All the Dead Shall Weep by Charlaine Harris

#1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author returns with the fifth installment in the bestselling Gunnie Rose series as sisters Lizbeth Rose and Felicia as well as brother Eli and Peter, are reunited in Texoma only to break apart before the Wizard’s Ball held in San Diego, which will determine all their fates.

Following the murderous events of the “gripping . . . thrill-ride” (Karin Slaughter) Serpent of Heaven, Lizbeth Rose is awaiting the arrival of her sister Felicia and her husband’s younger brother Eli in Texoma. Both needed to leave the seat of the Holy Russian Empire in San Diego after Felicia’s burgeoning wizardly power in death magic became the reason for kidnapping and assassination attempts from her mother’s family of high-powered wizards in Mexico.

Yet bad news has traveled ahead of them, as Eli is called back to San Diego, taking Peter along with him, splitting them apart in more ways than one as their enemies’ plans for revenge come to fruition. In this fifth installment in the beloved and bestselling Gunnie Rose series, #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Charlaine Harris has crafted a family drama of murderous and magical thrills.

Don’t miss our reviews of other books in the Gunnie Rose series!
For book two, A Longer Fall, click HERE.
For book three, The Russian Cage, click HERE.
For book four, The Serpent in Heaven, click HERE.

 

 

Book 5
Buy Links

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Apple Books  ~  B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  Kobo
Audiobook (US)  ~  Hardcover (US)
Saga Press (S&S)

 

 

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆☆
All the Dead Shall Weep is the fifth installment of the Gunnie Rose series. This is not a standalone novel, the series must be read in order.

This series is one of the most original I've ever read. Intriguing. Fast-paced. Action-packed. A dystopian, early twentieth century, alternate history had the world been wiped out by a pandemic flu. The US is now split up into different countries and territories. Multiple historical events converge in this time frame, added to the novel in an innovative way.

Lizbeth lives in a combination of Texas and Oklahoma, near the Mexican border, under Russian rule set in San Francisco.

Narrated by a pair of half sisters, Lizbeth and Felicia. Both with their own strengths, Lizbeth is a gunnie while Felicia is a magic wielder. While not raised as family, their bond and connection caused all the feels.

Visiting from SF magic school, Felicia helps Lizbeth protect the town and her sister from all sides now that they've been unexpectedly left alone. Suitors, a converging militia group, and Felicia's maternal family that keeps popping up. These sisters are fiercely protective of one another.

A gamut of emotions. The way the sisters speak in general and to each other, one word or a phrase holds a host of emotions. Unique diction, as if words are currency they can't afford to use. Low on inner monologue, but what is thought has emotional impact.

Grief. Hope. Sadness. Humor. Betrayal. Small town mindsets. Nonstop action. Love of family, community, and partners. Tragedy. A seed of excitement to come. All the Dead Shall Weep was a quick read that left me satisfied yet eager for more.

 

 

CHARLAINE HARRIS is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing for over thirty years. She was born and raised in the Mississippi River Delta area. She has written four series, and two stand-alone novels, in addition to numerous short stories, novellas, and graphic novels (cowritten with Christopher Golden). Her Sookie Stackhouse books have appeared in twenty-five different languages and on many bestseller lists. They’re also the basis of the HBO series True Blood. Harris now lives in Texas, and when she is not writing her own books, she reads omnivorously. Her house is full of rescue dogs.

Connect with Charlaine Harris!

Facebook  ~  Twitter  ~  Instagram  ~  Website  ~  Goodreads

 

 

ARC provided by

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided with a free copy of All the Dead Shall Weep (Gunnie Rose #5) by Charlaine Harris to read and review.

Chosen Ones by Veronica Roth

The masterful first novel for adults from the mega-selling author of the Divergent franchise.

Fifteen years ago, five ordinary teenagers were singled out by a prophecy to take down an impossibly powerful entity wreaking havoc across North America. He was known as the Dark One, and his weapon of choice—catastrophic events known as Drains—leveled cities and claimed thousands of lives. Chosen Ones, as the teens were known, gave everything they had to defeat him.

After the Dark One fell, the world went back to normal... for everyone but them. After all, what do you do when you’re the most famous people on Earth, your only education was in magical destruction, and your purpose in life is now fulfilled?

Of the five, Sloane has had the hardest time adjusting. Everyone else blames the PTSD—and her huge attitude problem—but really, she’s hiding secrets from them... secrets that keep her tied to the past and alienate her from the only four people in the world who understand her.

On the tenth anniversary of the Dark One’s defeat, something unthinkable happens: one of the Chosen Ones dies. When the others gather for the funeral, they discover the Dark One’s ultimate goal was much bigger than they, the government, or even prophecy could have foretold—bigger than the world itself.

And this time, fighting back might take more than Sloane has to give.

 

 

Book 1
Buy Links

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Apple Books  ~  Google Play  ~  Kobo
Audiobook (US)  ~  Hardcover (US)  ~  Paperback (US)
William Morrow (HarperCollins)

 

 

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆
2 – I Will Not be Reading More of this Series – Stars

Chosen Ones is the debut in a new series by Veronica Roth, in the adult genre instead of the Young Adult genre she dominates. I will admit, I fangirled hard for Divergent, with the original cast of characters, whom I rooted for as if they were real to me.

This novel was one of the most difficult for me to read, and not just because of the formatting issue I encountered. Formatting issue was due to the fact that there were three types of texts in the content. News pieces, redacted documents, and what was happening in the now, all of which looked different on my app. I had to zoom in to see the news pieces and the documents, which meant I was zooming in and out every few pages. The oddest part was how the font was embedded, to the point it wouldn't change via my app. The worst part was how this also affected the backlighting, where it wouldn't darken or lighten or even go to my system backlight settings. It was on as bright as my tablet would go. All these poltergeist-like things only happened on this book, as I kept opening others to check to see if it was a glitch. So imagine almost 500 pages of migraine-inducing insanity.

Now onto the content itself. It was awful. Awful. Others may love it, but I surely didn't.

Imagine being dropped into a 10-book series at the final book, but you're not allowed to read the nine books prior (because they don't exist), then at the last bit of the finale, you're thrust into another dimension known as a spin-off...

At the start, Sloane was giving an interview, and I was hoping against hope that when I turned the page, we would be thrust back in time to experience it for real, like a teaser to whet my appetite for more. Nope, still the 10-year anniversary of the Chosen Ones taking out the Dark One. Where we were given snippets and info-dumps of the events that occurred 10 years prior.

Let me tell you, what happened back then was intriguing, only we don't get to experience it, only get a small fraction of it in a confusing swirl of too much information at once.

I understand what Veronica Roth was trying to achieve. The aftermath and how it shaped the characters. They're treated like heroes, celebrating one of the worst experiences any of them would ever survive, and they all have invisible wounds because of it. The celebrating and celebrity was like sticking a finger in a wound and opening it wider to infection.

Sloane is the narrator, and I was able to mostly connect with her, understanding and empathizing with how she disassociated with emotion, distanced herself from everyone, and was generally miserable in nature. I appreciated how accurate that was portrayed. However, the badass angle was so forced, beyond forced. Sloane would have benefited from a first-person narrative to eliminate the coldness we saw, since we couldn't dive deep enough into her head to truly understand or connect with her.

Then there was Matt, who we're told is just the best person on the earth. Good. Sloane goes on and on about how amazing he is, how she believes he was the only Chosen One, and they were just his helpers. Yet again, this was forced. Beyond forced. If a character is good, you feel it from their deeds, you don't need to be told on every page. It came off as arrogant, as if Matt was soaking up the celebrity no differently than being obsessed with Instagram. Making a day of honoring those they lost about signing autographs and being adored by the masses. Matt came off as fake, no matter how many ways the author TOLD me he was selfless and good. Fake and pretentious.

As adults, adults who had seen death and destruction and helped save the world, they would be more mature for their age, which was in the middle to upper 20s. Instead, they sounded vapid, more young adult than the true teens in the author's other series. Their actions were juvenile, immature for those who were so 'good.' I get that the aftermath changed them, which is what we were seeing, but the before would have been more intriguing with deeper emotional impact if we had actually experienced the before.

The pacing was odd, slow and crawling, in a complex story that needed something to speed it up, slowed down more by the way it was written and what was missing.

I adored the Divergent series. It was an easy read, and by easy, I mean I was able to fall into a vivid world with resonating characters, and actually bled emotion with them. Chosen Ones was a struggle, like working to find the enjoyment in it, while wishing it was written differently. It would have been an organic experience to start at the beginning, instead of making it feel as if we're all missing, missing the best parts. The novel is about what the heroes were up to 10 years later, which wasn't much of anything, instead of actually writing the dang story from the beginning, the part we wanted. The characters were shortchanged.

And then came the spinoff portion, where the first 3/4 of the novel was a summary of what wasn't written in those previous books we see snippets about, where we're thrust into another dimension, feel totally different, and I hated that even more.

This reminded me as if the Hunger Games tributes were asked about their lives 10 years later... but we never saw/experienced/read what happened that got us to that point.

There was zero possibility to fall into the story, connect with the characters, when we had to puzzle piece PTSD flashbacks and inner monologuing info-dumps, as if they were a refresher for a series we previously read, only to be truly dumped into a nightmarish LSD trip.

Done. I'm done. I do not and cannot recommend this novel.

 

 

VERONICA ROTH is the New York Times best-selling author of Chosen Ones, the short story collection The End and Other Beginnings, the Divergent series, and the Carve the Mark duology. She is also the guest editor of the most recent The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. She lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Connect with Veronica Roth

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ARC provided by

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided with a free copy of Chosen Ones (The Chosen Ones #1) by Veronica Roth to read and review.

The Serpent in Heaven by Charlaine Harris

#1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Charlaine Harris returns to her alternate history of the United States where magic is an acknowledged but despised power in this fourth installment of the Gunnie Rose series.

Felicia, Lizbeth Rose’s half-sister and a student at the Grigori Rasputin school in San Diego—capital of the Holy Russian Empire—is caught between her own secrets and powerful family struggles. As a granddaughter of Rasputin, she provides an essential service to the hemophiliac Tsar Alexei, providing him the blood transfusions that keep him alive. Felicia is treated like a nonentity at the bedside of the tsar, and at the school she's seen as a charity case with no magical ability. But when Felicia is snatched outside the school, the facts of her heritage begin to surface. Felicia turns out to be far more than the Russian-Mexican Lizbeth rescued. As Felicia’s history unravels and her true abilities become known, she becomes under attack from all directions. Only her courage will keep her alive.

Don’t miss our reviews of other books in the Gunnie Rose series!
For book two, A Longer Fall, click HERE.
For book three, The Russian Cage, click HERE.

 

 

Book 4
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
Apple Books  ~  B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  Kobo
Audiobook (US)  ~  Hardcover (US)
Saga Press (Simon & Schuster)

 

 

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆☆
The Serpent in Heaven is the fourth installment in the Gunnie Rose series. The first three narrated by Lizbeth. The novel (and I assume going forth) is narrated by our gunnie's little sister, Felicia. This cannot be read as a standalone without massive confusion, start with An Easy Death.

Gunnie Rose is such a unique series, across the board. From the dystopian setting, in an alternate early twentieth century, the inventive world building, and intriguing magical and political system. I've never read anything like this before. The Gunnie Rose series is truly one of a kind.

Felicia is in a precarious situation. She is seen as little else than a blood donor for the tsar, as well as a scholarship student at the school, with little to no magic. Since she has been keeping her magic under wraps, I understood the bias when it came to students at a magical school not accepting her. What I don't understand is the bias when it comes to being the blood donor. In order to be of aid to the tsar, that means Felicia is a direct descendant of the tsar himself (his niece and lifeline). Felicia is of royal blood, keeping their precious tsar alive, and they can't even give her an allowance. I felt this was a bizarre mindset. She ought to be one of the highest paid members in the kingdom, not the lowliest.

From the streets of Mexico, Felicia is still shouldering the burdens of her past. Her drunk father and cruel uncle using her for their own gains, while suppressing her natural age and shape for her supposed protection.

Now a year later, the effects of her father's spell are finally dissipating, Felicia growing into the shape and size of a young woman of fifteen. Not that Felicia is sure of her age. Felicia's excitement was easily relatable, as was her worry. Now that she is considered a fully grown woman, everyone is plotting the best way to marry her off for their own gains, no differently than her father treated her.

The girl is lonely, no friends and only a sister far away, which makes her vulnerable. She would do anything to have a support system and family. This is where I'm confused. In order to be a blood donor, she must be a blood relative to the tsar. Why doesn't his family see her as his family? They're her uncle and aunt, and their children are her cousins. The other donors are her father's siblings and her cousins. Yet the entire system is in place to see her only as a cow – cows that keep being slaughtered to eradicate the tsar's blood source.

Action-packed from the first page, Felicia is being hit from all sides. As an orphan who has been thrust into her father's family as a donor, she never gave thought to her mother's family, who shows up out of nowhere to attempt to kidnap and kill those all around her. At the same time, someone is still offing her donor relatives. Added in with the constant need to marry her off.

Eli (Lizbeth's husband, Felicia's brother-in-law), his family takes to Felicia, his sisters and brother; Eli's brother, Paul, he takes to Felicia too much as she grows into her womanliness. This draws a wedge between Felicia and the matriarch of the family, which makes Felicia rightfully insulted. I appreciated Felicia's setting of boundaries and not just accepting those unkind words from someone she felt loved her.

There is also hesitancy in Felicia when it comes to Paul, which I appreciated. Even though she is far beyond her years in life experience, after struggling to survive day to day, she has not yet grown into her body. While kind and supportive, Felicia senses Paul is a Nice Guy. Hopefully he grows out of those toxic tendencies.

Just as with Lizbeth, Felicia is a strong character, and I adored looking at the world through her lens. She is a fighter and a survivor, but also kind, selfless, compassionate, protective, and empathetic. She does the right thing, especially when it's hard. She stands up for herself and others. She doesn't resist authority, but she does speak up when she recognizes they're on the wrong path. A leader who knows when to follow someone worthy. A good role model.

Highly recommended to Charlaine Harris fans. I look forward to watching Felicia grow into womanhood and into her magical power. I cannot wait to see what is in store for her in the next installment and the next.

 

 

CHARLAINE HARRIS is a New York Times bestselling author who has been writing for over thirty years. She was born and raised in the Mississippi River Delta area. She has written four series, and two stand-alone novels, in addition to numerous short stories, novellas, and graphic novels (cowritten with Christopher Golden). Her Sookie Stackhouse books have appeared in twenty-five different languages and on many bestseller lists. They’re also the basis of the HBO series True Blood. Harris now lives in Texas, and when she is not writing her own books, she reads omnivorously. Her house is full of rescue dogs.

Connect with Charlaine Harris

Facebook  ~  Twitter  ~  Instagram  ~  Website  ~  Goodreads

 

 

ARC provided by

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of The Serpent in Heaven (Gunnie Rose #4) by Charlaine Harris to read and review.

The Russian Cage by Charlaine Harris

#1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Charlaine Harris is at her best in this alternate history of the United States where magic is an acknowledged but despised power in this third installment of the Gunnie Rose series.

Picking up right where A Longer Fall left off, this thrilling third installment follows Lizbeth Rose as she takes on one of her most dangerous missions yet: rescuing her estranged partner, Prince Eli, from the Holy Russian Empire. Once in San Diego, Lizbeth is going to have to rely upon her sister Felicia, and her growing Grigori powers to navigate her way through this strange new world of royalty and deception in order to get Eli freed from jail where he’s being held for murder.

Russian Cage continues to ramp up the momentum with more of everything Harris’ readers adore her for with romance, intrigue, and a deep dive into the mysterious Holy Russian Empire.

Don’t miss our reviews of other books in the Gunnie Rose series!
For book two, A Longer Fall, click HERE.

 

 

Book 3
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo
Audiobook (US)  ~  Hardcover (US)
Saga Press (Simon & Schuster)

 

 

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆☆
The Russian Cage is the third (probably final) installment in the Gunnie Rose series. Not a standalone, must be read in series order.

In a mix of dry narration, intriguing world-building, and an exciting political conspiracy, the Gunnie Rose series has been one of the most original series I've read to date. Set in what I assume is an alternate version of the depression era, the United States have been dissolved, California now under the control of the Holy Russian Empire.

Lizbeth Rose is a gunnie, offering paid protection to escort precious cargo across the continent, which is how she met Eli and was pulled into his life, where she found a little sister she never knew existed.

Said little sister has secrets of her own, sequestered in an academy where she learns how to handle her magic, while also providing the life-saving blood transfusions for the tsar, Alexei Romanov. The sisters share correspondence, writing in code as the letters are read by the professors, where Felicia warns Lisbeth how Eli has been imprisoned.

Lizbeth is on the cold side emotionally, her narration beyond dry and stilted. This is by design, as this truly is a facet of her personality. This makes for a difficult read, where I had a hard time connecting with Lizbeth. At the same time, it also means when Lizbeth feels something, it hits the reader hard. Her connection to her sister and Eli is strong, the emotions ringing true to impact the reader. Her selflessness, her need to sacrifice to protect them, and her unconditional love and desire to make sure they're happy.

Lizbeth, along with Eli's best friend, Felix (who doesn't particularly like Lizbeth out of jealousy, as his draw to his best friend is more romantic in nature, I suspect), put animosity aside and do everything in their power to save Eli, which draws them into a political conspiracy, a plot to protect the current tsar from his own uncle and cousin, as well as protecting Eli's family from his older half-brothers.

Intriguing and fast-paced, the conspiracy is complex, the romance is an undercurrent, more befitting a classic novel, the emotions more sedate.

One issue I've had with then entire series is the way information is delivered in a stilted fashion, but I do understand that it is Lizbeth's way. Her daily events are catalogued in a laundry list of point A to point B to point C to point J with everything in between. Example: I took a bath, washed my hair, redressed, took a nap, sought out something to eat. I found a hotel restaurant and ate. Then I hit the street. Even when these events take place with other characters, it's a laundry list with no dialogue, nothing that connects the characters within the scene. I may understand why it's written this way, but it doesn't make it more engaging having that understanding. It's still jarring yet dry, filled with inane activities that usually are glossed over for the more important details in the plot.

I do highly recommend, but it's hard to pinpoint which genre of readers to recommend the series. I do believe that Charlaine Harris' fans will enjoy the series for the most part. However, those who enjoyed Sookie's humor, light-heartedness, warmth, and quirky every-woman vibe, they may be disappointed in Lizbeth. Lizbeth Rose is a strong heroine, but that strength also makes her seem cold, the emotions buried beneath logic and a hard mentality due to how she was raised. Two highly different heroines written by Charlaine Harris, drawing in different types of readers.


Sarah – ☆☆☆☆
For the third time, Charlaine Harris plays with time, place, and historical accuracy in her Gunnie Rose series. This time, Lizbeth is fighting to save Eli from a political plot she doesn’t fully understand.

This is the book that made me fully engage with this series. During the first two books, I found myself constantly distracted by unreliable historic details. This time, I was too engrossed in the characters and the wonderfully complicated plot to question anything. This story is an exciting adventure and I love the characters who join Lizbeth in her efforts to save Eli and his family.

This book is fun in a way that the first two books weren’t. Lizbeth’s sister is wonderful and I’m already hoping we see more from her at some point. I love Eli’s world. The mix of Russian and American elements in this story create an unusual sense of drama. This isn’t my favourite of Charlaine Harris’ series but after book three, I’m enjoying it much more than I expected to at the start of book one. In some ways, this feels like a natural trilogy – but after finally settling into the unique world Harris has created, I find myself hoping for more.


BLOG NOTE: Per a Goodreads’ entry, there is currently a fourth book planned in the Gunnie Rose series. So this may not be the last we see of Lizbeth Rose after all.

 

 

CHARLAINE HARRIS is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse and Midnight, Texas, fantasy/mystery series and the Aurora Teagarden, Harper Connelly, and Lily Bard mystery series. Her books have inspired HBO’s True Blood, NBC’s Midnight, Texas, and the Aurora Teagarden movies for Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. She has lived in the South her entire life.

Connect with Charlaine

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of The Russian Cage (Gunnie Rose #3) by Charlaine Harris to read and review.

Road Out of Winter by Alison Stine

In an endless winter, she carries seeds of hope.

Wylodine comes from a world of paranoia and poverty—her family grows marijuana illegally, and life has always been a battle. Now she's been left behind to tend the crop alone. Then spring doesn't return for the second year in a row, bringing unprecedented, extreme winter.

With grow lights stashed in her truck and a pouch of precious seeds, she begins a journey, determined to start over away from Appalachian Ohio. But the icy roads and strangers hidden in the hills are treacherous. After a harrowing encounter with a violent cult, Wil and her small group of exiles become a target for the cult's volatile leader. Because she has the most valuable skill in the climate chaos: she can make things grow.

Urgent and poignant, Road Out of Winter is a glimpse of an all-too-possible near future, with a chosen family forged in the face of dystopian collapse. With the gripping suspense of The Road and the lyricism of Station Eleven, Stine's vision is of a changing world where an unexpected hero searches for where hope might take root.

 

 

Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo
MIRA—Harlequin

 

 

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Shelby – ☆☆☆☆
Road Out of Winter was a slow moving, yet interesting, dystopian novel.

Upon finishing this book, I was immediately disappointed and planned on rating this three stars. As I started to formulate my review, though, I had a really hard time coming up with the right words to convey my feelings.

Then I had to sit on it for a few days.

As of today, five days after finishing this book, I haven't been able to STOP thinking about it.

I will not recap this story, it truly needs to be experienced in its entirety for you to be able to appreciate it. I will say that the characters, Wil especially, grow on you, but I feel like they could've been more developed. As it stands, we know a lot of the heroine's past so we can understand her. I would've liked more Grayson. I don't really know what Danz brought to the story and feel like he was a distraction.

Overall, this story stuck with me, I'm still not sure how I feel about it but I can't forget it. I would say that is a trait of a good book! I don't need to enjoy everything I read, but I can appreciate when it does leave an impression.

 

 

Alison Stine lives in the rural Appalachian foothills. A recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), she was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She has written for The Atlantic, The Nation, The Guardian, and many others. She is a contributing editor with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Connect with Alison

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Road Out of Winter by Alison Stine to read and review.

Deal with the Devil by Kit Rocha

Deal with the Devil is Orphan Black meets the post-apocalyptic Avengers by USA Today and New York Times bestselling author duo Kit Rocha.

Nina is an information broker with a mission—she and her team of mercenary librarians use their knowledge to save the hopeless in a crumbling America.

Knox is the bitter, battle-weary captain of the Silver Devils. His squad of supersoldiers went AWOL to avoid slaughtering innocents, and now he's fighting to survive.

They’re on a deadly collision course, and the passion that flares between them only makes it more dangerous. They could burn down the world, destroying each other in the process…

Or they could do the impossible: team up.

This is the first book in a near-future science fiction series with elements of romance.

Book 1
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Shelby – ☆☆☆☆☆
Deal with the Devil is the first book in a new, awesome, dystopian series by Kit Rocha! I have never been disappointed with any books written by this author and am not going to start now. I will mention this book has an entirely different feel from the Beyond series or Gideon's Riders series – and that's good, but I just want to make sure you go into this informed.

After the Solar Flares, the US is a total wasteland mess. Big corporations have taken over different parts of the country; this book is based in Atlanta, where the Tech Corp runs the show.

We are introduced to two different teams of people, both teams have been bio-engineered in some way but have totally different backgrounds and stories. I love Nina and her team (Dani and Maya), they are good guys – truly good guys in this mess of a world. Whereas Knox and his team are bad guys turned good-ish. I won't give the story or characters away, as that's really the point of the book.

I liked the characters and want to learn more about these teams. I want to see what happens, and if the good guys truly win. I will say that the odds are stacked against them, which gives us an interesting story. I am invested in this world and need to see everyone (who deserves it) get their happy ending!

KIT ROCHA is the pseudonym for the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author duo Donna Herren and Bree Bridges. They are best known for their gritty and sexy dystopian Beyond series, and were the first indie authors to receive a Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice Award. They currently live three miles apart in Alabama and spend their non-writing time caring for a menagerie of animals and crafting handmade jewelry, all of which is chronicled on their various social media accounts.

Connect with Kit

Facebook  ~  Twitter  ~  Instagram  ~  Website  ~  Goodreads
The Broken Circle VIP Lounge Facebook Group

Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Deal with the Devil (Mercenary Librarians #1) by Kit Rocha to read and review.

Starbreaker by Amanda Bouchet

THEY NEVER WANTED TO BE HEROES

Captain Tess Bailey and Shade Ganavan are still the galaxy's Most Wanted, and with revolution in the wind and the universe on the brink of catastrophic war, the situation couldn't be more desperate. Despite the Dark Watch scouring the known sectors for them, rebel leaders have handed the crew of the Endeavor a delicate and dangerous mission: break into Starbase 12 and free renowned scientist Reena Ahern. She's the only one who stands a chance of tipping the odds in their favor for the first time in decades.

BUT PULLING OFF THE IMPOSSIBLE IS WHAT THEY DO BEST

The clock is ticking. But as their attraction builds and secrets are revealed, Tess and Shade must decide if they trust each other enough to execute this impossible prison break. They could change the course of history, but they'll be risking everything... They'll just have to tackle one crisis at a time.

Book 2
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆
Starbreaker is the second installment/continuation in the Endeavor series and cannot be read independently as a standalone. Start with Nightchaser first.

Nightchaser was an amazing debut in the series, instantly causing me to become invested in the characters. There's a dynamic within a shorter series, where if the first book is amazing, it's hard for the second book to live up to the hype. If the first book is ho-hum, the second book is usually a massive hit. In the case of the Endeavor series, this dynamic holds true.

After being so invested in the characters, I was eager to read what happened next, but the interest waned quickly. Starbreaker was definitely a second book slump, almost filler. A bridge between an exciting beginning and an even more exciting ending.

What I loved is that we got to read Shade's point of view, got to know him on a deeper level by being directly inside his head. This helped build the relationship between Shade and Tess, while showing different facets of how the team interacted with one another. More background on Tess's family is revealed.

The pacing was directly affected by redundant inner monologue as well as tons of description. There is setting a scene, trying to bring life to the scents and sounds and the surroundings, but then there is burying the story beneath the inane, where the reader has to wade through pages of description to get to the action going on around them. The overall page count of the novel didn't support the story, because there was a ton of padding filler in between and not a lot happening on the story front. It's a delicate balance between story and description, too little and it's a fast-paced one-dimensional read. Too much, and it slows it to a crawl.

Even though Starbreaker suffered from the second-book-slump, I'm still invested what will happen in the next installment.

Also Available in the Endeavor Series

Book 1
Buy Links

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B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo

For reviews & more info, check out our Nightchaser post.

USA Today bestselling author AMANDA BOUCHET grew up in New England and studied French at the undergraduate and graduate levels, first at Bowdoin College and then at Bowling Green State University. She moved to Paris in 2001 and has been there ever since. She met her husband while studying abroad, and their family now includes two bilingual children, who will soon be correcting her French.

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Starbreaker (Endeavor #2) by Amanda Bouchet to read and review.

Diamond City by Francesca Flores

Good things don't happen to girls who come from nothing... unless they risk everything.

Fierce and ambitious, Aina Solís as sharp as her blade and as mysterious as the blood magic she protects. After the murder of her parents, Aina takes a job as an assassin to survive and finds a new family in those like her: the unwanted and forgotten.

Her boss is brutal and cold, with a questionable sense of morality, but he provides a place for people with nowhere else to go. And makes sure they stay there.

DIAMOND CITY: built by magic, ruled by tyrants, and in desperate need of saving. It is a world full of dark forces and hidden agendas, old rivalries and lethal new enemies.

To claim a future for herself in a world that doesn't want her to survive, Aina will have to win a game of murder and conspiracy—and risk losing everything.

Full of action, romance and dark magic, book one of Francesca Flores' breathtaking fantasy duology will leave readers eager for more!

Book 1
Buy Links

Amazon US  ~  Amazon UK  ~  Amazon Au  ~  Amazon Ca
B&N  ~  Google Play  ~  iTunes  ~  Kobo

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆
Spoiler-Free Review

The premise hooked me straight away. Aina's story of being an orphan on the streets, forced to do anything to survive, fostered by the head of a gang who had ulterior motives. The Blade, Aina was an assassin, doing the gang's wet work for hire, fearing what would happen if she didn't do it, while also so desperately needing the validation, needing to make him proud.

On the side, Aina was the go-between in diamond smuggling, between its point of origin and the fence where it was fashioned into something else at the jeweler. In the world building, I was slightly shocked over how many diamonds go missing on a daily basis for a teenage girl to be in on the game.

The setting is during an industrial revolution, in an area where there is a diamond mine, the industry similar to the turn of the twentieth century. However, I couldn't place the time nor the location, especially with the paranormal magical elements added in. The setting and world building were fascinating to me, steampunk meets illegal magic/religion, but how it was presented wasn't to my taste.

There was excitement, action-packed scenes of pure violence, spying and slinking around, and many bodies on the floor, so many bodies I was confused as to how the city wasn't losing its population with how Aina wasn't the only assassin running around. In such a short span of time, we're talking hundreds of people dying and left to lie where they fell, by gangs worth of assassins.

As for the emotions, loyal friendships were important to Aina, but it was her need for validation from the man who groomed her that hit the hardest.

Aina was a solid heroine. Loyal, willing to do anything to survive, but also fiercely protective of those who she called friend. I'm all for not having a guilt-stricken heroine who hems and haws over what needs to be done, but I find it hard to believe that on several occasions Aina murders most of the guards and staff in the same house... like how did they get replacements so quickly? An entire household emptied of occupants. Twice? Thrice? By the end of the book, Aina had single-handedly executed an upwards of a hundred souls.

For someone obsessed with how her parents died and left her an orphan, Aina has no issue of creating dozens upon dozens of innocent orphans, if their parents merely get in her way. Like charging in the front door, slitting the necks of innocent maids and guards, who no doubt had children at home. All those new orphans have more of a reason to loathe Aina than Aina had to loathe the government for executing her parents, who were practicing acts that were widely known to hold a death sentence. Aina's parents were criminals (no matter if the law was ridiculous or not) but these random innocent maids and such did no one any harm.

An assassin by trade should be able to sneak around and only inflict death upon the ones they were hired to kill. It would be bad for business to take out entire households, several times over.

As I said, I don't want a guilt-stricken heroine, but I find it hard to swallow that she's killing so indiscriminately, as if all those people are worthless, meaningless, because she needs some coin for a "single" target. People who are also from the lower classes, who are just working to eat. Was she really good at her job if she takes out so many innocents while doing it? It's like using a nuke instead of a flyswatter for a single fly.

Where I struggled the most with the novel was the writing style. There was just something about the way the perspective was written that kept me from being able to fall into the story. My interest waned during monologues from the past, where dialogue and action from the past weren't italicized to show that it wasn't happening in the present time, the lack of transition confusing me and tearing me from the story itself. The flashbacks weren't denoted, and there were many flashbacks to be had, filled with info-dumps and meandering inner monologues that slowed the pacing.

As an avid reader, especially of all the elements within Diamond City, I struggled to read, taking me well over a week what should have taken an afternoon. I was curious to what the outcome would be, but the writing style, the way the perspective was written, and the execution made it difficult for me to be entertained.

Curious to see where this goes, I'm willing to give the next another try. If not, I'll have to pass on the author, due to the writing style not being my cup of tea.

Young Adult age rating: 14+ due to on-scene graphic violence.

Francesca Flores is a writer, traveler and linguist. Raised in Pittsburgh, she read every fantasy book she could get her hands on and started writing her own stories at a young age. She began writing Diamond City while working as a corporate travel manager. When she's not writing or reading, Francesca enjoys traveling, dancing ballet and jazz, practicing trapeze and contortion, and visiting parks and trails around San Francisco, where she currently resides.

Connect with Francesca

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Reviewers on the Wicked Reads Review Team were provided a free copy of Diamond City (Diamond City #1) by Francesca Flores to read and review.