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Yesterday by Felicia Yap: Crime and Science Fiction in One Book

10th August 2017 by Gemma Leave a Comment

Yesterday by Felicia Yap

Summer 2016: I hear about a book written by a female author from Southeast Asia with a very interesting concept:

There are two types of people in the world: those who can only remember yesterday (Monos), and those who can also recall the day before (Duos). You have just one lifeline to the past: your diary. Each night, you write down the things that matter. Each morning, your diary tells you where you were, who you loved and what you did.

Today, the police are at your door. They say that the body of your husband’s mistress has been found in the River Cam. They think your husband killed her two days ago.

Can you trust the police? Can you trust your husband? Can you trust yourself?

Felicia Yap grew up in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and studied biochemistry at Imperial College London, then earned a doctorate in history at Cambridge University. …

See What I Have Done: Sarah Schmidt’s Fictional Take On The Controversial Murder

27th June 2017 by Gemma 2 Comments

See What I Have Done Sarah Schmidt

See What I Have Done is the debut novel of Australian author Sarah Schmidt about the famous axe murders in 1892 at Massachusetts, USA. It was famously thought to have been committed by the victims’ daughter, Lizzie Borden. Lizzie was acquitted but remains to be the prime suspect even after her death — everyone is convinced she was the murderer, and it remains a subject of speculation more than a century after the events.

Sarah was inspired to tell write a book about this more than a decade ago from a pamphlet she found at a secondhand bookshop. …

9 Reasons to Read The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams

2nd March 2017 by Gemma 4 Comments

9 reasons to read the ninth rain

High fantasy (or epic fantasy) and science fiction — these two genres are not well-populated by female authors. Or it seems like it because I’m sure it’s not for lack of trying!

Most of the fantasy I read nowadays fall under the young adult/new adult bracket, and I find most of them lack the complexity of a typical high fantasy/science fiction novel. I can barely name authors that are not of the Robin Hobb/Ursula Le Guin/Tamora Pierce/Margaret Atwood variety — Becky Chambers is the only one that comes to my mind. I am probably speaking from the point of ignorance as I don’t delve that much into the genre, but I’m sure it is also not incorrect to say it is very hard to break through and be a household name in the genre if you’re female.

So when I saw The Ninth Rain at the Headline Bloggers’ Night I immediately grabbed and latched onto a copy of it! …

From The Publisher’s Desk: Caraval

30th January 2017 by Gemma 4 Comments

Scarlett and Tella are sisters living on Trisda, a tiny island in the far corners of the Meridian Empire, with dreams of escaping their miserable life of being with their harsh and unloving father. It’s not exactly easy when he’s the most powerful man and the governor of their little isle, and despite being arranged to marry a man she has never met, Scarlett believes it’s the only way to become free from their father.

Not until she gets an invitation to come to Caraval, the carnival-slash-game-slash-show, where the audience is not just a group of sitting guests, but can active participants in the spectacle. Scarlett has always dreamed of going, especially since whoever wins the game gets granted a wish as a prize, and this is her only alternative for freedom — or she can get married. With the help of a mysterious man, Tella gets Scarlett and herself off from Trisda only to be kidnapped by Caraval’s gamemaster, Legend. The game, it turns out, is a race to find Tella, and Scarlett has to be an active participant, or risk losing her sister. It can get very immersive in Caraval, and Scarlett is finding it difficult to delineate between game and reality. Is it truly all just for show, or are the stakes for real?
…

Subscription Box: Illumicrate August 2016 Unboxing

4th September 2016 by Gemma 4 Comments

In case you have been living under a rock this year, themed subscription boxes are now all the rage, and I’ll just direct you to the wiki page to read all about it.

Illumicrate is a book-themed subscription box curated by Daphne, who has established herself as a UK book blogger over at Winged Reviews. It’s a quarterly service, which I must admit is the basis of its appeal for me, since I figure she gets time to really source out which books are coming out to include in the boxes, as well as speaking to various creatives and independent retailers about bookish merchandise.

This is also my first ever subscription box, and I was very impressed with the contents! And so without further ado…