A Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson
This one is for the fantasy lovers. A Sorcery of Thorns is packed full of magic and even has a slow-burn romance if that’s something you’re into.
This did take me an extremely long time to get through, however, this was to no fault of the book, just myself. The plot is exciting and explores an interesting world where books are sentient beings and all sorcerers are seen as evil.
I loved the connection to books that was displayed in this book and I felt myself relating to the main character, Elisabeth, due to her own love of books.
Synopsis: All sorcerers are evil. Elisabeth has known that as long as she has known anything. Raised as a foundling in one of Austermeer’s Great Libraries, Elisabeth has grown up among the tools of sorcery—magical grimoires that whisper on shelves and rattle beneath iron chains. If provoked, they transform into grotesque monsters of ink and leather. She hopes to become a warden, charged with protecting the kingdom from their power.
Then an act of sabotage releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire. Elisabeth’s desperate intervention implicates her in the crime, and she is torn from her home to face justice in the capital. With no one to turn to but her sworn enemy, the sorcerer Nathaniel Thorn, and his mysterious demonic servant, she finds herself entangled in a centuries-old conspiracy. Not only could the Great Libraries go up in flames, but the world along with them.
As her alliance with Nathaniel grows stronger, Elisabeth starts to question everything she’s been taught—about sorcerers, about the libraries she loves, even about herself. For Elisabeth has a power she has never guessed, and a future she could never have imagined.
Dark Room Etiquette by Robin Roe
This book was incredibly haunting and I loved every second of it. The tension is built so well and from the get go you’re on edge because you know something bad is going to happen, but you don’t know when.
Dark Room Etiquette is very heavy, so don’t expect to go into it coming out happy. No, this book will stay with you. But in a good way, it has a lasting impact. I still think about the atmosphere of this book from time to time. It’s one I compare all thrillers to.
Synopsis: Sixteen-year-old Sayers Wayte has everything—until he’s kidnapped by a man who tells him the privileged life he’s been living is based on a lie.
Trapped in a windowless room, without knowing why he’s been taken or how long the man plans to keep him shut away, Sayers faces a terrifying new reality. To survive, he must forget the world he once knew, and play the part his abductor has created for him.
But as time passes, the line between fact and fiction starts to blur, and Sayers begins to wonder if he can escape . . . before he loses himself.
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