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5 Reasons Why You Should Read The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (with a bonus illustration)

I first heard about The Scorpio Races in a writing workshop a handful of years ago. The first line was read aloud as a great example of how to start a book.: “It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.”

Slight confession: I totally thought the book was about galactic drag racing.

Cars aren’t my thing. I’d be happy in a buggy, so I only now braved it. And can’t believe I missed out for so long. But here’s 5 reasons why you should ignore any preconceptions you might have, leave your day job, visit to your nearest bookstore, and buy all copies:The_Scorpio_Races1. The island of Thisby sounds like the perfect inspiration for an artistic getaway. Gray skies? Check. Fishy smells? Check. Weird people? Check. Warm, gooey, honey filled November cakes? Check.

It’s the details that bring this setting to life.

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10 Reasons why you should read This Shattered World by @MeaganSpooner and @AmieKaufman

This Shattered World is the second book in the Starbound trilogy. The first is These Broken Stars. This_Shattered_WorldJubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met.

Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet’s rebellious colonists, but she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents.

Rebellion is in Flynn’s blood. Terraforming corporations make their fortune by recruiting colonists to make the inhospitable planets livable, with the promise of a better life for their children. But they never fulfilled their promise on Avon, and decades later, Flynn is leading the rebellion.

Desperate for any advantage in a bloody and unrelentingly war, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape the rebel base together, caught between two sides of a senseless war.

Reasons Why You Should Read This Shattered World:

1. In this case, judge the book by its cover. Beauty on the outside = beauty on the inside. Besides, there’s a nebula. Always read a book with a nebula on the cover.

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Book Review: Byronic by Sandi B Jones @SandiBJones

(While I did receive this book for free, the review is honest)

You can find Byronic on Amazon and Barnes and Nobles.
ByronicWhen the creatures in her dark drawings come to life, Chelsea finds that the mysterious Geoff is the only person she can confide in. But she can’t help wondering who she’s kissing: her tender confidant or the dangerous Byronic rebel bent on shocking his detached father.

Starting over in the South Carolina Lowcountry is just what sixteen-year-old Chelsea needs. Unfortunately, moving also means living with her mom’s snobbish British novelist employer and his moody son Geoffrey. Knowing that her new home likely used to be a slave holding plantation doesn’t make her feel any more at home.

Troubled and reckless after his brother’s mysterious death, Geoff often mimics his father’s literary favorite, Lord Byron, acting “mad, bad, and dangerous to know.” She’s determined to keep her distance and buries herself in her art, though the darkness of her drawings troubles her and others who see them. When people in the Gullah and Geechee community point out that she has been drawing Boo Hags and haints -powerful and terrifying creatures of local legend and superstition- she starts to wonder about her own heritage and her connection to the Sea Islands. She begins to question her own grasp on reality when it seems those creatures start making their way out of her drawings and into real life.

It’s clear that Geoff has some secrets of his own, but he might be the only person she can confide in. Chelsea must decide who she can trust, when nothing in the Lowcountry is what it seems.

When I read the summary of the book, I somehow missed the “Boo Hags and haints and terrifying creatures” line, focusing only on the connection to Lord Byron. So when the book started to take a turn for the creepy, I practically shrieked and shivered. I turned on all the lights and made sure my husband was in the room every time I cracked open the book.

Definitely a winner to read this Halloween time of year.

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