BBNYA Archives - Proud Book Reviews

March 9, 2023March 10, 2023

These Violent Nights – Rebecca Crunden

This book contains:

Extreme class segregation and persecution
“Ownership” of people similar in some ways to slavery
Descriptions of and the aftereffects of genocide
Drugging
Attempted rape
Attempted and completed murder.

Thorn is the primary character we follow for roughly two thirds of the book, however, we also spend about one third following Lucien.

Thorn is a human who’s suffered immense trauma from the Suriia and is hell bent on revenge for the murder of her family while also trying to do her best to protect her “little sister” Thistle. She’s a tough nugget, strong willed, suspicious of all and entirely dedicated to her cause.

Lucien is a Suriia of unknown origins (until the last third of the book) who’s suffered immensely at the hands of humans. Not initially from the same Earth as Thorn is, he’s suffered similar trauma but responds in quite a different way. For him, he’s all about creating a safe space for his family to live out their days without drawing more attention to themselves than they need to.

Thorn and Lucien are battling their own demons while trying to find a better life for themselves and their loved ones. We follow Thorn until she meets Lucien and then go back a bit to get a bit of Lucien’s history until he meets Thorn. And then everything changes, and we learn exactly how intricate everything is, and follow them as they do their best to fix it.

I’ve read and reviewed the entire of The Outlands Pentalogy, and really enjoyed Rebecca’s writing. So when I discovered she’d entered this book into the 2022 Book Bloggers Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA), I thought I knew what I was getting into. But boy was I wrong!

Although I did have mixed feelings about this as I read it. I loved the first third, then was super confused for the entire of the second third and felt betrayed and so conflicted. But then my trust was restored in the final third. If you read this, please give the second third a chance! It will make sense and work out for the best by the end of it!

I promise!

By the very end I was so happy, and while I’d kinda like to know what happens further in the future for all of them, I’m not disappointed in how it ended.

February 27, 2023February 27, 2023

City of Strife – Claudie Arseneault

This book contains:

Strong racism and class system themes, depictions and impacts.

Characters

We follow quite a few characters, almost in a Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time level of complexity and interweaving of characters. There seem to be three main groups of characters broken up into the Lower City, the Dathirii and the Myrian’s.

Arathiel, Larryn, Hasryan and Cal are all from the Lower City, all coming from different backgrounds but united in the fact that they’re otherwise excluded from society.

Diel, Jaeger, Branwen and Camilla are part of the Dathirii family who hold a position of power in the Upper City. While in a position of power, they’re different to the other families in that Diel (as the head of the family) can’t stand for injustice and abuse and makes a stand against it, and his family support him.

Nevian, Varden and Master Avenazar form the main Myrian characters, and they almost couldn’t be more different. From the scared and scarred apprentice, the racially hated-should-be-a-slave Head Priest and the sadist crazy man with a ridiculous amount of power.

Arathiel arrives back in Isandor after more than a century away from home, and while he’s changed significantly, much of the city hasn’t. As he finds his place, we meet more and more characters and discover the intricacies of the Isandor society and the individuals who live within it.

As they form bonds and new alliances, the webs weave and strands break as the story develops.

I loved the Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones vibes I was getting almost right from the beginning. While I’m sure following so many characters could be hard for some readers, I love it, especially when you have a world as complex as this.

All the way throughout, as the story unfolds, I found myself being drawn more and more into it and becoming more and more invested in the characters. By the end, I couldn’t wait to get started on the next book. While it’s out, I haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet, but I will DEFINITELY want to come back to this series to keep reading!

There’re 4 books in the series out now, and this is only the first book.

I have my own theories about where this is going to go, but I’ll have to get to the rest of the series to find out!

January 2, 2023January 2, 2023

After the Party – A.K. Ritchie

This book contains:

Descriptions of family violence and the aftereffects
Descriptions of potential alcohol abuse
Descriptions of the effects of drug abuse.

Peyton is a family violence survivor who escaped her situation to Toronto. She’s a great writer who reviews and discusses local punk bands in her spare time. While she’s confident, happy and expressive in her writing, it’s doesn’t translate to how she interacts with others, even when they seek her opinion.

The story follows Peyton as she begins to find her feet in Toronto after leaving her abusive family home. While she’s involved in a relationship, her confidence is no better than it was when she left home, however, with the new friends and professional growth she’s making, this slowly changes.

As it changes, Peyton is faced with new challenges that she needs to learn to navigate. And we get to join her on this journey.

While I don’t often read books that are fiction, and this has an element of romance to it, I definitely place this more in the fiction pile than romance pile.

Rather than the core of the story being about Peyton finding love, it’s about her finding herself, growing and becoming the woman she was destined to be. The slow and gradual growth that we get to follow along over the course of a few months is realistic and draws you in.

There’s nothing sudden about what changes for Peyton, but it’s also obvious enough that you know it’s inevitable. So, when it happens, you get this feel-good moment, alongside some other little things that happen that just felt right as well.

I enjoyed the fact that it brought to life the impacts domestic violence can have on the individuals involved as well as those around them, not to mention the discussion of how drugs and alcohol effect people. And of course the daily struggles of trying to find your place in the world, leave your mark and be successful.

December 19, 2022December 10, 2022

Lineage – C. Vonzale Lewis

This book contains:

References to, discussions of and descriptions of substance abuse
Casual sex with numerous people
Attempted murder and the aftermath of murder described
Suggestions of cannibalism.

Nicole is the centre of our story and boy is she wild!

Nicole is unapologetically herself in the bluntest, in your face, truthful and persistent way. She has her own thoughts, feelings and opinions and she makes absolutely no excuses for them let alone tries to hide it.

Nicole is not the kind of girl who has a clear career pathway, instead, she jumps from job to job struggling to get by without having to borrow money from her parents. But she can’t let this last opportunity slip through her fingers because it’s the absolute last job she can go to without having to move back into her parents’ place.

But Tribec Insurance has weird vibes right from the get-go and weird things keep happening to her both in and outside of work.

I reached out to Carla to get a copy of this after reading the excerpt in the BBNYA competition because I was just absolutely shocked that it didn’t make it through to the final round. While I can understand how it lost some marks in the scoring (there are some grammatical and spelling errors, but not enough to truly bother me, especially when the story grabs me so utterly) I still can’t believe it didn’t make it through.

By the time I reached the end I was so enthralled I had to skip straight to buying the next book in the series because I needed more. The rollercoaster, the questions left unanswered and the hints of there being SO MUCH MORE to what was going on than what we knew was too much for me. I needed the next one straight away.

December 15, 2022December 7, 2022

Lineage – C. Vonzale Lewis

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the 50 books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 10 finalists and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website or take a peek over on Twitter. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the @Foliosociety (if you love beautiful books, you NEED to check out their website!) and the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads.

Blurb

Smart-mouthed Nicole Fontane has a way of getting herself into trouble.

She’s been fired from every job she’s had but still refuses to work in her father’s apothecary shop because of his practice of Earth Magick.

On Tulare Island where Nicole grew up, Magick has always been a way of life—one she’s determined to avoid at all costs. With less than two hundred dollars in the bank and rent due, Nicole is forced to take a job at Tribec Insurance as a last resort. Little does she realize, the moment she sets foot inside the building, she becomes a pawn.

Tribec’s proprietors, the Stewart family, are curiously preoccupied with the Naqada, the mysterious pre-dynastic Egyptian society. It seems creepy but harmless at first, until the eerie atmosphere, disappearing Magick wards, and the smell of blood inside Tribec bring Nicole to a startling conclusion. The Stewarts are practicing Blood Magick—the deadliest of the Five Principles.

By the time Nicole uncovers the truth, people near and dear to her are going missing, and all signs point to the Stewarts and an archaic blood ritual to an Old One. To prevent catastrophe, Nicole must confront a hidden past and unlock the Magick buried within. But can she set aside her deep-rooted fears to work with a team of vigilante Mages? Or will the clock run out on Nicole and those she loves?

Author Bio

My name is Carla Vonzale Lewis and I like my martinis shaken… never stirred.

Carla was born in Georgia, but please don’t mistake her for a Georgia peach. She’s more like a prickly pear. Speaking of being born, someone asked her recently if she remembered her birth. And she had to say, “Yes, I do remember that handsy doctor pulling me out into the cold. Right Bastard!!!”

Despite being born in the South, she grew up in California. Every once in a great while she gets to experience all four seasons. But mostly, it’s just heat.

When not writing, Carla enjoys reading, binge watching shows on Netflix, and trying to convince her husband that getting a dog is a wonderful idea.

And one day, she will discover how many licks it actually takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

December 12, 2022December 10, 2022

Dark Apprentice – Val Neil

This book contains:

Attempted and completed murder
Assault and sexual assault
Poisoning (not trying to kill).

Nikolai and Medea are the main characters, with almost all of the story told from Nikolai’s point of view.

Nikolai is a powerful wizard who’s determined to be the biggest, strongest dark wizard in history. Unfortunately for him, he’s apprenticed to a wizard who won’t teach him and who’s determined to have him learn only things that can help people or pretend to hurt people.

Medea is an autistic (don’t worry, this is explained in the author’s notes at the end so it wasn’t over the top and stupid in the book) mage who’s practically immortal and determined to not train anymore dark wizards. Given her history with apprentices, she doesn’t want to have to kill any more of them.

Nikolai finds out about Medea by accident, but as soon as he does, he’s intent on figuring out how to convince her to take him on as an apprentice. From there, we follow along as Nikolai does his best effort at a “normal” apprentice wanting to learn to try and convince Medea to take him on.

When he finally does convince her, we follow along to Medea’s home and the beginnings of his training to become the strongest wizard he can be.

As I read this, I knew there was something about Medea that wasn’t “normal”, it wasn’t until I got to the authors note at the end that I understood why. What I appreciated and I think many people will, is that Medea is autistic, and rather than describe her as the over the top, media exaggerated type of autistic, Val has gone to the effort to describe her as authentically as possible.

Autism has a spectrum with many ways of presenting in each individual. Where most depictions of autism is very far at one end and exaggerated, Medea clearly sits somewhere in the middle where you can tell that there’s something different to “normal”, but you can’t necessarily quite put your finger on what it is.

In terms of the rest of the story, it was your typical kind of fantasy with twists and turns, magic and some drama. The twist at the end is probably something I should have guessed (I certainly feel like I should have guessed it), but I didn’t so I was shocked when it was revealed. And then the big outburst that happened flipped a switch and it was amazing to see it all come together so well and made me instantly wonder “what happens next?”

Since the second book (Dark Mind) wasn’t out yet when I finished this, I couldn’t jump straight in but I really should ask for a copy because I’m stoked to keep reading!

December 8, 2022December 7, 2022

Fear and Fury – Jamie Jackson

Blurb

Meet Megaera, Meg for short. She’s like Deadpool, except for funner.

For a girl with the power of fear the recruitment attempts from both sides are never-ending. A self-described not-a-hero, villain-leaning humanoid, Meg just wants to live her life, work her dead-end job and have everyone else (especially the heroes) leave her alone. But when a bigger fish who can turn superpowers back on their users enters the picture and threatens the person Meg loves the most (herself), she must turn to the last group of people she would admit she needs help from.

Forced to team up with the heroes she despises (but won’t murder, because let’s face it, orange is not the new black), Meg will have to face the choices from her past that she won’t get therapy for. Self-centered, snarky, sarcastic and a little bit dramatic, she’s going to have to save the world, even if that wasn’t her intention. And try not to get shot in the process. Because that shit hurts.

Author Bio

Jamie lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband, three feral children and two badly behaved dogs.

She has BAs in English and Theatre, her favorite part of which was working backstage on traveling Broadway productions.

You can find her on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram under @VillainLeaning or follow her Facebook page, Adventures of a Villain-Leaning Humanoid.

December 4, 2022December 4, 2022

Elle’s A to Z of Love – Claire Huston

Blurb

Haileybrook, a beautiful village in the peaceful Cotswolds countryside, is most people’s idea of heaven on earth.

Born and raised in this small slice of paradise, Elle Bea can’t wait to leave.

It should be easy, but every time she packs her bags for exotic adventures, old loves and loyalties pull her back.

Will Elle be forced to forget her dreams of far-flung places and epic romance, or can she grab one last chance to have it all?

An uplifting, romantic story about friends, family and the relationships that make a place a home.

Author Bio

Claire Huston lives in Warwickshire, UK. She writes uplifting modern love stories about characters who are meant for each other but sometimes need help figuring that out. A keen amateur baker, she enjoys making cakes, cookies and brownies almost as much as eating them. You can find over 150 recipes on her website. This is also where she talks about and reviews books. You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram (get the links at Claire’s Linktree).

October 30, 2022October 29, 2022

After the Party – A.K. Ritchie

This year, the Book Bloggers’ Novel of the Year Award (BBNYA) is celebrating the 55 books that made it into Round Two with a mini spotlight blitz tour for each title. BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists and one overall winner.

Blurb

The last thing Peyton Young expects on New Year’s Eve is literally crashing into the lead singer of her favourite local band, Forever July. Chase Reid knows her name, that she wrote the not so flattering blog post about his band, and he wants her opinion on their new song. Their exchange, while brief, kindles an unlikely friendship and opens up Peyton to new friends and an unexpected turn for her blog, Eternal Spin.

As Chase and Peyton’s feelings for each other develop, Peyton can’t help but wonder how she fits into Chase’s world. While it makes things more complicated, it’s not just Peyton’s toxic boyfriend and Chase’s perfect girlfriend standing between them. The insecurities that followed her from the past have Peyton trapped in a loop of self doubt that could jeopardize what she has with Chase.

Just as Peyton gathers the courage to make a choice that will change the direction of her life, a figure from her former life appears, forcing her to confront the memories she tried for years to bury.

Can Peyton face down the demons from her youth that whisper she isn’t good enough for Chase Reid? A man whose entire career is unfolding before him. Or will she let the old fears drag her down before she can take her chance at happiness?

I read an excerpt of this and liked it enough to ask for a review copy. Sign up to my newsletter to know when I release that review!

Author Bio

A.K. Ritchie hails from a small city in Ontario, Canada. She loves writing contemporary fiction with a focus on Romance and Coming-of-Age stories. The music she loves influences most of what she writes.

When not writing in coffee shops or curled up in her bed scrolling through social media, A.K. Ritchie enjoys seeing live music, spending time in nature, going on road trips, all of which inspire her work.