Month: August 2019

July 2019 Wrap Up

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Welcome to my July wrap up! I got a little bored of just writing a straight review of the book and then posting, so I thought I would change it up a little bit and do a end of the month wrap up and see how I like it. I read a total of 6 books this month which breaks my previous four book record by two books (hopefully I can read 8 in August). 6 books and 1993 pages. I was feeling a very strong Ocean/Siren/Pirate them this month so basically all of the books I read had either pirates or sirens/mermaids or both in them.

There is more then one way to steal a heart.

The first on the chopping block was To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo. I loved this book! I ultimately gave it 4 stars mostly cause I felt it tried a bit to hard to edgy and dark in some places, but over all it was beautifully written and I loved the banter between Lira and Prince Elian. This is a twist on the classic Little Mermaid story written by Hans Christian Andersen and popularized by Disney. The relationship between Elian and Lira was perfection and the character development in both was beautifully crafted. I literally cannot say enough good things about this book! My favorite quote is “How strange that instead of taking his heart, I’m hoping he takes me.”

To catch a pirate one must think like a pirate.

This is one of my all time favorite books. My copy is legitimately being held together by tape and will power. To this day I find nothing wrong with any of the characters. To Catch a Pirate by Jade Parker is a quick, cute, and easy read and I will love it and stan it forever. I think Annslisa and James are adorable together. I love their banter. I love how he brings out the pirate in her and she brings out the law abiding citizen in him. I love that it takes place in the 1700s (sorry not fantastical elements here). Its just straight YA historical romance. I gave it 5 stars! My favorite quote is ” I’ll always be there, Anna, in every ship you see sailing past. I’ll be the wind in it’s sail.”

There is fine line between love and revenge.

Sea Witch by Sarah Henning is by far my favorite read of this month and maybe this year. I was absolutely blown away by the writing and the imagery and the dialog and the love story and just literally everything. I have been begging my best friend to read it ever since I finished it. The atmosphere is everything! I LOVE IT SO MUCH I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO BEGIN! Just run, like actually run, and get this book and read and fall in love with it! This was obviously a 5 star read for me and it will make an appearance on my favorites of 2019 list. My favorite quote is “There is yet to be love in this story. Only coincidence and horticulture.” The second one in this duology dropped yesterday and i cannot wait to get paid so I can get it in mu hot little hands!

Sometimes you have to sacrifice everything for family.

This was a 4 star read for me, mostly cause I felt that Caledonia got weaker as the story progressed and is on a self imposed redemption arc. Also cause my favorite character dies and I wasn’t okay with that and for the impending love triangle I feel coming. The second book in the trilogy drops in September and I can’t wait cause I really know what happens to Cala and her crew. I feel as if I’m supposed to ship Cala with Oran but like I really love the dynamic between her and Lir and for them to get together would require some intense character development ans like I’m here for that, but I’m also not holding my breath for that. Seafire by Natalie C. Parker is a beautiful homage to Pirates and dystonia. The world she creates in this trilogy is intense and I want to explore it way more. My favorite quote from the story is a toss up between “Never underestimate the girls of this world.” and ” When I want a kiss, I will be the one to take it.” Also this has absolutely nothing to do with the story, but I am very upset that they changed the covers for the second one (they released a edition of the first one to match) because I find it really ugly and the cover on the first one was absolutely GORGEOUS! I mean LOOK AT IT! For a book nerd it’s swoon worthy!

  • Honestly a gender bent Captain Jack Sparrow with more sass.
  • Just because they are blood doesn’t mean they are family.

The last two books for the month were Daughter of the Pirate King and Daughter of the Siren Queen by Tricia Levenseller. Both were 3 star and 4 star reads respectively. I was a bit look warm with the first one mostly because I found Alosa to be a tad full of herself and not quite as smart as she thought she is, but as the story continued on she got a lot better especially in the second one. I loved the banter between Alosa and Riden and I liked watching their relationship form and grow over the duology. I also liked how the roles were a bit reversed in the fact that Riden was the one who wanted to talk about feelings and that Alosa was the stand offish one. I didn’t like how easily she turned on her father in the second one I wanted there to be a tad more inner turmoil on that front. I am loving the mostly/all female crew theme that is happening in YA Pirate themed books right not though! My favorite quotes are ” I am me because I choose to be me. I am what I want. Some say you have to find yourself. Not I. I believe We create ourselves to be what we want.” and “I may not have been born in the sea, but I was born to rule it. I am the daughter of the Siren Queen.”

Tiger’s Dream (Tiger’s Saga #5) By Colleen Houck

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This was my absolute favorite in the entire series. For those of you keeping track that means it now goes: Dream, Voyage, Curse, Destiny, Quest. The perspective change was actually really refreshing. Thankfully Kishan isn’t quite as whiny as Kelsey is, but he is pretty bull headed and there were still several times in the book where I wanted to literally smack him. I adore Anamika/Durga (Ana) as a character! I found her to be well rounded and a strong female character. Shes sure of her self and knows what she wants and goes after her and yet there is such a vulnerability to her cause of what she went through as a child. To me the book stands apart from the original 4 but its also defiantly not a stand alone. Its almost like a prequel but not really. The way I kinda described it to my friends is that if the first four books were a movie the 5th would almost be like a prequel mixed with behind the scenes bonus content mixed with an epilogue.

This book kinda jumps all over the place and plays with all kinds of timelines. We learn what happens to Kishan after he stays with Durga and how the curse came into being and how the mechanics of the curse worked. I found it all be really interesting the way it was pieced together is so layered and intricate its really mind boggling. I got answers to questions I didn’t even know I had. I think my favorite thing was watching Kishan and Ana go from adversaries to friends to lovers to soulmates. The love story to me was a lot more my speed then Ren and Kelsey’s. Ren and Kelsey were insta-love turned on again off again on again lovers, while Kishan and Ana were this slow build to trust and friendship and eventually two people madly in love. I mean the book is about 800 pages and for about 600 of those pages they can barely admit their feelings to themselves it seems. I also really enjoyed watching Kishan grow as a character more. We finally get to see him heal from the loss of the two women he thought he loved and heal from what he perceived to be his own failures. Kishan was definitely one of my favorite characters from the previous four books along with Kadam, but Ana really stole the show for me. Houck did a fantastic job in creating a really strong female lead here (if only she had done that for Kelsey). Ana is a drop dead gorgeous women. Kishan often describes her beauty in his inner monologues, but not only does he describe he beauty he describes her strength as a warrior as well as her venerability as a human. It makes her instantly likable as does the fact that she is unfamiliar with modern thing cause she was born in like the 16 or 1700s. Really what made me love the relationship between them was the Kishan sees her as an equal in every way. He wants to protect her but knows that she can protect herself. Ana views Kishan as an equal in every way too and she lets him protect her because its nice to be cared for. Unlike in Ren and Kelsey’s relationship where its seems Ren views Kelsey as a weak creature that needs protecting and Kelsey doesn’t really think she can protect herself. Ana is what Kelsey pretends to be really.

All in all for sure a five star read for me and one of my favorites of 2019 thus far. I think its a perfect addition to the saga as a whole and completes the story. Totally made me feel all the feels I felt reading the first 4 for the first time.