Blog tour: ‘SLAY’ by Brittney Morris

Title: SLAY
Author: Brittney Morris
Genre: Contemporary YA
Word/Page Count: 352 pages (paperback)
Publication Details: by Hachette Australia on October 9th, 2019
RRP: $17.99 AUD (paperback)

Blurb from Goodreads:

‘We are different ages, genders, tribes, tongues, and traditions … but tonight we all SLAY’

Black Panther meets Ready Player One. A fierce teen game developer battles a real-life troll intent on ruining the Black Panther-inspired video game she created and the safe community it represents for black gamers.

By day, seventeen-year-old Kiera Johnson is a college student, and one of the only black kids at Jefferson Academy. By night, she joins hundreds of thousands of black gamers who duel worldwide in the secret online role-playing card game, SLAY.

No one knows Kiera is the game developer – not even her boyfriend, Malcolm. But when a teen in Kansas City is murdered over a dispute in the SLAY world, the media labels it an exclusionist, racist hub for thugs.

With threats coming from both inside and outside the game, Kiera must fight to save the safe space she’s created. But can she protect SLAY without losing herself?

SLAY is a fantastic YA novel that celebrates girls in STEM and black culture while also exploring sensitive topical issues and shining a light on different aspects of the black experience. If you enjoyed Black Panther for the dizzying amount of representation where there was no such thing as the ‘token black character’ in a cast which was dominated by POC, you’re going to LOVE this.

Book Review – ‘Ghost Bird’ by Lisa Fuller

Title: Ghost Bird
Author: Lisa Fuller
Genre: Thriller, Horror
Word/Page Count: 280 pages (paperback)
Publication Details: by University of Queensland Press on October 1st, 2019
RRP: $19.95 AUD (paperback)

Blurb from Goodreads:

Remember daughter, the world is a lot bigger than anyone knows. There are things that science may never explain. Maybe some things that shouldn’t be explained.

Stacey and Laney are twins – mirror images of each other – and yet they’re as different as the sun and the moon. Stacey works hard at school, determined to get out of their small town. Laney skips school and sneaks out of the house to meet her boyfriend. But when Laney disappears one night, Stacey can’t believe she’s just run off without telling her.

As the days pass and Laney doesn’t return, Stacey starts dreaming of her twin. The dreams are dark and terrifying, difficult to understand and hard to shake, but at least they tell Stacey one key thing – Laney is alive. It’s hard for Stacey to know what’s real and what’s imagined and even harder to know who to trust. All she knows for sure is that Laney needs her help.

Stacey is the only one who can find her sister. Will she find her in time?

Ghost Bird is a wonderfully original, spooky and action-packed YA debut novel. The author has delved into her rich cultural heritage to selectively weave Indigenous beliefs into her storytelling, and as a result this is refreshingly different to every other offering in the YA market.

ARC Review – ‘The Lost Ones’ by Anita Frank

Title: The Lost Ones
Author: Anita Frank
Genre: Historical Fiction, Thriller, Horror
Word/Page Count: 464 pages (paperback)
Publication Details: by Harper Collins Publishers on October 21st, 2019
RRP: $32.99 AUD (paperback)

Some houses are never at peace.

England, 1917

Reeling from the death of her fiancé, Stella Marcham welcomes the opportunity to stay with her pregnant sister, Madeleine, at her imposing country mansion, Greyswick – but she arrives to discover a house of unease and her sister gripped by fear and suspicion.

Before long, strange incidents begin to trouble Stella – sobbing in the night, little footsteps on the stairs – and as events escalate, she finds herself drawn to the tragic history of the house.

Aided by a wounded war veteran, Stella sets about uncovering Greyswick’s dark and terrible secrets – secrets the dead whisper from the other side…

The Lost Ones takes the typical haunted house trope and elevates it to the next level with an atmospheric historical setting, smart lyrical writing, refreshingly unexpected plot developments and compelling characters that the reader will invest in.

Blog Tour: ‘Scars Like Wings’ by Erin Stewart

Title: Scars Like Wings
Author: Erin Stewart
Genre: Contemporary
Word/Page Count: 384 pages (paperback)
Publication Details: by Simon & Schuster on October 1st, 2019
RRP: $17.99 AUD (paperback)

Everyone has scars. Some are just easier to see…

16-year-old Ava Gardener is heading back to school one year after a house fire left her severely disfigured. She’s used to the names, the stares, the discomfort, but there’s one name she hates most of all: Survivor. What do you call someone who didn’t mean to survive? Who sometimes wishes she hadn’t?

When she meets a fellow survivor named Piper at therapy, Ava begins to feel like she’s not facing the nightmare alone. Piper helps Ava reclaim the pieces of Ava Before the Fire, a normal girl who kissed boys and sang on stage. But Piper is fighting her own battle for survival, and when Ava almost loses her best friend, she must decide if the new normal she’s chasing has more to do with the girl in the glass—or the people by her side.

The beautiful, life-affirming debut from Erin Stewart that’s being called the YA answer to Wonder. Perfect for fans of Jandy Nelson, Nicola Yoon and John Green.

The first thing that you should know about this book is that you WILL need tissues. My eyes were perpetually brimming over with tears throughout and I don’t normally consider myself a watering pot! However the story itself isn’t morose and angst-ridden (thank goodness), it’s life-affirming, heartwarming and, as much as our protagonist would hate me saying this, inspirational. But the fact remains that seeing the world through Ava’s eyes in the aftermath of suffering horrific burns from the fire that killed her family is no walk in the park.

ARC Review – ‘Ninth House’ by Leigh Bardugo

Title: Ninth House
Author: Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Fantasy
Word/Page Count: 400 pages (paperback)
Publication Details: by Hachette Australia on October 9th, 2019
RRP: $29.99 AUD (paperback)

The mesmerising adult debut from Leigh Bardugo. A tale of power, privilege, dark magic and murder set among the Ivy League elite. Alex Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. A dropout and the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved crime – the last thing she wants is to cause trouble. Not when Yale was supposed to be her fresh start. But a free ride to one of the world’s most prestigious universities was bound to come with a catch.

Alex has been tasked with monitoring the mysterious activities of Yale’s secret societies – societies that have yielded some of the most famous and influential people in the world. Now there’s a dead girl on campus and Alex seems to be the only person who won’t accept the neat answer the police and campus administration have come up with for her murder.

Because Alex knows the secret societies are far more sinister and extraordinary than anyone ever imagined.

They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living . . .

Going in, let’s be clear – this isn’t a young adult novel, it’s Leigh Bardugo’s adult debut; it’s extremely confronting at points with references to and on-page depiction of sexual assault, child rape and statutory rape as well as mutilation and general gore. If you feel this may be a potential trigger, please search for more specific posts which outline exactly content is included so you can decide whether this is suitable to read.

I’m really glad that I knew of the trigger warnings going around on social media so that I wasn’t blindsided going into this. I had some qualms about the focus on sexual trauma, but Leigh Bardugo’s tweet discussing how the protagonist’s experiences in Ninth House were drawn from her personal life made me feel that it would be handled sensitively. I’m really glad that I read this book after all because it’s certainly NOT misery porn and none of the scenes depicted are at all gratuitous or feel like they’re included for shock value (although I can only speak for how I perceive it myself).

Now that’s out of the way! How was the book? In a word: AMAZING. 😍