The Daughter of Victory Lights also happens to be the featured book in Harper Collins/HQ Books #HERSTORY: Women Who Rebel campaign for the month of February. Harper Collins kindly sent me copies of all of the #HERSTORY books, so I'll be reading this one next week, and sharing my review soon after - and I can't wait (I've been hearing good things already!).


Here's the book's synopsis from the publisher's website (and you can check it out on Goodreads here):

1945: After the thrill and danger of volunteering in an all-female searchlight regiment protecting Londoners from German bombers overhead, Evelyn Bell is secretly dismayed to be sent back to her rigid domestic life when the war is over. But then she comes across a secret night-time show, hidden from the law on a boat in the middle of the Thames. Entranced by the risqué and lively performance, she grabs the opportunity to join the misfit crew and escape her dreary future.
At first the Victory travels from port to port to raucous applause, but as the shows get bigger and bigger, so too do the risks the performers are driven to take, as well as the growing emotional complications among the crew. Until one desperate night ...

1963: Lucy, an unloved and unwanted little girl, is rescued by a mysterious stranger who says he knows her mother. On the Isle of Wight, Lucy is welcomed into an eclectic family of ex-performers. She is showered with kindness and love, but gradually it becomes clear that there are secrets they refuse to share. Who is Evelyn Bell?
  
I'm so looking forward to this book - keep an eye for my review soon!
In the meantime, I'll be back in the next few days with my review of January's book, Tea Cooper's The Girl in the Painting.

xo Bron

There have been soooo many amazing title going out lately (including the gorgeous The Daughter of Victory Lights, which I left copies of on the tram today) - so I thought I'd share a little stack of some of the books I've been leaving on the bus and tram lately - or will be dropping around in the next few weeks! Click on the titles below to go to the Goodreads page and find out more about them.


DESIRE LINES :: Felicity Volk - out 20 Feb from Hachette Australia

JANE IN LOVE :: Rachel Givney - out now from Penguin Books Australia

THE DAUGHTER OF VICTORY LIGHTS :: Kerri Turner - out now from HQ Fiction Australia

THE PARIS MODEL :: Alexandra Joel - out now from Harper Collins Australia

I'd love to know if you've even spotted a Books on the Rail book in the wild! Click over here to find out more about the movement, it's founders Ali and Michelle, and the sweet book they wrote based on Books on the Rail (The Book Ninja) And if you're in Canberra make sure you keep your eyes peeled for all of these great titles!

xo Bron

Firstly, can we please take a minute to drool over that gorgeous cover? I read this one on my Kindle so I haven't see the actual cover in person yet but it looks absolutely beautiful, and I think fits the vibe of the story really well.

The Ninth Sorceress is the first book in a new series, and it definitely felt like a first in a series book. There was quite a bit of background about the society and magic to be introduced, and I feel like this was done pretty well. The fact that Gwyn has led a fairly sheltered life so far means that she is learning at the same time as the reader, and I always think this is a nice natural way of introducing this kind of information.

I had a little bit of trouble figuring out some of the timing of the story, in terms of how quickly time was moving - I couldn't quite get a feeling for whether journeys were taking days or weeks, and this sometimes felt a little bit inconsistent to me. But, importantly, I did feel like enough time was passing for Gwyn to grow and change, and for her relationships with others to do the same. I liked the sense of frustration we got from Gwyn when things weren't happening easily for her. I also really liked that Gwyn is quite a reluctant - and maybe disbelieving - chosen one, and there was an authenticity in this portrayal of the chosen one trope that really appealed to me. Often it feels like she doesn't believe that she has any magic, but is just going along with it as a means to an end.

Something that really worked for me was the way that it is a story in a story - I loved that we had the 'present day' prisoner telling the story, and it made me really keen to try and figure out what would happen next as the story went along - who the prisoner was going to be and what had led her to be there. I thought this sort of mystery element of the book was really engaging.

Overall, a lot of the overall vibe reminded me of the book in the Throne of Glass series where Aelin spends a lot of time learning to use and control her magic, so readers who enjoyed that aspect of Aelin's story might also be really into this one. It read a little bit to the younger side of the YA age span and could be a good introduction to the genre for someone looking for something a little bit more grown up, but not as full on as some of the other series out there. I think The Ninth Sorceress set some great ground work for the next books, and I'm looking forward to seeing what Gwyn (and Bonnie!) has in store for us next!

xo Bron

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The Ninth Sorceress by Bonnie Wynne
Release: Out Feb 13 from Talem Press.
Source: I received a free ebook copy of from Talem Press for review. All views are my own.
Category: #loveozYA, fantasy, adventure, mystery, magic 

1. Pick up a book (your current read, or the closest book to you, or your next read, etc)
2. Turn to page 77
3. Find a snippet, sentence or paragraph you like.
4. Share it on your blog or Twitter or Instagram. Link back to AusYABloggers, using #77Saturday

This weekend I've been reading The Good Hawk by Joseph Elliot. This is a brand new (it came out yesterday!) fantasy book - the first in a planned series - for readers aged 12ish and up. Walker Books kindly sent me this copy, and I'm about halfway through and really enjoying it, so I wanted to share a snippet today (with a full review to come after I finish).

Here we go - from page 77 of The Good Hawk:

  "I'm sorry about everything that's happened today," I say. I can assure you I was against it as much as you were."

   "I thought so."

  "Oh, I don't mean... It's just, well, before today marriage was forbidden on Skye. I presume they told you that?"

You can find The Good Hawk on Goodreads here.

It's a bit hard to know where to start with a review of this one, except to say that I liked it! It took a chapter or two, but then I was totally hooked, and pretty much read to the end in a day.

This is going to sound weird, and I promise I mean it in a good way, but this kind of reminded me of a cool episode of Star Trek - one of those episodes where the away team lands on a strange planet and its not entirely clear what's real and what's not.

The writing style really worked for me in this one - something about it felt to me like Alif was giving an account of what had happened after the fact. This gave it an authenticity that I don't think a 3rd person POV would have had. I also liked the way that this worked with the sense of confusion around what was happening - Alif wasn't really sure what was happening, so we weren't either, and I feel like that gave kind of a shared experience which is one of the things that drew me into the story.

Now I'm keen to go back and read de Becerra's first book - What the Woods Keep - which has been on my TBR since it came out, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she writes next!

xo Bron

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OASIS by Katya de Becerra
Release: Out now from Pan Macmillan Australia.
Source: I received a copy of from Pan Macmillan Australia for review. All views are my own.
Category: YA, speculative fiction, adventure, mystery, thriller