JESS JUST READS

A BOOK REVIEW BLOG

White Stag by Kara Barbieri

As the last child in a family of daughters, seventeen-year-old Janneke was raised to be the male heir. While her sisters were becoming wives and mothers, she was taught to hunt, track, and fight. On the day her village was burned to the ground, Janneke—as the only survivor—was taken captive by the malicious Lydian and eventually sent to work for his nephew Soren.

Janneke’s survival in the court of merciless monsters has come at the cost of her connection to the human world. And when the Goblin King’s death ignites an ancient hunt for the next king, Soren senses an opportunity for her to finally fully accept the ways of the brutal Permafrost. But every action he takes to bring her deeper into his world only shows him that a little humanity isn’t bad—especially when it comes to those you care about.

Through every battle they survive, Janneke’s loyalty to Soren deepens even as she tries to fight her growing attraction to him. After dangerous truths are revealed, Janneke must choose between holding on or letting go of her last connections to a world she no longer belongs to. She must make the right choice to save the only thing keeping both worlds from crumbling.

White Stag by Kara Barbieri is the first book in a new dark fantasy series, featuring a large cast of magical creatures and abilities. This book was originally self-published and after it became a success, White Stag was picked up by a major publisher for print distribution.

Before the story has even begun, there are trigger warnings — There are things in this book that you may find distressing or disturbing. Be warned there is content in this book that may trigger you. — and an author’s note where Kara addresses to readers what you can expect to come across in the book. Trauma, sexual violence, rape, assault, mutilation, eating disorders and body dysmorphia are all topics that come up throughout the novel. I think readers who have experienced violent pasts will appreciate these notices, and it will help them decide whether or not this is a book they would like to read.

Janneke is a human girl who was kidnapped when her entire village and family were murdered over a century earlier. She was taken across the border by goblins and has been living as a goblin thrall in a land called the Permafrost — she ages slowly and her body adapts to live with goblins. She starts to become like them, against her will.

“If I could forget where I was, who I was with, what I was doing, it was almost as if I were back home so many years ago, hunting for my family. My heart sank in my chest; that would never happen again. Even if I managed to escape this and live in the human world, there was a nagging part of me that feared I would never belong.”

Lydian abused and mutilated Janneke for just under one year before passing her off to his nephew Soren. It’s been 100 years since Soren claimed ownership of Janneke, and her pain is very much still present and raw. She has flashbacks over what Lydian did to her, but Soren seems caring and trusting and he treats her better.

At its core, White Stag is about identity. Janneke doesn’t know who she is anymore, or who she wants to be. She’s not really fully human anymore, but not full goblin either. If she could leave Permafrost, would she want that? If she could become goblin, would she want that either?

Janneke really learns what she wants out of her life, and she discovers who she is among all these strangers and villains. She morphs into who she is meant to be.

You do have to suspend your disbelief a fair bit for this book, because even though this is fantasy and therefore anything is possible, the idea that a human can turn into a goblin because she’s been among them for so long does seem a little farfetched.

“The hurt in the young girl’s voice was clear. Perhaps whatever you were, you loved your family in some way. Perhaps knowing you were being taken to your likely death was just as painful as knowing you were being taken as a thrall. I shook myself. Attempting to humanise them would only make this worse.”

This first novel is really about the ancient goblin hunt. The Goblin King dies and so there’s a hunt to find the next goblin king. Soren and Lydian go up against each other, and there are high stakes involved. Janneke is at risk of being returned to Lydian. Soren is at risk of death.

Janneke accompanies Soren on this ancient hunt, and that’s when she must choose who she is meant to be. Her humanity is starting to fade and the goblin spirit within her is developing and growing stronger. It scares her.

Humans living in the Permafrost usually die after a few years, so the fact that Janneke is still alive after a century shows you just how strong and determined she is. She’s smart and she’s resourceful, and she and Soren bond over the course of the novel. They both need each other; they make each other stronger.

“He reached out and brushed my cheek with his thumb. i shivered, but not from fear. There was something burning deep inside of me that was beginning to make itself noticed. Something about his soft words and caresses, the strange mingle of fury and concern drew me close.”

Recommended for fans of fantasy, science fiction or paranormal fiction.

Please note the trigger warnings. I found some of the scenes very graphic and very violent and distressing. I can’t begin to imagine how sexual assault survivors may react to this book, so if that’s you, be aware before diving into this story.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

White Stag
Kara Barbieri
January 2019
Pan Macmillan Publishers

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

Each year, eight beautiful girls are chosen as Paper Girls to serve the king. It’s the highest honour they could hope for…and the most demeaning. This year, there’s a ninth. And instead of paper, she’s made of fire.

Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. Ten years ago, her mother was snatched by the royal guards, and her fate remains unknown. Now, the guards are back and this time it’s Lei they’re after – the girl with the golden eyes, whose rumoured beauty has piqued the king’s interest.

Over weeks of training in the opulent but oppressive palace, Lei and eight other girls learn the skills and charm that befit a king’s consort. There, Lei does the unthinkable – she falls in love. Her forbidden romance becomes enmeshed with an explosive plot that threatens her world’s entire way of life. Lei, still the wide-eyed country girl at heart, must decide how far she’s willing to go for justice and revenge.

Girls of Paper and Fire is a YA novel by Natasha Ngan, set in a fictional fantasy world where nine girls are chosen to serve the King — they are to be his concubines.

Before the story has even begun, there are trigger warnings — Please be aware that this book contains scenes of violence and sexual assault — and an author’s note where Natasha addresses the reasons behind the story and the importance of telling stories like this. I think readers who have experienced violent pasts will appreciate these notices, and it will help them decide whether or not this is a book they would like to read.

“A high voice cuts through the quiet. It’s the girl we heard outside, Blue. She’s tall, even standing next to Madam Himura, with narrow shoulders and glossy azure-black hair, straight and smooth. Her features match the sharpness in her voice, angled cheekbones like two blades and narrow eyes shadowed with paint glinting out from beneath blunt bangs.”

Girls of Paper and Fire is a trilogy with an Asian-inspired setting, and Natasha leaves many questions unanswered to entice readers to continue with the series. Yes, there are some triggering scenes but it’s written delicately and is not too graphic. The characters discuss their feelings about what happens, and they have the opportunity to think and talk with each other about how they’re handling their situation.

17-year-old Lei is brave and outspoken, unwilling to accept her circumstances because others deem it to be an ‘honour’. She fights for what she wants, and she doesn’t want to be the King’s concubine. She wants to return to her family and she also wants to find out what happened to her mother years earlier when she was kidnapped.

Girls of Paper and Fire explores friendship and love, and the girls in the book are all very supportive and grow together over the course of the novel. Yes, there are fights and betrayals and not all of the girls are close friends, but they’re all going through this very scary situation and they come together in support of each other.

Lei falls in love with the secretive Wren, and this same-sex relationship is explored with sensitivity and authenticity. It’s heartwarming, reading about these two girls finding love and happiness when they’re surrounded by terror and threats.

“Silence, and rainfall, and Wren watching me with uneasy eyes. It’s the first time I’ve seen her undone like this, so unsure. The collar of her nightdress has fallen low, exposing the swell of her breasts, and from under it her bare legs are long and glossy in the moonlight. I think of her and the wolf, what intimate moment I might have interrupted. My gut twists.”

The writing and pacing is tight and very dialogue heavy, but the chapters flow and the prose is swift. Tension builds throughout the novel right up until its dramatic climax. We’re left wanting to know more. At times, the supporting characters were more interesting than Lei, but she’s still an engaging protagonist.

I enjoyed the story and am looking forward to the next instalment. This book isn’t going to be appropriate for every reader, so all I’d advise is to read the author’s note in the beginning so that you’re aware of what’s to come.

Thank you to the publisher for mailing me a review copy in exchange for an honest review.

Girls of Paper and Fire
Natasha Ngan
November 2018
Hachette Book Publishers

King’s Cage (Red Queen #3) by Victoria Aveyard

King’s Cage is the third instalment in Victoria Aveyard’s Red Queen series. I’ve reviewed the first two on the blog: Red Queen and Glass Sword. This review may contain spoilers for anyone that hasn’t read it yet.

We pick up where we left off at the end of Glass Sword: Mare Barrow is a prisoner to King Maven. She is powerless without her lightning ability (due to the presence of Silver Stone in the palace) and she is tormented by her captors. King Maven keeps her in a cell for months and she finds out very little information about the outside world. Maven’s mother may have once been controlling him, but now that she’s dead and he is King, he is every bit as lethal as she once was. He continues to weave his dead mother’s web in an attempt to maintain control over his country — and his prisoner, Mare.

Victoria has taken a very different turn with this book. Mare is no longer the strong fighter we saw in books one and two. She is helpless, forced to be Maven’s pawn in his public game. Maven parades her in front of televisions and forces her to say things to the public that aren’t true. Her allies, Cal, Cameron and Kilorn, can only watch from outside the walls of the palace as their leader Mare deteriorates and becomes Maven’s victim.

“I drift on a dark sea, and shadows drift with me. They could be memories. They could be dreams. Familiar but strange, and something wrong with each…Purple eats at the edge of my vision. I try to turn in to its embrace, knowing what it holds. My lightning is so close. If only I could find the memory of it and taste one last drop of power before plunging back into darkness. But it fades like the rest, ebbing away.”
-MARE BARROW

There is a lot on internal dialogue in this book. The book switches focus from Mare to Cal to Cameron and to Evangeline, and we come to understand all of their thoughts, fears, insecurities and worries. Victoria really gets inside their head so that the reader really understands who they are. They are three dimensional, fully-crafted characters who we sympathise with and empathise for.

King Maven is always an external character — despite the snippets we get when Mare is in the same scene with him, we don’t learn much more about him other than what others think of him. Or, from what we can read between the lines when he’s revealing something to Mare. There’s a particular scene where King Maven tells Mare about someone he used to love, and it does well to illustrate the kind of person he could’ve been had his mother not manipulated him and damaged him (psychologically) with her special ability.

The Queen used to invade his mind and force him to think things and do things he normally wouldn’t do. Maven reveals he was born disabled, but that the Queen wove herself inside his mind and forced him to walk properly. It hurt him so much that he hated her, but she still wouldn’t stop. And even until her death, she was manipulating him.

“Maven is a talented liar, and I don’t trust a single word he speaks. Even if he was telling the truth. Even is he is a product of his mother’s meddling, a thorned flower forced to grow a certain way. That doesn’t change things.”
-MARE BARROW

Most of the book is focused on Mare, but we do occasionally learn what the rest of the Scarlet Guard are up to, still fighting the cause and working to break Mare out of her cage. I did feel bored by Mare throughout the book. King’s Cage is about 600 pages, and yet Mare doesn’t fight back at all for most of it. She does as she’s told, and she doesn’t even try. I can understand this given she doesn’t have her powers, but she’s the leader of the Scarlet Guard. In books one and two, she was so fierce and I was expecting her to be more like that even whilst being held captive. But she is so complacent and plain in the book and I found myself quite bored.

“Cal follows orders, but he can’t make choices.”
-KING MAVEN

I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series because I know it’s the last and I want to know how Victoria will resolve things. Although, I don’t think this book needed to be as long as it was and I would’ve liked to see it condensed. Perhaps Victoria could’ve merged books three and four?

Has anyone else read this book? Or perhaps the first two in the series? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Thank you to the publisher for sending me a review copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

King’s Cage
Victoria Aveyard
February 2017
Hachette Publishers

Stray by Rachael Craw

Stray is the sequel to Spark and is the second book in a young adult science fiction trilogy by New Zealand author Rachael Craw.

Stray follows on from where Spark finished. Evie is a Shield: designed to kill in order to protect, but now the Affinity Project have finally come for her as she always feared. Evie is studied, tested on, and lectured on what she can and can’t do. She longs for her boyfriend Jamie and she’s desperate to prove that her brother Aidan is innocent and to clear his name.

The strongest part of this book – and the whole series – is the relationship between Evie and her friends and family. There is wit and humour present in this book, even amongst scenes filled with tension or horror. Kitty is a wonderful character and her and Evie really complement each other well in a scene.

Spark, the first book in the trilogy, felt like it contained a fair bit of info dumping, especially about the world and the technology and the history of Evie’s family. However, in Stray, information was woven into the story seamlessly, with well-written integration and easy-to-understand explanations. I thoroughly enjoyed this book more than Spark, and felt the plot progressed quicker and it was more of an exciting read.

The only negative I have about this book, and it’s slightly nitpicking, is Jamie’s characterisation. I seem to be the only reader who felt he was a little bland, perhaps one dimensional. I felt I couldn’t relate to him or understand him and I doubted Evie and Jamie’s chemistry. Also, there were a few times in the book where I felt like things weren’t explained as clearly as they could’ve and I had to reread certain passages. But this didn’t occur often and events later in the novel usually answered any questions I had.

To anyone who is interested in reading Stray, make sure you’re quite familiar with Spark and have read it – or reread it – recently. When I picked up Stray, it had been a few months since I’d read Spark and I really struggled for the first one hundred pages. That is, until all of the technology and familial relations and problems from the first book came flooding back and I remembered what happened.

I recommend the Spark trilogy to all young adult readers. It’s fast-paced and intriguing and Stray builds upon Spark with lots of action and fighting and danger. More information is uncovered, and more threats become known. Also, Rachel Craw does well to answer some questions for the reader whilst also leaving some things open to make readers eager for book three, Shield.

Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton

Tell me that and we’ll go. Right now. Save ourselves and leave this place to burn. Tell me that’s how you want your story to go and we’ll write it straight across the sand.

Rebel of the Sands is the first novel in a YA/fantasy trilogy about Amani, who lives in the unforgiving, dead-end town of Dustwalk. She meets a mysterious stranger, and together, they leave Dustwalk to escape and to find something better. With Amani’s extremely accurate shooting skills and the stranger’s mysterious past, this book is like the YA, dystopian version of Aladdin.

Amani is a great main character, and she provides a breath of fresh air within this genre. Rebel of the Sands is set in the desert, with harsh heat and windy days and dry, long summers. Amani’s parents are both dead and her distant relatives are planning on marrying her off. She is desperate, impulsive, ruthless, and at times, naïve. But she’s a fantastic YA lead character because she takes control of the scene and she has backbone.

The first in a trilogy packed with shooting contests, train robberies, festivals under the stars, powerful Djinni magic and an electrifying love story.

Rebel of the Sands is set in the desert plains of some strange world, and it’s fantastic. The reader can really feel the dry, desolate desert through Alwyn’s descriptive prose, and the character interactions are believable and realistic and they intrigue the reader and make them want to finish the book and pick up the next in the series. Amani is witty and brave, but also young and impulsive, which is appropriate for her age and for what she’s going through in the book. She’s travelling to a distant city to find her Aunt, but she’s now caught up in the rebellion. There is a new Prince who is building an army to forge ‘A New Desert’ and soon, Amani becomes engulfed in this war and thrust into battles and fights with both soldiers and supernatural beings. She is forced to work together with her new allies but also trust her instincts.

Rebel of the Sands is paced well, but perhaps could move a little faster. It does a wonderful job of setting up the sequel, which I imagine will be more imbedded in how the rebellion is going to work to overthrow the current government. I imagine Amani’s enemies from when she lived in Dustwalk will also re-appear in the next novel. I look forward to reading the sequel when it comes out! Hopefully the cover for the sequel is just as stunning as the Rebel of the Sands cover.

My Score: 8/10

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