The Last Lumenian and True Teryn by S G Blaise

                         ABOUT THE LAST LUMENIAN 

 MOST PRINCESSES NEED SAVING. THIS ONE WILL SAVE YOU.

She is a rebel. Lilla is fighting for the refugees's freedom from oppression. The king, her father, lost touch with reality ever since Lilla's mother died. Now everyone else is paying the price.

The arrival of Callum, a powerful Teryn general, complicates Lilla's life. His presence leads to conflicted feelings and friction with Arrov, a handsome pilot and fellow rebel.

Her life is not what she imagined it to be. Not by far. Meddling gods, love interests and sudden magical abilities have no room in Lilla's world, but that has become her new reality. No matter how hard she pushes them away, it's too late. They all seek to control her anyway.

Now the Era War between two ruling archgods forces Lilla to act: accept who she really is magic and all; find true love; fulfill her destiny by defeating the Archgod of Chaos and Destruction before He finds her. The Last Lumenian.

 So, what did I think? Well I am more of a fantasy reader than a Sci-fi reader (I like my Sci-fi to not be too tech heavy and sciency) but this combination of the two worked really well for me. Lilla makes for a believable lead she's brave, clever, sassy at times but also given to panic attacks at time. The books are certainly aimed at a new adult audience (in my opinion) and I guess that makes the Sci-fi more my level and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

 The story itself has the usual fantasy tropes,-mages, Gods, Destiny etc. but thrown into the mix is romance, a love triangle, plenty of banter and some excellent world building. 

 With its shortish chapters the story flies by at a good pace and I was greatful that I had book 2 to hand to dig straight into. 

 Speaking of which... 

                     ABOUT THE BOOK

ALL BEGINNINGS COME AT A PRICE. ARE YOU WILLING TO PAY IT?

Lilla must recruit the biggest and most dangerous army in the Seven Galaxies, but the Teryn emperor will not comply unless Lilla earns the blessing of the Teryn Guardian Goddess Laoise.

Dealing with gods is never easy. Guardian Goddess Laoise’s condition for bestowing her blessing is for Lilla to bring her the mysterious Heart Amulet. Now Lilla is trapped in a strange place with no way out, no idea where to go or how to find the amulet.

The only way for Lilla to complete her mission is to uncover the biggest secret of all Teryns. Will she survive discovering the secret of what it means to be a True Teryn?

 True Teryn really gets the story going, with what I like best in my fantasy reads - a good old fashioned quest for a maguffin. The maguffin in this case is the Heart Amulet but Lilla doesn't know what it is or where exactly to find it. Her quest, as is often the case will allow her to find out more about herself (the 'real Lilla' I guess you could say). Everything that was good in book 1 is even better here in True Teryn

 SG Blaise has done it again with the world building here (and as it's the seven galaxies I'm excited to see what there is going forward with this). The characters are growing into themselves and the story is getting better and better. The style of writing is very visual as well which is not an easy thing to get right.

 Something else to note is the cover art on these books, I mean, have you seen them?? That is luscious cover design (that's part of the reason I have these books on kindle as well as physical copies - so I can keep the covers as pristine as possible).

 I'm giving both books 4/5* just because I think this series will keep getting better and better

 Thanks to Smith Publicity for inviting me to review these books and for providing the review copies. 

 Both books are available now

Of Blood and Fire by Ryan Cahill

 

I've been reading fantasy for a long time now and I know what I like - and this ticks all my boxes. There is a lot here that rings bells from other stories, you have the usual boy leaves small village with his friends and some strangers to find adventure in the wide world, you have 'evil empire' encroaching with bad intentions, you have stock fantasy races - elves, dwarves, giants, dragons. There are the usual monster types - Uraks here take the role of Orc/Troll/Trolloc and even some of the places sound familiar.

 But all this familiarity does is show the author has read deeply in the genre. He tells his own story with echoes of other genre tales but the story he tells, the world he has created, is all his own. 

 And the story is a bloody good one at that. I have spent the last 3 nights reading as late as I could to finish it, reading until my eyes could stay open no more. I finally got there this morning - and the ending nailed it!

 I think it's safe to say that it's time to set an extra place at the top table. Ryan Cahill deserves a spot there. 

7/5*

 Of Blood and Fire ends on three (Three!!) separate cliffhangers but don't worry, the sequel, Of Darkness and Light is out on 31st December - and at just under 900 pages long it's an absolute chonker

The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman

 

 Welcome to the 2nd day of the Blogtour for Genevieve Cogman's The Untold Story - book 8 (and possibly the final book) of the Invisible Library series. And it is release date too so you won't have to wait to pick up your own copy. 

 The Untold Story has Irene coming to terms with the revelations uncovered in The Dark Archive (aka book 7) and also embarking on possibly her most dangerous mission to date. As regular readers will know the Invisible Library links many parallel worlds - and some of them are now disappearing! Irene needs to get to the bottom of why this is happening, who is to blame and to dig into the history of the Library itself for answers. 

  As (possibly) the last in the series the book does exactly what it needs to by tying all the loose ends in a particularly tidy bow and giving the reader the conclusion it deserves. The world building and character development has always been top notch throughout the series and continues here. 

 Now, I must say, I have been following this series from the beginning and waited enthusiasticly for each 'next episode' to be published and I do think that is the best way to approach the series - as a whole entity. With Librarians, the Library itself, Dragons, Fae, A Sherlock Holmes type and a machiavellian enemy (among many others) this has been a fun ride (and it really ought to be picked up for television) and I highly recommend it. 

 My plan now is to go back to the beginning and start all over again. Care to join me? 😉

 Thanks to Pan Macmillan for providing the review copy and to Stephen Haskins for inviting me onto the tour. And, speaking of which please take the time to have a look at the posts by the other excellent bloggers on the tour (dates below) - we always appreciate it when you do 😉