Blog Tour Review: Winter, White and Wicked by Shannon Dittemore

October 14, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

Hello, friends! Today is my stop on the TBR & Beyond Tours for Winter, White and Wicked by Shannon Dittemore. Thanks to the TBR & Beyond team for having me on tour and to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Be sure to click on the banner above to check out the rest of the amazing bloggers on tour!

Goodreads: Winter, White and Wicked
Publisher: ABRAMS Kids
Publication Date: 13 October 2020
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Panda Rating:

Mad Max: Fury Road meets Frozen in this striking YA fantasy about a rig driver’s journey to save her friend

Twice-orphaned Sylvi has chipped out a niche for herself on Layce, an island cursed by eternal winter. Alone in her truck, she takes comfort in two things: the solitude of the roads and the favor of Winter, an icy spirit who has protected her since she was a child.

Sylvi likes the road, where no one asks who her parents were or what she thinks of the rebels in the north. But when her best friend, Lenore, runs off with the rebels, Sylvi must make a haul too late in the season for a smuggler she wouldn’t normally work with, the infamous Mars Dresden. Alongside his team—Hyla, a giant warrior woman and Kyn, a boy with skin like stone—Sylvi will do whatever it takes to save her friend.

But when the time comes, she’ll have to choose: safety, anonymity, and the favor of Winter—or the future of the island that she calls home.

Buy: Amazon (US) |Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indigo

ARC Review: The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life by Dani Jansen

September 22, 2020November 2, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads2 Comments

🎈 Happy pub day to The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life! 🎈

Thanks to NetGalley and Second Story Press for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life
Publisher: Second Story Press
Publication date: 22 September 2020
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Panda Rating:

Alison Green, desperate valedictorian-wannabe, agrees to produce her school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That’s her first big mistake. The second is accidentally saying Yes to a date with her oldest friend, Jack, even though she’s crushing on Charlotte. Alison manages to stay positive, even when her best friend starts referring to the play as “Ye Olde Shakespearean Disaster.” Alison must cope with the misadventures that befall the play if she’s going to survive the year. She’ll also have to grapple with what it means to be “out” and what she might be willing to give up for love.

Note: The quotes below are taken from an advanced/unfinished copy and are subject to change in the final version.

ARC Review: Fable by Adrienne Young

August 31, 2020March 14, 2021 Dini @ dinipandareads12 Comments

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Fable (Fable #1)
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Publication date: 01 September 2020
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Panda Rating:

As the daughter of the most powerful trader in the Narrows, the sea is the only home seventeen-year-old Fable has ever known. It’s been four years since the night she watched her mother drown during an unforgiving storm. The next day her father abandoned her on a legendary island filled with thieves and little food. To survive she must keep to herself, learn to trust no one and rely on the unique skills her mother taught her. The only thing that keeps her going is the goal of getting off the island, finding her father and demanding her rightful place beside him and his crew. To do so Fable enlists the help of a young trader named West to get her off the island and across the Narrows to her father.

But her father’s rivalries and the dangers of his trading enterprise have only multiplied since she last saw him and Fable soon finds that West isn’t who he seems. Together, they will have to survive more than the treacherous storms that haunt the Narrows if they’re going to stay alive.

Welcome to a world made dangerous by the sea and by those who wish to profit from it. Where a young girl must find her place and her family while trying to survive in a world built for men.

Note: The quotes below are taken from an advanced/unfinished copy and are subject to change in the final version.

Blog Tour Review: Ignite the Sun by Hanna Howard

August 16, 2020August 16, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads11 Comments

Hello, friends! I’m so excited to be back with another blog tour and this time it’s with the lovely TBR & Beyond Tours for Ignite the Sun by Hanna Howard. Thanks to ladies behind TBR & Beyond for organising this blog tour and to the author for providing the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Be sure to click on the banner above to check out the rest of the amazing bloggers on tour!

Goodreads: Ignite the Sun
Publisher: Blink
Publication Date: 18 August 2020
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Panda Rating:

Once upon a time, there was something called the sun… In a kingdom ruled by an evil witch, the sun is just part of a legend about light-filled days of old. Luckily for everybody in the kingdom, Siria Nightingale is headed to the heart of the darkness to try and restore the light–or she will lose everything trying.

Sixteen year-old Siria Nightingale has never seen the sun. The light is dangerous, according to Queen Iyzabel, an evil witch who has shrouded the kingdom in shadow.

Siria has always hated the darkness and revels in the stories of the light-filled old days that she hears from her best friend and his grandfather. Besides them, nobody else understands her fascination with the sun, especially not her strict and demanding parents. Siria’s need to please them is greater even than her fear of the dark. So she heads to the royal city–the very center of the darkness–for a chance at a place in Queen Iyzabel’s court.

But what Siria discovers at the Choosing Ball sends her on a quest toward the last vestiges of the sun with a ragtag group of rebels who could help her bring back the Light … or doom the kingdom to shadow forever.

Buy: Amazon (US) |Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indigo

Blog Tour Review: The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed

August 12, 2020August 12, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

I’m so honoured and excited to share my review today as part of the book blog tour for The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed. Special thanks to Shivani at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing for reaching out and asking if I’d like to be part of their tour for this incredible book. Thanks to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Goodreads: The Black Kids
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Release Date: 04 August 2020
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Coming-of-Age
Panda Rating:

Perfect for fans of The Hate U Give, this unforgettable coming-of-age debut novel explores issues of race, class, and violence through the eyes of a wealthy black teenager whose family gets caught in the vortex of the 1992 Rodney King Riots.

Los Angeles, 1992
Ashley Bennett and her friends are living the charmed life. It’s the end of senior year and they’re spending more time at the beach than in the classroom. They can already feel the sunny days and endless possibilities of summer.

Everything changes one afternoon in April, when four LAPD officers are acquitted after beating a black man named Rodney King half to death. Suddenly, Ashley’s not just one of the girls. She’s one of the black kids.

As violent protests engulf LA and the city burns, Ashley tries to continue on as if life were normal. Even as her self-destructive sister gets dangerously involved in the riots. Even as the model black family façade her wealthy and prominent parents have built starts to crumble. Even as her best friends help spread a rumor that could completely derail the future of her classmate and fellow black kid, LaShawn Johnson.

With her world splintering around her, Ashley, along with the rest of LA, is left to question who is the us? And who is the them?

Buy: Publisher | Amazon (US) | Amazon (UK) | Book Depository

Blog Tour: The Good for Nothings by Danielle Banas

August 5, 2020August 4, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

Hello, friends! I’m so excited to participate in my first Xpresso Tours blog tour for The Good for Nothings by Danielle Banas. Special thanks to Xpresso Tours for including me on this tour, and thanks to Netgalley, Swoon Reads and the author providing the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Be sure to click on the banner above to check out the rest of the amazing bloggers on tour!

Goodreads: The Good for Nothings
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Publication Date: 04 August 2020
Genre: Young Adult SFF
Panda Rating:

They’re only good at being bad.
Cora Saros is just trying her best to join the family business of theft and intergalactic smuggling. Unfortunately, she’s a total disaster. After landing herself in prison following an attempted heist gone very wrong, she strikes a bargain with the prison warden: He’ll expunge her record if she brings back a long-lost treasure rumored to grant immortality.

Cora is skeptical, but with no other way out of prison (and back in her family’s good graces), she has no choice but to assemble a crew from her collection of misfit cellmates—a disgraced warrior from an alien planet; a cocky pirate who claims to have the largest ship in the galaxy; and a glitch-prone robot with a penchant for baking—and take off after the fabled prize. But the ragtag group soon discovers that not only is the too-good-to-be-true treasure very real, but they’re also not the only crew on the hunt for it. And it’s definitely a prize worth killing for.

Whip-smart and utterly charming, this irreverent sci-fi adventure is perfect for fans of Guardians of the Galaxy, The Lunar Chronicles, and Firefly

Buy: Amazon (US) |Barnes & Noble | iBooks | Kobo | Google Play

Blog Tour: A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens – Review & Favourite Quotes

August 2, 2020August 4, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

Hello, friends! I’m so excited to be back with another blog tour and this time it’s with the lovely TBR & Beyond Tours for A Wicked Magic by Sasha Laurens. This is the tour company’s first blog tour and I’m so happy that I got to be part of it 😃 Thanks to ladies behind TBR & Beyond for organising this blog tour and to the author, Sasha Laurens, for providing the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Be sure to click on the banner above to check out the rest of the amazing bloggers on tour!

Goodreads: A Wicked Magic
Publisher: Razorbill
Publication Date: 28 July 2020
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy, Paranormal
Panda Rating:

The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina meets The Craft when modern witches must save teens stolen by an ancient demon in this YA fantasy-thriller debut.

Dan and Liss are witches. The Black Book granted them that power. Harnessing that power feels good, especially when everything in their lives makes them feel powerless. During a spell gone wrong, Liss’s boyfriend is snatched away by an evil entity and presumed dead. Dan and Liss’s friendship dies that night, too. How can they practice magic after the darkness that they conjured?

Months later, Liss discovers that her boyfriend is alive, trapped underground in the grips of an ancient force. She must save him, and she needs Dan and the power of The Black Book to do so. Dan is quickly sucked back into Liss’s orbit and pushes away her best friend, Alexa. But Alexa has some big secrets she’s hiding and her own unique magical disaster to deal with. When another teenager disappears, the girls know it’s no coincidence. What greedy magic have they awakened? And what does it want with these teens it has stolen?

Set in the atmospheric wilds of California’s northern coast, Sasha Laurens’s thrilling debut novel is about the complications of friendship, how to take back power, and how to embrace the darkness that lives within us all.

Buy: Amazon (US) |Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Blog Tour Review: Knightmare Arcanist by Shami Stovall

July 16, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads9 Comments

Hey, hey friends! I’m so excited to be back for another @WriteReads blog tour for Knightmare Arcanist. This was such a fun and fast-paced read and I’m so glad this was put on my radar because of this tour 😍 Be sure to check out all the other bloggers participating in this tour over here.

Super big thanks to Dave for organising the tour and to the author, Shami Stovall, for the free copy in exchange for an honest review! Let’s get to it…

Goodreads: Knightmare Arcanist (Frith Chronicles #1)
Publisher: Capital Station Book
Published: 18 June 2019
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Panda Rating:

Magic. Sailing. A murderer among heroes.
Gravedigger Volke Savan wants nothing more than to be like his hero, the legendary magical swashbuckler, Gregory Ruma. First he needs to become an arcanist, someone capable of wielding magic, which requires bonding with a mythical creature. And he’ll take anything—a pegasus, a griffin, a ravenous hydra—maybe even a leviathan, like Ruma.

So when Volke stumbles across a knightmare, a creature made of shadow and terror, he has no reservations. But the knightmare knows a terrible secret: Ruma is a murderer out to spread corrupted magic throughout their island nation. He’s already killed a population of phoenixes and he intends to kill even more.

In order to protect his home, his adopted sister, and the girl he admires from afar, Volke will need to confront his hero, the Master Arcanist Gregory Ruma.

A fast-paced fantasy with magical creatures for those who enjoy the Furies of Calderon (Codex Alera series) by Jim Butcher, Unsouled (Cradle Series) by Will Wight, and Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan.

Buy a copy: Amazon

Review: Unravel the Dusk by Elizabeth Lim

July 7, 2020July 7, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads8 Comments

Thanks to NetGalley and Knopf for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Unravel the Dusk (The Blood of Stars #2)
Publisher: Knopf
Release date: 07 July 2020
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Panda Rating:

The thrilling sequel to SPIN THE DAWN, a magical series steeped in Chinese culture.
Maia Tamarin’s journey to sew the dresses of the sun, the moon and the stars has taken a grievous toll. She returns to a kingdom on the brink of war. The boy she loves is gone, and she is forced to don the dress of the sun and assume the place of the emperor’s bride-to-be to keep the peace.
But the war raging around Maia is nothing compared to the battle within. Ever since she was touched by the demon Bandur, she has been changing . . . glancing in the mirror to see her own eyes glowing red, losing control of her magic, her body, her mind. It’s only a matter of time before Maia loses herself completely, but she will stop at nothing to find Edan, protect her family, and bring lasting peace to her country.
YA fantasy readers will love the sizzling forbidden romance, mystery, and intrigue of UNRAVEL THE DUSK.

Note: The quotes below are taken from an advanced/unfinished copy and are subject to change in the final version.

The Crow Rider Review and Favourite Quotes

June 26, 2020June 29, 2020 Dini @ dinipandareads7 Comments

Thanks to NetGalley, Sourcefire Books and Kalyn Josephson for providing an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

The Crow Rider (The Storm Crow #2)
Publisher: Sourcefire Books
Release date: 01 July 2020
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Panda Rating:

Princess Thia, her allies, and her crow, Res, are planning a rebellion to defeat Queen Razel and Illucia once and for all. Thia must convince the neighboring kingdoms to come to her aid, and Res’s show of strength is the only thing that can help her.

But so many obstacles stand in her way. Res excels at his training, until he loses control of his magic, harming Thia in the process. She is also pursued by Prince Ericen, heir to the Illucian throne and the one person she can’t trust but can’t seem to stay away from.

As the rebel group prepares for war, Res’s magic grows more unstable. Thia has to decide if she can rely on herself and their bond enough to lead the rebellion and become the crow rider she was meant to be.