Category: Young Adult

ARC, books, Review, Young Adult

Book Review: The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books4 Comments on Book Review: The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones
Book Review: The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones

I was so lucky to be sent an early copy of this book. The team at Hodder and Stoughton were offering limited proofs to Welsh bookish content creators. I’m not Welsh, but I am very interested in the fae, and Celtic folktales and lore. Whilst we see a lot of Scottish-inspired fae stories, we don’t tend to see Welsh or Irish. I mentioned all this in my request email, and I was sent an early finished copy! So thank you so much to the publisher. I adored this book as much as I expected I would, and I have a lot that I’m going to go into.

I’m labelling this post a review, but I’m also going to take this chance to talk about the use of folklore and fae in this book. I want to dive into some of the legends that were mentioned and just talk about whether I’d heard of them or not and tell you a bit about them.

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anticipated releases, books, Will I Like This Book?, Young Adult

Will I Like This Book? – The Agency For Scandal by Laura Wood

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on Will I Like This Book? – The Agency For Scandal by Laura Wood
Will I Like This Book? – The Agency For Scandal by Laura Wood

I’ve definitely been picking up more historical books recently. I’m slowly finding more that I enjoy set in the past, and this is another one that I’m excited about. There were ARCs of this available at YALC that I didn’t win, but I did pick up a sampler that included this book in it. The moment that I finished this sample, I emailed the publisher asking for an ARC in the hope they had more. It doesn’t sound like they did, so I’ll just have to wait. Sigh. I’m definitely going to read this book as soon as I can.

The Agency for Scandal follows eighteen-year-old Isobel, a young woman who is trying hard to hide from the society that her family is penniless. She works with a women’s detective agency to right wrongs and digs up scandals about the powerful men who deserve to be bought down. What she doesn’t expect is that one day a case will tangle her up with the Duke she’s been nursing a crush on, who doesn’t seem to know she exists. It’s coming out from Scholastic in January 2023.

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books, Will I Like This Book?, Young Adult

Will I Like This Book? – This Book Kills by Ravena Guron

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books2 Comments on Will I Like This Book? – This Book Kills by Ravena Guron
Will I Like This Book? – This Book Kills by Ravena Guron

I wrote about going to YALC last week, and one of the opportunities this afforded me was to gather up so many book samplers. I don’t pick up samplers in book shops too often, so it was nice to get the opportunity to preview a few more books.

One of the samplers I picked up was for Usborne. It wasn’t a big sampler, and there were previews for a few different books. The one that interested me the most is the one I’m going to talk about today.

This Book Kills is a YA thriller coming out in January 2023. It’s UKYA, something that I know I do not read enough of. In this book, we follow Jess, a scholarship student who winds up the focus of an investigation when a popular boy from her school winds up dead. Killed in the exact way a character in her short story was. When she receives a mysterious text thanking her for the inspiration, Jess knows she’ll have to solve this mystery soon. If not, she could wind up dead too.

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ARC, books, Review, Young Adult

Book Review: This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on Book Review: This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede
Book Review: This Vicious Grace by Emily Thiede

Hodder and Stoughton publish some seriously amazing YA fantasy. This Vicious Grace is no exception. I’ve been excited about this book for a while and I was lucky to get an e-arc from NetGalley. But I did wait until I got my Fairyloot edition to read it physically. I’m glad I did, as this was an amazing book I raced through, so I’m happy I have a beautiful copy.

This Vicious Grace follows Alessa, a young woman whose gift from the gods means that with the right partner, she can use their powers to defeat the evil coming. But she’s killed three possible partners so far. The people are starting to believe that the only way to save them could be to kill her. In response, Alessa hires a guy from the streets, Dante, to be her bodyguard. As she spends time with him, she begins to fall for him and realises that he might actually help her survive this all.

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ARC, books, Review, Young Adult

Book Review: A Little Bit Country by Brian D. Kennedy

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Book Review: A Little Bit Country by Brian D. Kennedy

A cutesy queer YA romance is the perfect summer read for me, so what better way to greet the sun than with A Little Bit Country. This is Brian D. Kennedy’s debut novel and everything you could hope for. I was lucky enough to get a physical proof of this through the Harper360 newsletter, and I positively devoured it.

A Little Bit Country follows Emmett and Luke, two boys who couldn’t be more different. Emmett wants to be country music’s biggest gay superstar, and Luke has issues with the genre stemming from his family. When both wind up working at Wanda World, an amusement park owned and run by country sensation Wanda Jean, they wind up exploring their attraction. But as Luke’s family secrets come to light, they must work together to figure out what they need to do for the best.

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Adult, books, Young Adult

Try A Chapter Tag

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on Try A Chapter Tag
Try A Chapter Tag

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these! My last post like this was over a year ago now. I might try to do one of these every few months with a different challenge. It might help me weed out some of the books I’m no longer interested in, and it’s also just a lot of fun!

Today’s books were all picked for me by other people. I asked two family members and two friends to pick a book for me off owned TBR shelf on GoodReads. I didn’t know which books any of these guys would pick, and I was pleased when three of them picked out books that I’d owned for a while. The fourth book was a more recent purchase but is also the most anticipated release on this list. So it’s a good mix there.

Genre-wise…this list is all fantasy. I do own a lot of fantasy books, so this wasn’t a huge surprise. But it would have been nice to have a little something else on there. Especially when two of the books are very political fantasies involving marriages…yeah.

I will say that I mostly had good luck with this pile. So let’s get started!

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Adult, books, tbr, Young Adult

New Job? New TBR

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger Books7 Comments on New Job? New TBR
New Job? New TBR

Whenever you start a new job, you’re going to be busy and stressed for at least the first week. Reading can be a great hobby in the evenings to help you relax, but finding the time? Yeah, that can be a bit of a pain.

I should be starting my next job next week – still waiting on a start date as I write this – and I’m so excited to do so. But with all the stress of learning new processes and meeting new people, I wanted to be kind with my reading choices.

So I’ve made a whole new TBR for the first few weeks of the job, and today I want to share it with you in case my blog posts slow down for a little bit. These are mostly books I’ve chosen to read, but I’ve also picked a couple from my jar just to get some variety. I just let myself put the book back if I pulled a thick one, ha!

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ARC, blog tour, books, Review, Young Adult

Blog Tour: Glorious Poison by Kat Dunn

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Blog Tour: Glorious Poison by Kat Dunn

Though I’m not big on historical books, I saw Dangerous Remedy when it came out a few years ago and was instantly intrigued. Even when I got tired of books set during the French Revolution, I still wanted to pick these up. When I saw an opportunity to be on a blog tour, I had to ask to be part of it. I’m so glad I did and that I didn’t have to wait to read this book, as it was a wild ride from start to finish.

This book starts a few months after the end of Monstrous Design. Olympe is back in the Duc’s clutches, with Ada working with him as an undercover agent. Camille, Al and James have to explore a new France now the revolution has technically ended whilst trying to find a way to stop the Duc. But it can be difficult to seem like you belong somewhere when you’re balancing the line between life and death.

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ARC, books, Review, Young Adult

Book Review: Aces Wild by Amanda DeWitt

by Rosina @ Lace and Dagger BooksLeave a Comment on Book Review: Aces Wild by Amanda DeWitt
Book Review: Aces Wild by Amanda DeWitt

As someone who likes to read and promote queer books, a book about a group of ace teenagers committing a casino heist together was obviously going to be my thing. I’ve known this book would be a load of fun from the second I heard of it, and I’m glad to say I was right.

Jack Shannon is the son of a Las Vegas casino mogul, and he spends his school days running a secret blackjack ring. Until the day his mum is arrested for the family’s ties to organised crime. Jack knows who would have ratted her out, and he wants revenge. But that’s not something he’s going to be able to do alone. Luckily his only friends, an asexual support group he met online, join him in his plans. Jack has to try to save his mum, whilst also learning what it means to be in love when asexual.

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ARC, books, Review, Young Adult

Book Review: I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

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Book Review: I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston

You all expected me to read this book, right? I Kissed Shara Wheeler is a highly anticipated book for many. I wouldn’t say I was excited as some people, but as soon as I saw it on NetGalley, I knew I had to request it. I’ve currently only read Red, White and Royal Blue, but One Last Stop is also on my TBR. I wanted to try McQuistion’s first YA book as soon as possible, and I’m glad I did. However, I didn’t love this book quite as much as I’d hoped.

I Kissed Shara Wheeler follows Chloe Green, who was shocked after being randomly kissed by the principal’s daughter, Shara Wheeler. Chloe and Shara have been academic rivals for years, but after she tries to track her down at prom, Shara promptly disappears. Now Chloe is having to follow clues alongside Shara’s boyfriend and next-door neighbour as they try to find out where she’s gone and how to bring her back. Chloe has a bone to pick, and she’s determined to prove she’s better than Shara.

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