WINTER WAR AWAKENINGS (Blood Rose Rebellion #3) by Rosalyn Eves

Rosalyn's third book comes out today! And you couldn't meet a nicer person. She's sweet, witty and smart. If you ever get a chance to meet her, do it!

Do you like historical fiction? How about alternate history with some magic? Curious?? You could  read the BLOOD ROSE REBELLION series by Rosalyn Eves.
The covers are gorgeous! You might want to buy the series just for the prettiness, but the writing is excellent and the story is amazing.


WINTER WAR AWAKENING (#3)

The Binding is broken. Mátyás is alive. And Anna Arden is on the run.

It seems, yet again, that breaking the Binding has shattered the world. And the only hope of mending it is Anna and Mátyás, working together. But it’s never that simple, is it? The praetheria, the creatures once held captive by the spell, are now waging war against the Austro-Hungarian empire. And they are holding Noémi hostage–using her life to manipulate Anna and Mátyás, like marionettes on a string.

Gábor has elected to stay behind, to fight in the Hungarian army’s resistance, while Anna and Mátyás search for their beloved Noémi–a mission doomed from the start, cloaked in praetherian magic. Magic that relies on illusion and misdirection. Eventually, there’s only one way to save her: to split up. And to walk right into the lion’s den.

When everyone thinks they’re fighting each other for the same thing–freedom–can anyone truly win?

 LOST CROW CONSPIRACY (#2)

 Sixteen-year old Anna Arden was once just the magically barren girl from an elite Luminate family. Now she has broken the Binding—and Praetheria, the creatures held captive by the spell, wreak havoc across Europe. Lower-class citizens have access to magic for the first time, while other Luminates lose theirs forever. Austria and Hungary are at odds once more.

Anna Arden did not know breaking the Binding would break the world.

Anna thought the Praetheria were on her side, content and grateful to be free from the Binding. She thought her cousin Matyas's blood sacrifice to the disarm the spell would bring peace, equality, justice. She thought her future looked like a society that would let her love a Romani boy, Gabor.

But with the Monarchy breathing down her neck and the Praetheria intimidating her at every turn, it seems the conspiracies have only just begun.

As threat of war sweeps the region, Anna quickly discovers she can't solve everything on her own. Now there's only one other person who might be able to save the country before war breaks out. The one person Anna was sure she'd never see again. A bandit. A fellow outlaw. A man known as the King of Crows. Matyas.

  Opening line:
"There is a feeling a hunted creature gets: a prickling of fine hairs at the back of the neck, a sense of unseen eyes crawling across one's spine, a shift in the air."

The book goes between Anna's point-of-view and the Crow King's (loved it). So many characters--both new and familiar to the reader--to distinguish and learn from and come to hate/love.

I loved this quote:
"There was no conduct manual for how to live with oneself after changing the world." 


BLOOD ROSE REBELLION (#1)
 

 In a world where social prestige derives from a trifecta of blood, money, and magic, one girl has the ability to break the spell that holds the social order in place.

Sixteen-year-old Anna Arden is barred from society by a defect of blood. Though her family is part of the Luminate, powerful users of magic, she is Barren, unable to perform the simplest spells. Anna would do anything to belong. But her fate takes another course when, after inadvertently breaking her sister’s debutante spell—an important chance for a highborn young woman to show her prowess with magic—Anna finds herself exiled to her family’s once powerful but now crumbling native Hungary.

Her life might well be over.

In Hungary, Anna discovers that nothing is quite as it seems. Not the people around her, from her aloof cousin Noémi to the fierce and handsome Romani Gábor. Not the society she’s known all her life, for discontent with the Luminate is sweeping the land. And not her lack of magic. Isolated from the only world she cares about, Anna still can’t seem to stop herself from breaking spells.

As rebellion spreads across the region, Anna’s unique ability becomes the catalyst everyone is seeking. In the company of nobles, revolutionaries, and Romanies, Anna must choose: deny her unique power and cling to the life she’s always wanted, or embrace her ability and change that world forever.


 Opening line:
"I did not set out to ruin my sister's debut."

I couldn't put this book down. I even tried to read it in church...

I loved the writing, the Hungarian folklore and history and the magic.

Anna Arden is a blight on her family, at least that's what her mother says to her often enough. The older sister is the cherished one and has the talent with magic. After Anna ruins her sister's debut, Anna is sent off to Hungary with her grandmother. She loves her grandmother and all her tales. But in Hungary, the tales just might be true.

She meets family she's never met, makes friends with people she shouldn't have and finds herself in the middle of a revolution. One side wants her to help, another side wants her to desist and other's want her to stay away from magic all together.

There are choices she needs to make and she's overwhelmed by wanting to make things right.

SHADOW OF THE FOX by Julie Kagawa BOOK BIRTHDAY!

 One thousand years ago, the great Kami Dragon was summoned to grant a single terrible wish—and the land of Iwagoto was plunged into an age of darkness and chaos.

Now, for whoever holds the Scroll of a Thousand Prayers, a new wish will be granted. A new age is about to dawn.

Raised by monks in the isolated Silent Winds temple, Yumeko has trained all her life to hide her yokai nature. Half kitsune, half human, her skill with illusion is matched only by her penchant for mischief. Until the day her home is burned to the ground, her adoptive family is brutally slain and she is forced to flee for her life with the temple’s greatest treasure—one part of the ancient scroll.

There are many who would claim the dragon’s wish for their own. Kage Tatsumi, a mysterious samurai of the Shadow Clan, is one such hunter, under orders to retrieve the scroll…at any cost. Fate brings Kage and Yumeko together. With a promise to lead him to the scroll, an uneasy alliance is formed, offering Yumeko her best hope for survival. But he seeks what she has hidden away, and her deception could ultimately tear them both apart.

With an army of demons at her heels and the unlikeliest of allies at her side, Yumeko’s secrets are more than a matter of life or death. They are the key to the fate of the world itself.



Opening line:
"It was raining the day Suki came to the Palace of the Sun, and it was raining the night that she died."

That's a fantastic beginning though I didn't know or appreciate it when I started reading. As a matter of fact, I almost quit reading because I could not figure out what or who or why this book was happening.
I'm glad I stuck it out.

Yumeko was raised with monks, hidden away from the world. The book opens with the day her life changed. Demons broke in and killed everyone inside...except Yumeko who escaped. She is tasked with an almost impossible task: take a piece of a scared scroll to a hidden temple.
Tatsumi is a samurai tasked with bringing a piece of the scroll back to his masters, no matter the cost. he meets Yumeko as she's leaving and somehow she convinces him to be a protector on the journey to the temple.
They meet all sorts of demons (did you know there were thousands??) and interesting characters along their journey.
Yumeko is a naive young woman who has a secret she can't reveal. But she is also tough and kind and humble. She has a knack with bringing people to her side. In the end, there are four on the journey who have the skills needed to help Yumeko.
Tatsumi totally reminded me of Samurai Jack! LOL He was strong and fast and quiet and driven. It was intriguing to read the conflict between being human and being machine with Tatsumi.
I WILL read the next book to see what happens to our little clan.

For the sensitive reader: there are about 20 swear words, lots of fighting and killing and maiming.
Thanks to netgalley for the early read!!

Lost Crow Conspiracy by Rosalyn Eves HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY!!

Sixteen-year old Anna Arden was once just the magically barren girl from an elite Luminate family. Now she has broken the Binding—and Praetheria, the creatures held captive by the spell, wreak havoc across Europe. Lower-class citizens have access to magic for the first time, while other Luminates lose theirs forever. Austria and Hungary are at odds once more.

Anna Arden did not know breaking the Binding would break the world.

Anna thought the Praetheria were on her side, content and grateful to be free from the Binding. She thought her cousin Matyas's blood sacrifice to the disarm the spell would bring peace, equality, justice. She thought her future looked like a society that would let her love a Romani boy, Gabor.

But with the Monarchy breathing down her neck and the Praetheria intimidating her at every turn, it seems the conspiracies have only just begun.

As threat of war sweeps the region, Anna quickly discovers she can't solve everything on her own. Now there's only one other person who might be able to save the country before war breaks out. The one person Anna was sure she'd never see again. A bandit. A fellow outlaw. A man known as the King of Crows. Matyas.

  Opening line:
"There is a feeling a hunted creature gets: a prickling of fine hairs at the back of the neck, a sense of unseen eyes crawling across one's spine, a shift in the air."

Ms. Eves brings Russian history and folklore alive once again with her second book, Lost Crow Conspiracy (it's an excellent second book!).
The book goes between Anna's point-of-view and the Crow King's (loved it). So many characters--both new and familiar to the reader--to distinguish and learn from and come to hate/love. I was a bit lost because of the foreign names and history but it all rolled along into a very enjoyable story of trying to do what's right and the consequences (can't everyone just get along??).

I can't wait for the next book!

I loved this quote:
"There was no conduct manual for how to live with oneself after changing the world."

Thanks to netgalley for the early read!

The Bear and the Nightingale AND The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden

 At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.

 Opening line:
"It was late winter in northern Rus', the air sullen with wet that was neither rain nor snow."

I really loved being immersed in the folklore of Russia in this book. Vasya is a fantastic protagonist! She's witty, stubborn, adventurous, and finds herself getting into a lot of trouble. But she's okay with that because moves to her own beat. She sees "creatures" around the house and woods and becomes a friend and protector to them. She was raised to leave food and other treats for them to pay them for protecting the town.
But two things happen that cause problems and heartache for the town: Vasya's father remarries and a priest moves in. The stepmother sees the creatures too but she has a negative view of them which is ironically opposite of her stepdaughter. She comes across as mentally unstable and the villagers stay clear of her.
The priest takes it upon himself to cleanse the village of the heretics and their beliefs. In the process, he turns the villagers against their own beliefs, which leads to the village being vulnerable to more evil and death.
There are a lot of Russian names that I found hard to keep track of until about half way through the book when I understood who was related to who, etc. I enjoyed learning about Russia in this time period through the story.

Thanks to netgalley for the early review!



Orphaned and cast out as a witch by her village, Vasya’s options are few: resign herself to life in a convent, or allow her older sister to make her a match with a Moscovite prince. Both doom her to life in a tower, cut off from the vast world she longs to explore. So instead she chooses adventure, disguising herself as a boy and riding her horse into the woods. When a battle with some bandits who have been terrorizing the countryside earns her the admiration of the Grand Prince of Moscow, she must carefully guard the secret of her gender to remain in his good graces—even as she realizes his kingdom is under threat from mysterious forces only she will be able to stop.



 Opening line:
"A girl rode a bay horse through a forest late at night."

The Girl in the Tower is every bit as good as the The Bear and the Nightingale. I love the main character, Vasya, and her strength, determination and love for her family. When Vasya is left with no choice to live her own life, she escapes by dressing up as a boy and riding a magical horse across Russia in the depth of winter. She is united to a brother, sister and cousin who are all unwitting players in a play of lies, deception and evil rulers.
Each character is painted in rich colors as well as the landscape and homes of Russia. And against the austere and bleak backdrop of Russia, Vasya shines even more as a strong, intelligent woman who will do what she knows is right.

Thank you netgalley for this early read! I loved it!