Hi everyone! Today I’m excited to participate in the blog tour of I KILLED ZOE SPANOS by Kit Frick! For fans of Sadie and Serial, this gripping thriller follows two teens whose lives become inextricably linked when one confesses to murder and the other becomes determined to uncover the real truth no matter the cost. This YA thriller debut releases on June 30th, 2020 from McElderry Books!
Read on to learn more about Kit Frick’s upcoming book, I Killed Zoe Spanos, her writing process and lots more!
Today I’m excited to participate in the bookstagram & creative blog tour for The Veiled Threat by Sophia Menesini hosted by MTMC Tours! The Veiled Threat is an LGBTQ Romance Fantasy-Adventure where pirates, court intrigue, rebellion against slavery, and romance clash on this first installment of The Veiled Duchess series.
Hi everyone! Today I’m excited to participate in the blog tour for Conviction by Denise Mina! Conviction is out now and this highly anticipated novel has been selected as a Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, as a book of the year by The Times, Observer and Telegraph and as one of the Guardian’s books of the month.
Simmering in Patagonian myth, The Tenth Girl is a gothic psychological thriller with a haunting twist. At the very southern tip of South America looms an isolated finishing school. Legend has it that the land will curse those who settle there. But for Mavi—a bold Buenos Aires native fleeing the military regime that took her mother—it offers an escape to a new life as a young teacher to Argentina’s elite girls. Mavi tries to embrace the strangeness of the imposing house—despite warnings not to roam at night, threats from an enigmatic young man, and rumors of mysterious Others. But one of Mavi’s ten students is missing, and when students and teachers alike begin to behave as if possessed, the forces haunting this unholy cliff will no longer be ignored. One of these spirits holds a secret that could unravel Mavi’s existence. In order to survive she must solve a cosmic mystery—and then fight for her life.
– My Thoughts –
The Tenth Girl is described as a gothic horror set in a creepy boarding school in Patagonia. I was so looking forward to this book and it was good but failed to leave a lasting impression on me.
The story has two timelines told by two narrators; one is our young teacher Mavi and the other is a mysterious being named Angel. For Mavi, this school is her salvation as she’s got nowhere to go and even though she’s been warned of a curse on this school, she ignores it. Upon her arrival, she notices that the house..rather, the mansion is not normal. She’s advised to stay in her room at night and not to wander around the house. We’re constantly reminded of the creepiness of the mansion on top of the complete isolation and the near arctic atmosphere.
Soon, Mavi finds a student missing and strange things start happening in the house that forces Mavi to rethink the warnings she received before arriving.
I love the atmosphere the author created in this book. You’ll get chills from thinking about a dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere. Even the house, it seems, has a mind of its own..so it doesn’t matter if you’re outside or inside: You’re not safe. This is own voices for Latinx representation and includes tidbits of real-life stories from the author’s family members living under the oppressive rule in 1970’s Argentina. This book also includes mythology from an indigenous group based in modern Patagonia and it adds a horror element to the story. The twist that came in the end was so unexpected that I had to go back and re-read the last pages again. I have conflicting feelings about this twist; it was unique and asks more moral questions of us but I’m not sure how I feel about it just yet.
Overall, I would recommend this book If you want to read a young adult debut with horror elements, that has a very twisted climax. Despite my conflicted feelings about this book, I’ll definitely keep an eye on Sara Faring’s upcoming titles.
Thanks to the publisher for gifting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
– About the Author –
Born in Los Angeles, Sara Faring is a multi-lingual Argentine-American fascinated by literary puzzles. After working in investment banking at J.P. Morgan, she worked at Penguin Random House. She holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania in International Studies and from the Wharton School in Business. She currently resides in New York City.
Her first novel, The Tenth Girl, will be released by Macmillan/Imprint on September 24, 2019. Sara is represented by Sarah Bedingfield at Levine Greenberg Rostan Agency.
The day after the funeral all our mourning clothes hung out on the line like sleeping bats. ‘This will be really embarrassing,’ I kept saying to my family, ‘when she shows up at the door in a week or two.’
When Deena’s wild and mysterious sister Mandy disappears – presumed dead – her family are heartbroken. But Mandy has always been troubled. It’s just another bad thing to happen to Deena’s family. Only Deena refuses to believe it’s true.
And then the letters start arriving. Letters from Mandy, claiming that their family’s blighted history is not just bad luck or bad decisions – but a curse, handed down through the generations. Mandy has gone in search of the curse’s roots, and now Deena must find her. What they find will heal their family’s rotten past – or rip it apart forever.
– My Thoughts –
“There were silhouettes of girls holding hands on a couple of the covers, and on one – a shiny, hardback American edition – two girls kissing. I shook my head at the audacity of my sister, at my own embarrassment, at the sheer perfection of both her timing and her gift. From Tipping the Velvet to Cameron Post, an entire library of girls like me.”
All the Bad Apples was a creepy, difficult but enjoyable and an important read. This is my first Moïra Fowley-Doyle novel but I’d highly recommend it.
The writing is so beautifully poetic, the atmosphere magical and it’s about all women: queer, and everyone who can get pregnant including trans men, gender queer and non-binary folks. It starts out with the main character Deena coming out on her 17th birthday and is followed by a journey to figure out why the females of her family are cursed when they turn seventeen. It tells the story of why/how only the females are made out to be the “Bad Apples” of the family and are cast out of the proverbial tree.
Overall, I would highly recommend this book If you want to read an impactful story with messages and writing that are both haunting and yet memorable, then please read this!!
Thanks to the publisher for gifting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
– About the Author –
Moïra Fowley-Doyle is half-French, half-Irish and made of equal parts feminism, whimsy and Doc Martens. She lives in Dublin where she writes magic realism, reads tarot cards and raises witch babies. Moïra’s first novel, The Accident Season, was shortlisted for the 2015 Waterstones Children’s Book Prize & the North East Teen Book Awards, nominated for the Carnegie Medal & won the inaugural School Library Association of Ireland Great Reads Award. It received two starred reviews & sold in ten territories. Her second novel, Spellbook of the Lost and Found, was published in summer 2017, received a starred review from School Library Journal and was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards.
Book Rambler 