#BookReview: The Book of Sam by Rob Shapiro

Synopsis: Sam, the unchosen one, ventures to Hell to rescue his best friend.

Seventeen-year-old Sam Sullinger lives in the shadow of adolescence. Lost among his overachieving siblings and chided by his stern father, Sam finds himself the daily target of bullying. His only solace is his best friend and crush, Harper.

In a grand plan designed to help Sam confess his love to Harper, he sets off a series of events that lead to her being kidnapped to Hell. Racked with guilt, Sam makes a bold decision for the first time in his life: he’s going to rescue his only friend. 

Sam is thrust into a vivid world fraught with demons, vicious beasts, and a falling city. Every leg of his journey serves to remind him that he isn’t some brave knight on a quest — he’s an insecure teenager who is yearning to make his mark on at least one world.

#BookReview: The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass (The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass #1) by Adan Jerreat-Poole

Synopsis: Even teenage assassins have dreams.

Eli isn’t just a teenage girl — she’s a made-thing the witches created to hunt down ghosts in the human world. Trained to kill with her seven magical blades, Eli is a flawless machine, a deadly assassin. But when an assignment goes wrong, Eli starts to question everything she was taught about both worlds, the Coven, and her tyrannical witch-mother. 

Worried that she’ll be unmade for her mistake, Eli gets caught up with a group of human and witch renegades, and is given the most difficult and dangerous task in the worlds: capture the Heart of the Coven. With the help of two humans, one motorcycle, and a girl who smells like the sea, Eli is going to get answers — and earn her freedom. 

#BookReview: The Boi of Feather and Steel (The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass #2) by Adan Jerreat-Poole

Synopsis: Tav struggles to come to grips with who they are — and who they are becoming — in this thrilling sequel to the moving, lyrical fantasy The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass.

After Tav’s dangerous journey to the magical City of Eyes, they realize they’re more than just a purple-haired, motorcycle-riding teenager who can see magic — they know how to use it.

Returning to the human world, the City of Ghosts, Tav’s team races to heal the wounds in the veil between worlds as Tav struggles to come to grips with who they are — and who they are becoming. Meanwhile, an army of child witches has risen up to overthrow the tyrannical world-eating Coven. With blood and magic spilled on both sides, who will survive? 

#BookReview: The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass (The Girl of Hawthorn and Glass #1) by Adan Jerreat-Poole

Synopsis: Even teenage assassins have dreams.

Eli isn’t just a teenage girl — she’s a made-thing the witches created to hunt down ghosts in the human world. Trained to kill with her seven magical blades, Eli is a flawless machine, a deadly assassin. But when an assignment goes wrong, Eli starts to question everything she was taught about both worlds, the Coven, and her tyrannical witch-mother. 

Worried that she’ll be unmade for her mistake, Eli gets caught up with a group of human and witch renegades, and is given the most difficult and dangerous task in the worlds: capture the Heart of the Coven. With the help of two humans, one motorcycle, and a girl who smells like the sea, Eli is going to get answers — and earn her freedom.

#BookReview: The Doomsday Book of Fairy Tales by Emily Brewes

Synopsis: An astounding tale of a dangerous quest, a talking dog, and fragmented fairy tales in an eerie post-climate collapse future.

A long time ago, the Vanderchucks fled the growing climate disaster and followed their neighbours into the Underground. Jesse Vanderchuck thought it was the end. Of the world. Of life. Eventually, Jesse’s little sister, Olivia, ran away and Jesse started picking through trash heaps in Toronto’s abandoned subway tunnels. Day in, day out.

Now, years later, Jesse meets a talking dog. Fighting illness and the hostile world aboveground, Jesse and Doggo embark on a fool’s errand to find Olivia — or die trying. Along the way, Jesse spins a series of fairy tales from threads of memories, weaving together the past, present, and future into stories of brave girls, of cunning lads, of love in the face of wickedness, and of hope in the midst of despair.

#BookReview: The Life and Deaths of Frankie D. by Colleen Nelson

Synopsis: Could a hundred-year-old circus sideshow be the key to Frankie’s mysterious past?

Seventeen-year old Frankie doesn’t trust easily. Not others, and not even herself. Found in an alley when she was a child, she has no memory of who she is, or why she was left there. Recurring dreams about a hundred-year-old carnival sideshow, a performer known as Alligator Girl, and a man named Monsieur Duval have an eerie familiarity to them.

Frankie gets drawn deeper into Alligator Girl’s world, and the secrets that kept the performers bound together. But a startling encounter with Monsieur Duval when she’s awake makes Frankie wonder what’s real and what’s in her head.

As Frankie’s and Alligator Girl’s stories unfold, Frankie’s life takes a sharp twist. Are the dreams her way of working through her trauma, or is there a more sinister plan at work? And if there is, does she have the strength to fight it?

#BookTour: Darkness Rising (Daughters of Light #3) by Mary Jennifer Payne

Synopsis: The Final Battle is coming. Are the Seers ready?



Sixteen-year-old twins Jasmine and Jade and the rest of the Seers are not only divided between Toronto and London, they’re internationally wanted fugitives. While away in the Place-In-Between trying to return Solomon’s Ring, the girls become the prime suspects in a deadly terrorist attack in Toronto. 



The Seers, their Protectors, and a handful of others know the truth: they are innocent, the world is dying, demons are around every corner, and the Darkness is taking over. As the only hope in the coming apocalyptic battle, the Seers will have to work together to save the world from the brink of destruction.

#BookTour: Solomon's Ring (Daughters of Light #2) by Mary Jennifer Payne

Synopsis: Twin sisters Jade and Jasmine are finally together after a five-year separation, but there’s no time to enjoy the reunion. As Seers, the sisters are being hunted by demons spilling through the rift, and the city is on high alert against terrorist threats. The Protectors at Beaconsfield have gathered as many Seers as possible, as the countries that haven’t been destroyed by climate change are starting to close their borders. 

On top of it all, Jasmine discovers that someone has stolen a ring with the power to control the demons, and the Final Battle between the Daughters of Light and the forces of darkness is approaching more quickly than anyone predicted.

#BookTour: Finding Jade (Daughters of Light #1) by Mary Jennifer Payne

Synopsis: The year is 2030, and climate change is making life on Earth more challenging. 



Fourteen-year-old Jasmine Guzman is struggling to come to terms with the abduction of her twin sister, Jade, and her mother’s illness. 



Things go from bad to worse when a series of bizarre occurrences make Jasmine wonder if she’s losing her mind. 



But, with help from Raphael, a boy at her new school, Jasmine learns she actually has special powers that are putting her life in danger. 

Most surprising, she learns that her sister isn’t actually missing … Jasmine just needs to look in the right place: The-Place-in-Between, where the demons dwell.

#BookReview of Totem by Jennifer Maruno

About the Book: 

As an orphaned white boy in a school full of Native students, fourteen-year-old Jonny Joe isn't like any of the others at the island Redemption Residential School off the west coast. When the advances of Father Gregory disturb Jonny, he joins another boy in an escape to a mountain cave. But when they leave the cave, the world as they knew it no longer exists.

The boys travel to a native village in a sheltered bay, where Jonny becomes skilled in the art of carving. When a steamship enters the cove, the party of sightseers brings a disease that annihilates most of the people in the village. Meanwhile, Jonny has learned the secret of his past and when he returns to the present, Jonny carves a totem pole to honour the members of the village.

Since You've Been Gone by Mary Jennifer Payne #BookReview

  Is it possible to outrun your past? Fifteen-year-old Edie Fraser and her mother, Sydney, have been trying to do just that for five years. Now, things have gone from bad to worse. Not only has Edie had to move to another new school she's in a different country. 
Sydney promises her that that this is their chance at a fresh start, and Edie does her best to adjust to life in London, England, despite being targeted by the school bully. But when Sydney goes out to work the night shift and doesn't come home, Edie is terrified that the past has finally caught up with them. 
Alone in a strange country, Edie is afraid to call the police for fear that she'll be sent back to her abusive father. Determined to find her mother, but with no idea where to start, she must now face the most difficult decision of her life."

Throwaway Girl by Kristine Scarrow #BookReview

  Andy Burton knows a thing or two about survival. Since she was removed from her mother's home and placed in foster care when she was nine, she's had to deal with abuse, hunger, and homelessness. But now that she's eighteen, she's about to leave Haywood House, the group home for girls where she's lived for the past four years, and the closest thing to a real home she's ever known.

Will Andy be able to carve out a better life for herself and find the happiness she is searching for?

3 Star #Review of Second Kiss (Spell Crossed #2) by Robert Priest

On the spell-crossed Phaer Isle, teenage Xemion dreams of being a great swordsman. When he finds a blade-shaped stick, he fashions it to look like a real sword. Knowing that the laws of their cruel Pathan conquerors would require a death sentence for possession of such an object, his friend Saheli demands he destroy it. He agrees, but insists on performing just one sword ceremony. When his mastery of the weapon, a skill long forgotten, is witnessed by a mysterious man named Vallaine, the two friends are invited to join a planned rebellion. At first they refuse, but when a sadistic official discovers their transgressions, they are forced to embark on a dangerous journey to the ruins of the ancient city of Ulde, where rebel forces are gathering.
Armed with only their wits and the painted sword, they face Thralls, Triplicants, dragons, rage-wraiths, and a host of other spell-crossed beings. As they approach the Great Kone, source of all spell-craft, Saheli's fear of magic and Xemion's attraction to it bind them in a crossed spell of their own â?? one that threatens to separate the two forever. 

1 Star #Review of The Paper Sword (Spell Crossed #1) by Robert Priest

On the spell-crossed Phaer Isle, teenage Xemion dreams of being a great swordsman. When he finds a blade-shaped stick, he fashions it to look like a real sword. Knowing that the laws of their cruel Pathan conquerors would require a death sentence for possession of such an object, his friend Saheli demands he destroy it. He agrees, but insists on performing just one sword ceremony. When his mastery of the weapon, a skill long forgotten, is witnessed by a mysterious man named Vallaine, the two friends are invited to join a planned rebellion. At first they refuse, but when a sadistic official discovers their transgressions, they are forced to embark on a dangerous journey to the ruins of the ancient city of Ulde, where rebel forces are gathering.
Armed with only their wits and the painted sword, they face Thralls, Triplicants, dragons, rage-wraiths, and a host of other spell-crossed beings. As they approach the Great Kone, source of all spell-craft, Saheli's fear of magic and Xemion's attraction to it bind them in a crossed spell of their own â?? one that threatens to separate the two forever.