Book Review: Weavingshaw by Heba Al-Wasity

My thanks to Netgalley, Del Rey, Random House Worlds, Inklore and Heba Al-Wasity for the eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I'm sitting here after finishing this book with only one thought on my mind: Where is book 2!?

This was an exceptional debut. The worldbuilding, the characters, the ideas and the plot, everything worked together to suck me into this book and I found myself cursing because I couldn't read fast enough and also dreading the moment the book ended. This is everything that I wanted to see in a gothic fantasy and it was absolutely brilliant. I can't get that last scene out of my head, that final line was just perfect. I want more already. I want to buy this for the readers in my family and then smile when they get to that last line because the more of us that have to sit and wait for the next book, the better. The moment I get my copy, this book is living on my shelf of absolute favorites. I see myself reading this again and again in the future.

Weavingshaw follows Leena Al-Sayer, who woke up three years ago with the ability to see the dead. She has done everything she can to keep this secret safe. When her beloved brother Rami ends up ill, Leena knows the only choice she has is to sell her secret in order to get the medicine needed to keep her brother from dying. She goes to the Saint of Silence, a merchant that takes the confessions and secrets of the public, and makes a deal. She must find the ghost of Percival Avon, the last lord of Weavingshaw, or stay working for the Saint of Silence for the rest of her life, telling him the things that his customers won't admit by seeing any ghosts that follow them. When Leena finally gets to Weavingshaw, Leena finds a land that feels cursed. She works with the Saint of Silence, fighting the growing connection between them, all the while trying to understand what the ghosts are trying to tell her about Weavingshaw and Lord Avon. Leena also want to understand why this is so important to the Saint of Silence. As threats start to come at them from all sides, Leena starts to realize that the secrets buried at Weavingshaw are better left alone with the dead that keep them.

Oh Leena, my dear sweet Leena, I love this girl so very much. This is a girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders. She's determined to keep her impulsive brother safe, she's determined to find a way to save her father who was imprisoned years earlier. She's a young woman who feels on the fringe in her country, considered not a part of the country she lives in and yet not able to return to her home country either. She has done her best to make the most of her situation and has done everything to figure out how to keep herself safe from the ghosts that follow her day and night. I wanted everything for this girl, she deserves the world. Her brother Rami, as much as I wanted to love him for Leena's sake, at the same time I felt so exasperated by his choices. Every time Leena worried for him, I was in the same boat, wishing he'd be more careful for his sister's sake if not his own. As for the Saint of Silence, I watched this guy like a hawk, taking in the little sneak peeks about his better character because there has to be something to root for with this kind of character. At the start of the book, I wanted to wring this guy's neck but I was confident that Al-Wasity was going to surprise me and I was not disappointed by the development of the Saint of Silence. The slow reveals about the motivations behind the Saint's actions and the secrets about his past made for a character that I wanted to swoop in and take care of along with Leena. This pair together kept my attention riveted to every page.

The worldbuilding was brilliant. I wanted to know more about everything, about the history of the country, how the gentry works and I got so many answers about it all. I'm hoping the final copy has some kind of map, that would be the cherry on top for this release. I thought the development with Leena's ability and how she fits into this world was well-done. Her interests and beliefs and her family kept my attention and I feel like I know so much about this world and yes, I do have questions that I hope will get answers in the next book. That's the sign of a good writer, able to hook the reader with what is given and keep them wanting to come back for more. This book was long and yet I still want to keep reading, I want that next release already, it is my hope that it'll be released some time next year to put me out of my misery. 

The writing was clear and concise, able to give descriptions without feeling like the book was being bogged down by information. The majority of the chapters followed Leena but there were occasional chapters from Rami and from the Saint which were able to round out the story, giving the readers more chances to see the different sides of this world. The depth of the feelings, the slow reveals, the discovery of every facet of this book were exceptionally written and honestly, I will be following Heba Al-Wasity for every book release from now on. I want to talk more about the plot of this book, about the search for Lord Avon, but the clues deserve to be discovered by every reader who wants to experience this book because that is what this book is, an experience. I loved every page of this book, the insights that closed every chapter were so poetic that once I get my copy, I plan on marking each and every one of my favorite quotes. Al-Wasity has a way way with words that weaves a spell on the reader and I can't wait to see what she writes next.

Rating on my Scale: 10 Stars. Seriously, sincerely, read this book. If Gothic fantasy and mystery are your genres, this is the book you need to read. This is the kind of book that kept me up reading into the small hours of the night because I needed to know what happened next and only the best books keep me up all night to read.

Book Review: Rialto by Kate Milford

Let's start with a story.

When I was a kid, I lived in the corner house on a crossroads of an old neighborhood. Diagonally from me, behind the house, one street west, was a Mom & Pop grocery store. One street east and two and a half blocks north was my Grandma's house. If I walked into the middle of the street and looked due east I could see my elementary school, the same school my Dad and his brother and sisters attended when they were kids. But the most important location was three streets east and two and a half blocks south.

The library.

When I was a kid, I remember my Dad started having part of the summer off and he'd plan day trips to the library. We'd have breakfast, get our bags ready for our books and set off. I remember we would choose a different route sometimes, skip a turn and go longer down a street, things like that, but we would always end up walking through a street that felt like tunnel of trees and it would be one more left and the library was on our right. We'd get water at the fountain and my Dad would leave us in the kid's section, saying to choose some good books, come find him when we were ready and then we would go home for lunch. It would be somewhere between three or four hours to sit in the library, searching the shelves and choosing the best spot to settle in and read. I'd pull books off the shelves, trying to find something, changing my mind every trip about what I wanted to read. I'd read everything by Mary Downing Hahn, Betty Ren Wright, Lynn Reid Banks, James Howe, Bruce Coville. Wandering around, I remembering finding a biography on Louisa May Alcott that I'd never seen before and I'd found several shelves consisting of every Oz book by Baum that the library had collected for decades.

Some books were new, others were so old they creaked when they opened and laid splayed out without my having to hold the book, the smell of old paper lingering for hours after I put the book away, the pages so yellowed they were almost brown. I made it a point to try anything I found but back in the 90s, it wasn't easy for me to find the right book I was really looking for, something with the right balance of real world situations and a little bit magic and mystery. I was too anxious to try asking at the public library for help finding a book and my school librarian had too many kids to focus on. Eventually I moved on, finding great mysteries to read, science fiction and fantasy and horror while reading the assigned books for school. But, ever since then, I have wandered into the middle grade section of various bookstores, still looking for that right book, that book that childhood me was searching for so long to find. That's what I was doing, maybe a dozen years ago now, when a particular title caught my eye.

The Boneshaker by Kate Milford.

I picked it up, a paperback, and noticed The Broken Lands, a hardcover, right next to it. I stared at the artwork, my eyes moving this way and that, seeing things here and there that would make sense once you'd read the book but I didn't know that then. All I knew is that the artwork called to me, the synopsis hooked my attention. I took them home and started to read and it was then that I felt that I'd done it. I'd found a book that I would have ADORED when I was a kid. My whole personality would have been that book. I would have carried it around everywhere, reading it so many times, memorizing passages just from the act of reading it time and time again. I've bought and read every Kate Milford book since. I'm planning to read them to my kids when they're older. Because some of that need to find brilliant middle grade books is to make sure my kids don't have trouble finding books that appeal to them. These are the books I wish I'd found, so now I have them to hand to my kids when they want to try them and I can't wait to give them Kate Milford's books. Milford writes kids that feel real, that have trials to overcome and a world that they have to look at just a little bit differently to solve the mystery. The kids are treated with respect, never looked down on, or dismissed. The adults in these books pay attention to the kids, they listen, they try to learn. All together, each book has been lovely, and brilliant, and astounding. I LOVE Kate Milford books so when I saw that there was a new book, Rialto, ready to be published, my heart leapt into my throat. I had to read this book, end of story, and you want to know the best part?

It was magnificent.

Rialto starts with following Ivy and Dahlia Vicar, on their way to Rialto, Missouri for a family vacation to visit friends. The sisters are currently a little at odds with each other. Dahlia is dealing with anxiety and is looking forward to a new destination to try for their trip, which comes with an abandoned amusement park that their Mom is interested in researching for a book. Ivy is trying to understand how to be the big sister that Dahlia needs while longing for the times when they were younger and the traditions that they had in the past. Once they arrive in Rialto, it is obvious that things are going to be very different for their vacation. The town looks like it was swallowed by a forest and stories say that the town woke up one morning to find that the trees had grown up around them overnight. While driving through the town Dahlia spots a giraffe with antlers and after meeting Remy and his family, who own the house they will be staying in, she sees a leopard with wings through the window. Remy and his family inherited the house from their Aunt Jess, who has left bequests for Remy to give to her friends now that she has gone. Remy decides to ask Ivy and Dahlia to help with the bequests and the trio start to realize that there is a mystery to solve about the town that goes back to when Rialto was still open to visitors. In order to solve the mystery, they must believe in the magic that seems to be in the town that was swallowed by a forest and has strange creatures roaming its streets.

There is so much in this book, so many things that make it yet another brilliant Milford book and yet more at the same time. Greenglass House has held the title of favorite Kate Milford book for quite some time but Rialto might have just knocked it from its place of honor. Ivy felt so familiar to me as a kid who loved to solve riddles and mysteries and her trying to understand her sibling who has started to change in ways that are difficult for Ivy to accept. As soon as it was revealed that Dahlia had anxiety and was seeing a therapist, I was completely invested in these girls and their story. I loved the things that Milford added for Dahlia, the fact that she had methods to deal with her anxiety when she was out in public, the fact that she needed to retreat to her room and have time on her own to deal with the way the day unfolded and how it affected her sense of well-being. I loved that Ivy had a hard time accepting this new normal, how she wanted to cling to the way things were and how she needed her parents to help her with understanding how to be what Dahlia needed.

I also LOVED the fact that Mr. Vicar had his own social issues that made him able to understand Dahlia and how the fact that he had his own issues meant that Mrs. Vicar knew what to do to help both of them or when to give them space. This was a family unit that was in tune with each other. It was believable that these parents made an effort to understand and help their kids and that Ivy and Dahlia never doubted the support they would get from their parents. When Dahlia started to see the amazing things hiding in Rialto, I was excited to see how quickly her logic had her reasoning the existence of magic and how she made the decision to believe that there was something more to the town. It made sense that Dahlia would be the character to get the ball rolling for the magic of the book and I loved how Ivy, in trying to support her sister, was brought along for the ride and evolved as well.

On the other side of the characters is Remy, his parents and everyone else in town. These are the characters that know the ins and outs of Rialto, they've grown up in the town and some of them know everything about the town. Remy is the perfect character to bring Ivy and Dahlia into the world of Rialto. He knows SOME of the truth but he knows things in the sense of stories that have been handed down, the legends that make up the place. He knows some things, he's seen the animals that Dahlia has seen, but at the same time he's been kept at a distance in the town because he's not a resident. His belief in the sisters to be the best companions for him and his quest endeared him to me. I loved how quickly he became Ivy's number one supporter in asking her for help with the clues and knowing how she could solve the mystery. Remy's parents were also supportive and I liked how they defended the kids as they worked on the mystery. There's a scene with Bailey, Remy's dad, and some of the residents of the town where he backed up the circumstances up to that point and how the kids were involved that just made me want to stand up and applaud. He had no doubt in his son and his son's new friends and he was in their corner and I loved every parent in this book, seriously, the reveals about the town and how these adults helped the kids just made me want to be just like those parents. I'm too old to say I want to be Ivy and Dahlia when I grow up but I'll settle for being any combination of the four parents in this book.

The mystery was engrossing from the start. The idea that this town had been swallowed up by a forest and that no one was able to enter the Rialto amusement park again was so intriguing, I wanted to know everything about it. Which is good because Milford does not skimp on the world development, on the stories that surround the town and the people that are in this place. I've tried to think if there was anything I had questions about once the book was done but I honestly believe that anything and everything I questioned or wanted to know was revealed and answered over the course of the book. It's a sign of great writing and a great story when I can get to the end of the book and feel like the whole thing was complete. If there is ever a story that can branch of from something in this book though, I will try my hardest to be first in line to read it. The mystery itself deserves to be discovered by the readers that try this book so I won't delve further into it. Once the reveals are made, I was a self-declared number one fan of this book. I'm older, so I had my suspicions about the reveals that ended up being right but it still felt perfect with everything the book gives to the reader.

I have loved every Kate Milford book I have read. I have a signed copy of The Left-Handed Fate and a numbered and signed copy of Bluecrowne. I have waited years for another Kate Milford book and I will continue to look for a new book every year until we readers are given another book. I am a fan for life of Kate Milford's books and I hope that more readers find their way to these novels. I'm counting down the days until my kids are old enough to sit and listen and imagine while I read them these books.

Rating on my scale: 10 STARS!! This is one of the best books I've read in recent years. I know when I sit down with a Kate Milford book, I will be enthralled and Rialto did not disappoint. Read this book if you like mysteries with magic and characters that can change and make changes and defeat evils and triumph.

My thanks to Netgalley, HarperCollins Children's Books and Kate Milford the eARC of this book in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.

Book Review: The Intrigue by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

My thanks to Netgalley, Del Rey, Random House Worlds, Inklore and Silvia Moreno-Garcia for the eARC of this book in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own.

As a book collector, in the sense that I am able to acquire books for my library, whether they are used or new or discounted or special releases, I have to follow some rules. They're not always set in stone, some of them change as the years go and my interests change for what I want to read for always and what I can borrow to save money, time and space. Still, I have to have some kind of rules in place, something easy to keep things from going overboard. One rule is that everything is on a calendar, so I know what releases I have to look forward to and when to expect their arrivals so that nothing gets lost. I've had books never arrive and having everything laid out in an easy to access space keeps the system moving. Another rule is that if I'm going to get multiple copies of a book, they better have a lot of bonus content to make it worth it and I should try gift and/or donate the original copy. Don't ask me how many times that has actually worked. And another rule that I ALWAYS follow is that any Silvia Moreno-Garcia book is an automatic pre-order for me. End of story.

What I love about Moreno-Garcia's writing is that nothing follows the same formula from one book to another. Sometimes we have a magical realism book to look forward to, sometimes it is horror, and other times we have a classic noir. This book belongs more with Velvet Was the Night than it does with Mexican Gothic or The Bewitching. I loved every moment of this which is funny because I'm not usually a noir fan. I studied the genre in school but every time I tried a noir, I had a hard time connecting with it. That wasn't the case with this book. Once we got to the main setting, I was completely invested in the story, in the characters, just everything worked for me with this book. I want to pass this book around my family and have them read it, that's how much this book made me smirk and grin and laugh with glee. Because I have a bit of a vindictive bone in my body and when villains don't get their comeuppance, it makes me gripe. The ending to this book was in a word, delicious, and I can't wait until I get my copy.

The Intrigue follows Ulises, a con artist in 1940s Mexico who scams women out of their money by writing them letters, charming them until he can ask for some kind of payment for help. But Ulises has fallen on harder times and he wants to make enough money to settle down and stop long enough to be comfortable before making his next move. Ulises decides that opportunity is with Perla, his latest correspondent who runs a boardinghouse in Veracruz. When he meets Perla though, he finds a woman who is difficult to get close to and his usual tricks aren't good enough for her. Perla also has a niece, Inés, who discovers what Ulises is doing and she'll help him with his scheme for a cut of the money. The idea is to convince Perla to marry Ulises so he can have access to her money and then they can take it all. But Perla isn't what she appears, with secrets she has kept hidden for decades. And Ulises is starting to think that Inés is more than she appears with his focus constantly turning back to her. Now Ulises needs to figure out how to get his money before the secrets in the boardinghouse destroy everything.

The whole of this book interested me from the start. I thought Ulises was interesting in the sense that he seemed to be a con artist with a little bit of a conscience. I thought Inés was the best character of the story, and I loved when the book focused on her. I thought Perla felt familiar, reminding me of characters I've seen before from old stories that have some kind of background in Mexico. What started as a simple story about Ulises wanting to finally get himself enough money to make a difference quickly turned into a story about the kinds of secrets a family would be desperate enough to keep as long as it meant they could keep up the illusion they have cultivated for years. It was fascinating to see the way this family tried to keep itself in some kind of position of power, even if it was a lie. Perla Inclán had been raised to believe that her life was meant to go a certain way and when none of that manifested for her, she was determined to make sure she could still walk around as if she had everything she could ever want. That need to keep the facade going is what drove her every decision and it had a ripple effect for Inés and for Ulises, who do not believe that the old ways that Perla clings to are the way things should remain. The book is as much about the way the town makes its occupants act as it is about the secrets the Inclán family had managed to keep in the boardinghouse they own. 

What I found most interesting was the Notes at the end of the book, the part where Moreno-Garcia explains that a Mexican novel like this one which focuses on customs and habits of a particular society are called novelas costumbristas. The Intrigue has a large focus on the society that is seen in Puerco Ahogado, the fictional town this book is set in. As much as this story focuses on these three characters, the town itself and the way these people have to work to fit into it is another character altogether. The town has this family in a stranglehold that has kept them tied up for decades and the only way to fix it is to escape. I loved seeing everything come to light, the way Perla was raised and how she turned around and treated everyone in her life. The novel focuses mainly on the 1943 storyline and it goes between our three leads as narrators. Whenever Perla was the focus, there was a lot of information given about the past for the family, the expectations they had and what happened to Perla and her siblings. The more that was revealed, the more I wanted to know, which is exactly what you want in a book like this. The villain of the book is not who I thought it would be but when the ending hit and they got their comeuppance, it made me grin. I still smile and chuckle a little each time I think about the ending.

This is another great from Silvia Moreno-Garcia. If you're a fan, this is another to add for your collection. I still have a few novels to get for my shelf to be complete so I'll be working on that for when The Intrigue is ready to join them. 

Rating on my scale: 10 Stars. If you like a good noir, this is a highly recommended and respectable read. Even if you are not a fan of the genre, this could be the book that makes you one. I know I'll be looking into reading a few more noirs this year. I'll also be on the lookout for the next release from Silvia Moreno-Garcia, whenever that comes for us readers.

Book Review: The Escape Game by Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss

My thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Young Readers Group, Marissa Meyer and Tamara Moss for the eARC of this book in exchange for a review.

Wow, this was one unexpected ride. I'll admit, I've never had the opportunity to try an escape room for myself but while it seems fun, after this read, I think I'll just have fun watching other people solve them. I've seen quite a few of them over the years as a plot point on a television show and they've always intrigued me, the effort it takes to not only create puzzles to solve but to also have these puzzles interlock together. It seems like so much work and to tell the truth, the creating of these escape rooms holds just as much appeal to me as the act of trying to solve the rooms and escape. I really liked the overall story of this book and I'll admit, the creation of the world and the escape rooms in this book kept my attention just as much as the central plot.

The Escape Game follows a group of teens on season five of the show, determined to win the season and it's prizes. There's Adi, with a talent for breaking codes; Carter, a teen with a talent for solving puzzles and an influencer with a huge following; and Beck, a teen who has created a few escape rooms of their own. The team is rounded out with the addition of Sierra Angelos, a previous contestant and the sister of season four contestant Alicia Angelos, who was found murdered on the set by her sister while Sierra's team was trying to solve the escape room. Viewers think Sierra got away with murder and now that she is back for season five, tensions are running high. But Sierra has another reason to be back. She's determined to find out what happened to her sister and bring the true culprit to justice. As the team learns to trust each other, clues start to appear on the set that hint at the true identity of Alicia's killer. But someone wants to keep the truth from coming out and Sierra, Adi, Beck and Carter need to solve the puzzles if they want to uncover the truth and survive.

This world was so interesting. The puzzles, the clues and the way it all fit together kept me invested in the story. I wanted to understand the workings of the rooms and in some way, I wished this book had some illustrations to give just a little more details about the escape rooms because it feels like something that I wanted to see for myself. I had no idea something like this existed and I've been researching where to try the few shows I've found with this same premise. Honestly, I love mysteries so this feels like something I need to add to unwind in the evenings. I enjoyed every set and the puzzles given and the reveals felt earned as each page turned. There are a few questions left unanswered and I'll definitely be back for the next book.

The characters were all lovable in their own ways. Sierra and her team each have a point of view to follow, allowing readers to learn about their past as well as their present as they become friends and start to work together. I loved Beck and Carter in particular and I hope the next book has more of those two in any way, shape or form. I liked Sierra from the start and I wanted her to find justice to clear her name and find out exactly what happened to her sister. I liked how Adi seemed to be just like Sierra, wary of trusting people and his motivations concerning his family. I wanted these kids to win and I wanted them to figure out how to be each other's people. The way they started to become family made me smile and when they were on the page, I couldn't stop reading.

As much as I wanted to rave about loving this book, there were a few quibbles that made me a little frustrated. First of all, after a bit this book started to feel like it was too long. There was so much information, so many things going on, at some points I started to feel like it was a bit of a marathon. As interesting as I found the world and the people, it was a LOT to get through, and then it just ends. We find out who killed Alicia and we get a bit of setup for the next book. YES, I will read the next book, I have to find out what happens to this team, but I will take my time with reading the book if it ends up with the same page count.

The second thing that irked me was the motivations of the villain. I'll be honest, when it comes to stories like this, I have a tendency to strain the muscles in my eyes when I roll them too hard when I hear the whys behind the villainous actions. I get it, people kill for really dumb reasons, this isn't any different. But it still irks me, it makes my eye twitch and my shoulders itch because come on! The villain ends up being almost disappointing. After everything that I'd read, everything these kids had to go through, to find out the reasons behind it were something like that just made me feel a bit meh. It's not the feeling you want to end with, especially when it there was something like ten or fifteen pages left once it was all said and done. Like I said, it just ends and it left me feeling like I wanted more. Which I guess is the point but still, this book had already hooked me for the sequel, it didn't need to cut itself off without enough time for everyone to really process what had happened before they dive into the next mystery.

In the end, by the time I got to it, I didn't love this book as much as I thought I would BUT I still really, REALLY, like it. I want to see more of these kids. I want to understand the next setting and what it means for all of them to come together and figure it out. As far as I can tell, it's going to be a duology, with the next book set for release in 2027. I'll just be here, waiting for the chance to read it.

Rating on my scale: 8.5 Stars. Seriously, I think this book will prove to be better once the second one is released. There is so much set up here with the world and proving these characters are worth loving, it is definitely worth the read if mysteries and escape rooms are your jam. It's a very respectable read, no doubt about it. I'm sure I'll love the series as a whole more than individual books once the next book is released.