Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky. In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grows dangerously low. And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal other wordly war. Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages—not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out. When one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?



I found myself drawn by the cover on the book. I had heard positive things about the book from other reviewers so I thought I would give it a shot. I really enjoyed the book, especially when the romance begins in the book, but the romance wasn't written that well. The book had such an addicting plot it makes me upset I have to wait for months until the next installment, which is why I wait for the whole series to be out before reading books. I also felt like the ending of the book was a bit too abrupt, almost like it just needed to end to keep it going as a series the author has anticipated. I am very curious about what's going to happen in the rest of the series. 

Wither by Lauren DeStefano

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children. When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can’t bring herself to hate him as much as she’d like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband’s strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out? Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

Do you remember when you would go to the bookstore and spend hours browsing through the isles looking for a perfect book? Then you find yourself curious about the book and then you you read the summary and it gets you eager to begin reading the book. Once you finally read the book you find yourself not as impressed. I felt that way reading Wither. The book has sex, death, pregnancy and evil intentions. Rhine lives in a society where girls die at 20, and boys die at 25 and scientist fail to find a cure for this virus. People have become accustomed to living in this society either putting their children into an orphanage or selling them into prostitution. Out of what happens to the girls in the novel Rhine was lucky to be with Linden. Rhine doesn't trust anyone. Being inside of the main character Rhine's head just annoyed me, I felt like I was in Bella's head all over again. I had a real hard time trying to like the person who's There are parts in the book that tend to be really bland and needed some tightening up, and also needed a little something extra to spice up the dialogue between the characters. Apart from my issues with the main character, it had some good world building.  Maybe the book would have been better off in written in third person. I didn't find myself drawn to the main character.

The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney

Freak. That's what her classmates call seventeen-year-old Donna Underwood. When she was seven, a horrific fey attack killed her father and drove her mother mad. Donna's own nearly fatal injuries from the assault were fixed by magic—the iron tattoos branding her hands and arms. The child of alchemists, Donna feels cursed by the magical heritage that destroyed her parents and any chance she had for a normal life. The only thing that keeps her sane and grounded is her relationship with her best friend, Navin Sharma. When the darkest outcasts of Faerie—the vicious wood elves—abduct Navin, Donna finally has to accept her role in the centuries old war between the humans and the fey. Assisted by Xan, a gorgeous half-fey dropout with secrets of his own, Donna races to save her friend—even if it means betraying everything her parents and the alchemist community fought to the death to protect.

I found this story an interesting read. The plot and the story takes a while to get into then once you get further into the book its filled with a lot of darkness.The characters had a mystery among them, but it was kind of hard for me to connect what most of the characters were saying. Then there was the big bombshell where Donna's mom is an Alchemist. I am very curious about what happens in the next book in the series. 

The House of Velvet & Glass by Katherine Howe

Still reeling from the deaths of her mother and sister on the Titanic, Sibyl Allston is living a life of quiet desperation with her taciturn father and scandal-plagued brother in an elegant town house in Boston’s Back Bay. Trapped in a world over which she has no control, Sibyl flees for solace to the parlor of a table-turning medium. But when her brother is suddenly kicked out of Harvard under mysterious circumstances and falls under the sway of a strange young woman, Sibyl turns for help to psychology professor Benton Derby, despite the unspoken tensions of their shared past. As Benton and Sibyl work together to solve a harrowing mystery, their long-simmering spark flares to life, and they realize that there may be something even more magical between them than a medium’s scrying glass. From the opium dens of Boston’s Chinatown to the opulent salons of high society, from the back alleys of colonial Shanghai to the decks of theTitanic, The House of Velvet and Glass weaves together meticulous period detail, intoxicating romance, and a final shocking twist that will leave readers breathless.


I was very skeptical to read this book, I have never really read many books in the adult fantasy genre. The only adult books I have ever read were written by J.R. Ward, Jodi Picoult, and Danielle Steele.  I enjoyed this book, but there were some issues with it. It seems like there were too many storylines developing at once. I really liked how realistic the characters were with their many secrets. It gives the readers an essence of Edgar Allen Poe. Howe has such a vivid imagination and wonderful writing. Everything was spectacular: characters; plot; most in particular how she gets everything in her imagination to flow, it's just simply spectacular. People who read Howe's other books were disappointed in this book but if you have read her previous work, read it with an open mind and you won't be disappointed. Everything is not what it seems,  and this phrase will come into your mind while reading this novel.