REVIEW: The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith

Hello?

Did I really finish reading another book? The second book this month? WTF REALLY

My life is such a misery, lol. I said to myself that I’d be reading more, but all I did was excessively fangirling over k-pop on twitter. I’m really sorry if that bothered your twitter timeline so much…

But anyways, a review! For a detective book which is not my usual reading genre (although I’m such a Sherlock Holmes trash…)

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The Cuckoo’s Calling
by Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

Rating: 
Goodreads | Amazon
Book Depository | Barnes & Noble
Published: April 18th, 2013
(Russian version: February 13th, 2014)
Format: Paperback

Synopsis: A brilliant mystery in a classic vein: Detective Cormoran Strike investigates a supermodel’s suicide.
After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.

Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, thelegendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.

You may think you know detectives, but you’ve never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you’ve never seen them under an investigation like this. (cr.: Goodreads)

REVIEW: My Trip to Adele by R.I. Alyaseer & A.I. Alyaseer

First book finished in July!

Also my first contemporary book ever since… ever since forever? You know my preferences are fantasy, and that I rarely pick contemporaries… But I couldn’t get past this one because it features one of my favorite Western artists that is Adele.

My most favorite song from Adele will always be Someone Like You, because it’s too close to me and what happened in my life 5 years ago, and this song always triggers the memories of my past whenever I hear it, so, actually despite being the most favorite song, I try to listen to it as less as possible because I’ve overcome my initial pain and I wouldn’t like to have myself drown in that depression ever again.

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My Trip to Adele
by R.I. Alyaseer & A.I. Alyaseer

Rating: 
Goodreads | Amazon
Book Depository | Barnes & Noble
Published: September 12th, 2016
Format: eBook (borrowed
with Amazon Kindle Unlimited)

Synopsis: An Adele concert held in Verona becomes the focus for an unhappy married couple, a divorced mother and a devoted lover from three different countries and cultures.
This is the story of three flawed but likeable people. First up is Elias, a Moroccan man living in Rome. He discovers that a black magic spell was cast upon him but starts to doubt whether it was the real cause of the break-up between him and his long-lost love Malika. He decides to search for her in the shadows of Marrakesh after eight years of separation.
Nadia, a single mother from Jordan, is battling her ex-husband in the courts and doing all she can to secure freedom for herself and her only son. Her dream is to take her son to see his idol, Adele, live.
Finally, Yaser, a married man living in Las Vegas, realizes that his marriage is crawling all over him like a slow, painful death, so he starts to rebel against his wife. While faith initially brought them together, it is now causing them to drift apart.
These three characters are on a journey to break free of everything that has haunted them, learning harsh truths about fate, religion, courage, desire and guilt along the way.

REVIEW: A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Guess what?

I started Shades of Magic trilogy! But…

The other two parts are yet to be released in Russian, so I’ll probably wait until it happens (which is soon, if we talk about A Gathering of Shadows), and I will be patiently waiting, because I’m 100% snatching a physical copy of the trilogy in Russian! Also same thing goes to ACOTAR series (and The Lunar Chronicles as well, if a re-print takes place in Russian publishing)

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A Darker Shade of Magic
by V.E. Schwab

Rating:
Goodreads | Amazon
Book Depository | Barnes & Noble
Published: February 24th, 2015
(May 15th, 2017 for Russian edition)
Format: eBook

Synopsis: Kell is one of the last Antari—magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes—Red London—and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they’ll never see. It’s a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they’ll first need to stay alive. (cr.: Goodreads)

eARC REVIEW: Alice: The Wanderland Chronicles by J.M. Sullivan

Yes, finally, another book review which happens to be the first one in June! And guess which book I finally started reading?? The answer is hidden in my instagram bio lol

Okay, remember I mentioned that I’m a sucker for anything Alice in Wonderland? Well, this is exactly a review for another retelling of Alice in Wonderland, featuring a wild mix of elements from some very popular YA dystopian series. Want to know more? Let’s get down to the review here!

Warning: This review contains minor spoilers.
If you don’t wish to be spoiled at any costs, feel free to skip this post.

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Alice: The Wanderland Chronicles
by J.M. Sullivan

Rating: 
Goodreads | Amazon |
Book Depository | Barnes & Noble
Published: May 16th, 2017
Format: eARC

I received an eARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, Pen Name Publishing, and J.M. Sullivan for given opportunity.

Synopsis: #AlwaysProtectYourQueen

Ever since the outbreak of the Plague, life hasn’t been easy, and for seventeen-year-old Alice Carroll, it just got worse. Her sister, Dinah, has contracted the ‘un-deadly’ Momerath Virus and without a cure, will soon be worse than dead. She’ll be momerath.

Alice must leave the safety of the Sector and venture into Momerath Territory to find the antidote – if it exists. Chasing a rumor about a mysterious doctor with the cure, Alice falls down the rabbit hole into Wanderland, where ravenous momerath aren’t the only danger lurking. (cr.: Goodreads)

REVIEW: A Court of Wings and Ruin (SPOILERS!)

I think I was forced to ride an even crazier roller coaster than before. Like, right when you see the end of the ride, a sudden loop just takes you over. Yes, that’s what Mrs. Maas did at the end of ACOWAR.

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Warning: Massive spoilers are inevitable in this review, so if you haven’t read the book series as a whole, or ACOWAR in particular, please feel free to skip the review to avoid being mindblown!

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A Court of Wings and Ruin
by Sarah J. Maas

Rating:
Goodreads
Amazon | Book Depository | Barnes & Noble
Published: May 2nd, 2017
Format: eBook | Soon-to-arrive Paperback

Synopsis: Feyre has returned to the Spring Court, determined to gather information on Tamlin’s maneuverings and the invading king threatening to bring Prythian to its knees. But to do so she must play a deadly game of deceit-and one slip may spell doom not only for Feyre, but for her world as well.

As war bears down upon them all, Feyre must decide who to trust amongst the dazzling and lethal High Lords-and hunt for allies in unexpected places.

In this thrilling third book in the #1 New York Times bestselling series from Sarah J. Maas, the earth will be painted red as mighty armies grapple for power over the one thing that could destroy them all. (cr.: Goodreads)

REVIEW: Die Seiten Der Welt by Kai Meyer

Die Seiten Der Welt
by Kai Meyer

Original name:
Die Seiten Der Welt
English possible name:
The Pages of the World
Rating: ★★★★☆
Goodreads
Published: September 25th, 2014
Format: Hardcover

Synopsis: “Every book has its secret…”
For several hundreds of years, the unlimited power of books was kept secret by bibliomantic society. Magic, traveling through time and space – this is only a small part of what books are capable of. Some books even allow you to alter the past…

Furia Salamandra Faerfax is a hereditary bibliomant, one of the most powerful magician in the ancient Rosenkreutz family. Her family has been hiding for years from the agents of Adamantine Academy because of the mistake commited in the past. The Faerfax family is hunting “empty” books that are capable of exterminating everything ever written on the Earth. But they have enemies much worse than the Academy, hungry for blood revenge… Furia loses everyone – her beloved father, her younger brother, all of her family. The only thing left for her is to fight.

REVIEW: Kazuo Ishiguro, “The Remains of the Day”

The Remains of the Day
by Kazuo Ishiguro

Rating: ★★★★☆
Goodreads | Livelib
Book Depository | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Published: May 1989
Format: eBook

Synopsis: In 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars, and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper. Ishiguro’s dazzling novel is a sad and humorous love story, a meditation on the condition of modern man, and an elegy for England at a time of acute change. (cr.: Goodreads)

REVIEW: Neil Gaiman, “Neverwhere”

Neverwhere
by Neil Gaiman

Rating: ★★★★☆
Goodreads | Book Depository |
Amazon | LiveLib
Published: 1996/09/16
(2014 for this Russian edition)
Format: Hardcover

Synopsis: Under the streets of London there’s a place most people could never even dream of. A city of monsters and saints, murderers and angels, knights in armour and pale girls in black velvet. This is the city of the people who have fallen between the cracks.

Richard Mayhew, a young businessman, is going to find out more than enough about this other London. A single act of kindness catapults him out of his workday existence and into a world that is at once eerily familiar and utterly bizarre. And a strange destiny awaits him down here, beneath his native city: Neverwhere. (cr.: Goodreads)

REVIEW: S. Naumova, M. Dubinina, “Juusan. The Phantom Academy”

What’s up folks!
Finally here I am with my very first review on this blog! Really WISH you find it interesting, and for me to be completely bonkers to actually TRY TO MAKE AN ATTEMPT on translating it. Because who knows, maybe this can become a big hit internationally?.. /yes, Liliana, keep dreaming impossible dreams, like you’ve always done/

Juusan. The Phantom Academy
by Sora Naumova & Mariya Dubinina

Original name:
Дзюсан. Академия-фантом
Rating: ★★★★☆
LiveLib | Goodreads
Published: 2016
Format: Hardcover

Synopsis: The investigation of little sister’s disappearance leads the former detective Henry Macalister to a lonely island in the Sea of Japan, to “Juusan” – an elite Academy for special teenagers. Here, the age-old mysteries come to life, people disappear without a trace, and the ghosts roam the corridors of the old mansion. But Henry still has no idea that he got caught in a web that’s hard to escape from not only for the living, but even for the dead…