Ana E. Way

  I don't know why it took me so long to gush about this book! The Kingdom of Almonds is a good ending for a great trilogy. The character development is well written, with a focus on the quest for identity, at the same time that the characters must find a way to save their worlds. Each book contains so much that I want to read them all again in one go to be completely immersed and be certain I am not forgetting or missing anything. The Mirror Realm is a series that I gladly recommend to fantasy readers that love a very developped world building inspired by Jewish culture and Spanish history from the 15th century. Rep: Jewish MCs, gay MCs, older MCs TW: blood, death, torture, imprisonment, war

  Thanks to NetGalley and Little Brown Book for the arc! This is the sequel and last book of the Divine Traitors duology. I got really excited to see this one on NetGalley so I requested it although I read the first one in French. It can be tricky to change languages in a fantasy series, but this was a smooth read. The only difficulty I encountered was that I had forgotten a lot of elements even though only 6 months had passed between the two books.  Since this is a sequel I won't enter in too many details about the story itself. The two sisters are, again, separated here, but this time they have no way of communicating with each other and have to just hope the other one is loyal to their sisterly bond. It is very hard to see characters suffer and feel so guilty all the time, especially when you remember that these two are only teenagers. Eliana is always self-doubting her actions and thoughts, thinking she should be MORE, and on the other hand, Faron spends her time berating ...

  Thank you thank you thank you to NetGalley and Faber for sending me (personally) an arc of Amara Sage's new book You may remember that in 2023 I read the author's debut novel (you can find my review here ) and liked it a lot. It was about a teenage girl who had grown up on the Internet and all the consequences of that. Here, we follow Saffron (amazing name btw) who is navigating the uncertainty of uni, evolving friendships and the hardships of finding love. Saffron feels like all her problems would probably resolve themselves if only she could lose weight. Knowing a little the author, I knew she would write about these themes with care and focus on self-acceptance and self-love. Needless to say, I was right. The journey for self-acceptance felt really fast (good for Saffron) to be realistic but maybe it's not as difficult as I think it is. The side characters are also well written, with a lot of nuance (for a while I wanted to hate her mother) and the love interest was a...

  Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for the arc! I'm not gonna lie, I saw this beautiful cover and the words "heist, magic, queer" and I was sold. The magic system was complex though easy to understand. I liked Cemmy as a main character, she was a traumatized teen trying to survive in a world that wanted her and her friends dead. I was glad that she got mad at her mom, in her place I would have snapped so much sooner. This book did what it wanted to do very well and it was really enjoyable although it dealt with grief and guilt among other themes. I already wanted to read Mindwalker by the same author, now I'm even more eager to get to it. Rep: bisexual MC, lesbian SC TW: death, persecution, discrimination, blackmail, torture, blood, lies

  Thanks to NetGalley and publisher This book was very confusing since the first pages, we know we are in a dystopian world where the internet has crashed down and created some sort of ghosts from the blurb only and we actually never learned much more about what and how it happened. At first I was frustrated of not having more information, but it actually made sense since the characters didn't seem to know much more either. What mattered to them was how to keep on living in a new world. The focus was, as I said, not on this new world but on the characters that live in it, mainly Katerina whose point of vue we follow. Through her eyes, we see a "new" society with the flaws of the past (of our present): racism, prone to discriminate and to ostracize those who don't fit their sense of security. But there are so many people who are different, Katerina is a mixed race single woman who travels, makes remedies and talks to bees, Elisabet who is on the spectrum, a mute boy se...

  Thanks to NetGalley for the eArc! I was very eager to read Allison Saft and I'm very happy to say that I loved her latest book and her writing. I'll happily read A far wilder magic that I have in the French edition because it's much prettier than the originals (sorry). In A Dark and Drowning Tide, we follow Lorelei, a folklorist who embarks on an expedition with five other students, among them Sylvia, her academic rival. But the expedition starts badly: Lorelei finds her mentor murdered in her cabin. Lorelei must see the mission through and find out who the murderer is before it's too late. Lorelei is not really a likeable character and not always relatable for someone who hasn't lived systemic oppression like she has. Indeed, not only Lorelei isn't nobility as her companions, but she is also Yeva (read: Jewish) in an extremely racist German-inspired world. Fortunately for me, the investigation wasn't the forefront of the story, and neither was the romance...

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this arc  Welcome to Forever  may have been a little ambitious for me. As you've read previously, I'm trying to read more SF and am often left confused, but still, I'm enjoying my reads. I didn't think this book would particularly challenge me, but here we are, with me unable to wholly enjoy this story because I felt left out. Welcome to Forever  was a 5 star prediction, and if my rating was solely based on the characters it would totally be. I feel  like it isn't a story especially hard to understand, so maybe it was not the right time for me to read it. I still enjoyed it though and gave it a 3.5 stars! I can't really explain what I didn't understand since I would be entering the realm of spoilers. At the beginning, we are with Fox, a memory editor who wakes up in a Center for Memory Reconstruction with no memory of who he is, and more importantly, of his dead husband. Throughout the book, he will discover and remember...

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this arc The Book of Doors is the kind of book that leaves you in a haze days after finishing it. I couldn't stop thinking of the story and the characters, and the next books I read really paled in comparison.  The Book of Doors follows Cassie, a bookseller who receives  a little notebook from a customer. She soon will discover that this notebook is actually the book of doors, a book that transforms any door in another door, allowing her to travel anywhere she wants. But she will also find out that she is now in grave danger (as is the world). I loved everything about this book. The idea of the books was really fun (well, not all of them), the characters were real to me, the friendship between Cassie and Izzy so beautiful and strong, the grief so heartbreaking and everlasting, the baddies so terrifying... Here comes a spoiler: I was surprised to see time travel and was a little worried of how it would be exploited, but I actually found it...

At the start of the year I requested many arcs on NetGalley, as usual yes, and I'm reading them slowly but steady. Two of the first three were really good ( The Many Lives of Charlie and The City of Stardust ) and the third ( The Book of Love ) was...well boring. Sadly, The Warm Hands of Ghosts (Katherine Arden) fell in that same category. To be fair, it wasn't a given that I was going to love this book since it's historical during WWI, but I went ahead anyway because there was a promise of fantasy (ghosts!), the setting was my home country, Belgium, and I was very curious to discover Katherine Arden's writing. As I said, I was pretty bored waiting for the ghosts and at 100 pages, these were only mentioned so I DNF it. I'm disappointed because the synopsis still sounds really good, but I just couldn't continue. On the contrary, The Briar Book of the Dead (A.G. Slatter) was amazing! Ellie, the main character, comes from a family of witches and is the first to no...

  Merci à NetGalley et ME pour le SP (English below) J'avais très envie de découvrir l'œuvre de cette autrice tout en étant assez appréhensive des éléments d'horreur dont j'entendais parler. Thornhedge est une novella et une réécriture de conte, et donc moins intimidante que ses autres romans. Le livre compte une petite centaine de pages mais je n'ai jamais eu la sensation que c'était trop peu ou trop rapide. Il s'agit d'une réécriture de La Belle au Bois dormant du point de vue de la "fée" qui plonge la princesse dans un long sommeil. Cette "fée" est un personnage adorable et anxieux, isolée depuis des siècles car elle a pour tâche d'empêcher quiconque de réveiller la princesse. Quand un chevalier arrive à l'orée de la forêt et commence à lui parler, elle devra se confronter aux choix qu'elle a faits par le passé.  Dans sa note à la fin, l'autrice explique que ce livre lui a semblé être charmant et cosy, alors qu...

  Merci à NetGalley et à la ME pour ce SP (English below) J'avais déjà lu (et abandonné) un livre de cet auteur, Celle qui a tous les dons , mais j'avais vu la critique de l'excellente booktubeuse Willow sur sa chaîne Books and Bao qui m'avait vraiment intriguée, donc quand j'ai vu Infinity Gate sur NetGalley, je n'ai pas hésité. L'histoire est narrée à la première personne sans qu'on ne sache qui est lae  narrateurice, qui va présenter trois personnes : Hadiz Tambuwal, Topaz Tourmaline et Essien Nkanika. On rencontre d'abord Hadiz qui, dans une vaine tentative de sauver le monde qu'elle habite, va découvrir par hasard l'existence d'autres mondes, d'autres Terres, ainsi que le Pandominium, un consortium d'un nombre incalculable de mondes parallèles. Le principe du Pandominium m'a paru fascinant ! Dans ce tome, on voit un peu son fonctionnement, surtout celui de son armée, et le début de la guerre contre un consortium de monde...

  Thanks to NetGalley for this eArc I've discovered Genevieve Gornichec's first novel through NetGalley and enjoyed it so much that I knew I would love this one, and I wasn't disappointed. It also takes place in Scandinavia (more precisely, Norway in the tenth century) but it isn't centered around gods like the previous one. We follow two friends trying to rescue their sister and we see what they are willing to do to see her back. There is a lot of violence in this book, as we see the aftermath of a Viking raid. There is also violence we don't see and can only imagine. But there is also, and above all, love, friendship and loyalty. I love seeing friendships between women in books, especially in a society so pregnant with misogynistic beliefs.  I don't know anything about Viking culture and I really don't understand how they could work as a society if anyone could be a victim of raids. Like, what was the point of them? Maybe, like Gunnhild said, there were to...

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this eArc! This is, you guessed it, a first volume. In here you follow Calla, Anton and August in a chaotic city plagued by poverty. Calla and Anton enter an annual game in which the winner is the last one standing (alive). Both of them have a very personnal reason to win and they will form a tentative alliance in order to kill the competition. It is a story full of politics, betrayals, murder, conspiracies and complicated relationships. I was very curious to read Chloe Gong but her previous series didn't tempt me as I'm not really fond of mafia related stories. This is her adult debut and I really liked it! At the beginning I had a hard time understanding the worldbuilding, the magic and the politics at the same time but I was immediately engrossed by Calla's motivations that seemed so naïve to me. How killing the king without a plan for the aftermath will change anything in the politics of the empire?? I'll never understand socie...

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this arc!  It's a first volume, obviously . The story follows two main characters: Toba, who is a young woman who has a disability that prevents her from running or yelling, and Naftaly, a young man who dreams of a world where people have squared pupils. It takes place in Spain in 1492, when the Jewish were exiled or forced to convert. All the characters are Jewish and we see a lot of their culture and traditions, which is so interesting. Very early on, Toba crosses a gate and finds herself in the mirror realm where the Mazik live and oh , they have squared pupils! Her grandmother enrolls Naftaly (and an old woman who wants to protect Naftaly from the grandmother) to save Toba. The beginning was very slow until something happens and "oh no! there's two of them!" The Mazik Naftaly dreams of really surprised me. There are some revelations in this book that were so baffling and promised a lot of captivating intrigues. My only hope i...

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for the arc! D.L. Soria stands for Destiny Soria when she writes for adults, and this is her first adult novel. She is one of my favourite authors so I just HAD to read this. As usual, it's a stand alone and the concept was so intriguing! What if all we know about Cinderella is wrong and what happens after the happy ever after? Ash is an amazing character. She was manipulative but always tried to be nice and felt guilty about being fake. Her backstory was very interesting and I wished we had another novel about the world to know more about the political state of the countries. The theme of colonisation was very strong but left me wanting more. This book made me realise that I, in fact, do love heists. What a revelation! The magic system was pretty fun and scary, and I very much liked the secondary characters who felt very real in all their complexity. There was a scene between Ash and Everett that made me very uncomfortable as it felt so wrong and ...

  Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this arc Did I request this book because there is "translation" in the title and I happen to be a translator? Yes. Was I surprised by the kind of translators that are represented in this book. Also yes. Did I understand everything about these translators? ...No. Did it hinder my enjoyment of the book? Also no. Translation State happens in the same world of the Imperial Radch series but I think you can read it separetely (or maybe that explains why I didn't understand everything, I don't know). I'm more inclined to think that the author just chooses to not explain everything, because it is a very vast world and some characters were also ignorant of elements that had left me confused. It is a queernorm setting! There are a lot of characters who use neopronouns like sie/hir, e/em. There was still some queerphobia, when at the end of the book, some people call Reet "she", which puzzled me because he was always referred...

  Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for the arc! This is the second volume of the Monsters trilogy by Vanessa Len (I assume it's a trilogy), the first was Only a Monster that I also read thanks to NetGalley. I had given it 5 stars and I was a little afraid to read the second volume, but it was really great! I had so much fun reading it and found myself reading it instead of sleeping. Without spoilers, I can say that it was interesting to see the characters from the first book in another environment, and I think that the author understands perfectly the world and rules she has created. And now for the spoilers! Joan was so clueless that it became funny. She didn't notice A THING while Nick saw everything, and the only explanation she found was that Nick had been trained to be a monster hunter and that had stayed within him in the new timeline. Maybe, but still, Joan, you're just not very observant. Oh, unless it's for noticing how handsome Nick and Aaron are. Joan, focu...

  I gave this book 4 stars because I feel it is very important in our society, whatever the country. The author wants to give keys to Black people as how to navigate a world where racism and police brutality are so prevalent. As a novel, it isn't a really captivating or groundbreaking but I still feel it is a read that every non-white person should have. White people too, of course, to really understand how pernacious racism is. I wish the book was better written and the dialogues were more realistic, especially for young teenagers, but it still gave a good idea of what can happen to any non white person in the public space. Thanks to NetGalley and to the publisher for this eArc. Rep: Black people cast, mixed race kids TW: police brutality, violence, gaslighting, racism

Thanks to NetGalley and publisher for this eArc Trapped between a homicidal brother and a homophobic podcaster eager to reveal her lesbian romance novels, a seventy-year-old grandmother seeks help in Clear, Alaska. Suffocating in a loveless marriage and lonely existence, Taylor MacKenzie lives only through her writing, using the pen name Brooke Skipstone, her best friend in college and lover before her death in 1974. Afraid of being murdered before anyone in her family or community knows her life story, Taylor writes an autobiography about her time with Brooke and shares it with those closest to her, hoping for understanding and acceptance. Accused of promoting the queering and debasement of America by a local podcaster, Taylor embroils the conservative community in controversy but fights back with the help of a new, surprising friend. This book was pretty disturbing to read. Firstly, because Taylor uses Brooke Skipstone as a pen name which is the name of this book's author. Second...

  Merci à NetGalley et à la ME pour ce SP (English below) Ce livre est un hommage à l'amour entre frère et sœur et à l'amitié, qu'importe l'époque. On y suit deux temporalités, une dans les années 1800 du point de vue d'Emma Linden et l'autre en 2023 avec un ado prénommé Jude qui va se lier d'amitié avec nulle autre qu'une descendante d'Emma, Rosie Linden. Emma grandit à Londres, recluse dans sa chambre car son père est persuadé qu'elle a hérité de la maladie de sa mère et qu'elle mourra si elle ressent une quelconque émotion. Son frère James lui envoie des lettres depuis son pensionnat même si leur père les intercepte. Un jour, alors qu'Emma réussit à lire une de ses lettres, James lui parle d'un tigre ramené à un musée et lui propose de sortir pour aller le voir. C'est là que commencera l'obsession de James pour ce tigre et qui marquera le début de ses problèmes de santé mentale. James part étudier à Oxford avec son meilleur...