BLOG TOUR: Star-Touched Stories by Roshani Chokshi

Hello Everyone, and welcome to my tour stop on the 

Star-Touched Stories Blog Tour by Roshani Chokshi!

It is indeed an honour to be a part of this blog tour for an author I admire, and for a collection of short stories that stole my heart. Let's begin!

Title: Star-Touched Stories (The Star Touched Queen #2.5)

Author: Roshani Chokshi

Publication Date: August 7th 2018

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Part of a Series?: Yes, Book 2.5 of the Star Touched Series

I Got A Copy Through: Wednesday Books via NetGalley

Buy Links: Amazon || Barnes and Noble || Wordery || Books A Million || Chapters Indigo || Google Books

Blurb Description: Three lush and adventurous stories in the Star-Touched world.
Death and Night
He was Lord of Death, cursed never to love. She was Night incarnate, destined to stay alone. After a chance meeting, they wonder if, perhaps, they could be meant for more. But danger crouches in their paths, and the choices they make will set them on a journey that will span lifetimes. 
Poison and Gold
Now that her wish for a choice has come true, Aasha struggles to control her powers. But when an opportunity to help Queen Gauri and King Vikram's new reign presents itself, she is thrown into the path of the fearsome yet enchanting Spy Mistress. To help her friends, Aasha will have to battle her insecurities and perhaps, along the way, find love. 
Rose and Sword
There is a tale whispered in the dark of the Empire of Bharat-Jain. A tale of a bride who loses her bridegroom on the eve of her wedding. But is it a tale or a truth? 

I am A HUGE FAN of Roshani Chokshi’s absolutely breath-taking writing style, and I have been since I read The Star Touched Queen, more than two years ago. I don’t usually describe writing like this, but if you’ve ready any of Roshani’s books, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

In fact, it was so good, that this short story collection didn’t even feel like one. I was immersed, spell bound and Star Touched Stories is one of my FAVOURITE reads of the year and also, probably the BEST short story collections I’ve ever read.

I’ll review the three short stories separately:

Death and Night:

This was probably the story I was MOST excited for. I loved the PLOT behind book one, The Star Touched Queen, but somewhere in the middle, the story lost structure. Death and Night is the story of how Maya and Amar met for the first time, before the Shadow Wife’s curse and I ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT. Where The Star Touched Queen was tortured and lacking structure, Death and Night was witty and filled with such beautiful lines and AAAH I LOVED IT!

Poison and Gold:

Truth be told, that while A Crown of Wishes is one of my FAVOURITE books and Vikram and Gauri are one of my favourite desi couples, I didn’t care much for Aasha, who debuted in Vikram and Gauri’s books. Poison and Gold is about Aasha’s story after A Crown of Wishes, and while it was nice, and I LOVED THE LGBT REPRESENTATION, I just wasn’t as into this story as I was with the other two.

Rose and Sword:

I honestly didn’t know what this story was about, before I started reading it.

And when I found out, MY TINY HEART FREAKED OUT BECAUSE OH. MY. GOD.

I honestly didn’t expect to see this plot twist that was hinted at in The Star Touched Queen, about a character I fell in love with in A Crown of Wishes, but this story, YOU GUYS, THIS STORY WAS ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I’VE EVER READ AND IT WAS JUST SO GLORIOUSLY BEAUTIFUL AND IT ALMOST BROKE MY HEART.

With the small short story, (and I don’t even LIKE most short stories) Roshani Chokshi’s characters have permanently cemented themselves in my heart and I AM JUST SO HAPPY AT THIS MOMENT.

Would I recommend this book? YES, but only after you’ve already read The Star Touched Queen and A Crown of Wishes. ESPECIALLY A Crown of Wishes. It’s absolutely beautiful.

Roshani Chokshi is the New York Times bestselling author of The Star-Touched Queen and A CROWN OF WISHES. Her middle grade debut, ARU SHAH AND THE END OF TIME, released April 3, 2018 from Disney/Rick Riordan Presents. Her next young adult novel, THE GILDED WOLVES, is slated for Winter 2019. Chokshi's work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Shimmer, and Book Smugglers. She was a finalist in the 2016 Andre Norton Award and the Locus Top Ten for Best First Novel. Her short story, "The Star Maiden," was longlisted for the British Fantasy Science Award.

Have you read any of Roshani Chokshi's books? What do you think of them?

Who do you like better - Maya and Amar or Gauri and Vikram?

I'd absolutely love to hear from you (and what you thought about the creatives I made above!)

Sunday Street Team Blog Tour: Mask Of Shadows by Linsey Miller - Review + Giveaway

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to my Tour Stop on the Mask Of Shadows by Linsey Milley Blog Tour organised by the Sunday Street Team! I first heard about this book on NetGalley and I fell in love with the description. A gender fluid thief in a tournament to become an assassin for the queen? SO SO COOL.

I found out in August that I would be receiving a physical ARC and I FREAKED OUT! I was so excited that I actually won a giveaway and I waited for it to get here before I started reading. It got here last weekend and I JUST finished reading it for the tour. Don't forget to enter the giveaway too!

Long Story Short: This was a good book, fast paced and filled with its fair share of action scenes but there was something missing, specifically the lack of deeper story or explanation to the gender fluidity and some world building plot holes.

Let’s talk more in detail:

I first saw Mask Of Shadows on NetGalley. A gender fluid YA protagonist? I hadn’t read a fantasy book with someone who identified as gender fluid much less a contemporary novel and so this fact, and the BEAUTIFUL cover, were these unique selling points in my head that made me go: NEED. TO. READ.

Sure, I liked the Assassins plot, and the competition to become an assassin but we’ve seen it before. The gender fluidity was supposed to make the book stand out, but it was BARELY TOUCHED UPON.

Post Reading THOUGHTS:

1.       The world building was SO SUB PAR. It started off throwing a few facts at you, when a common thief magically decides to audition to serve the Queen who he/ she/ they “HAS ALWAYS LIKED.” These random facts keep hitting you. Later we find out that Sal’s country was destroyed by “Shadows” (WHAT. HOW. THESE ARE NOT EXPLAINED AT ALL) and Sal lost “his/her WHOLE WORLD” but WHO IS THIS WORLD? From where I sat, Sal had some motivation to do the things he/she/they was doing BUT I WAS NOT EMOTIONALLY INVESTED AT ALL BECAUSE I WAS GIVEN NO DETAILS TO FIND ANY EMOTION.

2.       I like that this book was fast paced, all stab stab stab, and not slow like the last book I read (which nearly put me to sleep) and that kept me entertained. The last test, specifically was interesting and it had me hooked.

3.       THERE WERE TWO DEATHS THAT WERE SO RIDICULOUS IN THIS BOOK THAT THEY MADE ME CRINGE. Honestly, they were some of my two favourite secondary characters and the manner of death, the way it was described and just WHY annoyed me to no extent.

4.       Since this book name drops Sarah Maas in the beginning, I think it’s only fair to compare Sallot Leon to Celaena Sardothien (If that’s even her spelling. I can never get this right. WHY ARE FANTASY NAMES SO COMPLICATED?) When I was reading Throne Of Glass, I felt like Celaena was a GOOD ASSASSIN. She was dangerous, ruthless and well, GOOD. I didn’t feel that with Sallot. It seemed that Sal got by on luck and instinct which I wouldn’t have minded, considering where he/she/they came from BUT SAL DIDN’T IMPROVE OR GROW DURING THIS COMPETITION WHERE NOBODY LEARNT ANYTHING, which brings me to:

5.       WHY WAS THE COMPETITION SO FAST PACED? If we were going to have Trials AND Classes, don’t these classes have to at least be long enough for the Auditioners to learn and master things, and not for two DAYS each?

6.       I felt like the Gender Fluidity could have been handled better. Or actually, handled MORE. It’s an important topic to talk about that I haven’t seen before in books but other than it being mentioned with Sal’s dressing sense THERE WAS NOTHING ELSE about the WHY SAL FELT LIKE THAT or anything.

I had some high hoped for this book, I will admit. I give it stars for the fast pace, the fact that there was a lot of killing and that some parts of the plot were very unpredictable, but I WISH IT WAS BETTER and now I want to SOB because it COULD HAVE BEEN. 3 stars. 

Title: Mask Of Shadows
Author: Linsey Miller
Publication Date: August 29th 2017
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Part of a Series?: Yes, Book 1/2 of an Untitled Duology
I Got A Copy Through: ARC from Sourcebooks Fire
Buy Links: Amazon US || Barnes and Noble || The Book Depository || Wordery || Kobo || Books A Million || Chapters Indigo || Google Books

Blurb Description: I Needed to Win.They Needed to Die.
Sallot Leon is a thief, and a good one at that. But gender fluid Sal wants nothing more than to escape the drudgery of life as a highway robber and get closer to the upper-class—and the nobles who destroyed their home. 
When Sal steals a flyer for an audition to become a member of The Left Hand—the Queen’s personal assassins, named after the rings she wears—Sal jumps at the chance to infiltrate the court and get revenge. 
But the audition is a fight to the death filled with clever circus acrobats, lethal apothecaries, and vicious ex-soldiers. A childhood as a common criminal hardly prepared Sal for the trials. And as Sal succeeds in the competition, and wins the heart of Elise, an intriguing scribe at court, they start to dream of a new life and a different future, but one that Sal can have only if they survive.

A wayward biology student from Arkansas, Linsey has previously worked as a crime lab intern, lab assistant, and pharmacy technician. Her debut novel MASK OF SHADOWS is the first in a fantasy duology coming in August 2017 from Sourcebooks Fire. She can be found writing about science and magic anywhere there is coffee.

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9/3 Tour Stops

Interview - Emily Reads Everything

Unique Post  - Roecker Reviews

Review - Bayy In Wonderland

Review - Bookishly Thinking

9/10  Tour Stops

Interview - Tween 2 Teen Books

Review -Charmingly Simple

Review - Pondering The Prose

Interview  - When Curiosity Killed The Cat

9/17  Tour Stops

Interview - YA and Wine

Style Boards - Here's To Happy Endings

Review - Areli Reads

Review - The Hermit Librarian

Interview - Sarcasm and Lemons

9/24 Tour Stops

Interview - Flyleaf Chronicles

Review -  Books N Calm

Review - A Thousand Words A Million Books

Guest Post - Written Infinities

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Highly Futuristic // ARC REVIEW: Redux by A.L.Davroe

Title: Redux (The Tricksters #2)

Author: A.L.Davroe

Publication Date: March 21st 2017

Publisher: Entangled Teen

Part of a Series?: Yes, Book 2/2 of the Tricksters Duology

I Got A Copy Through: Entangled Teen via NetGalley (THANK YOU!)

Buy Links: Amazon US || Barnes and Noble || The Book Depository || Wordery || Books A Million || Chapters Indigo || Google Books || Kobo 

Blurb Description: The domed city of Evanescence is in ruins. With nowhere to go, prodigy hacker Ellani “Ella” Drexel and a small band of survivors flee to the Undertunnel below their city.To escape the wasteland she unknowingly created.But sanctuary is hard to find. With malfunctioning androids and angry rebels at their backs, the group hopes to press on for the neighboring city of Cadence. But Ella’s chosen path is challenging…life-threatening, even. Worse, the boy she loves is acting distant, and not at all like the person she first met in Nexis.But then Ella learns a secret…and it changes everything.Ella knows she needs to turn back and make a stand to reclaim her home. She’s determined to bring a new—and better—life to all who’ve suffered.Or die trying. 

Nexis, the first book in this Duology, was one of my first five star reads of 2016. It was brilliantly crafted in a futuristic world and the ending had me sitting in the same spot, slackjawed and ready for book two already.

For some reason, despite getting approved to read an eARC of Redux on NetGalley, it took me a really long while to tap on the book on my Kindle app and start reading.

It's been a year and a half and well, apart from the basic story and the main characters, I'd forgotten everyone else. This is why the first 10% of the book saved me as it refreshed my knowledge about this series.

In simple short words, Nexis was better than Redux.

After the first ten percent that functioned like a recap to me, I was so confused by the world. Without a map or clear descriptions that functioned like a map, I had this feeling of being lost in my bookish surroundings that I couldn't take. I had no idea what the plan was - was it to try and go to the NEXT dome (I remember that being the plan from the last book?) And if so, why did they never try and only wanted to go back into the dome the destroyed? How many undertunnels are there? What's the plan? I spent most of the book wondering what everybody in it was doing, to be honest.

I can't review this book without spoilers, BUT, despite the death of hundreds of thousands of people at the hands of the “Tricksters” I felt not even a single amount of GUILT or I'M WRONG WHAT CAN I DO from any one of them. They pretty much had made peace with their actions, damn the consequences and moved forward, and were STILL TRUSTED to be leaders of the Rebellion. Or the refugees. I don't know how they were and how NOBODY blamed them but it made the book feel artificial.

Let's also talk about Ella's parents. They were at the top of my list of people who didn't CARE that thousands had died, their “uploaded minds” merely saying “Oh, well, that was only a slight miscalculation” They used their own DAUGHTER to give a face to Rebellion without so much as ASKING her and then made her a Saviour. SIGH.

Apart from that, there were two death scenes where a certain somebody ALMOST died but HAHA HE DIDN'T BECAUSE HE'S THE MAIN CHARACTER AND HOW COULD HE?

I did have a lot of problems with this book, but there was a lot to like too. I still loved the sheer genius of the technology that made up Evanescence. It takes a SPECTACULAR mind to come up with ideas like the one in the book and I loved it. There were also certain gritty and romantic twists that I couldn't see coming but loved when they did because they added a lot to the book.

Mostly, I just wish this book had been better. I wish Ella's parents had asked and not attempt to brainwash an entire population. I wish Ella's wasn't such a NOBLE person and that she wasn't portrayed as a Saint/ Saviour but more like a normal girl.

I love this series, and I definitely recommend it. I just wish that certain elements were better executed. 3 stars. 

I write both YA and adult speculative fiction. I'm represented by Louise Fury of The Bent Agency. I've written FOR YOUR HEART; CITY STEAM; NEXIS; and M.I.A.. My latest novel, REDUX (YA science-fiction) is coming out with Entangled Teen in March 2017.

By day, I live in Connecticut with my feline hench-creatures and I make cheese. I'm a terrible blusher, have a weak spot for cuddly animals, love Laffy Taffy and Cadbury MiniEggs, and I'm a huge advocate of alternative healing methods. I wear purple shoes and corsets...Though not always in the same ensemble. I'm a Capricorn, a Hufflepuff, and a few nuggets short of a Happy Meal. I also suffer from Resting Bitchface Syndrome (RBS), so even though I might look like I'll tie you in a knot if you come near me, I'm more afraid of you than you are of me (see blushing problem above). 

 What do you think about Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality Games? 

If you could have ANY piece to future technology (and let's assume everything HAS been invented) what kind of device would you pick?

I can't wait to hear from all of you!