From the author of One of Us Is Lying comes a brand new addictive thriller.
Ivy, Mateo and Cal used to be close – best friends back in middle school. Now all they have in common is a bad day. So for old time’s sake they skip school together – one last time. But when the trio spot Brian ‘Boney’ Mahoney ditching class too, they follow him – right into a murder scene. They all have a connection to the victim. And they’re ALL hiding something. When their day of freedom turns deadly, it’s only a matter of time before the truth comes out . . . It’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off with murder, perfect for fans of One Of Us Is Lying and A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder. This explosive new thriller is impossible to put down.
Karen M. McManus is the #1 New York Times and international bestselling author of young adult thriller/mystery novels, including One of Us Is Lying, One of Us Is Next, Two Can Keep a Secret, and The Cousins. You’ll Be the Death of Me will be her next novel, publishing December 2021. Her work has been translated into more than 40 languages worldwide. Karen lives in Massachusetts and holds a master’s degree in Journalism from Northeastern University, which she mostly uses to draft fake news stories for her novels. For more information, visit www.karenmcmanus.com or @writerkmc on Twitter and Instagram.
My thoughts: I am a massive fan of Karen McManus’ writing, her books are cracking, so I was really excited to read this one. Skipping school for the first time, three teens find themselves embroiled in murder, drug dealing and a series of burglaries. It’s up to them to solve the case and find the killer, before they become victims too. It’s also laced with Karen’s trademark dry dark humour and lessons about friendship and honesty. I’ve actually read it twice, having enjoyed it so much, I wanted more!
This feels very cinematic at times, I think it’s the Ferris Bueller vibes, I could definitely see it on Netflix next year. I highly recommend this one.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Welcome to the book tour for Sounds Like Love, a clean contemporary YA romance by Laura Ford!
Sounds Like Love
Publication Date: July 29th, 2021
Genre: YA/ Romance/ Clean YA
Wendy is a bright spark who wants to find love and travel the world, but she questions how her dreams can become a reality as her world changes around her.
When Wendy arrives at her beloved grandmother’s house to collect a box of keepsakes, she picks up more than she bargained for – a green-eyed tabby cat with amazing qualities. This is just the start of a high-speed adventure, leading Wendy towards bright new horizons… if only she’ll give the cat a chance…
As Wendy got up, something at the window caught her eye again. It was the cat – looking sad as she gazed in through the window. Her coat was beginning to get wet as light rain started to fall outside. Wendy felt a change inside of her. Suddenly she wasn’t thinking about how she felt anymore; she was wondering how the cat was feeling – she felt compassion for the cat. All through her childhood she had disliked cats because her parents had paraded them in front of her and it had made her feel second best. But now, this cat was looking for a friend. How could Wendy hope for people to understand her when she wasn’t trying to understand this cat?
“Empathy,” Wendy said out loud to herself. “That’s what the world needs. More empathy.”
Wendy walked towards the window and the cat looked up at her longingly. Her brown tabby coat was beginning to look almost black as the rain soaked it through, and her green eyes shone through the dim light, as though alight from within. She looked into Wendy’s eyes and Wendy looked back at her, really looked at her now, and saw the cat’s delicate face looking back, hoping to make friends. She noticed, for the first time, the cat’s white whiskers, her little pink nose, and the green collar that Grandma had given her.
Laura Ford writes novels, short stories and poems across a wide range of human and animal experience. As Laura is an avid cat lover, a number of special felines tend to find their way into Laura’s stories as well.
Laura graduated with an honours degree in British law while also writing fiction in parallel. Now based in California with her husband and two beguiling Siamese cats, Laura most enjoys using her imagination and memories to paint vivid stories. An avid traveler and seeker, Laura is always exploring new concepts for more stories to come.
How gorgeous is this cover? I’m thrilled to share the cover for Insidious Scars by Natalie J. Reddy! Coming next Spring!
Insidious Scars
Expected Publication Date: Spring 2021
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy/ Paranormal Romance
This is what she’s been training for…
Jyoti has felt like an outcast all her life. Living among Psi with extraordinary power can be isolating and dangerous when you have no power of your own. But in weakness there is strength, a strength Jyoti’s mother has been training her to use to her advantage. When rumors of war begin circulating, Jyoti is offered an opportunity to help protect her people. However, it would mean giving up what she loves most. But when she finds out about a weapon that could cause the destruction of all mankind, she begins to question everything, even her own heart.
What do you do when protecting the greater good means you’ll lose everything you love?
Natalie J. Reddy is a Canadian Author who spends her days trying to escape reality by making up stories about the characters in her head.
Natalie realized at an early age that she had a passion for storytelling and that passion followed her into adulthood. There is nothing she loves more than to be pulled into a fictional world whether it’s in her own writing or the writing of others. Natalie is the author of the Scar of Days Forgotten series, a New Adult Urban Fantasy series with characters who have supernatural abilities and dark and sometimes unknown pasts to overcome.
When she’s not writing, Natalie can be found having all sorts of real-life adventures with her husband and daughter or curled up with a good book and a cup of tea.
To keep up to date on upcoming books, subscribe to Natalie’s newsletter at nataliejreddy.com
Welcome to the book tour for A Friend Like Filby by Mark Wakely. Read on for more details!
A Friend Like Filby
Expected Publication Date: December 6th, 2021
Genre: YA/ Young Adult/ YA Contemporary/ Time Travel
George has been fascinated with the idea of time travel ever since the unexpected death of his mother when he was ten, and hopes someday to find a friend like Filby, the forever loyal friend of the time traveler in the 1960 movie The Time Machine. George’s two closest high school friends, Dave and Nancy (nickname Onion), struggle at times to understand his odd obsession as they deal with issues of their own both in and out of school. The story takes place during the three friends’ tumultuous senior year from beginning to end, with a major realization in store for George on graduation day.
“Mark Wakely weaves an unusual tale with characters that are both emotionally and psychologically rich…The story is told from George’s perspective and in a first person narrative voice that is as clear as it is compelling. The prose is beautiful and evocative at times and I enjoyed the author’s peculiar turn of phrase, the humor, and his knack for vivid descriptions…It is a delightful read.” – Readers’ Favorite
Mark Wakely has held a lifelong interest in all things science-related, dating back to high school when he won the Bausch & Lomb science award in high school. Mark holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and is a college administrator at prestigious Elmhurst College in Elmhurst, Illinois. He lives in a nearby town with his wife and three children, and is an avid reader and amateur astronomer.
Orphaned science nerd and maths prodigy Alice Valentine wants to ace her studies. She’s spent all her life struggling to make friends, passed between foster families and care homes, isolated and lonely. Losing herself in academia from an early age, she becomes the first sixteen-year-old at her local university. Her whole world changes, but nothing can prepare Alice for the night she’s attacked by a werewolf. But even that isn’t as strange as discovering she has an identical twin sister, Cassie. And Cassie kills werewolves. And all the other monsters Alice didn’t believe existed. Alice and Cassie set off to discover what happened to their parents, a journey that takes them from northern England to the edge of the apocalypse, unsure if they will save the world or destroy it.
Andrew French is a man of no wealth and little taste. He lives amongst faded seaside glamour on the North East coast of England. He likes gin and cats but not together, new music and old movies, curry
and ice cream. Slow bike rides and long walks to the pub are his usual exercise, as well as flicking through the pages of good books and the memoirs of bad people.
My thoughts: this was a fun supernatural novel about sisters, monsters and finding out who you are.
After being raised in the foster system, Alice is sent to university at 16, she’s super intelligent and the organisation that has looked after her since childhood has sponsored her early admission. Having possibly made her first friend, she’s attacked by a werewolf and rescued by a girl who looks just like her. And that isn’t the strangest thing that happens to her.
Cassie, Alice’s doppelganger, fights monsters. She’s very aware that they exist and some aren’t human. Her experience of foster care isn’t quite like Alice’s, and she’s a lot more worldly wise. And now the two girls want to find out who they really are, and why all of monster-dom is after them.
Alice is a scientist, and keeps trying to rationalise everything, even a vampire, while Cassie just accepts that these things are real, and kills them. But as they travel to Whitby and beyond in search of answers, even Cassie is in for a few surprises.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Today we are celebrating the release of Deadly Scars, book 4 in her Scars of Days Forgotten series! Read on for more info!
Deadly Scars (Scars of Days Forgotten Series #4)
Publication Date: November 16th, 2021
Genre: YA Urban Fantasy/ Paranormal Romance
Nothing is as it seems. No one is safe.
Wren is alive, but she’s not happy about it. Not when she’s in the clutches of The Council and soul-linked to Darshan, a man whose misplaced loyalties have gotten far too many killed. From the moment she wakes up in the Council’s fortress in the Mountains, she is desperate to find a way out and back to Misha and the Resistance. But this time there will be no rescue. Not when the Resistance thinks she’s dead.
Now a Commander in the Psi Army, Darshan is determined to protect those he cares for and stop the Council. But he can’t do it alone. There are still so many secrets he doesn’t have answers to, and every choice he makes could be a death sentence to someone he loves. He and Wren soon realize that to get what they want they need to work together and play the parts the Council has set out for them. But can they trust each other? Or will one of them end up betraying the other?
Misha believes he watched the woman he loves die the death that was meant for him and now he’s bent on revenge. But his revenge is put on hold when Psi begin attacking humans and draining them of blood. As he, Greta, and those left with the Resistance begin to investigate, things only get worse and more confusing. And soon the Psi attacks aren’t the only ones they have to worry about.
Because something worse is coming. Something that might make monsters of us all.
Natalie J. Reddy is a Canadian Author who spends her days trying to escape reality by making up stories about the characters in her head.
Natalie realized at an early age that she had a passion for storytelling and that passion followed her into adulthood. There is nothing she loves more than to be pulled into a fictional world whether it’s in her own writing or the writing of others. Natalie is the author of the Scar of Days Forgotten series, a New Adult Urban Fantasy series with characters who have supernatural abilities and dark and sometimes unknown pasts to overcome.
When she’s not writing, Natalie can be found having all sorts of real-life adventures with her husband and daughter or curled up with a good book and a cup of tea.
To keep up to date on upcoming books, subscribe to Natalie’s newsletter at nataliejreddy.com
Fresh off the debut of her EP, sixteen year old Dani Truehart is flying high on a string of number one hits. After locking down her first full-length album in record time and furiously preparing for her world tour, Dani is torn between leaving her loved ones behind and embracing her burgeoning stardom.
Dani’s fame and fortune, along with her ego, explode as her tour moves across the globe. Elated when two of Hollywood’s hottest young actors, Kayla Spencer and Trey Connors, befriend her, Dani finds herself living life in the fast lane and recording her second album as she tours. Constantly dogged by the paparazzi, Dani basks in the adoration of The TrueHart Nation, her loyal super-fans who are ready to follow her around the world and go to war with anyone who dares dis their favorite pop star whom they’ve dubbed The Queen of Harts.
But with her mother’s desperate attempts to cash in on her fame getting bolder, a public drunken scandal and her inability to connect with her boyfriend Sean and her best friend Lauren, Dani relies on her guardian Martin Fox and manager Jenner Redman to clean up her messes. She also increasingly depends on the drinks tour dancer Beau slips her to cope with her overwhelming life. Between juggling her drinking on the sly, the pressures of her public image and her ever-increasing fame, Dani and Beau wind up cornered in a huge lie in order to keep her secrets under wraps. The pressure crescendos when Dani’s mother blackmails her about her drinking and best friend Lauren catches Trey kissing Dani at the launch of her third album. Desperate to keep Lauren from telling Sean and Kayla about the kiss, Dani makes a choice that threatens not only to take her down, but everyone who has made her a star.
Excerpt Looking like a carbon copy of last night but feeling like a shadow of myself, I sit on a huge gold and red throne backstage, waiting for the video package to roll. “Sounds like you had quite the adventure last night, rock star?” Beau elbows me playfully. I wince, grateful for the darkness that hides my burning cheeks. “You wouldn’t have thrown up on my watch. I’d never let you get that sloppy.” He winks. “Uh, thanks, I guess. But trust me, that whole scene won’t be happening again. Jenner and Martin have me on lockdown, and my parents are threatening to pull me off tour if it does.” “Yeah, right. Like MEGA’s going to let your mom and dad kill the cash cow that’s raking in millions of dollars.” He gives me a wry look, his features eerily highlighted by the dim blue stage safety light. “Not likely. They might talk a big game, but trust me, you could steal a car, rob a bank or slap the president of the United States and you’d still find yourself on stage at curtain time.”
My thoughts: I’m not entirely sure that any 16 year old should be famous, let alone as famous as Dani Truehart, and so quickly. Her debut album is out and there’s a world tour on the go. But it isn’t a very healthy world for a somewhat naive teen, away from home, friends, family, everything normal. Thrust on to the world stage, she thinks she’s ready, but can she ever be? And once you reach the top, the only way is down. A rollercoaster ride for Dani and readers, this chronicles the rush and stardust of fame and its pitfalls. Dani stops being true to herself and starts to slide into being someone else, and at 16 develops a taste for the booze. A cautionary tale ensues and the sweet girl of the first book is growing into a bit of a monster.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
For fans of Veronica Mars and Stranger Things comes an all-new YA mystery about a girl whose desperate search for her missing friend unearths dark secrets, preternatural threats, and a truth that could ultimately tear her family, friends, and town apart.
Welcome to Twentynine Palms, where nothing is what it seems.
Rylie hasn’t been back to Twentynine Palms since her dad died. She left a lot of memories out there, buried in the sand of the Mojave Desert. Memories about her dad, her old friends Nathan and Lily, and most of all, her enigmatic grandfather, a man who cut ties with Rylie’s family before he passed away. But her mom’s new work assignment means their family has to move, and now Rylie’s in the one place she never wanted to return to, living in the house of a grandfather she barely knew.
At least her old friends are happy to welcome her home. Well, some of them, anyway. Lily is gone, vanished into the desert. And Twentynine Palms is so much stranger than Rylie remembers. There are whispers around town of a mysterious killer on the loose, but it isn’t just Twentynine Palms that feels off—there’s something wrong with Rylie, too. She’s seeing things she can’t explain. Visions of monstrous creatures that stalk the night.
Somehow, it all seems to be tied to her grandfather and the family cabin he left behind. Rylie wants the truth, but she doesn’t know if she can trust herself. Are the monsters in her head really out there? Or could it be that the deadliest thing in the desert . . . is Rylie herself?
INTL Tour-wide Giveaway! – 1 winner will receive a signed copy of NO BEAUTIES OR MONSTERS (open US) – 1 winner will receive a $10 gift card to Book Depository (open internationally) This ends on November 5th, 2021 at 11:59pm EST.
Tara Goedjen adores anything mysterious. She is the author of THE BREATHLESS (Delacorte Press, Random House Children’s Books) and NO BEAUTIES OR MONSTERS, forthcoming Fall 2021.
Tara wrote her first story at age ten about children who disappeared at midnight, and she’s been writing fiction ever since. Mostly raised in Alabama, she played college tennis in Iowa and then moved to Alaska and Australia before heading back to the continental US.
While completing grad school, Tara worked as a tennis coach, a yoga instructor, a university writing teacher, and as an editor for a publishing house. These days, when she’s not making up stories, she’s probably chasing after two small monsters or hiking through an enchanted wood while dreaming up her next book. Website | Instagram | Twitter
My thoughts: deserts are weird places, liminal places where things can change suddenly. I drove through the desert from California to Nevada once, my aunt was driving and it was strange. I slept most of the way in the van. Couldn’t touch the windows as the glass gets too hot.
I understood Rylie so much in this book, how weird this huge dry place can be. How it can change so quickly, it’s cold at night as the sand and rocks don’t retain heat. But there’s something even stranger at twentyninepalms, a crossing over place, a world similar to ours but also very different. Rylie’s grandfather knew about it and tried to help those who crossed the line. Now it’s her turn to try to solve the disappearances of so many people once and for all. Luckily she has friends to help her, she’s not alone like her grandpa was.
The writing gives you the same sense of woozy dislocation that Rylie feels, you’re there with her in the desert fog and the odd out of place sense her memory loss creates. It’s cleverly done and keeps you guessing at what’s happening and what role different characters play in it. I really liked Owen too, Rylie’s brother and her anchor, he’s very smart and his constant desire to be with her helps keep her sane.
This was a clever, compelling and occasionally confusing (as it needed to be on the way to some answers) book.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Having survived the horrors of Savage Island, Grady is now stuck working for Gold, the psychopath who masterminded the gruesome competition. Sent on a “team-building exercise” in a remote castle, he starts to plot his escape. Ben and Lizzie are in hiding, presumed dead after escaping the island. If they’re ever to return to their families, they need to bring Gold down. So they secretly join Grady in the castle. But as the doors slam shut and the series of deadly challenges between them and freedom are revealed, it looks like history is going to repeat itself…
About Savage Island When reclusive millionaire Marcus Gold announces that he’s staging an “Iron Teen” competition on his private island in the Outer Hebrides, Ben, Lizzie, Will, Grady and Carmen sign up. They’d be mad not to when the prize is one million pounds … each. But when the competition commences, the group begin to regret their decision –this is no ordinary contest. Other teams are hunting their competitors and attacking them. As the pressure intensifies and their survival instincts kick in, the friends struggle to stick together. Who can they really trust?
Bryony was a winner of the 2008 Undiscovered Voices competition and is the author of ANGEL’S FURY and THE WEIGHT OF SOULS,winner of the Wirral Grammar School Award –Best Science Fiction. She has written PHOENIX RISING, PHOENIX BURNING and SAVAGE ISLAND for Stripes. Bryony lives with her husband and two children in a village in Gloucestershire. Visit bryonypearce.co.uk | Twitter
My thoughts: I hadn’t read Savage Island, but I am definitely going back and rectifying that ASAP, this was so good and I need to know all the details about what happened to Ben, Lizzie and Grady on the island. However, it’s not essential to know as there’s plenty of information given in Cruel Castle to give you the back story to their relationship and trauma.
A sort of Battle Royale/Hunger Games but British, and darkly funny, Cruel Castle pits a group of young psychopaths against each other in the ultimate escape room challenge – solve the puzzles and get out of the castle alive. Ben, Lizzie and Aaday aren’t psychopathic but are still dealing with their traumatic experiences. They want to live but not to the cost of anyone’s life, this makes them vulnerable but also very brave. They were definitely likeable, unlike the rest of the group – I don’t think I’d have been so willing to work with them.
Grady is playing his own long game and I couldn’t quite work out his motives, I think book three might have the answers…
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
Over on Instagram today I’m reviewing Love and Other Sins by Emilia Ares, but as getting lots of info onto a tiny square is tricky, I’m posting more about the book here. Read on for a Q&A with the author and check out the link above for my thoughts.
Oliver and Mina develop a strong bond as the threads of their old lives begin to unravel and they are forced to reckon with family history that violently refuses to remain in the past. Love and Other Sins is a moving story about what it means to be young and vulnerable in today’s society.
“I wanted to tell the story of a first-generation Russian immigrant girl and a street-wise foster care system boy who find love,” Ares, known as an actress for roles in American Horror Story and Bosch. “Love and Other Sins discusses the nuanced experience of growing up in America with immigrant parents as well as the critical flaws of the foster care system.”Readers who fell for Looking for Alaska and Thirteen Reasons Why will devour Love and Other Sins.
Emilia Ares is an American film and television actress. Love and Other Sins is her debut novel. She graduated UCLA with a BA in Economics, and a minor in Russian. Literature and storytelling have always been her true passion.
Connect with Ares at EmiliaAres.com, and on Instagram and TikTok @EmiliaAres.
Q&A with Love and Other Sin author Emilia Ares
1) You’ve been a working actress for many years, how has writing fit into your life or how did you transition to writing?
Funny enough, I began writing while on one of my sets. I was doing a film and sometimes we have to wait for hours in between takes. In those situations, it’s best to do something to take your mind off the scene in order to keep the acting fresh and the reactions surprising. Reading is a great go-to but there had been this story and these characters–Oliver and Mina, who were living in my head and nagging at my brain. I just had to get them on paper, so-to-speak. I wrote a chapter of their story into my notes on my iPhone and I also jotted down what else would probably happen later on in the story. When I got back to town, I wanted to show it to my younger sister, Sofia, who was reading a lot of YA at the time–she ended up becoming an English major. She’s the one who encouraged me to keep writing and turn it into a book. She said she loved it and couldn’t wait for more. I don’t think Love and Other Sins would have existed without her encouragement.
2) What have you learned about storytelling from TV projects you’ve acted in like American Horror Story and Bosch?
I’ve learned a ton about storytelling from the TV and film projects I’ve acted in, especially the importance of a strong emotional connection with my characters. Creating a backstory for my characters on and off the screen was vital. More times than not, my character’s backstory was not provided to me either because the project was high profile and the full script was kept under-wraps or because I was playing a guest-star whose history was not explicitly discussed or mentioned in the script itself. So, I’d have to invent the backstory.
That process is very similar to writing characters in a book. I used my knowledge of how the character was described in the breakdown that was provided during the casting process including any traits, qualities, strengths, weaknesses, quirks. I would then make an educated guess about what this person ultimately wants/needs from life, taking into consideration the character arc in the scene/overall story to create a reasonable history for them. In the case of American Horror Story, I would ask myself where does Princess Anastasia Romanova come from? What makes her tick? What life events shaped her? Empowered her? Scarred her? What are her secrets? And how do those things effect how she walks, talks, speaks, ect. The backstory is usually never discussed but always exists in the thoughts of these characters which ultimately informs their actions. The more specific the backstory, the richer–what actor’s call–“the life” of the character is.
This was great practice for when it came time to create Oliver and Mina’s backstories. I would just pretend they were characters I was going to play. I entered their minds the way I would when I played my characters on set. This might be a different approach than most traditional writers and it’s most likely why I wrote in first person. I was documenting the moments as if they were happening to me in real time. Later, I rewrote the novel into past tense to give the storytelling and pacing more flexability.
3) Why was it important for you to write young people who are independent and self-reliant on parental support to go after their goals?
I honestly didn’t set out with the goal to write independent and self-reliant characters. I just wanted them to be interesting and as it turns out, self-reliant people must interest me. But I’m glad Oliver
and Mina developed into the people they became because there are plenty of teenagers out there who are on their own and could use someone like Oliver to identify with.
Mina is actually very reliant on her mother for moral support when we first meet her. However, this novel begins during the part of her life when she starts to break free from that support and she ventures off to discover who she is and what she wants. She will have many hardships ahead. We get to follow her down that tumultuous road and witness her slay the dragons or succumb. Oliver, on the other hand, built himself up from the most terrible circumstances and found his own silver-lining. He doesn’t have any family. He’s alone, therefore he’s independent out of necessity, not choice. I hope his story is inspirational to the youth that feel hopeless.
4) How did your own young adulthood prepare you to write this book?
My time as a teenager was as dramatic and angsty as anyone else’s. Everyday there was drama, rumors, gossip, bullying. No matter how hard I tried to keep my head down it felt as though it was inescapable. When I talk to my adult friends about their high-school experiences, I come to understand that we all felt that way. You know, it’s funny…as trivial as everything seems now, in the grand scheme of things, some of those moments really did matter and did shape me into who I am today. The most painful moments became the biggest life lessons. I knew what I had to do to never feel that way again. I learned who I had to stay away from and who I had to gravitate toward. It wasn’t all bad though, I had some great friends to get me through the tough parts. Those were the parts that were most similar to my life. Nyah was written based on a combination of a few of my friends and my sister. Lily was inspired by my mom.
5) What books and authors inspired you along the way?
The Stranger by Albert Camus because it challenged everything I ever knew or thought I knew about the hero of a story and made me feel so uncomfortable reading it.
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky not only for the revelation this novel brought to literature but also for the story behind writing it. Dostoevsky didn’t write it because he wanted to, he wrote it out of necessity. He wrote what he knew, the conditions and ramifications of a sick, drunk, impoverished Russia.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins because by the time 2008 rolled around, so much had already been written and said about a potential post-apocalyptic nation but somehow, Collins was able to put forth a fresh take on dystopia. I admire that very much. There is always more room for your voice, your perspective, your story.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe because, again, it was very critically controversial. People didn’t know how to feel about it. On the one hand, Achebe ended up writing it in English, the language of colonialism which caused disagreement amongst many African critics in regards to the ultimate message of the novel. On the other hand, this was a novel that went against most of what was written about African culture at the time. It showed European colonialism from a different perspective portraying Igbo life from the point of view of an African man, a rich and sophisticated culture with a deep history, language, and beliefs.
But some of the first books and authors who inspired my love for storytelling were, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in the blog tour but all opinions remain my own.
ramblingmads 