100 Words and a Quote is a feature in which I review books in exactly 100 words and share my favorite quote from each book. It’s fun, but it can also be challenging to make what I have to say fit that count. Well, I do love a good challenge. I do this for books when I can’t give much detail for fear of spoiling, for series finales, when I need to clean up my TBR, for novellas, and for those rare times when I just don’t have much to say about a book whether I loved it or not. Hope you enjoy my take on the (extra mini) mini-review.
Title: A Shadow Bright and Burning
Author: Jessica Cluess
Publisher: Random House BFYR
Published: September 20th, 2016
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Summary: I am Henrietta Howel.
The first female sorcerer in hundreds of years.
The prophesied one.
Or am I?
Henrietta Howel can burst into flames.
Forced to reveal her power to save a friend, she's shocked when instead of being executed, she's invited to train as one of Her Majesty's royal sorcerers.
Thrust into the glamour of Victorian London, Henrietta is declared the chosen one, the girl who will defeat the Ancients, bloodthirsty demons terrorizing humanity. She also meets her fellow sorcerer trainees, handsome young men eager to test her power and her heart. One will challenge her. One will fight for her. One will betray her.
But Henrietta Howel is not the chosen one.
As she plays a dangerous game of deception, she discovers that the sorcerers have their own secrets to protect. With battle looming, what does it mean to not be the one? And how much will she risk to save the city—and the one she loves?
This gorgeous cover is one I found very fitting, and I enjoyed the lovely Victorian fantasy that lived within. Henrietta Howell, or Nettie, is the first female sorcerer. Maybe. She is the prophesied one. Maybe not. I was pulled in from the very beginning with this book, and I stayed there. I loved the relationship between Nettie and Rook, the boys who became her fellow sorcerer trainees, the setting, the trials, the secondary characters… Oh, and did I mention there is a cantankerous hobgoblin? Seven scary Ancients? One charismatic but untrustworthy magician? How about deception and betrayal? Yes. More, please.
“One will challenge her. One will fight for her. One will betray her.”
Title: All Is Not Forgotten
Author: Wendy Walker
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: July 12th, 2016
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Summary: In the small, affluent town of Fairview, Connecticut everything seems picture perfect.
Until one night when young Jenny Kramer is attacked at a local party. In the hours immediately after, she is given a controversial drug to medically erase her memory of the violent assault. But, in the weeks and months that follow, as she heals from her physical wounds, and with no factual recall of the attack, Jenny struggles with her raging emotional memory. Her father, Tom, becomes obsessed with his inability to find her attacker and seek justice while her mother, Charlotte, prefers to pretend this horrific event did not touch her perfect country club world.
As they seek help for their daughter, the fault lines within their marriage and their close-knit community emerge from the shadows where they have been hidden for years, and the relentless quest to find the monster who invaded their town - or perhaps lives among them - drive this psychological thriller to a shocking and unexpected conclusion.
This story is shocking and gripping but very disturbing. This was an incredibly difficult book to read because a teenage girl is brutally raped. What pulled me in was the parents’ reaction and the question of whether or not to use a new controversial drug that could erase their daughter’s memory of what she endured. I couldn’t help but think about what I would do in their shoes. Intriguing characters, an unreliable narrator, and a twist kept me reading. While I’d definitely read more by this author, I should warn that this book is not for the faint of heart.
“It requires far more strength to experience emotion than to suppress it.”
Title: Everything You Want Me to Be
Author: Mindy Mejia
Publisher: Atria
Published: January 3rd, 2017
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Summary: Full of twists and turns, Everything You Want Me to Be reconstructs a year in the life of a dangerously mesmerizing young woman, during which a small town’s darkest secrets come to the forefront...and she inches closer and closer to her death.
High school senior Hattie Hoffman has spent her whole life playing many parts: the good student, the good daughter, the good citizen. When she’s found brutally stabbed to death on the opening night of her high school play, the tragedy rips through the fabric of her small town community. Local sheriff Del Goodman, a family friend of the Hoffmans, vows to find her killer, but trying to solve her murder yields more questions than answers. It seems that Hattie’s acting talents ran far beyond the stage. Told from three points of view—Del, Hattie, and the new English teacher whose marriage is crumbling—Everything You Want Me to Be weaves the story of Hattie’s last school year and the events that drew her ever closer to her death.
Evocative and razor-sharp, Everything You Want Me to Be challenges you to test the lines between innocence and culpability, identity and deception. Does love lead to self-discovery—or destruction?
I quite enjoyed this twisty mystery told from three points of view. One of those POVs belongs to Hattie, the victim of a brutal murder. Hattie’s death broke my heart… but so did her life. Because Hattie lives her life trying to please everyone – trying to be everything for everybody; and by doing so, she’s lost herself. So who is Hattie really? Does anyone know? Does she? And who killed her before she had a chance to find out? This is a fast, easy read; and though you may discover the answer along the way, you’ll still enjoy the ride.
“…Mom would be reading whatever the library just got in, since she’d gone through everything else on their shelves. She never wanted to talk about her books though. She just swallowed those pages up and kept them tucked inside. Maybe that’s what made her so hard to read sometimes, all those books floating around in her.”
Note: I received copies of these books in exchange for my honest reviews. Quotes used have been checked against final copies.
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