have an amazing book to feature and share and flail about! I read & loved the sampler but given my book buying ban I didn't preorder it, but on release day I decided to say "To hell with it!" and buy the book BUT it was already out of stock in many places! Which wasn't all that cool until it meant I got a brainwave, asked the author for where to buy signed copies, and I ended up getting a signed and personalized copy of it, from Scotland! =D

And since this one is a 2015 release it counts towards that category in my 105 Challenge!

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Holy crackers!

I read the sampler for A Darker Shade of Magic, I absolutely loved it and was so excited to finally continue reading! When I finally got my hands on a copy of (signed!!) I knew I needed to save it for a day off, cause I wanted to read it from start to finish!

And that's what I did! And it just cannot be done any other way, because once you start reading this one, you just don't want to stop! At first because you are so intrigued about the characters you are meeting and the worlds you are discovering, and soon enough it is because you already care for those characters and the action starts ramping up and then they keep rescuing each other and getting into even more trouble, and then the shit has hit the fan and no one seems to have realized it!

The world the author has created in this book is fascinating and I love how we've got plenty of pieces to feel like these different Londons are all real, as familiar or as alien as they might feel to us. But at the same time, I love that there's still a lot to discover about them.

Grey London, the more normal London, the one without magic, the one more like our world and the one that felt like the Jack the Ripper's London for some reason to me (Victorian London after all), it's quite full of surprises after all. Red London, the most magical but also the more orderly, is fascinating but we get only a glimpse of the city itself, and there are quite some secrets and mysteries around it still. White London, the most crazy and dangerous of the lot, with mad rulers and a hunger for magic that it's more dangerous than magic itself! And finally Black London, the most mysterious of the lot and the cautionary tale for all magic users!

But as much as I feel that we got a real feel for all the places, that the atmosphere was so real and different when switching from one London to another and I was completely immersed... I feel that we have just but scratched the surface of these worlds! I feel like there is so much more coming and I just cannot wait to visit more and discover more and see more in the next book! I feel like that's the mark of an amazing first book: you get a complete overview of the world with enough information to make it feel real BUT having enough to make it grow even bigger and better in the upcoming books!

I fell in love with the characters quite easily too. Both Kell and Lila are delightful and different and complex and I adore how Lila is entirely unapologetic of who she is, what she does and what she wants! She's a pirate looking for her ship and adventures and she finds way more that she could ever dream about! I love how different and at the same time how similar Lila and Kell are, because both accept who they are but want more and keep having their own ways to rebel about the cards they have been dealt.

And not only the main characters feel real and you feel like cheering for them, every single character you encounter has a genuine feeling to them, even if it's just a man that lost a game of cards once against Kell, or the lady that sells Lila the clothes she always wanted, and even more the bigger secondary characters like Rhys, and Holland and the evil twins. And let's not forget about the magic, because at some point in the book you feel like the magic IS a character too, and one that worries you as much as the human villains! And really I won't give any more details because I might end up getting into spoilery territory, and I want to avoid that at all costs!

So, the world building is fantastic, the characters are amazing... and the plot? The plot is brilliant! It's quite hard to manage to build a plot and make it progress and get to a resolution in a first book of a trilogy but the author managed to do so in here and brilliantly! There was so much tension once we reach the climax of the story! But yes, you heard it right, there is resolution and a full story arc closes, and no, there is not a cliffhanger (what?! YES, you heard right!) but an ending, it might be an open ending, and yes it does leave you wanting more because you need more Lila, more Kell, more Rhys and yes what if?? and you want to know MORE about everything!

As I guess it's easy to surmise from my overly wordy review, I adored this book and I just cannot wait to get my hands on its sequel... next year! GAH! SO FAR AWAY!! Very much deserved 5 and all the stars to this one!!



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Waiting On Wednesday #82!!

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly feature hosted at Breaking The Spine  that spotlights those can't-wait-to-get-my-hands-on-them books that we are eagerly awaiting!

This week I'm featuring a book that I'm absolutely dying to get my hands on and that I CANNOT wait to hold and devour: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab!!

Goodreads Summary:

"Kell is one of the last Travelers—rare magicians who choose a parallel universe to visit.

Grey London is dirty, boring, lacks magic, ruled by mad King George. Red London is where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. White London is ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne. People fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. Once there was Black London - but no one speaks of that now.

Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell smuggles for those willing to pay for even a glimpse of a world they’ll never see. This dangerous hobby sets him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She robs him, saves him from a dangerous enemy, then forces him to another world for her 'proper adventure'.

But perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, Kell and Lila will first need to stay alive — trickier than they hoped.!


Why am I eagerly awaiting A Darker Shade of Magic?? Well, I got to read a sampler early and I was totally addicted, hook, sink and liner since the very first pages, so now I'm simply dying to read the whole book!! Also, I need one of Kell's coats!

 What are you all (im)patiently awaiting this week?

Saturday Pages: SAMPLER review of A Darker Shade of Magic!!!

As my second and final Saturday Pages entry I have a sampler review. I was lucky enough to be approved by Tor Books (THANK YOU!) via Netgalley and got to read the first 150 pages. I hadn't read any Victoria Schwab books before and although I've heard amazing things from some of my canaries about them, I felt like a sampler would show me if I wanted to get this book or not and boy it did!

Even if it's only a sampler and not a full size book it still counts towards my 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge and I'm hoping it'll help a bit with my NG ratio! ;)

SNEAK PEEK: A Darker Shade of Magic SAMPLE by V.E. Schwab

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Samplers can be both great and awful, and this one was a bit of both! Great because I fell in love with the world, the writing and the main character(s) and awful because it finished in a rather awful and cliffhanger-y way, so now I'm gonna go nuts waiting for the full book!

This is my first contact with Victoria Schwab's writing, and I think I might fill the wait for this one reading some of her previous books, because wow, the writing was fantastic!

In only 150 pages it managed to give broad strokes of the world building that was enough to make us get an idea of what's going on without info dumping, and leaving us wondering and wanting more! The different Londons were amazing and I cannot wait to find out more about what "really" happened with Black London!

We also get to know quite a few of the main players in the book and somehow I was rooting for Kell from very early on! I also came to like Lila a lot, even if she's a bit less easy to like sometimes. The Dane twin were damned creepy and scary and I get the feeling they're only gonna get worse!

I'm impressed and really looking forward to the book, the biggest downside of this... it doesn't come out till Feb 25th!!



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Tell Me Tuesdays #18!!

Tell Me Tuesdays is a meme/feature created by the awesome ladies of Please Feed The Bookworm and La La In The Library where we can share how we choose the book we are currently reading from our TBR pile!

I'm always curious about that, cause as much as I tend to make myself a rough schedule for books to read and the like, I'm quite a mood reader and sometimes I just HAVE to ignore my schedule and read something else!

 Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers

Annith has watched her gifted sisters at the convent come and go, carrying out their dark dealings in the name of St. Mortain, patiently awaiting her own turn to serve Death. But her worst fears are realized when she discovers she is being groomed by the abbess as a Seeress, to be forever sequestered in the rock and stone womb of the convent. Feeling sorely betrayed, Annith decides to strike out on her own.

She has spent her whole life training to be an assassin. Just because the convent has changed its mind doesn't mean she has...

 A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

(sneak peek)

From V.E. Schwab, the critically acclaimed author of Vicious, comes a new universe of daring adventure, thrilling power, and parallel Londons, beginning with A Darker Shade of Magic.

Kell is one of the last Travelers—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel universes—as such, he can choose where he lands.

There’s Grey London, dirty and boring, without any magic, ruled by a mad King George. Then there’s Red London, where life and magic are revered, and the Maresh Dynasty presides over a flourishing empire. White London, ruled by whoever has murdered their way to the throne—a place where people fight to control magic, and the magic fights back, draining the city to its very bones. And once upon a time, there was Black London...but no one speaks of that now.

Officially, Kell is the Red Traveler, personal ambassador and adopted Prince of Red London, carrying the monthly correspondences between the royals of each London. Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see—a dangerous hobby, and one that has set him up for accidental treason. Fleeing into Grey London, Kell runs afoul of Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations, who first robs him, then saves him from a dangerous enemy, and then forces him to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

But perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, Kell and Lila will first need to stay alive—and that is proving trickier than they hoped.


 Continuing with my current trend, I'm really more than one book at a time, even if this time is a full size book and a sampler, but I'm simply loving both! Mortal Heart I've been dying for since I finished reading Dark Triumph, and I feel that I'll be able to say I adore the whole trilogy. And A Darker Shade of Magic is my first V.E. Schwab and I'm loving the pacing and the world building and I'm sorely tempted to preorder it already!

So what are you all guys reading and how and why did you decide to pick up that book? Shiny new ARC? Comfort read? Scheduled for review? Must have new release? Tell me!!