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Book Review: “TimeBomb” by Scott K. Andrews

*NO SPOILERS REVIEW*


Title: TimeBomb

Author: Scott K. Andrews

Published: October 9th, 2014

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Find the Author: Goodreads


I received this for review from Hodder for review. As always, my reviews are fair and un-bias.




New York City, 2141: Yojana Patel throws herself off a skyscraper, but never hits the ground.

Cornwall, 1640: gentle young Dora Predennick, newly come to Sweetclover Hall to work, discovers a badly-burnt woman at the bottom of a flight of stairs. When she reaches out to comfort the dying woman, she’s knocked unconscious, only to wake, centuries later, in empty laboratory room.

On a rainy night in present-day Cornwall, seventeen-year-old Kaz Cecka sneaks into the long-abandoned Sweetclover Hall, determined to secure a dry place to sleep. Instead he finds a frightened housemaid who believes Charles I is king and an angry girl who claims to come from the future.

Thrust into the centre of an adventure that spans millennia, Dora, Kaz and Jana must learn to harness powers they barely understand to escape not only villainous Lord Sweetclover but the forces of a fanatical army… all the while staying one step ahead of a mysterious woman known only as Quil.

Time travel novels are becoming something brand new on my shelf, not to mention already taking over so much space over the other genres. Scott K. Andrews novel is heavy on the time-travel – in an amazing way – and the time spaces that the book covers are propelled into the past and future at the strike of a match. So I was definitely eager to get started on a new thrilling adventure. 
There’s Jana, a girl from New York in 2141 who gets pulled to the present day after she jumps off the top of a skyscraper, Dora; a young servant who finds herself pulled forward in time when she tries to help a dying woman who is severely hurt at the place she works, and then there’s Kaz; a young boy that finds both of them where Dora works. They all have different outlooks on what the world is at their current “times” they existed, like who was king and what the future and past is. They wonder why they were drawn together, but soon find themselves delving deep into a complex and mysterious world. Knowing they can only do this together, they band together to uncover the truth of what brought them to the same time and why. 
TimeBomb was a fast-paced, astounding novel that races in time, weaving into mystery and what lies within time itself. As the first book in a trilogy (yay!), we aren’t given all the answers just yet so some things were left a little complex, but that’s what I love about it – there’s still so much to the story that is out there and I’m excited to learn what this means for the characters. My favourite character was Jana who stood out to me a little more than the other characters and I felt like I connected with her more than Dora or Kaz, although they were each in turn interesting and far from standard characters. TimeBomb was filled with enigmatic, thrilling parts and I wasn’t bored at all reading it – my attention was fixed on the rushes through time and the fast-paced action that followed. 
Overall, TimeBomb is a novel you don’t want to miss, time-travel fans. It’ll leave you wanting to race through time to read the whole trilogy before it’s out. 
       

Time-travel fans and dystopia fans will love this change of genre!


What did you think of TimeBomb?

Who was your favourite character?

Let me know in the comments!

happy reading!
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Book Review: “Lips Touch” by Laini Taylor

Title: Lips Touch (Lips Touch: Three Times)

Author: Laini Taylor
Genre: Young Adult – Supernatural/Paranormal
Release Date: October 24th, 2014
Published by: Hodder & Stoughton


★ I received this from Hodder & Stoughton in exchange for an honest review. As always, my reviews are fair and non-bias. ★ 



Three tales of supernatural love, each pivoting on a kiss that is no mere kiss, but an action with profound consequences for the kissers’ souls:

Goblin Fruit
In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today’s savvy girls?

Spicy Little Curses
A demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test her curse.

Hatchling
Six days before Esme’s fourteenth birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons?
 

Laini Taylor is quite popular in YA literature right now, with her Daughter of Smoke and Bone series rising in popularity in the genre at the moment – so with the arrival of Lips Touch in my mailbox, I was super excited to get to read the powerful storytelling of Laini’s.
 
The book opens with the addictive Goblin Fruit, a story about a girl named Kizzy. Her family is quite unordinary and she is as well. But the most attention-grabbing sentences are the opener, ones that tell of the kind of girls Goblin’s like, how they used to rope them in with tempting fruits in past times. But in the modern times, there is a sharp turn on the story and Kizzy is almost blindsided with what extents the Goblins would go to tempt her. Of all the stories in Lips Touch, Kizzy’s is my favourite. The way each scene is crafted so bewitchingly just stole all my attention.
Then, in Spicy Little Curses, we meet the ambassador to hell and a demon, and their tale of a curse cast upon a young English girl in India. Her voice is cursed, and knowing that her voice spoken aloud would be disastrous for many, she keeps her lips sealed. But then she falls in love, and it changes everything she knew and cared for. Suddenly, she’s thinking about talking, about singing…she’s thinking maybe the curse isn’t true. Spicy Little Curses is gracefully written and the most creative of the stories.
And finally, in Hatchling, just before Esme’s fourteenth birthday, one of her brown eyes turns to blue. But it’s far more perplex than she could ever have thought. Everything she knows is on the line when her past suddenly comes into light, the howling creeping up on her, enchantingly setting the scene for her destiny to be revealed. Hatchling was charming and ingenious, the most page-turning of the three. I was turning pages fast, dying to find out the end, forgetting the real world.
Overall, Lips Touch was what storytelling is all about. Laini Taylor has captured every dark, lips touching, fate and destiny awaking, fairy tale and sealed it up in a magical, visionary novel. The illustrations that map out the story before we read are beautiful and elegantly drawn that they held my attention like the very words on a page. It was imaginative, passionate and by far one of the best books I’ve read this year. 5 stars completely.
 
 
Goblin Fruit! Everything Goblin Fruit.

YA Fans everywhere.

 

 

Have you read Lips Touch?

What did you think?


Tell me in the comments, on twitter or by using the hashtag #LipsTouch

 

happy reading! 

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Book Review: “The Winner’s Curse” by Marie Rutkoski

Title: The Winner’s Curse

Author: Marie Rutkoski
Genre: Young Adult – Historical Romance / Fantasy 
Release Date: July 3rd, 2014
Published by: Bloomsbury Childrens


I received this from Bloomsbury Childrens in exchange for an honest review. As always, my reviews are fair and non-bias. 





Winning what you want may cost you everything you love.

As a general’s daughter in a vast empire that revels in war and enslaves those it conquers, seventeen-year-old Kestrel has two choices: she can join the military or get married. But Kestrel has other intentions. One day, she is startled to find a kindred spirit in a young slave up for auction.

Arin’s eyes seem to defy everything and everyone. Following her instinct, Kestrel buys him—with unexpected consequences. It’s not long before she has to hide her growing love for Arin. But he, too, has a secret, and Kestrel quickly learns that the price she paid for a fellow human is much higher than she ever could have imagined.

Set in a richly imagined new world, The Winner’s Curse by Marie Rutkoski is a story of deadly games where everything is at stake, and the gamble is whether you will keep your head or lose your heart.

Historical fiction isn’t usually my go-to read, but there was something compelling about The Winner’s Curse. I had heard so many great things about the story and the romance and that it was a must read, so I was going in with high hopes. 
The high hopes I went into The Winner’s Curse with were met with exceeding enchantment and allure into the Historical backdrop and charismatic characters. Kestrel was especially interesting, although being set in the third person POV didn’t give me a full look into her thoughts and I wasn’t sure what that would mean until Arin was introduced and I saw why there was a different point of view situation where we could see into both of their worlds. Although they were both about to collide massively. 
Kestrel is the General’s daughter, and she has everything she could possibly want. She also had a question weighing on her shoulders; to join the military like her father or get married. But when she sees a slave auction in progress and the slave up for grabs being Arin, she sees something in him that she hasn’t quite seen in anyone else. Promising he can sing, she buys him even to the dismay of her best friend; Jess. Although the consequences that follow were something Kestrel couldn’t have pictured. She feels a connection with Arin, even if he is secretive and distant. But when they talk about music, especially Kestrel’s piano that she adores, they seem more matched than she ever thought. But it was becoming obvious that they had a certain connection and scandal hits the town, forcing them to be frightfully honest about how they saw each other. But Arin has ulterior motives, even if he is growing to hate being dishonest to Kestrel. His plans are wild and outrageous, but he’s not the one in control. He still tries to save Kestrel when the plan goes forward, and sends her world spiralling out of control into a one she doesn’t even recognize. One completely opposite to the life she has lived all her life. The roles get reversed. People get hurt. And still there is still a spark between them, even if Kestrel is filled with hate and Arin with slight remorse. 
The Winner’s Curse is unlike anything I’ve ever read – genius, enrapturing and with a hopelessly destined love. Filled with enamoring qualities and a world with stakes higher than ever, where the roles of rich and poor are tested like a game. An incredible – possibly even the best – Historical YA book I have ever read. A definite favourite this year.
I can’t wait for The Winner’s Crime, book two of the trilogy!



A game of bite and sting, anyone? (You’ll only understand if you’ve read The Winner’s Curse, which you SHOULD!) Speaking of, you can actually play it here on Marie’s website for the book. 

Historical YA fans, even stretching to the Fantasy lovers. It’s one of those books where even if you don’t normally read the genre, you’d love. 

Have you read The Winner’s Curse?


Tell me in the comments or on twitter!


happy reading!

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