Skip to content

Tag: 2018 Releases

Spoiler-Free Review: A Crown of Wishes by Roshani Chokshi

Published by J. Z. Kelley on May 29, 2021

Genre: Fantasy
Audience: Young adult
Series?: The Star-Touched Queen Duology

Rating: Loved it!

For fans of: Graceling, The Library of Fates, Raybearer, enemies to lovers, high stakes fantasy games and tournaments, talking monster companions

A Crown of Wishes is lush, colorful, and delicious. It’s a fast-paced adventure with such rich sensory detail that I feel like I dreamed it, and I want to go back tonight. Plus, it manages to feel fresh and contemporary while also delivering heaps of my favorite tropes:

  • Enemies to lovers
  • Spooky animal companions
  • Found family
  • Capricious gods
  • Monsters with hearts of gold
  • Soft boys who love prickly girls
  • Healing, um … kisses …

It’s the story of heirs to rival kingdoms, who have not yet met when are chosen by the Lord of Wealth to compete as partners in the Tournament of Wishes. If they can find a way into the Otherworld of magic and monsters and survive two challenges and a sacrifice, there’s still no guarantee they’ll both be allowed to leave with their lives. But for a chance at a Wish, they’ll have to risk it.

Princess Gauri is the angry girl of my dreams: “A beast. A monster. A myth. A girl. What was the difference?” She’s a princess without a country, desperate to return. To protect her people, she trained as a soldier to fight in her cruel brother’s armies, and eventually to overthrow him. However, her need to protect has made her paranoid and afraid of being vulnerable. Her coup failed, and her brother dropped her over the border in an enemy kingdom with orders for her execution.

On paper, Prince Vikram is the heir to that enemy kingdom, but his father’s council knows he is adopted and has no intention of letting him wield real power when he takes the throne. He’s a good match for Princess Gauri, first as a reluctant ally and eventually as a love interest. Despite her martial prowess, Gauri doesn’t frighten the comparatively peaceful Vikram, who accepts her initial distrust with cockiness that isn’t hiding anything.

Vikram is genuinely confident that their quest is going to make him into a true ruler. As a result, he is almost recklessly kind and trusting with the people they meet on their journey in a way Gauri can’t allow herself to be, yet.

Despite the protagonists’ tragic backstories and desperate circumstances, this is a cheerful book. It was such a relief after–you know, everything, that I almost wish it weren’t such a quick, breezy read. I’m definitely going to pick up the other books in this series as soon as I shrink my TBR pile a bit.

Asian Readathon

This is the third book I finished for the 2021 Asian Readathon. I’m counting it for challenge 2.

Roshani Chokshi’s mother is Filipino and her father is Indian.

More Info

Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Hardback Page Count: 384

Roshani Chokshi is on Twitter and Instagram.

You can support your local independent bookstore by buying A Crown of Wishes on Bookshop.org, or grab it on Amazon.

Spoiler-Free Book Review: Run With the Hunted by Jennifer R. Donohue

Published by J. Z. Kelley on January 24, 2021
Cover image for Run With the Hunted by Jennifer R. Donohue
Glitchy diamonds!

Run with the Hunted delivers the experience of watching a fast paced, twisty heist movie in a quick novella with characters you don’t want to say goodbye to at the end.

Narrated by Bristol, who studies pirated finishing school classes and hides weapons in her hair pins, it’s the story of a trio of women who accidentally take something more valuable (and more deadly) than just the diamonds they set out to steal. Their fence backs out, and they have to find a new buyer while evading shadowy organizations that want them dead.

I fell in love with the trio (especially weapons-and-guns expert Dolly, who is basically a bisexual Labrador in a bulletproof vest) and their world. As cold and polished as her stolen diamonds, Bristol has never truly gotten to know her associates before she’s forced to hide out with them. Watching a world-class manipulator awkwardly fumble her way towards genuine friendship is heart warming and adorable, even if she’d kill me for saying so.

The cyberpunk setting delivers ‘80s aesthetics—video games, VR goggles, Cold War paranoia—and leaves ‘80s social values in the past, where they belong. Bristol is a traumatized ice queen, but she isn’t waiting for a man to thaw her. Her best friend is a nonbinary gallery owner. There are no happy little suburban nuclear families, and no one gets punished for who they are.

This book is so quick and so much fun that I’d honestly recommend it for everybody, but especially fans of A Fish Called Wanda, Ocean’s 8, vending machines, good cop/femme fatale romances, playing spy at sleepover parties, and reading reviews of Michelin-starred restaurants online because you can’t afford to eat there.

Click here to read my review of Run With the Hunted 2: Ctrl Alt Delete.

More Info

Publisher: Self-published
Paperback Page Count: 136

Follow Jen Donohue on Twitter or her blog for writing updates and pictures of her Doberman. Then you can get the book and support your local independent bookstore on Bookshop.org, or you can buy it on Amazon.